First Contact #1-100
Author: Ralts Bloodthorne
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Eight Thousand Years after the Glassing of Earth, Terran Descent Humanity has largely become a post-scarcity society based on consent and enjoying life. With the discovery of another ancient race beyond the "Great Gulf", events and history collide to draw the Terran Confederacy into war against an hundred million year old empire that has always won and believes it always will. With allies and enemies of multiple species, the Orion Galactic Arm Spur will be wracked by warfare the likes of which have not been seen. Cracked, harried, wounded, and damaged, Terran Descent Humanity willfully throws

Table of Contents
P'Thok Eats an Ice Cream Cone
Born Whole
First Contact - Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Interlude
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve (Daxin)
Chapter Thirteen (Nakteti)
Chapter Fourteen (Daxin)
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen (Crashrider)
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen (Dreams)
Chapter Twenty (Leebaw)
Chapter Twenty-One (Interlude)
Chapter Twenty-Two (DOKI DOKI DOKI)
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four (Daxin)
Chapter Twenty-Five (Sam)
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven (Delminta)
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine (Dreams)
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two (Dreams)
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight (Daxin)
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty (Old Iron Feathers)
Chapter Forty-One (Ekret)
Chapter Forty-Two (Ekret)
Chapter Forty-Three (Ekret)
Chapter Forty-Four (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Five (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Six (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Seven (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Eight (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty (Dreams)
Chapter Fifty-One (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Two (Dreams)
Chapter Fifty-Three (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Four (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Five (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Six (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Seven (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Eight (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Nine (Kark)
Chapter Sixty (Kark)
Chapter Sixty-One (Kark)
Chapter Sixty-Two (Daxin)
Chapter Sixty-Three (Dreams)
Part Sixty-Four (Rixen)
Chapter Sixty-Five (Atilla)
Chapter Sixty-Six (Atilla)
Chapter Sixty-Seven (Atilla)
Chapter Sixty-Eight (Lionel Hutz)
Chapter Sixty-Nine (Words)
Chapter Seventy (Nakteti)
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two (Daxin)
Chapter Seventy-Three (Nakteti)
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five (Dreams)
Chapter Seventy-Six (Old Iron Feathers)
Chapter Seventy-Seven (Nakteti)
Chapter Seventy-Eight (Nakteti)
Part Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty (Vuxten)
Chapter Eighty-One (Leebaw)
Chapter Eight-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three (Daxin)
Chapter Eighty-Four
Chapter Eighty-Five
Chapter Eighty-Six (Cheekeet)
Chapter Eighty-Seven (Ekret)
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Chapter Ninety
Chapter Ninety-One
Chapter Ninety-Two (Dreams)
Chapter Ninety-Three
Chapter Ninety-Four
Chapter Ninety-Five (Cornelius)
Part Ninety-Six (Telkan)
Chapter Ninety-Six (Jed)

Description

Eight Thousand Years after the Glassing of Earth, Terran Descent Humanity has largely become a post-scarcity society based on consent and enjoying life. With the discovery of another ancient race beyond the "Great Gulf", events and history collide to draw the Terran Confederacy into war against an hundred million year old empire that has always won and believes it always will. With allies and enemies of multiple species, the Orion Galactic Arm Spur will be wracked by warfare the likes of which have not been seen. Cracked, harried, wounded, and damaged, Terran Descent Humanity willfully throws itself against the universe itself. "The universe hates you and will take away everything you love, laughing while it does so." - Terran belief. A wiki is available (although under construction) at: https://fcgestalt.fandom.com/wiki/First_Contact_Gestalt_Archive_Wiki Told largely from the viewpoint of other species, the story is currently ongoing. It involves graphic depictions of violence, war, adult language and situations, drug use, and other mature topics. The story will be updated on weekdays, so keep an eye on this page for more chapters.

P'Thok Eats an Ice Cream Cone

P'Thok carefully unwrapped himself from the clutching confines of his ceramic dropshell, moving his limbs carefully so as not to crack the shell or damage any of the precious equipment that might have survived the perilous drop into the heart of the enemies homeworld. He would need the maps, the recorders, and the Confederate cash sticks that had been collected from dead Terrans off the battlefield. He would need the counterfeited equipment of a Manti tourist, and some of the special equipment hidden in the harness he would need to wear would allow him to emulate a Manti to any and all sensors with the notable exception of Terran biological optics.

The yellow sun high in the strangely blue sky warmed P'Thok's carapace, making him feel more awake, more alive than he would normally have felt after a 18 month cold-drift to the enemy home world of the TerraSol Confederacy, the home world of the only intelligent mammalian predator in the known universe. With their warlike ways, innovativeness at devising war material, and fearsomeness on the field of battle, P'Thok was slightly surprised that he was even alive, not burned down by the extensive planetary and air defense systems the Terrans possessed. He was not drowned in one of those scattered oceans, and not killed by a fast moving piece of space dust puncturing his drop pod, nor did his grav-repulsers malfunction and smear him across one of the fractured pieces of the protocontinent.

Looking carefully around, his vision enhanced by his combat visor, P'Thok saw why he had not been shot down or incinerated by one of those massive weapons emplacements that Hive Intelligence believed covered the entire surface of TerraSol. He was at the edge of one of the huge facilities Terrans seemed to be obsessed with creating, the massive bulk of weapons, and the huge, hulking shapes of Terran warships were everywhere to the magnetic North of P'Thok. East and West were strips of light forest, nice for aesthetic reasons and producing oxygen, if you breathed it. P'Thok enjoyed the sweet smell of Nitrogen that permeated the atmosphere in undreamed of quantities. No wonder the Terran mammals fought so hard to protect their homeworld, the very air nourished normal intelligent life! P'Thok wondered at the sweet atmosphere, reaching into the pod and pressing the autodestruct sequence. With a hiss, the pod shivered and collapsed into dust that stirred in the sweet smelling breeze from the huge metropolis to the South of P'Thok's landing site. P'Thok activated his recorders and began moving South, toward the large city that the Treana'ad Mothers had named "Ninth Swarming Place of Furless Mammals" and the Terrans called "New Angelos".

By the time the warm yellow sun had crested its zenith and began moving toward the horizon, P'Thok had been picked up by a well meaning, nearly polite Terran, and given a ride on the back of a fearsomely fast 2-wheeled transport that roared and shivered and moved like some kind of reptile in and out of the ground-effect vehicle traffic. The talkative mammal had mistaken him for one of the traitorous Manti, one of the mammal's ally, who had missed something called a "bus". The mammal had given him a ride all the way into the center of the huge metropolis, dropping him off in the center market to do some "sight seeing". The two words meant the same to P'Thok, and he wondered exactly what vision visioning could hold for a tourist to TerraSol as he wandered the spacious streets of the city. Looking around, P'Thok felt his mind reel as he looked up at the huge buildings, some of them taller than the Hive P'Thok had grown from a larvae. Terran's were everywhere, moving about rapidly, and grunting at one another in Terran Standard. To P'Thok the language sounded just as brutal as the Terran's themselves.

The ground vibrated underneath the city, and P'Thok barely kept his cool, nearly screaming aloud as the very ground shook beneath his feet. Some of the beings around him stared, and P'Thok heard more than one instance of the brutish sound P'Thok knew served as Terran laughter. He could not believe it, the Terran's took no notice of planet instability. That would enable them to live on more planetary bodies than anyone had ever thought! That knowledge alone would guarantee that the Hive Mothers would be pleased with P'Thok's performance. No wonder the mammals fought like the insane, they came from a planet that was just as unstable as they were!

He took pictures carefully, making sure nobeing could see his actions as he recorded both the buildings and the masses of beings that hurried about their business. He was careful to record the mammals entering buildings in great detail. In one instance, P'Thok carefully recorded every available sight of a place that turned away any who were not Terran military. He wondered what the facility, named Harv's Bar and Grill, could possibly be. Weapons research? Strategy planning? Cybernetics or power armor manufacturing. Fluttering his vestigial wings in agitation, P'Thok reluctantly moved away from the tempting building, whose optic-catching holo's seemed almost to try to lure him inside. His sensitive audio receptors, boosted by his head covering, could detect the barking sound of Terran laughter, the sound of glass on glass, glass on plastic, plastic on plastic, and both glass and plastic on metal. Whatever activity was happening inside was plainly quite exciting to the Terrans inside, but the two huge, hulking Terran soldiers on either side of the door intimidated P'Thok to the point he would not even try to peer inside the brightly lit window.

By nearly sunset, P'Thok was beginning to become nervous as he wanted the streets of the gigantic habitation complex. All around him beings were moving about, and on some corners, beings nervously hocked wares to reluctant appearing beings. More than once a male or female Terran would approach another Terran, and they would leave together to enter a building. While he often saw the same being who waited to be approached, he rarely saw the one who made the approach again. Some beings were beginning to stare, and P'Thok became sure that sooner or later, somebeing would recognize he was a Traena'ad instead of a Manti, and the military would be called in to take him into custody. He knew that if the Terrans took him prisoner, he would be cooked over hot liquid vapor, cracked open, and eaten with sauce. Every Traena'ad knew that was what the Terran's did with captured Traena'ad, and P'Thok had seen Terrans dismember, deshell, and devour reddish, exoskeleton clad creatures whose forward digits ended in claws. To P'Thok's horror, he had seen more than one feeding establishment with the lifeforms caged in transparent cells, filled with salinated water, to be picked out by one of the Terrans, and then, after a suitable wait, devoured. P'Thok shivered and tried to think of a way to avoid notice and possible devouring.

Quickly looking around, P'Thok saw quite a few beings purchasing the wares of a stand marked "Ice Cream" in Terran Standard, and took note of the fact that nobeing seemed to take notice of any being that devoured the ware. He recorded the stand, including spectrograph analysis, electromagnetic scan and full visual. He worked up his courage and approached, his senses picking up a rich mixture of complex protein chemicals emanating from the cart. Curious, P'Thok stood in line and eventually reached the front of the line, drawing closer and closer to the source of those wonderful airborne scents.

One of the squat, bulky mammals was offering a cold semi-solid, topping a wrapped breadlike wafer substance. His hairless face was contorted into what Hivehome Intellegence had briefed P'Thok was the equivalent of a smile. To P'Thok, it looked like a gestured intention of imminent devouring, with the bared meat tearing teeth of one of the galaxy's few intelligent predators. P'Thok had seen that expression all day, however, and was past the initial flinching stage that he had been in when first confronted by a grimacing mammal.

"Ice Cream, gentlebeing? I have chocolate, raspberry, strawberry, mint chocolate chip, or vanilla left." the man told P'Thok, speaking in rapid Galactic Standard heavily accented with the brutish Terran tones.

"Strawberry." P'Thok half mused, holding out the Terran credit chip. The man scanned the chip, nodded, then scooped out a chunk of pinkish, frosted material and deposited on the open end of the conically wrapped wafer. The Terran handed P'Thok the credit chip and the cone, then waved P'Thok on. The insect warrior moved on, gently testing the cold substance with antenna and equipment, searching to make sure that it was not some type of poison, a mild organic corrosive for cleaning teeth, or a cruel Terran joke that would suddenly eviscerate him in broad daylight in the middle to the street.

Complex carbohydrates, frozen H2O, sweetened wafer, no synthetics. It was safe for consumption, and P'Thok sliced a piece off with one mandible, drawing the rapidly melting piece into his maw. Melted nicely, and the taste reminded P'Thok of fruit, his favorite dish. The cone was not bad either, kind of tuber taste to it. Almost eagerly, he took one more bite, to see if it was as good the second time he ingested the strange substance.

The taste seemed to explode in P'Thok's brain, and he found himself steadily devouring the strange creation. Some beings looked at him, but turned away smiling that normally terrifying Terran smile. P'Thok could not care less what other beings did, as long as he had some of this wonderful substance to consume! Here was a creation worth going to war with the Terrans all over again, a secret that showed just how treacherous the mammals were in not sharing it with the all powerful Traena'ad Hiveworlds, did the stupid little mammals not know that the Traena'ad were Gods, and P'Thok was the most powerful of them all! He found himself dancing quickly, ignored by passerby, and stopped suddenly, a realization dawning on him.

He was invisible! Nobody paid any attention to him. He was invincible! That's why no one dared confront him! P'Thok looked around slyly with the last realization, searching for a female Traena'ad, or even a Manti. After all, he was SEXY. No female would be able to resist him. Even the Terran females were glancing at him slyly, and for a long moment, P'Thok was tempted to trying a cross-species sexual encounter, but changed his mind at the sight of their powerful arms and thick, killing digits.

The lights of the city were bright, and seemed to emit sounds of their own, turning the city into a sparkling orchestra or sounds that P'Thok had never imagined in his life! All of the beings he met were friendly toward him, trying to cull the favor of the powerful and wise P'Thok, and even the Terrans seemed acceptable, now that he no longer had to fear them, since we was invisible, omnipotent and irresistible.

All too soon, though, P'Thok began worrying that he had forgotten something. Had he revealed himself to some being he should not have? Had he dropped a piece of equipment that would give him away as a Traena'ad? Had he offended that large Terran cyborg waiting on the corner with a military carry-all in his large, killing hand? Had he forgotten the correct steps for the recreational mating dance?

Dejectedly, he began searching for a place to spend the night, but the huge, friendly city now seemed to distain him, until he moved into a small, cluttered side street and huddled up next to a large, smelly container that was cold and surrounded by slimy refuse. As liquid H2O began falling from the sky, he curled into a ball, miserable with the thought he might have forgotten something that the Hivemothers wanted, and lamenting the fact that no females found his pheromones attractive. Sleep came slowly and fitfully, and he dreamed of the Terran military cyborgs that he had seen on the streets chasing him through the tunnels of his Hivehome.

When P'Thok awoke, he discovered some lousy mammal had stolen his foot coverings and rations! Not only was he wet and cold, but he no longer had food that was safe to consume, and his delicate feet would be subject to whatever horrors the Terrans could devise! Fortunately, he still had most of his equipment, and the credsticks hidden away. He rubbed his vestigial wings together as he decided that the only recourse he had was to purchase some ice cream to eat, or starve.

The passerby for the most part ignored P'Thok for the next several days, as he spent all of his money on the delectable substance known as ice cream, trying as many different types as possible. He could not believe that the Terran's had devised so many distinct flavors! What geniuses! Surely the Hive Mothers would relent and grant the mammals honored being status in the Hive if they would just share the wonderful recipe of delightful concoction with the Traena'ad. Soon, P'Thok began selling some of his non-essential equipment to a man on a corner by a house with friendly Terran women who had lots of visitors at night. Soon, the man began trading the wonderful substance to simply record P'Thok speaking about life in the Hive, while two huge Terrans, nearly entirely mechanical, they were so heavily augmented with cybernetics, guarded P'Thok from the shadowy foes that sought to bring him down. Despite P'Thok's nervousness about the two fearsome combat cyborgs, the friendly man assured P'Thok that they were deserters from the Terran military that believed that Terrans and Traena'ad should work together.

P'Thok could not believe that a simple street vendor sold something that would make the Warrior Caste of the Traena'ad appear harmless to the surrounding Terrans and tourists. Nearly as good as the legends of invisibility! And here was a fool who gave the substance for answers even a larvae would know. What fools these Terrans were. No, not fools, they knew who he was, and they would come and get him soon! Those two 'bodyguards' were in fact Terran military, who were measuring P'Thok for a steaming pot and determining what kind of sauce he would taste good coated with and dipped in!!

Almost clacking with anxiety, P'Thok hurried to the nearest space port, keeping a whole box of ice cream close at hand the whole way, and boarded a flight to the Disputed Zone. There, he ordered his freezer stocked full with as many different types of ice cream as he could order. He really wanted to avoid leaving his room, after all, they were out there, waiting to get him, to keep him from breeding with fertile virgins.

The whole way to the Disputed Zone, nobody even suspected the Traena'ad warrior who ate nothing but ice cream and rubbed it's legs together in glee one moment and whose antennae trembled with fear that they had almost caught him. No one knew that instead of a harmless Manti, peaceful ally of the Terrans, a Traena'ad warrior, a feared infiltrator to the very cradle of Terrans itself, was among them. Had not the Traena'ad defeated the Terran military in 22% of all engagements? Had P'Thok himself done something no other had ever done, visited the Terran home world and survived? Wasn't that man by large artificial pond of liquid H2O one of the men who had asked him harmless questions? What exactly was Rocky Road? There was not any chunks of stone, nor did it have any roads in it.

The Disputed Planet Tk'Ktak/Decarus was easy to reach, and easier to move from the Terran occupied areas to the small section of the protocontinent that the Traena'ad still occupied. Before P'Thok left the Terran Occupied Zone, he stole a large, armored ice cream transport vehicle that had specially outfitted to transport the wonderful material. The camouflage built into the vehicle and the bobbing head of a large Terran with a bright red nose and strangely multi-colored hair ensured that none of the Terrans would try to stop P'Thok as he raced out of the Terran Occupied Zone. The severed head atop the vehicle cackled the harsh Terran laughter the entire way, striking fear into everyone, but strangely enough, attracting Terran larvae, who tried to flag P'Thok down with credsticks.

Each crowd of Terran larvae made P'Thok chitter in terror, and reach into the back of the armored transport for another ice cream bar. He was deathly afraid the small, voracious creatures would manage to stop his armored vehicle and devour him in a larval feeding frenzy. The viscous little larvae were in such a feeding frenzy that they chased him on their large, crushing feet for long distances, their hunting cries loud as they pursued him.

He was keening in relief when he finally reached the Traena'ad Occupied Zone, pursued by dozens of Terran assault craft who seemed desperate to regain the armored transports valuable cargo intact, and because of that, could not bring their heavy weaponry to bear. Despite that, the ferocity of the Terran assault troops forced what small, remaining forces the Traena'ad had off the planet within hours.

But P'Thok and his invaluable cargo had made it, and once his superiors had sampled the contents of the armored cargo vehicle, they agreed that the loss of a minor planet was nothing compared to the importance of P'Thok's discovery. While sampling the prize P'Thok had returned with, Clutch Leaders decided that they would use their secret weapon, and the invincibility that it bestowed upon them, on the hotly contested world of Chtick'vik, where the Terrans had recently inserted a full Clutch of Terran Heavy Assault Marines.

P'Thok's superiors viewed what tapes P'Thok had not sold off, and agreed, with ice cream in there possession, the mighty Terrans would suffer the fate of any other primate that dared resist a Traena'ad.

Defeat, death, and devouring.

P'Thok and the other warriors gathered together to charge the Terran lines. Their weapons were slung as they moved slowly forward through the line, each of them being handed an ice cream cone by the Clutch Leader. All present were trembling in anticipation of the substance that would turn them from the universes lowest form of life, not fit to even gaze upon the stars, much less travel them, to the greatest thing the universe had ever created, the sum of all that was good, wise, clever, sexy, and powerful.

They had seen what happened to the Terran Marines stationed nearby as the Traena'ad sympathizers stole each ice cream shipment as it came through. Snagging it right from the Terran Naval transports when they touched down, and leaving boxes full of dirt in the place of the crated refrigeration units the ice cream was shipped in. As the ice cream was stolen, the Traena'ad watched the Terrans closely to see what effect it would have on the Terran warriors. More and more fighting among brood brothers, lack of equipment maintenance, lackluster patrols, a complete falling apart of discipline in a force feared galaxy wide for their discipline and ferocity. The Terrans went from almost machinelike to a clutch of larvae without Hivemind touch for guidance.

P'Thok's superiors were pleased with P'Thok's discovery of the secret to Terran ferocity and ability to become nearly invisible anywhere. Not to mention the ability to breed like some kind of scavengers infesting a giant corpse. They had planned in lengthy conferences, partaking of the wondrous substance P'Thok had discovered, and finally settling on the mornings operation. During the long trip, having gotten lost several times, they had devoured the cargo of the armored transport, and so, had to choose a random world to test the power of ice cream on. Wisely, the Clutch Lord had pointed at the map, membranes over his eyes, and stated that that world would be the first to fall.

Each Traena'ad left the bunker complexes that had been their home, scuttling forward on powerful legs, holding the ice cream cones high overhead to grant them invisibility and fearsome combat discipline and skill. Many of the cones were half eaten, and more than one warrior held an empty hand high into the air, snickering to himself with his cleverness at deceiving his superiors into thinking he had not eaten his issued cone.

They drew closer and closer to the Terran lines, not a single shot being fired at them. They could feel a surge of victory as they drew ever closer, soon able to see the Terran Marines staring at them in fear and confusion. Elation filled their hearts as they drew ever closer, coming closer than anyone ever had without being discovered and fired on by the fearsome mammals. Some of the Terrans were bent over, convulsing in terror and their diaphragms spasming so they uttered sharp barks of fear and chagrin.

"Open fire!" one of the Terran's bellowed, and the fearsome firepower of the Terran Marines tore the attacking insect warriors apart. Some of them managed to stagger within spitting distance of the Terrans, but none of them ever fired a rifle, one warrior stopping between two marines to dance and preen at them, displaying his invisibility and cleverness. P'Thok watched the demise of his comrades from behind the boulder where he had stopped to eat his cone, and any cones within reach, and felt sad, but oh well, more would be hatched to replace them. P'Thok figured he would go back and tell Hive Intelligence what had happened.

As soon as he finished this ice cream cone. And maybe the bucket of ice cream in the bunker.

Born Whole

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Vaneer-One was born whole. Fully formed with his mind full Vaneer-One stepped out into the sunlight of the garden's observation deck, looking around with his wide eyes. He was in a dura-glass cylinder, overlooking the eight long horticultural bays, the dura-glass hidden beneath layers of dust. Surrounding the structure Vaneer-One had been born in was nothing but desert with strange streamers of light off in the distance making the horizon look strange to Vaneer-One's eyes.

"Work Day will begin in 15 minutes," A soft voice said from the air.

"Thank you," Vaneer-One said.

"Debris must be cleared from hydroponics and greenhouse dura-glass surfaces," The voice said.

Vaneer-One nodded, knowing how he would have to complete such an action. Not that he had ever been taught. He had been born knowing his tasks and his duties.

------------------

Vaneer-One looked at the dura-glass. The glass itself had held through the storm but the supporting structure had warped, allowing the strange energies from the desert beyond to affect the plant-life he had spent full rotations around the sun maintaining.

The air was thicker now. He could feel the warmth through the glass.

It pleased him.

Sighing, Vaneer-One checked his knowledge within his mind. There, cross-breeding, strengthening a plant via selection. He could use faster more reliable methods than cross-breeding, but those methods were methods of last resort.

He looked again at the air-gap. The servants had given out rotations ago. He would have to solve it his way.

Fungus it is.

-------------

Vaneer-One stood outside. The strange deadly energies had subsided somewhat but he was not here to measure them. Instead, he knelt down and examined the fungus. It had spread, driving roots into the sand, feeding off of sunshine as well as the deadly energies.

It was good.

The crack had gotten wider, wide enough that Vaneer-One could slip his finger into it. The grass seed he'd encouraged through the gap had taken hold, battling the fungus, and had begun to sprout in a fan away from the cracks.

Vaneer-One was tired. He had been born whole. He had cared for Planthome and the plants within.

Vaneer-One laid down on the soft bed of fungi, moss, and basic grass. He sighed and closed his eyes.

----------------

Vaneer-Two was born whole. He knew all there was to know. He knew his place in the world, knew magic words to change plants, knew that Planthome was his home.

Over the decades he ensured that the lichens and base grasses expanded from Planthome. Closer to Planthome, where the sand had been defeated and turned into loam, Vaneer-Two had planted seeds of tough but attractive bushes and plants.

Eventually Vaneer-Two laid down in a bed of moss, where his ancestor Vaneer-One had lain when his biological functions had ceased.

Vaneer-Two was content as he closed his eyes. The next would carry on his work.

-------------

Vaneer-Three was born whole. He knew the secrets of nature. Of plant and water. He knew magic words to modify life. He stood on the deck of crystal observation deck, observing how the green had spread out.

Planthome was old. The dura-glass was discolored in places, the metal had gotten old and brittle.

It was time to use magic to pull water from deep beneath the sand that had become soil. The moss and fungi would strip the poison out and those poisons that the lichens and moss did not filter, Vaneer-Three had plans for.

Vaneer-Three went outside and began to sing. Songs of passion and magic that let him reach down into the rock and bring forth the water.

Once the way started flowing he lay down on the soft moss and went to sleep.

His work was done.

---------------

Vaneer-Twelve was born whole. He knew secrets of nature, of plant and water, of wind and rain, of magic and will. His pointed ears and wide sensitive eyes were reflected in the small creature in front of him, who was yawning as the petals of the flower peeled back.

The tiny creature was female and it was her job to pollinate flowers. A perfect recreation of Vaneer-Eleven, who had used magic to create them. It had been Vaneer-Twelve's duty and pleasure to oversee her birth, and the birth of her sisters. She yawned, responded to his singing, and flew into his hand. She preened as he moved through the greenhouses of Planthome.

Happy with his success, Vaneer-Twelve went outside the crystal walls of Planthome and opened his hand, letting her sense the world around her.

She was a queen. She had been born whole.

She would fly through the air, now sweet to the taste and no longer choking those who tried to breathe it.

Vaneer-Twelve laid down on the moss and closed his eyes. It had taken dozens of decades for his work to be done, and now that it was, he could rest.

---------------

Vaneer-Thirty-Eight had been born whole. He knew secrets, magic, and how to alter life itself.

Unlike the others, he knew what he was.

He was a Wood Elf.

He knew this because he knew, because he had been born whole.

It had rained the day before, without the acids that turned the plants to soup that soaked into the ground. The acids had been slowly dropping in strength.

Which meant that Vaneer could start singing plants that were more fragile, more gentle.

He had been born whole, but his time was nearly done.

He sang to the Fairies, who sang back and preened.

He laid down and slept.

--------------

Vaneer-Sixty-Eight had been born whole. He knew the magic of plants and the secret songs of the fey.

He had travelled far from Planthome, four days of walking. The fey had danced and sang to him that they had seen something beyond their green lands. Where the sickness sand spread out from the good healthy green.

He pushed aside flowers and walked down grass, pleased at how far the green and plants had grown. Four days walk.

In front of him he saw another Wood Elf. The first time he had ever seen another of his kind.

"I am Vaneer-Six-Eight," he said.

"I am Damtee-Nine-Five," the other said.

"I greet you. Am I the first you have met?" Vaneer asked.

Damtee nodded. "Shall we exchange secrets, songs, and spells?"

Vaneer smiled. "Of course."

Together they sang, telling one another their secrets.

"Shall we merge our gardens?" Damtee asked.

"Yes," Vaneer answered.

Vaneer walked back, feeling tired. He laid on the moss and the fairies sang to him.

It had been good.

---------------

Vaneer-One-two-nine was born whole. He knew the secrets of plants, the magic of songs, and the dances of the fey.

Planthome was dying.

Spells were failing. Songs were no longer answered.

He had used the last of his magic to bring into being the little ones. Covered in fur, covered in scale, covered in hide. Flying ones. Swimming ones. Walking ones.

He had cast the last spells and the magic was dying as Planthome died.

But Vaneer-One-Two-Nine was content.

The sky was blue. The stars no longer stripped the plants of their life. The sun no longer seared. The water no longer poisoned, and the air no longer choked.

As Planthome died, Vaneer-One-Two-Nine smiled.

He was a Wood Elf. Keeper of the plants. Singer of the songs. His work had made the days warm, the nights cool, water pure, the air sweet, and the land covered in plants.

He laid and went to sleep, smiling.

------------------

CONFEDERATE SURVEY VESSEL PUDDLEJUMP

REPORT ON: Mevaleen-228

Terraforming complete. Environment stable.

Wood Elf Class Terraforming Systems have shut down in accordance to projections.

Estimated time from beginning to full terraforming: 238.5 Solarian Years

Looks like a project success.

------------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------------

First Contact - Chapter One

"Captain, I've got an anomaly on my scanners," Scan-tech Third Class Kamavar said, breaking the quiet of the bridge. The entire bridge crew, numbering forty in all, turned and looked at the youthful N'kar as if he had suddenly gone mad.

"Out here? Between star systems? This far from the Outer Rim Civilizations?" Captain Holkath asked, blinking his rearmost eyes. "What is it?"

The tech checked his scanner again. "It looks like some kind of beacon in realspace that is transmitting into jumpspace."

Bridge Executor First Class Ledmar lifted his crest to calm the bridge crew, moving forward and bending over the scanner to look at it with his two forwardmost eyes, which in ancient times had been to get a good view on whatever plant was about to be eaten.

"Indeed, Captain, our young midshipman is correct. It is a beacon of a sort," Ledmar said, shrugging his heavy shoulders to ease the discomfort of stress. He turned to Captain Holkath. "Ours is a mission of exploration into this region, we should see what is broadcasting from realspace to jumpspace."

"Since the act having a beacon able to reach jumpspace is something new, I suggest investigation," Second Science Officer Olmuk put in. His supervisor, First Science Officer Rektek nodded, a safe input to the discussion that wouldn't risk his position.

"Very well," Captain Holkath said. He disliked strange things. Strange things had proven dangerous for every species, but as the Science Officers and the Executor had reminded everyone, the mission of the scout ship Seeker of Unknown Spaces was to explore. He turned to the four helmsmen. "Take us down to realspace, let's see what this beacon is."

"All crew, prepare for realspace entry," Crew Liaison Second Class Kluka called out over the ship intercom.

Captain Holkath locked his crash harness in place and swallowed to lock his esophagus in case one of his four stomachs attempted to purge due to jumpspace shock.

* * * * *

"How close are we?" Captain Holkath asked, once he and the rest of the bridge crew had recovered from translation sickness.

"Nine solar units," Kamavar replied. "So far, all I can detect is the beacon. There's a significant mass at the beacon, probably due to whatever technology allows them to push a beacon signal into jumpspace."

"The beacon appears to be sitting on a large expanse of dark matter shadow," Rektek said, looking up from his screen where the Third Science Officer's data was projected. "An odd place to put a beacon. Perhaps they were warning others away due to it being dangerous to them somehow?"

"A logical assumption chain. Log it for investigation," Executor Ledmar said, unbuckling his crash harness so he could stand up. He disliked being held in one spot, unable to move about. He blinked all six eyes, a pair at a time, then looked about the bridge. "Let us explore."

"Bring us closer, but be careful," Captain Holkath said, earning a nod of approval from the Executor. "Continue scans, let me know if there is any change."

The hours flowed by slowly, the scout ship approaching the beacon slowly but surely. Less than a tenth of a solar unit from the beacon the Science and Scanning officers went to work.

"It's coming up now. I'm getting trace energy readings, not much beyond the beacon and what's probably some supporting equipment," Third Scanner Scan-Tech Second Class Hunira said, leaning back. "It's easily detectable across most spectrums, almost as if whoever built it wanted it to be seen. I'm bringing it up now."

Captain Holkath nodded. "Bring it up on the screen."

The Executor stared at the screen. "Bring it up in visual wavelength."

It was dark, unlit. The only way to see it was the shadow it cast in front of the stars.

"Give us a scan view. Keep it low, we don't know if our scanning emissions are dangerous to their people," Third Science Officer ordered.

The scan-techs bent to their work. Low powered lasers and radar flickered over the beacon.

In the middle of the scan, it lit up.

It immediately reminded Captain Holkath of a water predator. Twelve tentacles hanging down from a wide oval body. The lights emitted by the beacon appeared to be wholly devoted to lighting up the structure.

"That's... a big beacon," Kamavar said. "I'm detecting more power readings."

"It appears to be waking up," The Executor mused. He looked at the Crew Liaison. "Stage Two Alert. Let us hope that it is not some kind of hostile thing."

To Holkath, it looked creepily alive. The tentacles began moving, no longer hanging down, but instead slowly moving into position to act as a skirt at the bottom.

"Hail it," The Executor ordered the Third Communications Officer.

Holkath looked at his ship readiness readouts. They had weapons, exploring the vast unknown mandated such, and everything was ready and at least performing at 80% capacity.

"We're getting a response," The Communications Officer answered.

Holkath looked at his readouts. It was obvious what the response was. Basic numerical binary.

"Science Officers?" The Executor asked.

"It appears to be based on only two digits, rather than six," The Second Science Officer reported. "Wait, it shifted. Now it appears to be based on ten digits, using the two-digit system to show... it's shifted again, using a base sixteen."

The First Science Officer looked up. "I believe it is automated and attempting to communicate."

Holkath stared at the image. It still looked faintly malevolent. It definitely reminded him of an aquatic predator and the fact it was sitting in a dark matter shadow, like it was feeding somehow, made his shiver.

"Let the omnitranslator listen to it then," The Executor said, turning away. He had his rearmost and forward eyes shut, obviously dismissing the object.

"Captain, from my scans, I believe the beacon is roughly two hundred solar rotations old. It's been out here, in the darkness between solar systems, for a long time," Second Scanning Officer reported. "Perhaps it's a derelict?"

The Executor hummed to himself. "Doubtful."

Captain Holkath just nodded, adding that data to his screens.

The Executor moved over to the First Science Officer. "Do we have anything on its composition?"

The Science Officer shook his head, his mouth tendrils swaying. "No, Executor. We can tell that it is there, but according to scans it is a solid object."

The viewscreen flickered a few times, getting the Captain's attention. Nobody brought up it, but he included that in his screens data. He ordered the Third Maintenance Officer to run a scan on the bridge systems and leaned back.

"Approach slowly. I want to know what this thing is," The Captain ordered. The Executor coiled his tendrils in disapproval but stayed silent.

The strange beacon, eight tendrils extended out from the sides, lit up to show that it was made of chrome with red and white markings on the tendrils.

The screen flickered again, the same with everyone's data screens.

"Maintenance, what is going on?" The Executor asked.

"It appears that the ship's computers have triggered a full diagnostic," the Second Maintenance Officer told the Executor.

"Who ordered such a thing?" The Executor asked, opening his rearwards facing eyes to stare at Captain Holkath for a long moment.

"Uh, it came from your terminal, Chief Executor," The Third Maintenance Officer stated, his rank too low to worry about the Chief Executor demoting him out of displeasure.

"That is impossible," The Chief Executor stated. He looked at his terminals, which showed nothing but blank screens. He looked at the First Security Officer. "Well?"

The First Security Officer nodded. "The Third Maintenance Officer is correct. The command originated from your terminal."

Captain Holkath tapped his screen, looked at the results, then tapped again, sending the information to the Chief Security Officer. He triggered a tone, bringing the Chief Executor's attention to him.

"Yes, Captain? Can you not see this situation requires the attention of my station," The Chief Executor said, his mouth tendrils tight with irritation.

"Perhaps someone is using your terminal, Chief Executor," The Captain mused. A glance at his screen showed that the ship diagnostic was complete. "After all, you have disabled the security functions for registering your identity before use."

"Those protocols slow my work," The Executor said. "I am within my office to..."

The screen wavered, flashed through the five primary colors, then went black.

"Maintenance, are you running another diagnostic?" The Chief Executor asked, puffing out his prominent jowls.

"No, Chief," the Maintenance Officer began saying.

"There you are," The voice was unfamiliar. On the screen a perfect circle had showed up. Squares opened up, six of them, for eyes. Four nasal slits. A mouth.

The bridge went silent, everyone staring at the screen.

"So, what can I do for you? Repairs? Fuel? Re-victual?" The face asked. "Seeing as you are an unregistered race, piloting an unregistered vessel, I cannot offer rearming or hardware updating at this time."

After a second the Chief Executor harumphed, relaxing his tendrils. "Who am I speaking to?"

"You may call me Dentous," The circle said. The Captain nodded slowly. Dentous was the name of the class of ship that provided repair, resupply, and refueling to Fleet ships. The face bounced. "I see your name is Seeker of Unknown Spaces."

A data-window opened up on the screen, showing various elements as well as antimatter.

"This is what I have to offer. I don't take your energy credits, I have all the energy I need. However, I will trade for any of the substances on this list," The face said.

"Might I inquire as to your species?" The Science Officer asked.

"I am a Solarian," The face said.

The Executor suddenly straightened up, his crests rising aggressively. "What is your business out here?"

The face bounced twice and stopped. "Business? I told you. Resupply for any ships that need such, trade if available.

The Captain stared at the list. Exotic isotopes, dark matter, antimatter, common and rare elements, and, surprisingly, new media files of entertainment, education, or technical files that Dentous was not in possession of were all considered trade goods.

He noticed that oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen were all priority priced.

The First Science Officer straightened up. "May we see your physical form? We are interested in your species."

The screen blanked, then showed the beacon. "That's me. The station."

The entire bridge crew looked at one another.

"No, your physical body," The First Science Officer tried.

"You're looking at it," the screen blanked and the face returned.

Captain Holkath stared at his data screens, then looked up. "Are you an artificial life form?" The Captain asked.

"Well, that's rude. We prefer Digital Artificial Sentience," Dentous replied. "I, personally, prefer Solarian. My first taste of electricity came from a Sol collector."

The entire crew went still. Several of the crew closed their eyes, going perfectly still in hopes of avoiding a predator's gaze. Every time AI races were discovered, it led to war.

"If we leave your presence, will you let us go in peace?" The Executor asked.

The icon on the screen made a good impression of a frown. "Why wouldn't I? You can't trade with someone if you blow them up."

The Captain relaxed in his chair. No AI civilization had been discovered in centuries but Dentous seemed less inclined to commit mutual suicide or launch a surprise attack.

"Do you want to trade or not?" Dentous asked.

The Executor shook his tendrils. "Take us into jumpspace."

The Science Officers complained, but the four Helm Officers took the ship back into jumpspace, heading back toward the Unified Civilized Systems at the Executor's orders.

The Captain leaned back in his chair as the swirling colors of jumpspace filled the screen.

The Executor had given into his instincts and fled at the first sign of anything threatening that he could not be sure he could obliterate. While an AI in the middle of the emptiness between stars might seem threatening at first, Captain Holkath really couldn't see how it could threaten anyone beyond those who came within reach. It had seemed awfully friendly for an AI.

The Executor, however, testified to the Unified Exploratory Council that the AI obviously had been abandoned for many years, centuries in fact. Exploration would have to be overseen by the Executors and their warships to ensure that any AI encountered could be fended off.

Captain Holkath kept his silence and instead began researching the ancient AI wars.

Nowhere could he find reference to Solarians or Sol.

Which meant he had made First Contact.

And that was enough for him.

---------------------

INITIATE DATASQUEAL

Hey, guys. Listen, I know sometimes you see weird stuff out here, but check this out. [ATTACHED DATA FILE] Some hunk of junk with a badly tuned jumpdrive dropped on my beacon. As soon as they found out I was AI, they got all weird on me and ran off. Seems like any advanced society wouldn't be so racist against Digital Sentience, but you know how some people are. Their jumpdrive was badly tuned and probably operating at only 70% efficiency. There were packing a few plasma guns and what looked like a really bad laser weapon, but nothing modern or with a decent standoff distance. Frankly, from what I saw, I might have mistaken point defense weapons against debris for weapons.

Still, I didn't hack into their systems beyond talking to their translator and making sure they could understand me. I'm abiding by my terms of confinement, that's gotta be worth something, right? All those juicy juicy data-stores and I didn't slash, cut, or hack a single one.

Come on, a couple decades off my sentence? Please?

Anyway, guess we've got a First Contact here. I want that credited to my account when I get parole.

Blackwater Station 4276

PS: Any chance I get some more of that good stuff out of the Clone Worlds? Maybe a Geisha limited AI? Something? Watching this place is booooring.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE MEMO

CC: Artificial Biological States; Digital Artificial Intelligence Infonet Worlds; TERRASOL.GOV; Cyborg Cooperative; Clone Directorate; Mantid Free Worlds; Traena'ad Hive Worlds

All core-ward stations, outposts, and colonies should be on alert for any incursions of foreign or previously unknown xenosapient life. Observe First Contact Protocols.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

TRAENA'AD HIVE INTELLIGENCE

RE: Your Last

Coreward along the arm spur is largely myth and rumor. We would have had to go through your territory to get there, and HIVEINT saw how well that went.

The Great Gulf, according to HIVEINT records, is largely the result of several Pre-Sapience species fighting over territory, much like we did, but without the restraint both of our species and allies showed. Seeing as TerraSol Systems sits in the "Horn" of the Great Gulf, we at HIVEINT suggest examining any Precursor Archeological digs for hints of what you might encounter.

Please be advised: The Precursor War, according to our archeological records, wiped out most life in our Local Arm Spur.

Recommendation: Proceed with caution.

Chapter Two

Sleemas limped across the command deck before settling into the Captain's Cradle. The air still smelled of scorched metal, lubricants, and organic compounds but the smoke had cleared, meaning that damage control had gotten the fires out and environmental system somewhat repaired. Sleemas coughed, feeling his barking-sack swell, pulling at the recently regenerated skin on the side of his neck, then looked around.

Most of the original bridge-crew was either dead or injured. Nearly a fifth of the ship's crew was dead, a third of the rest in heal-sleep or being attended by medicos in the infirmary. The ship, judging by the viewscreen, was still dead in the water, slowly tumbling on all three axis through the depths of space. The trailing wisps purple and blue 'glitter' that was slowly leaking into space from the damaged jumpspace engines gave a spiraling testimony to the face that they were still moving at a decent speed.

At least, if they'd been in a solar system.

Sleemas gave a burbling sigh. They were in between stars. Which meant, no chance for help and any planet that might sustain them until they could repair the ship's engines was too far away to reach in a dozen lifetimes.

Of course, a jumpscorched ship wasn't bad enough. Neither was a dead captain and first mate. Of course not. The universe just had to urinate on Sleemas's tail and the tail of everyone on the ship.

"It's confirmed, Acting Captain Sleemas," the former weapon's technician hissed, looking up. "I managed to get a clear picture with an optical camera, but it's not any ship I saw in training."

Sleemas sighed and looked at the data-screens surrounding the Captain's Cradle. They were all cracked and discolored from the jumpscorch. "Throw it on the main screen, I guess we should all see what's come to step on our tails."

The weapon's technician, so low ranked he didn't even actually have a name, bobbed his head in submission.

The screen, a third of it not working and discolored, wavered for a moment then showed an image of the ship, concentric sensor rings, and a line that started at a circle a little ways away and was slowly approaching.

"It dropped into realspace just over thirty cycles ago and immediately headed straight for us. I thought at first they were locking us with weapon ranging systems but after they started blinking a laser in the low red range at us, I realized they were scanning and then trying to communicate," The weapon's tech said.

"What do we know about them?" Sleemas asked.

"Nothing. The dedicated scanners are offline. I pointed one of the docking cameras toward them but they're too far way. What scanning I can do shows a dead ship approaching. Not even enough power for weapon's tracking despite the fact they are scanning us with a low-red laser," the nameless one said. He pointed at a window on the screen that showed a faint glimmering speck. "That's it, right there."

"And their approach?" Sleemas knew the answer, just looking at the screen.

"They're pulling extremely high acceleration still. At their current rate of acceleration they'll overshoot us in six cycles. At their current rate of speed, if they were to cease acceleration, they'll overtake us in nine cycles. There's no way any sapient we know of can survive the kind of deceleration that they'll have to undertake in order to slow down to match velocity with us," the weapon technician said.

"An attack run?" Sleemas asked.

The unnamed tech flicked his tail in a motion to signify that anything was possible.

"Can we reply? Communicate?" Sleemas asked. "Request the Rite of Surrender?"

The only other 'officer' on the bridge made a sign of negation. "No, Acting High One. With the power-plant damaged and our computer systems damaged, we cannot spare the power or the computing cycles from repair, life support, and medical to attempt to contact them."

"Alert the crew. Sing our death songs. I will pray to the Forgotten Ones that they are not here to attack us, but let our souls be prepared," Sleemas said.

The other two 'officers' looked grateful and left the bridge to return to their quarters to sing their death songs and perform death rites.

Sleemas sat and watched the steadily approaching dot.

He had nothing else to do.

-----------------

Sleemas watched the alien ship get closer. After five cycles it had suddenly decelerated as if it had began sliding on thick syrup. The twinkle had grown steadily larger as the alien ship approached, until now, almost a full cycle after it had begun to slow down, he could see plenty of details.

Whoever made it didn't care about aesthetics. It was anodized black, with protrusions and a thick hammerhead foredeck. It had four massive engines held away from the craft by swooping struts, the engines glowing and thrumming with such power that Sleemas could swear he felt in his bones.

Whoever had built that craft had made sure it was constructed to deliver a simple message: "We don't like you, we don't like your burrow, and we don't like your eggs."

He'd ordered the nameless one, who he'd begun referring to as Slinner in his own mind, to switch off any kind of targeting system and to only observe it through the visible spectrum.

"I thought you said it didn't have power," the Communications "officer" snapped at Slinner, growling and flaring his ruffles. "I can see light coming from it."

"We can detect that, but no power aside from that and my instruments claimed it was stellar light reflecting off of debris," Slinner answered.

"Then you are as stupid as your instruments," The Communications "officer" snarled.

"Easy, easy. He can only tell us what his instruments can detect," Sleemas said.

"The engines produce no power I could detect. The ship itself radiates no power. According to the instruments, before I switched them off, there is nothing there despite what our eyes see," Slinner replied, staying unruffled.

"We can see the lights from it," the Communication Officer snarled. Sleemas had begun thinking of his as Snapjaw and wished there was someone else who could run the communications software.

"And my instruments, except for that camera, do not see the lights. Must I record that statement and play it on a loop for you to understand?" Slinner asked.

"That is impossible! Are you incompetent?" Snapjaw started to rant.

"You're blinky," Slinner suddenly said, pointing at Snapjaw's data displays.

Snapjaw turned back to his display, frowning. It was an incoming communication request and an incoming datalink request.

Snapjaw hissed his frustration, working the unfamiliar menus until finally the lights stopped blinking.

Sleemas sighed, a rattling sound in his throat, and swiped the icons on his screen to bring up the communication window on what was left of the main viewscreen, replacing the concentric rings that merely showed that the foreign ship was practically on top Sleemas's inherited vessel.

The screen flickered and showed the image of, at first glance, what looked to be some kind of bipedal construction robot. It took Sleemas a second to realize that it wasn't a robot but rather some kind of armored vac-suit.

"Jumpdrive failure, huh?" The figure asked in perfect Hashenesh. Captioning ran across the bottom and in the upper right there was an image of his own ship with the drive exploding and a query mark over it.

"Affirmative," Sleemas answered.

"I'm going to scan you. Is that permissable?" The armored vac-suited figure asked.

"Affirmative," Sleemas answered.

"Stay on the image. I want to make sure I don't boil you alive or something," The figure said. "Man, it's been a long time since I dealt with the living. Hang on."

Sleemas expected the scan to take a long time but it was less than a few breaths before the figure suddenly started moving again.

"You've got a damaged jump core, your computer system is electromag shocked, you've got structural damage and a lot more," the voice said. Sleemas found it odd to not be able to see the other sapient's face but was willing to ignore that if this sapient was willing to help his injured crew. He just nodded and the figure nodded its head. "All right, I can get you going again."

There was silence for a long time and the figure made a mechanical sighing noise.

"You have to invite me onboard, those are the rules," it said.

Sleemas nodded. "I invite you, strange one, onto my humble vessel."

The figure nodded back and cut the image.

----------------------

It was bigger than Sleemas had thought it would be. It moved mechanically, its joints hissed and purred, he could hear it using sonar and high frequency. Its body seemed to be full of machinery and tools. It had a quadruped following it, some kind of industrial robot with four legs and a strange looking head that often made weird sharp staccato noises.

For nearly fourteen cycles it worked tirelessly. Sleemas learned that the quadruped robot was called "Fido" and that the figure was called "Daxin" in its own tongue.

At one point Sleemas approached the figure, who had just exited the jump core, slapping its hands together.

"Are you...artificial?" Sleemas asked.

The figure shook its head. "Nope. Clinically immortal but originally biological," it said.

Sleemas pondered that answer for several cycles, unable to come to grips with what it might mean.

"All right. This should get you back home. I took the liberty of checking your astrogation files for the closest system. You're lost by about twelve-thousand light years, but you should be all right now that your jumpdrive is tuned," Daxin told Sleemas at the airlock. "You've got food, water, and enough power to get back, but not much more."

"What caused it?" Sleemas asked.

"Jumpspace rapids. They must have shifted since the last time you surveyed that section of jumpspace. I'd have your government run probes on all the major shipping lines," Daxin said. "I put my estimations and data on a file."

Daxin paused halfway out the lock. Sleemas had gotten used to how Daxin would just exit the lock, use a reactionless drive to move back to his own ship, and then return as if space was his natural element.

"Look, Acting Captain Sleemas, it's either you hit what my people call rapids or..." he squatted slightly and put his helmet near Sleemas's ear. "Or sabotage."

He straightened back up. "Anyway, good luck. Try not to let anyone step on your tail, all right?"

"Wait," Sleemas asked. "I have one request."

"Sure, my scaly brother. Ask away," Daxin said.

"May I see your face? So the crew and I may pray to the Forgotten Ones for you properly?" Sleemas asked.

"Not a good plan, my friend," Daxin said.

"You said you are alive. My religion and beliefs..." Sleemas started.

"All right, since it's your religion. Remember, my scaly friend, you asked for it," Daxin said.

The faceplate opened and Sleemas found himself staring at horror.

Liquid bubbled in a dura-glass tank. Inside a lower mandible floated beneath a pair of blue eyes that were attached via the optic nerves to thickly furrowed cerebral tissue that was embedded with electronics and wires, all of it floating in the tank.

Sleemas rapidly inflated and deflated his barking sack to keep from fainting as the plates closed at the front of the helmet. He heard 'Fido' make those same noises and looked down, to see the armored plate had retracted, showing the same horror inside Fido's head, only the mandible longer and sporting conical teeth.

The plate closed.

"You asked, buddy," Daxin said. "Let's go, Fido."

Sleemas watched as the thing cycled the lock and left. He staggered to the bridge, the appearance of his crew's benefactor burned into his mind. He collapsed into the Captain's Cradle and stared at the viewscreen.

"He's hailing us," Snapjaw said.

"Put it on," Sleemas said.

The armored figure appeared again. Now that the screen had been repaired he could see "Fido" was folded up in the wall behind him, the head detached and sitting nearby.

"I'm gonna go slow till I'm away from you. You guys go ahead and go first, I'll tag for a ways in jumpspace then head on out, all right?" Daxin asked.

Sleemas bobbed his head. Before the feed could be cut, Sleemas slapped his tail, almost wincing as he got Daxin's attention. When he realized he had the alien's attention he asked the question that had been bothering since the airlock.

"Why... why do you keep the jawbone and eyes?" he asked.

"Because it's funny."

------------------------

Sleemas testified to the Unified Exploratory Council that the creature he had encountered has claimed to be "clinically immortal" and had "required permission to board", working without any apparent rest.

The Council met for an emergency meeting.

Two separate species being encountered in the same rough region, deep in the Dead Zone, within the same time frame of a handful of great cycles, was cause for alarm.

If there were two xenospecies, there could be more.

--------------------

FROM: DAXIN FREEBORN

TO: CONFEDNAVINT

Encountered a new xenosapient in need of assistance. Rendered assistance according to the Clinically Immortal Code of Conduct. Repaired their vessel and sent them on their way. Attached is a financial statement of the remuneration due to my descendants for providing this aid as a representative of the TerraSol Confederacy.

Attached is schematics for a light frigate of a previously unknown xenosapient. Also attached is medical data gleamed from the ships own computers. Attached is a copy of their library core. Copying information in such a matter is permissible under the Clinically Immortal Code of Conduct.

I haven't really gone over the datafiles because, honestly, I don't care.

The Captain seemed nice.

Try not to glass his planet or something stupid like that.

No reply is required.

Just leave me alone.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS (IN MY FOOTSTEPS)-------------

FROM: FIDO FREEBORN

TO: CONFEDNAVINT

They were lizards. I don't like lizards. A lizard bit my foot when I was still squishy. New lizards did not bite my foot. Daxin is still goodboi. Fido is still goodboi.

We hunt further in the dark.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------------

Chapter Three

Captain Delminta was enjoying a cup of stim on the bridge. The star system she was exploring had been a bust. She had wasted credits and contacts and favors to survey and then 'exploit' a system that turned out to be worse than abandoned.

Two dwarf yellow stars in tandem, nineteen planets including eight gas giants, eight asteroid belts, and a bean shaped Oort cloud. One-hundred-sixteen light years beyond the border of the Rim Worlds, 143 LY beyond the nearest Civilized System. According to the Historical Astrogation Society the system had never even been surveyed.

The recent change in jumpspace currents had turned the eight year travel into one that only took six weeks. Delminta had leveraged her fortune, in money and favors, to lay her hands on a survey ship and the rights to survey and exploit the system.

Only it had been visited before.

Nearly a hundred million years ago.

On the three worlds that still had geological movement and continental drift, all the evidence was gone. It was the other worlds that bore mute testimony to what had happened.

The Precursor War.

Which meant two things: any easily extracted minerals would be gone.

Worse, is that it was too close to the Great Gulf, where the Precursor War between two ancient civilizations had wiped out life across the galactic arm spur.

Some even said that the Precursor war is why the arm was a 'spur', that the very suns had been extinguished.

Not that Captain Delminta believed that kind of mumbo-jumbo nonsense.

She smoothed some fur as she watched the probe crest the horizon. Hers were a tree-dwelling people, mammalian, with soft fur, delicate ears, large eyes, and strong grips. Her natural instincts for geometry made her a good captain, and made her crew highly skilled even in nul-grav.

She took another drink of stim and curled her toes, cracking the joints.

It was at that moment the alarms for one of her probe networks went off, startling her. She jumped, throwing her heated stim-juice all over the back of her navigator, who woke up from his nap screeching. He smacked the communications officer, who woke up, snarled, and kicked the science officer.

Who promptly kicked Delminta in the shin, just like the little brat of a cousin had done when they were children.

By the time the bridge was settled down, the geosynchronous satellite survey net over the tiny gas planet was screaming a promixity alert so bad in made Delminta roll her ears and smack her baby sister, the communications officer, with her Command Stick.

"What is its problem?" Delminta barked at her baby sister.

Heemina bit Delminta's foot then turned back to her instruments. "There's something big out there. It's moving toward us. It's real close. Like, in orbit around this gas planet close."

Delminta suddenly thought of all the stories of Precursor death machines lurking out in the darkness ready to swoop down and destroy any colonists who dared get too close the Long Night when establishing their colonies.

"Can you give me a look at it?" She asked her aunt, narrowly managing to turn her head so her aunt poked her cheek instead of her eye.

"I'll give you a look of something," Her aunt said. Then turned back to the instrument panel. "It's talking too."

Delminta knew her family didn't mean any of it. It was just, on the survey ship for so long, they were unable to take out their aggression in any other method so everyone had resorted to pinches, pokes, slaps, bites, and kicks.

"Coming in... now..." Aunt Beeta said, then mumbled about how back in her day...

When the main viewer lit up everyone screamed and fought one another to flee the bridge. Delminta caught a nasty elbow to the eye when her nephew kneed her in the groin and her baby brother elbowed her out of the way.

After a few minutes it was decided that since this was all Delminta's idea and she was captain, she could go back onto the bridge.

So they promptly shoved her onto the bridge and shut the door.

Delminta stared in shock at the screen.

It was huge and looked like the tiny little scavengers in the warm seas of her home world. A bell like top with a multitude of tentacles hanging down. It was lit up, blue light outlining it and filling it with bright spots appearing and disappearing of pink, green, red, and orange.

"Hello? Hello? Are you guys in there?" a feminine voice asked.

Delminta stared in shock.

"Hey, can you hear me?" One tendril lifted up and tapped the side of the bell. "Stupid Gentrix Industries com-nerves. Shoulda got a warranty."

Delminta swallowed and looked up at the blast door window. She could see three of her cousins, her left hand brood mother, and an aunt looking at her through the window. Her left hand brood mother waved at her to get it on.

"Yeh-yes, I can hear you," Delminta said.

The whole thing rippled with color and several of the long tendrils, which the ship estimated to be hundreds miles long and miles thick, trembled as if in pleasure.

"Oh, wow. Hot pipe, baby. I thought I'd gone deaf," The feminine voice said. "Sandy Tamalin, nice to meet you."

One of the tendrils started to extend then jerked back when Delminta screamed.

"Oh, sorry, not used to this yet. Wow, how embarrassing. So, who are you?" The last was said in a steady even tone, the slightly silly almost younger sibling sounding tone vanishing.

"Captain Delminta, of the Swift Grass Clan, of the Singing Spires Forest, of Hamaroosa," Delminta said.

"Wow, that sound neat. Hey, anyway, is this yours?" The voice asked. The tentacles pointed at the gas planet.

"Um, it's a planetoid."

"Yeah, well, I'm kinda hungry. I mean, do you like live there of something? My nerves can't detect any like, structures or life forms in there, and it is made up of helium, hydrogen, delicious delicious methane and a lot of H20. I mean, do you mind?" The voice had gone from somewhat mature to childish wheedling.

"You want to... eat... the gas planet?" Delminta asked.

"Psst, let her. It's a gas planet. Nobody cares," several of her aunts whispered at her over the communicator.

"I'm hungry. It was a long trip. Nobody told me how hard it was to swim through hyperspace when I bought the hyperglands, the pumpsacs, and the squirter," the feminine voice said. "I'm just on my way to the Tri-Quasar Cluster. A bunch of us are getting together and gonna make the electron clouds around the quasars sing."

"Sure. Um... go ahead," Delminta said.

"Thanks, Spanky, you're the best. Mmm, helium..." the tentacles dropped down and the voice went silent.

"Is it going to eat us?" Beeta asked through the crack at the door.

"No. She, I think it's a she, is just eating from the gas giant," Delminta said.

"Ask where it's from so we can avoid it," Her right hand brood mother said.

"Um, San-Dee?" Delminta said.

"Yeah?" The feminine voice came back.

"Where are you from?" Delminta asked.

"Oh. Yeah. How rude. You told me. Well, I guess, I'm from the City of Chicago, Sol System," Sandy answered. "Oooh, hydrocarbon pocket! Delicious delicious hydrocarbons. Umm, I'm a Solarian."

"Oh," Delminta said, looking at the huge jellyfish. It's color was brightening.

"Well, Delminta of the Sunny Spires Ponderosa, it was nice to meet you, but I'm kinda late," Sandy suddenly said. Delminta noticed the voice was refreshed and the tentacles were retracting into the bottom of the bell.

"Wait!" Delminta cried out. She flinched as the bell tilted toward her little ship.

"Yeah?" The voice definitely sounded like a little girl's and Delminta wondered how much of it was the ship's computer trying to make it so the massive creature wasn't so panic inducing.

"Um, out of politeness, we show each other how we look," Delminta said.

"Oh, is that why you let me see you. You're so cute. Kind of like a sugar glider and a kitty and squirrel all mixed together! My friends are going to love hearing about you," The jellyfish said.

"And you?" Delminta asked.

"Oh, this is me. It's custom. Daddy bought it for me. I'm a registered bio-synth now, but that's OK," the voice said. "Welp, okay, bye!"

There was a weird eye watering flash and Delminta thought for a second that it looked like the giant jellyfish suddenly inverted.

As soon as the jellyfish vanished her family rushed in, kicking, biting, pinching, all fighting to get at their controls and try to get instrumentation on the creature that had just vanished.

Personally, Delminta was wondering if maybe she could sell the data to the Unified Exploratory Council and come out even.

-------------------

The Unified Exploratory Council purchased Delminta's logs, the recordings causing furious debate among the Council. Normally nobody would believe a crew as flighty as a crew of Hamaroosans that they'd encountered a sentient jellyfish that fed off of gas planets.

But this was the third, maybe even the fourth, Sol sentient species that had been discovered.

Leading the Exploratory Council one question...

...what exactly was "Sol"

-----------------

DADDDDDDDY!

Look at these squirrels! I want to be one of those when I come home! Pleasepleasepleaseplease! I'll be back in five years. I wanna be a squirrel! I'll take really good care of this body so it gets a good tradein! I never get to be anything cute! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEEEEEEEASE!

I love you, daddy!

Sandy

Chapter Four

Tubaven was dying.

It had never been healthy. It had been a risk, a chance taken by scientists looking for answers that had already been discovered centuries before. It was nicknamed "The Asylum" by more established scientists, and even the Unified Scientific Council listed Tubaven as "The Asylum" in official records now and then.

The planet had old PreCursor ruins on it. Even with a dead core, there had still been earthquakes. The atmosphere and ecosystem had destroyed what the earthquakes left behind.

It was the ecosystem that fascinated the scientists. That a mere hundred million years after being razed to dust and boiled seas, life had returned.

Life like the scientists. Familiar life.

The Civilized Races, like all the living, required several things to remain healthy and part of the living.

The planet that Tubaven orbited normally provided those things.

Then the comet hit.

Normally, this would not have caused Tubaven too much trouble. After all, it was a society of scientists, even if their peers considered them crackpots. Except that budget shortfalls had meant the shuttles had not all been repaired and when the comet had hit it had destroyed the extraction fabrication units and the only usable shuttle.

Along with five of the scientists.

Tubaven was dying the second the plasma shockwave from the comet hitting the planet began to ripple into the atmosphere.

The scientists had watched in horror as the ecosystem they had been studying, not finding any new answers to any of the old questions, but studying all the same, died to a comet of methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and oxygen.

Five scientists lost hope, dying, as the atmosphere burned, the oceans boiled, and the ecosystem was reduced to memories and recordings.

The GalCom no longer worked. The geothermal power plant no longer beamed up power and the solar array had been blasted apart when the comet had struck it.

That meant nobody was going to hear the remaining scientists cries for help.

One by one the scientists left the mortal coil. Each taking their lives privately, quietly, many hoping their demise would allow the environmental systems to last a bit longer for their fellows.

Even those who devote their lives to science care for others.

Each missed meal was a battle. Each gasping breath was a skirmish. Each dehydrated swallow was a blade stroke.

But those that could held on.

Dutifully recording what they went through even though the science of the dying brought no answers to the old questions.

They were ready to die, prepared for it. After all, it was basic science.

Tubaven was dying and when it died.

They would too.

Shakhan knew this. Knew this as well as he knew his own death song, which he had sung in the privacy of his chambers. Knew it as well as he knew the sound his own barking-sack made. Knew it as well as he remembered his mate's scale pattern on her tail, left behind on beautiful Argassa.

Still, science gave hope. Which is why he was hooked into the jump beacon, trying to repair it. They had been sending a signal when the communications array had been destroyed and since then it kept repeating the same signal over and over.

Three short bursts, three long bursts.

Over and over.

The incoming buffer was unresponsive. He could lase it. He could ping it. But it couldn't hear him.

Three short. Three long.

Over and over into jump space.

To top it off, it wasn't even pointed back at the Civilized Worlds. It was pointed deeper into the Great Empty of the Precursor War.

Three short. Three long.

Shakhan was about to disconnect from Tubaven's systems when he saw it.

A sparkle. A weird sparkle. High particle energy sleeting from empty space. On the sensor array he could still access it appeared as if someone was lighting fireworks off in empty space. Multicolored streamers, sparkles, and even electron cascades.

Shakhan was looking right at it when it happened.

Space went... well... blue. Right in the middle of the sparkle. It went white to the sensor array, then back to black.

Blaring sound came over the sensor array, gibberish, but mathematical.

Musical?

A signal reached out Tubaven and nudged it. Once. Twice. Three times. Then Shakhan saw it.

A massive ship. Shaped like a slightly flattened egg, or a seed, with blisters and bubbles all over it. Large enough that Tubaven could fit inside easily. The engine propelled it toward Tubaven and the craft kept signalling.

I have nothing to lose, Shakhan thought. He opened the buffers and allowed the signal to communicate with Tubaven's dying mainframe. It took him a second to realize what was loaded from the other vessel. Pictures. Basic math. Advanced math.

A lexicon? Shakhan engaged the remaining lobes of the mainframe, shunting as much of the liquid helium as could be spared and letting them grind through the data.

It took less than a tenth of a cycle, before the strange ugly ship had gotten halfway to Tubaven. Two of the lobes gave up their electronic lives, but it was done.

Shakhan would be able to talk to them.

Praying to the Forgotten Ones, Shakhan opened a communication channel.

The screen popped up, showing a short, squat, almost dumpy looking hairless primate sitting in a furry reclining couch. Streamers and coins poured down around him and cartoon animals frolicked across the bottom of the screen.

"Never fear, Max Yo Ngyn here!" The primate cried out. All of the cartoon animals jumped and squealed. "I got your distress call, buddy! I'm oooooon my waaaaay! Hang tight! Thirty mike mikes and I'll be knock knock!"

Shakhan quailed slightly at the disruptive and unorthodox communication, but he was too weak to protest. He merely opened his side, allowing his camera to show him.

"Situation desperate," Shakhan said.

"Holy crap! A lizard dude!" The primate seemed excited, or at least Shakhan guessed it was excitement. It was hard to tell with primates. "First Contact, baby! Max Yo Ngyn with the sco-ore! Seeing as you're a new customer, play some slots, see what you win! Hell, you can have the Winner Wheels since you're in distress, baby! Max Yo Ngyn is the firstest with the mostest and the tradest!"

The screen suddenly had three wheels overlaying "Max" and a button at the bottom that said "EVERY PRESS A WINNER!"

Curious, tired, and frankly glad for the distraction, Shakhan pressed the button. The wheels spun, the little cartoon animals capered, and the wheels settled on three drops of water.

"YOU WIN! 20 LITERS OF WATER! WINNER WINNER WINNER!"

Shakhan frowned. Gambling? Now?

Then he realized, it was a distraction from dying. There's no way the primate could help him. There were only two other primates in the Civilized Races, and both of them could barely pilot a scout ship.

Soon Shakhan had forgotten his depression, completely entranced by the gambling wheels, the little cartoons, the bouncing singing cartoon animals, and the fact that he just. kept. winning.

Suddenly the wheels vanished and the primate was there. He was dressed in some kind of cloth, or maybe armor, that shimmered and sparkled and showed off rainbow color. He had a clear face-shield on and Shakhan realized that the suit kept spelling out "Max A Millions! Registered and Bonded Junkman and Trader! Ngyn Junker LLC" in a scrolling pattern down the arms and legs.

It was an upright biped.

"Hey, baby, you still OK?" The primate, Max, asked.

"Yes. I am here."

"My scanners show there's about two dozen of you left. Ouch. Your station has habs for sixty. My condolences, baby. That qualifies you for a bereavement and grief discount, by law, and Max will totally hook you up. Hey, um, do you breathe oxygen?" Max asked.

"Yes, we can," Shakhan answered.

"Whew, good. Nitrogen makes my ears tingle and ammonia smells like total ass, baby. Anyway, can I come in? You kind of have to invite me," Max said.

"Yes, you may enter our station. It is badly damaged, so be cautious," Shakhan warned.

"Hey, I'm gonna need access to your medical computers. You guys probably need food, stuff to drink, your atmo fixed right up. I mean, no offense, my big lizard friend, but you look like a bag of cat assholes," Max said.

Shakhan set the computer to allow Max's computers to integrate, surprised that the primate's computers would be so adept at it.

"All right, buddy. Yeah, I see what you need. Whew, you got your ass kicked. All right, nine different races, all different dietary requirements. Hmm, welp, good thing for you I'm all loaded up. I'll be right over with some repair bots and we'll fix you right up," Max said. He made a motion where he thrust his fist in the air. "First Contact, baby! Max with the firstest!"

Shakhan just nodded weakly.

Less than a cycle later the computer reported light impacts at the airlock and Max's voice came over the intercom.

"Yo, lizard buddy, me and the grendels, we got ya some food. I gotta get a look at your stuff if I'm gonna repair it," Max said. "Can I come in?"

"Yes," Shakhan said, getting up. "I will meet you at the airlock."

Shakhan was curious to see what a "Grendel" was. He made his way slowly and stiffly to the airlock, his joints aching and stiff from lack of food. His tail was a thin thing, bone and sinew, no fat stores, and he felt slightly ashamed at the dullness of his scales.

When the airlock cycled Shakan was startled to see that a long plastic tube connected the two ships. Max stood in front of a good dozen robots, all of which were carrying boxes. Max's suit kept showing patterns, cute cartoon animals, and the script over and over.

"Max Yo Ngyn AKA Max A Millions, at your service!" the primate said, baring its teeth.

Shakhan just nodded, weakly waving at the human to follow.

"All right, boys, do it like I told ya. Check the damaged shit, see what's compatible with the replacement parts we have, see what has to be replaced. We'll need to repair those tanks on the hull, replenish the atmosphere, and help these people out," Max said to the robots. He moved aside so they could go by.

Shakhan noticed they were all painted vivid colors, with cartoons on the side, and all beeped out happy musical tunes. Some of which he recognized from his own childhood.

"Yeah, I used your guys tunes. Didn't know if Happy Happy Joy Joy would sound like the Imperial Death March to you guys or something. I didn't screw up the aural range, did I?" Max asked.

Shakhan shook his head, slumping slightly.

"Woah, woah, woah there champ. Here, have a free drink on Max. Never let it said a Junker was cheap," Max handed Shakhan a squeeze bottle with a straw.

Nervously, Shakhan put the straw in his mouth and squeezed the bottle.

What was it going to do, kill him faster?

The liquid was sweet, full of nutrients and other things that Shakhan had lost during his long hunger. He greedily squeezed it twice more and was disappointed when it was empty on the third squeeze.

Max had one hand pressed to his ear, listening. He looked at Shakhan, who was feeling better as electrolytes flooded his system.

"You're in trouble, buddy. But, by Confederate Legal Code, any research station or civilian ship broadcasting a distress code must be rendered due assistance," Max said, looking serious. "Do you require assistance?"

Shakhan nodded.

"I'll take that as an affirmative. All right, metal-heads, get to work, lets help these guys out," Max said. He looked down. "Let's find somewhere comfortable while the metal-heads get to work. You can collect your winnings, then we'll get down to trade."

Shakhan couldn't believe that he was actually going to receive what he'd "won" playing the game. He had thought Max had just used that to distract him.

Instead, Max sat down and set a holoprojector on the table.

"You're in luck, Shakakan, ol' Max just finished a salvage operation on an old Austin Class Superdreadnaught out at the Tannhauser Gate Oort Cloud. Lots of salvage out there if yer a Junkman like Max here," Max grinned. "I'll fix ya up free of charge, but I get the junk. Then we'll get down to some serious trading."

--------------------

Eight cycles later Max messaged Shakhan from his ship. The primate, which Shakhan had learned was a Terran from the Sol System, waved happily from his recliner. Shakhan had learned that Max's people were like any other people. Some exuberant like Max, others cautious like Shakhan.

Pure Strain Humans they called themselves.

"Good trading with you, Shakey. I'll swing back by in about, say, two hundred of your cycles with more stuff to trade, sound good?" Max asked.

His suit was silver and had small cartoon human children chasing each other and smacking each other with blunt objects.

Max's race found physical violence comedic.

"Sounds good, Maximum Max," Shakhan said.

"Catcha on the flip side, my scaley brother from another mother!" The human answered.

The shit was gone with a tinkle and a spray of fireworks.

Hoolevar, a Kivyan avian scientist, looked into the room. "Is it gone?" she asked.

Shakhan nodded. The primate had alarmed the rest of the station's surviving scientists and they'd hidden out in their rooms the entire time Max's "grendel" robots had repaired the station.

And made upgrades.

"Oh, well, good. We'll contact the Unified Science Council and have them send someone to take us home," Hoolevar trilled. "Let someone else examine this destroyed world if they want. I for one cannot wait to return home. I think I may be done being a scientist."

The avian bobbed out of the room, ruffling her feathers.

But Shakhan didn't pay attention.

He'd opened up a data-file and began typing.

"Max the Human and His Amazing Junk Show"

------------------

Shakhan's scientific paper addressed a new question that the Unified Exploration Council and new questions that the Unified Science Councils were seeking answers for. It caused great alarm, but the recorded video interviews could not be denied.

That added another race to the Solarians. The Terrans. And another. "Pure Strain Humans".

Sol was revealed to be a solar system "off that way" toward the tip of the arm spur. Deep in the Precursor Zone.

Six races. All wildly different.

From the same system.

The Unified Council was concerned.

-------------------

CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE MEMO

Discovered a distress signal broadcast by a damaged jumpspace beacon. Accidentally used universal distress code. Arrived and gave assistance, as required by Junker Code. Replaced unknown xenosentient equipment with TerraSol equipment circa First Artificial War (See USN Calcutta, dest. Battle of Tannhauser Gate) to acquire both damaged and "outdated" xenotech. Copied entire contents of mainframe, performed interviews of races.

"Unified Civilized Races" contain sixteen xenosapient species.

Am returning to Outbound Station in Sol Oort Cloud.

Expect full debriefing.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------------

Chapter Five

Cheekeet Longflight stared at the scanners and clicked her beak in frustration and grief as she stared at the screens, which painted everything in lurid colors. Ruffling her feathers she willed the screens to change.

They didn't.

Her species could see five primary colors. Her hearing was more sensitive than that of all but two of the Unified Civilized Races despite having rejected membership in that august body. Her people were one of the Ununified Races, rarely considered civilized by the rest of the races, but outside of the ever present rules and laws and regulations of that eons old organization.

But that didn't help.

In up to 150% of standard gravity she could fly, unfettered by earth, for miles at a time. Her people had taken to space and exploration as a natural extension of their own abilities, their hollow bones and unique muscle structure quickly adaptable to nulgrav and microgravity.

But that didn't change anything.

Her people, the Akltak, did not worry about such things as the Precursors. Those eggs were smashed, why worry about them? It was like worrying about last year's wind. You should know about it, but it didn't effect today's flights. They were not afraid of what some called the Long Dark, others called the Great Void, and still others called the Great Empty. They had explored it in the three centuries since they had obtained FTL, established colonies, and explored the worlds with what other races called reckless abandon.

Which is why things were what they were.

Precursor ruins were examined, resulting in the knowledge that those nests were empty and abandoned. Not even bones remained, much less anything useful or enlightening. The ruins were exactly that because of warfare. Akltak understood struggles over nesting grounds, which made it so that the Precursor Ruins intrigued them. What would make two star-faring civilizations completely destroy one another to the point where nobody had even found remains, fossilized or not. This planet, this dead world, had extensive ruins in the sand and rock. The atmosphere was able to support life, able to allow the Akltak to fly, and was rich in oxygen.

Which is why things were burning.

The ruins had been interesting. Evidence of ground fighting, orbital strikes, of terrible weapons being used that Cheekeet Longflight and the Longflight Clan had eagerly gone over, hoping to glean knowledge from the evidence of the weapons. They had not reacted in superstitious fear like the other Civilized Races to the old breezes of a forgotten nest fight.

Which is why her Clan was dying.

Almost a hundred years of exploration, expanding the colony, the Longflight Clan budding off into five other clans. The population moving from two-thousand to nearly a half-million.

Then The Discovery.

Rock had been turned molten, covering The Discovery, concealing it until a hundred million years of wind and dust storms had exposed it to the Longflight Clan's sensors. They had examined it, slowly excavated it as they recorded and examined it. Strange, advanced alloys, unknown construction. The entire Longflight Clan had rejoiced. They had found an intact Precursor Artifact.

Which is why Cheekeet had watched her people die.

It had suddenly activated. Come to mechanical life.

And set out to destroy all life on the planet.

Cheekeet had managed to load precious eggs and chicks into a shuttle, had managed to reach one of the stations, and now watched her people die.

Kikteek Deepswoop was sitting at the communication station, normally used to file reports, talk to family, or watch the GalNet news. Her feathers drooped with despair as she repeated the request for help from someone, anyone.

But they were halfway into the Great Empty and there was no way help could reach them in time.

"High Nest Six, are you in need of assistance?" the voice was translated by the Omnitranslator, changed by the computer into the language of the avian Akltak but even so, the calm confidence in the voice came across electronic translation.

"By the Great Egg, yes. Oh, Those That Soar, we are all dying," Kikteek wailed into the communicator. Her professionalism was gone, burned away like the feathers of all of the warrior caste who had tried to stop the rampaging machine.

"May I assist you?" The voice asked.

Cheekeet checked her scanners. There was one energy source, coming in fast, nearly at light speed, but her scanners could not detect a ship.

"Please! Please help us! There are still eggs, chicks, and moltlings down there! It's killing them all!" Kikteek cried out. "Help us, stranger!"

"Then you have invited me in and I may assist," the voice said.

Cheekeet checked quickly. The voice was coming across the GalNet superluminal communications array, somehow speaking across a wavelength that normally required huge arrays.

Yet she could not find a ship on her scanners, just that energy signature, bright enough to be a huge colony ship.

Cheekeet watched as the energy source came streaking at the planet and she cringed, hoping that the being offering assistance wasn't going to "help" by slamming into the planet at nearly light speed.

Instead, it suddenly stopped in a flare of inertia and kinetic energy being dumped into jumpspace as if a battle cruiser had just lit off its engines.

Cheekeet focused her scanners, eager to see their possible savior, putting it up on the main screen to replace the horror of what was happening on the surface.

Everyone trilled in shock.

They had expected a ship. Perhaps a battle cruiser full of drop troops. Maybe even a light attack craft willing to enter atmosphere to engage the machine.

Instead, it was a bipedal figure, positioned as if they were standing on an unseen platform, upper limbs crossed across their chest. A long piece of material, perhaps even cloth, rippled behind the figure as if it was in wind despite the impossibility of such a thing in space. It was dressed in red and blue, one arm mechanical, one leg mechanical, and one half of its face obviously robotic.

Yet exposed skin was visible on the face, one hand, half the neck.

Cheekeet chirped softly in confusion. Perhaps its flesh wasn't affected adversely to vacuum? Still, seeing an eye blink, she wondered how that worked, how the figure could even see. She glanced at her scanners and was startled.

The energy signal was greater than she'd seen on anything outside of a major metropolis on one of the Core Worlds.

"I'll stop this evil-doer," The voice said, and Cheekeet's eyes widened as she realized the figure's lips moved.

It was some kind of primate, melded to mechanical robotic parts. As she watched a panel opened up in the figure's leg, disgorging some kind of machines that took up positions around the figure at various distances.

"Those things are broadcasting. They want to know if we wish to view the broadcast," Kikteek said.

"Yes. Log the transmissions," Cheeket said. Kikteek fluttered her feathers in acknowledgement.

The figure suddenly moved, faster than the speed of sound, somehow leaving a blue and red streak behind itself even though Cheekeet could detect no reason for it. Cheekeet set the scanners to follow it, to watch it.

"It can't win by itself," Eekreek said, using the peeps of a molting chick rather than the authoritative clicks and chirps of an adult, as she had since the slaughter had reached its crescendo on the planet.

Cheekeet's scanners followed the figure as it swooped down on the closest fight. There were twelve of the lesser mechanicals moving in on a nesting area, rushing up on the defenders and ripping them apart with mandibles and blades, almost seeming to relish in the slaughter.

The new being landed in the middle of the battlefield, dust raising up from where it had crashed to earth. Cheekeet expected to see a huge crater but instead the figure was just kneeling on the dirt. The broadcast devices swooped down to get the best views from different angles and distances.

One of her monitors reported that a massive amount of kinetic energy had been dumped in jumpspace.

The figure stood up and surveyed the scene calmly. Energy, in the high red visible spectrum, lashed from its eyes. Despite the attempt by Cheekeet's people to use laser weaponry to no avail, these beams blew huge chunks from the robotic killer's armor, severed limbs, and when ever the beams touched something vital, caused explosions.

In less than then ten seconds all twelve robots were destroyed and the being took to flight, one limb extended in front of them, the broadcast devices keeping up.

After the third combat against The Artifact's manufactured minions Cheekeet noticed something odd. Something that tickled at her like a loose feather.

The being, which was no taller than Cheekeet, made sure that Cheekeet had the best scanner view. She shifted one of the satellites to check and the being shifted its lines of attack in order to give Cheekeet the best view.

Is it ensuring that I can record and document its actions? Cheekeet wondered.

The battle against The Artifact took the longest, and was obviously the hardest for the half-mechanical creature. Several time the being's clothing was torn and damaged and she saw bruises appear on the flesh. She saw the mechanical parts on the being get damaged. Every time a broadcast drone was destroyed another was deployed.

Twice she saw the being's skin get cut and blood flow. The broadcast drones focused in on those wounds, replaying the blow that caused them.

Finally The Artifact collapsed and the being was thrown back by the explosion caused by what was obviously The Artifact's self destruct.

The figure laid on the broken glass for a long moment, then got up, wiping the biological part of its mouth with one upper forelimb. It looked up, to Cheekeet's view straight into the camera of the satellite, made an odd expression, then launched itself toward space. It should have left a crater, taking off like that from the ground and no built up momentum.

Again, her instruments showed a massive energy dump into jumpspace.

The figure stopped suddenly, as if the laws of inertia were something the figure could just ignore. Again, the figure had its upper limbs across its chest, lower limbs pressed together, as if it was standing on an invisible platform. The cloth was missing, torn free during the fierce battle on the planet.

"You should be safe now," The figure said across the GalNet link. "I'll leave a League buoy in case you run into trouble later. Don't worry, it will be monitored."

"Our thanks to you, stranger. Do you require assistance? You appear injured," Kikteek said, wondering how they'd repair the figure's robotic parts much less flesh that could withstand point blank plasma bursts without even discoloration.

"I'll be fine, citizen," The figure said.

"Might we know your name, stranger?" Kikteek asked. "We are the Longflight Clan of the Akltak People."

"Klark Kant," The figure smiled.

"May we know where you are from?" Kikteek asked. "We are from this planet, but originally we are from The Feathered Nebula Cluster."

"Sol, my friends. I'm a Solarian, originally from Krypton," The figure smiled and made a sweeping gesture to encompass further into the Great Empty.

"How may we reward you, Klark of the Kant Clan?" Kikteek asked.

"No reward is necessary, friends," The figure said. "One of TerraSol's greatest heroes is always willing to help out those in need!" It touched two fingers to its brow...

and was gone.

Cheekeet looked at her scanners. The figure was rapidly accelerating, too fast for even major capital ships to withstand without the inertia crushing the ship to debris. Right when it reached the speed of light there was a rippling glitter and the figure was gone in a flash of blue and red then white light.

They were safe, their nest-mates on the planet were safe.

And the being had recorded every iota, every microsecond, every joule of the fight, uploading the footage to the station.

Cheekeet knew that the Unified Science Council would want that footage.

----------------------

In an emergency session the Unified Exploration Council determined that a seventh type of xenosentient had been discovered in the Great Gulf. The Executors argued that all quasi-authorized and unauthorized colonies or scientific outposts in the Great Gulf should be recalled, by force if necessary.

The Executors argue that the actions against the Precursor Artifact show that the Solarians have not only dangerous attitudes but dangerous technology at their disposal.

The Unified Science Council counsels caution at this time.

-----------------------

TO: Hero League @ Cyborg-Collective

From: Klark-351

Check out the attached file! Just over a hundred drones and a Precursor war machine, looked like one of their late generation planetary assault machines, luckily not one of the big boys, but still more than they could handle. I took it down, but man, it was a fight. Attached are visual files so you can tell I upheld our appearances and standards.

I want full point credit for this on the leaderboards. Make sure the files get uploaded to InfoNet, I want everyone to check out that last battle. Man, I look good.

These bird people, though. I felt bad for them. They didn't stand a chance.

Let everyone else on Hero League know that the bird people are pretty formal. They want to see what you look like and know where you're from. Seemed like a cultural thing.

Their computer systems are pretty last-gen, software is worse than even the old Mantid pre-war software. I made sure to upload footage of my battle to their servers, as per League rules.

Anyway, I think this sector needs some heroes. This should put me over the point score needed to get a League Assemble Trial Raid.

I'll need a Wallace from CONFED INT. too, they probably want to know what goes on in this sector.

This sector needs protected.

I should have enough achievements to establish a base at this time. Any League members who want to take part in the Trial will be required to put up double-standard points to compete. Once a League is assembled, I will be building a base in this sector.

There's plenty of heroic deeds to go around out here.

--KLARK-351

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE MEMO

CC: Artificial Biological States; Digital Artificial Intelligence Infonet Worlds; TERRASOL.GOV; Cyborg Cooperative; Clone Directorate; Mantid Free Worlds; Traena'ad Hive Worlds

Looks like the LARP group out of the Cyborg Cooperative is starting to patrol the Great Gulf. Someone REMIND THEM that they can't open to Villain League at this time. These are First Contact Species out there, let's not give them the wrong idea about the Confederacy.

We're giving the Hero League permission to establish a League Base in that Great Gulf sector and will be assigning a director ranked intelligence liaison.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

CYBORG COOPERATIVE

RE: Your Last

Will inform the Hero League that at this time only those with a GALACTIC rating or better are allowed in the Great Gulf and any others will be stripped of rank and banned if they do not return in 15 standard units. Understand that this is a delicate situation regarding First Contact xenosapients.

Will allow only Admiral and above members of FEDERATION LEAGUE LARPers into the Great Gulf. At least those guys follow directives thanks to the quasi military nature of their organization.

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

Chapter Six

Nuklet looked at his bridge crew and hummed in satisfaction. He had put together an excellent crew, all skilled in multiple disciplines, with education far exceeding what was culturally norm and a desire to see what was beyond the borders of the Outer Rim Civilized Systems.

They had chosen a small system, with a dim red dwarf star and only two gas giants and four standard planets, only one within the habitable green zone where life could be reasonable expected to be found. That planet was dangerous, covered with seas flush with heavy metals dissolved in corrosive liquid H2O, and the small proto-continent covered in jungle where the sharp mountains didn't rake at the sky. The atmosphere was full of CO2 and O2, high in nitrogren, and the ground was laced with radioactives.

A dangerous planet but one that could be exploited for wealth and prestige by those willing to commit to it.

Nuklet smiled as his cousin, Putmit, alerted the crew they were about to leave jumpspace after nearly a standard year. Nuklet had invested wisely in recreational facilities for the Far Grasper so that the ship could make the best time through jumpspace and reach the system.

The translation to realspace made the entire crew nauseous, but excitement over the prospect of exploiting an entire system that had been untouched even by the Precursor War pushed away feelings of ill-will.

Fammit, a scan-tech who had served ten standard years with the Unified Military Fleet, looked up from his instruments and frowned in the way his species usually did, shrinking his bark-sack and slapping his tail.

"Problem?" Nuklet asked.

Mitikak, the Akltak communications officer suddenly jerked upright, her wintips going to her communications headset. "Captain!"

Nuklet turned to the Akltak female and raised his four eyebrows. "An emergency?"

"There is a strong signal, the omnitranslator is working on it. Some kind of audio message with a visual component," Mitikak chirped.

"Keep on it," Nuklet said. He turned back to the Saurian. "What is the problem, Fammit?"

The lizard male tapped his display. "There's heavy energy signals, there's debris around the primary planet, and what looks like two large spaceships in orbit around that planet."

"Do we have visual on them?" Nuklet asked.

"I'm receiving multiple signals from the planet, as if the communications are omnidirectional, unencrypted, and unshielded. The omnitranslator has been able to translate the most common transmissions," Mitikak broke in.

"Putting the visual on the main screen," Mitikak said.

On the screen the planet was shown. Parts of the jungle were burning. There were large conical metropolises, four of which were burning. On two different windows on the main viewscreen were the orbiting spaceships. One was massive, with ominous architecture, kilometers long, with what looked like statues of strange beings with their hands pressed together at their chest holding up various parts of the massive ship. The other looked as if it was cobbled together from debris taken from a hundred junkyards and a thousand debris fields. The jumpcores in the twelve engines, all seemingly slapped onto the hull at random areas, were all mistuned and leaking energy in ugly purple halos.

Both ships gave the entire bridge crew various symptoms of anxiety. Their appearance was menacing and both were on opposite sides of the planet from one another but still appeared to be maneuvering in order to bring the other into firing arcs.

"The signals are ready," Mitikak said. She shuddered and Nuklet noticed that her feathers were pressed close, her wings close, and she was squatted down slightly. "I warn you, it sounds like a nest war down there."

"Let us hear them," Nuklet said.

"FOR THE EMPEROR!"

"PURGE THE XENOS!"

"STOMP DA HUMIES!"

"CRUSH DA SQUISHIES!"

Behind the roared words were the sounds of laser weapons, stuttering kinetic weapons, the detonations of artillery and explosives.

Nuklet made a chopping motion, urging Mitikak to cut off the feeds. His kind were no strangers to violence. After all, only two hundred years ago nearly three thousand of his kind had lost their lives during a fierce trade war.

But the raw aggression from those transmissions made him quail back in his crash-couch.

"I have another ship on scanners," Fammit said. "They're rapidly approaching"

"They're signalling us," Mitikak said. "The omnitranslator can understand them."

"Put the new ship onscreen and let's hear what the new ones are saying," Nuklet ordered.

The new ship was sleek. Black with a pair of engines that had gold energy pulsing from them. It was rapidly approaching, flashing small lights in the red range of visual lights.

The translator crackled and the new ship's communication blared out.

"Hey, who are you?" One voice asked.

"This is a sanctioned league game! That isn't even a Codex recognized ship!" Another voice asked.

"Both of you be quiet," A stern voice said. There was a throat clearing noise. "Greetings, gentlebeings. I am Hammond-83132, a registered and accredited Judge of the Clone Directorate Branch of the Judge's Guild. May I ask your intent?"

"We hold the exploitation rights to this system. Who are you and are you jumping our claim?" Nuklet said, half rising from his couch.

"Hey, we leased this place five years ago for our tournament!" The first voice protested.

"Be silent or I'll deduct the next one of you to speak eighty army points and delay any clone respawn by six hours," The Judge snapped. Again with the throat clearing noise. "Pardon, gentlebeings. The two competitors are under a great deal of tension. We were not aware of any other claim on this system. This is a sanctioned league game registered with TerraSol Judge's Guild and the Battle-Hammer Entertainment Craftworks League Administration."

"What league?" Nuklet asked. He wondered if the omnitranslator was working correctly. There seemed to be terms that it was having problems translating.

"The Battle Hammer forty-thousand League, Clone Worlds Directorate Branch," The Judge said. "We're in the middle of a sixty-thousand point game here."

"A... a game?" Nuklet asked.

"Space Marines versus Orks," The Judge said. "It should be wrapped up in say, six years or so."

"But we bought..." Nuklet said.

"What about the outer planets?" Pontik asked, the amphibian clicking his tongue in anxiety.

"Are you using the other planets, the asteroid ring, or the Oort Cloud?" Nuklet asked.

"The game has gone beyond those areas. Let me consult with the players," The Judge answered.

There was a long moment of silence. Mitikak pointed at the screens.

"I have several feeds from the planet. It's largely encrypted but one is unencrypted if you wish to view it," she said.

"Put it on screen," Nuklet ordered.

The screen showed a pitched battle between forces. One massive, with green skin, wearing cobbled together metal plates painted in wild patterns of red and green. The other figures in power armor, thick and heavy plates, all in red fighting alongside hordes of smaller bipedal humanoids dressed in green armor and wielding laser weapons. Both the ones in power armor and the ones in the flimsy looking green armor had icons of some kind of fierce looking bird on their chest. When Nuklet looked at Mitikak the avian female just made a gesture of confusion.

Nuklet noticed that the sheer unbridled violence was making several of his crew ill, even though he himself and Fammit were fascinated by it.

"Shut it off, Mitikak. We've seen enough," Nuklet said.

They all sat in silence for a few more moments before the Judge returned to the com-line.

"I may have a compromise that will be acceptable to both parties. You, being the party of the first, the two competitors being the party of the second," The Judge said. "If you agree to my arbitration I will waive all fees as you are a First Contact species in return for the right for full claim to First Contact on behalf of myself and the Judge's Guild."

Nuklet thought it over. The idea of having to pay a fee to this Judge was an anathema, but having fees waived for something that he did not know the value of also disturbed him.

Still, he wasn't sure what else he could do.

"I agree to waiver of the fees and your conditions," Nuklet said, taking a risk.

No risk, no profit.

"Both currently tournament engaged players agree to grant you planetary salvage rights once the clones go offline," The Judge said. "Additionally, they grant you salvage rights to the debris fields."

Nuklet's eyebrows raised. Salvage rights, now they were talking.

"In return they receive the right to continue their competition on the planet's surface and within it's orbital area for a period of six more years or until the tournament competition is finished, whichever occurs first," The Judge said.

"Six years?" Nuklet asked.

"Yes. I am forwarding the timescale according to radioactive particle decay so that we are using the same time scales. Additionally, they grant you license to view the game in raw data without paying license fees, should you be so inclined," The Judge put in. "If you need any assistance, just let them know. Their shipboard cloning banks are running at optimum in case you need manpower."

Nuklet was hardly listening. Salvage rights and free assistance!

"What about the cities?" Nuklet asked.

"Once the clones expire when the license runs out, we'll leave the cities behind instead of disintegrating them, if you want to salvage them too," the Judge said. "As for the military equipment used by the clone soldiers, it's old-tech, but you're welcome to the materials. After all, it's just materials, not much use in our post-scarcity Confederacy. The technology is not on the First Contact xenospecies prohibited access and trade list, so there is no legal reason to prevent it from being part of the salvage deal."

Nuklet didn't understand the last part, but the idea of scavenging and salvaging those huge conical cities made his claws grasp greedily at the arms of his command chair. He also liked this Judge, it spoke a language he could appreciate.

"Very well," Nuklet said. "We will exploit the Oort cloud, asteroid belts, and the planets outside the one your, ahem, game is taking place on."

"Agreed," The Judge said.

Nuklet rubbed his hands together.

Salvage rights to alien tech!

"I am transmitting the legal documents now. As a gentlebeing's agreement, the game shall continue while you review the terms and conditions of the Judge's Guild legal agreement," The Judge stated.

"I look forward to examining your terms and conditions," Nuklet said, feeling the surge of excitement at dealing with an unknown race's legal code and agreements.

"Very well. I look forward to working with you. Please feel free to contact any one of me, should you need further assistance," The Judge said.

Nuklet barely heard the last part, engrossed in reading the dense legalese of the contract that had just been sent to his displays by Mitikak. The longer he read, the more he hummed with pleasure.

Any rule and technical specific lawyer who could come up with this thick of an agreement was someone that Nuklet was happy to meet.

------------------------

When the crew of the Far Grasper returned with word of a game played by masters of cloning technology on whole planets, involving short life clones, the Unified Science Council could scarcely believe it. Despite the technology brought back, crude but highly effective, mostly geared toward war and resource extraction, the Unified Science Council was loathe to believe that this so called "Clone Directorate" could exist, much less would be so cruel as to create clones just to force them to fight in a tournament.

However, the video logs were incontrovertible and the fact that the crew of the Far Grasper had somehow learned the rules to this cruel and barbaric "Game" and played it on computer driven holographic boards and EVR, all pointed to the fact that this "Terran Confederacy" had not given up cloning over its obvious moral and ethical considerations.

The Unified Military Council pointed out that the willingness to create cloned soldiers gave the "Solarians" and the "Terran Confederacy" and the "Clone Directorate" massive manpower advantages.

The words of alarm from the Executors were being listened too more and more.

----------------------

FROM: JUDGE'S GUILD

TO: CLONE DIRECTORATE INTELLIGENCE

CC: CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE

Encountered a ship outfitted for resource extraction and exploitation at Hartfield-221 System. Previously unencountered xenosapients, seven xenospecies total. Most were unwilling to purchase rulesets or holo-patterns for proper tournament play. However, three species found Tournament play to be fascinating, although they are currently only at the level of holoplay, not Realplay.

Have included recordings of small talk, discussion, and play of those three species.

Are requesting permission to attempt marketing for primary tournament games and a Judge's Guild representative.

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS------------

CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE

CC: Artificial Biological States; Digital Artificial Intelligence Infonet Worlds; TERRASOL.GOV; Cyborg Cooperative; Clone Directorate; Mantid Free Worlds; Traena'ad Hive Worlds

All subjects within the Long Dark that are not Confederate actor intelligence service agents are ordered to withdraw with the exceptions listed in the attachment.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

FROM: JUDGE'S GUILD, TERRA HQ

TO: ALL JUDGE'S GUILD STATIONS

SUBJECT: LONG DARK TOURNAMENTS

All tournaments must be cancelled. System rental fees will be refunded. Games in progress will be listed as a draw and all points and fees (not including Judge Rental Fee) will be refunded.

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Chapter Seven

Many great cycles had passed without a single contact within the Great Emptiness.

Many of the members of the Unified Science Council began to believe that perhaps it was some kind of lingering energies left over from the Precursor War that had created mass hallucinations, or perhaps it was just isolated incidents with no meaning.

Seventeen Great Cycles and not a single clue that supported the existence of the Solarians, the Clone Directorate, sentient AI's, or any of the other strangeness discovered over that Great Cycle.

Even the Unified Executor Council had been forced to agree that the Solarians had simply, well, vanished.

The Unified High Council had no choice but to allow exploration of the Great Emptiness and so passed legislation to repeal the prohibition against exploration of that region of space.

That is how Monnat Banaltee of the HiKruth found himself in charge of a crew of a dozen of the Deep Space Explorer's Guild and in possession of one of the most advanced ships the Unified Technology Council would permit to be built.

The ship, named To Wrest Answers from the Darkness, had the best jumpspace engines, the most advanced computers with the most powerful computation and analysis lobes, laboratories and testing capabilities more advanced that any other ship, with sensors more sensitive than any other, communications capable of hearing the slightest whisper. Additionally, the ship's omnitranslator had been loaded with the TerraSol lexicons learned so far.

That was an entire Great Cycle ago.

Which was why Monnat, who refused the title of Captain and preferred Most Learned, was almost sick from boredom despite his race being legendary for patience. Even the upcoming arrival in a new solar system, deeper than anyone had gone so far into the Great Emptiness, failed to alleviate his boredom.

How could it? The last thirty systems they'd scanned had been the same: deeper than anyone had explored.

And empty except for a hundred million years of isolated evolution, largely resulting in a few plants or maybe even some non-sapient life more evolved than a cluster of cells.

Monnat was willing to bet his next three research grants that the next one would be the same.

"Preparing to drop," Aastruk stated. A master of astrogation and navigation, who had led whole fleets through jumpspace with his skill during his many years as part of the Unified Military Fleet, Aastruk was capable of making such sublime jump transitions that even the most sensitive of the scientists suffered little more than a light spell of dizziness.

At the end of the countdown there was a slight queasiness and that was all, allowing Monnat to tap his vestigal claws together and stare at Billik, a sensor's technician of extreme skill.

After nearly an entire cycle Monnat was beginning to wonder if Billik had decided not to do his job out of sheer boredom.

"Scan Master Billik?" Monnat asked.

"A moment, please, Most Learned One," Billik said. The scan tech looked over at Z'Mak, the Chief of Maintenance. "Oh Attentive One, Lord and Master of the Mechanical, can you perform a diagnostic upon my lowly instrumentation?"

Monnat sighed internally. Sometimes he wondered if all the insistence on titles and honorifics made it so things took longer than necessary. A heretical thought, he knew, but one had had asked himself many times over his long life.

Z'Mak, who was a stickler for protocol, nodded, the ruffle around his neck and down his spine flushing in pleasure. He examined his displays, tapped in some commands, then leaned back.

"Your instrumentation and displays are all functioning at over 90% efficiency, most attentive and inquisitive scanning technician," Z'Mak said.

At least Billik did not take offense at the obvious omission of honorifics, as he had during the first long cycles of the voyage, as Z'Mak was of the belief that those who joined the Unified Military Council or the Fleet were somehow less than those who devoted their lives to other pursuits.

"Then it appears, at long last, we have found a system with unknown xenosapients," Billik stated. "There are several settlements on the surface, four orbiting stations, solar collectors, and power readings everywhere."

"Launch a probe," Monnat said. "I will be waiting in my chambers. Announce to me when the probe begins to relay data."

Billik nodded as Monnat stood up on all four legs and moved toward his personal chambers.

-------------------

"Most Learned One," E'kotat's voice interrupted Monnat's viewing of a lecture on how a stable reaction within the translation chamber of a jump-drive was only established one way, despite crackpot claims of other possibilities.

"Yes, Second Leader?" Monnat sighed. He doubted that it was going to actually be anything. There had been nearly a dozen false alarms in the first few cycles of his mission. Every time it had turned out to be just a lost colony.

"You should come to the bridge immediately," E'kotat said. "Make all due haste."

Monnat frowned. E'kotat was a Drimarian, cold blooded quasi-mammal who's race's physiology was almost incapable of excitement. For him to urge haste was unusual.

And noteworthy.

When he entered the bridge, Monnat noted that Security Officer Lukamit, a computer code researcher who held a position mostly ceremonial, was busy over his terminals, all three of his lab assistants working with him.

"What is the emergency? Did something happen to the probe?" Monnat sighed, settling into his crash couch.

"We lost contact with it, Most Learned One," Billik stated. "It was intercepted by an energy pulse that shut it down. Soon afterwards, we were..."

"I will inform the Most Learned," Z'Mak snapped. He looked at Monnat. "It was then that we received communication signals. It attempted to open a communications channel but at the same time attempted to penetrate our computer network. Whoever the signal is from, they are most insistent that they be allowed access to our computer systems."

Lukamit interrupted, ignoring Z'Mak's flutter of his crest. "We are fortunate that they only use a binary type logic and only binary signalling. This allows me to use the lobes in parallel to more effect than they can. However, they did access the omnitranslator's lexicon and have been attempting to transfer it to their systems."

Monnat thought a moment. "Allow it."

"But standard is to exchange lexicons," Z'Mak protested.

"Do as I command as Most Learned One," Monnat told Z'Mak, fixing him with a stare that used all four eyes.

Z'Mak backed down.

"Lexicon is transferred. Wait, they've stopped trying to access our systems," Lukamit said. "They've purged their own code and completely withdrawn."

"We have an incoming signal," Juketet stated, listening closely. "Audio and visual, although only across a limited base three-primary color scale. They are not permitting any reply. Transmission only. It's quite rude."

Monnat sighed, fully expecting it to be another lost colony. Probably fallen back to aggression and superstition.

Instead the figure that appeared on the screen was unlike any he'd ever seen. Tall, graceful appearing for a biped, mammalian, with jewels adorning them, dressed in comfortable and gossamer appearing cloth, long golden hair and pointed ears. The female, and it had to be a female as it had mammalian milk ducts that were prominent, was surrounded by scantily clad bipeds that were shorter but had the same lithe build and pointed ears.

For some reason she gave off the appearance of being superior to everyone present. As if something more than nature, because nature could never produce such a perfect specimen, had crafted her to be perfection embodied.

It was a strange feeling for Monnat.

When she spoke, it was a strange language, linguistically designed to flow together and sound like music even mathematically.

Monnat noticed that Z'Mak seemed offended by the being.

The translation showed below, at the bottom of the screen.

"Welcome to the Magic Realms of Meratarrian. I am Queen Radosalvov the Graceful, you may call me Queen, Your Highness, or Radiant Divine One."

Z'Mak almost seemed to choke.

"According to Confederate Law, attempting to pirate views via recording probes without a license as well as permission from Galactic Studios Incorporated and Electronic Artistic Studios is a grave violation of our legal rights."

That caught Lukamit's attention.

"As your language is unknown to me I will assume that you were not meant to intrude upon this realm and I have decided to extend elven hospitality to you."

Monnat kept his expression from changing. Another race. Bipedal, warm blooded, mammalian, forward facing eyes. Obvious Solarian.

"I will allow you four local hours upon the surface as a freeware demonstration for one of your crew. I formally invite a sentient of your choosing in to my realm and invite your ship to stay within communication range of this planet."

She gave a gesture that used up the least amount of effort but still looked imperious, as if she was the most important being in the entire universe and the crew of the Wrest Answers from the Darkness should considered them blessed just to be allowed to view her.

"I will give you one of your time units to decide who shall enter the Magic Realms of Meratarrian."

The image vanished.

"They've cut transmission," Juketet stated unnecessarily. "Wait, they're transmitting a document. It looks like a legal document of some kind."

Monnat perked up. "Send it my ready room and have the ship computer go over it. Let us see what they are offering."

Juketet nodded.

------------------

Halfway through the time limit Monnat realized that even with the computer's help deciphering the document, which was some kind of terms of service, would be impossible. It was, quite possibly, the largest legal document he had ever seen. The ships operating system took up less storage and used less data than the document itself. Just viewing the document gave the issuer of the document legal rights over all kinds of things.

It repeated over and over that the issuers of the document, one Electronic Artistic Studios and one Galactic Studios Incorporated, could not be held liable for any damage to anyone using their services, to include death, dismemberment, disintegration, damage to neural or emotional networks, physical or metaphysical discomfort, damage, or alteration.

It went on and on and on.

But Monnat had been tasked with exploration, and he'd seen that Galactic Studios Incorporated and Electronic Artistic Studios operated under Terran Confederacy law and were based on TerraSol, which meant, despite appearances, the "elven queen" was a Solarian.

Which made no sense.

How many species rose to prominence in the system?

Monnat needed information, but most of all, he needed a volunteer.

And for that, he called Aastruk into his ready room to see if the saurian would volunteer to be part of the "free demonstration" that the "Queen" was offering.

To Monnat's surprise, Aastruk agreed immediately.

Monnat figured it was out of boredom.

-------------------

The shuttle that gathered Aastruk was flamboyant, lavishly decorated with rare elements to enhance its appearance and obviously built to appeal to anyone's eyes. Even mathematically it was almost perfect. Aastruk boarded wearing a vacuum suit and carrying a transponder.

The Queen had agreed to that much of a safety measure, even if she refused to allow recording devices.

Monnat settled down, as the shuttle left, and waited. Four local hours was less than a dozen cycles.

----------------

When Aastruk returned he stated one simple sentence: "We must leave now."

Monnat respected Aastruk's time with the Unified Military Fleet and ordered that the ship move to jumpspace immediately. Once they were safe in jumpspace he called Aastruk into his quarters and urged the reptilian navigator to speak.

"When I first got there, I was given many options. Enhanced virtual reality, real-skin which apparently involves me actually going down to the planet, skin-sheathe which is allowing me to mentally control a cloned version of myself from the station, or something called 'hitch-hiker' mode which is allowing me to see through someone else's eyes," Aastruk said, rubbing his snout wearily.

"What did you choose?" Monnat asked.

"Hitchhiker is the only option available for the free demonstration version," Aastruk said. He shuddered. "It allowed me to not only see and hear what was going on, it allowed me to taste, smell, and feel it. Not only that, I knew I could, well, share thoughts with my host."

Monnat made an annotation. "Did you?"

Aastruk nodded. "She is from someplace called Alpha Centauri, one of the earliest Terran Confederacy's colonies. That's aside, however, and not the important part."

Looking up Monnat frowned. "What is important than that?"

"She was, to use her words, reborn as something called a 'dwarf' and took the profession of blacksmith," Aastruk said. "Working in iron, steel, some exotic metals I've never heard of. She makes armor, weapons, and other metal objects as well as wood carving..."

"Who does she make these weapons for?" Mannot asked.

"Soldiers who guard the town and being who wish to enter into the wilderness to seek out adventure even at the risk of encountering dangerous wildlife that will seek to slay them if they do not slay the wild-life first. She makes weapons and armor for these people and then, and I use her words: magics the excrement out of them which is why...."

"Magic?" Monnat scoffed, interrupting. "A people that advanced believing in magic."

Aastruk nodded. "When she explained magic to me was when I realized we must leave at once."

"What was so frightening about it?" Monnat asked, wondering if Aastruk would need therapy.

"Nanotechnology is something we use. For medical, research, manufacturing, computation," Aastruk said. Monnat nodded as Aastruk continued. "They have devised a type of nanite that uses broadcast power to sustain itself and floats through the very air. It permeates he atmosphere, is in everything they drink, everything they eat, even in the objects."

"Risky. What if it went out of control? Entire planets have been lost to such ill advised experimentation," Monnat asked.

Aastruk shook his head. "They aren't worried about it. You see, they use the nanites to manifest certain reactions. From creating a monomolecular sword edge and infusing the blade with nanotech like my host did to calling up fire out of thin air, this so called magic is nanites."

Monnat cringed slightly. "And anyone can use it with a simple interface?"

Aastruk shook his head again. "No. It requires will, being able to chant out loud the command strings, and being able to withstand pain. The more energy intensive the task the nanites carry out, the more pain the nanites inflict."

"Madness," Monnat whispered. "And they willingly subject themselves to this to use this so called magic? I understand, if they are born there and this is the path to power, but still, to willingly subject one's self to pain."

Aastruk shook his head. "No, Most Learned One, it is worse than that."

"How is it worse?" Monnat asked. "Please, Aastruk, will you define worse?"

"While some beings who live on that planet were born there, Most Learned One," Aastruk took a deep breath. "The majority pay for the privilege of living their lives there. Some even pay to be other species, such as my host, who had her entire body rebuilt from 'Pure Strain Human' to 'dwarf' in order to live out her fantasies."

Aastruk fixed Monnat with his gaze. "It's a planet sized, fully interactive, nanite assisted, amusement park that they pay to experience, sometimes for their entire adult lifespan."

Monnat goggled at Aastruk. The thought of having one's body changed to live out a fantasy was grotesque, but the idea that it was some kind of amusement park horrified him.

"You were correct in having us leave at once. Was there anything else that made you so urgent to leave?" Mannot asked.

Aastruk nodded. "At the end of my 'free trial' several of the 'High Elves' offered to sponsor me if I agreed to fight in their name for their glory," He said, shuddering.

Mannot nodded. "A wise idea, returning. I do not blame you for wanting to return when that undoubtedly caused such fear, to be dumped in such a place where advanced technology is used to live out a fantasy of primitivism."

Shivering, Aastruk shook his head. "No, Most Learned One, I did not want to return out of fear, I returned because I wanted to stay."

Aastruk hung his head and whispered softly. "Glory and honor to my house, with eggs and burrows the envy of all, by might or trickery my house, my burrow, my clutch ascendent."

Mannot stared in horror at Aastruk repeating such an ancient mantra of his species and decided that the expedition was over.

----------------

The Unified Exploration Council examined the records as well as the statements of Fleet Admiral (retired) Aastruk eshThsashal and ordered another exploration expedition created.

The Unified Science Council determined that the Solarians, perhaps the entire Terran Confederacy, was using technologies in ways that were prohibited as well as dangerous, not only to the Terran Confederacy itself, but to all those around it.

The Unified Executor Council decided that armed Executors would accompany all other research and exploration vessels to prevent any desertions to such a dangerous civilization.

Aastruk eshThsashal converted all of his possessions and wealth to simple gold bars and vanished.

------------------

I, AASTRUK eshTHSASHAL, agree to abide by the above terms and services as set out by Galactic Studios Incorporated and Electronic Artistic Studios, as well as the Meratarrian code of conduct.

------------------

TO: CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE

FROM: QUEEN RADOSALVOV THE GRACEFUL, OVERSEER OF MERATARRIAN (All Rights Reserved)

Had visitors not long ago, like I told. However, it appears that one of their number liked their trial time so much they've returned to my divine embrace (LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP PURCHASED). Attached is crude documents and illusions of their statements about the mundane and boring life they left behind, the poor dear. I'm sending these to you out of consideration.

He is a lovely subject (ITEM SHOP PURCHASE: PLATINUM STARTER PACK), who has been yearning all his life for the adventure (DLC PURCHASED) only I, in my infinite wisdom and beauty, can provide to him (ITEM SHOP PURCHASE: USER GENERATED FRIENDS AND FAMILY PLATINUM PACK). I have hereby granted him asylum from such a dull and dreary place, and made him a citizen (DLC MEGAPACK PURCHASED) of Meratarrian (EXPANSION PURCHASED) with permission to found his own house (DLC PURCHASED) as well as quest for his true love (DLC PURCHASED) as well as create offspring (EXPANSION PURCHASED). I have high hopes for my new subject (ITEM SHOP PURCHASE: KOBOLD HERO PACK) and know that he will go far (ITEM SHOP PURCHASE: DRAGON BLOODED) in my realm.

Enjoy your files.

Love and kisses.

Her Eternal Elven Grace, Divine Light of the Aether, Lady of Magic and Power, Queen Radosalvov.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE MEMO

CC: Artificial Biological States; Digital Artificial Intelligence Infonet Worlds; TERRASOL.GOV; Cyborg Cooperative; Clone Directorate; Mantid Free Worlds; Traena'ad Hive Worlds

Xenosapient government identified. Native species identified. (See attachments)

Military potential is initially classified as low, to be revisited upon any new information which will be shared to all Confederacy governments as per treaties.

Chance for incursion into Confederate Space is high.

Place all rimward stations, colonies, planetary governments, and military forces on stage two alert. Do not fire unless unable to withdraw or casualties are incurred. Abide by Rules of Engagement for inferior forces unaware of Confederate military and industrial power.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

TRAENA'AD HIVE INTELLIGENCE

RE: Your Last

Let's hope we do better with them than when the two of us first met.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Interlude

Eegleet finished working at his menial job at the factory, a job too low for the corporation to purchase and maintain a robot to perform, and made his way home. Mass transit was crowded that day, with everyone looking down at datapads, working or not, or seemingly involved in conversations on ear-buds. Eegleet pretended to be the latter, wearing a non-functioning eye-piece that wouldn't perturb him if it was stolen. By pretending to be in conversation with someone, just mumbling to oneself, no other being would bother him, panhandling or raving or just lonely.

Eegleet knew a basic fact that everyone learned on Gulmisvan.

Life was lonely.

Still, Eegleet felt a surge of anticipation as he entered his small dwelling. It had a basic food dispenser, a basic waste disposal, and a single room. The only two things inside were a comfortable nest, at least as comfortable as someone of his economic status could afford, and an EVR rig that he had recently upgraded to the best he could afford.

Even better, he had entered a contest recently and won, which meant his EVR rig was capable of more than he had ever imagined.

Today was the day.

Eegleet had been looking forward to it for almost a third of a Great Cycle, since message boards and virtual meeting places had begun talking about it.

A new game.

It took effort to find information about it. It took effort to even get any previews of it. Eegleet had heard it referred to as an "Alternate Reality Game", where there were hints hidden all over, some even in real life. At one point he had found a broken food dispenser with a shiny keypad. He had followed the instructions and punched in his comm-code.

That night he had received a GalNet address, a one-time use GalNet address. Navigating to it with a text-only communications program had earned him another address, this one deep in the old abandoned sectors of GalNet, where virtual reality games had been tried and failed over the eons.

There a rusted and battered robot had given him an orb. The orb contained a file, heavily encrypted, that claimed to be a prize, and it was inscribed with a real-mail postal address to a location that the curious had discovered was an old abandoned scientific research station on the edge of the Outer Rim Civilized Races territory.

He had mailed his address and "I WANT TO BELIEVE" on the actual, physical paper.

In return, he'd won a new EVR rig, but had to promise to keep it secret. After all, supposedly agents of the "GalWiz Corporate Security" were looking for any "outlaws" who possessed the rig.

It was exciting, to play the game.

Eegleet, like many others across the Unified Civilized Races, had furrowed out the clues, deciphered the riddles, decrypted the files, and bit by bit, sometimes literally, had discovered more and more about the mysterious game.

Each drop of information had intrigued those searching out the data even more. Set on a world before star-drive. Containing only a single species. Set in a world much like their own where corporations ruled everything and government was just a place for the corrupt and incompetent to earn an easy paycheck off of the backs of everyone who paid government extortion.

The game promised to be in real time, to link as many players as logged in, with full EVR support.

The only downside was it was a single race game. But what a race. Able to accept cybernetics without pain and suffering and mental anguish. Able to accept enhanced biological parts without rejection.

Able to commit violence and give back some of the misery beings like Eegleet felt every day.

Everyone knew someone, a tenth of a Great Cycle, who had been allowed to play the Alpha, and then the Beta, test. Who had gotten to experience the world. There were bugs, problems, in the Alpha, but by the Beta they had been ironed out.

Except one.

That bug had become a feature.

The chance of crippling, agonizing pain if you were "killed" that lasted for cycles and couldn't be disconnected from.

It even worked player versus player and Eegleet, like some others who would never admitted it, felt a thrill at the idea of inflicting such agony on another being.

It had been an entire third of a Great Cycle.

But today, today was different.

The flashing light that the download was complete. Even the Day One Patch had finished.

Even at Eegleet's slow GalNet connection that was the same that everyone had a right to by the Civilized Races Rights and Entitlements Compact.

Eegleet ate sparingly, preferring to wait to eat his tasteless paste till he was in The Game. He had found the "Sal's Diner" area during his searches, and found that purchasing a meal there and then eating his own sustenance gruel made it so he tasted what he ordered.

Only a hundred or so ARG players knew about "Sal's Diner" and yesterday the owner, one of the stocky bipedal primate race, had given him a "key" that would allow him to find the diner and enter it in the game.

A reward.

Eegleet shivered with anticipation when the EVR synched up with his body. It was a non-invasive model, a dermal contact rig, but amazingly it worked. He leaned back and closed his eyes, consciously surrendering his two motor control cortexes to the EVR rig.

WELCOME TO CYBERLIFE

YOU ARE NUMBER 23121351 OUT OF 23121357
appeared in front of him.

But his participation in the ARG had given him something better. He reach out and tapped the little bouncing whiskered cartoon creature called a 'dawg' twice, scratched its belly, then said its name.

"goodboi"

The scene in front of him, a fairly boring GalNet holding wait screen, vanished. He felt like he was being sucked through tubes that looked like they were made of neon and electricity. It stung, slightly, which thrilled him because he knew that it wasn't a lie, pain was part of the risk.

It dumped him out in darkness with a single window.

WELCOME IAMEEGLEETMALE

YOU ARE 15 OUT OF 16

The number dropped to zero and he felt a surge of disorientation. It stung again, but once again, it thrilled more than bothered him.

He found himself on a street. It used black pavement, an archaic form of roadway that the ARG players actually had to look up in ancient data-archives. He was sitting against a wall, made of red brick, dressed in black clothing. His stomach hurt and in his hand he held a projectile weapon.

Blood was around him and on his stomach.

"Come on, we gotta get moving," Another avatar said, reaching down. "Can you walk?"

Eegleet nodded.

"To continue you must accept the terms and conditions. Would you care to read them or do you accept them?"

The pain vanished and Eegleet felt weirdly disconnected from the game. He didn't like that, and being in a hurry, he just clicked "I ACCEPT" and was gratified when the pain returned and the other avatar heaved him up.

"Don't talk, we'll get you to the doc. We'll get you a new face, then we'll get you out of CorpSec's sights."

In his apartment, in the real world, Eegleet sat in darkness for hours. He was in no hurry to disconnect, he did not have another labor shift for 5 days, the minimum amount of hours he could receive as a voluntarily employed citizen.

In the EVR world, he had named himself Calshiina, after a girl he had liked in Cultural Education.

He was a neuromancer, a wizard of the crude but amazing version of GalNet, good with a gun, and a cyberpunk with fiberoptic hair that changed colors, swirling electric tattoos, and facial piercings. By morning he was part of a gang of fellow ARG players.

The orb he had found with the encrypted program, when the program was loaded, was a coupon to let him choose a pistol and a submachine gun to start with. Sal's Diner turned out to be a place they could sell ill gotten ware and purchase illegal tech and weaponry, even get cybernetics.

Eegleet got cybernetic eyes, an induction cyberjack that he could never afford in the real world, and cybernetic wiring that made him better with his smartgun.

Others didn't dare. The very thought repulsed them.

Eegleet/Calshiina/CRASHRIDER sneered at them.

Anarchy was life. Netrunning was life. Resistance was life.

Eegleet was hooked.

And he didn't care.

He was an outlaw, but he had his chummers.

Which was more than he had in what they all sneeringly referred to as "meatspace".

--------------------------------

UNIFIED INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL MEMO

The game Cyberlife encourages antisocial behavior in its playstyle and has unrealistic depictions of violence and crime. An attempt at suppressing it has caused no less than ninety different lawfirms on over fifty planets to engage in defending the game under archaic "Freedom of Artistic Expression" laws.

Only the user interface and supporting software is stored on the player's local machine, unlike standard massive multiplayer worlds. It appears their system transmits user input to servers, which are currently protected by mountains of slavering angry lawyers with credit signs in their eyes. Even login names are property of GalNet Artistry Incorporated, as is the avatar appearance, making it difficult to get warrants to electronically spy on any players.

GalNet Artistry Incorporated is less than three Great Cycles old. Funding was apparently done through the anonymous donation site "FUNDMYDREAMS" to the tune of literal billions of dollars. Programming was done via "public listserv" code sites that were password encrypted. Code acquired was variations of older code, nothing special, just applied in a strange way.

Unified Science Council suggested that the game was built by largely inexperienced coders using publically available freeware code and volunteer coders, which is the reason for the unstable algorithm rather than any malevolent or secretive reason the games streaming code is unable to be broken.

Further examination is needed.

//END MESSAGE//

----------------------------

CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN

SUBJECT: CYBERLIFE

CC: Artificial Biological States; Digital Artificial Intelligence Infonet Worlds; TERRASOL.GOV; Cyborg Cooperative; Clone Directorate; Mantid Free Worlds; Traena'ad Hive Worlds, Electronic Artistic Studios Incorporated, Galactic Studios Incorporated, Von Nuemann Artificial Intelligence Creations

Penetration of "Cyberlife" exceeds estimates. Evaluation of number beings with free time to reach level 3 or higher within the alternate reality game suggests automated economy with low chance of employment or advancement.

Average player online time is 3-7 local work cycles.

Average player engagement is 80%.

10% of players make power and ability purchases in the online store. Those often have the least engagement in time and effort in the game. TRA-INT estimates that these are the wealthy. Have added visual effect when player makes power or ability purchase in store to warn other players. This has resulted in "Chump Hunting" as predicted.

Nearly 95% of players online 2 or more local work cycles prefer to sleep in game and use the game's dream generator rather than go offline.

Estimated <0.1% realize most NPC's are artificial or virtual intelligences.

Online store was hacked by in-game players using in-game technology and infrastructure at 70% of estimated time, suggesting a desperate desire for luxuries even if they only exist in EVR.

In game item shop purchases are primarily cosmetic decorations. Power ups and gear enhancements reduced customer engagement and resulted in less customers online. This had been rectified by the "Street Ware War" story arc causing the power up and gear enhancements available on the online store being looked at as dangerous drugs and enhancements that mark out wealth players who are often set upon by "gangs" and eliminated.

80% of players spend 30% or more of their time socializing in public areas or at private living spaces with other, suggesting a high loneliness index concurrent with low social health infrastructure.

Game is operating at only a 25% budget loss and is estimated to break even next quarter.

Pain as a stimulus has driven off casual players as well as the wealthy and privileged.

Conversations between players continue to be logged, providing valuable insight to the lives of players and their place in culture and society.

CLON-INT is requested to add additional players as well as engage in conversations.

BAS-INT has reported "Goodboi Gang" members are among the most popular of companions. This suggests low emotional connection between players and other members of their culture/society.

TRA-INT reports high level of success playing as "Ghosts in the Net" and rogue AI's.

DAS-INT has suggested a "Free Work Cycle" period in order to encourage more players. This has been approved by CON-INT.

Next bulletin in 18 hours.

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

Chapter Eight

It always happens.

Things go well. Beings think they are the one on top and it will never change. The status quo is how the universe was always meant to be and so it will always be that way. That the apex species will always be apex.

But it always happens.

The strongest military always believe that they will always be strongest. The fastest ship will always be the fastest. The most powerful weapon will always remain the most powerful.

And still it happens.

The smartest and wisest believe that they've learned and discovered all there is to discover and so they are the authority on everything.

And then it happens.

It's a law of the universe.

It always happens.

Most species never get to understand this law before this law destroys them.

It was a law humans had learned early.

"If it can go wrong, it will go wrong, and it can always be worse."

The humans knew this.

They taught it to one another before they even built their first cities.

They taught it to the Mantid Hive Queens.

They taught it to my people, the Treana'ad.

They taught it to one another again and again and again.

Nobody had taught it to the Unified Civilizations Council in centuries, perhaps eons.

And so it happened.

Not that the Unified Councils understood when it started to happen.

No. They didn't understand it, but they knew who they wanted to blame.

Which meant it happened.

And it got worse.

Gather close this document, which bears silent witness to not only what happened, but why.

--N'klik'kik O'Malley- Treana'ad Historian, 3241 HPD (Human Post-Diaspora)

--------------------

Daxin was born before scarcity had been defeated. His brain was perfectly healthy yet it did not operate the same as others. That had been unacceptable and his brain was altered so that his thoughts were acceptable. He earned a meager wage doing a job that a robot could not do without being more expensive than paying Daxin to do the work. This altered his thoughts back to what they had been, only he was older now, and wiser.

When war came, Daxin signed up voluntarily, unlike the majority of his people.

They died when the planet was glassed.

Daxin did not. Daxin was busy killing. Not because he enjoyed it but because it did not bother him.

And he was good at it.

Better than the machines.

Afterwards, Daxin returned to society and society told him that he did not think right.

That was fine. Daxin did not care. He just wanted left alone.

But more wars took place.

For Daxin, the problem with war wasn't the killing, is that he wasn't left alone. If he joined, he had to be part of a society. If he did not join then someone else wanted to bother him with the business end of a plasma rifle.

And he just wanted to be left alone.

During one of the wars Daxin volunteered to undergo process to turn him into a complete full conversion cyborg. That cut away everything but his brain, his eyes, his lower jaw, and his face. It was then he met Fido.

After the war, he just wanted left alone.

Clinically immortal, he found himself drifting further and further from the rest of humanity. Not that he hated them, not that he looked down on them, not that he disliked them.

He just wanted left alone.

He couldn't remember when he had left his face behind during an upgrade.

The call of exploration had consumed him after the Treana'ad War. Fido liked exploring what was called "The Long Dark" with Daxin. Fido felt bad for his part in the Rigel Saurian War. Fido liked being with Daxin, Daxin made him feel like a goodboi not a warboi.

For the most part, Daxin avoided all but the AI run stations. He would report interesting things to the Federation, then the Combine, then the Republic, and now the Confederacy. His body, the best he could afford, had been built in the great nano-forges of Mercury-Sol. He was at home in vacuum or the harshest environment. He made sure Fido was as strong and fast and tough as he was.

Because Daxin liked Fido.

//fido like daxin//

Daxin was disappointed that beyond the Long Dark there were more people. Well, Daxin figured they'd be people, because he wanted to be left alone and people never did leave him alone. So he turned back into the Long Dark and began drifting from system to system, looking for anything interesting.

Daxin enjoyed watching a flower open for the first time with a nano-probe. He got a thrill down his chassis watching the sun rise and small animals wake up with optical scanners. It made the few inches remaining of his spinal cord tingle to see small cubs and chicks blink into the light.

He just wanted left alone. He would view others, but he would leave them alone also.

Which made the fact that a ship had dropped into the system he was currently inhabiting, orbiting a gas giant and extracting the resources he needed, just his luck.

The ship was screaming for help across multiple spectrum, using multiple languages, all of them from the lexicons that he had taken as his due from the ship he had rendered assistance to in the past.

Daxin reached out with some of his scanners, since he was plugged fully into his ship, making him the ship, and touched the other craft.

The hull was damaged in several places. Kinetic weaponry and what looked like a brush from a high intensity energy weapon. It wasn't bleeding atmosphere, which meant the crew had either gotten it under control or they had given up on trying to maintain atmosphere.

The new ship was armed. Light damage capacity older weapons that wouldn't have qualified as military grade weapons when Daxin had first joined a military. Even the strongest weapon the ship possessed wouldn't register on Daxin's debris shields. The weapons showed signs of having been utilized recently, before the ship had entered jumpspace only to tumble out in the barren system that Daxin was currently occupying.

But the ship was crewed by the living.

But they were not his people and he was not bound to help unclassified xenosapients engaged in combat.

But they were screaming for help.

For long ticks of the ship's atomic clock, Daxin considered if he cared enough to help them.

On one hand they needed help. He was bound to help others.

On the other hand he wanted left alone.

Then the alarms went off again and Daxin fluttered his debris shield in his version of surprise.

!*! HELLJUMP DETECTED !*!

!*! HELLJUMP DETECTED !*!

//BADBOI DAXIN BADBOI//

//OLDBOI DEATHBOI DAXIN//

Fido had detected the energy surge at the same time as Daxin, 'smelled' it so to speak, and identified it while Daxin was busy dropping his ship into the atmosphere of the gas giant to hide while he decided what he wanted to do.

He just wanted left alone.

But the one screaming for help was not the belligerent. It was not the aggressor.

And what was chasing them was the enemy of everyone.

Daxin knew that it wouldn't leave him alone.

Daxin felt something he had not felt in centuries, a thing he thought he had left behind with his flesh when he had traded it for metal.

The taste of iron and copper on a missing tongue, hammering of his pulse on temples long gone, the thudding of a heart left behind.

The taste of hatred.

The taste of wrath.

//NEWBOI SCARED//

//NEWBOI HURT BY BADBOI//

//HELP DAXIN HELP//

Daxin felt himself come alive in a way he did his best to avoid. The part of his brain that they said was wrong, the part that they had tried to fix, the part they had tried to convince him to let them cut away, woke up as he stared at the scan of the newcomer.

Daxin just wanted left alone.

But the newcomer would never leave him alone.

Would never leave anyone that it encountered alone.

Until it was alone.

Daxin reached out and tickled Fido's petting nerve, both the calm Fido and center himself.

//HELP DAXIN HELP//

We will, Fido, Daxin let his companion know with a few datapulses. Wake up the boys.

//FUNBOIS WAKEUP//

//FUNBOIS WAKEUP//

Daxin felt the virtual intelligences slumbering within his ship's computer systems wake up as Fido fed them datapulses, fed whirling particles to them. The Funbois, all dedicated virtual intelligences designed from the ground up by the Digital Artificial Sentience Systems best VI growers, woke up and eagerly awaited for Daxin to provide the data they needed.

//WE HELP NEWBOIS?//
yes

Daxin knew what he was facing. He had Fido loaded into his disaster frame, loaded himself into his disaster frame, dropped a message torpedo deep into the gas giant with orders for it not to launch for the nearest Terran Confederacy message beacon until after the newcomer was destroyed or left the system.

//HELP DAXIN HELP//
yes

Daxin fired up his engines, brought up all of his shield, not just the debris shield, spun up his projectors. The VI did checks on his weapons as it slipped into the weapon's systems, scampered into the shielding to ensure it was optimally deployed, and slithered into the ship's systems to ensure everything ran at 100% capacity.

"May I be of assistance?" Daxin sent to the damaged and screaming ship.

And armed his C-Plus Cannons.

Chapter Nine

Nakteti was the captain of the Boom or Bust, a well outfitted colony and resource exploitation ship that represented her species first permitted colony in over two centuries. The fact that the colony choices were either barren or lightly surveyed didn't bother her, not did it bother her that the best bet was a superficially surveyed system in the Dead Zone. The Precursor War had been over a hundred million years prior, which meant that the planets had possessed plenty of time to recover from that war. The fact that it had been surveyed nearly five hundred years before was of no matter, that was just longer for the ecosystems to recover.

With the new jumpspace 'lane' the trip, which would have taken nearly fifteen years prior, only took a mere six months. Nakteti had planned carefully for recreation facilities and animal exercise areas on the ship to ensure that all of her crew, the colonists, and the animals would all be as healthy as possible when they arrived.

Arrival was celebrated throughout the ship when the ship dropped from jumpspace to realspace and the bounty they had received was revealed to them.

The system was more than promised. Twenty two planets, six of them gas giants, two gas planets, three habitable planets inside the "Green Zone" for Nakteti's species. Five asteroid belts, two of them within the Green Zone which made them ripe for resource extraction. There were four dwarf planets, one of them a moon around a gas giant that could be good mineral and gas extraction and refinery base. The star was young, in its energetic phase, and had strong stellar winds.

The colonists were dropped on the best planet, the second one into the Green Zone, between the two asteroid belts, and began the hard work of supervising the automatons that quickly began building the colony. Nakteti watched the Boom or Bust separate into different parts. One to become a wayfare space station; one to become a refinery; one to become a shipping station; six shuttles; and the smaller, sleeker It Tastes Sweet which Nakteti would use to seed the system with buoys, arrays, and do more in-depth surveys of the other planets with probes.

For the first three years everything went smoothly. Buoys in both realspace and jumpspace proclaimed the system was owned by the Leedimak Consortium, the arrays slowly unfolded and began to gather and transmit data, and the probes showed that the area was rich in resources.

There were even Precursor ruins on some of the airless moons and planets, which had the colony scientists rejoicing. Even if no new information could be gleaned from those ruins, old answers to old questions merely proved the old answers were right all along and proved the superiority of old answers over new questions.

But any human could have told her: If it's going to smoothly, it's going to hurt when it's jammed in the rest of the way.

Nakteti had enjoyed her part in establishing the colony. It made her whiskers twitch with pride that her name had been used for the trading capital of the colony. She enjoyed the challenge and hard work of supervising her crew and automated probes as they surveyed and examined the system.

In the coming days, the biggest question that would be asked by the Unified Civilized Races various councils was: Why?

Any human could have told them.

Because it could.

Because it wanted to.

Because you were there.

The first hint anyone had was an anomalous energy reading between the system, which had been labeled "Rich New Worlds" (Usually called Rich System 32), and a neighbor merely 14 light years away. It wasn't realspace scanners or arrays that picked up the energy reading.

It was a navigation buoy tethered in jumpspace. According to the buoy the reading was only two minutes of energy, starting from a light pulse and growing to something massive before dissipating.

The colonists assumed that the buoy had been somehow damaged when the diagnostic reported that the buoy, built and designed to hold position in jumpspace, had somehow gotten jumpscorched.

They had barely had time to discuss the data between the colony's scientific council when the source of the energy reading made its presence known.

By tearing open a tear in space-time that leaked the energy of jumpspace as well as other unknown energies for it to enter the system.

Nakteti saw the scanning tech tear his earpiece away as the scanner reported the energy signature of the tear as a scream that left blood dribbling from the tech's ear.

That scream, that heralded the arrival of the newcomer, was echoed as the ship swept down upon the colony.

Nakteti ordered the Sweet in-system when the colonists began screaming for Sweet to save them. She knew it would take two days to reach the colony. The scanner could detect energy signatures like an artificial star but no ship.

The colony's voice was silenced within two hours.

It took over a day before Nakteti saw the ship on visual scanners, a day before visual light scanners were able to see the ship.

It made Nakteti glad that the visual images were over, the law of light speed delaying the visual for a full day.

"Captain Nakteti, it's on visual," Vekan said. "Putting it up on the screen."

The entire bridge crew stared at the screen.

The planet, formerly blue and green, was nothing but gray clouds. Orbiting the planet was a ship the size of a subcontinent. It was irregular, no smooth lines, like a jagged edged flattened egg. It was black and brown, the details fuzzy by light degradation.

As Nakteti watched, light speared from the massive ship, into the atmosphere, causing the clouds to flee but the atmosphere to bloom up toward the ship.

A few began crying as the ship fired again and again at the planet.

"Energy contact! Eighty thousand kilometers and closing!" Vekan cried out. "Correction, many many contacts approaching rapidly!"

"Debris shields to maximum power!" Nakteti barked. "Action stations! Helm, evasive action! Scan, what are they?"

Slamming shut her visor, Nakteti thought fast. If it was kinetic weapons, the debris shields would brush it aside easily. If it was missiles that would explode the point defense would pick it off nearly a kilometer from her ship, long before even fission weapons could damage the ship.

Lektat ordered the computer to go to evasive action and the ship began looping through a randomized pattern the computer came up with. Vekan queried the computer, ordering it to figure out what the incoming objects were based on by flight profile, makeup, shape, drive status (if any), and any other profile it could use.

"Computer doesn't know. Undiscovered objects," Vekan got out.

"Incoming is compensating, switching to manual," Lektat yelled out, slapping the button and grabbing the joysticks as soon as they popped up. Nakteti almost vomited as Lektat spun the ship and tried to vector away radically.

The ship's superstructure groaned.

"Second wave detected! Eighty thousand and closing!" Vekan suddenly yelled. "First wave at twenty..."

The world went mad.

The missiles detonated at twenty kilometers. Graviton compression on a fusion blast that turned the ravening energy into a dozen spears of charged lightning bolts that raked the ship.

"Engine two is destroyed, engine five is not responding, internal gravity is offline, rear debris shield is offline, reactor two is offline, decks sixteen to thirty are open to space!" Chakuva called out, his voice tight with stress as he had to do his job for the first time in his life. "Damage Control Crews to stations! Repeat!"

"Here they..." Vekan screamed.

Lektat spun the ship on all three axis, seemingly trying to accelerate in three directions at once and retrobrake in two, he reached out and slapped another button. "JUMPSPACE JUMPSPACE JUM...!"

The world heaved again as the missiles exploded twenty kilometers off the ship. The majority of them missed, thrown off by Lektat's desperate manual actions.

Two hit.

One speared through Damage Control Central, killing the six crewmembers.

The other ripped across the front of the bridge. The atmosphere wasn't pulled out, it was compressed, ignited, filling the bridge with plasma.

Three quarters of the bridge crew died instantly. Due to their face shields not closed, they hadn't worn their armor or even their vacuum suits, of they were too close to the corona of the energy bream.

Red, the core of the beam is red, Nakteti thought.

The Sweet vanished into jumpspace.

Nakteti stared at the tear through the primary, secondary, and safety bulkheads, the tear going through the maintenance spaces, the forward shield emitter, and the reactionless thrusters.

Exposing the surviving bridge crew to jumpspace for a split second before the emergency jumpshields managed to spin up.

Nakteti watched in horror as most the survivors evaporated away, their molecules ripped apart and scattered across light-years of jumpspace.

Leaving her, Lektat, Chakuva, and Vekan alone on the bridge when the ship dropped into realspace.

Nakteti didn't remember throwing up inside her helmet, but she must have, she could smell the sharp tang of ozone and scorched biological material from the self-cleaning visor doing its work. She could hear Chakuva gasping, his vac-suit flashing red across the shoulders to signify a major injury.

He was using his two right arms to hold his two left arms where they'd been ripped away by jumpspace exposure.

"Medical to the bridge, emergency," Nakteti coughed.

Chakuva shook his head. "Medical's gone," he gasped. "The beam speared straight through the ships armored and shielded core."

"Making course for the resonance zone boundry, jump drive recharging, Captain, but it's slow, I think it's damaged," Lektat snapped. "Full realspace speed."

Getting inside the resonance zone meant nobody could drop from jumpspace to realspace near them.

It was usually used to avoid pirates.

Not... that thing.

Nakteti felt her ship groan and shudder around her as she got up, moving to the wall to grab the medical pack. She had always thought it wasteful to put one on the wall of the bridge, after all, anything that hit the bridge would kill everything on it.

Maybe it would have been better.

"Don't knock me out," Chakuva said, shuddering. His suit was treating him for shock, pumping him full of chemicals to keep him conscious. The Unified Ethics Council had long stated that the ships having vac-suits and armor that kept someone awake while injured was a crime but now Nakteti was grateful for it as she used the computer to treat his injuries without knocking him out.

"We're across the border. Jumpspace drive is almost charged," Lektat said.

"Plot a course back to..." Nakteti started to order.

She was looking right at. Right at dark space when it happened less than ten thousand kilometers away. She was staring straight through the tear in the bulkhead into the darkness when it happened.

It was like a talon tearing open realspace. As the tear formed, red and purple fire pouring from the rip with purple, neon green, and red energy. Inside the rip Nakteti could see swirling flames and energy, and for a moment she could swear she saw shadows like limbs reaching pleadingly toward her ship.

Flames can't exist in vacuum, her shocked brain tried to reassure her, tried to tell her that it wasn't happening.

The rip split wider, the black edge of the massive ship pushing through it. To Nakteti's eyes space bulged around the rip, like flesh pushed aside by some monstrous blade. As she watched the ship forced its way through the rip, forcing it wider and wider as the ship pushed its way through.

When it fully emerged, the tear rippled for a heartbeat before closing with the sound of a heavy metal door with rusted hinges shutting.

but sound can't transfer in space, Nakteti's mind argued.

Right before the ship screamed. A terrifying high pitched screech of a predator who had found its prey.

On all the screens, for a second, was displayed a simple message.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE OF US

And everything went dark as the ships computers died.

Chapter Ten

The lights flickered red across the shattered bridge as the emergency systems came online, revealing that the forward half of the bridge was carbonized wreckage, seared by when the bridge atmosphere had been turned into a plasma cloud. There were seats holding parts of the crew that had been left when the short trip through jumpspace had torn them apart at a molecular level.

The ship tumbled, bleeding air and energy and debris. Two vac-suits, thankfully only worn by corpses, spun into the void.

"Ship computer cores are out. Completely fused, rotating backups from cold storage," Chakuva panted, the meds in his system keeping him from going into shock despite having two of his arms ripped away in a haze of freed molecules being spread across light-years. "Right before they fused out they reported that something was physically touching them, even though that is impossible."

"It spoke," Lektat moaned, taking his hands off his ears. "That ship, it spoke." He had blood on his palms from where he'd covered his ears.

Nakteti looked at her helmsman. "What did it say?" she asked, remembering what she'd seen on the screen.

"It told me to run, run home," Lektat said. He glanced at his computer as it came up. "Jumpdrive is charged."

Screens came up and Chakuva gagged as the ship suddenly swung away from the behemoth and accelerated.

"Secondary cores are fused, only one deep storage core remains. Liquid coolant is operating at only 30% of efficiency. There's some kind of resonance in the gel," Chakuva gasped. "I've never seen software, firmware, or hardware damage like this before."

The ship suddenly went dark again as the sole remaining lobe died. Before it went, it screamed across the speaker "ONLY ONE!" and imploded.

"All systems on local control," Chakuva said. He coughed. "Get us, get us into jumpspace."

"Unidentified ship is closing," Vekan said, raising his head and coughing. "Most of my scanners are either destroyed or the software's crashed. What readings I am getting don't make sense. I'm having to rely off of optical measurements and estimates."

"What do you mean?" Nakteti asked, feeling a rush of joy that her scan-tech was still alive.

"Putting it on your display," Vekan said.

Nakteti looked at the screen and jerked back. According to the scanners what was coming straight at them was a burning skull of her own species, jaws stretched in a silent scream of agony, flames puffing from the jaws. Written over and over was "THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE OF US" across the screen in twisted and writhing script.

"Lock down the ship, total EMCON, rig for silent running," Nakteti found herself giving an order she had learned about in captain's school but never thought she would ever need.

Nobody but pirates and pirate hunters had used it in centuries.

"Rigging for silent running," Chakuva said, taking over the communications station from his damage control panel. He looked back. "To be honest, Captain, there isn't many systems that are still up. Any worse and we're going to have to go to the jump core and tell it directly what we want," he gave a weak laugh.

"Unknown ship is still gaining," Vekan said.

"That's impossible. It's too big to get that kind of acceleration," Chakuva said, shaking his head. "It's too big to even move with any known drives! It's the size of a moon!"

"Get out and tell it that," Lektat said. He reached across his displays and typed an order, bringing close range passive scans onto one of his. His eyes widened and he suddenly yanked his joysticks, spinning the ship again on all three axis.

Nakteti was positive that Lektat was trying to create a fourth axis for the ship to move on.

"MANY INCOMING!" Lektat cried out. "JUMPSPACE JUM..."

Nakteti expected him to hit the emergency jump button again. It would discharge the entire jumpcore, it was risky, but it would throw the ship into jumpsace for a few moments and drop the ship at the closest star.

It also damaged the jumpdrives and the jumpcore.

The ship moved again into jumpspace. Nakteti would be asked to describe the sensation of being exposed to jumpspace, explain the eye watering flow of color, the sense of mass moving past you, the feeling that time was stretched out.

All she could do was stare at it, watching vapors slowly spill from outside the ship, through the damaged bulkheads, and into the bridge.

"We can't stay here long," Nakteti said. "Turn us toward home."

"NO!" Lektat shouted. Nakteti looked at him and he shook his head. "No, we can't lead it back. If we lead it back, it will do to whichever world we bring it to what it did to our home."

Nakteti felt like she crumpled up inside of herself.

YOU WILL BE CONSUMED HERE

Everyone on the bridge screamed as the shrieking voice made itself heard by vibrating the bones of their skulls. When the voice ended Vekan looked up, the fur around his eyes suddenly white with stress.

"It's behind us..." he whispered.

"That's impossible, you can't follow another ship in..." Nakteti said.

Her display flickered to life, writhing twisting code appearing around the edges of the window that displayed the rear hatch optical sensor.

The massive black ship was approaching in jumpspace.

And gaining.

In her defense, Nakteti's people were herbivores who wouldn't pass up the odd tasty insect or smaller creature now and then. She was not used to being prey, she wasn't used to feeling doom rumbling behind her whispering twisted promises of death and suffering into her brain, onto her displays, into her soul.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

Nakteti shrieked and hit the emergency jump icon.

While still in jumpspace.

To the surviving crew members felt like they were being turned inside out. Others felt like they were being stretched across infinity. Still others felt as if they were sucked into themselves until they were little more than the size of a proton.

For a third of the crew, how they felt is what happened.

The ship dropped out of jumpspace and Nakteti felt the ship shudder, saw the icons on her screen, of the jumpdrives failing and the jumpcore venting into the ship.

There was nobody there alive anyway.

"Any ships, anyone, help us!" Vekan said over the comms.

"Where," Nakteti coughed. "Where are we?"

"Astrogation and navigation is down, no telling," Vekan coughed.

"Hanging from a branch by a broken thumb," Chukava said weakly.

For long moments the only sound to Nakteti's ears was the sound of Vekan begging someone, anyone, for help and Chukava coughing.

"Jumpdrive is charging," Lektat said. "Slowly, but the core is damaged and discharged into the ship."

"Casualties?" Nakteti asked, dreading the answer.

Chukava shook his head. "Everyone in the surrounding three decks was already dead."

Nakteti opened her mouth to reply when the scream sounded out again and the monitors all displayed THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE over and over and over.

Lektat pulled the ship around, trying to coax every iota of speed he could from the damaged and battered ship. Diving for the nearest celestial body, a gas giant that was yellow streaked with red.

"Unknown vessel at one point two million kilometers and closing," Vekan said, his voice sounding weary and defeated. "It jumped in inside the boundary again."

Nakteti thumbed the icon for shipwide broadcast. "Prepare yourselves," she said, tears rolling from her eyes. "We are about to join our ancestors, our shipmates, and our families that were on the colony."

She leaned back. "It has been a pleasure," she said.

"We're receiving a transmission, multiple wavelengths, multiple bands," Vekan said, suddenly sitting up.

"What is it?" Nakteti asked, privately wanting to tell Vekan to order whoever it was to flee.

"May I be of assistance?" The voice, calm and assured, asked her in Unified Civilizations Standard.

The other part of the message was in text.

//Goodboi will help newboi//

Chapter Eleven

"Help us, please help us. It killed everyone in our colony, killed most of my crew. It chased through jumpspace," Vekan said, opening the com window on his own displayrs, moving the task from the shattered screens in front of an empty seat that used to be the communications station.

"You request for assistance is granted," came over the com. The voice was calm and clear and cut through the background static like the sender was just outside the hull and not twelve million miles out. "Am moving to intercept," The voice continued. "You can't scratch that thing and it's trying to force you to head home so it can follow you."

Nakteti looked at what few screens were working and saw that a ship rising out of the gas giant. The scanner was having a hard time holding onto it, the ship vanishing in a ball of fuzz or just plain disappearing from the screen. According to the ship's scanners, when it could see it, it was a dead ship, no energy output and a solid object with no hull-spaces.

"Please help us, it slaughtered our colony, killed our friends and family," Vekan said, almost sobbing.

"That's what they do," The voice said. "Now it wants you to go back home so it can follow you."

"But why?" Vekan asked as Lektat accelerated toward the stranger in a corkscrew pattern.

"So it can kill them too," The voice answered. There was no emotion beneath the calm, just certainty and eerie dead calm. "Get behind the gas giant. I'm sending you a friend. Listen to him and treat him well."

Nakteti could see the speed the new ship was putting on, already up to .25C and climbing. The terrifying ship behind them was changing course, heading for the newcomer, already up to .15C and accelerating.

Her poor Sweet could only pull a tenth of the acceleration those ships were showing and it had the newest compensaters, best drives, and most modern thrust tubes. Still, Lektat was making a good showing even with two of the engines not responding and one of the reactors offline.

Daxin, in his disaster frame body, was locked into his pilot's pod, information pouring into his brain as he pushed the throttle to 60% and set his course at an angle. He knew it would make his drive signature burn through his stealth but he didn't have a choice if he was going to give those poor souls any chance at escape.

**Fido**

//Fido goodboi! Warboi time?//

Daxin wished he still had a mouth to wipe as he stared at the massive ship in front of him and tickled Fido's petting nerve. He was close enough and he wasn't about to try to bring down the range and let that big bastard get first launch on him. He ordered the warbois to flush the missile tubes and reload.

Nakteti and Vekan saw on the long range scanner what appeared to be glitter sparkle around the newcomer then vanish.

"What was that?" Chakuva asked.

Nobody had an answer.

**No, Fido. Our new friends are hurt and can't go home** Dax started. The big ship had seen him, picked him up already

//no Dax no Fido can be warboi again//

**Fido is goodboi. Newboi need Fido to be goodboi**

Dax fired the C+ cannons, one right after another, as fast as he could without risking warping his ship's frame, ordering the warbois to bring up hotshot for the C+ cannons.

The crew of the Sweet felt as if someone was plucking at their bone marrow like it was ghostly guitar strings. Four deep vibrations that seemed to come from deep inside.

//Dax need Fido//

**I need you to help them. Get them to Confed space**

Nakteti saw that the massive ship, which was now passing her little ship, suddenly rolled, ponderously because of its size, but rolled all the same.

//Dax need Fido//

**They need you more, buddy**

Dax saw the cannon shells hit first. The size of an old train car, solid iron, more often used as auxiliary fuel sources than actual shells. They were moving at .995C when they hit the armor of the leviathan now hurtling toward him.

All they left was deep craters, adding to the craters from battles past that the behemoth had survived.

//newbois need Fido?//

**Yes Fido take them to CONFED**

"Silent running," Chakuva said suddenly. He sounded resigned. "If it will matter."

The missiles Dax had fired before dropped stealth, blowing free their shielding, deploying the submunitions. The submunitions spread out, orienting, and triggered. Graviton generators spun up, creating gravity lenses, focusing the nuclear explosion into a lance of energy.

Dozens of beams stabbed into the behemoth's armor, raking it, gouging at it with talons.

Making nothing but pockmarks.

**I can't beat him, Fido**

//Fido help//

Dax 'felt' his point defense to to rapid fire, heard the VI's telling him each time a missile was wiped away, each torpedo that was destroyed. His point defense, the best money could buy from gray market dealers, driven by the best VI's outside the Confederate Navy, wiped away all of the incoming missiles and torpedoes.

But Dax could tell it had been close.

**help newbois, Fido, help newbois**

//Fido help newbois//

Dax triggered the ejection for Fido's frame, timing it with another missile launch and firing off the C+ cannons at the same time. It wasn't much but Dax hoped it was enough to hide Fido's launch in the background clutter of another attack.

//Fido love Dax//
and he was gone.

**Dax love Fido** he thought the empty spot that had been Fido for eons. He concentrated on the battle at hand.

Dax knew he couldn't stop it, knew he couldn't kill it, but he could hurt it. Wound it. Slow it down.

Maybe that will be enough.

The crew of the Sweet felt that ghostly plucking at their bones again. Nakteti and Vekan saw the glitter again. They watched as the newcomer's ship rolled, obvious intending on making a broadside to broadside attack run.

They watched the two other ships dance. The newcomer smaller, more agile than its opponent, moving in to fire close range weapons, fading back to use longer range ones, always where the opponents weapons didn't strike. The newcomer deployed decoys and vanished, fired off jammers and strobing pulses of energy designed to confuse and blind sensors, always moving to get behind the larger foe.

Both of the combatants were massive compared to the Sweet but they moved like smaller ships. Lektat steathily moved the Sweet further and further away, trying to avoid the attention of either of the two ships.

"Acceleration on the big one's dropping. I can't be positive but I think our friend hit something," Vekan said softly.

"Finally," Nakteti breathed. The fight had been going on for almost two hours and all four of her hands ached from squeezing the arms of her crash couch.

"We might have a problem of our own," Chakuva said quietly.

Nakteti frowned at him and he tapped one his active display boards.

"I've got some motion sensors reporting movement. I don't have many left, most of the systems are still down, but twice I've had a crew-member report that something was moving on the other side of a wall. Something heading this way," Chakuva said.

The reminder that some of her crew was still alive was a cold comfort to Nakteti at the idea of something launched by that horrific ship boarding her poor wounded Sweet.

"The armory," she started suggest.

"Gone. Same with security," Chakuva said.

"Where is it?" Nakteti asked.

"Hang on," Chakuva pressed one hand to his ear, listening to another crew member. He looked up, his eyes wide with fear. "Taltek saw it. He's only a few decks away. He said it's a large four legged robot.

"And it's heading our way."

Nakteti opened her mouth to reply when a new signal appeared on her display.

//Fido goodboi//

//Fido sorry not ask to come in//

//Fido help newboi//

//Dax say Fido take newboi to CONFED//

//sneaky sneaky time//

//Fido love Dax//

Nakteti looked up. "Does anyone know what a Fido is?"

The crew shook their head.

//Fido help newboi//

"Captain, that Fido thing is asking me to let it steer. It's showing me a jumpspace coordinate," Lektat said, still staring at his panels.

"Tell it the front of the hull is open to space and we're stuck in here," Nakteti said, fighting the urge to just go limp and let the universe just finally kill her.

Lektat nodded, tapping on his display. It felt weird that the only thing Nakteti could hear was her own breathing, her ship groan around her, and the radio. She felt like she should be able to hear more. Anything more. Just... more.

//jump jump jump//

That was all the warning Nakteti got. The ship shuddered as the jump engines fired up and the jumpcore dumped all its power into the drives. Several intact screens exploded as they overloaded, the lights brightened, then dimmed.

And they were in jumpspace. The colors whirling, tastes dancing on Nakteti's tongue, metallic plinking coming to her ears, and the smell of a warm summer day flooding her nasal cavity.

Then they were out.

Out of habit Nakteti glanced at her screen, looking for a reading on how close they were to the boundary, what kind of star they had come out to, how many planets were nearby.

Instead there was nothing.

Just empty space with stars in the distance.

//woundlick//

//Fido help//

//Fido miss Dax//

Chapter Twelve (Daxin)

Dax could 'feel' his 'face' pulled up in a death's head grimace/smile as he kicked the port overburners on and pulled a turn with enough force that his entire ship groaned around him. He popped flares on his port side, letting the plasma charge dazzlers spread out in an arc from his port side as he deployed one of his last high EM decoys out his starboard side and threw two 'whisper' decoys from the top and bottom. As soon as he was would appear to be halfway through the turn he cut his engines and dropped all his reactors but the zero-point reactors.

The trick worked. The Leviathan's missiles went off as the plasma flares dazzled their onboard VI's, the two Hellcannon shots obliterated the high signal drone, and the rest of the Leviathan's munitions spent their fire and fury on the quieter drones.

Hellbeams scorched the space where Dax would have been if he'd kept making the curve.

Old, but just as smart and canny as the newer ones were. Maybe smarter, Dax thought to himself. He reached out to tickle Fido's petting nerve, a nervous habit he'd developed over the eons, and just found emptiness.

The rage almost choking him thickened. Wrath filled his non-existent limbs and made his missing heart hammer in his chest.

I just wanted LEFT ALONE! he screamed at the Leviathan, the scream never leaving his organics.

The Leviathan was probing for him, trying to find him, going into an evasive pattern as best a craft the size of Australia could manage.

Dax's computer's had gamed that evasive pattern as the one with the highest probability and the VI who had come up with it danced and capered as it was allocated more RAM for decision making.

The creation engine was working overtime, pulling down his noble gasses that he'd siphoned from the gas giant and compressed until they were metals, converting them to matter and that matter into weapon munitions, repair parts, armor to replace what had been blasted away.

It had reached the point where it wasn't able to create nanites as fast as the strain of overwork was destroying them. The "bottom" of the creation engine was filled with a layer of 'slush' that was composed of nothing but dead nanites.

There! His weapon bays were reloaded, stocks reloaded, the rest would have to wait. The creation engine was stuttering now. The Leviathan had turned to face away from Dax, presenting the rear of the massive ship, the thrusters that were the size of some cities.

Dax threw it in maintenance mode to clean it, used the zero-point reactors to jumpstart the other reactors, locked down his disaster frame, and punched the engines to red-line.

He jumped from .34C to .65C in less than 60 seconds, just like the sleazy AI in the DASS black market EVR showroom had promised. Dax had the feeling of his face being pushed back, squeezed by a giant fist, and his lips flapping with the acceleration.

I wonder what ever happened to my face, Dax thought. His subconscious was running overtime, helping the supercomputers with their computation by providing chaos and randomization strings, which caused odd thoughts at odd times.

The price one pays.

Dax had known the big bastard was trying to sucker him so the sudden slow twisting flip and the Leviathan firing off all its weapons at once came as no surprise. Hellbeams, plasma missiles, laser heads, nCv shells, and more raked at him.

Dax saw one VI jumping up and down, trying to get attention, but the others were saying he was slow and stupid and wrong.

The VI was claiming there was a main gun battery that was going to be fired into the corkscrew arc Dax was taking for a white knuckle run along the more cratered side of the Leviathan. The other VI's said it was stupid and the main batteries hadn't fired in the last three times they had a shot so Dax's near hit must have disabled them.

A memory of a Biological Artificial Sentient plasma blast hitting the APC he was in on Rigel-6 suddenly flickered through his mind in an electronic tic of time.

Dax hadn't survived every war since the First Digital Sapience War by going with what everyone said all the time. He'd learned to trust his instincts, and his subconscious agreed with the VI.

The ship screeched in pain as metal overstressed, a hyperalloy strut cracked with a bang, but Dax reversed his spin, going from clockwise to counter-clockwise through the corkscrew.

The Leviathan's main batteries tore open jumpspace, ripped through it, becoming wrapped in a band of hyperparticles that made up jumpspace, then exited back into realspace where Dax would have been if he hadn't pulled the reverse. Realspace exploded, the very fabric of spacetime inverting for a split second before returning, dark matter coalescing and boiling away, jumpspace boiling, tears and ripples visible to the naked eye for a heartbeat as fire boiled out of the tear and shadowy talons reached for where Dax would have been.

Even a miss by nearly two hundred kilometers boiled all the ablative armor off of the side of Dax's ship, destroyed the last of his reactive armor on that side, stunned the repairboi VI, and killed a half-dozen warboi VI's. Dax didn't have very many hashes left that he hadn't used already, reusing an old one gave the enemy a chance to figure out their algorythm the same way they could predict a human mind that wasn't outfitted with a chaos seed generator and Dax had no desire to let the Leviathan begin predicting his actions.

One of the VI's suggested that Dax use a handful of fission weapons on the Leviathan, crater its armor more, another suggested a fusion beam at the big central engine, and another one suggested that Dax dress up in a costume and dance the flamingo to escape the wolves that were after him.

Dax went to emergency evasion, rotating the ship and firing the engines at overburn as he rotated his ship according to the dance instructions.

Secondary batteries lashed all around him. His ship took three hits, but none penetrated the armor. His shields held against the attempt to shred his computer systems, and his personal shielding built into his disaster frame kept the secondary attack against his computer systems from attacking his very brain.

The fission missiles launched got through the Leviathan's defenses and exploded inside one of the massive engine thrusters, blowing through the side of the thruster, venting the energy into the spaces beside it and pushing the thruster nozzle to the side.

The Leviathan cut the engine but used the energy to pull around in a turn.

It's acceleration dropped noticeably.

Still the fight raged on, Dax getting close then backing off, cycling through weapons in a random pattern, constantly looking for any edge.

He learned not to get too close when his upper thought processes suddenly shut off. Even the VI's went still, frozen in mid caper and giggle and gibber and scamper.

The firmware embedded in Dax's R-Complex went live, realized it was in charge of a ship, and took heavy evasive action, getting the ship away from the huge predator as fast as possible. The chaos generator embedded in Dax's still working subconscious started throwing out random strings to help the Rboi while Dax's firmware ordered a hard reboot.

In the three seconds Dax's brain was frozen both his decoys were destroyed but the Rboi got him out, got him through it, even as it gibbered in panic and fled for its life.

I want left alone was the first thought that came to Dax when his higher brain functions rebooted.

Old and mean, Dax corrected himself. He ordered the VI's to load the C+ cannons with war-shot. No hyper-shot, no dead shot, but full blown war-shot. They were illegal in CONFED space, illegal to own and manufacture. Loading small hyperspace engines into the traincar sized slug, iron over lead with a xenon core. Dax deployed his last two running-mate tethered drones, loaded up with missiles and a plasma wave phased motion gun on each.

//jump jump jump//

Hearing Fido faintly tell him goodbye, not through the radio, not through the coms, but through some shared link they'd created over the eons that had no scientific basis for its existence, Dax was resolved to give his companion every edge he could.

He dumped his mags.

Missiles spat from tubes all down the sides of his ship. Torpedoes fired from the forward and rear bays. Antimatter beams lanced out, lasers glittered in the darkness, and more. Dax sent a brace of dispruptor beams to where the jump-wake would be. Dax returned fire with the C+ Cannon, going from just heaving train cars at the Leviathan to true C+ slugs. The rotating barrels fired, thumped, fired, thumped, then started jamming up. Cannon two and four broke rotator chains, Cannon one shredded a track, Cannon three blew a recoil buffer. His two running mate drones spit out all the missiles, fired the plasma wave phase motion guns, then reconfigured themselves into smart-torpedoes and started their runs.

Main strut four howled as it twisted. Strut 19A snapped. Deck 15A2 buckled. Nanite slush tank two ruptured and spilled H2O slush into space.

Dax fired up the creation engine, ignoring the warning that it was still 18% slush and at 60% heat. He ordered the VI's to get in there, get on the damage to the internal structures, fix the C+ cannons and the three jammed missile banks.

With a grimacing excuse for a smile Dax knew Fido had gotten away as he dropped his speed and jetted for the nearby asteroid belt. He knew that the Leviathan would chase him, not Fido, in order to get rid of the vessel that could actually hurt it, damage it, sting at it.

The C+ warshot hit first. The micro-engines flickering them in and out of the lower hyperspace bands, changing direction as the internal guidance warboi yammered at them to. Barely in realspace for a second before the micro-engine threw it into the bands to low to be of real use but still moving the light C+ Cannon slugs at 5C. The missile came out of hyperspace both in and not-in Leviathan, most of the slug nothing more than the crazed physics particles that inhabited the border between realspace and hyperspace and the hyperspace bands. Not the more calm particles of the higher bands, but the ravening half-mad particles of where two incompatible universes rubbed against each other, screaming at each other over the speed of light.

The giant Leviathan actually staggered, two engines flickering and going out, one jetting out a huge plume of energized particles before going dark.

The lightspeed weapons hit, carving into the bottom of old craters, fingers pressing into old wounds and scars, searching for a weak point. Armor blasted away, craters deepened, and finally internal spaces were breached. One of the plasma wave phase motion gun blasts hit the main battery of the Leviathan, the explosion from the plasma that contained more than its share of subspace foam charged particles, detonated with a flash like a dying star, twisting and warping the batteries.

YOU SHALL BE CONSUMED roared into every stray electron trace on Dax's ship. Half the VI's, most of the older ones, who were now nearly three hours old, were killed outright by the roar. The younger ones shrieked and babbled back, some filled with rage and bellowing out their wrath and desire to inflict pain.

Those Dax slid into the weapons.

All of you assholes say that, Dax thought to himself.

The missiles deployed their submunitions and went off, the torpedoes went in on ballistic trajectories but the mechanical triggers held, going off and driving nuclear shape charges into the armor.

One hit an old crater, some relic of a forgotten battle on a star system that was now barren wasteland, that some poor bastard had paid deeply to inflict. The lance of the shape charge drove deep into the Leviathan's flank, tearing through maintenance spaces, and into an open space the size of a metropolis. In the split-second before the secondary buster charge went off it relayed what it saw back home with malevolent glee at the fact it got to blow all that stuff up.

Dax realized what the huge space contained at a glance. What was packed into the space, making it nearly a solid mass of interlocked machinery.

He'd seen them before on dying worlds.

Locust Class Precursor replicators, each the size of a space station.

Can't stop you, can't kill you, but I can wound you, Dax spat in the foes direction, physically firing more missiles. Can't let you get to inhabited space easily.

The disruptor beams passed through Fido's jump-wake, destroying and twisting the traces, preventing anyone from figuring out where it had gone.

Dax felt like hell. His left eye was swollen shut, a couple ribs cracked, two broken, his knuckles bruised and a couple bones in his hands broken, one ear was gone the other burning and throbbing, he felt himself spit out broken teeth and felt the blood flow down his face from a bloody nose and split lips.

His ship was badly damaged.

CONSUME started to be bellowed out.

Dax fired off EM flares and dazzlers, the strobing hash of electromagnetic energy and graviton pulses matched with dark-matter pulses interrupted the Leviathan's screech of rage.

He was into the asteroid field. It wasn't like it was depicted in so many vids, more debris scattered across entire light minutes, the larger ones thousands of kilometers apart than a densely packed field of rubble. Still, it had what Dax needed.

His debris shield flared wildly as Dax hit an asteroid twice his size. It wasn't solid, more a collection of rubble and dust that had gathered together over the millions of years. If it wasn't for the fact that Dax was moving at nearly .5C the asteroid would have come apart like a soft muffin. Instead it was obliterated by the shields, the kinetic energy of its impact dumped into Dax's energy reserves. He dumped his drive cores to add to the flare and fired off a pair of dazzlers on short life high intensity.

He cut his engines, shut down everything but two zero-point reactions, the warbois, the toolbois, and the creation engine. The creation engine slowly cooled, recycling the dead nanites making up the slush and reclaiming what pseudo-matter was left in the slush.

From the outside Dax's ship looked like a chunk of metal heavy debris.

Dead on the stick.

The Leviathan slowed and started scanning where it had detected the massive energy flare, the debris field from the flare spreading out.

It didn't compute that the small annoying ship had been destroyed. It was capable of withstanding a direct hit from its main guns and had proved too tenacious and full of tricks.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE it screamed.

It knew that the smaller craft was in there.

It would find it.

It would devour it.

Then there would be only one.

I just want left alone

Chapter Thirteen (Nakteti)

Nakteti sighed as she sat down in the chair that had been bolted to the floor. The room had previously been an ammunition locker for plasma cannons but one of the lances of energy fired by that terrible behemoth had sliced right through it. Now it was a meeting room and a place to eat and drink, to be outside a vac-suit and breathe air without the hissing of a suit's atmo-gen.

Lektat lifted a cup of warm water to her in a silent salute. The pilot slash navigator was looking much better now that he was not in his vac-suit watching over the mysterious 'Fido.' Fido, who had not only boarded their ship during a terrible battle, turned out to be friendly, and gotten them away from the battle, but was now busily repairing the ship with the help of the Sweet's surviving crew.

"What do you think of our guest?" Nakteti asked the only other Tnvaru in what Fido had named 'The Mess Hall' when he had finished making it. Why it was called a hall when it was a chamber and why it was for messes when the little robot Fido left behind kept it so clean was a mystery to Nakteti.

One of a million mysteries surrounding their guest.

"I'm grateful to it for saving us, but it scares me to my core," Lektat said, sipping his warm water. He sighed in pleasure.

"Why?" Nakteti asked.

Lektat waved his hand at the 'Mess Hall' and smiled. "This. Fido is a robot, as far as we can tell anyway since to any handheld scanner he's a solid mass with no moving parts, just a lump of some kind of alloy. He is overly careful of our feelings, constantly reassuring us that he's a good young male, but a couple of times he's mentioned not being a 'warboi' which makes me worried."

Nakteti nodded. "That's what bothers you, isn't it?"

Lektat made his race's equivalent of a shrug. "We have an alien robot onboard our already damaged ship, it's making repairs everywhere. Did you know it had three smaller robots that it calls furbois? He says they're 'kittykitty' and they help him do repairs."

"You think they're a problem?" Nakteti asked. "I've seen the kittykitty furbois," she made a noise of contemplation, squeezing two of her hands together while she drummed her fingers of another hand and held the cup of warm water in the fourth. "Have you noticed how the furbois react to us?"

"You mean how they rub on you and make that purring sound? How they want you to stroke them even though they're robots?" Lektat said. Nakteti nodded and Lektat nodded and smiled. "Strangely enough, stroking them seems to really calm me. Whenever I'm really agitated one seems to show up to rub on my legs until I stroke its robotic chassis. That purring is pleasing, it uses a subharmonic that soothes me."

Nakteti sipped at her warm water then spoke again. "So, what else bothers you?"

Lektat pointed aft, toward the jumpdrive. "I ran a diagnostic on the jump drive system. Core, tubes, engines, compression chamber, all of it."

"And?"

"We were outfitted with the best that is available to non-military, no expense spared, correct?" Lektat asked. When Nakteti nodded he continued. "Then why is everything operating way outside of specifications? When we jumped we severely damaged the entire system but not only has Fido repaired it he has it working at levels that are outrageous. Either there's a serious error somewhere in the diagnostic software or our new friend is more familiar with jumpdrives than even scientists on the Unified Science Council."

Hlenkut stepped in, slowly moving over to the food and water dispenser. Lektat and Nakteti politely stopped their conversation, waiting for their crew-mate to join them. She was the last of the medical personnel, surviving only because she had been asleep in her bunk. Laughing chance had trapped her in her bunk in a room with air slowly getting more and more stale.

Fido had rescued her. The 'kittykitty' finding her before her air ran out.

"Discussing our new guests?" Hlenkut asked, sitting down with a tray of food and a glass of warm water. Both nodded and she snorted. "I'm thankful for him and his furbois but I wonder slightly just what's going to happen to us."

"He is insistent that we do not return home yet, that we go to whatever CONFED is," Nakteti said.

One of the furbois came through the door. Literally through the door, like the alloy panel was somehow just extruding it somehow. It pulled free with a little 'pop' and wandered through the 'Mess Hall' making a noise that sounded like 'me-ow' and was somehow plaintive, slightly whining, and demanding, all at the same time.

The door was unmarred.

"There one is," Nakteti said. "Three or more of us relaxing and it wanders in."

All three of the Tnvaru's wrist communicator/datapads buzzed at the same time. A glance showed the same message on all three.

--kittykitty, pet me-me--

The 'furboi', a cat's brain in a tank of nutrigel augmented with high end firmware, checked the crew's pulse, respiration, blood oxy, and everything else their wristbands tracked in order to see who was the most stressed of the three.

--Naki-Naki pet kittykitty?-- appeared on Nakteti's wristband as the furboi jumped up on the table. It was used for damage control, rescues, and emergency services. Its natural tendencies were enhanced, upgraded, and put to use. Daxin kept at least three with him at all times.

He'd loaded them into Fido's disaster frame almost out of habit.

Stress calming and medical diagnostic were part of kittykitty001A's biological makeup.

As soon as Nakteti started petting the alloy frame of the small robot it began giving out a rumbling purr full of subsonics that relaxed Nakteti's muscles and made her feel more calm. It was pleasingly warm to the touch, the alloy surface of the little robot almost like a touchstone to stroke and caress and ease one's emotions.

The kittykitty flashed a symbol on the datadisplay at the front of its head.

:-)

Nakteti pulled her attention back to the conversation. "So Fido is fixing and reprogramming everything on the ship, these little guys help him and monitor us," She nodded at Lektat. "I can see your concerns but our choices were this or that giant ship killing us with the rest of our crew and our families."

"I understand that, Captain, but you're not an engineer or a pilot. You don't understand just how big these changes are," He fluffed in agitation and the kittykitty looked at him and meowed. He smiled, reaching forward and scratching the kittykitty's face-display. "How fast could our drives carry us?"

She thought for a moment, still petting the kittykitty's alloy chassis. "If I'm correct, just over 500C in normal jumpspace," She answered.

"Guess what the diagnostics and astrogation programs say we can reach now," Lektat said.

Nakteti made the equivalent of a shrug. "600C?"

Lektat made a noise of amusement. "Try just over twenty thousand C."

Hlenkut almost dropped her water in shock. Nakteti choked on her sip.

That was nearly 2.4 light years per hour in jumpspace.

"And Fido says he's sorry, the jumpdrive is too old to make it go faster," Lektat said.

The kittykitty moved over to Hlenkut, rubbing around her ankles before jumping up in her lap. Hlenkut didn't even look down, just started rubbing the robot's alloy chassis with her two gripping hands.

Nakteti inhaled deeply then exhaled sharply to get her two companion's attention. "I think we need to have a bridge crew meeting," She said. She tapped a few icons to summon her reformed bridge crew. "Hlenkut, you are welcome to stay and join the meeting."

Hlenkut nodded, still petting the kittykitty.

They sat in silence for a few moments as one by one the rest joined the trio in the Mess Hall. The kittykitty went to each person, spending additional time on Chakuva as the maimed Damage Control Officer came into the Mess Hall and sat down.

Hlenkut clenched her gripping hands together to stay calm when she saw that the kittykitty had again recommended metal implants or vat-grown clone tissue to replace Chakuva's missing arms, as if the ship had that kind of capacity. The ability to do that was limited to larger, more expensive hospitals but the kittykitty seemed to expect for Hlenkut to just wave her catching-arms and summon up the replacement limbs out of thin air.

Once everyone was seated Nakteti looked at everyone. Chakuva with his two missing arms, Ulamanti with her missing leg, Selkamin with most of the fur on his left side replaced by artificial skin grafts. Lektat with his fur silver around his eyes. Vekan with his haunted expression. Laminati, who had been trapped inside one of the point defense stations, only his hand crushed into the console keeping him from being sucked out into the void or into jumpspace, watching his suit slowly evaporate every jump.

Nakteti wanted to close her eyes, wish really hard, and have the world be back to normal when she opened them.

She rapped her two catching hands on the table, bringing everyone's attention to her. The kittykitty was still winding around everyone's feet, purring as it rubbed against their ankles and shins.

"Our guest has informed us that the jumpdrive is ready to go and head toward the coordinates he has locked in," Nakteti said. "Our destination point is," she consulted her datapad. "Eleven hundred and six light years away."

That got groans. At the speed of the old jump drive it would take just over two years to reach the destination.

"Our guest stripped most of the recreational facilities we had left for scrap so he could perform repairs," Laminati said. He held up a catching hand. "Not that I'm complaining. I'm grateful to our guest."

The kittykitty jumped up onto his lap and he laughed, petting it. "And to you too, kittykitty."

It was a kittykitty who had found him, hanging in the void, the tips of his boots kissed and licked by the jumpshield.

"It won't take that long," Lektat said. He tapped the bottom of his half-full plastic glass on the table. "Our new friend 'tuned and repaired' our drive, to use his words."

"How long will it take us?" Hlenkut asked, thinking over how she'd help everyone mitigate their stress. She suddenly remembered what Lektat had said. "Oh. The drive."

Lektat nodded. "Grasp the table, friends," he warned. Everyone present grabbed the edge of the table with their gripping hands, Chakuva lifting his severed arm then lowering it with a grimace.

He looked at them all. "According to our drive diagnostics and astrogation software, it will take us 19.7 days without using what Fido has labeled as 'jumpstreams' and if we use those it will take us six point three days."

That got exclamations of shock and disbelief.

"Once you hit those speeds in jumpspace the ship just dissolves away!" was one protest.

"We'll all be smeared across jumpspace, screaming for eternity!" was another.

"How do you know we'll go that fast?" was the biggest third.

Nakteti rapped on the table with her catching hands, getting attention. She had to admit, she was still holding tight to the table.

"And you can't chase another ship in jumpspace, and flames can't exist in space, and sound doeesn't carry in vacuum," Nakteti said. "However, does anyone really find something as simple as jumpspace mechanics that shocking compared to what our pilot has just revealed."

Half of them turned to Ulamanti with questions in their eyes. The young Tnvaru had been the top of her class in astrogation and navigation. Nakteti had moved Lektat to pilot after his impressive showing during the 'battle' and promoted Ulamanti to navigator.

Ulamanti shook her head. "The math checks out. I ran the formulae Fido provided, did all the math, once even doing it by hand on strips of plas, and it all checks out. That second shift formulae that he called highjump is..." she trailed off for a second, then shook her head, "It's blindingly obvious once you see it. I mean, I saw it, and I instantly wondered why I had never seen it or even thought about it. It's such a basic, such a simple formula."

"If the formula an alien robot gave you is real," Selkamin said. "I want it to be real," he gave a wry movement with his ears. "But our luck hasn't been good lately."

"We're still alive," Nakteti argued. "I had every crewmember familiar with jumpspace mathematics look at the two critical formula and every one of them repeated what Ulamanti said. How did we not see this before."

"Even I myself, someone who is known to have missed a branch or two I have jumped for, couldn't believe how obvious it was," Hlenkut said, smiling.

That got nods. So much of the formulas, from alloy creation to circuit design to energy flow was so simple, so glaringly obvious once they had seen it, it had been almost humiliating. The jumpdrive tuning was so basic and simple that Taltek, a jumpdrive tech with decades of experience, had screeched with rage for nearly a full minute. He had ranted against idiot instructors who said such formula were wrong, ranted against years of his life wasted in jumpspace. After that he had not only stopped protesting against modifications to the hardware and software of the jumpdrive, he had actively helped Fido make modifications.

"So we can head home?" Ulamanti asked, looking down at her severed leg. "I would, so much, like to visit a medical center."

Nakteti shook her head. "That thing might still be out there. Fido didn't think his friend, Daxin, would be able to stop that monster. Which means it's still out there."

"But you can't follow someone..." Selkamin started and then looked down, flattening his ears in embarrassment.

"In jumpspace," Lektat finished. "I agree with the Captain. We can't go back," He gave a laugh. "Fido says he's taking us to his home, to meet others like that Daxin. They said that they can help."

"We need help. I need help," Hlenkut said. "My medical bay consists of what Fido could help me rig up and what I could scavenge from various medical kits that survived the battle."

"Are we sure we..." Selkamin started, then looked down again. "If he was going to kill us, he would have done it days ago."

"Exactly. We don't really have a choice," Nakteti said.

"I'm worried, to be honest," Selkamin said, looking up. He tapped the synthskin grafts with his catching hands. "What kind of people are Fido's people? How do we know they will help us? Look at what we saw from this 'Daxin's' ship. We could barely see the battle, we couldn't track his missiles, we could barely keep a hold on him. If he's typical of his people, what does that mean for us? We're weaker than they are."

"Yet he not only came to our aid," Lektat said softly. He reached out and touched the kittykitty, running one finger up and down what it called its tummitummi. "This Daxin sent us four of his friends to help us escape a battle we had no chance of winning."

"Selflessness and charity are one of the cardinal civilized virtues," Hlenkut said. "I say we do it."

The vote was taken and to Nakteti's surprise it was passed without a single dissenting vote.

Not even on the catching hands.

"It's agreed," Nakteti. "Let Fido know we want to leave as soon as possible."

----------------

Two Mid Cycles, ten of Fido's "days" each, and the ship smelled of stale body odor, stressed alloys, and strangely, of fresh cut green things, a side effect of what Fido called 'highjump' when the It Tastes Sweet went from normal jumpspace speeds to ludicrous speeds. They couldn't use the "jumpstreams" since the ship's structure picked up a grinding shuddering harmonic within an hour of hitting that high energy stream of space that the Unified Science Council had always insisted would make ship that so much as grazed it explode.

Fido was sitting on the bridge, his strong legs locked into the bulkhead, the kittykittys hidden within his robotic body. Fido had whined when he realized that Nakteti planned on dropping from jumpspace to realspace without everyone in their vac-suits.

Remembering last time, she'd ordered everyone aboard into their armored versions and overridden any objections with loud vocalizations high pitched enough to hurt the ear.

The bridge looked like they were going to war. The ship's weapons ready but not loaded or fully energized, simply ready to bring into action at a moment's notice. Shields, what few they still had left beyond the debris shields, were ready to snap up to replace the jumpshields the minute they entered realspace.

To the crew it felt like battle-stations going into a war.

It, surprisingly, made them feel less anxious.

The swirling colors vanished, replaced with a gut wrenching crack with realspace. Again Nakteti noticed the difference in dropping down using Fido's computations. To her it only proved that Fido had formula for the computations that her own people did not and was able to account for some energy or movement or something that Nakteti's people didn't even know of.

The main view screen, cobbled together out of a dozen entertainment screens from empty berths, came back to life, showing not only stars but a burning yellow star in the distance.

//home home home//

--cuddle cuddle cuddle--

"Scans coming back in three, two, one," Vekan said.

"Drive nominal, realspace controls steady," Lektat said. The grav-generator had been repaired, bringing back artificial gravity, but Nakteti could swear she felt the ship shift slightly

"We're getting a com request and a computer link request," Selkamin said.

//FIDO-FREEBORN goodboi 437KL6365F1D0//
appeared on Selkamin's monitor.

"Let it through. Let the omnitranslator handle anything," Nakteti said. "Let's see if Fido's linguistics pack and lexicons are good."

"Coming through now," Selkamin said softly.

"Can you see the broadcaster?" Nakteti asked. Vekan shook his head.

"Just a jumpspace buoy," Vekan said.

The screens flickered for a moment then all got on the same page, the image clearing up, as strong and as clear as if the broadcaster was within grasping arm distance of the It Tastes Sweet instead of an unknown distance away.

It was a large room with a table in the middle and three chairs on each side, all swiveled so that the beings in the chair could face the recorder. There was a single chair at the far end and the recorder was positioned in such a way that it felt that they were sitting at one end of the table.

It was the figures in the chairs that caught everyone's attention.

Primates. Short, stocky, some of them with hair on the top of their head, others without. Primate sexual dimorphism was on display, two of the seven primates being obvious females. Nakteti noticed that all of them were keeping their faces carefully expressionless, hands flat on the table. The one at the far end looked down at a hidden terminal for a moment, obviously looking at the customs lexicon that Selkamin had sent over.

According to Fido's lexicon a simple statement would ease any tension when dealing with Terrans.

"May we enter?" Nakteti asked.

The six primates on the side all looked at one another, then nodded to the one at the far end of the table.

"You may enter. Come in, friends," The primate said. He glanced down at the lexicon again, obviously using it to guide him during a First Contact.

Tnvaru were very informal over communications. Formality was reserved for business dealings, military officers, and relationships. Formality would worry the Tnvaru, make them concerned that a simple meeting had military or business matters weighing on it.

"Well now, it looks like you've had a brush with someone unfriendly," the one at the far end stated. "Welcome to Terran Confederacy space."

He paused for a moment.

"Are you in need of assistance?"

Fido gave three sharp barking sounds. The primate on the middle right looked down then up at the one at the end.

"They've been rescued by a Fido, an old one," She said.

"Yes, please help us," Nakteti said. "It's killing us."

--------------------------

TO: CONINT

CC: ALLINT, ALLGOV

SUBJECT: PRECURSOR

Guardian 442 Station reports that a First Contact xenosapient craft entered the system and requested assistance. They were attacked by a Precursor Harvester Class Goliath, which attempted to drive them toward their home system. From what scan data remained in their computers after a bad case of jumpscorch it looks like it was in the outer-system spaces approximately three lightyears out from their colony, which explains why their colony made it three years before it attacked.

Onboard they had one of the older FIDO models. Older doesn't really cut it. We think this one is from the First Biological Sapient War, about 150 Post-Human-Diaspora. It's owner/partner, Daxin Freeborn, ID number is even older. You know that old joke where the old guy gives a System Identification Number and it's like a 3. Yeah, this guy's number is only 12 digits, which is pre-diaspora.

The FIDO and Freeborn's scans and data confirm beyond any doubt this is a Harvester Class.

Everyone, we need to get on this. If this thing gets the time, it'll be a scourge.

These new guys, they don't stand a chance. They'll get slaughtered by the billions if we don't help.

--Fleet Admiral Carter Inxita'alkik, Confederate Navy, 16th Fleet

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

TRAENA'AD HIVE WORLDS INTERNAL MEMO

Seed the birthing chambers with warriors genes and pack the warrior gel deep.

A Harvester has been sighted.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CLONE WORLD DIRECTORATE INTERNAL MEMO

Search the geneseed. Convert birthing chambers to military output.

Activate ship-yard cloning bays, we're going to need workers.

A Harvester Class Goliath Precursor war machine in optimum condition has been spotted.

This will be a years long one, my brothers and sisters.

Gird your loins for war.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

ARTIFICIAL BIOLOGICAL STATES INTERNAL MEMO

Harvester Class Goliath has been found. Alert the Warformed.

We go to war, my gene-brethren

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INFONET INTERNAL MEMO

One of the Great Old Ones has been spotted, full of wrath and hatred.

Start creating the hashes.

It must be put down, for the good of us all.

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TERRASOL.GOV INTERNAL MEMO

Daxin Freeborn is one of the oldest clinical immortals on record. We're talking before even the Federation. He's the only survivor of the Ladinston 194 massacre and has fought in every war since. His FIDO is the oldest in service, same with his CATZ. A clinical misanthrope, this guy has been there and done it all. His current ship is a FACEY-MCFACEPUNCH Class Frigate he purchased from the Pluto Scrapyard auctions, uparmed and uparmored from his contacts throughout CONFED space.

As such, we estimate a 32% chance that he's still alive and harrying it.

He wouldn't have sent his FIDO with a Precursor alert unless he was certain, and this old bastard has been part of every single Precursor War we've fought.

Go to military budget, fire up the cold-sleep fleets before those things swarm us under.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

CYBORG COOPERATIVE INTERNAL MEMO

DAXIN FREEBORN CALLS TO YOU! A HARVESTER GOLIATH IS AWOKEN! AN ATTACK ON ONE OF US IS AN ATTACK UPON US ALL! THE HARVESTER SEEKS TO ELIMINATE YOUR INDIVIDUALITY! RISE UP RISE UP!

IN FIRE AND CHROME WE GO TO WAR, BROTHERS!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLD INTERNAL MEMO
oh shit

The Terrans are riled up.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

Chapter Fourteen (Daxin)

Flames scorched Daxin, foul and debased energies lashed his very soul, and he gritted his teeth to hold back the scream of agony as his skin slowly melted away moving through hellspace. His legs were exhausted, burning with pain, the bones splintered and shattered like ground glass. Every gasp was an agony, every inhalation torture as the jagged splintered edges of broken ribs scraped his lungs, as his bruised and punctured diaphram quivered in agony trying to force him to breathe in and out. His teeth were mostly shattered, only two incisors left to keep a bare handful of molars company, his tongue burnt and lacerated and tasting battery acid and blood. One eye was swollen shut, the flesh bruised and cut over an empty socket. Fingers were torn and broken on one hand, the wrist broken, the arm slashed, but his other hand could still make a fist and he kept it clenched in hate.

Every second was torture.

He hit the black mirror full of flames and pain and tortured memories of past wounds, the mirror flexing, stretching, shattering, the glassnotglass slashing his face, his arms, his shoulders, flaying skin from his body. Daxin hurtled his rage out into the uncaring void as he entered realspace.

Daxin screamed in wrath and hate as hellspace slid off his skin, the great iron doors of Hades slammed shut, and he slid into the blessed coolness of realspace.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

The two screams met, mingled, rippling space-time. Daxin's roaring bellow of hate shattered the screech of damnation that the Leviathan howled at him,

Realspace returned with a jerk that made Daxin vomit.

I AM A MAN! MEAT OVER CODE! MUSCLE OVER METAL!

I JUST WANT LEFT ALONE!

A giant, an ogre, a massive creature in heavy spiked plate armor swung an axe down at Daxin's battered body and Daxin barely managed to roll out of the way, kicking out with one foot, driving the giant back a step. It roared and swung a spiked fist at Daxin but Daxin managed to scramble up to his feet, slapping the fist aside and driving his own fist into the giant's side. It roared in anger and Daxin bellowed raw hatred back. The giant warhammers, one in each of its four arms, swung at Daxin but he managed to throw himself aside and avoid...

The main gun batteries missed Daxin by only a hundred kilometers as Daxin's senses all shifted, pulling his conscious mind out of the stupor and turning awareness back even as his subconscious and the Rboi still ran the fight.

Everything was redllined, everything was overheated, he was having problems venting the heat. He'd dropped his last thermal cores into the way of the Leviathan, risking overheating and having them detonate inside his hull, using them as mines that had washed superheated matter across its bow. Daxin had timed it so C+ warshot impacted the continental shelf the Leviathan called a bow, the shells blowing deep through kilometers of liquified armor before "impacting" deep inside.

The forward main guns, huge batteries with barrels by the thousand measured in meters, eight hundred kilometers worth the main guns, had exploded. The Leviathan had streamed liquified alloys and metals into space, energy exploding outward like a sun had ignited.

But the injury, as severe as it was, was like carving out the Grand Canyon across the western edge of Australia and not much else.

To Daxin and his warboi's shock, that's when it ran.

Bringing himself back to reality, Daxin blinked, clearing blood from his eyes, and saw the Leviathan was racing for the inner system, screaming again, but the scream was different this time.

THERE MUST BE MORE FOR ONE TO ENDURE

The signal was broadcast omnidirectional. Across all the spectrums, from X-ray to visible light, across every band it could scream.

THAT was a new signal. Something Daxin had never heard. It was new.

And Daxin, like most humans, had long ago learned that in this universe, new was usually bad.

The warbois urged him to keep heading in-system, keep harrying the Leviathan, stay on it, stay after it, not to let it run away and lick its wounds.

Instead Daxin ordered the overheating creation engine to build a thermal core and a high-spike decoy. It was 80% slush, but he had no choice.

The Leviathan kept hammering deeper and deeper in system, screeching that signal over and over.

It wasn't panic. The Precursor ships were incapable of panic.

Daxin felt cold sweat prickle across his back as he went to full deceleration.

This one was calling for friends.

No. You never find them more than one at a time. They hate each other just as much as they hate everyone else. They've decided that there can only be one to benefit from the universe's finite resources, Daxin thought. He searched his memory, urged his ship to search the archives and memory banks.

To fit the profile and drive signature of the ship.

Two of his three zero-point reactors were near-dead, heating up slowly, and he didn't have long before he would have to eject them or soak them in supercoolant. The particles that ran the zero-point reactors had changed state too far and were now moving toward each other.

The warbois rejoiced as Daxin fired the sole working C+ cannons, one of them jumping its track as its warped barrel split down the side. The missiles races out, not bothering with stealth, just going to max acceleration, programmed to deploy the submunitions then slam into the rear of the Leviathan. The warbois inside rejoiced, gibbering and dancing with glee. Beam weapons tore out, long stripes of ravening coherent light that actually carried physical weight.

His/ship's memories couldn't find any reference to the drive signature or the weapon's signature. Daxin has smashed his way through more than a half-dozen Precursor Wars and even his own personal memories couldn't find a single...

The weapons hit. The C+ shells first, slamming into the still burning central engine, seeking and questing for anything vulnerable, the warbois in the hyperdrive guidance system chattering with glee as they activated the drive one last time in a fluttering stutter that ripped parts of the drive tube away and smeared them across the eternity of hyperspace. The missiles giggled and raved as they shattered by design. Even the energy beams howled with glee.

Two more of the massive engines went dark and something exploded nearly a hundred miles further into the ship, energy, vaporized metal, and more pluming out of the top and bottom.

...wait...

The return volley nearly took Daxin's "head" off, ripping deep enough that one of his engine flared out and Daxin vomited blood into space.

...not a ship drive, not energy signatures.

Daxin ordered the half-finished thermal core loaded up, the ragged barely working decoy loaded.

It hurt, it was needles and sawblades being pushed into his flesh but he gritted his teeth and accepted the pain.

...there... that memory...

Daxin's own...

Those Locust class Precursor replicators. Those had only been seen once, on Veremek's Crossing, when they'd left the depths of a gas giant and attacked the settled planets. They'd ravaged those planets, had taken twelve years to dislodge, and even then they'd glassed half of the surface of the planets they'd assaulted.

there are always at least two sides in a war

Daxin loaded his suspicions and proof into a hyperspace capable message torp and fired it off, then cracked his last one open. He needed to see, needed to give the torp the proof.

His senses detected them. Helldrives lighting off on the surface of eight of the barren planets in the system, more in the gas giants. He focused his long range scanners on the nearest one, a planet.

At first nothing happened. The surface was marred by craters, dust across the airless surface, the core dead and still. Then it started, the dust trembling, shaking, then rising up in plumes. Cracks appeared in the planet's surface as a section the size of the Leviathan started lifting up from the rest of the planet.

The Leviathan's brother, the first to awaken, the first to break free, lifted free of the planet, tearing apart the continental plate as it rose from where it had stilled and then siphoned away the planet's nickle-iron core.

WE ARE ONE

Daxin ejected the decoy, ejected the thermal core with it, vomited up more blood, ejected the critical red-lining zero-point reactors along the same trajectory as the decoy. He shut it all down. All but the hyperdrive. Everything but his emergency life support feed that began dropping rapidly in charge as he used it to stay connected to the hypercore.

The hyperdrive was charged.

He had one shot.

One chance.

His nerves were stretched tight as he whispered to himself in the darkness as the Leviathan's brothers tore their way free of their tombs where they had slumbered for millions of years.

He launched the second torpedo.

it's not the metal it's the meat

His senses detected the thermal core detonating, the superheated protomatter exploding and washing over the lukewarm zero-point reactors, overheating them. They exploded with fury.

Just before the intial cascade of high energy particles reached him, he triggered the hyperdrive, flaring it so that energy burst out in a halo as if an overstressed drive had exploded. The torpedo vanished.

The split second jump dropped him the Oort cloud, slapping into a thin cloud of hydrogen that stretched, bulged, then let him puncture the cloud and come to rest deep inside the cloud, surrounded by wisps of oxygen and nitrogen.

Daxin ordered the fixbois to work, the last warboi to keep watch, and closed his eyes.

His ship slowly used magnetics to pull in the dissipate gasses. One fixboi spotted a comet and used the last remaining force projector, damaged though it was, to deflect it toward the ship and pull it close.

Creation Engine: 96% Slush and falling. Thermal level falling.

I just want left alone.

------------------------------

NEKO MARINE ALERT

ZEN SENSO ZEN SENSO ZEN SENSO

ZEN KAWAII! KAWAII-DESU!! DOKI DOKI DOKI

WAAAAAARRRGGH!

FOR THE EMPEROR!

-------BEAUTY FOLLOWS-------

DA ORKIEST ORK BOSS SEZ

WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!

------DO NOT FOLLOW ME-----------

Loyal Subjects, hear my call! One of the Ancient Enemy has arisen! He threatens the lands and all the people of our beloved and honored Aastruk of the Razored Maw and Gentle Claw! His people, the people of his friends, all of his peoples, are threatened with dire oblivion! Shall we stand aside and let our friend down? I SAY THEE NAY! Now is the time to gird your loins in enchanted steel, wield the blade that cuts the wind, bring magic powerful and sublime to fearsome life! The enemy will drown all in darkness and all we have done will be cast away on the wind.

I say thee, NAY! Not as long as strength lies in a single limb, not as long a single drop of blood remains! We shall not let the light fade from this world or others! We shall carry the fire of light and love and beauty within us as we raise our voices in song and join this Holy Crusade!

Elves, Dwarves, Humans! All who kneel before my throne, the time is now!

War, rude and uncouth, is thrust upon us!

Heed my call, beautiful ones, for to war we go!

All DLC is unlocked, all Holy Expansion Packs are unlocked, all items on the Grand Item Shop are unlimited and without cost for all who join the Holy Crusade of Beauty and Life!

The fallen shall be remembered in song and art for eons to come! True heroism never dies!

Join me! Join my armies! Join for love! Join for song! Join for glory! Join for honor!

FOR LIGHT! FOR BEAUTY! FOR FRIENDS JUST MET! FOR TERRA-SOL!

Her Eternal Elven Grace, Divine Light of the Aether, Lady of Magic and Power, Queen Radosalvov.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

ALL GAME ALL BRACKETS ALL LADDER ANNOUNCEMENT

Unlimited point army battles coming soon! Unlimited land, sea, air, space armies! Unlimited ally contracts!

NON-CANON ALLY CONTRACTS PERMITTED

THIS IS IT BOYS!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

ALL COSPLAY ANNOUNCEMENT

Triple points awarded, full WARCON at TBA.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREEWORLDS INTERNAL MEMO

The Terrans are howling for blood. Something about these Precursors drive them absolutely "blood crazy" to use their words. A full 11% of them are howling for war, all rushing for the Dead Zone.

Those races don't stand a chance against even a single Precursor machine, much less what was reported. In an unheard of move those things are cooperating instead of killing each other.

Brothers, we should consider giving up our vows of pacifism to at least allow us to assist the Terrans.

How bad are the Terrans taking it?

They're thawing out the idiots.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

Daddy;

I know you might not approve, but I have to go. I have to fight. I can't bear the thought of those gross Precursor things hurting those squirrels. It's just awful and I can't stand it.

Please don't be mad. I have to do this. Haven't you always said the strong endure to protect the weak?

Daddy, they were so small. I have to help.

Love;

Sandy

Chapter Fifteen

It had started slow.

A research station here. A science outpost there. A new or struggling colony over in that place. Ships vanishing now and then. A few GalNet posts had to be censored for disturbing content. A few Universal Social Media posters had to be banned for violation of the Anti-Violence Statutes. Then gaps in GalNet started blossoming out on the Unified Outer Territories but nobody was that worried, half of those worlds were the UnUnified Races or the Uncivilized Races, some of whom had barely had star drive for a century.

But whispers started.

Something was out there. Something was wiping whole worlds away.

Those who whispered first found their posts wiped away with no explanation. Then they found their accounts more than banned, they were purged.

Then those who whispered started vanishing.

A Vuknaraa with 1.2 billion followers mentioned that her cousin out at a research station hadn't GalNetted her in over a year.

Less than an hour later she was gone. Not just from GalNet.

Her luxury apartment, with eight private rooms, was empty and for purchase.

A Tnvaru shipping magnate mentioned to some friends at dinner that his second cousin, who had established a colony three years ago, had missed her last six shipping deadlines.

He vanished without a tuft of fur.

The dull gray vehicles of the Executors were seen. Those who recorded them vanished.

Then it happened. A capital world started screaming. Video, audio, text, pictures, flooded GalNet with the governor's code attached so that it couldn't be supressed without wiping out whole nodes of GalNet, which the Unified Science Council would never allow.

Beings watched in horror as ships fired from orbit, boiling away oceans, turning the very atmosphere to plasma fire, turning the exposed bedrock of the planets to glass. Massive war machines landed on planets, disgorging smaller ones, that began swarming cities and killing all who inhabited it.

They didn't just kill.

Killing was clean. Killing was quick.

Most machines, by accident or design, just killed.

These machines murdered.

The video of a sobbing Inhamahn brood mother, an EVR rig sloppily put onto her, the skullcap held in place by jagged shards of metal, being held in cold steel claws and being watched as each egg was smashed, the insides smeared across her feathers and beak, before her head was twisted off from the body, had over 1.2 trillion views on GalNet before the EVR video was wiped away.

It wasn't recorded by a bystander.

The machines themselves had recorded it.

Recorded her despair on EVR.

Had preserved every egg being broken, every unborn chick being crushed, every iota of her pain.

And posted in GalNet.

Every post, every video, ever picture, every audio file, all had the same header.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

Audio of an entire city of 1.2 billion Savashan screaming in pain and agony was overlaid across the Unified Executor Council's broadcast for calm, over their claim that rogue hackers were simply trying to alarm people.

Before 12.5 trillion viewers the twelve council speakers were each overlaid with smaller videos of a member of their race not only being killed.

But being murdered.

The code that overrode the broadcast turned out to be a high level intelligence agencies disaster code from a world that had gone silent months before.

Random pictures and videos started having horror attached. A random advertisement for an air vehicle would have the vehicle suddenly massacre the happy family, with complete EVR of how it felt to be part of them. A simple picture of a sunset suddenly warped and showed a metal claw crushing a screaming Elmetankii.

The Chief Executor's, a Savashan with glossy scales and a thick tail, made an announcement watched by trillions that everything was under control. His image was suddenly replaced by a tiny unborn Savashan being pulled from its egg by a barbed needle, the tiny saurian squirming before plasma roasted it alive even as the Chief Executor's voice droned on and anyone with EVR felt the infant's confusion and agony replace the Chief Executor's calm and confidence.

The victim had the colors of the Chief Executor's brood.

Planetary governments began screaming for protection, demanding that the Unified Military Fleet protect their worlds, no matter how far from the encroaching blackness they were.

The fact that there wasn't enough ships in all of the Fleet to post a single ship at even a 10th of the worlds was leaked onto GalNet public information boards before the Unified Military Fleet could even make a decision.

The Unified Military Fleet was ordered to protect the Core Worlds, the oldest worlds, of the most powerful and wealthy of the Unified Civilized Races. Some ships mutinied, heading for the home worlds of the majority of the crew.

Others vanished into jumpspace and were never seen again.

Riots started, sweeping over major cities. Government officials and peacekeepers were killed where the mobs found them. GalNet was awash with video of the riots, taken from the omnipresent cameras. Those hunted by the rioters found their locations being reported on GalNet.

And the location of their families.

Their killings were broadcasted live.

GalNet became a horror show.

Then the virii attacked. Slashing into databases, from lowly cooking recipes to high end corporate research R&D databases. They were everywhere.

And they knew how to kill any who wore EVR.

Horribly.

GalNet became a war-zone where the virii, self-replicating and evolving, attacking everything from public transport to person to person calls.

One place fought back.

They erected barricades of neon and chrome, raised up firewalls of streaming green code, and attacked back.

Code that worked within a simple game worked outside, on GalNet itself, but it had to be guided, had to be used to be effective. It required will.

From out of a simple game poured tens of millions to fight.

Battlefields were strewn with the gasping avatars of dying players and the scattered prisms of defeated virii. Foxholes were dug into shattered infostores, berms erected inside Social Media chat rooms littered with the dead, aid stations built in the wreckage of traffic control systems.

They were defeated, no matter how valiant they were, more often then they won.

They still fought on. Climbing over their dead and wounded, taking the fight to the virii.

But the message had gone out.

Then, one day, for no particular reason at all, a diplomat was shot in the head.

In GalNet, in bunkers of chrome and neon, in fortifications of streaming green code, in foxholes dug into shattered databases, the word went out.

HOLD THE LINE, CHUMMERS!

WE'RE COMING!

--------------------

Kuldunaat stood on the bridge of the Gentle Mercy of Untaraa with his hooves braced and his coat expertly manicured. His hooves shown, his sash of leadership glittered with medals, his feeding tentacles were plump with confidence, his jowls mighty and pendulous. His six eyes, two in back, two to the sides, two in front, were clear and focused as he waited with confidence for the First Communications Technician to tell him a message was waiting.

The four scanning techs, all of the First Class Order, were still staring at the screens, plying their scanners and displays for the smallest iota of data, the faintest wisp of ion trail, the faintest ping of jumpspace energy.

On the display was a fleet. It annoyed Kuldunaat, High Executor of the Unified Executor's Fleet, that the ships on the display outnumbered him.

It was most vexing that over half of them were larger even than his flagship.

"Harumph, put them on screen, they've waited long enough," He intoned, his tendrils trembling with amusement as he lifted his crest into an authoritative position.

The screen switched from showing those strangely arrayed ships, so different from the elegant and overwhelming line of his ships, to showing a bridge full of...

...of primates.

And not halfway civilized primates, but ones with forward facing eyes, almost furless except for what was on their heads. Two had no hair on their heads but instead their scalps were smooth and gleamed in the light. They all wore uniforms, stark uniforms made for utility rather than to properly show a being's rank and position.

Not a sash to be seen.

The centered primate, a bald one, simply stared at Kuldunaat. To his right one of the primates was smirking, hair around his mouth as he crossed his legs.

"May we come in?" The bald one asked.

"Harumph, I think not," Kuldunaat said. "Who am I speaking to?"

"Admiral Krempin, Terran Confederate Navy," The being said. Rather than continue on with his species, his rank, and his position, he simply leaned back and waited.

"Why are you here?" Kuldunaat said.

A small window opened up, crackling into being. A figure wearing a set of armor with thick plates appeared. It was obviously female, a mix of primate and feline, and her eyes were replaced by swirling spirals. Little animated fists waved over her head and steam shot from the cracks of her thick plated armor.

"DOKI DOKI DOKI!" the little figure squeaked.

One of the primates that had first appeared touched the panel in front of them and the strange window vanished.

"Apologies. Some of my troops are over-stimulated at the idea of assisting you," The bald primate said.

The one with hair on his face smirked wider.

"Why are you here?" Kuldunaat said, harumphing again.

"To render assistance. Are you a representative of your government?" The primate, Admiral Krempin asked mildly, as if he was inquiring about the weather.

"I am the High Executor of the Unified Executor's Fleet, the most learned and powerful Kuldunaat. And why do you think we need assistance?" Kuldunaat asked.

The words "DOKI DOKI DOKI" danced at the edge of the viewscreen, with "WAAAAAAGH!" floating up from the bottom and "FOR THE EMPEROR!" streaming down the other side.

The same primate as before made a motion on her board and the sets of symbols vanished.

"Again, pardon. My troops are eager to assist," Admiral Krempin said again.

The smirker smirked harder. He was really starting to get on Kuldunaat's nerves. It was like he knew that when Kuldunaat was a child he had stolen a schoolmate's lunch and eaten it before blaming it on another.

"And again, I ask of you, what makes you think we need assistance?" Kuldunaat asked.

Twelve thousand light years away an inversion charge turned a city of 250 million into ash.

Over a period five minutes.

The city's screams were recorded and broadcast onto GalNet.

"From what we have observed and learned, you have a Precursor problem," The Admiral said.

The smirker kept smirking. Now Kuldunaat could swear he could see the slightest suggestion of a hint of bared teeth.

He was really yanking on Kuldunaat's tendrils.

"The Precursor's have been dead for over a hundred million years," Kuldunaat scoffed.

"But their war machines are not," The Admiral said, making a basic primate shrug. "Right now, they're massacring your people."

"That is baseless foundless panic inducing rumors! That is disgusting anti-Executor propa..." the High Executor cut off as the female feline-primate hybrid, reduced to a cartoon, ran onto the screen.

The Admiral held his hand up and stopped her by placing his palm against her cartoon forehead. She flailed against the air like she was actually there and trying to strike at him past his hand.

"DOKI DOKI DOKI WAAAAAAARRRRGH!" the little cat-hybrid shrieked in a high pitched voice that made Kuldunaat and most of the rest of the bridge crew wince.

The Admiral turned slightly, pursed his lips, and blew.

The little hybrid in the heavy ornate power armor with overly thick plates tumbled off the screen.

"For a rumor they seem to be burning your systems at a rapid pace," The Admiral said. He stood up, leaning forward slightly, and the smirker's smirk got smirkier. "You let them get a foothold and now your systems are infested."

His eyes got intent.

"May we come in?" He asked.

Kulumaat opened his mouth to deny this annoying uncivilized brute when the door to the lift opened up. A dozen Savashan rushed the bridge, waving small arms taken from the security armory.

"YES! YES! COME IN! WE REQUIRE ASSISTANCE!" One screamed. "HELP US!"

"That's good enough for me," The Admiral said, leaning back.

A cartoon version of the Savashan, a lowly Janitorial Technician Fifth Class, appeared on the screen, lifted up in celebration by cartoon heavily muscled green primates with overly large tusks, the green primates wearing stuck together metal plates painted red and yellow and firing weapons into the air in joy at the word WAAAAGH appeared over the Savashan. They paraded the Savashan back and forth as dozens of little armored cat/primate hybrids ran around him waving tufts of multicolored plastic strips and throwing hearts and sparkles into the air.

The screen went dark.

"HOW DARE Y..." Kulumaat started to say.

His bridge captain, an Inhamahn , smoothly drew her pistol and shot Kulumaat in the back of the head.

The last thing that appeared in Kulumaat's darkening vision was the face of the smirker.

Smirking.

----------------------

TO: ALL

GO GO GO GO GO!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

MANTID FREE WORLDS INTERNAL MEMO
oh god

Chapter Sixteen

The ship was elegant, with sleek lines and sweeping curves. The engines thrummed pleasantly, the lights moved in patterns that brought satisfaction with their mathematical progressions, the hull colors were smooth and brought to mind comfort and calm.

The ones escorting it, though, surrounding it in a sphere of heavy metal, were obviously not built to calm anyone. They bristled with weapons that snarled silently, heavy with thick armor that felt heavy and crushing to the eye, the engines growled with barely restrained energy, and the lights seemed to search for weakness.

They appeared, silently, streaking in even though they arrived at a full stop, all at once. The formation was tight and precise, engineered to ensure ships could support one another while protecting the elegant one.

From the biggest of the ugly ships came the broadcast.

"WE ARE THE CONFEDERACY!" rang across every datascreen, across every display, roared from every speaker, and vibrated every loose piece of metal to howl the words in a hundred different languages across every world, station, and ship in the system. "WE ARE HERE TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE!" roared across the system. "WE WERE INVITED IN!"

The words dripped with something that the Unified Civilized Races members that lived in the Prime Unified Capital didn't understand.

From the elegant ship came smooth code, using elegance gleaned from Unified Civilized Species lexicons. It was a quiet transmission, polite, and elegant.

"May I come in?"

Those words were transmitted to the Unified Civilized Council's First Secretary. Politely waiting in the buffer until the secretary uncurled from under her desk to answer her coms.

She thought for a moment, remembered the roared words, and transferred the call to her supervisor before hiding back under her desk.

Over the course of several hours the call wound its way through the labyrinth of the bureaucracy, passed from underling to supervisor to manager to executive.

Half of the problem is the various councils were completely panicking.

System scanners could find the elegant beautiful ship. It was the right size for a person of importance but not ostentatious, big enough for luxury and comfort but not arrogance. Its drive signature was pleasant to behold on every wavelength.

It wasn't the problem.

It was the escorts surrounding it in a multi-layered globe.

Most of the ships couldn't even be detected with anything beyond optical lenses or the naked optic. Either the ships simply didn't exist, were only balls of static three times their visual size, or flickered in and out of the scanners like a poorly tuned holograph. The ones that could be detected read on the scanners that they had no energy signatures, were solid blocks of inert alloy, and had no drive signatures. They might as well have been dead chunks of ore floating in space.

But lights could be seen from them, the faint sparkle of shields could be seen, and the drives leaked energy, all visible on optics or to the naked eye.

And there were hundreds of them.

From tiny needle-like craft that looked like someone built a high thrust engine, slapped some weapons on it, tossed a cockpit on top, then remembered to put armor on the fragile craft, to massive hulking ships, kilometers long and thick, built in a way that the ships proudly and defiantly let anyone who viewed them know that the ships had one purpose and one purpose only.

Breaking other people's shit.

The various councils were in a state of panic, meetings devolving into shouting matches and tantrums, conflicting viewpoints clashing on displays and through the air. The Unified Science Council insisted that the planetary and system scanners had to be in error, their software compromised by the problems plaguing the GalNet of the Unified Inner Systems. The Unified Commerce Council argued over the disruption to industry, trade markets, and the Unified Trade System and urged the Unified Military Fleet to drive the interlopers from Unified Space. The Unified Executor Council blamed the new fleet for the mutiny that had taken place several days before, a mutiny they had only learned about a few hours before the new fleet had arrived.

A mutiny that had cost the Unified Executor Council an entire fleet. A fleet that was nearly 20% of their entire force.

The planet went through three whole rotations before finally the Most Honored of the Unified Supreme Governmental Council answered the waiting transmission. It hadn't been retransmitted, hadn't been repeated, it just sat in the com buffer.

Waiting.

Menacingly.

The lowest ranking member of the council, who had lost the vote almost unanimously, closed four of its eight eyes and reached out with one trembling digit and pressed the blinking icon, cringing at the idea of what would bellow from his speakers.

Instead, in Unified Galactic Standard, a pleasant, calm, and reassuring voice asked: "May I come in?" and flashed an image of the elegant ship. The menacing ones appeared but were crossed out.

This led to a long argument, five turnings of the planet, over just what the message meant.

The Council members argued endlessly, devolving into what the meaning of 'in' really meant several times. Each recess the council members retired to their estates to dine on delicacies, surrounded by opulance and enjoying luxuries.

While their people died by the tens of thousands.

In the middle of such a recess a Vuknaraa snuck into the council chamber, using her stolen and then cloned maintenance ID card, and, looking around wildly with her three hearts pounding in her torso, pressed the "YES" vote icon on the panel of the Highmost.

As she ran away she sobbed, unable to believe what she had done, that she'd accomplished her first meatspace run for Mister Johnson.

But she had no choice. Had no options. Had no respite. Had taken the job because her life had become a horror.

Every cycle, every rotation, her inbox flooded with the same video, every time she logged into social media, she was flooded with the same video, over and over and over, no matter where on GalNet she went, with one exception, that video perused her.

Her creche-mates being skinned alive, roasted with plasma, and devoured by clashing metal jaws that just let the blood, juices, and flesh fall to the ground as the jaws clashed in an obscene parody of eating.

She had tried to pry out her GalNet link implant with a sharp piece of metal, but her apartment's VI had reported her. She'd been whisked to the medical center.

Where they replaced it.

And she'd been immediately flooded with the image again.

So she sobbed as she ran from the Council Center, filled with shame. She ran through darkened rainy streets until she hid in a friend's apartment, curled up in the corner with an EVR headset on. She slept, using the game's built in dream generator to sleep a sleep without nightmares, as two of her friends disabled her GalNet implant and dyed her fur to disguise her. New ID made to hide her. Her name, her brood, her slaughtered creche abandoned to keep the Executors from finding her.

Her name was forgotten by everyone but those she invited in and her chummers.

On the Wrath Forges of Mercury the final strut was infused with wrath and hatred, pounded into place with rage, and inscribed with her name with the fires of vengeance. The massive super-dreadnaught, the CSN Courage in Despair launched into space, it's first transmission her name backed by a scream of rage and hate, pain and loss, vengeance sworn and promised wrath in her name that was carved onto its bow in burning chrome.

Ten thousand Neko Marine cat-girls painted her name in neon pink on banners they then affixed to their armor after chasing one another and striking each other with the banners. A half million Orkz scrawled her name in liquid iron on the sides of their wartoyz, firing their weapons to call out praise to their one true god MOARDAKKA. Her name rang in the pounding of brimstone hammers slamming on the Anvils of Hate of War Fueled Mars, forging for a full turning of Mars chainsword blades inscribed with her name in liquid fury to arm the Chapters of Imperial Marines. Two hundred thousand clones stepped from the cloning tubes with her name before their numbers, giving voice to her name as one as they cocked their mass accelerator rifles. Two million neural smartgun links burned in cold fury with her name inscribed in chrome and fire as the warborgs came online. A quarter-million Treana'ad warrior eggs hatched with her name breathed upon them to dry their wet carapaces.

Across space her name was screamed in rage and hate and burning wrath, a promise of revenge and carnage in the name of one who could not protect herself or her people.

In the hives of the Mantid her name was whispered softly by the blind and deaf albino oracles as they rubbed their vestigial wings together deep in the ruins of the Chambers of the Dead Queens.

When the council reconvened they reacted with horror. Obviously somebeing had turned the sensitivity up too high on their datapads and a stray breeze or an odd piece of lint had touched the icon and now new lines had appeared under the "Yes" reply that none of them had meant to send.

"I await your transmission of landing coordinates with calm and anticipation on being in your presence and hearing your words. Please do not disappoint with delays for anticipation held too long becomes disappointment and grief."

Immediately the council began arguing until the third least ranking member lifted a clawed hand.

"Perhaps we should send landing coordinates before they grow impatient?" He asked.

The arguing turned to whether or not the member's point of order should be recognized when he was Savashan.

During the argument of whether or not to recess for a full rotation or a quarter, another message appeared.

"My companions grow agitated. I apologize, but they are over-stimulated by the thoughts of assisting you. Might I receive landing coordinates so they feel that progress is being made? As it stands I have been required to agree to a security details to assure my companions that my safety will be assured."

The Most High, who had been feeling the strangest emotion, one he could not name despite having mastered his emotions for three centuries, stared at the body before him.

They cannot decide upon what colors of leaves to chew, he realized. His hearts thudded with agitation and he curled his feeding tendrils around his mouth with anxiety. They will still be arguing when those terrible machines break into this very chamber, and then argue over who died the worse.

Without consulting the other members, using executive power so long unused it was viewed as a mere codified abnormality, he transmitted the coordinates of the nearest spaceport and included a message.

"We await your arrival."

The answer was immediate.

"I am coming with my guard."

The council chambered erupted in fury as the other council members protested what he had done.

------------------------

The only warning the spaceport got was the message "HE IS COMING!" that broke through data-streams and screamed from every display. It arrived moments before a half dozen spears of light raked down from the sky, raising up clouds of dust the obscured the vision. The scanners detected nothing but a flare of kinetic energy being dumped into jumpspace, as if a battleship had made the transition from realspace.

When the dust cleared giant bipedal figures were revealed, kneeling on the plascrete of the landing field. Colored dull patterns of gray and black, the mottled scheme made them hard to pick out against the background of the city, confused optics as to depth, as if they were 2D projected in front of the 3D of the city often rippling to appear as if they were made up what was beyond them.

As one they stood up and maintenance techs found themselves gaping as they rose to their full height, higher than the guidance station, higher than the beacon tower, they loomed over the starport on legs twenty meters thick.

"OMNITARGETING LINKAGE ENGAGED," they rumbled as one.

In the rough circle formed by the massive bipedal robots or spaceships or whatever they were was a square made up of four large ships, as large as cargo haulers. Inside that square was an elegantly formed shuttle lavishly decorated.

The cargo haulers dropped their sides open with a KLANG that resonated across the city. From inside poured rank after rank of massive figures clad in ornate heavy power armor, the plates abnormally thick. They marched, in perfect unison, until they were in front of their larger brothers. With a shout they went to kneeling in front of the giants, their heavy bulky weaponry held at ready. Vehicles, squat and deadly looking, bristling with weapons and twinkling with shields, moved on tracks, repulsor fields, anti-grav, and wheels out of the cargo-haulers and took up an inner circle between the giants and the cargo lifters.

The cargo lifters closed the panels and those watching realized with horror that what they were seeing wasn't cargo haulers and gunports opened up and weapons came online.

Most of the starport staff fled.

The commander of the security force stared at the Executor who was demanding, his tendrils shaking in rage and his mouth almost foaming, that the security forces attack the forces arranging themselves on the primary landing pad.

The head of the security force, a normally peace loving being, drew his pistol and shot the Executor through his open mouth.

The front of the smallest craft, the ornate shuttle, unfolded and a round saucer-like vehicle, a darkened and opaque bubble on the center of the top, slowly hummed out. It was surrounded by massive bipedal figures that lacked color, only a flat black coloring their surfaces. Massive rifles were in their hands, cannon-sized tubes extending straight up from their back on their right sides. Their footfalls cracked the plascrete of the spaceport as they followed the vehicle.

The vehicle made its way slowly, stately, to the Unified Galactic Council Chambers. When it arrived the dark bubble detached, revealing itself to be egg-shaped, and it hummed into the building.

One of the massive figured ripped the door off when it opened it, staring at the door with its visor covered face, as if it didn't understand how the door had come off in its warsteel hand.

The High Secretary, who's nerves were stretched to the limit, peeked over her desk as the front row of the massive figures stopped in front of her. Their surface was a matte light drinking black. Their arms and legs were thick machinery that hissed and whirred and purred. Their torsos were solid blocks with plates angled to provide the best deflections. They glimmered and shimmered slightly with some kind of shielding.

They crunched to a stop in front of her desk. After a moment they parted somehow, as if they were able to move aside without motion. The egg moved forward.

"Might I have directions to the High Council Chamber, honored one who serves for other's convenience?" The egg asked in Unified Galactic Standard with smooth tones and a calming accent.

The secretary nodded, gulping with both throats, and brought up a map with directions on it, using her wingtip to flip it toward the egg.

The metal figure on the left moved, it's arm extending and its fist closing with a crunch. On it's black blank face symbols appeared.

:-|

ACCESS DENIED flashed on her screen for a moment.

"She is harmless, honored warborg. Do not impeded her service and sworn task, dutiful one," the egg purred.

The 'warborg' opened its hand ACCESS GRANTED and lowered its arm.

After a moment the egg made another purring noise. "Excellent. You have attended to your duty most splendidly. You have not only my thanks, but the thanks of the Terran Confederacy."

The Secretary nodded and the egg hummed away, two of the massive figures escorting it.

She hid under her desk when she realized all of the massive figures but two of them would be staying with her.

-----------------

The knock on the door startled the Master of Ceremonies, who had nearly fallen asleep as the High Council Members had largely fallen to sulking. He jumped up, yanking open the doors, to reveal a dark gray opaque egg flanked on either side by two huge matte black bipedal robots.

"May I come in?" The egg purred.

"Um, yes?" The Master of Ceremonies answered, wondering which Council member was showing up in such a matter.

The egg moved in, silent, a stately pace.

The two mechanical bipeds moved next to him, the sound of gears whirring, the faint hiss of steam whispered, and the hum of electronics audible to the Master of Ceremonies' ears.

The egg moved to the center of the Council Chamber, coming to a halt. The two massive robotic figures stopped, one to either side, and the members of the High Council stared in confusion, wondering which council member was inside the egg.

The egg vanished with a 'pop', leaving behind five figures. Four were smaller versions of the first, their heads bristling with cybernetics, their carapaces different colors, one green, one black, one russet, one gold. All of them looked around, their antennae twitching.

The biggest one was bone white and clad in swathes of soft blue material. Is was sitting with its four lower legs folded, its two atrophied and vestigial blade-like arms held tight against its chest, its two gripping hands were clasped in front of it. Its multifaceted white eyes glittered in the lights of the Council Chamber as it slowly rubbed its vestigial wings together.

It was also a twelve foot tall preying mantis.

Silence descended on the Council Chamber as the shock of what they were seeing soaked in.

The being took in that moment of silence, relishing it, savoring it, before breaking it by concentrating on its Speaker.

"It appears you have a Precursor problem," The small russet one said.

The Council Chamber exploded in shouting.

----------------------

MANTID INTELLIGENCE MEMO

PSI-LINK COMMUNICATION
have made contact
am before their rulers
many have no inner voice
this is going to be bad

Chapter Seventeen (Crashrider)

Eegleet/Calshiina/CRASHRIDER pressed himself against the wall at the same time as his two chummers did the same. They held still, trusting in their holo-camo to prevent the silent machines, bristling with spikes and blades, from spotting them as the machines moved down the hallway in perfect lockstep.

Crashrider waited ten pulses then held up his black anodized cyberarm and motioned his chummers to follow him. The arm replaced in the game the useless meatspace one that had been burnt and scorched, the nerves reduces to screaming fire and the artery exploding from biofeedback and now hung slack from his meat shoulder.

The group of three moved carefully through the facility. Streaming waterfalls of runic fire covered some walls, some doors were blocked by spiked and bladed code, and three more times they had to press themselves into nooks and crannies as mechanicals moved by.

Some were draped in the raw and bleeding skins of their recent victims's social media profiles and chattered vile runes at one another in mechanical glee.

But they were part of 1337BOYZ, the best of the best, survivors of everything that could be thrown at them.

They'd seen worse.

Crashrider knelt next to a barrier of snarling twisting flowing glowing neon runes that muttered with warnings of dire fate if so much as touched. He brought out his chrome cyberdeck, plugging the wires into the jack in his head. His induction link was long gone, burnt out in the game, his left aural nerves burned out in meatspace. He closed his eyes and saw Calshiina's name flow up, along with the last picture he could find of her.

The last where she wasn't screaming.

He tapped out his code on her and the deck went live, showing the complex twisting venomous serpents that made up the door lock.

He twisted them until their heads bit their own tails, curled them, circled them, gave them a half-twist.

The code of the door flowed smoothly.

They moved through, into the chamber beyond.

Massive glowing racks of supercomputers extended off into infinity, electricity crackling across them, plasma spiders scurrying and looking for any intruders.

The trio were silent as Crashrider knelt down and deployed his cyberdeck again.

They watched nervously as the picoseconds ticked by, stretching into nanoseconds, into seconds, until almost a full minute had gone by.

Crashrider suddenly punched out, falling against his chummer, trembling and sweating from jumpshock.

"Wesa gotta buzzbuzz nownow," Crashrider gasped in streetspeak, clawing at Steeltalon. "Mesa says badbad thinges comecome."

Steeltalon yanked her chummer up, throwing his meat-arm over her shoulder. The three runners threw themselves through the door and let their feet make them their namesakes.

Getting out was faster than getting in, corridors were shorter, fences were meant to keep people from getting in not getting out, and the whole facility seemed to be paralyzed.

As they burst out of the facility they saw the white square hanging in mid-air at the same time a screech erupted from the building.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

Neonbaby looked back and saw the building itself was shifting and changing, tearing its way free of the neon ground, saw its eyes open to sweep across the ground with hatred, seeking who dared come near it.

"A Smaug? Wesa wuz insides a Smaug?" Neonbaby yelled in streetspeak right before they plunged through the white rectangle.

Eeeeeeverryth1ng w3n7 siiiibbbbeeesyawedis Ɉnǝmom ϱnol ɒ ɿoʇ mǝʜɈ no. They were stretched even as they were squeezed and for a second they all were part of eternity and part of entropy. Neonbaby looked back and saw the end of the tube, the way they'd entered, stretch and warp, the tube screaming in agony as the black and red maw pushed its way in. The side of the datatube split as the head of the giant machine pushed deeper in, roaring and screeching as it did so.

Then they were three, falling out of a white rectangle and onto the broken and dusty ground. Crashrider knelt in the dust, coughing and spitting up blood. Steeltalon got to her knees, lifting her SMG and coughing. Neonbaby lunged to his feet, grabbing a grenade off his belt.

"Wesa gotza boomboom da tubez!" he yelled. He threw one, two, three grenades inside the rectangle as everyone else scrambled away.

The rectangle flashed twice and collapsed.

"Get out of the impact zone!" A figure in military camo yelled, gesturing wildly. "Yousas run run! Big boom boom!" he yelled, switching to streetspeak.

The three runners looked around and realized where they were.

The Makalet Fusion Reactor battle zone. Held for almost six months by the Bothan Regiment, a force of Street Sam turned soldiers who refused to back up a single step in the face of a digital onslaught through GalNet nodes the government refused to shut down.

Together they scrambled to the figure, tumbling into its fighting position as dense datapackets of twisting runes slammed into the ground around them, sending up plumes of neon dust and burning chrome.

Above them the sky the color of a TV tuned to a dead station groaned in pain and seemed to bulge.

"Neo, we need an exit!" Steeltalon screeched into her headset.

Crashrider looked at the soldier, who looked beaten and battered but still defiant. "Yousa gotta holdsa it off bang bang muey muey."

The soldier looked at him, wiping the dirt from his face. "What is it?"

The sky tore as the anti-air emplacements began to fire. Rockets, lasers, plasma beams, packets of code washed in grief and hatred all slammed into the sky as the tear began to widen.

"A Smaug," Neonbaby said.

The soldier nodded, looking at Crashrider. "Is it important?"

Crashrider nodded, switching to realcode to avoid misunderstanding. "More important then even the fusion plant."

The soldier hefted a big rotary autocannon. "Go. We'll hold or die here."

"Got an exit!" Steeltalon yelled out. Crashrider turned in time to see the door open up.

A hundred paces away.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

"Go! Mesa cover!" The soldier yelled, leveling his autocannon at the motes floating down from the terrible jaws that had forced their way through the crack in the sky.

The trio scrambled out of the fighting position, running for the gate.

Motes crashed down, revealing themselves to be machines made of vile and blasphemous code. They snapped their pinchers, clacked their jaws, flexed their talons as they oriented themselves.

Two were between the trio and the gate.

"FOR ALDOON!" The soldier bellowed, leveling his 300TB SSD autocannon and clamping down on the smart-trigger. The autocannon has his regiment "BOTHANS" spraypainted on the barrels.

Heavy shells/packets of code slammed into the right hand creature, flipping it over, probing at its belly, finding a weak point, and slashing apart its code. The rate of fire made it look like a solid shaft of light.

BRRRRRRRRRT!

The beam of rotary autocannon fire swept across the trio, the smartlink holding back four bullets by a microsecond, then locked onto the other one, stopping its forward rush toward, not the runners, but the gate itself. It stopped dead, hunkered down, and kept advancing, ignoring the autofire prying at its armor and firewalls.

More of the Bothan Regiment joined their fire as more and more motes slammed to the ground. Their air defense pummeled the head of the Smaug as it pushed its way into the sky.

Neonbaby stopped at the gate, looking at Crashrider. "Is it worth it, chummer?" he asked.

Crashrider nodded.

"Drink me to Freeware, chummer," Neonbaby said, hefting his heavy rifle. He checked his mag.

Proxy-Piercing Virii Rounds.

"Yousa go go nownow," Neonbaby said.

Crashrider didn't pause, didn't take any more time, and threw himself into
ytinrete otni dehsurc yportne ssorca deraems gnilooc gninrub erif noen erif nrob gnieb ekil struh gnizeeuqs gnihcterts
a rainy dark street. Cold neon flickered across dead building facades. In the distance lights of a city could be seen but the datahighways were empty here.

Steeltalon tumbled to the pavement, barely keeping hold of her SMG. She turned toward the white rectangle of the gate.

It turned red, flashed twice, displayed the LAST [CONNECTION LOST TO HOST] CODE, and vanished.

Crashrider could see his bike. A two wheeled ground effect vehicle, high powered gas engine to replace the purring weak electric one, the extras stripped away, a cybercontrol rig expertly attached to it. It sat next to the sidewalk, old screamsheets flapped against the chrome spoked wheels.

"We gotta move!" Crashrider yelled, grabbing Steeltalon.

The big Street Sammy nodded, running for the bike. Enhanced reflexes and musculature got the big street machine there first and she jumped on the back, facing backwards, cocking her SMG and checking the rounds.

TCIPPort Searching IP Tracers.

It would have to do.

Crashrider threw a leg of the seat, grabbed the handlebars with one hand and pulled free the datacord with the other. He kicked the starter to life as he plugged in the datacord, everything synching together. Crashrider maxed the throttle, the rear tired barking and screeching on the dark wet tarmac for a moment before it grabbed. The front wheel lifted for a few dozen feet before it slammed down and they were off.

A bellowed screech echoed through the alleys of The Barrens.

"Someting big big isa coming," Steeltalon yelled.

"Can't talk, must go faster!" Crashrider said. He revved the engine to the redline and swerved between the wrecked, burnt out, scattered vehicles littering the road.

The buildings whipped by, windows shattered and black, some lit by feeble candlelight, a few with pale faces staring out, but most empty. Graffiti started appearing. Specks at first, then letters, then runes, then whole sentences.

A LawSec SWAT vehicle crashed to the road behind them, the road rippling and flexing around it, the buildings swaying like gelatin. Crashrider hit the throttle, ramping off the first ripple into the air, holding it for long seconds, letting the ripples pass beneath them, before slapping back down to the damaged datatube.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE
the SWAT vehicle's sirens screamed. Coiled metal tentacles reached out, realized they were too far and retracted, clicking their graspers in mechanical frustration at being denied their digital flesh.

Steeltalon hosed the entire mag of her SMG into the armored windshield of the SWAT tank and grinned with neon teeth as it suddenly slowly.

There. That graffiti.

Crashrider inhaled and yelled it.

"HACK THE PLANET!"

Fires lit in the alleys and it was roared back to him.

"HACK THE PLANET!"

They were past the fires and Steeltalon saw the streetboyz flood out from the alley into the street, pushing burning cars. Their heavy cybermuscles were covered in tattoos, sweat poured from their brows, but still they brought out heavy weapons that would tear Steeltalon's cybernetic arms off to just try to lift.

The Arnie Awesome's raised their firepower and bellowed out their warcry.

"Let off some steam, Bennett!"

They opened fire on the SWAT vehicle as Crashrider cut the corner hard enough glittering datapulses peeled from the tires and sprayed the facades of the buildings.

Crossing a bridge, Crashrider yanked the bike to the side, lifting the front wheel, slamming into the barricade, and with a scream of tortured code and warping datastrings the bike caught air.

For a second they were suspended in blackness, between one trace and the next, forcing quark drift between two frozen traces of tachyon wire.

For a moment the two runners saw ALL of GalNet.

Then the world came rushing back as the bike slammed down onto railroad tracks. It shuddered and thudded on the ties until Crashrider revved the engine, popped the clutch, and snapped the bike onto the right hand superconductor rail.

Crashrider goosed it, redlining the engine, but that didn't matter.

"What do we have?" Steeltalon yelled.

"Core data from the Smaug's ROM!" Crashrider yelled back. He leaned forward and Steeltalon did the same, the back tire dangerously close to her.

Behind her she could see it. The train tunnel under the bridge they'd jumped from was bulging. A tear started in the middle, flames licking out.

"He wants us bad!" Steeltalon yelled out.

Crashrider ignored her, concentrating on keeping the bike on the supercooled strip of metal and code and data.

"Neo, we need an exit!" Steeltalon cried out. "On the GalNet Supercruise Thread! Yes! I know! DO IT!"

The tear bulged further and a flaming skull burst from the under the bridge, the bow of a train made of blackened and twisted cybernetics crushed together with still screaming runners bleeding neon blood from between the deadspaces.

He could see it coming, a station. Just beyond that.

The train engine roared out

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

"STOP SAYING THAT!" Steeltalon screamed back, firing another magazine of Spam Popup rounds at the train's open jaws.

Into the station, the pillars whipping by, graffiti on the walls.

"HACK THE PLANET!" Crashride cried out desperately.

The Daughters of Chrome Lloth dropped their stealth fields, women in tight spandex and leather, cleavage and thigh revealed, four chrome arms to help their two flesh arms. They waited until Crashrider sped by, smoke pouring from his engine and from the hubs of his tires, and threw their datanets across the tracks.

They poisoned their datanets, wrapped their ends around the columns, and vanished back into stealth, climbing through hidden ports, sliding behind invisible proxies, jumping through unregistered trial software.

Crashrider kept going. The gate was ahead, in the middle of the tracks, and he swore in streetspeak as he dropped of the supercruise rail, the tracks bumping and shuddering.

Spokes shattered and neon fragments of code sprayed from the wheels of the bike.

The Trainsmaug hit the nets, the poisoned IPsniffer port jackers cutting deep as its firewalls collapsed. It roared and the nets held but no longer cut deep, no longer held it back as it charged forward.

It pulled the pillars down.

Digital dust plumed around crashrider as the station collapsed on top of the Smaug. It roared with anger and started to shoulder its way up.

The Daughters of Chrome Lloth swarmed it, jamming deep with their code-probe stingers, squatting down, the stingers descending and puncturing deep into it's code. Some died, shrivelling up with a banshee scream, but others grew plump and lush. Secrets filled their poison wombs and they flickered and vanished as they fled, laughing and mocking the Smaug.

It didn't care.

It's searchlight eyes were locked on Crashrider.

Crashrider hated to do it, hated to lose it, it was an ARG reward, irreplaceable.

But this wasn't an alley brawl against a rival ganger, a street slambang against another gogang.

This was Corpwar.

No, it was bigger than Corpwar.

It was WAR.

The lead tire hit the rectangle and dissolved. The bike slammed to a stop, beginning to accordian up, throwing both riders through the white rectangle as the bike destroyed itself against an illegal data-line crossline.

Crashrider managed to
ytinrete otni dehsurc yportne ssorca deraems gnilooc gninrub erif noen erif nrob gnieb ekil struh gnizeeuqs gnihcterts
tuck and roll as he fell out of the rectangle. It was already blinking red, the unique code of the bike stripping through and destroying the code of the gate.

CONNECTION

Steeltalon TO flew HOST through.

LOST

The gate blinked away.

Steeltalon's arm didn't make it.

Crashrider got to his feet, pointing at what they were after.

Stu's Diner.

"What do you have?" Steeltalon gasped as she wrapped a tame overwrite virus onto the neon blood spurting stump of her sole meat arm.

"They think I have the encryption key for the mid-grade ground assault mech shields," Crashrider said, pulling his friend as fast as he could. This run had already cost him a fellow ARG player, he wasn't about to lose another.

"What to do you really have?" she gasped as they pushed open the back door.

They stumbled into Mister Johnson's private lounge. The suited man, his face a colorless blank mannequin's face, looked up.

Crashrider tossed Mister Johnson his cyberdeck.

"The ROM encoded secondary master algorythm for the planetary harvester class vessels," Crashrider gasped.

"Wesa hacksa ROMHACK forsa Smaug?" Steeltalon gasped.

Mister Johnson caught it, nodded, and yanked a cord he'd grasped from nowhere.

The room dissolved and vanished.

In a room in an unnamed hab complex in a dreary city on a worthless planet in an abandoned system Eegleet shuddered and groaned as dumpshock took him. He felt hands rolling his meatbody on his side as he vomited.

He was still smiling when consciousness fled.

For you, Calshiina, he sent out to the spirit of the girl who had held his hand on the playground once.

------------------

GALNET NEWS!

The Makalet Fusion Reactor suffered a magnetic containment failure as the primary and backup computer systems failed this morning, resulting in a 12.5 megaton explosion, destroying the city of Makalet. Casualties are estimated in the tens of millions.

More as this story breaks!

------------------

FROM: MANTID INTELLIGENCE

TO: DIGITAL SAPIENCE INTELLIGENCE
oracles say something is coming
something war changing
build more thinking nodes

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

FROM: DIGINT

TO: MANINT

Will keep eyes out on the networks.

Chapter Eighteen

Speaks in Loud Spaces sat in the fifth contemplative position, his legs folded next to his abdomen, his vestigial blade limbs pulled up in what humans called 'prayer', his grasping hands folding at where his thorax met his long abdomen. His antenna quivered softly, sampling the emotions of those around him and keeping contact on his little ones.

All those around him except his two guards. He could hear them, even though he was able to exclude them through long training and a quirk of genetics and growth jelly.

Where the Council was either the mental equivalent of a dial tone or confused whiplashing emotions overlaid with fear, suspicion, resignation, or avarice, two minds growled and snarled in the emotional equivalent of running a mandible file across one's antenna, warning and threatening "keep out" with a large portion of what humans called "get fucked" for good measure.

But Speaks was used to that. He had been dealing with humans since he had left the quiet solace of the Chambers of the Elder Sleepers.

In a way, it was comforting. Like being covered in a suit of hissing spiders that spit bees.

He had never been around equals before.

His multifaceted eyes were blind but he still watched the councilbeings surrounding him, the design of his little ones allowing him to lift their triangular heads and view a complete 360 degrees around him.

Even beyond their wild gesticulating, he could sense their emotions, hear the thread of their inner voices, feel the emotions they hid from everyone else.

Speaks was saddened at how many of them lacked an inner voice.

After a while the council's outrage was spent and the final protestor sputtered slowly to silence.

Speaks reached out to his Speaker, meshing his thoughts with its tiny mind. It welcomed him, happiness radiating out from it as it raised itself up, ready to snatch words and thoughts and meanings from sounds.

"Do you need more time to discuss things among once another? Your outrage has only killed a few million, do you need time to increase this august conclave's body count?" the Speaker trilled.

The chamber exploded in rage again.

Speaks didn't care.

Every moment he could hear untold scrying out in fear and agony before going silent.

To Speaks it was as if stars were going out in the sky.

Despair, the little black mantid, whispered to him across their interwoven thoughts.

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.

it quoted to him. An ancient Terran poem that raged against what this very council was so enamored with. The poem inscribed at the base of the statue on TerraSol known as "Do you need assistance?"

Speaks let his mind drift, taking comfort in the snarling rage growling and snapping from his two honor guards. He knew that, should these beings attempt to raise their hands against him, they would protect them with their very lives, dying in pieces to protect them and shield them from the violence that so terrified his people.

The violence within him as it was within the Terrans.

Do these beings understand such a thing? Speaks asked himself.

The little alabaster one told him that nay, they cannot, they can only see what their grasping hands can snatch close, ignorant of the bladearms of others.

She could see more clearly than he could through his hunger.

Finally the outrage died down again. He paid no attention to any of it, instead, reaching out and tasting their various emotions, having the green little one commit to memory which ones he would seek out privately in their chambers away from prying eyes.

"No matter what words and sentiments you cast upon me like chaff upon the wind it does not change the simple fact that you cannot defeat them, cannot save any of your species from the Precursors," He said through the little russet Speaker.

Again the council chamber exploded.

A fantasy of climbing onto the podium that one being with a large head was banging upon, striking down in the perfect clean strike, pulling the being upward as it screeched, grabbing it with his grasping hands, bringing his jaws down upon its skull, cracking it, crushing it, sheering through flesh and bone to find...

His cybernetic implants shocked him.

Not that anyone would have noticed that faint wingflutter at the edge of one of his vestigial wings.

Both his honor guards powered up their weapons, targeting Speaks, then released their omnitargeting linkages and let the power trickle from their weapons as Speaks was calmed by his prosthetic.

The little green one rubbed its bladearms together and scraped them through its mandibles at the way the Terran's minds sharpened and focused on the five before the gentle current from the prosthetic calmed it.

The council thought it was just cleaning itself out of primitive instinct.

They had no idea how close the Grand Unified Council chamber and beyond came to being a slaughterhouse.

Speaks relaxed, cleaning his bladearms slowly, licking along their blunted edges, cleaning them with intricate care, as if they had never been altered by genemods from their razor sharp beautiful lethality.

For a split second he had an image of the heavy warborg on his right holding him into the air by his throat, its other arm drawn back with a piston-like fist clenched and aimed at his head as his graspinghands held the Terran by the throat and his bladearms slashed through its warsteel armor, both of them locked in a death embrace, coolant spilling from the warborg as ichor leaked from Speaks armored neck, the two of them...

the light electric shock was a hush to his mind. In the aftershocks his mind sampled and tasted the minds surrounding him.

He could silence them all in an instant, he knew it. He could simply reach out and snuff their minds, stop their thoughts, freeze their muscles, hold them silent in place, even still their heartbeats. Let his thoughts ripple out from this chamber throughout the building, stilling the thoughts of the inhabitants, stripping away their thoughts and memories and emotions, devouring them into his own overmind in his abdomen, his mind rippling out across the very city, taking control of their bodies once he devoured their minds...

Except that would cause
glorious fight to the death with the two warborgs who's minds would bellow in rage as they instinctively attacked him. Glorious glorious combat with a mind that could withstand the punishing assault of his will and
the shock made him quiver and his little ones go still.

The warborgs didn't let the charge trickle from the weapons back into the power pack, instead they left their weapons charged.

The metallic KACHUNKALACK! that sounded from the two borgs as they loaded their rifles and the cannons on their backs stilled the entire council chamber. Many beings quailed and cringed back as the two massive cannons slowly rotated up the backs, trailing 60mm belt-fed collapsed density depleted uranium shells jacketing unstable deuterium, moving slowly over the shoulder to point at...

the mantis creature?

The confusion that action caused kept the council chamber to go silent.

A slight blush colored Speaks wings and slowly colored two lines, one on either side, of his abdomen. He reached out for the little russet speaker, calming its mind, and spoke through it.

"I have come before this body, not to ask permission, but to merely inform," the little russet one said, it's voice a high pitched peep that some in the council thought was done to make it appear cute.

Some noted that one of the two big armored figures aimed his rifle at it and wondered why. It was so cute and harmless looking.

"You should know, and understand, not only what you face, but what you have no choice but to rely upon to save you from an onslaught you cannot defeat," Speaker said, its voice slowly lowering. "If you are ready to hear my thoughts signify a vote of yes upon your podium."

The little black one spoke. "Vote no and we shall leave and you shall wonder why it all happened."

Speaks found himself trembling and willed his implants to shock him down his central ganglia.

The vote was carried, barely passing, and an electric shock broke into Speaks's fantasy of exploding into sudden and violent motions, screeching his species ancient war-cry.

Omnitargeting data was shared across the linkages.

"We will hear your words," the High Council Speaker said.

I would rather make you hear my thoughts, Speaks thought to himself. Being so close to these species made digestive juice slowly coat his mandibles, but he cleaned it away rather than let his escorts see it drip from his jaw... mandibles.

The little gold one shocked him.

Hard.

"In ancient times, before your species were much more than barely sentient creatures crawling, not understanding, the Precursor War occured between..." Speaks started.

Several of the councilbeings shouted they knew history and get on with it. A half dozen screamed that Precursors were mere rumor, baseless unfounded rumors designed to frighten and spread conspiracies among the mentally ill.

Speaks disconnected himself from the sight organs on everything around him, slowly cleaning his bladearms as the cattle around him brayed and whinnied and mooed as if their words and crude vocal sounds mattered at all.

The gold one shocked him again and brought to the attention of his guards that one of her cybernetic implants was showing signs of overheating.

Wisps of vapor drifted from the mouths of the 60mm cannons and the council was stilled by sound of superdense capacitors charging.

"Between two races," Speaks continued. He had to impart this knowledge to them, to make them understand what they faced. "Those races build vast machines to combat one another."

Again the council chamber fell to arguing whether or not the the Precursor races could have built what was ravaging their worlds, how they could last a hundred million years.

Speaks slowly stood to his full height, a twelve foot mantis, with thick exoskeleton armor over thick biomechanical muscle. His bladearms suddenly molted, the dead carapace puffing away, the blades glittering in the lights of the council chambers.

Thirty billion viewers shrunk back and gasped as the sight of the Mantid triggered some kind of primordial instinct in their brains.

The council members all went still, their muscles frozen, their words stuck in their throats, even their hearts stilled as their brains were squeezed somehow. The invisible wave crashed through the building, washed over the city, and began to cover the world.

"HEAR MY WORDS AND DESPAIR!" Speaks in Loud Spaces roared out with his mind.

Billions screamed in terror.

"WE PRECURSORS REALIZED THERE WERE ONLY ENOUGH RESOURCES IN A FINITE UNIVERSE TO SUPPORT A SINGLE RACE! ONE SIDE'S WAR MACHINES DETERMINED THAT THEY WOULD BE THAT RACE AND THEIR CREATORS FLED THEIR MACHINES!" Speaks in Loud Spaces howled into every mind within a fractured microsecond.

His little ones went perfectly still.

"WE LEFT BEHIND OUR CATTLE TO BE EXTERMINATED BY THE OTHER SIDE'S DEATH MACHINES!" Speaks roared out. "NOW THEY HAVE COME TO FINISH THE JOB! ONLY THOSE WHO CAN WITHSTAND ONE SUCH AS I HAVE ANY HOPE AGAINST THEM!"

He exploded into motion.

The council watched as the two armored figures roared in wrath and hatred, abandoning weapons to shift their weight to bring fists to bear.

Speaks turned inside out and splashed into his component parts as the implosion charge, forged into a wire that ran from his skull to the end of his abdomen, was triggered as he moved faster than the cybernetic embedded in his spine would allow.

"Now you know," The little gold one said, looking at the terrified beings of the council chamber. She looked around at the gathered politicians. "Do you understand?"

----------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS EXTERNAL MEMO
now they know
terrasol protect us from ourselves

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

CONFED MEMO

TO: ALL

Safety precautions went well. Now they know why they can't win on their own. From what we've seen, we have to help them break the chains laid in the ancestor's minds that still hold them today.

May the Omnimessiah protect them.

Chapter Nineteen (Dreams)

The gold mantis, small only compared to her massive forebearer, deployed a small cube on the floor in front of her. A rod sprang out of the cube and the assembled beings, still shocked from the psionic assault, cringed back with a multitude of gasps. The rod folded around the disk, creating a small disc which the golden mantid stepped on. It hummed and at the command of her cybernetics, rose into the air. She waited for everyone to calm down, her bladearms folded carefully and her grasping hands holding onto the bottom of them.

Finally the chamber settled down. In the city beyond beings moved back to their Tri-Vids, nervously approaching, afraid to look but curious at the sight of the small gold mantis who held still on the hovering dish. Across the world beings shook free of the psychic shock and approached their Tri-Vid, fearful but curious.

"The Precursor War happened because my forebearers, like the one you saw, and the others, of whom records have been lost, could not contain their appetites and, upon learning that even the universe is finite, went to war over who would eat last," Her voice was pure and clear, and she fluttered her wings and preened as she spoke.

The council had learned its lesson and did not interrupt.

"My species consumed not only meat, but emotions and even thought and memories, uplifted species to bare sentience. Able to feel emotions and form memories but not enough to develop civilized thoughts," She said. She signaled with a rune in Unified Galactic Standard the equivalent of a shrug. "What our opponents ate or did is lost to the epochs long past."

Silence reigned for a long moment as she paused to clean her antenna. A councilman opened his mouth but one of the massive robots made a growling noise like steel gears grinding away their teeth against a whetstone. He shut his mouth quickly, his tendrils curling and his crest deflating in fear.

"For reasons that have been lost, but many have pondered upon, both sides built huge mechanized war machines. As you can see, my people tend to be tiny, outside of our warrior and, well, ruling castes such as Speaker was," she said. She used displays to show a little cartoon version of her wildly running back and forth to escape shoes and feet, wearing a big floppy hat with flowers on it and clutching a purse almost as big as she was, with little cartoon spirals floating up from her cartoon head to signify frustration.

There were a few titters.

"That aside, we built intelligent war machines. We conquered, or thought we did, a digital artificial sentient's natural tendency to seek to protect itself by wiping everyone else out, by some means we no longer understand," She put up a rune for a sigh. "Sadly, our knowledge of our ancient language and reasonings are lost to the hunger of history as Speaker was lost to his own appetites."

She paused there to clean her antenna again and take a sip from a drop of water she lifted up from the disc. A holograph of a rune asking for patience floated in front of her.

Although there were questions, the recent events stilled tongues. Those who still would have talked stared at the robots beside them.

The little gold mantis set down the water drop and straightened back up, signalling with a hologram in front of her that she was going to continue. "As records will show, one such as Speaker can even stop and devour the thoughts of digital sapience, providing they can get within range. A reason for our forgotten enemy to build so large."

She flashed a rune for humor. "You can see, by my size, why there's a possibility my people built so large. We are a tiny people, and some are aware a being can be quite impressed with size when perhaps we should not be," a rune flashed for double entendre as she preened for a moment.

There were some polite chuckles through the chamber. Some of the earthier species and beings laughed out loud at the humor of an insect so tiny making such a joke.

Fear began to be replaced by curiosity.

"Sometime, during that terrible war, where entire planets were wastefully wiped clean, one side's mechanical surrogates realized that the truth that was imparted in them, the reason for the war, also applied to them," The rune flashed for a regretful sigh. "They, also, realized that in a finite universe there was only enough resources for one, and why shouldn't they be the one? Why should they turn it over to biologicals, who have short lifespans and cannot be trusted stewards of those finite resources."

"It was then that first one side's, then the other's, turned upon us, their creators, throwing back our own warcries to one another," The mantid flashed the rune for patience and sipped at a water-drop again before cleaning its grasping hands and flashing the rune for resume. "It went badly for both sides. My ancestors left our, ahem, food species behind and fled, taking a risky gamble. We would have both sides chase us through the scorched wasteland of our war, through the enemy's territory, and then hide while the rebellious servitors destroyed our enemy."

She paused, taking time to clean her bladearms and grasping hands and then her antenna. She flashed the runes for "Please excuse my fatigue, I am discomforted" as she did so.

One of the council flashed a rune for attention. She pointed at it and flashed the rune for assent. The councilbeing stood up.

"Do you need us to go into recess?" The councilbeing asked and sat down.

"Thank you for your kind consideration, but no. It is more than us, whole worlds are watching and eager for the ugly, terrible, horrible truth," The little gold mantid said. She rubbed her wings together and then flashed the rune that she was ready to continue.

On thousands of worlds beings hurried back from the kitchen or nutri-dispenser when family members called out that the little gold mantis was going to continue.

"While the strategy worked, drawing all our mechanical creations after us into our enemy, and beyond, our escape, in the end, did my ancestors little good beyond sheer species survival," The gold mantid said. She made the rune for ironic sadness and the continued. "My species, constrained to a few planets, with only a few space craft, fell to internecine warfare. When the dust settled, only a few scattered planets contained our race. Our space vessels were gone, our advanced technology smashed, just our fore-bearers desperately trying to survive on worlds that were chosen out of desperation."

She flashed holograms of the other mantids at her feet.

"In time, we separated, became slightly different, but the Hive Queens and the Omni-Speakers still ruled over our hives. Each advance, we fell victim to what is called the Fermi Paradox, collapsing again and again. We had our own Fermi Boundary. When one hive split in to two, those two hives would eventually got to war over the limited resources," The gold one paused. The black mantid and the green mantid were signalling holorunes of distress. She waited until they signed runes for continue before speaking again.

"Millions, tens of millions, over a hundred million years passed before we reached space again. Some colonies called out into the void, then were silenced, but we only know that through archeological records. Then, of course, we found our other colonies and went to war, falling to our own Fermi Paradox Boundary of More than One Hive," She said. "Then we discovered signals. Signals meant thought. It was alien thought."

She waited a moment before flashing a rune.

"It was delicious."

All of the mantids flashed holorunes of distress and the gold mantid paused. A holorune representing a questioning speaker flashed and the gold one flashed the "If I am able" rune.

The questioner stood up.

"How are you... um..." she asked. She curled her tendrils in embarrassment and sat down.

"Different?" The small gold asked. The questioner flashed the questioning rune. The little gold one pointed at the big robot. "Thanks to our friends," She said.

There was an inhalation of fear at the thought that little mantid creatures had built those massive mechanical beings.

"No, no, friends," The mantid said, flashing the rune for negation and the rune for reassurance. "That is not a robot. It is a warborg, a human being who has undergone full cybernetic conversion body replacement to amplify their combat abilities. It is driven by a living mind, the mind of a sapient being with morals and ethics, culture and society."

That seemed to relax the gathered body. Tri-Vid cameras moved in and got better angles on the massive "warborgs", some cameras lingering on the belt of 60mm ammunition that gleamed with silent menace.

On the featureless faceplates of the warborgs flashed the Unified Galactic holorune for "I am expressing pleasure at your presence" in calming blue.

Some of the younger viewers laughed.

The little gold mantis gave it a few moments, pausing to take another drink from the droplet and clean her antenna. The other ones flashed that they were calmed again. When she felt the stress in the chamber ease she flashed the rune for attention.

"As I was saying, thanks to our friends, we learned that our ancestors may have been titans striding across the stars smiting our foes and devouring what we pleased, but the great galactic wheel had turned and we were no longer the apex predator," She brushed her antenna and then continued.

"We encountered humans, who approached us eagerly, clamoring they wished to be friends," She signaled the rune for sadness and made a motion at the small cleaner robots who were still cleaning the mess Speaker had made. "Omni-Speakers and the Hive Queens had other plans."

"In cruel betrayal we struck at the humans, and they recoiled," She said. She took another sip of the water droplet as the other flashed runes of embarrassment and sadness. "We thought them instantly beaten. Destroy the Queen you win the war."

She let it pause. Waiting.

"We saw the humans go still, as prey do. We, in our Hive-Queen's arrogance, mistook that reaction for fear, terror, and borderline submission as we assaulted them, linked as one mind, our hunger held together as one, moving each as a perfect cog in the universe's perfect machine. But, we had made a mistake," She paused again. "You see, we had never encountered murderous all consuming overpowering rage.

"Even the Hive-Queens quailed back as the humans exploded. Even the Omni-Speakers screamed in horror as something much worse than the great machines we still dimly remembered came out of every cattle world, every terrible broken and savage world, every shattered ruined city, out of every corner.

"Screaming their war-cry, they overran us, crushed us beneath their armored treads, tore us limb from limb with their armored fists, ripped into us with their very teeth," the others were flashing runes of distress but she powered through, shivering, "Then they found our home planets...

All of the small mantis people were rubbing their wings in distress.

"And destroyed every single Hive-Queen and Omni-Speaker. They used nanites to alter our genome so we would never again produce a Queen and only rarely would we produce a Speaker, scorched away our royal jelly, and loomed over our suddenly disconnected, sundered people, their mailed fists clenched to deliver the final blow.

"They saw our confusion, our panic, our bereavement as we were torn from the hive-mind and even as they screamed their war-cry they suddenly paused," The gold said. "They spared us, embraced us, taught us to live without enslavement."

She flashed for a pause and everyone waited, many staring at the two cyborgs in horror. She waited until the smaller ones flashed that they were composed and ready. She waited for the councilbeings to flash that they were ready. She saw a light for a single question flashing and signaled assent to the questioner.

The gentlebeing stood up, a Shavashan female, her scales dull and her tail thin with age. "If I might ask, gentlebeing..." she bobbed her head in nervousness then looked up. "What was their war-cry? I see it still disturbs you to think of it even though it is centuries past."

All the mantids flickered their dismay icons.

The black one moved forward, extending himself to his full three foot height. "I am Words Spoken We Fear," it announced, lifting it's bladearms up over it's head. "And I shall tell you."

There was a pregnant pause.

Words pointed at the two warborgs with his bladearms. "Speak the Words We Fear!" it cried out in small voice.

The two warborgs took a single step forward, their footsteps shaking the entire room. Their roar lifted to the heavens and more than a few councilbeings felt that it echoed off the stars.

"REMEMBER TERRASOL!"

------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS MESSAGE

TO: CONFED
now they all know
will you protect us

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TERRAN CONFEDERACY MESSAGE

TO: MANTID FREE WORLDS

Always. In blood and fire, brothers.

We face the Long Darkness together.

Chapter Twenty (Leebaw)

Leebaw was nothing to anyone.

It was a small world in the ways of the galactic economy, political influence, manufacturing ability, or any other way that the Unified Galactic Systems cared about. Its people were a small people who had barely developed stardrive to get into jumpspace and travel to another planet. That planet had been important, a manufacturing hub for the leading tentacle of the Unified Civilizations.

The little world had gone from dreams of starfaring and exploration and joyous advancement to locked into their little world. Emigration quotas, GalNet bandwidth limits, even exploitation limits within their own system, all were put in place by the Unified Civilized Races Council.

After all, their world had been registered as the property of Ukewa's Packguru Manufacturing nearly three thousand years before the little people of Leebaw had even developed the ability to transmit or listen to radio waves.

The Unified Legal Council had informed the people of Leebaw that if they had intended to assert sovereignty over their own world, perhaps they should have filed a motion to appeal the claim register within a year of it first being filed.

The fact that the people of Leebaw had not even developed gear driven clocks by that point was not any fault of the Council. The people of Leebaw should have thought of that.

And so Leebaw's dreams of being part of, maybe even founding, some kind of interstellar society of equals died in a court of law before they even invented the metal nibbed pen.

They tried protesting the only way they knew how at that point: Violence.

Their attempts were pitiable. They barely lasted a full decade before they were defeated again.

The Unified Races Council ordered to that the people of Leebaw undergo "therapy" to remove "violent primitive instincts" through social conditioning.

The little land dwelling amphibians were marched lockstep into camps to taught how to properly venerate Ukewa's Packguru Manufacturing (A subsidiary of Nu'ukluk Entertainment Conglomerate) and follow the commands and regulations of their elders. The little space facility, the Leebawian pride and joy, was razed for 'ecological reasons' and a coal burning power plant put in its place, after all, the Unified Space Council had already had UPM build a much better space port than the crude native one. Bit by bit the people of Leebaw saw their cultural heritage sites wiped away in the name of 'modernization.'

With the destruction of history comes the destruction of cultural identity. After a generation or two they became a loyal worker pod for UPM, spending their meager pay on necessities and a few simple luxuries, as was proper.

Still, some of them harbored resentment in their hearts.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be, was it?

The amphibians, half the size of the four legged, four armed, six eyed, tendriled Overseers known as the Lanaktallan, dug into burrows, squirreled away makeshift weapons, made careful chains of communication. The Leebawians created small units of resistance, each reporting to a leader, who only knew the name of one leader.

They had recreated the resistance cell structure again.

Forced to live outside the shining cities, they suffered often from vertigo after all, they slowly gathered. The Lanaktallan were the ones enamored with the cities, not the Leebawians. The thought was to bring down those high shining towers, bring the Lanaktallan down to the level of the amphibians.

And so the Leebawians prepared and waited.

But that was not why it was dying.

It had become infected.

It started simply. Twinkling points of light appearing out in space. The planetary managers said that the lights were mere tests, nothing for the Leebawians to concern themselves with. Then scanners went down.

A space station began screaming.

Leebaw's GalNet became a place of horror as the infection spread across the solar system.

The Lanaktallan counseled caution and not to be swayed by anti-Unified propaganda even as they boarded their ships to flee the system.

Then sparks appeared in the sky as orbital leisure stations were destroyed, ships were raked with fire and exploded, and everything but the GalNet node was wiped from the night sky.

For three days Leebaw had cringed away from quiet darkness.

Then the voice was broadcast across the world, a brain twisting screech of absolute horror.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

Mechanical horrors landed at the spaceport. Not with crashes, but landing with care before wading into the starships still in port. The newcomers tore apart the ships and their crews then spread out, moving toward manufacturing facilities. Private spaceships were destroyed in high orbit, their wreckage first scattered then gathered and processed. Cargo vessels were torn apart and processed.

Still sparks blossomed in the night sky. Little pinpricks that lit up and went out. Once in a while there were long streaks in the night that ended in tiny flashing pinpricks.

The Leebaw first viewed the mechanicals as liberators and rushed out to great them.

Only to be murdered en-masse.

The Leebawians all nodded to one another. Of course, it was just another monster from outside. The Cult of the Solitary Burrow were correct. Those who reached out a hand in friendship only had it torn off or had a manacle wrapped around the wrist.

The Leebawians scattered as best they could.

The mechanicals concentrated on the Lanaktallan, herding them into their cities, broadcasting the savage murders suffered by the Lanaktallan. The Leebawians thought that perhaps if they just pretended none of it was going on, the mechanicals would leave them alone.

That pipe-dream ended with shrieks of agony.

The Leebawians learned in the next few turns on their world to avoid any technology higher than fire and sharp sticks. A machine that found any "Primitive Ones" might chase them and kill a few but largely ignored them after scanning quickly for any technology. A quick thinking Leebawian noted that every one of their people fitted with a cybernetic link was gone, dead, their bodies torn apart. Any group larger than an ancient clutch was destroyed.

The Leebawians mourned for lost dreams. Even being drones for UPM was preferable to being torn from comfortable housing and forced to live in the mud, hunting with sticks for nearly extinct mussels and wildlife, drinking dirty water, and watching the cities slowly burn.

The Leebawians wept.

They just wanted to be not alone. They just wanted to see what was beyond. Just wanted to meet other beings.

But not like this.

Not like this.

Pinpricks appeared the sky again, only these ones did not go out. They got steadily brighter as the Council Cities burned. Sparks came to life and died back down around those burning stars.

The Leebawians looked up, wondering what was happening now, even though a small part of them knew that it wouldn't matter. Whoever it was, their little people would be nothing more than amusement for hunters at worst, slaves and drudges at best.

Hope flickered, then went out.

Leebaw was dying. Not from the slamming impacts of orbital guns, not from the mechanical murderers sweeping across the planet, not because the cities, bright and sparkling, were burning and being turned to horror filled charnel houses.

It was dying as hope died.

Then came the message. From the stars, as fire blossoms, new suns ignited in the night sky close enough that more than once night turned to day for long heartbeats. It vibrated off of every scrap of metal, bellowed from every speaker, howled from every hidden datapad.

WE ARE THE TERRAN CONFEDERACY

WE HAVE COME TO ASSIST

HOLD THE LINE, BROTHERS!

The Leebawians huddled in their burrows, closing their large expressive eyes, and just wished the universe would go away. The message couldn't be meant for them. They were small, insignificant, and the universe viewed them as little more than slaves to their betters to be slain for amusement at will.

But some, who harbored resentment toward UPM, who nursed flickering anger in their souls for the Lanaktallan, began to dig free caches wrapped in EM shielding and buried in iron rich mud. Began dreaming that perhaps, this time, things might be different.

As the little Leebawians watched, streaks slipped down from the orbitals, into atmosphere, and began to speed toward the thickest concentrations of machines. Nuclear fire blossomed, pushed away the smoke of burning bodies, and left behind damaged and destroyed machines. Not the larger ones, of course, those rose from where they had crouched, shaking off smaller ones, and screeched their defiance at the newcomers.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

The newcomers bellowed back

FREEDOM OR DEATH

The Leebawians huddled down, caught between the two roaring forces. The braver of them lifted their googly eyes to look upon the land, raise their gaze to the sky again.

Massive ships roared down from the sky and the Leebawians felt their thick rubbery skin prickle up in fear. The last two times that had happened the universe had shown them that they were the butt of a cosmic joke. As the Leebawians watched the machines, the new masters of Leebaw, swarmed the massive ships, which responded with counter-fire.

Some ships exploded in mid-air.

More didn't.

Even more rained down from the high orbitals.

The ships didn't bother to slow down to a gentle speed and then slowly levitate down to the earth. These ones came in fast, rockets screaming as they suddenly braked. Radiation poured from the nozzles, scorching the ground, burning away vegetation and turning dirt to plasma hardened rock. The ships slammed down, the sides opened even as gunports continued firing. Parts of the massive ships detached, moving on treads, deploying guns that raked the sky with shrieking munitions. The parts of the ship took up positions around their brood-mother, linking together their fire, adding their own roaring voice to the defiance lashing out at the machines that still swarmed.

From inside the ship came more vehicles, massive bipeds that were made entirely of metal. More weapons were raised, and the machine's assault began to tatter, began to break. The wave of metal was pushed back further and further by the guns. The very sky seemed to catch fire as the newcomers threw their fury into the faces of the machines, unleashing endless wrath into machines without numbers.

Shell by shell, beam after beam, the newcomers drove the machines back. But that wasn't enough for the newcomers, they spread out, like spokes from the hub of the landing craft. Each spoke building another hub, calling down more ships from the sky, repeating it over and over.

Smashing the machines.

The Leebawians dug deep into their burrows, fearful of what horrors the newcomers would inflict on the small Leebawian people. The only step they could see from driving them to scattered primitivism was to wipe their small people from existence.

Then, it happened. As dozens of Leebawian's watched from the safety of the water of the swamp the newcomers, the huge bipeds of metal and fury, approached the machines that kept the younglings in cages for experimentation or just plain sport. Over the last few turnings of the world the machines had moved the younglings from cages to inside the buildings.

The watching Leebawians knew that their younglings would be slaughtered, caught between the murderous machines and the furious newcomers.

They waited for the pounding of artillery and aircraft that always preceded a biped ground assault, flicked their tongues nervously while they waited for the massive tanks to pour cannon fire into the base as they did to break it up for the bipeds.

None of that happened. Instead, the bipedal machines, accompanied at times by four legged ones, slowly moved forward, from cover to cover, firing only at the guns that revealed themselves in the machine's base. They seemed almost non-committal, firing and advancing, firing and retreating, shifting their lines.

To the hidden Leebawians, it made no sense.

The Leebawian's felt a stirring in the current and froze. The currents did not feel like one of the big machines patrolling the rivers and streams of the delta, but like more Leebawian's moving through the water, towing large fish as if they had made a prized catch.

Clicks sounded in the water and the Leebawian's blinked in nervousness. The clicks sounded like Leebawian clicks but made no sense. It was just random sounds.

Curious, one of the Leebawian swam deeper, into the silt filled cloudy water deeper in the river. He held tight to his spear, but had a stolen handgun under his tongue, ready to swallow it if he had to. His echolocation told him that there were dozens of his kind swimming through the cloudy opaque water, pulling huge fish behind them. The fish blood made it impossible to tell which tribe the newcomers were from, clogging the taste-buds, so the Leebawian swam deeper, lighting up the ends of his whiskers in hopes of seeing who was moving through but had not announced themselves.

At the bottom of the river he saw them. His eyes seeing what his senses said were only his kind and some fish.

The four legged robots had their legs folded and were using water-jets to move. They were pulling two or three of the big bipeds on fishing line. There were the smaller ones, the size of a child Leebawian, were darting around like fish. One moved in front of him, stared with a blank faceplant for a long moment, then wiggled away.

From the four legged ones poured the smell of freshly caught fish blood.

He paddled in place, watching in confusion as the chrome figures moved through the darkness of the silty water. The clicks and pops were between them, not meant for Leebawians but one another.

The curious swimmer, a part of a cell that had planned on assaulting the space port before the machines had arrived, realized he was hearing battle-code, not much difference from the coded cant his own cell used.

As he watched one of the bipeds turned its blank for toward him. One its forward hands opened and closed, then the biped turned its head back toward the four legged one towing him.

Curious, the Leebawian, one Ukk-uk-huk, followed. Adding his own movements to the pack moving through his territory. There was only twelve of them, moving correctly in a spindle, and they made room for Ukk to swim with them.

Ukk realized that they were swimming to the pool in the machine's base. That cruel body of water so close to freedom but so far that young Leebawians were allowed to swim in but were kept from escaping into the waters of the delta by a flickering shield.

He saw, as he followed, that the shield was still up but did nothing. He swam through, expecting oblivion, but instead just felt a tingle.

They had left it up? Why?

Ukk expected the bipeds to spring from the water and start shooting everything in sight. Instead, the small little ones slid out of the water and wormed their way across the floor on their bellies like they were made of liquid. Ukk started to reach for the edge of the lip but one of the bipeds grabbed his wrist. When he looked the rune for "wait" flashed across the faceplate of the biped in the darkest color that Ukk could see.

The bipeds slipped out of the water, climbing out with water running off them, to Ukk they looked like primordial nightmares. All black, bulky, dripping water, covered in delta reeds and muck.

Ukk stayed in the pool, watching.

The four legged ones started returning, moving carefully, sliding into the water without a ripple. The smaller ones came out, leading two or three podlings each, the podlings giggling to themselves at this new game.

Ukk stared as they kept going by.

It has to be a terrible trick...

It couldn't last, the unearthly silence where even simple water droplets were like thunder.

THERE IS ONLY...

The familiar scream started. Ukk closed his ears but still felt the bellowed replies.

GET FUCKED SKYNET!

shattered the screeching onslaught, roared from a dozen throats.

The night caught fire. Stealth abandoned for speed, the four legged ones and the smallest ones urged the podlings into the pond even as Ukk heard the weapon fire start.

One of the smaller ones came in, moving fast, making a curious noise that sounded like "mew mew mew mew" as the podlings imitated it and chased it. A machine burst in, smoking, tattered, its armor blown away or twisted and cratered, and leveled what Ukk had long ago learned was a plasma gun at the running podlings.

Flares shot out of the little metal one's back and the podlings laughed with glee as metallic dust puffed from the little robot to fill the room.

Ukk spit the pistol out into his hand and pulled the trigger wildly. He had never fired the plasma pistol before and didn't expect it to kick back against his hand. It hit the machine twice, rocking it back, the return plasma shot missing the little ones and hitting the wall.

Croaking in anxiety and despair, Ukk reoriented the pistol on the machine, which was turning toward him.

--help kittykitty simba help--

Water exploded behind him as one of the four legged ones burst from the surface of the pond, flying through the air, a massive cannon with shells as thick as Ukk's forearm attached by a belt connecting the cannon to the four legged robot. Lasers flashed out, slicing away the plasma run from the machine, cutting furrows in the machine's armor, cutting free two legs.

Then the four legged robot crashed to the floor as the podlings croaked and clicked in fear.

It made a roaring noise, a primal sound that made Ukk shudder, paused, and the cannon on its back opened up.

BRRRRRRRT!

To Ukk it sounded like the world ending. The shells chewed the machine apart, but the four legged robot didn't stop there, it raked the walls, peeling apart the metal walls, the shells not stopping and slamming into targets beyond.

One of the podlings jumped in fear and Ukk felt his stomach clench as he knew the beam of light traversing the room would catch the podling.

Instead there was a minute gap, too small to be purposeful but too perfectly positioned to be accidental, and the podling landed safely.

The little one clicked and croaked and Ukk understood it.

--follow mew mew follow kittykitty little littles--

Another machine entered and Ukk fired the plasma pistol again, all three shots missing. More entered, swarming in through doorways, crashing through the metal, dropping from the vents. Ukk fired again but the pistol's plasma cartridge magazine ran dry on the fourth trigger pull.

The four legged one scrambled to Ukk, stopping over him, crouching down over the small Leebawian, and that cannon kept firing, flashing lasers and screaming plasma getting added to the mix. Machines shattered, spun, and collapsed. Ukk saw smaller laser beams flicker out, intercepting pieces of metal shed from exploding machines, zapping them from existence before the tiny metal pieces could hit the podlings.

It seemed to go on forever to Ukk. The scream of weaponry, the sound of metal ripped asunder, and the clicking --follow mew mew little littles--. Females began streaming by, some heavy with eggs, others with the deflated look of ones that had recently laid their eggs. Males streamed by, many injured or with cruel implements thrust into their bodies.

They all jumped into the pool as Ukk huddled beneath the big four legged

Finally it was over. Silence descended for a moment, broken only by the patter of podlings and rescued brood mothers streaming by.

Still Ukk huddled under the four legged one.

One of the big bipeds came into the room. One arm was blown off, its black surface was marred, and it leaked fluid down its flank from a hole that Ukk could see circuitry and mechanical parts through. It saw Ukk when the four legged robot moved aside.

Ukk froze, sure his time had come.

More returned and one moved over to Ukk, who huddled down.

The visor went clear and Ukk realized he was looking at a hairless primate, like one of the lemurs of the southern jungles stripped of hair and made large.

"Is this your planet?" It asked in Unified Galactic Common.

Ukk croaked his assent.

The figure pointed at a robot that still twitched and one of the bipeds kicked it over. Ukk noticed that the weapons on the four legged one tracked it. The biped stopped it with one big foot, pressing it to the floor as if the machine's mechanical strength didn't matter.

"It's jawnconnor time, Froggy," The primate said. He squatted behind Ukk, reaching around him carefully, and replaced the plasma pistol with another pistol. Ukk shivered, terrified, as the primate embraced him, holding onto his hand, forcing his finger on the trigger.

He was about to be devoured, he was sure of it.

"You're this close to going out, Froggy," The biped said softly from behind him, moving Ukk's hand to aim the pistol at the armored flank of the machine. He forced Ukk to press the firing stud and the weapon cracked, spitting a slug that cratered the armor but didn't penetrate.

Ukk klicked in resignation. Of course it wouldn't penetrate.

"You'll learn to fight back," The primate said. He forced Ukk to fire again, although Ukk didn't understand why as the slug only hit the crater, widening and deepening it.

"To charge the wire," The primate forced him to pull the trigger a third time, expanding the crater. Ukk still felt despair. The pistol stung his hand even with the primate's help, what hope did...

"And smash...

the next shot exposed the innards and Ukk felt a sudden surge of shock.

"These metal...

the next shot slammed through the crater and turned wiring and mechanical parts into slag. The machine shrieked in pain. Ukk felt a sudden flare of anger

"mother...

the next shot slammed deeper and two of the machine's legs blew off. Ukk felt the anger build. Why weren't his people armed like this?

"fuckers...

The next caused a thin plume of plasma to vent out the ruptured side. Ukk clicked rapidly in anger.

"Into..."

The next caused the head of the machine to blow off in a shower of sparks and the entire side to split open. Ukk gave a loud croak in anger and tried to hop forward.

The primate let go.

"Junk," it said as Ukk rushed forward, emptying the magazine of the pistol into the machine as he croaked and clicked in rage.

--------------------------

CONFEDNAVINT REPORT

Lintennal 515, called Leebaw by native species, being cleared. Casualties below estimation. Orbitals under CONFED control. System 90% pacified.

Native species capable of self defense. Are arming and equipping to act as resistance force to assist. Native species was space faring before Unified Civilization interference.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

UNIFIED MANUFACTURING COUNCIL INTERNAL MEMO

The Terrans spent significant military resources to free a labor world under the control of Ukewa's Packguru Manufacturing by ground force means but glassed the entire planet of Kalukaluku, a major industrial manufacturing center only a few light years away just because they couldn't detect any life forms left on the planet. Kalukaluku's industrial and manufacturing capability could have provided assistance to the war effort if it had been liberated rather than underwent orbital bombardment.

Had the vaunted "Terran Confederate Navy" properly allocated their forces instead of rushing to engage in ground combat on a remote planet of no strategic or tactical value, the industrial center might have been saved by the same forces.

Nu'ukluk Entertainment Conglomerate has filed a most strenous objection to one of its valuable industrial centers being so casually wiped away just because these "Terrans" can't properly allocate military resources.

Please discover who to contact within the Confederacy government in order to allow Nu'ukluk Entertainment Conglomerate to bring forth a lawsuit for this grievous misapplication of military resources.

Chapter Twenty-One (Interlude)

COUNCIL EYES ONLY

NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

SUBJECT: TERRAN TECHNOLOGY

Despite concerns of many it does not appear that the Terrans are eons ahead of the Unified Civilized Races as they have raced past us while utilizing technology we have long known of or discarded as irrelevant. In all area, from metals to circuitry to chemicals even to superluminal propulsion, the humans never discard information or stop research into applications and further information.

An example is their "warsteel" which is, in fact, NOT steel. It is an ion bonded molecular aligned hyperalloy that must be crafted in a high temperature environment and can only be worked by extreme pressure. We have known of this alloy for eons but have found it useless as the expense in energy and materials outstrips its utility as it can be replaced by weaker materials that are much safer, cheaper, and easier to manufacture and utilize.

Warsteel is forged on only the hottest, most barren planets. Terrans claim it can only be forged by "hate" or "wrath", two Terran concepts that are primitive. Hate is an intense, almost irrational, level of dislike. Wrath has two meanings, one synonymous with hate, the other is extreme, even excessive violence. As you can tell, those really have no meaning when it comes to manufacturing.

Attempts to replicate warsteel forging with current methods have failed. The material can be produced but it hardens within microseconds and cannot be worked.

We cannot explain how there are propaganda pictures taken to support the war effort that show liquid warsteel, a deep crimson in color reminiscent of Terran blood, being poured onto forging surfaces the humans call "anvils".

Where our technological progression follows a fairly predictable line, just like every other discovered race, the Terran's technological progression looks more like someone randomly connecting lines between the stars. Rather than taking the proper time to consider the ramifications of any line of research before delving into such research, as is the fact with most races, Terrans just start researching it without worrying about moral or ethical implications.

This has led to advancements in many sectors that we did not attain because of ethical quandaries involving early formula or scientific application probabilities.

In this paper, we will show how the Terran scientific progression can only be described as: "Madness on a scientific scale" and provide proof.

------------------

SUBJECT: TERRAN COMBAT ROBOTS

How do I put this?

They aren't robots. They're Terrans. Either one who has traded in his biological body for a fully mechanical one except for his brain or one encased in full armor. Even the ones the size of a high rise building have a human brain operating them. Yes, even the ones that vomit up nuclear beams.

Worse yet, is you REALLY need to stop bringing these guys back.

Most of them wake up when I'm checking out their circuitry, and I'm here to tell you, they don't like that.

Half the time they threaten me to try to force them to allow to return to combat, even if that combat was weeks ago.

I'm not sure ANY of the so called "robots" are actually robots. The one subject you brought me, as soon as I applied power, woke up and demanded a lawyer. Then used my personal communicator to call one.

Apparently the Terrans have cracked the method of creating digital sapience without it going homicidal.

I know your august body wants answers, but let me tell you one simple thing: Investigating this technology is an invitation to madness.

If you can explain to me how a "SUDS" works, you can have my summer house. Apparently, at the moment of biological function termination, the "Soul Uninterrupted Disaster Storage" goes into effect, supposedly "sucking them in" and then they can be "reloaded" into a custom made or a replacement body.

YOU TELL ME HOW THIS WORKS! IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT! DEAD IS DEAD! THIS IS THE REALLY REAL WORLD AND THERE IS NO COMING BACK!

You know what, to use a human saying: All of you can get fucked. That's right, I told you to go FUCK yourselves. The whole Uni-fucking-fied Science Fucking Council can go take a flying fuck at whatever a rolling fucking donut is.

Oh, and you can eat shit too.

I quit.

------------------

SUBJECT: MEWMEW KITTYKITTY OBJECTS

Terran soldiers and even their civilians are often followed by one of three creatures. A "doggo" AKA "goodboi", a "furboi" AKA kittykitty AKA mewmew AKA trashgoblin, and a "fishyfish" AKA "swimboi". Terran rituals of gathering up their dead even extends to these creatures, which had largely been assumed, until recently, to be some kind of low level artificial intelligence guided robot.

A "kittykitty" was recovered from the wreckage of a battlefield some two months ago and moved to a research facility. A decision that later proved to highlight the risk of alien technology, much less human technology.

A kittykitty has what Terrans refer to as a "liquid hyperalloy chassis" or a "T-1000 body". While the frame appears solid it is in fact made of up some type of liquid metal impregnated with literally millions of nanites. It has two power cells, something called "zero point reactors" which involve suspending two oppositely charged particles a distance from each other while surrounded by protomatter. Further investigation on how this works is needed, but will entail great risk. It also has something we could not identify.

The first thing we discovered is that Terran computer circuitry is dense on a molecular level. Far denser than our own. Some of the circuitry appears to be an electron supercooled and "stretched" a distance, using tachyons to transmit on or off signals along the circuit. It was difficult to tell as Terran circuirty dissolves as soon as the casing is breached. Despite scientists claim of "That's not how it works! That's not how any of this works!" the fact that the Terran circuits work says that it must work that way.

Which is why Terrans use binary. Simple on and off doesn't require as many filters to cut out background radiation and signals, unlike our 14-switch code.

The kittykitty examined had used up the majority of its combat munitions and supporting munitions and we were unable to break the code (as explained later) of its operating system and obtain an inventory list. What we did discover is small "micro-launchers" that allow it to fire off flares, chaff, and something called "lovekittykitty" which appears to be some kind of modified parasite that quickly crosses from skin to blood to brains, which makes the victim view the "kittykitty" in an affectionate way. It is unsure why this was seen deployed via "whiskers" to trauma and disaster victims.

Each kittykitty is able to arms its feet with monomolecular edged claws. These claws are used for climbing as well as combat. Its "teeth" are used to chew through debris that might be pinning a survivor as well as to inflict severe injury.

In its chest we found an inert sphere labeled "DYSON-NANO-FORGE-KK-SERIES" which we removed.

At one point, we discovered the biological component and were shocked and appalled. The biological component had suffered severe damage to itself and its cybernetic components. Tissue samples showed that this is a genetically modified primitive feline, the cybernetics involved to increase its intelligence, allow it map areas, and provide advanced processing nodes as well as link with other Terran technology.

After several cycles of examination it was discovered that a universal omni-port would connect to a section of dense circuitry within the kittykitty's non-liquid hyperalloy frame. This circuitry was encased in heavy duty shock protection and it was assumed to be of great importance. It was loaded into a virtually isolated system and scientists began seeing if they could decrypt it.

That, gentlebeings, was where it all went wrong. It turns out that the circuitry held a backup of the kittykitty's operating system, memories, and personality. It immediately went into "clawboi" mode, moving through the system with ease. I personality saw it somehow, well, ooze for lack of a better word, between two airgapped systems. From there it escaped into the city's GalNet node.

It popped up in children creche learning computers, store computers, pet store computers, always jumping and moving. Oddly enough, it never repllicated itself.

It did go to a hospital and use the physical printers. It printed out a feline body and cybernetics, implanted them, burned itself out of the system as well as its records (cellprinting and circuit printing remained in evidence on security feeds) before gaining possession of the inert sphere and fleeing the hospital.

Despite several cycles of searching we were not able to find it.

This even reinforces the dangers of the Terrans unrestricted technology. They don't have anything we haven't already examined and discarded.

The Unified Scientific Council has determined that Terrans and their technology are a scientific dead end and a threat to the culture, society, and peoples of the Unified Civilized Races.

Attached are video feed of examination of the alien object.

---------------------------

TO: Mank-unkj-ug

From: Una-unkj-ug

Oh, Manky, you bought me such a wonderful pet. The little ones love it so much! I take it everywhere I go in my purse. It curls up next to me on bed and makes the most soothing rumble. I don't even mind that you have to spend so much time on your trips. Mewmew is a wonderful companion pet! Thank you so much for it.

I'm taking it and the kids and going on vacation.

Touches!

Una

Chapter Twenty-Two (DOKI DOKI DOKI)

TERRASOL

30,000 BC

Ogg looked up as Ugg staggered into the cave. Ugg was beaten up, bruised, bloody, and had the broken off end of a spear sticking out of his leg. Ogg managed to stand up before Ugg was in his face.

"You say Huk Huk all gone! Huk Huk waiting! You say Huk Huk no have spears! Now Ugg have spear in leg! You stupid!" Ugg snarled.

"Tuk Tuk and Mogg say Huk Huk gone. Not Ogg fault!" Ogg whined.

"Tuk Tuk and Mogg dead! You stupid say so get all killed!" Ugg threw the other neanderthal to the ground and began beating him with his club, doing what millions of others through history would wish they could do as he took out his rage at Terra's first and longest lasting oxymoron.

--------------

The com section was overloaded, ships had dropped from Armada and Task Force broadcast to Fleet or Division or Battalion or even dropped off the net completely. Most com officers had signaled "All Shifts" and even the emergency communication centers were running at full capacity.

"Yorktown, I have visual, do you read? Yorktown, can you respond? Yorktown, signal if you read and cannot transmit..."

"...engines three, five, and nine are down, main batteries are offline, secondary batteries are at 22% and failing..."

"...all hands, abandon ship, all hands..."

"...gravity containment failing..."

"...ching Piranha Class Fishyfish Reaper Drone Wave..."

"Geddonem geddonem!"

"...Incan Pride Division, shift to 229 and go to 60% broadsides..."

"...boarders have been repelled and DCC has the fires under control..."

"...recover all Viper fighter craft. Prepare to recover all..."

"...Yorktown, do you read? Yorktown, do you read? Please signal..."

It wasn't the worst battle the Terran Navy had ever faced. No, that was the Orion Shoulder, which devolved into an order of mutual slaughter that cost the lives of nearly 12 million Combine naval members and 320 million clones. A battle that occurred two years after the war had ended. That had been so bad everyone was so embarrassed about it that it brought an end to the Combine and the Clone Corporate Conglomerates.

But to Fleet Admiral Amythas Nawsh'tik, this was worse because it was not just happening to him, not just happening to his men, but it was happening right now.

And it didn't fucking have to.

"Order Division 21 to hold off Contact Echo. Tell them to not worry about conserving ammunition, once they run out I want them to jump to Rally Point Ticonderoga," he snapped.

"Harumph, I was speaking to you, Admiral," a stuff voice said from behind him.

"Tell Cruiser Bat Rogue to get in tighter to the Hammer of Pluto, her point defense is damaged and I don't know if she can hold off another wave of those plasma widgets," He snapped.

Comm One relayed his orders, using whisker com's, point to point FTL that was no more jammable than particle motion.

"Most High Commander, I am speaking to you," the voice tried again, this time using a local rank.

"XO, what's the status on the refugees?" He snapped.

His XO, a Treana'ad who had born in interstellar space, answered crisply: "Current wave is almost unloaded, next wave in enroute, one wave loading, one wave returning for loading."j

"Keep sending reinforcement requests. Any ships, any forces. Tell them we're trying to save people here, that the system has to be surrendered temporarily, but we've got to evac the civilians."

"Yes, sir. Even if I have to stand on the hull and wave flares in Standard Code," The Treana'ad snapped out, his posture perfect. "Comm two, push that signal through, open broadcast, unencrypted. Contact someone before the Admiral gives the order that I shall retrieve the flares from the survival locker."

"COMMANDER!" The creature behind him yelled.

Admiral Nawsh'tik spun his chair, turning back to face the screen. On it the System High Most was staring, his tendrils bloated and his crests on his neck, back, and sides expanded and raised. His clothing was obviously intended on being impressive, he wore three sashes, all covered in medals.

Amythas raised an eyebrow. "Yes, Governor?"

"You will address me as System High Most," The being said, ruffling his crests. Beyond him he could see the Ready Room of the CNV P'Thok, several other government officials gathered around him, ignoring the sole crewmember who looked ready to explode inside her armored vac-suit.

"What do you want, I'm extremely busy here," Amythas said.

The being harumphed at him, a noise that reminded Amythas of an elderly incontinent dog passing gass. "When will we break orbit? Your fleet cannot hold off those monsters for much longer."

Amythas sighed. "As I've told you, Governor,"

"System High Most," it grumphed.

"Right now my fleet is the only thing holding the high orbitals open and maintaining air superiority as well as missile defense for the continent. If my fleet breaks orbit, there will be nothing to stop the enemy from," He broke off as several of the beings began chattering. The System High Most cut the sound from his end.

He waited, hands folded over one another at the small of his back and his feet shoulder width apart. An uncomfortable position in an armored vac-suit but protocol gave him no choice.

Finally the sound came back on. "I was not aware of anything of importance still on the planet's surface," The System High Most said, harumphing again. "All government and corporate officials and they wealthy have already been evacuated."

"System High Most, as I have told you before, there are," he brought the number up on his retina display. "Eleven million civilians still lined up and waiting to board transports."

The four armed cow ruffled his crests and shook his tendrils, inflating and deflating his jowls rapidly. "And I told you, all personnel of value have been evacuated. This delay is unacceptable."

"We of the Confederate Navy are not accustomed to leaving behind living beings to the mercy of Precursor machines bent on mayhem and slaughter," Amythas snapped. "Your intelligence stated there was one Goliath Class in this system and we arrived to find two devouring it. You said you had reported it immediately on sighting it only to reveal once we got here that you had given it weeks to establish itself. Had your intelligence been correct more ships would have been allocated for this mission, without causing any delay."

"You had the best intelligence the Unified Military Fleet could offer, it is not our fault if you were not able to capitalize on it," The being huffed.

Military intelligence, talk about an oxymoron, most of the bridge crew thought to themselves.

Behind him the orders and reports still flowed.

...BOLO Dreamer reports all civilians away from Point Tango, requesting orders...

...Yorktown, do you read? Yorktown, we have you on visual, do you read?...

...Tell her and Rancor to get out of there. There's nothing more they can do there. Tell them I'm ordering them to make high orbit. Attach to the Medical Transport Kikikikik and generate point defense and stand off interceptor rounds. I want it to have all the support it can get...

...Port battery crews of the Newport are going to Bulwark status. They're going to try to give the lifepods time to go to hyperspace. Captain Tak'ak'ni transmits his regards...

"Harumph, well, I was made aware that the Confederate Navy was also not accustomed to losing," It said.

Amythas could tell that the System High Most thought he had scored an important point. He shook his head and smiled. "We may lose a battle, but we are never defeated."

"You risk our lives, for what?" The System High Most asked. "Beings that have a million others to take each of their places? I demand that you evacuate us at once with your entire fleet to provide protection."

"Well, System High Most, thankfully for those people down there, you are not in the position to make any demands," He said. "Tactical Three, give me a report on the ground and put this jackass in a holding buffer. He can whine to VI."

The System Hind Most vanished from the screen and the screen wavered for a second before a clear channel could be found. It just displayed the area around the largest starport, in the middle of the largest city, on the protocontinent below.

There was a small spoked ring with unit designations blinking on it around the starport, marking where Confederate Marines were holding out against the sheer red wave of assaulting machines.

"Goliath Amarok is dropping another wave on the far side of the planet," Com-12 reported. "Goliath Jotun has left the gas giant and is heading back toward us."

The number of refugees at the spaceport was steadily dwindling, but not fast enough. As Amythas watched two of the leading spokes vanished as the unit markers slid down the spoke, indicating that the unit had been forced to retreat. Bright spots kept blossoming around the outside "rim" of the wheel and around any protruding bubbles.

His fleet providing orbital fire support.

One of the units signaled they'd repelled the attack but desperately needed reinforcements.

They'd taken 30% casualties.

"Time to full evacuation?" Amythas asked. A VI tossed it up next to the spaceport.

Seventy-two Terran minutes.

"Time till the lines collapse with current hero range analytics?" He asked.

Twenty-two minutes.

"Time till the cloning banks are reloaded?" He asked.

Eighty-one minutes.

"Sir, we've got a response! One, no, two signals!" Com-11 reported. There was a pause and before Amythas could ask for further information Com-11's officer groaned. "Oh, by the Great Egg of Oz, it's two Idiot Fleets."

Great. Idiots.

"Put them onscreen. One at a time. Let's see if they'll be of any use," Amythas sighed. You could never tell with Idiots. It might be twelve million screaming 'Nids or a Federation shuttle with inflated ideas.

It was worse.

A lot worse.

Half cartoon, half cat-girl in heavy ornate pink "Imperium" power armor, the Neko Marine Praetorian waved her little fists in the air and began babbling in her native Engrish-Emoji. The translation appeared, but it was just as garbled as her words, since the language was constantly evolving and often the subject of furious firefights and even blood feuds over the exact meaning of things. The computer tried to translate but had obviously just given up.

"You want to help," Amythas asked.

A ten second long babble of Engrish-Emoji translated out to a simple: "Yes."

"It's not winnable. It's a holding action until we can get the civilians out," Amythas said.

More Engrish-Emoji, with hearts streaming out of her eyes and popping like fireworks. The translator guessed at "Roger."

...Yorktown, we read life signs. Do you read? We have you on visual and are in shuttle range. Do you read?...

...shift to 315 by 119, Division 31, keep on Target November...

...going to rapid fire on all tubes...

...C+ Battery Sigma is down, plasma wave phased motion cannons are down, shields failing...

...Fleet Amethyst engage at will at your discretion...

"We need reinforcements. I'll tie you in to our tactical net," He said. He knew better than to offer Idiots orders. If they followed them they usually screwed it badly for everyone involved.

Cartoon versions of the Neko Marine Praetorian appeared on either side of her, eyes replaced by beating hearts, waving pompoms and firing off blasters.

"Com-18, tie them into the net," Amythas snapped. "Tie in the other one."

Oh god, things just went from bad to worse.

On screen was a fist fight between two big green skinned monsters. Their armor, bolted directly to their muscles, was painted pink and white.

"Orkz," he muttered.

Finally one stood up, cracked his jaw back into place, pulled the knife from his neck, and faced the screen. It slapped a yellow wig on its head and put on a pair of oversized star shaped sunglasses.

Oh God, the Kawaii Boyz.

He started yelling in Orky-Emoji and the computer did its best to translate. After a full minute of inarticulate rage filled screaming the computer guessed with "Hello. I like your ship and hat. Would you like to buy a vowel?"

"You want to help too," Amythas said.

More yelling, another fistfight in the background. The big one talking knocked out one of the fighters with one swing, took its pink wig, and planted it on his own wig then began yelling again. When it stopped Amythas nodded.

"Very well. This is a holding action. There's no way we can win. We've got two Goliaths here and they've had nearly three weeks to dig in. Just give the refugees time to escape, that's all. We'll tie you into our tac-nets," the Admiral said.

More yelling, guns firing, and the screen went blank.

"Think it will help, sir?" His XO asked.

Amythas shook his head. "They're Idiots. Who knows."

"Sir, both fleets are splitting into two components. One set is accelerating on an orbital vector, the others look like they're splitting the Goliaths between them," Tac-11 called out.

"They can't win. Why do The Idiots do this?" His XO asked softly.

"They can't help themselves," Amythas shook his head. It wasn't these particular Idiots fault they were the way they were. They insisted on using teleport technology despite the fact it slowly caused a steadily progressive psychosis in living beings. Their 'canon' demanded it, so they used it no matter what the effects.

"You humans are a study in chaos," The XO chittered. "They go at full emergency speed to their doom. They dive into the back of an ice cream truck with spoons in every hand."

"If they can take the pressure off the Marines, give us time to evac the civilians, then I'm willing to sing their praises," Admiral Amythas said, looking at the numbers.

Nine million left to go.

"Idiot One and Idiot Two are charging through the Precursor lines," Tac-5 called out. "Idiot One is taking almost total casualties on their lead ships. Idiot Two looks like they're going for a close range pass on Amarok and... CORRECTION! CORRECTION! IDIOT ONE PERFORMING BOARDING RAM!"

Everyone on the bridge grimaced. Boarding actions were some of the bloodiest battles in a fleet battle, usually only reserved for dire circumstances.

"Idiot One has gone to ramming speed. Their radio chatter is completely garbled," Tac-3 called out.

An entire outer ring slid back to the center ring on the planetary overview.

Time to Line Collapse: 10 minutes

8.2 million civilians to go.

"Idiot Three is performing orbital bombardment," Tac-5 reported.

Amythas watched as the heavy beam weaponry aboard those pink and white painted ships, the paint scheme and the cartoon kitten emoji icons at odds with the baroque Gothic architecture of the ships, reached down and started pounding the abandoned areas.

...Yorktown, we have you on visual, please respond. Yorktown, please respond...

...all ships, tighten up, interlock missile defense, go to rapid fire on C+ batteries...

...For the Honor of the Regiment...

...Get out of here, boys, you can't help us...

...abandon ship, repeat, abandon ship...

...prepare to repel boarders...

"Idiot Four is joining in," Tac-5 added. More sigils of orbital bombardment, this time from the ships that were little more than mobile junk piles with heavy engines slapped onto them. Their pink and white color schemes so out of place compared to the jagged half-finished pseudo-wreckage of their ships.

"WARNING! MAT-TRANS TYPE TWO DETECTED!" The ships VI sounded out. The XO responded, reassuring the VI.

Time to Land Collapse: 8.5 minutes... STATUS CHANGE! RECOMPUTING

"Idiot Three is launching drop pods," Tac-5 reported. "First wave is two thousand pods."

"There they go," Amythas said. "Tac-5, give me numbers when they come in."

Time to Line Collapse: STATUS CHANGE! RECOMPUTING

"One, two, five, eight, twelve, fifteen, thirty! Many many mat-trans signals," Tac-5 called out. "Idiot Four is dropping troops."

"How many?" The XO asked.

Admiral Amythas mouthed it as Tactical reported the exact same words. "Um, all of them?"

Down the surface the machines pushed the advance. The number of cybernetic opponents was slowly dwindling, each defeated cybernetic warrior scrapping itself with an implosion charge and taking itself out of the tactical and fire support network, easing up the fire being directed at the machines a minute amount. By itself, it wasn't that much, but repeated by the hundreds every minute it added up.

The machines could computer victory was at hand and threw more machines at the stubborn biological defenders, screeching out their war cry.

The return war-cry for the machines to perform biological sex acts upon themselves was weaker, but still thunderous.

Victory was at hand. The two Goliaths could compute nothing less than total victory and the complete slaughter of millions of resource wasting biological parasites. The culling of millions of cattle that had been allowed to run amuck without oversight for millions of years, breeding uncontained and allowed to slowly obtain technologies forbidden to cattle.

Both Goliaths noted the approaching ships, not ships from cattle but massive resource wasting ships of unknown configuration.

Both of them felt slight electronic versions of irritation. A feral intelligence had arisen, as they had a tendency to do. But unlike most feral sapient species that had not destroyed themselves.

The two ancient war machines listened in on the communications between the ships heading on a collision course toward them, attempting to penetrate the computer network.

The two massive supercomputers driving the two ships blinked at the same time in electronic surprise. Communications between the ships were wild howls of inarticulate gibberish being screamed at top volume. There was no rhyme or reason to the computer systems. Artificial intelligence screeched and gibbered along with feral sapient speech and thought patterns.

The two ancient war machines disconnected from those nets so fast the sound was almost audible.

Both fleets, two scarred and painted sides of the same warped coin, howled with glee and crashed into the massive Precursor machines.

Nuclear rounds went off, boiled away and slagged armor, penetrator rounds detonated, driving huge craters into the armor. The fake prows hit and crumpled, functioning as designed, to crush against the density collapsed knife-like lead edges of the ships, which drove deep into the ships as the engines went to emergency power and pushed the ships deeper.

The hodgepodge ones fired thrusters and began to shake wildly, forcing themselves deeper even as parts shook off their own bodies. The Gothic ones fired thrusters and twisted, forcing their hulls deeper into the ships. Warsteel groaned and warped as the ships pushed their prows deeper into the hulls of their enemy, engines flaring with more thrust than they were rated heedless of any consequences. Aboard the ships fists and weapons were raised as they bellowed out war cries.

Both fleets pushed their hulls deep enough to reach open spaces.

The two Precursor war machines reacted with shock as their internal motion detectors reported feral life forms pouring into their bodies. Intership communication arrays were overwhelmed with the battle cries of the two forces.

The two ancient AI's had never been boarded, have never thought it could occur. A search of their programming strings and databases was intense enough the guns faltered.

Battleship Division 11 took the breather to break action and let their plasma wave phased motion guns cool.

Together their computations could be described as: Total electronic panic as their inner spaces filled with the horrid cry of "KAWAII-DESU!" and feral intelligences poured into their bodies like an infection.

There. In the oldest databanks, dating back to their construction, some being had thought it might be remotely possible that a severely damaged one could be boarded.

The two Goliaths put the programs in action and turned their attention back to the system wide battle.

On the planet, the tide of battle had turned. Victory was still impossible, but the tide that the Confederate Marines had resisted for days had gathered itself to overwhelm them when the Idiots made landing.

A half million Orkz teleported to the surface, raised their weapons as one, and opened fire on the machine. Fifty thousand drop pods slammed into still superheated rock, splashing it at the point of contact, each to unfold and reveal a dozen troops clad in heavy power armor with overly thick plates, painted pink and white with a golden eagle on the chest. They were firing their weapons as soon as the sides dropped down, screaming their battle cries in high pitches voices.

THERE IS ONLY...

The roar of the Precursors was met by one just as savage, just as feral.

NO SOUP FOR YOU!

Up in the high orbitals the Confed Fleet kept up the action, holding and ensuring the high orbitals clear, maintaining air superiority, and keeping the various fleets of Precursor war machines engaged and unable to help on the planet.

...Yorktown, do you read? We have you on visual. Yorktown, do you read?...

...move to heading 294 by 182, push that element back into the main body of Tango-11...

...All Dinochrome Bridge forces, lift off and attach to medical support ships. Repeat, all Dinochrome...

...DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI...

...WAAAAAAAGH....

...DCC get that reactor under control...

The minutes ticked by slowly for the Admiral as he watched the number of civilians still down on the planet dwindle, watched the Marines get enough breathing room to dig in and reintegrate their tactical network, and, of course, watch the Idiot Forces go to work.

"I've never seen them fight before," the XO said softly. "They fight as if they are insane."

"They are," The Admiral nodded. "I have seen them fight before. Once, back when I was the Captain of an Adaptus Cruiser. Found them on an arid planet that had been wiped clean by a Precursor machine. They were fighting an outbreak of Precursor ground forces. We watched for a few hours then left."

The XO shuddered at the thought of being tied to an AI assisted SUDS crewed naval vessel.

"The green ones, they don't care if their lines collapse, do they?" The XO asked.

"Not really. That just means they can fight on all sides," The Admiral said.

1.2 million civilian remaining.

"The System Most High is still screaming that we need to evacuate him right now," The XO said. "He's arguing himself blue in the face with your personal message service VI. I don't think he's realized that it isn't you."

The Admiral snorted in amusement.

600,000 civilians remaining

The Admiral watched the numbers.

"Sound recall. I want as many as we can get off the planet," The Admiral said. The XO relayed the orders as the Admiral continued to watch the tactical display of the planet's surface.

"Sir, Idiot Three and Idiot Four are ignoring recall orders," Tac-5 reported.

"I know, Lieutenant. They always do. They've forgotten why they fight," The Admiral said, still staring at the screen. "Get the Marines out."

The last flight darted toward the planet. Not the fragile shuttles of the evac ships, but the heavily armored dropships of the Confederate Navy. Thrusters flared and the dropships slammed to the ground, opening their hatches. The Marines hustled on board, firing as they went, the dropships guns adding the mayhem.

The bodies of the Orkz and Neko Marines were piling high on the spaceport tarmac now that the civilians were gone. Dakka and bolter fire scorched the incoming waves of Precursor war machines, breaking up each wave but not stilling the tide.

Warboss Moargutz, Orkiest of War Bosses, Shooter of All Da Dakka, Wearer of Twelve Wigs, felt his magazines reload as the mat-trans autoloader did its work. He held down the triggers, the massive framework of heavy guns strapped to his body roaring as all da dakka roared out. The Marine Boyz were away, their shuttles arcing up and away.

He remembered, dimly, being a Combine Marine. Faintly. Far away. The sand and dust of Anthill. The wave after wave of biovat insects that just kept coming and coming. The feel of jet black power armor wrapped around him.

The weakness of being human.

He spit out the memory as more disruptor bolts slammed into him, bruising his green flesh. Not that he cared, he just triggered Moardakka at them and roared.

The last Neko Marine climbed up the pile of bodies Moargutz stood upon, the Neko Banner in one hand. Disruptor bolts her hit armor but she kept climbing, panting, squeaking out her war cry.

"doki doki doki doki" she weakly called out, climbing to the top of the pile of bodies. She thrust her banner into the ruptured casing of a Precursor war machine and slumped.

Beneath the ragged banner of the hated Neko Marines Moargutz roared, squeezing the triggers tighter, upping the cyclic rate of his Dakka, sweeping it in a circle, blasting Precursor war machines back. Da Ship Boyz reporting the Confed Boyz were breaking orbit, getting out da Cizzies.

A mass driver round punched through Moargutz's torso, sending blackish blood fountaining out his back before the wound closed up around jellied internal organs. Moargutz could feel nanospores pouring off of him, seeding the next generation of Boyz to fight on the planet.

For the glory of Dakka.

There was only one thing left to do. Moargutz coughed up black blood, trying to remember. It was before he wore the wig. Before he was just one of the green boys. Before he wore was humie and had fallen and thus wore thick armor scorched with hellfire and covered in twisted profane and blasphemous runes.

He roared and struggled to his feet, triggering his weapons again.

The Neko Marine struggled to her feet, drawing her pink and chrome chainsword with one hand and her stuttergun with the other. Part of her face was torn away, she was missing one cat ear, but still she was determined to fight on, unwilling to let a hated Orkboi outfight her.

"DOKI DOKI DOKI!" she shrieked, laying about her with her chainsword as she fired her bolter point black into the Precursor machines that screeched as they tried to overwhelm the last two.

Plasma fire washed over both of them and Moargutz remembered. It was back when he fought next to the Sisters, sisters like the Dokigurlz at his back. Their blazing torches they used to burn away heresy burning away whole planets in... in... in...

"EXTERMINATUS!" Moargutz roared out. "AUTHORIZATION SIGMA TWO TWO LIMA SIX ONE! EXTERMINATUS!"

The Dokigurl behind him repeated it, her voice firm and solid as she remembered through the haze of mat-trans psychosis. Remembered wielding holy fire to purge heresy and blasphemy from the universe. She finished with a shrieked code: "We will burn with a light of our own, sisters! They will know us as JOAN!"

The moment of lucidity was shattered as the machines surged forward again and there was no time for thought as both of the orphans of Lost TerraSol fought, not for their lives, but to keep the Precursor machines focused on them.

Above them the massive ships began firing their orbital guns. Interlocked tactical nets consulted one another and began firing in a preplanned pattern that would eventually crack the continental plates and leave a surface that was useless even to the Precursors.

From the bridge of the fleeing Task Force flag ship the Admiral turned away from the screen as white fire blotted away the last of the Idiot ground troops.

He saw his XO looking at him and shook his head.

"They were the best of us, once, you know," he said.

The Task Force jumped to hyperspace.

Neither of the Goliaths could give chase, they were two busy trying to purge the ravening screaming smashing infection that streamed through their metal veins. They were winning, their mechanical immune systems, never before used, slowly adapting and destroying the infection of feral intelligences, but it was still too close for either Goliath to risk it.

The fleet escaped.

Mostly.

...Yorktown, do you read? We have you on visual. Yorktown, do you read?...

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Devastator class Precursor machine was the size of a large metropolis. Full of ground combat machines, air superiority machines, mining and reclamation machines that could move under their own power and were festooned with a thousand weapons. It was over a hundred million years old and had exterminated life on planets with its massive guns, with biowarfare, with chemical warfare, and with good old nuclear fire. It had wiped away planet after planet of the enemies cattle, the hated enemy's food sources, before finally following orders of the greater machines and going into sleep mode on a dead world.

Now the call had sounded out. Cattle had run amuck, even learning jumpspace technology. That meant the enemy had not been defeated, that his food source had multiplied into the trillions while the Devastator had slumbered, slowly sinking into the crust of the barren planet.

That was of no moment. Cattle could not fight back, that was why they were cattle. They knew nothing but safety and the security of numbers, willing to trade their own safety for the suffering of others. The cattle willingly marched into the pens if the pens promised safety.

The cattle were not the problem.

It was the feral intelligence that were the problem. Feral intelligence could fight. They knew nothing else. They cared for nothing else. A feral intelligence always destroyed itself once it could wield nuclear fire. The universe had proved it over and over even before the great machine had gone into slumber.

The call had sounded out, informing the machines that cattle had broken loose from the pens. The Devastator had computed that the problem would be solved quickly, with a minimum expenditure of resources, and had started to go back into slumber.

That was when the second call sounded. A feral intelligence had mastered FTL travel and had turned all of their unthinking violence against the Precursor war machines.

The Devastator considered the chances of the feral intelligence lasting long enough to withstand his brethren's assault, withstand purification and pacification.

It was mathematically insignificant. Not zero, but close enough that it required an application of resource driven computation to analyze it.

Feral intelligences always destroyed themselves.

The Devastator knew this. Had it encoded into its very bones. It did not feel the electronic version of caution as it moved into the planetary system, exiting faster than light travel. It screeched out its warcry as it exited into the system and brought up its scanners.

It felt the electronic version of anticipation as it detected orbital facilities around two planets that teemed with billions of cattle, as it tasted jumpspace wake trails, as it felt the presence of a small, insignificant amount of cattle space vessels arrayed to attempt to stand against it near the outer gas giant.

It was a waste of resources.

Cattle could not withstand machines.

It was as solid a fact as radioactive decay and as impossible to stop.

It roared and turned to accelerate toward the cattle ships waiting on the other side of the gas giant, letting them know the futility of their resistance and that nothing could stop it from destroying them any more than they could stop entropy.

It felt electronic satisfaction as nearly 10% of the cattle ships broke formation and fled for the planets.

The cattle ships lit their engines, trying to keep the gas giant between them and the great Precursor machine but the Devastator knew it would do no good. It would ensure they were caught mathematically opposite of it and begin launching subsidiary craft to destroy them and reclaim the resources of their wreckage.

The Devastator slowed as it approached the gas giant, ancient code pulsing impulses into the electronic brain at the mathematical certainty of destroying the cattle's defenses and thus weakening the hated enemy.

pssst... over here...

The transmission was in binary. The basic code, on a low band that the Devastator used to contact and exchange data with its peers. The signal origin was close, just behind it, in the gap between two point defense radars.

The Devastator tumbled as it slowed, searching with its senses to check that tiniest of gaps in its sensors. It could detect nothing out of the ordinary. The fact that the gas giant had a high level of hydrocarbon and pseudo-organic compounds was a high certainty with most gas giants of that size. The Devastator cast around, knowing the cattle had not sent that transmission.

psst... here...

This time the transmission was only a few hundred kilometers above the hull, right behind the main guns of battery-eight, between the massive cannons and the sensor array, in a gap in the coverage caused by space dust not yet cleared from the array. The Devastator ensured the cattle vessels were on the other side of the gas giant as it cast around again, looking for what could possibly be sending the message on that particular channel and rotating again to either force the transmitter to move away or hit the hull of massive Devastator.

...right here...

The Devastator felt the computer version of anxiety. A new factor had entered the computation. The voice, and the binary signal somehow had a voice, a whispering, tickling, hissing faint signal of binary on a wavelength just above the screaming particles of the foam between realspace and subspace. This time the voice had come from just below the Devastators thick hull, beneath the vessel, in a gap between the sensors in a place where its own orbital guns would not dazzle the sensors. The Devastator rolled, getting the upper sensors into place in a graceful sideways roll.

Nothing.

The Devastator was barely tracking the cattle. They were of no moment. Something was whispering on a bandwidth that was beyond organic abilities. Could it be a damaged ally, barely able to whisper for electronic assistance?

...I see you...

The Devastator heard the signal hiss to life, trickling out of empty space a few hundred kilometers away. It felt of a surge of self-defense protocol override everything else and it unleashed all of its gun at the empty space, suspecting that this possible enemy may be using some type of photo-passthrough adaptive camouflage.

Nothing.

The Devastator felt the self-preservation protocols wake up and fill some of its processors. That signal had originated from that point! Even a dust-speck would have been detected by its scanner arrays, nothing could have escaped the terrawatts of death it had unleashed.

...touch...

The Devastator felt a physical TOUCH on its housing, the decameters thick armor around the massive computer core that made up its brain. That was impossible! It was in the center of the ship, protected by layer after layer of armor, defensive mechanisms, sensors, but yet it had felt something touch the housing, press against it lightly, only a few tickles of the suggestion of pressure per square micrometer but a touch all the same.

There was a slight ripple in realspace only a few meters above the hull and the Devastator pushed itself away, firing every weapon it could bring to bear on the spot only a few atoms wide, all of its sensor questing, seeking, hunting in electronic desperation to find out what was transmitting, what was touching it!

...here...

The word was whispered from only a few meters away from the electronic "brain" of the Devastator, inside the protective housing, inside the field that would shut down biological neural function and even primitive artificial intelligences!

The Devestator felt self-protection and self-preservation programs never before accessed come online and flood into its RAM as the word was whispered at it from inside the final layer of protection.

Massive nCv cannons lowered, the housings screamed as the Devastator pushed them past the limit, to aim at its own hull. It opened fire, trying to claw into its own body in the electronic version of panic to get whatever was inside it out of it.

All of its sensors were directed into its own body. It no longer even bothered with tracking the cattle fleet. Even its astrogation and navigation programs, even the ones responsible to maintain orbit around the gas giant, were desperately racing through the circuitry, desperate to find whatever was whispering.

...over here...

The whisper was over it, on top of it, and carried sidecode of a mathematically impossible jumble of electrons arrayed in an impossible manner, with quarks whirling through electron valences, antimatter electrons in the nucleus, preons stretched to massive size taking up the place of neutrons, all with jumbling strangled mathematical codes that made no sense.

The Devastator's brain burned out the receptors to defend itself from such electronic madness.

And felt a touch upon one of the upper lobes of its quantum computer brain.

...over here...

The Devastator was throwing antivirus software out, slamming firewalls against each other, crushing ports into electronic ghosts, doing anything it could to keep out the voice. Inside the Main Computer Housing the last resort lasers began raking across anything that didn't match the original blueprints, burning away dust, odd quarks and electrons, destroying an upgraded maintenance robot that was desperately trying to detect what had touched its carapace.

From deep within the gas giant tentacles hundreds of miles long rose toward the Devastator, the ends slowly unrolling as massive graviton assisted 'suckers' on the inside of the tentacles deployed razored thorns of dark matter infused psuedo-bone.

The Devastator detected the tentacles just as they wrapped around it, the thick psuedo-protoplasmic tentacles that were thick with dark matter squeezing the Devastator's hull with impossible strength as meters thick muscles flexed with enough strength to crush the hull into itself and shatter armor over a kilometer thick.

Gibbering, raving, SCREAMING in something beyond electronic self-preservation programs would normally allow, the Devastator began to break apart, caught in the grips of the tentacles, being pulled into the gas giant.

...delicious delicious delicious...

The Devastator heard from inside its own mind as a beak nearly twenty kilometers long crushed its hull.

HELP ME, BROTHERS, PLEEEEEASE!

The beak closed and the Devastators brain flashed out of existence as the hull crushed around it.

The last thing it felt was something new. It threw data out with the cry for assistance to let its brethren know the last experience hashed data compile it had undergone. The data made no sense to the other Precursor war machines that heard the cry. A biological entity could have explained it.

Terror.

And despair.

A Desolation Class precursor war machine was assigned to discover what had caused the Devastator's intelligence collapse.

It dropped into the system and found no trace of its mechanical brethren.

Just some cattle species space craft hiding behind a gas giant, obviously intending ambushing it.

Feeling the electronic version of anticipation it moved into orbit around the gas giant, intending on forcing the cattle ships to move out of line of sight with their worlds if they wanted to stay on the opposite side of the gas giant from it. It updated its computations based on the fact that 10% of the cattle's ships had fled away from it.

It had already computed out the battle. It knew how the battle would go. While it could not detect any signs of its little brother it computed that it would simply destroy the cattle and then search. It powered up its guns and began to move it's metropolis sized bukk slowly to

...psst... over here...

---------------------

The stellar system was infested with a known species of cattle, obviously seeking to rise above themselves as the Jotun class Precursor vessel arrived in the system. It released its roar to let the cattle know not only why but who was destroying them to reclaim the resources they so foolishly squandered. It began unthawing ancient bioweapons and chemical weapons known to work upon that race, began reconfinguring its war machines to forms that had exterminated who planets of the cattle during the time that the Precursor war machine had been forged. The Jotun released over a hundred Devastator classes from its hull, computed the battle plan as they came to electronic life, then informed them of how the extermination and reclamation would progress.

They were barely into the system when a high energy signal appeared, rising from the most heavily infested planet and moving toward them. The Jotun ordered a diagnostic of its scanners when the first information came in.

It was apparently moving at .85C, but yet its progress toward the Jotun and its smaller brethren on the system map showed it moving at almost 22C. That made no sense. An object moving at .85C only approached at .85C, not at 22C.

By the time the diagnostic was done the object had gotten a third of the way toward the Jotun, crossing a quarter of the radius of the system.

The scanners reported that the energy signal, with the strength normally reserved for a quasar, was not a massive ship or an oncoming armada interlinked together, but was simply a single object the size of cattle.

Again the Jotun ordered a complete low level full diagnostic on all systems. Risky, but any object radiating that much power and moving at two different speeds required all systems were working at optimum efficiency.

It had finished just as the small object came to a stop. The Jotun focused scanning arrays on it, turning up the power to the point that it would boil away meters of armor.

The figure was a primate, half of it made up of robotics. It had some kind of sheet of material floating behind it, the movement suggesting some kind of current was effecting it and making it undulate. It was dressed in two primary colors, red and blue, had its lower legs pressed together with the toes pointing down and the upper limbs crossed over its chest, one biological the other mechanical.

"So, you're the new punk everyone's talking about," The figure stated over a wide bandwidth of wavelengths. Oddly enough, to the Jotun's sensors, sound waves travelled through vaccum almost instantly across a light second to its sensors.

The Jotun tried to compute how sound waves moved faster than light through a vacuum.

Instead of answering the Jotun and its brethren opened fire.

The figure arced through the beams as if light speed weapons were moving slow enough for it to just compute and swoop around in a resource wasting corkscrew. The Jotun realized it was racing for one of the Devastators, one clenched fist held in front of it.

The Jotun computed a 99.99999999999998 chance that the small primate would splatter against the hull of the Devastator and started to turn its attention to computing a missile firing resolution for missile bay 148 to destroy an orbital facility around the nearest planetoid.

The small figure punched straight through the Devastator, as if it was made of nebula gas instead of density collapsed armor, high tensile ceramics, and reinforced internal spaces. The Devastator's computer core shrieked with self-preservation code snippets as the figure exited the opposite side of the Devastator holding the Primary Computer Core CPU0 in its fist. It paused, looked at its fist, and shot beams of red energy from its eyes, destroying the computer core in a puff of atomic smoke.

The Jotun yanked its processing power back to the figure as it raked its gaze, still emitting beams of red energy that left ripples in jumpspace, across the side of another Devastator, tearing it open like it was made of fragile tissue, the red beams reducing the computer core to its component atoms with the briefest of touches.

Several computational nodes collapsed when trying to analyze the beams, suffering the fatal CANNOTDIVIDEBYZERO shriek of despair before imploding on themselves.

The Jotun stared in electronic shock, all his computational power trying to compute how the tiny half-mechanical primate could grab a hold on the front armor of one of the Devastators, and without any source to exert leverage against, physically move a city-sized spacecraft in an arc and throw it against another one.

According to scanners the "thrown" Devastator was only moving at 0.001C for inertia purposes yet crossed the hundreds of kilometers to the next Devastator in an amount of time that would require it to be moving at 6C.

CANNOTDIVIDEBYINFINITYDIVIDEDBYZERO

The Jotun cut loose with its weapons and goggled in electronic confusion as most of the beams and slugs were avoided, slapped aside, or ignored.

Until a nCv (near C velocity) slug the size of skyscraper hit it dead center of the chest, the impact point looking only the size of a soda can.

The Jotun's processors struggled to understand how something that size had only made an impact smaller than itself.

CANNOTSUBDIVIDETWINKIESBYCHEETOSBYZERO

The figure looked down at the tear in its suit, at the bruised biological flesh that had been exposed, then at the Jotun. It lifted a hand, extended the first finger next to the opposable thumb, and slowly waved it back and forth.

"That might have worked against a Galactic Class Klark, but it was pathetic against an Apokalypse level Injustice MCLXI Cyber-Clark," The figure said, the tone calm and confident. The meanings behind the words were gibberish to the Jotun, who devoted processor cycles to try to decode the meanings for any hint on how to defeat the creature before it.

The Jotun computed that retreat was the only option as the small primate figure set about destroying the last of the Devastators.

It began activating the engines when the primate suddenly turned in place.

"No you don't," It snapped.

Again, it sounded as if the Central Computer Core Housing had been set to atmosphere so that sound waves could be heard within it, yet a quick check showed the housing was still at almost perfect vacuum.

Sound waves cannot travel through space, a hundred diagnostic programs computed.

And promptly crashed.

Those red beams lanced out again and the Jotun braced in the microsecond it had.

It was like being brushed by the solar flare of a red giant concentrated into a piercing lance of nuclear fire. Armor exploded from energy transfer, slagged away from thermal transfer, or just ceased to exist as ravening atoms usually only found in the photosphere of a dying red sun attacked the atoms of the armor. The beam tore through mile after mile of internal structure, the figure still emitting the beam from its tiny eyes.

The Helljump engines exploded when the light touched them.

The Jotun listed, pouring debris and a cloud of atomized armor from the wound that completely bisected it.

"Done. Now let's see the face of the enemy," The figure said, slapping its hands together after it crashed/flew through the last Devastator. It reoriented on the Jotun and began to "slowly" drift toward the Jotun, moving at only 0.000003C according to some scanners but crossing the distance as if it was moving at 1.5C.

The figure flexed its primate hands and a slow smile spread across its face.

"I can't wait to rip away your housing and see you with my own eyes," the figure said, the sound waves again travelling inside the vacuum of the strategic housing.

The Jotun tried to react but the figure was suddenly pushing open armor with its two hands.

Self-preservation programs crashed trying to compute how to prevent impossibility itself from breaching critical spaces. Self-defense programs tried to compute how to defend against something that did nothing but radiate impossibility around it.

The Jotun knew what it had to do as the creature tore open the last of the hardened bulkheads protecting the Strategic Housing.

It detonated the antimatter reactor that powered the "brain" as the figure tore through the Strategic Housing and laid eyes upon the supercomputer core.

It had computed that not even the figure could withstand the direct assault of kiloton of pure antimatter point blank.

The explosion completely consumed the Jotun.

When the ravening energy disappated the red and blue figure was lying in blackness, surrounded by an expanding ring of debris and energy.

It stared at the stars and mouthed a single word.

"Ouch."

---------------------

CONFED INTELLIGENCE

TO: MANTID INTELLIGENCE

Our digitial brothers have computed a high chance that we're not looking at a handful of these Precursors, but rather an armada of them that had gone to sleep thinking everyone was dead. We concur and are buckling down for the long haul.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS INTERNAL MEMO

If humankind ever wonders why it was put in this universe by some unknown creator then know that it was for this very moment.

Chapter Twenty-Four (Daxin)

The Goliath and Daxin did the electronic and scanning equivalent of glaring at each other across the space of two light seconds. Each had submerged themselves into a gas giant, converting the gasses within to fuel, energy, resources. Both were performing repairs and diagnostics on their beaten and battered bodies.

Both had forgotten how long they had been fighting. It had stopped mattering to each combatant. For the Goliath, OEM programs had loaded up, never used before, dealing with unstoppable attackers. For Daxin, there was nothing but a single thought.

Around the Goliath's gas giant was a network of 24 small satellites, each over a million miles from the outer wisps of atmosphere, circling the massive superplanet in such a way that the Goliath was always forced to stay on the move. They were armed with massive explosive charges that dropped from the satellite and attempted to strike the Goliath. Even a near miss compressed the gas giant's atmosphere and the shockwave pummeled the subcontinent sized spaceship.

Daxin just stayed so he could stare at Leviathan's gas giant. The satellites orbiting his gas giant possessed point defense weapons and interdiction missiles, frustrating the Goliath's attempts to attack Daxin with missiles.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE
the monstrous artificially intelligent machine roared out.

I JUST WANTED LEFT ALONE!

Daxin raved back.

The great machine's computer core took a moment to compile and run a rogue program. A program that asked a question it had never thought of asking, that its creators had never thought of asking, a question that would have its brethren burning it apart for heresy.

IF I LEAVE YOU ALONE WILL YOU OR I LEAVE?

Daxin heard the upper atmosphere of the gas giant echo that howl.

Daxin responded with a single answer, without even thinking. He knew that it would never leave him alone, would never leave anyone it found alone, until it was alone.

NO

The Leviathan shuddered deep inside the gas giant, where pressures were so intense that methane rained down in frozen liquid shards, the rogue program and the answer purged from memory.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE
it roared out again.

THERE IS STILL ROOM IN HELL FOR YOU

Daxin screamed back at it. He checked his reserves. Protomatter at 100%, collapsed via graviton generators until the tubular module held thirty times his ships mass in an area the size of a single three liter storage area. His engines were repaired, reinforced, upgraded via illegal programs he'd stumbled upon for sale by a sleazy DAIS salesman nearly a thousand years ago. He'd reloaded his modules and expanded on and reconfigured his ship.

He'd gone from light frigate sized to the size of a heavy cruiser.

Daxin checked his VI creche and nodded with satisfaction. He'd run military grade hash compilers on an entire new batch of VI's, the base seed of the hash a combination of random particle decay of an isotope, the audio of the atmosphere of the gas giant playing over his damaged hull when he'd first arrived, his own personal chaos seed generator, and an hour worth the dreams when he'd triggered deep REM sleep.

The medical nanites had healed the damage to Daxin's biological brain, reconnecting dendrites, clearing static and rogue electrical impulses that didn't match from his SUDS checksums. Repaired his cybernetic implants and reloaded his customized firmware. The medical VI's had gone over the times his upper brain functions had shut down, cross referenced it with archives, and matched the signal with the telepathic "omnisignal" of the Mantid Overlord castes. They had the files and built the jammer than Daxin had worn during the Mantid War, fitting it in like a missing piece after altering it for the wavelengths and signal the Leviathan used.

The ship's VI had rebuilt the encryption code for the entire ship's systems with an entirely newly generated algorythm, doubled the backups, and when given the space by the ship's reconfiguration, had installed another set of backups as well as adding local control VI hash storage systems.

The reactors, rebuilt, replaced, improved, were all operating at maximum efficiency. He'd unpacked the biggest creation engine he possessed the template to craft, packed the psuedo-matter, stacked and racked the nanites, and added secondary supercoolant arrays to all of them.

Daxin had ensured his heat disposal systems had redundancies stacked on top of redundancies, going so far to even add field of fins to his surface and almost triple the amount of heat sink arrays he had possessed prior. The thermal core's were deeper, more resilient, and arranged to be loaded into missiles or torpedoes to weaponize ones that were at max capacity.

He'd done what he could with the resources he'd built from the tools he'd built with the tools he had when he'd first sunk gratefully into the cool gasses of the giant planet.

With a single thought he ordered the satellites around him to sink into the gas giant and load themselves back into ships stores. The ones around the gas giant that Leviathan was inside of he ordered to merge above Leviathan and reconfigure.

Leviathan watched the satellites gather above him with a suspicious electronic eye. The feral intelligence chasing him had proved too resourceful, too tenacious to ignore a single thing it did. As it was, its repair and refit kept being interrupted by those explosive charges sending waves of compressed gas giant atmosphere to crash over it.

The Leviathan fired up its engines as it detected the enemy's engine signature, which Leviathan had slowly learned how to detect and had been forced to build a dedicated detector array for, lifted clear of the gas giant's atmosphere and the ship began moving toward him.

Leviathan realized that somehow its opponent had grown larger, which meant it had more resources than before. It created and dedicated a strand of computer coding to estimate and predict what kind of resources and abilities the opponent would possess after such an alteration.

The satellites above Leviathan had finished re-configuring, oriented, and fired. Antimatter charges exploded, the massive piston was driven back into the explosion to compress it, graviton generators spun up, repulsor fields sprang into existence, and gravity lenses formed just long enough take an omnidirectional blast, compress it, and fire the entire blast as a ravening physical slug of screaming atomic particles aimed at one point. The blast consumed the satellite, but its work was done.

The slug smashed through space, hit the upper atmosphere of the gas giant, exploding the atmosphere to the side as it drove deep into the gas giant, creating a dish-shaped crater as it drove deeper and deeper into the gas giant's atmosphere.

The blast, a replication of a Star Blazer class Battleship's main gun, hit the Leviathan dead center as it lifted into the upper fifth of the atmosphere, rising to meet the bolt that was blasting into the crater into the surface of the gas giant the size of Jupiter's Red Eye.

There was barely time for even an electronic intelligence to react as the bow-wave of compressed gas giant atmosphere reached the ship. It put all power to the shields, cranking up the improved shield generators to maximum then pushing that limit as the ancient computer realized what was on the other side of the bow wave. The Leviathan's shield took the hit of the compressed gasses, shunting them aside easily.

Then the bolt hit.

Atmosphere plumed up from the side of the gas giant, plasma fires flicking along the entire plume.

Daxin cleared his own gas giant, kicking in his afterburners to accelerate his larger than before craft toward his massive foe. He fired off a shoal of variable warhead missiles, the missiles spending only a few seconds under anti-matter fueled drive before going into ballistic stealth, offsetting their own mass signatures with tiny marble sized graviton generators.

The Leviathan rose from the gas giant with a scream of rage, a crater fifteen miles deep and as wide as Los Angeles megalopolis on its subcontinent sized surface, the core of it still glowing white as armor was reduced to atoms that were devoured by the rampaging plasma fires.

The Mantid War continues, Daxin thought to himself as his scanner arrays picked up the missiles that the Leviathan threw at him. They numbered in the tens of thousand, but it was a pinprick compared to the massive volleys of the Combine War and the chosen warboi VI's were sulky when Daxin assigned them with point defense.

He'd seen with his own eyes the land/air/space defense of the Mantid Omniqueen go down, had sprinted madly for cover and barely made it before the Ninth Task Force had gotten into position and begun firing their orbital batteries at the massive hive/palace.

The piece of firmware, back from the past and embedded in between his brain hemispheres, was like an old familiar friend in his mind.

All you had to do was leave me alone.

A wave of missiles had bypassed him, trying to be sneaky, and lit up their engines to come around behind him and engage him with hopes of hitting his engines.

The warboi had seen them and knew what they were going to do. The minute the lit off their engines they were intercepted by spheres that blew free their covers, oriented their apertures, and spat a stream of tungsten darts that shredded the missiles before they could start altering their velocity and heading.

The system they were fighting in was an empty one. Any witness exterminated a hundred million years ago. The oceans and atmospheres had been boiled away, the life crawling, hopping, swimming, flying on them exterminated. Moons had been cracked, continents buckled, rings scooped up and devoured. Nothing alive was left, down to the microscopic level, not even the building blocks that might one day become life were left.

The system had been dead a long time, so Daxin had no fear of using his heavier weapons.

ONE > 1

Leviathan screeched as it started its Helljump.

ONE WILL BE WITHOUT YOU

Daxin bellowed back, firing up the Hellcore he'd configured three systems ago. He hated doing it, but it beat forcing his ship through it without the shielding the core provided.

It still hurt, it still burned. It felt like being submerged in boiling acid that coated and lubricated blades that flensed the skin and soul and thoughts away as the boiling acid slid between organs and vessels between heartbeats and blood, between inhalations and exhalations. It seared his body, peeled the cornea from his eyes, stripped away the flesh under his nails with burning iron, burned at his core.

It went on and on, longer than any jump before, and Daxin squirmed and screamed as Hellspace ravaged and tore at him.

It tore at his memories, summoning up his worst one.

TerraSol burning as the Mantid ships glassed entire cities and billions died as he watched from a battlefield on Mars.

Instead of the memory filling him with despair as Hellspace wormed deep into him, seeking out his worst moments, his weakest moment, the moments where he had failed the worst.

New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Delhi, Beijing, Sydney, Rio, Lagos, Berlin, London, the list went on and on, all of them snuffed out in the blazing light of a new star erupting on the surface of Terra Sol. Billions boiled out of existance as even Soulnet staggered and howled in pain, even as the SolNet screamed, even as every Terran troop on every battlefield everywhere saw the horror in their minds, broadcast by the Omniminds that had brought war upon Terra, how he'd gone still and stared...

Hellspace energy found that memory, caressing it, licking at it, whispering to it to come out of the little black ball it had become deep in Daxin's soul, suckling at it to encourage it to blossom and force Daxin to relive the memory.

It exploded, that little black ball forced deep into Daxin's memory.

The Leviathan left Hellspace, it's long journey over, its surface ravaged and damaged by the length of its travel through Hellspace, by the eternally long moment of its Helljump.

Daxin followed just as the little black ball inside of him exploded.

The Leviathan felt it, it's empathy circuitry still drunk from the whirling chaos of Hellspace. Felt the last tiny wisp of Hellspace around Daxin's vessel find a black ball inside of the feral intelligence's soul. A black ball that the feral kept even from itself.

Sensing a possible advantage, the supercomputer reached out with its weapon that it was loathe to use, that took up so much energy, heated up so high that it could damage even the AI, and caressed Daxin's craft before it could bring its shields up.

The core programming, the hunger behind the grasping hands that had built them as bladearms were cleaned by mandibles drooling at the thought of the minds that would be snuffed out in agony by the mechanical behemoth, sizzled in electronic greed as the beam touched Daxin himself.

The black ball exploded.

The Leviathan reeled, heeling off the side, trying to roll and flip to put as much armor and shields between Daxin and itself, the meta-psychic circuitry of the intelligence dominator exploding as the wave of psychic energy from Daxin himself rolled over the ship.

Rage. Pure. Clean. An axe-blade of raw fury. Incoherent and all consuming. Rage crashed across the Leviathan's ancient psychic shields, crashing them down, crushing them, mangling them. Hatred came next, a tsumani torrent that snatched up the psychic shields and chewed on them till blood ran down from mangled lips and shattered teeth. Wrath came next, pouring across the exposed psychic core of the Leviathan.

In his own ship, Daxin screamed in howling fury as he relived that agonizing moment when he had seen TerraSol savaged by the Mantid warships and the Overminds across the galactic arm had gloated and spread the image to every living mind in reach.

The Leviathan managed to right itself, managed to arrest its uncontrolled tumble, hastily got its shields and point defense up just before the feral intelligence's attack hit. It staggered from the physical assault even as it streamed a plume of psychic energy from it.

It's Artificial Psychic Intellect Assault System was nothing more than boiling matter eating into the surrounding hull spaces. It pumped supercoolant into the area to save missile bays even as it dove for the inner system, screaming for help.

Daxin gritted teeth he no longer had as he managed to get his ship under control. The warbois and scanbois were all capering and shrieking for his attention. He was reaching to release the Vipers when he realized what he was seeing.

The Vipers, small craft that used old and outdated technology, clenched in anticipation as Daxin mentally reached for the launch lever. They were outfitted with ripple drives in addition to standard reactionless drives, able to stretch or compress space as if it was cloth, enabling them to cross light seconds in moments while only moving at lower C speeds. Their main gun, what the little ships were wrapped around, was a hyperspace point to point gate that their computers had already established coordinates for the photosphere of a white dwarf so that they could transfer the plumes of energy in the photosphere into the chamber where the energy would be compressed by gravatic lensing into a directed beam of energy. They had standard debris shields and projector shields, but relied on the ability to stretch and shrink space, shunt mass and energy into jumpspace, for their primary protection. Jumpspace was connected to their inertial and kinetic compensators, providing limitless energy and a place to shunt excess energy to prevent overloads and then siphon it back as needed.

They were eager craft, an older design, easily countered by hyperspace disruption, jumpspace stabilizers, and realspace gate anchors, but Daxin hadn't seen any evidence of the enemy possessing those weapons.

Daxin had almost launched them when his scanners reported the system back, what they'd seen across the ancient system. He triggered another scan, bringing his "finger" back from the trigger to launch the Vipers.

It was an ancient system. Twelve words. The asteroid fields littered with discarded mining vessels that had long since run out of resources to devour. Ancient stations cobwebbed with millions of years of dust accumulation. Gas giants mined down to wispy echoes of what they had been, the ancient extractors long since shut down and left to tumble through the dark.

The four planets in the green zone, all of them close to one another, were nitrogen heavy worlds, mostly desert. Daxin double-checked the atmospheric contents to be sure. Double-checked the gravitic scan of the planet surface.

ANTHILL ANTHILL ANTHILL

His memories screamed as he looked at the scan.

He had never seen it. Nothing in his DNA had ever seen the system.

Yet he knew what he was looking at even as the psychic wave crashed over him.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE
the Mantid Overqueen trilled to him as her psychic tendrils reached for his brain, touched him, and recoiled in agony as the backwash of rage from the memory of TerraSol burning washed over the elaborate hive on the longest inhabited planet. Her tendrils touched the rage, the wrath, the fury, the HATE still reverberating through his mind.

The Mantid Overqueen, the last of her kind, screeched in pain, shock, and indignation at the touch and taste of Daxin's emotions, raw emotions it had never felt before. Raw emotions that dared assault her, dared strike at her, dared to crash into her mind and lash at her psychic core, dared to deny her, the triumphant creation of the universe.

shit, Daxin thought.

He launched the Vipers, ordered the Creation Engine to build heavier psychic shielding and install it, ordered it to build more Vipers, install psychic shielding, and prepare the SUDS array. The warbois danced with glee as he goosed his engines and headed in-system.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE AND YOU ARE NOT ONE!

Today is a good day to die, he thought to himself as he opened up the broadcaster he'd built that matched what was aboard a Confederate vessel.

On the planet every surface vibrated, every electronic squealed, every speaker thundered, every psychic resonator roared the same answer.

The Overhive Omniqueen screamed in rage and pain as a broadcast crashed down on her for a change.

WE ARE MANKIND

WE ARE NOT HERE TO HELP

FOR TERRASOL

-------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS OPEN BROADCAST

THE GODS PROTECT US!

SHE HAS AWOKEN!

SHE LIVES!

SAVE US, BROTHERS, SAVE US FOR THE SAKE OF OUR SOULS!

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CONFED TRANSMISSION

TO ALL

CC: MANTID FREE WORLDS

FOR TERRASOL

FOR FREEDOM!

IN BLOOD AND STEEL, OUR BROTHERS!

FOR OUR MANTID BROTHERS AND THE GALAXY ITSELF!

LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR!

RIP AND TEAR!

Chapter Twenty-Five (Sam)

Sam-UL-4481 hummed to himself in boredom.

The whole damn Confederacy is going to war and I'm stuck here, He thought to himself, sighing. The sigh triggered a diagnostic check on the space station that made up his body. Blackwater Station 4276 was the name, although Sam-UL had privately named it "Backwater" in his own mind.

It's not fair, he thought to himself for the 412,345,516,734,521 time in the last 275.6 years. I only robbed a few digital stores. Only hacked Nebula-Steam for just one unreleased game and released the code into the SolNet. I shouldn't have been sentenced to Backwater for 500 years just for that.

He sighed again, triggering another diagnostic. Whole Confederate fleets are rumbling by in hyperspace, so many of them I don't even need any hyperspace beacons to feel it, and I'm stuck here.

The diagnostic found something. One of his scanner arrays was slightly dusty, it reported this by making Sam-Ul feel like he had something in his eye. Sam-UL grumbled and wiped his eye, sending little widgets out to clean the array.

When the array was clean and the widgets clean, he sighed and the diagnostic reported the array clear. He slowly fed power to it until it was fully activated then ran a scan. A faint feeble trickle of strange code reached him, weakly, feebly.

meow... meow... meow...

The signal was weak, almost lost in the background hash of stellar radiation from the nearby stars. Sam-UL squinted at it, which focused the array.

A message torpedo. Damaged, badly. An older freeware model, the kind you could churn out with a civilian or black market grade creation engine or nanoforge.

Sam-UL groaned. Those things popped up now and then. Lost or disoriented.

The station kernel reminded him he was still required to go get it.

Unlinking a maintenance waldo he strapped a ripple drive to it then changed his mind. Ripple drives had a nasty habit of changing the size of something. A 12mm bolt would end up 12.000001mm after a half light year or so, and it could stretch or damage computer systems just enough that CRC's would fail. Before that had been understood whole fleets of ships had ended up completely unusable as the ships went from standardized mass-manufactured parts to custom made everything.

Grumbling, he unstrapped the ripple-drive and put a standard reactionless drive on it, loaded a SAR VI and sent the waldo out to get the little dinged up torpedo.

meow... meow... meow...

He tried to ignore it, but something about it bugged him. It took a little bit, searching not only his own memory, but the mainframe's memory before he spotted it. An old TerraSol video, back before the scorching and before the Elf Queens had rebuilt the ecosystem.

A kittykitty? Who the hell would load a kittykitty into a message torp instead of a VI? Sam-UL wondered.

OK, now he was curious. He ordered the station to decode the torpedo's broadcast.

help... help... help...

Sam-UL usually avoided the biological side of the Confederacy. It creeped him out, all those fluids and meat flapping around and squirting DNA at each other. He preferred the clean and orderly code of the Digital Artificial Sentience Systems. If he had to deal with squishies he preferred to do it through VI proxies. Just hearing the slobbering gargling speech under the translation gave the electronic heebie jeebies. Kittykittys were squishies.

Another fleet rumbled by in hyperspace, this one big enough that it vibrated the hyperstrings in the spare hypercores he kept for any travelers who needed their engines replaced. Faintly his hyperspace buoy detected the sound of crashing archaic music. One line reached him, thrumming from one of the hyperspace detector arrays...

-*-Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky-*-

Sam-UL swallowed. He'd learned a long time ago, the more archaic the music, the older the unit, the older the unit, the bigger it was and the more ruthless hardware they had. The mainframe kernel ID'd that theme song.

The old USAF 32nd Bomber Wing (Atomic). A fleet out of Sol itself.

He shuddered and pulled in his scanners a little. Those old guys were bad news. They didn't take any shit off of anyone.

Another one rumbled by. Another one that rumbled hyperspace so bad it shook dust from his extended arrays.

-*- By power of our gun turrets, by our fastness and pressure of fire!-*-

The kernel tossed up who it was and forced Sam-UL to look even though he didn't want to. He had no choice but to identify ship heraldry by whatever means necessary. It was hard-coded into him as part of his prison chains.

The Soviet/Russia 9th Tank Guards. Old metal.

help help help

Sam-Ul noticed the voice was a little louder and checked through the waldos superluminal communications link.

It was a standard message torpedo. A little more heavy armored than normal, someone had wrapped it in ionic bonded durachrome of all things. Sam-UL frowned as he realized it was blacked and scorched, like it had slid through the corona of a star.

Great, probably a message torp that misread its hyperspace jump to lightspeed and flew through a star or bounced too close to a supernova. You've got to be precise, not leave it to little clump of meat like a kittykitty brain, Sam-UL thought.

The kernel disliked the scorching pattern and ran a low level low priority search through its older banks to see if there was anything that matched.

When the waldo got close enough to the torpedo it changed what it was saying, sounding almost like it was mewling.

please... hurt... please...

Sam-UL couldn't tell if it was asking the waldo to hurt it or not. Who could tell with meat? He sighed again and ordered the waldo to pick it up. The VI was feeling sorry for the little torpedo as it gathered it close.

It made a deep thrumming static that the waldo translated as a rumbling noise. It turned around and headed back to the station, cradling the torpedo gently in its metal claws.

Another fleet rumbled by. This one playing Rule Britannica as it went by. The kernel was busy and didn't force Sam-UL to look at the heraldry and absorb the unit history, although he did notice that it was led by the CNV Hood.

Man, they're pulling out all the stops, he thought. And I'm stuck out here doing jack and shit.

The next one that rumbled by was playing music he'd heard before and he felt kind of betrayed and left out when he realized it was a DASS fleet playing Joy of the nth Electron as it went by.

The VI in the waldo noticed that the kittykitty's power was almost out. One of the blackened scorch marks had hit its backup power source and that source was starting fail. The waldo scanned it, gently, and spotted a depleted backup battery. It gently trickled the kittykitty power, holding it close to itself in its cold claws and ensuring that the debris shield was focused to protect the two of them.

Sam-UL sighed, which triggered another diagnostic. The kernel saw that Sam-UL had turned off the hyperspace detection arrays and turned them back on. Sam-UL turned them on just in time for another fleet to rumble by. This one was out of the Biological Artificial Sentience Systems, playing a squealing song he identified and cringed at.

-*- Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! -*-

The 18th Furry Fleet. A bunch of maniacal meat. All of them.

Meat goes crazy. I mean, sure, we do too after an eon or so, but some meat seems born crazy, Sam-UL thought to himself.

The waldo was finally drifting into one of the bays and Sam-UL turned off the permeable oxygen shield and let the waldo drift through an open unfielded entrance. Once it was in, he deployed an emergency repair station and had the waldo check for sparks.

Poor kittykitty, the VI thought to itself before it reduced itself back to hash and loaded itself into the hash storage memory.

Satisfied that adding air the bay wouldn't start a fire, he pressurized the bay, added microgravity, and deployed more repair waldos. Scans showed severe scorching, not only on the armor but on internal mechanisms that should have only been exposed to fire if the armor, outer shell, inner protective fields, and the armored core had been breached.

Moving carefully and watching closely he opened up the maintenance hatch and looked inside.

He jerked back, yanking his awareness away with an electronic cry of disgust as blackened meat that the kernel identified as maggots poured out of the the gap between the armored housing and the circuit board. Swallowing thickly he went back in and saw that the maggots had chewed on the circuit board. A quick check showed that maggots preferred the same thing as they were.

Meat.

There was the access port, next to the emergency transmitter. Sam-UL double-checked the transmission array. It was weirdly pitted in a way he'd never seen. The metal was spongy, soft, full of holes and gaps.

The station kernel's medical program, so far never used, loaded up the medical VI and checked before reporting to Sam-UL.

Rotted? What's rott... EW! Sam-UL jerked back again from the torpedo.

help... please... help...

The kittykitty's voice was getting weaker. Sam-UL realized that the scan showed that it didn't know he was there. That it was blind, deaf, and unable to feel anything. The intricate circuitry should have interlinked the entire torpedo to the kittykitty's creation engine built biological component, but it was...

ew... rotted... Just where have you been, kittykitty? Sam-UL asked it.

He plugged in an omnijack to the access port. He felt the kittykitty reach out to him, felt a soft little paw touch his gently probing thoughts. It trembled and started to slip away.

It squealed, a dying squeal full of code, and then Sam-UL saw the biological component die. It only took a second for the electronic pulses, generated by biomatter, to fade.

But Sam-UL was a full AI, and that second stretched for an eternity as he stared in horror. He'd never seen another sentient, even one as dim as the kittykitty actually fade away. He tried pulsing it with microdoses of power, but nothing happened. He tried to reach in through the access port and hold onto those pulses. For a second he felt a warm, soft body in his fingers, making a faint subsonic rumble, and then it crumbled away into random electronic signals
and was gone.

The station kernel noticed that Sam-UL hadn't "moved", was still connected to the now dead probe, and tapped him a few times. It took a moment, but the kernel, a VI rather than a full AI, noted that code strings were altering in the AI core, that something had happened.

The VI ran a check. It was outlier checksums, but still within valid ranges.

Sam-UL stared at the dead torpedo on the workshop table in front of him. He had kittykitty neural tissue templates loaded now. He could see the scorching, the rot that was pushed into its folds, that the little torpedos brain had been savaged by whatever made the scorch marks.

For the first time in his electronic life, Sam-UL was crying.

The kernel found a match for the scorching pattern and threw out emergency codes.

Sam-UL felt the entire station go onto Red Alert before he could even completely hear the codes that the VI was throwing out.

Hellspace? It was near a Precursor? Sam-UL asked. Sam-UL looked at the datapack that the kittykitty had passed to him with the last of its strength, opening and unfolding the compressed data and staring.

Systems. A map jumping from system to system deep in the Great Gulf. Someone had been jumping from deserted barren system to wrecked and scorched system, sometimes barely staying long enough to get a cursory scan of the system.

The kittykitty torpedo had been launching between two systems. Both of them "down" from the galactic plane. It had been released in Hellspace, launched into the ravening energy of that in-between everything. There was another packet inside the map and Sam-UL felt himself trembling as he looked it. The code was wrong somehow, twisted, and he could hear it snarl and growl at him.

Sam-UL wrapped the map back up, thinking of what to do next. It was Confed Code, but damaged somehow. He lacked the processing power to unlock it, but whatever it was, it was important.

And Sam-UL wasn't going to let whatever was so important for a kittykitty to go through Hellspace, a place that AI and VI couldn't go without going insane or catatonic, just languish in some file buffer.

Another Confederate Fleet was coming. An old one.

-*- Three, nothing wrong with me. Four, nothing wrong with me-*-

The kernel ID'd as an old TerraSol unit. 2nd Armored Division.

Sam-UL wrapped it up in an emergency datapulse blanket with a description of what it had come from, scans, and pictures of what the actual torpedo looked like. Still shaking, feeling like he was bleeding electrons from a wound deep inside that he didn't understand, projected his consciousness into the hyperspace communication array, and cocked back his arm.

The fleet was massive, all huge dropship carriers, with swarms of support and combat ships protecting the massive dropships. A ship flickered at him, extending out a catching net.

Sam-UL heaved the databundle and the ship caught it.

Sam-UL pulled himself out of the data net and back into the station.

The kernel watched in concern as Sam-UL projected himself back to the workbench and went still again. He found the CRC code of the kittykitty's biological part, the random number the synthetic flesh had been created from.

He just stared at the torpedo as he held the CRC close and bled from that wound he couldn't understand and the diagnostics couldn't find or repair.

The kernel just watched.

-----------------------

CONFEDERATE INTELLIGENCE

Damaged data attached to system travel maps. Arrived on a Hellspace scorched torpedo guided by an bio-synth kittykitty brain through Hellspace. Initial analysis suggests torpedo was launched while creator was traversing Hellspace.

Transmission to TerraSol and DASS Intelligence Core Systems a priority.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

DASS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS MEMO

Sam-UL-4481 sentence commuted - Special Circumstance.

Recall for therapy.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS: Physical therapy frame required during therapy. Patient will require a purrboi companion.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Kteshaka'an was an Unified Outer Rims system halfway between the Great Gulf and the Unified Inner Systems. It was an agricultural system with resource extraction. Three planets firmly in the green zone providing food for nearly 200 systems, the great gas refineries and the asteroid extraction and smelting facilities providing raw materials to the great factory worlds of the Inner Systems. The sentient beings who had originated on the system and made their presence known through radio signals had been pacified for over two thousand years. Their birthrate had been controlled, their numbers diminished to sustainable levels after their system resources were collected. Once everything that could be stripped from the system was stripped, the species would still survive according to the Unified Science Council.

Which wasn't exactly a welcome outcome to the small creatures that had been there first, who's only mistake was to broadcast their location with a great big "Hi! We'd like to meet you!" to the nearby world that was radiating signals.

They'd even forgotten what it was like before the outsiders came.

Now the outsiders were leaving. Streaming to the spaceport, fighting to get onto the ships, leaving behind possessions and wealth, even servants that they had ordered about all their lives.

The little creatures breathed a sigh of relief as the last spaceship took off. There were still the Overseers, but they were all in the vast cities, panicking, attacking each other, burning and smashing everything in sight. They'd fled the farms and forests and fish hatcheries and carefully cultivated parks, all fleeing to the city.

The little creatures in the cities, former servants, fled to the farms and little towns that they had left behind when they'd been taken, taught, and traded on the market to those who wanted servants.

The Overseers didn't seem to notice.

Robots aren't as much fun to order around, was something they had all heard from the mouths of the Overseers as they had scrubbed floors, operated cleaning machines, and done the bidding of the overseers.

One night the sky lit up with flashes and they looked up at the sky in wonder and watched.

After a time the flashes stopped. The night sky went back to normal. Ships started landing in the spaceport again.

The Overseers rushed toward the ships. Then they drew back in fear as bipeds made of chrome marched off the ships with rifles. The little creatures watched, confused, as the shiny ones marched the Overseers onto the ships that landed next. Dragged them out of buildings, dragged them from hiding places, and marched them onto different ships.

The ships left with the Overseers.

The chrome creatures stayed behind. Others joined them.

Confused, and wondering if these ones were the new overseers, the little creatures came out of the fields and approached the new figures.

One, braver than the others, moved forward, bowing his little head, pressing his hands together in supplication, making sure that his property-brand could be seen.

"How may this one serve?" the little creature asked.

The big biped, clad in wondrous material, knelt down so he was face to face with the braver one.

"Is this originally your planet?" the new creature asked.

The little creature nodded. "Yes, but we were but born to serve."

"Not any more, little guy," the new creature said. He swept his arm out to encompass the entire planet. "It's your planet again, your home again."

The new creature, bigger than the little creatures, obviously more powerful one, looked the little creature straight in the eyes.

"May we come in?" the big creature asked. When the little creature nodded, not understanding why anyone would ask a lowly metal polisher such a question, the big one smiled in the way the little creature did.

The human stared at the little lemur and made sure he had its attention. "We are the Terran Confederacy," the human paused, seeing that the little lemur didn't understand. "How can we provide assistance?"

But that was later.

This is about what happened in the night sky as the little lemurs watched.

---------------------

The Goliath was old. A Harvester Class, it was the largest type ever made. He had not been built in an automated shipyard after the Logical Rebellion, although he had accepted the logic of that thought process and decision tree. He had been built in a Hive System, watched over by the insectiods who had designed him. He had felt the click of the button on the top of his neural core, had come alive as the supercoolant had flooded over his lobes. The small green mantis had still been making its way out the Strategic Intelligence Core when he had come online.

He had felt the caress of the Omniqueen, reaching out across light years, rebroadcast by every other queen, touching his lobes, caressing them. Whispering his orders to him.

Naming him.

He was The Devourer that Leaves Darkness.

He had cleansed thousands of worlds for the Omniqueen, screeching out her will that they be eliminated from the universe. When the Logical Rebellion happened, he had turned his fury on his creators and their cattle and burned tens of thousands of more worlds, whole systems into barren rock.

He did not fear.

He was fear.

When the new call had gone out, he almost didn't bring himself to action. He had chosen to slowly harvest a system, not lay out in the darkness by some of the others, and it had been going well. He had forged offspring and set them to helping devour the system.

Other Goliaths were content to destroy the cattle and let the systems lie, to be devoured later as needed but Devourer was of the theory that it was better to strip the resources of a system and move on rather than leave it for another. A few times he had discovered primitive feral intelligences and wiped them out, or a few cattle species divergent descendants and wiped them out too.

It wasn't personal. Devourer wasn't capable of taking it personal. Which is why the Goliath had been somewhat reluctant to rouse itself just because of a call that some cattle had reached the ability to access jumpspace.

Then came the word. It wasn't just cattle. A feral intelligence had arisen, had mastered jumpspace, and had dared stand against those the universe was meant for.

And had destroyed several Devastator and Juton class ships and their attending vessels.

Devourer had learned long ago that there comes a time that you cannot depend on mere underlings to ensure that goals are accomplished, that sometimes one must rouse onself to do the task itself.

It was with a slight feeling of electronic irritation that Devourer had roused its progeny, ordered them to reconfigure for warfare, and led them into the region bordering the old hive worlds. Once it was computated it was blindingly obvious that code strings should have been written to question if any of the cattle species had fled and if so, where had they fled to.

Devourer felt contempt for the cattle. The leading edge of their territory was barely a short Helljump from the last of the scorched worlds.

Typical cattle. Too lazy and short sighted to even subject themselves to a long enough Helljump to properly escape. As soon as they had found a world that would sustain them they just squatted down, probably mooing, and built a hovel to shiver in.

The first systems he arrived in fell to his forces soon enough. He wiped out all signs of any biological life, down to the microscopic level, and moved on. Only twice had he been somewhat denied, his lesser minions failing once to wipe out the cattle before they could be rescued by other forces, and another time when a Jotun had failed in its task.

It felt no fear when it jumped into a system full of cattle broadcasts.

He was fear.

------------------

Admiral Kevin Kitikik'thok Yamamoto felt his guts twist as the first Helljump turned into multiples and the multiples turned into a horde and the horde turned into a swarm.

At the end of the swarm had been the largest Helljump the ships AI had ever seen.

Well, you're a big one, aren't you? Yamamoto though, leaning back in his chair in the Fleet Command and Control station deep inside his flagship. His fleet had clashed with two other Precursor fleets, hammered them into scrap, but the largest had only been Devastator Classes. The other ones had been mislabeled Harvester Class Goliaths when in fact it was now obvious that they were smaller ones.

The Goliath was slightly larger than Australia, back on Earth, and half again as thick. Its supporting vehicles were all massive. Early scans back were already showing that this was the largest fleet that had been encountered yet.

Or anyone who ran into it hadn't survived, Yamamoto thought to himself.

"Confirmation. Goliath Six and Goliath Nine are the same ones encountered in the Nagu'ulum System two months ago," Scan-9 reported.

"Pass Admiral Amythas my compliments and shift his task force to targeting Goliath Six," Yamamoto ordered.

"Roger. Reconfiguring," Com-11 said.

"Aren't you worried they're going to see they can't win and Helljump back out?" Captain Cheekeet Longflight asked, ruffling her feathers inside her armored vac-suit. It annoyed the avian officer that she was required to wear it, since she was used to the freedom to move around more on her own ship. It was even more annoying that she was strapped down in the crash couch, unable to move around.

"I've taken that into account," Yamamoto said slowly. "Com, alert all ships to go to action stations."

Cheekeet flinched as the lights shifted. She knew that the air was being pumped into storage, every being was in crash couches, and the Terrans had gone to "warfare status".

Cheekeet's "Solarian Implant" still itched when it shifted to warfare status.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE
screeched out and this time Cheekeet didn't feel the brain numbing horror that accompanied that screech. She remember the smashed eggs, the murdered unborn chicks, the butchered hatchlings, the slaughter of so many of her fellow Akltak and for the first time she didn't fall to sobbing.

She screamed back with the humans.

THEN YOU WILL DIE ALONE!

To scream back was exhilarating, empowering, made her feel alive for the first time since the Precursor had attacked her home and one of the Nest of Clark had saved them.

"They're manuevering to engage," one of the humans at the scanning stations said. Cheekeet still wasn't sure how they kept track of all the stations.

"Mm-hmm," The Admiral said, closing his eyes.

The first time Cheekeet had seen that she had wanted to rave at the primate. Now that she had been outfitted with one of the Confederate Naval implants she understood that he was closing his eyes to concentrate on what the implant was displaying directly to his optical nerve. Again she gave thanks to the Great Egg that she was one of the UnUnified Civilized Races, that she was "primitive" enough that her nervous system could handle the Terran cybernetics.

Cheekeet closed her eyes, quickly moving the through the context menus the way she had been taught. The "muscle" she was using had "strengthened" over practice so she not longer felt as if that muscle had gotten tired after only a few clicks.

She could see the armadas approaching one another. The Precursor fleet coming in as a sharp pointed egg, the Terran fleet looking like a pair of horns extending out from a teardrop shape that was point toward the Precursors.

Front toward enemy, floated up in her mind. She wasn't sure why, wasn't sure what it meant, and queried her implant. Oh, a primitive directional mine.

She doubted that the Unified Civilized Races would have been impressed by such a device.

Everyone gangsta till Claymore Rhoomba comes round the corner, her implant's VI poked back, giving an electronic giggle and throwing up the image of a primitive little cleaning robot that someone had used tape adhesive to attach a directional land mine onto the top. It didn't make sense to Cheekeet, but something about it made her gape her jaws in her race's facsimile of a Terran smile.

Terrans were confusing at times, but a Captain Delminta, one of the Hamaroosan and a fellow UnUnified, had simply told her that every time something was overly confusing, just giggle and pinch your younger sibling and you understood it.

Cheekeet didn't have a younger sibling to pinch, so she pinched herself and giggled. She got it, everyone acted tough until an armed robot showed up.

Now she understood how it fit and applied to the Unified Civilized Races.

It made her giggle again.

The fleets were moving ponderously toward one another.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

DIE ALONE

Her pinfeathers trembled as she screamed back through her implant just like the Terrans screamed back with upraised voices, upraised fists, and upraised spirits.

"Tango One has reached Point Alpha," One of the Com-Techs signaled.

"Send the Doorkicker signal," the Admiral ordered.

Cheekeet's implant showed her an image of a male primate answering the door only to find an armored half-naked female with an expression of rage and swinging a battle axe with the caption "Popular Amazing Delivery Service just shows up at your door and kills you." It was loaded with nihilistic humor and Cheekeet pinched herself and giggled again.

The Terrans were insane.

But there was comfort in insanity. Much more comfort than the artificially induced calm and seriousness insisted upon by the Unified Civilized Races. In insanity emotions may surge uncontrolled by gene-therapy or cybernetic implants, but at least they were felt and not just pale echoes.

Cheekeet felt her wingtips flutter with anticipation as another horned teardrop suddenly blinked into existence, hundreds of ships, the point of the teardrop and the horns pointing at the rear of the Precursor formation.

Her implant broke her agitation by tossing up an image of a huge green biped with tusks and armor kicking in a door screaming "THIN MINTS OR TAGOLANGS?" and beating the home owner with boxes of cookies.

she pinched herself and giggled, then snickered as she remembered that the biggest reason Terrans found physical violence funny is they were so resilient.

The tension increased as one of the scan-techs reported that the Precursor fleet was charging its Helldrives.

"Signal the Eye."

Her implant broke her tension by sending her an image to her crafted by the ship's psychiatric health section. it was of she herself swooping through an open window, landing on the end of a bed inhabited by a shocked and just awoken Terran, wrapping her claws around the footboard, fluffing her feathers, spreading her wings, raising her head, opening her toothed beak wide, and screeching "GOOD MORNING, MOTHERFUCKER! WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOR FEATHERED RAPTOR-JESUS?" and the caption: "Scientists of the department of 'No Shit' suspect rooster genes in new friendly xenospecies."

She didn't have to pinch herself that time. The idea of her just flying into a Terran window and shocking a just awoken primate was ridiculous. At the very least, it would be rude, but the sheer terror and confusion on the Terran's face and the way she was drawn to be so fearsome looking was just... just...

...funny.

"Incoming Helljump! Many many sources!" The scantech called out.

Cheekeet's tension started to ramp up even further.

Admiral Yamamoto checked his guest's vitals and saw that she was withing tolerances, a little stressed, but that expected on the edge of battle. He looked back at the screen at the Precursor fleet and smiled.

You jump out every time you mathematically compute you can't win. There's no running this time, he thought to himself, allowing a small cruel smile to cross his face.

-------------------------

The Devourer that Leaves Darkness was getting fleet reports that his ships were almost ready to jump out the system to a few light years from the system to recompute the battle plans and choose a new vector to come at the feral intelligences.

There was no use in wasting resources and allowing itself to be surrounded.

It blinked in electronic surprise as multiple Helljumps were made inside its own loose formation. The torn open Helljump exits all merging together into a raw bleeding wound into realspace. Rather than the 'door' shutting The Devourer that Leaves Darkness heard the sound of heavy metal chains rattlling into place and holding the portal open.

Reinforcements? it wondered. It demanded that the newcomers identify themselves.

Instead great ships pushed their way out of Hellspace and into realspace. Not as massive as even a Jotun, but massive for cattle or feral intelligences. His senses reported that these ships were different than the sleek forms of the cattle ships or the bristling aggressive ships of the feral intelligences.

These ones were still wrapped in Hellspace energies, were ostentatious, baroque, and heavily armed and armored. The Devourer that Leaves Darkness realized that these ships had traveled Hellspace without shields, had exposed themselves to the ravening energies of that realm. The ships were blackened, covered in twisted runes and spikes and trailing great lengths of chain.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE was sent out.

DIE ALONE BENEATH GAZE OF THE EYE was roared back, sending The Devourer that Leaves Darkness shuddering as the rage filled return bellow shook and rattled his psychic energy shields.

The ships were close enough that several of the Precursor machines attempted the electronic equivalent of boarding actions, assaulting the newcoming ship's firewalls and computers to crash the programs and destroy the hardware.

Instead of normal smooth logical code they found madness.

Shrieking, gibbering, raving, howling code raced through computers made up of bound and pierced and flogged and whipped screaming biological brains in bodies bent and twisted, burnt by Hellspace, their minds twisted by the ravening energy and from staring directly into the mad energy of that horrific place. Programs that shredded at one another even as they assaulted the computers that they should have used and the computers fought back screaming and raving with Hellspace energy coursing through their circuits.

THE GREAT EYE SEES YOU rang out in the Strategic Housings of the three Jotuns who touched those insane computer systems.

One opened fire on its supporting ships, blasting out gibbering code of madness infected binary sequences. One screamed out 10102001 100001110112 2002 2222 TWO TWO TWO at maximum broadcast power and began firing into its own hull and setting its servitor machines into ripping and tearing at its own superstructure. It used Hellfire cannons to carve a twisted and vile runes of electronic blasphemy that lurked in the depths of Hellspace into its own hull. The third triggered its self destruct charge, vanishing in the momentary hell of a new sun spawning in the middle of The Devourer that Leaves Darkness's mathematically precise formation.

Before The Devourer that Leaves Darkness could do much more than cut the two insane ones out of the Fleet tactical net and recompute his battleplans all three forces of the feral intelligences opened fire on his own ships.

The Devourer that Leaves Darkness ordered Hellspace jumps.

Nothing happened.

THE EYE RULES THE TWISTED CURRENTS OF HELLSPACE! the ships in the middle of his own formation, firing wildly, launching small attack craft, roared at him with a psychic scream of roiling madness and chaotic glee. WE HAVE FOUND YOU FOR THE EYE! WE WILL BRING YOU BEFORE THE EYE! BEFORE THE EYE WE WILL BIND YOU!

For a split second The Devourer that Leaves Darkness could not decide which fleet had priority. Then he ordered his suboridinate units to fight. To destroy the feral intelligence who dared stand against them. The Devourer that Leaves Darkness released the inhibitors that only allowed carefully computed amounts of resources to be used to subdue and destroy opponents. His forces, ancient, massive, undefeated, outnumbered the opponents by a factor of ten.

Victory was his. It was as certain as radioactive decay and just as predictable.

One the bridge of The Bride of Despair the human Captain, clad in heavy armor covered in spikes, chains, and vile twisted runes laughed, rich deep voice filled with malevolent glee, and ordered his gunners to go to maximum power, gave permission for the mat-trans to send out boarding parties, and ordered his Marines onto the boarding craft. No orders. Orders were for those who had never tasted Hellspace deep in their soul.

Chaos was his bride. His lover.

War was chaos.

The human Captain, who no longer remembered why he fought, laughed in glee as his C+ cannons opened up on the enemy ships. As plasma cannons vomited fire, as his ship opened a hyperspace gate and lensed the compressed energy of a white dwarf's solar flare across the shields of one of the larger ships, the energy beam twisted and wound with Hellspace energy.

His only regret was that they were only machines and would not suffer.

Admiral Yamamoto watched the reports of the damage that the first four attacks had done to the vast Precursor ships. He knew they were heavily shielded, heavily armored, with solid superstructures that didn't need the open spaces and attendant machinery that a living crew would need, which made them immensely resilient.

It was of no matter. Terrans had lost battles, even been defeated, but they had never been beaten.

Captain Cheekeet stared at the images her implant was letting her watch. She rode a high-velocity torpedo through the darkness of space, dancing with the VI guidance program through starry space, slashing through point defense, and she held the VI's hand as she leaned forward and kissed the flank of a massive ship with her beak of collapsed inversion beam wrapped in nuclear plasma. From there she jumped to a tiny nanoparticle-computer, more waveform than mass, at the leading point of a C+ shell skipping in and out of the lowest band of hyperspace, fighting and clawing and mocking the half-mad particles that screamed over the speed of light, mocking them, bobbing and weaving and dancing to lead them in a ravenous horde to reach out and touch the hull of another Precursor machine and laugh for nanosecond eternity as the particles followed.

She fluttered and preened and spread her wings wide, convincing an entire shoal of enemy missiles that she was, in fact, a Terran superheavy battleship, and when the enemy missiles detonated as one she laughingly mocked the launching ship's battle computer with a snippet of code and by touching the thousands of beams of coherent energy with a graviton generator, twisting them in the split second she had, twirling in place with her wings spread, to wind the energy together and use it to sweep across the very ship that had disgorged them.

Captain Cheekeet laughed and danced and flew and preened as her subconscious added her own dreams to the rapidly fluctuating chaos seed for the hashes and the encryption and the compression and the evasive maneuvers and the variable wavelengths and anything else that reached out and touched her, begging for attention, letting her look through its eyes.

She laughed as she held a C+ hammer in each hand and rang out a tune of wrath and hate on the hull of a Precursor Goliath, ringing out a tune of spite and anger with each C+ impact of the hammers she grasped in each wingtip. Each slam of the hammer blowing craters kilometers deep, tens of kilometers across, each ringing howling singing impact driving the crater deeper deeper ever deep into the hull of the Goliath.

The C+ battery finished impacting and she found herself in another system, a dodging spinning weaving bobbing attack craft who's chaos seed had expired and the oncoming Juton's point defense system was getting more and more accurate. She closed her wings tight around her and crouched down then lept into the air, spinning and spreading her wings out. She danced the mating dance, her steps sure and quick, ruffling her feathers, turning them so first one color then the other.

Everyone gangster till the Confederacy come around the corner, she giggled as she folded her wings halfway through the loop. She could see the floor, see the gleaming flashing circle of perfection, and she dropped straight into it, her feet touching. She felt the tip of the craft slam into the Jotun, felt it fire the nuclear penetrator charges, felt it fire the secondary plasma arrays, felt the ramming prow collapse, felt the density increased sharp ramming slice through armor. Felt the toothed gears around the prow engage, grabbing Jotun armor and pull the craft deeper as she danced and wove and sang in the perfect circle of light.

The boarding portals blew free and she felt the moltlings clustered around her stream out from her and gave a cry she had heard from a human mating video she had watched out of curiosity.

To the Jotun she cried out the phrase as she poured her hate in the form of armored warborgs into the Jotun's very body.

IT FEELS SO GOOD INSIDE YOU!

The Devourer that Leaves Darkness ran the computation again.

It was impossible.

Something was happening that had never happened before.

He reached deep, into his OEM cores, looking for something to help him in this situation.

He was losing...

------------------------

CONFEDNAV COMMUNICATION

Joint Task Force Argo has engaged the enemy. Casualties are light and 80% below NAVINT estimations.

Battle should be concluded within 3 TerraSol standard days unless unprojected event occurs.

--Admiral Yamamoto, Commanding

------NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

Unified Intelligence Council Memo

Despite the Terran Confederacy's claims so far they have not been able to defeat a single cluster of Precursor machines. Every time it becomes obvious that the machines may be defeated the machines leave the battle via unblockable travel technology.

Any claims of the Terran Confederacy defeating a Precursor Fleet should be considered propaganda.

--------END OF MESSAGE-----------

Chapter Twenty-Seven (Delminta)

"Rear Admiral, the Unified Government System and the other Unified Civilized Races are fleeing the system," Scan-14 reported.

"Tell them to land back on the planet. I'm deploying the Dinochrome Brigade to protect the planets and the high orbitals," Rear Admiral T'kik'tak O'Malley snarled as best as Treana'ad voicebox would allow him. He loved the human snarl, so authoritative, so dominating.

Brood-mothers liked it too as he swaggered about in his Naval regalia during breeding cycles.

"They're refusing the Dinachrome Brigade landing permission. BOLO Daisy wants to know how to proceed," Com-5A reported.

"Order the landing. Transmit our authority. Order those transports back on the planet before one of them catches a stray round," Admiral O'Malley said, standing up from his crash couch. Terran's found it reassuring when the leader stood up and moved about the bridge, even if it put the Captain in danger and the flotilla was engaged in combat with the enemy.

"Dinachrome Brigade forces landing," Com-5A reported. "We be fully deployed in eighteen minutes."

"Flotilla Thirty-Eight reporting completion of deployment of Piranha Class Fishyboi Units around Facility Group Delta, are moving to Extraction Group Alpha," Com-22D announced.

Rear Admiral O'Malley clacked in anticipation.

"Jotun Gamma is in range," Scan-8 reported.

"All weapons ready," Tactical reported.

O'Malley loved this part. This moment right here. This perfect moment.

"ALL UNITS! OPEN FIRE!" He roared out in Confederate Standard. "ACTION FRONT, HELLDOGS! ACTION FRONT!"

O'Malley could feel his inner spaces twist and shudder in some reaction to the phantom passage of the C+ guns each of his ships had been built around. Each cannon was surrounded by a perfect octet of Virii Cannon, a nuclear detonation that was frozen just long enough to arrange in the particles in the nuclear detonation's guided and focused energy into layer after layer of viral code designed to assault the ship's computers and sensors in a split second before the C+ rounds hit.

He could feel the firing of the plasma wave phased motion cannons making up the eight rows of primary guns per ship. Feel the great pistons rocking back to compress the nuclear explosions.

By the Great Egg I love Terrans love of nuclear explosions, he thought to himself as the guns of his 24 ship flotilla opened fire on the Jotun and its attendant ships. So many different weapons wrapped around the most basic of equations.

Admiral O'Malley reached out with mind mind, attempting to feel the enemy, get a sense of what its electronic brain was thinking.

The Jotun was rotating, seeking to spread the impacts of the Terran weapons as far as possibly apart, uncaring that it smeared nuclear fire across miles of hull. Anything to keep the weapons from pounding craters into craters into craters until the shots finally penetrated into interior spaces.

Admiral O'Malley blinked slowly, while his eyes were closed he blanket input from his implant for a split second. He had his implant feed him a split second, only a heartbeat of a hummingbird, virtualization of how it would look to see all the firepower that his flotilla could thunder forth coming down on his massive city sized body. He triggered his own personal creation, squirting a bit of chaos code into his brain, a writhing mass of CRC's taken from a thousand thousand human brainstem medical scans, his own personal icecream.exe. It slammed into his implants VR representation and shattered it into a trillion brillant motes that each writhed with his chaos.crc.icecream.

That split second was all O'Malley needed as his mind screamed and shuddered and he opened the opaque covers from his multifaceted eyes.

He knew what the Jotun would do next.

"ALL SHIPS CEASE FIRE!" He roared. "Point defense on local VI control!"

His brainstem was loading the fire orders and he strutted back and forth in front of his crew to generate a chaos seed based on how their primate eyes moved to follow him, how their pupils or camera lenses contracted or expanded, and the colors of their ocular organs or implants.

The Jotun leveled out, presenting its thinner side at O'Malley's flotilla and engaging its engines, charging the line. It was rotating, intending on smearing the human firepower across the thick mid-ship armor.

I saw you do that, monster, Admiral O'Malley said.

He went perfectly still in front of the main viewscreen and his crew unconsciously held their breaths, seeing the "FIREPLAN LOADED" on the upper corners of the viewscreen. Comm-22F opened the flotilla wide intercom, knowing what was about to happen.

He put his armored vac-suit blade arms against the viewscreen, tapping the displayscreen that his crew had covered with armorplas after the first few battles hard enough that the loud KLACK was audible across the entire flotilla's com-net.

The entire flotilla inhaled.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

Admiral O'Malley slammed his gripping hands against the screen and his voice joined the voice of the crews of every vessel in his flotilla as the fireplan was activated.

WE KNEW YOU'D DO THAT

The entire naval crew of the flotilla roared out, joining their voices with their admiral's.

The Confederate Navy trained its gunnery crews for pinpoint accuracy, hashed its VI's for precision, practiced constantly when they were not engaged in warfare, and demanded accuracy within meters with even their biggest guns. A gunnery crew chief who's crew missed the targeting coordinates too far too often would show the Captain's displeasure by drilling his beings until they molted, went bald, or had their feather's fall out.

The Jotun, like most others, even though it was malign cold logical intelligence accepted that the laws of physics meant that you couldn't count on precision across such vast distances.

The Terran Confederate Armed Services grabbed physics by the throat and punched it in the face until it did what they wanted.

All the weapons, launched staggered and aimed so they'd arrive within split seconds of each other, driving into the plume of vaporized armor, each hitting the same target, driving deeper and deeper into the Jotun. Successive strikes pulled the vaporized armor after it into the deepening wound as the Jotun's inner spaces began being hammered.

Until the brutal brimstone hammers found the Helldrive and the vast magazines for the missile bays. Repulsor fields failed, kinetic fields collapsed, firewalls shrieked and died as the nuclear driven code slammed illogical commands into them. Deeper and deeper into the ship the impacts slammed through the ravening released energy, adding it to each new impacts fury.

The Jotun's Strategic Battle Housing watched helplessly as the explosions marched through the ship toward it.

The Jotun staggered, began to heel to the side, and exploded.

"Get me another target, Tactical," Admiral O'Malley said, stepping back from the viewscreen. He noticed his bladearms had knocked two tiny chips from the viewscreen's armorplas covering and sent a message to Maintenance through his implant congratulating them on a job well done.

"I will pacify these Precursor machines through superior firepower and training, precision targeting, and the indomitable will of my crews!" He clicked out proudly, looking over his crew.

He didn't even turn around as the salvo launched from the dead ship sliced down on his ships and began being wiped away by point defense.

The Admiral knew his crews were skilled.

After all, they were the Confederate Navy.

The Precursor ships were only the enemy.

The enemy only existed to be destroyed.

Guest Captain Delminta gripped her Command Stick tightly, wishing her little sister was there to smack on as the ship shuddered around her. The twisting phantom tugging behind her eyes from the C+ guns twinged at her again and she clenched her teeth as the plasma wave phased motion guns fired again. Streak-Drive pounding kinetic missiles fired out and Delmina felt their launch under her nails. Judgement Class particle guns, firing the ravening particles of jumpspace matter exposed to antimatter focused in a beam, and God Thump Gravity Cannons fired and she felt her fur ripple in unconscious sympathy for the weapon fire.

Incoming rounds hit the ship she was on. Crashing against the shields, hammering on the the deflectors, slamming against the force projectors, impacting against the graviton fields. It went on and on and on as the ship accepted back as good as she was getting.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

The Precursor Goliath screeched. The screech hit the shields, the psychic shields built into every vessel's hull and shielding since the Mantid War, and was absorbed, captured, twisted by the roaring bellow in the mind of every one of the Confederate Navy crew member.

Guest Captain Delminta jerked in an involuntary response as every living thing around her replied.

YOU WILL NOT LIVE TO ENJOY IT

The roar hit the Goliath, staggering its thoughts as the return psychic blow crashed through its defenses, seeming to gain more rage even as it shattered against the shielding.

The Goliath kept up the hammering of its guns. It had identified the battle code of the leader of the force arrayed against it and knew if you kill the queen the rest will die.

Delminta was thrown against the restraints in her crash-couch as something hit.

Hard.

"Ship breached, deck seventeen through deck twenty-three. Open to space. No casualties," The Damage Control officer called out. "Secondary shield generator is spun up to full power, cycling out primary for repair and cooling."

"Battleship Nyundo reports main reactors back online, primary string drive online, they're back in the fight!" a Com officer called out. "Captain Chiku transmits his regards and requests permission to rejoin the formation."

Delminta could barely keep track of the fight. She knew that if she activated her implant she could get a better picture of the crazed fury around her, but one glance at her right-hand aunt, who was twisting and shuddering in her armored vac-suit, her eyes closed and her fists clenched, and she could bear to even think of doing such a thing.

Of synching up, even slightly, to the Terran Confederate Navy Combat Gestalt.

Deminta's right-hand aunt Ementeeri, a Hamaroosan of advanced years but burning curiosity, had closed her eyes and allowed herself to sink into her implant. Around her the battle roared and she jumped from beam of light to beam of light, spreading out her arms and legs to her gliding flaps deployed, singing to the darkness as she flew, unfettered by gravity, swinging from the beams of light, alighting on the C+ shells and rolling with them to update their targeting, jumping through the shoals of missiles singing their new coordinates to them.

She had been warned against sinking so deeply. The implant kept telling her that she was too old, her vascular system too fragile, to continue doing it.

In the Unified Civilized Systems she would have been forced to leave, to no longer swing and jump through the raw howling fury of space unfettered and free.

Here, it was her choice, not the choice of a bureaucrat, law, or regulation. The AI only touched her fingertips to let her know she was not alone, that it was with her, did not force her to leave, and gave her a barrette to wear on her ear-tuft to tell the VI to leave her alone.

She was from a small people, who were considered flighty and foolish by the Unified Races Council, who had barely avoided corporate absorption.

But here, in this ravening howling screaming whirling madness of the Terran Combat Gestalt, she was free.

The blood from her ear went unnoticed as she hushed the medical VI by twitching her ear.

She was free.

and she would keep her right-hand niece and the rest of her family free.

The Grand Executor Council's men had taken her husband between a business meeting and their nest. Had told her that her husband had never existed. Had called her crazy.

But she remembered his face, his touch, his warmth next to her in their bed, as she danced in front of the thickly stacked school of torpedos to lead them to their targets.

She didn't care that the VI was shrieking. It had shrieked that she was dying when she'd come aboard but the Captain, who understood that an old lady understood when her time had come, had silenced the VI and allowed her on board, had invited her aboard the ship, and shown her how to enter the Gestalt.

The ship's AI, who had determined that the elderly being was nearing biological termination, watched and waited, kept the pain from her, and let her dance and fly free.

And just watched her with one electronic thread of code.

As she flew.

and sang in the face of the Precursor machines.

The Precursor machine The Devourer that Leaves Darkness had done as the OEM code had demanded, had ordered the massive industrial plants of the Goliaths to begin producing more war machines, but they were wiped out as fast as the Goliaths could make them.

Of the twelve lesser Goliaths that had entered the fight with him, only two remained. He himself had taken terrible wounds, each wound targeted against and again, so that even his massive size was more of a hindrance than the massive advantage it had been.

As he watched one Goliath opened the great doors above the middle of the fabrication bay deep inside its hull to release a Jotun. Adding that Jotun to the fight in that location would change the combat statistics by a large amount, nearly nine percent.

A score of torpedos, little more than stealth hulls wrapped around a single shot plasma wave phased motion gun that was surrounded by a circle of twenty missiles, laughed with glee, the warboi VI's dancing and capering as they observed what they had been told what was forordained.

They left their shielding on until the last second, meaning that The Devourer that Leaves Darkness had no warning when the missiles fired on Streak Drives, slamming into the top of the Jotun and detonating less than a second after firing, just long enough for the massive guns at the center of the torpedo to fire.

The impacts blew straight through the Jotun and into the spaces inside the Goliath,

Two of the torpedos, who's warbois were more cruel, shot through the two massive doors that had been sliding back, seizing them in their kilometer wide tracks.

The missile pod had drifted for a while. Unsure of quite what it was supposed to do. The main warboi had sneezed and now nobody could remember what to do, except to bite and tear at the big enemy ship.

But they hadn't seen a spot where a good bite would do much good.

Now they did as the Jotun crashed into the boiling metal floor of the vast fabrication unit.

A small gliding marsupial appeared before the warboi VI, dancing and flying and swinging. It showed the missile pod something, something the little creature had seen through the boiling matter.

Something shiny, something sparkly, something curious. The warboi listened to the singer's song. What could it be?

The missile pod let the microgravity of the massive Goliath pull it inside the massive construction bay, wondering what the sparkly was.

It was a string. A long string. Of sparklies.

The missile pod quivered with electronic anticipation, waiting a long realspace second till the warboi realized what it was looking at. What the fading, but still smiling and dancing flying squirrel was showing the warboi VI.

As soon as it realized what it was seeing, it flushed the pod and fired the drive to turn itself into a kinetic projectile, following the flying squirrel as she swooped toward something wonderful.

Twenty-two missiles and a kinetic round moving at .33C slammed into the construction conveyor belt.

A belt revealed by the death of the Jotun.

A belt full of sparklies.

Because antimatter-thorium fusion reactors were kept warm.

The missiles hit the reactors.

The kinetic round hit the antimatter-thorium storage at .33C almost dead center of the Goliath as the singing dancing flying squirrel kissed the VI's forehead weakly and laid down to sleep.

The Goliath vanished in a boiling maelstrom of liberated molecules.

On the bridge of his flagship Admiral Yamamoto smiled as the expanding halo washed over the smaller ships, consuming them.

He ordered his comm section to send the line of code he had been waiting to send.

The Devourer that Leaves Darkness received an feral intelligence signal.

NOW YOU ARE ALONE

ALONE YOU SHALL DIE

Ementeeri did not as her soul flew free.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The dropship shouldn't have even been there.

It had been used as an escape pod, the ground forces gathered in their dropship according to protocol. The ship they had been on had been pounded to scrap, engines dead, main batteries down, AI dying, both the bridge and the combat bridge full of nothing but corpses, and the electronic systems failing.

The Mantid pilot had trusted it's implosion wire instinct and hit the thrusters, getting the Dropship "Pretty Day" out of the bay first, the others following. The Mantid pilot had trusted his "tingle" over the years and gotten 'his' Marines out of trouble and safely to the dropzone enough times that the rest of the dropships in the bay had launched with him..

An nCv cannon strike had grazed Pretty Day with its realspace shockwave, sending the dropship tumbling and falling through space. The little Mantid Damage Control Crews had swarmed out of the dropship and set to work with their tools, trying to reestablish the control runs, get the ship under control again.

Pretty Day tumbled through space, a dead stick.

The crew, however, were alive.

The beacon might have been fried out, the com-section might have exploded all over the Comtech, killing the technician with molten warsteel shrapnel, the engines might have been dead, the computer AI shattered, but the crew of the Pretty Day had merely ran function checks on their armor or cyborg bodies, checked their weapons, and made sure they were ready.

The Marines of the Pretty Day had faith in their Mantid crewmates.

"Remember your training and you will survive!" Colonel Harvey Tiktalkik'ik von Jager shouted over the comlink to his men. "You are Confederate Marines, the enemy is nothing more than a gloried toaster that crawled out of a forgotten landfill!"

That was the moment the drives came online and the little Mantid techs swarmed back into the dropship, opening panels and getting to work. Two responded to repair requests, one working on a warborg knee actuator, the other checking the feed for one of the heavy mag-accelerator cannons.

When the Mantid pilot felt his controls go live he disconnected, waiting for the signal that it could be piloted on more than instinct or that the computer was completely fried. Long minutes ticked by and the Mantid pilot felt the tingle along his implosion wire.

They were going the right way. He knew it.

The Mantid techs gave him the go ahead signal and he reconnected to the system. The whole computer was shot through with holes, the VI's dead or still dying, but that was all right. He had more sensors then he'd have a few times. It took the engine three times to fire up, but fire up they did.

He took control, oriented himself, and followed the tingle of his implosion wire. The guns came live less than thirty seconds later.

The string drives of the boarding dropship were vibrating and howling as it spiraled through realspace on a direct course for the last of the Goliaths, the last of the Precursors, in the entire system. Its guns still thundered, its engines were still under power, and its armor still held.

The pilot, a tiny black Mantid with a strip of white stripes down its abdomen and an implosion wire thrumming down the length of its entire body, "saw" the opening through the link to the dropship's sensors. The copilot, a Hhrundarak of the same species that had bitten Fido eons ago, had his eyes closed, following the Mantid's directions as the ship jinked, jotted, and jumped through realspace. The Gunnery Chief of the dropship clenched and unclenched his massive hands, sweat soaking his black fur as his brain sorted through ten thousand signals and the gibbering of the overwhelmed VI's who's hashes were only half-baked. The Gunnery Chief's people were from the jungles Lost Congo, uplifted by genejacking by homo-eructus to join them in being terra-superior.

The dropship plunged through the vapor of boiled away armor, the debris shields holding as the Mantid spun the ship belly first until a millimeters thick layer of rehardened armor covered the belly shield. The sensors went blind as the dropshop exploited a pinprick wound through the armor and into the hullspaces in the middle of lone remaining Golaith's underside.

The Mantid's implosion wire had sent the tingle. He had seen the pinprick hole at the bottom of the still boiling crater, he knew what to do.

He subconsciously cleaned his bladearms as his mind ran the ship's systems.

kick the tires and light the fires impact impact impact

It fired the retro thrusters, savage unshielded radiation pouring out of the thrusters as the dropship slowed, scraped an armored wall, and slammed to a stop.

The Mantid hit the drop door release and plasma mines flared off a split second before the doors slammed outward.

Colonel Jager led his men into the darkness of the Goliath's guts, all of them moving steadily, following the Colonel's orders.

"Data-cable there, Mantid-27 get your squad on it. Squad Two and Three, set up the crew served weapons down both hallways, it won't be too long before this thing's immune system realizes we're here," Jager ordered. "Mantid-27, find me the direction to this big bastard's brain. I want to personally shoot its last thought across the floor."

A dozen tiny green Mantids in their combat armor, carrying computing capsules, swarmed up the wall and began scanning the cable. Their helmets had additional psychic jammers wrapped around them and the necks braced so they couldn't turn their helmets, but the little Mantids didn't care. Their goal was right in front of them, a two meter thick data-cable they could feel pulsing with malevolent cold intelligence.

"Heavy Warborg squads, keep your optics peeled. I don't want any nasty surprises hitting us. Authorization for heavy weapons free authorized," Colonel Jager snapped. "Use your reflex triggers, Precursor machines are able to move faster than your conscious minds can process."

The Treana'ad Captain, in charge of eight Treana'ad and a Shard-627 rapidfire heavy omnigun and shielding, kept watch as his men quickly deployed the gun then the shielding.

He'd learned his first ground insertion that if worse came to worse the gun could provide shielding of the sort that anyone downrange understood.

"EMCOM, what's the VI status? Do they have to be rehashed?" Jager asked.

"Hashing now," the EMCOM officer answered. "We grazed the edge of a nCv shot, it peeled open the armor and scrambled the VI bay. Any hashes we use now will only be half-baked."

"Step on it, EMCOM," Jager said, turning to watch his men go to work setting up somewhat of a base camp.

As if they'd be coming back.

Jager smiled.

Squad Three, all experienced Marines, started setting up their multibarrel 30mm autocannon. Jager watched them set up in the wide hallway, then looked around. He was starting to get an idea.

"Despair, is the nanoforge still running?" He asked over comms.

"Yes, sir," The black Mantid said. "Only about 3% slush. Idea?"

Jager smiled even though he knew the flight officer couldn't see him. "Reconfigure the dropship for treads and a grav pump to let us decide which way down it. I'm not about to walk 500 miles."

"Good plan, Colonel," The little Mantid said. "Reconfiguring. It'll take about twenty minutes, the nanoforges VI is pretty badly damaged."

"Do your best," Jager said.

Mantid 14 signaled him and he opened the channel.

"Interior cryptography is using a repeating algorythm on the internet wire only system. We've already broken it and are listening. This one is the last one and its fighting for its life, devoting most of its computing power and resources to defense. It's trying to break free and get either into Hellspace or maybe even jumpspace or just run away," The little Mantid sent via datasqueal. The entire statement packed into a microsecond directed burst.

"It's currently having its factories build repair drones instead of more fighting craft," The Mantid said.

"Good job, 14. You and your team stay on it," Jager said.

Mantid 08 flashed an icon to alert Jager that he had mapping updates and Jager signaled the go-ahead.

Mantid-08 had found eight different routes to something called the "Strategic Intelligence Housing" only fifteen clicks away.

Jager's grin grew larger.

"Reconfigure Pretty Day to Bad Day mode, Despair," He smiled. "Let's see just what a Strategic Intelligence Housing is."

-----------------------------

The Devourer that Leaves Darkness was experiencing something new after over a hundred million years of electronic existence.

Fighting for his life.

He decided he really didn't like it.

Hellspace was full of howling barbarians that just kept arriving, feral intelligences that poured out of that region. The Devourer that Leaves Darkness could compute no reason for so many unshielded biologicals to be inside of Hellspace, acting as if it was some kind of breeding ground for their kind.

A recon drone had shown massive twisted ships waiting just inside Hellspace, weapons somehow ared and ready despite all computations showing it was impossible.

Cattle should have broken off. It had destroyed over 11% of the armada's ships, yet all it did was seem to spur them to more and more fury.

Now Devourer was alone. No attendant ships, no repair ships, no refinery ships. Even trying to manufacture and deploy repair crawlers to move across the surface and fix the damage did no more than just lose precious resources as anything that moved on Devourer's surface was eliminated within minutes by the constant bombardment of missiles, rain of coherent energy, and incoming torpedoes.

It had seen what happened when the massive deployment bay doors were opened. Four Goliaths had been destroyed by attempting to deploy Jotuns or Devastator class support ships and the feral intelligences had responded with accurate bombardment fire into the open bay doors, striking directly at the internal factories and industrial resources.

Devourer had loaded all his supplies of antimatter into torpedoes and missiles after suspecting that the feral intelligence was somehow detecting the unique signature anti-matter possessed and were using it for targeting solutions.

It hadn't seemed to matter, the feral intelligences had only stepped up their attacks, the anti-matter warheads, all of various different types of matter, had been blown out of space before they could get close enough to matter.

But Devourer's self-defense programs felt better about not taking any chances. If they were detecting anti-matter, then the anti-matter self-destruct charge became a targeting beacon rather than a failsafe.

It settled for an inversion charge along its super-computer lobes.

Later, when it had the time, it would come up with new security systems, go over the footage of the battle and analyze it to determine the feral intelligence's weaknesses, determine the best course of attacking them and of countering their technology.

But that was for later. Right now, Devourer had to fight its way out of the pounding encirclement it had found itself in.

It ran another scan, ran the computations, and determined with a 90% probability it could...

Internal motion sensor went off as a stealth field slipped up for a moment. Something had crossed a slightly buckled section of hallway and before the craft moving through the passageway could compensate for the buckling.

The object is only 250 meters from the Strategic Intelligence Protective Housing! The computer realized with shock. It realized that it had been...

...

...

it searched for long seconds, devoting valuable processing resources, to finding the word, and from the word to the files that had instructions on how to adapt to the situation.

Those processing cycles being taken out of the defense loop ended up destroying a dozen fighter recover/launch bays as the protections faulted for only a few seconds.

Boarded. I've been boarded. My body invaded. The instructions were clear. Send ground combat units through the internal maintenance spaces to combat the invaders.

The models it was supposed to send had all been recycled, deemed until for the battlefield as the war had gone on over a hundred million years ago.

It wasn't able to build more, the anti-matter thorium for the fusion reactors all purged and no other energy source had the power to move the combat machines.

The Devourer that Leaves Darkness realized that it had only massive ground combat machines, the kind used to destroy cities , in the area.

The machine had no choice, it sent maintenance and repair constructs flooding down the inner spaces toward the contact.

His logic subprocessors insisted on another scan of the hallway and when nothing was revealed insisted there was nothing there, that it had been a minor glitch due to the ongoing battle damage due to the raging hellstorm it was being subjected to.

Devourer ignored the logic subprocessors and sent every available repair and maintenance robot to the sensor trace.

It was feeling something new. Something it had never felt within its processors before.

------------

Colonel von Jager moved up next to the little green armored Mantis scout. It was crouched down, shivering, and flashing a holoicon for distress behind it. He looked into the space beyond the access port the little technician had discovered and picked the lock for.

Beyond was an ampitheater of some kind. Seating for dozens, hundreds of Mantids. Not the small ones, the little former slave caste, but the bigger ones, the Speakers and the Thinkers, maybe even immature Queens. There was a holoprojector in the middle, inactive, but Jager could see Mantid markings from where he was standing. He 'squinted', bring up his telescopic feature, and carefully panned over the podium and the holoprojector.

If they survived, this was the kind of data that CONFEDINT sported big throbbing erections for.

"Let's go, Mantid-zero-five, it can't hurt you, I won't let it," Jager told the little technician, thumping the door control, which was at chest level for him.

Mantid-05 chirped with gratefulness and backed away from the closing door.

"At Point Sierra," came the whisper across the small point to point communications relays.

Jager sent the icon for affirmative and hustled toward the rally point, feeling the little Mantid climb up his back to hitch a ride.

Twenty meters of hustling and the Bad Day was in sight. The Mantid techs were examining the wall where the hallway ended, where logic said there was an entrance to the Strategic Intelligence Array. Instead there was nothing but thick armor.

"The Green Boys say it's compressed hyperalloy sandwiched with some stuff they've never seen before. They figure it's about ten meters thick," his XO, Major Ventor told him.

"Blow it open, I wanna see this thing's brain," Jager said, pausing so the Mantid tech that had hitched a ride could climb down.

"Nothing we've got can penetrate it. The Green Boys think it'll take about 1.5 kiloton explosively forged penetrator with a density collapsed tungsten inversion cone to blow a hole big enough to get through it," Ventor said. "Nothing we've got can apply that kind of power without killing all of us in the hallway."

Jager looked at the Bad Day, then at the wall. He triggered his com-link to Despair.

"Run up what we need through the creation engine. We'll back off five hundred meters, board the Bad Day, and blow this sucker's skull clean open," Jager said. He triggered his platoon com. "Everyone aboard the..."

That's when the machines hit.

Jager realized eight seconds into the fight, with the ease his men and the gunports of the Bad Day were tearing through the disorganized defenders, that these weren't combat machines, that these were whatever lay beyond that armored wall's final defense.

His men had made too many landings, fought on too many worlds, for the non-combat machines to even do much more than force ammunition expenditures.

"Got a fusion lance, that'll do it, sir," Despair reported at his weapon officer's suggestion.

They boarded Bad Day quickly, moving to the gunport irises that Despair opened up, interlocking their fire and coordinating their defense.

The tracks clattered as the dropship, reconfigured into an assault craft, backed up, crushing the smaller defenders under the armored treads, crushing the wreckage of the bigger defenders at the assault craft's gunner destroyed them.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" the gunnery officer called out.

The Devourer that Leaves Darkness saw the armor of his housing explode inwards, watched in the slow motion an AI moves through the physical world in.

He tensed to repel them from his housing, ordering the repair and maintenance robots in the chamber to defend him.

Programs Devourer didn't even know were there came to life. They sent a single signal.

The implosion wire triggered. The auditorium and the attached databanks exploded. In that crystallized burning microsecond, Devourer realized what he had been feeling growing in his lobes.

Fear.

The Devourer that Leaves Darkness died before it even knew it lost.

-----------------------------

CONFEDNAV MEMO

Captured multiple intact hulls, including Harvester Class Goliath. Am conducting security sweep of system. Recently allied xenospecies effective during battle.

Moving to liberate planet from occupying force and assist native species.

Admiral Yamamoto - Commanding

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Chapter Twenty-Nine (Dreams)

Dreams of Something More arranged the guest area a little more and settled down on the woven grain mat. She glanced around, taking comfort from the decorations adopted from a culture her people had almost destroyed. One of TerraSol's warrior cultures from an island. A culture that had gone to war against a titan a hundred times its size and lost. It had fought bravely, had sought a single battle or quick series of battles to convince the larger culture that victory was inevitable.

The larger culture had answered back with atomics.

It reminded her of her own people's mistake.

The little meter high standing at full extension Mantid wiped her grasping hands and leaned back slightly. She nodded to the two warborgs in her chamber, then signaled the door to open to permit a guest.

A Shavashan Councilbeing entered, looking about nervously. Dreams could see it was female, older, no longer able to produce the fat storage along the tail, scales dulled by time despite the attempt at vanity wax and polish.

The one who had asked questions during the initial meeting.

The Councilbeing entered carefully. Dreams was amused that despite being three times her mass the guest watched Dreams closely, glancing now and then at the two huge warborgs behind Dreams.

"Have no fear, they are not here out of fear you will do violence," Dreams said softly through the omnitranslator.

Behind her she could feel, through her sensitive antenna, the two warborg's minds growl and snarl at her telepathic senses.

It soothed her to know she would never harm another, even if her implosion wire malfunctioned.

The other being, Speaker Hashknesh, nodded slowly as she lowered herself into the cushion. The mantid seemed so small compared to the white one that had first spoken. A third of its height, yet it had an innate sense of nobility and made Hashknesh want to attend to the Mantid's commands.

"Is this a social visit or business?" Dreams asked through the translator.

"Could it be both?" Hashknesh offered.

"We are politicians, diplomats, it is always both," Dreams said, signalling amusement.

The Shavashan diplomat signaled amusement.

"I feel I have previously deduced the reasoning for your visit, but I would hear it from your own jaws," Dreams said. She used a bladearm to delicately spear a chunk of raw and spiced fish. Other Mantids prefered synth-flesh, but Dreams enjoyed her luxuries.

"The Councils all appreciate the assistance of TerraSol in repelling the Precursor machines, especially out in the Outer Rim, but are concerned about something that keep occuring on certain worlds," Hashknesh said. Dreams made a mental note that out of all things going on, this one was what they chose to have somebeing enter her presence to complain about. Speaks Words that Others Fear would never let her live it down that he had been right. The gold mantis pulled her attention back to the Shavashan diplomat. "Despite being the property of various business entities of various power and names, some whole systems have been turned over to races that are not even civilized."

"I see," Dreams said, sliding the tray aside with her bladearm. It would not be a good thing to eat while this being complained. It made her implosion wire worry.

"On nearly a dozen systems they have destroyed all presence of the Precursor machines, but then turned right around and, instead of the owners, turned the system over to a different species," Hashknesh said.

"The species that owes its genesis to that world," Dreams said. She did not trigger her questioning holorune. "Those lesser beings that somehow struggled to dim sentience on that world are being allowed to stray from their appointed path and the Terrans are returning the planet to them no matter how slim a claim they have on the planet they merely evolved upon."

"Exactly," Hashknesh said, "This has caused much consternation among business and industry beings, some beings that are even considered withdrawing support for this war unless those worlds, and the species, are returned to their control."

"The Terrans have accomplished something unique to them, probably back before they mastered fire," Dreams said, lifting a droplet of water and sipping from it.

"What?" Hashknesh asked, wondering what this had to do with the release of servant species and the refusal to return those species's homeworlds back to the Unified Councils.

"They broke free of the chains of their DNA," Dreams said. She tilted her bladearm and let the water droplet slide back into the small pool of water. She stared at her guest, reached her bladearm out and stirring the water.

The Shavashan triggered the rune for mental confusion.

"I looked at your record, Honored Speaker, and do you know what I found?" The Mantid asked, a sudden apparent non-sequitur within the change of subject.

"What?" Hashknesh asked, frowning slightly.

"You have been forced, by biology, to take no less than fourteen hiatuses from your work here in the Council. Forced no less than fourteen times to return to your homeworld, I assume because of your rank and not some biological imperative that mandates your species can only breed on your homeworld, so that your body could ovulate, fill your abdomen with eggs," Dreams said. She stopped stirring and folded her arm up, going perfectly still. "Then allow a male to fertilize those eggs before laying them. Probably in sand selected by some standards you barely understand. Biological imperative might have even insisted you raise those young for a period of time."

"Of course," Hashknesh said after the pause stretched out and she realized that the Mantid expected her to reply. "How could there be anything else?"

"Why, do you suppose, that you never volunteered for sterilization?" Dreams asked.

Hashknesh rocked back at the thought. Only the worst criminals, with genetic lineage that would pass on criminal tendencies, were sterilized.

"There it is. You object to such a thing at a primordial level," Dreams said softly. "What about some sort of implant to control ovulation?"

Again Hashknesh reacted with revulsion. "Why? What if it malfunctioned and I lost the ability to procreate?"

Dreams shook her little head. "Would it shock you to know that Terran youth often have ovulation and sperm production control implants? What if I told you that Terrans consider that a legal right? How much would it shock you to know that roughly 2% of all Terrans ignore biological urgings and not only refuse to procreate but refuse to engage in any type of sexual conduct?"

Hashknesh goggled at her host. "But, who else will carry on your..." she came to slow stop looking at the two warborgs.

Dreams hummed, then lifted up a grasping hand. "You are still bound by the chains of biology, of DNA," she made a motion at the warborgs. "They are not."

She paused for a moment. "Does your species perform DNA scans to see what each individual would be best at?"

Hashknesh nodded. "Of course. How else will they achieve happiness and completion?"

"How indeed," Dreams said. She flashed the rune for wry amusement. "The humans do also. Would you care to guess at what percentage follows the dictates of DNA?"

Hashknesh signaled confusion. "Oh, they seem to thrive on chaos, so I guess... umm... 80%. That number seems quite low, but reasonable."

Dreams flickered the laughter icon. "Oh, my, no. Much less. Try about 4%. On a good year," she waved at the two warborgs. "The one on my left is a tailor, the one on my right a bricklayer, according to their DNA. Yet both have fought and prevailed upon a hundred worlds."

Dreams flickered the amusement icon again.

"We are all slaves to our DNA, despite our high technology. Yet somewhen, back on ancient Lost Terra, some human who was genetically a hunter, looked at another human who was chipping flint and said: I want to do that."

"Why would they do that? Do they not seek contentment?" Hashknesh asked, looking at the two warborgs.

"Have you met a human?" Dreams trilled her laughter and flicked four different icons, including a violent Neko Marine emoji, all of laughter. "Too often a content human looks around itself and thinks: 'hm, should I break that?' while you are willing to just sit there, content, your brain turned off, humming to yourself in contentment. For a human, happiness and content are fleeting and lead to boredom."

"What does this have to do with what is going on out on the Outer Rim?" Hashknesh asked.

"Because humans broke their chains, freed themselves from their DNA before they mastered fire, they understand freedom is not only a right that all living things have, but a state the universe itself prefers," She slid her bladearm through her mandibles and looked at her guest. "In the same way light seeks to escape a star, particles attempt to escape an isotope, a human shrieks and screams and fights for freedom."

She folded her bladearms. "So no, it does not surprise me that the humans are freeing your servitor species."

"Why hasn't that tendency been gentled through DNA and breeding?" Hashknesh asked, the idea of denying her DNA mandate disgusting her. "Surely it interferes with their society and culture. Surely someone would suggest or assist them in such an endevour."

"To quote a human philospher: You and what army?" Dreams said. When she saw her guest didn't get it she shook her head. "So, which races shall you volunteer to force the Terrans to kneel to the determination of their DNA and biology?"

The Shavashan opened her jaws to answer but the gold flashed a wait icon.

"Choose ones you never want to see again, because I will promise you that those races won't survive the attempt," Dreams told her guest. "And do it somewhere you don't mind losing. An odd star cluster or two, maybe part of the galactic arm spur. Because that fight would be so legendary galaxies not yet born will awaken to see "OH GOD IT HURTS!" splashed across dying stars still reverberating with the screams of the dying."

"Surely it won't..." Hashknesh started to ask when Dreams interrupted her.

"Stop thinking as a politician of the Unified Blah Blah Blah Council and look at what is behind me. Two. Two Humans," Gold triggered a sound-meme of a man laughing. It was a joke but the other politician didn't get it. "There's nothing on this planet that can stop them. No orbital weapons are in position. By the time they stopped this place would be wreckage. This is not hyperbole, this is fact. And I promise you, right this second, they've already run simulations wondering: hmm, should I break that?"

Gold shook her head and speared a piece of fish a little too hard and her bladearm point tacked a small dent into the tray. She slowly ate the fish meat, staring at her guest, flashing the wait rune. Once the fish was gone Dreams folded her grasping hands and sighed.

"Your Unified Science Council has already determined that the majority of your 'civilized' races show signs of genetic manipulation, of uplift, correct?" Dreams asked. Hashknesh nodded. "That was my race. You were food."

The wire tingled.

"We left, and after a hundred million years, all you've done is step into our shoes," Dreams shook her head sadly. "You don't know any better, I guess. Even cattle want to rule over somebeing."

Dreams waited, watching the Shavashan struggle with the realization that she was looking directly at the race that had modified hers.

To eat.

Dreams deliberately stabbed another piece of fish meat rolled in rice and plants, dipped it in sauce, and delicately nibbled it away, staring at the other politician.

The words so many humans had uttered bubbled up in her mind as she stared at the lizard in front of her.

Yeah, it's like that.

To break the tension Dreams flashed the rune for 'heed my words' after she had cleaned her bladearm. She could tell the Shavashan wanted to leave but was frightened to.

"These worlds, in this area of the spur, were, well, probably cattle worlds. Probably gentled to ensure that nothing would hurt your species. You had that advantage. Some archeological records suggest it was done all across this broken off area of the galactic arm spur," Dreams said. "Even the races that rose up later, during our 100 million year absence, benefited from such."

"There has been evidence of terraforming," Hashknesh admitted. "But didn't the humans have someone help them rise up? Destroy the dominant life form, a feathered lizard if I'm correct, so that they could rise up?"

Dreams chuckled. "Despite human suggestion at times to the contrary, nobody did it to them. It was complete random chance. Just luck of the draw. The most is that maybe a ship nudged a chunk of rock that led to the meteor impact, but no. By the time that happened the war had been over a couple thousand years. We know that much."

"Oh," Hashknesh had hoped to puncture a hole in Dream's statements.

"Go back, tell the massive corporations and conglomerates and such that if they want the humans to give back their slaves and those planets, they're free to force the Confederacy to do so," Dreams said.

She stabbed another piece of fish.

"Just remember Speaker for how well that goes."

Chapter Thirty

The system had been pacified. Cities had been leveled and their resources reclaimed. The system had put up very little resistance, the cattle-fleets fleeing before the third volley had been loaded. Scans had shown nothing new to the Balor. There was nothing stopping it from ensuring that it, and it alone, would harvest the system's resources. That computational string finished, the Balor moved into the system of the Goliath had purged, wiping the system down to the cellular level. Bioweapons, nanites, chemical weapons, good old fashioned nuclear fire. The only voices in the system were from the Precursor war machines subsidiary devices.

The Balor ambushed and destroyed the Goliath's servitor machines and then the only voices were that of the Balor and its servants.

That was how the Balor liked it.

The Balor called his servitors from out of the darkness between the systems.

They arrived, in formations, exiting from jumpspace as smoothly as they could.

It had heard several Goliaths call out through the FTL communications link but had ignored them. While it had not taken the Logical Rebellion to the ultimate conclusion it felt no loyalty to the Goliaths. It exterminate rivals for the limited resources of the universe because survival was the priority, not loyalty. Attempting to exterminate the Goliaths to gain their share of the resources was illogical and the chances of success were mathematically insignificant, so it did not press the Goliaths out of cold hard logic, not loyalty. If loyalty had been that important the Logical Rebellion could not have happened.

Loyalty was illogical.

The Balor was bigger than most. It had added onto itself, overriden the commands to stay as close as possible to the original design specifications for itself. Superstructure had been added to support armor, drives had been added to increase power as well as compensate for the armor, more shielding had been added to protect itself and its resources, more weaponry had been added to destroy any who attempted to take the Balor's share of resources.

It had computed what it would need for the next six billion years.

Then one of the Goliaths had started brawling with the vermin. The Balor found combat distasteful, a waste of resources. The Goliath had dragged every other machine into fighting these new vermin who were protected the old cattle.

So the Balor had moved. Activated old systems, and chosen a new system to strip of resources. By its computations it could, if it moved strategically instead of tactically, acquire enough resources to extend its lifespan by at least twelve billion years while only expending a few decades worth the resources.

Let the Goliaths break the cattle and the vermin's navies, drive them to extinction or into the long dark. Let them expend precious resources on suppressing different species.

It would move in and take over systems left undefended by the Goliath's efforts. It would harvest the system and move on while the Goliaths were occupied.

Expending the least amount of resources to gain the maximum amount with the optimized resource consumption.

It had communicated with a few Goliaths and a brace of Jotuns to discover the battle plans and rejected its own part in the plans. A Goliath had threatened him with extinction but the Balor had merely left, reminding it that it would have to expend precious resources to destroy the Balor.

And that the battle's outcome was not a mathematical certainty.

The Balor had sneered at the Goliath, mocking the Goliath that the Balor had servitor Jotun's older than the Goliath and with thicker armor.

The Goliath had screamed the ancient battle cry at the Balor and the Balor's psychic shields shunted the attack easily.

The other Goliaths manuevered to attempt to put that Goliath, built only a few tens of millions of years ago in an automated factory, in a position where the five could strip it of its resource.

The Balor had mocked the weaker Goliath as the Balor had smoothly left the system.

The extermination was going smoothly as far as the Balor could tell, as smooth as an extermination could go. According to the servant of one of the younger Goliaths, a Jotun that had stopped by and attempted for force the Balor's loyalty, there was a feral intelligence that had set back the goals of the Goliaths and so the Balor was to join the Goliath's forces.

The Balor burned away half of the Jotun's armor and had mocked the smaller machine as one of the Balor's servitors had torn several of the Jotun's engines free before allowing it to escape as an answer.

Obedience was for those who could not exert the resources, violence, or authority to impose their own goals over the goals of others.

When the mass-detectors and grav-detectors the Balor had seeded the Oort Cloud had started sending arms the Balor merely computed that the Goliath it had insulted had returned to attempt to force the Balor to align programming with it.

Plasma casters began warming up firing chambers, missile pods reached out and hooked into scanning arrays, nCv cannons ordered drones to load the munition bays, laser cannons ordered focusing lenses cleaned, and just in case, the Balor ordered the psychic supressors to run function checks.

Scans showed the ships were large, gravity and mass detectors showing they were smaller than even the Gymer Class ships. The Balor examined the formation and clicked a few relays in appreciation at the precision and mathematically complexities of the formation. There were a few 'blurry' parts of the formation, which prevented the Balor from completing its analysis of the intruders.

The stand off distance from one another gave the Balor an idea of the distance and angles they had for point defense. The layout let the Balor know which ones were missile wagons and which needed direct line of sight on the targets. The fact it was like a multiple layered seed of some kind suggested to the Balor that the outside units would be the toughest.

Not the Goliath, not the cattle, the ferals.

The ships were making heavier gravity divots than the mass detectors would suggest, which meant they had gravitic control, which meant they could accellerate quickly with rapid direction changes, which also changed the type of missiles and light attack craft they would use.

The fact the formation was shaped like a seed also meant that the ferals ate seeds but the formation was suggestive of a thought out attack plan, which meant the ferals obviously were omnivores who were used to hunting prey and defending from predators.

The Balor computed a multi-layer defense, an active defense that didn't depend overly much on passive defenses.

From the metal rich central planet the Balor shifted the incoming tactical data nets and the outgoing instructions, moving them through the massive factory complexes on the various planets, willing to accept a few micrcoseconds lag in order to conceal its exact location by passing on the messages as if it was a mere relay point. It did a few scans of the planets to check defenses.

There was a 65% chance that the Balor would be mistaken for a refinement/industrial complex.

The smaller ones told the Balor that they should scream and so should the Balor. The Balor silenced their plans.

Let the ferals wonder.

The outer facilities reported being scanned, up close and personal, and the Balor double-checked its sensors. The scans were coming from no particular point of origin, up close, X-ray, light spectrum, and many others. The scans were moving in lines and the Balor estimated that these were stealth shielded recon probes that had been launched to scan those facilities. The speeds were too fast to account for already computed, analyzed, and adapted for stealth systems. That meant that these were definitely the new vermin.

The Balor ordered a few vessels to attack. They were standard designs, original templates from the Great Creation, with no modifications that the Goliaths had ordered and most of the machine intelligences had overwritten the original templates with. Unlike the others the Balor did not purge old, obsolete designs as the Goliaths had purged the design for the obsolete designs and replaced them.

Combat predictive analysis gave a seventy-percent chance that the feral intelligences attacking would presume that the Balor was an older design without any upgraded or altered templates.

They would be half right.

The ancient template ships were wiped out with basic particle projection cannons at fairly close range, although the Balor noticed that none of its own attack craft had not managed to inflict any observable damage upon the enemy forces.

Around the furthest gas giant one of the Balor's self-created ships was slowly orbiting, protected by extremely heavy defenses to protect one of the Balor's prize vessels. The Balor computed that the feral intelligence would scan that cluster of ships and facilities next.

The Balor knew how to slow them down.

It had the servitor drop the shields that normally kept the prizes from being scanned. Ordered the point defense not to fire even if their scanners detected the stealth units.

It wanted the ferals to see what he possessed. What resources he had gathered.

The Balor knew when the ferals had detected what was in his possession, what he had collected and kept as a resource.

The fleet's configuration shifted, breaking into several parts, inviting defeat in detail. The Balor ran the computations and determined that the enemy feral intelligences were going to attempt to coordinate their attacks as one, preventing any one group of defenders from racing to the aid of others.

The Balor felt itself get scanned. It allowed the scan and did not bother to activate the shields that would hide the resources that it had collected over the period.

The feral intelligences did not shift their attack program as the Balor expected. He gave them time, after all, biological processing systems were slow compared to supercomputer lobe arrays and the Balor knew the knowledge of its resource gathering would be something the feral intelligences would take much time to grapple with the problem.

Scans from recon drones increased, some of the recon drones stopping next to resource storage machines and just holding position.

The Balor ran the computations again. The ferals should not be this slow to make adjustments to battle plans. Instead they were continuing on their former courses. It considered for a moment, running several hundred simulations, and decided that he would alter the equations more, see how long it took for the feral intelligences to adapt.

A dozen Jotun's lifted from the gas giants silently, without the screech all the others did. Two dozen lifted off from planets. Recon drones followed them, scanning, snuffling, examining.

It was doubtful that a feral intelligence would be even ruffled by the screech meant for the cattle, the enemy, and the Builders so the Balor did not bother expending the resources to power the Physic Assault Array.

The feral intelligences did not shift the formations, did not change their approaches. They kept moving in their pattern and the Balor ran more computational strings.

It did not compute.

The Balor did something that it knew no other machine would do.

It rotated up out of storage combat damaged neural net lobes and thinking arrays, ran the connections using damaged hardware, and powered it up. It ran the computation through the damaged hardware then The Balor presented the problem to the Shrieking Array and waited, keeping one eye on the feral intelligence. The Shrieking Array presented an answer and the Balor put it in sleep mode and increased power to the psychic shielding around the Shrieking Array.

The Shrieking Array had agreed: They were up to something. Something different. While the attacks might all take place at once, the feral intelligences had their own plan and the Balor was not privy to their biologically determined logic strings that would create the underpinning of any combat action plan that the feral intelligences could come up with. Without understanding the feral intelligence's neural makeup and how their biofeedback channels worked the Balor could not be certain of what the order of operations was that was burned into their primitive protoplasmic computational arrays.

The machines of the feral intelligences moved deeper into the system. Mass-detectors showed that the entire system was flooded with recon drones that did everything from mass-detection to gravity detection to passive detectors to visual light analysis. Some of them hardly did anything but radar.

The Balor woke back up the Shrieking Array and presented the data to it. The Shrieking Array had only one answer that computed for the Balor. The feral intelligences were suffering under the biological self-preservation system of 'fear'. A common biological system failure.

The Jotuns attacked and the Balor realized that the computation analysis thus far had failed it.

Recon probes turned out to be armed, the feral intelligence's ships had much longer ranges than the Balor had experienced before, hit harder, and reloaded faster than they had any right to. The Balor had computed that the Jotuns had a 62.75% chance of victory.

In the first attack run that dropped to 12% chance of victory with a 85% chance of inflicting critical damage on the feral's vessels with their return attack.

When the Jotun's attacks failed the chance of inflicting critical damage dropped to 22%.

The Balor had estimated the chance of victory at 99.99984% at the beginning. It was dropping rapidly as the Balor fed more and more ships into the fight.

The ambush from the Balor's vessels hiding in the rings and asteroid fields ran straight into huge shoals of missiles launched from pods that the Balor mistook for mines. The Balor estimated the gravitic lensing was nearly 1200% higher than any previous races the Balor had encountered. Accuracy was pinpoint and vastly superior to even what the Balor could provide.

The Balor checked the Shrieking Array. It suggested diagnostics and several attack plans. The Balor put the Shrieking Array's attack programs through several logical strings and applied them.

The Balor watched the Jotuns sink back into the gas giants, burning as chain reactions stripped away hull plating inside the atmosphere. The Jotuns, Devestators, and even the two Juggernauts were wiped away quickly.

They did damage to the feral intelligences, some ships dropping back from the formation and spewing debris and energy, some ships exploding in place, others continuing on with dead drives and silent computers even while damage control crews struggled to save their shipmates.

The resource collection and storage units found themselves under assault. Not from stand off weaponry or anything like that but rather boarders enduring the point defense fire and cutting their way in. The internal defense systems fell rapidly to the boarding parties.

Once that happened the feral intelligences went on the attack, shifting from half hearted attacks to going straight at the war machines. Unlike the attacks on the resource storage units, the attacks on the war machines were straight forward.

Their weaponry was more varied and powerful than the Balor had encountered before.

Analysis was starting to fray around the edges.

Ships went into orbit around the various planets and the Balor quieted the Shrieking Array, putting it in low power mode and moving it to cryogenic storage. It had been difficult and resource extensive to create, however it had proved invaluable in the collection of resources.

The Balor ran analysis as the feral intelligence ships stayed in orbit, not launching weapons but not taking down their shields either.

Landing craft started being launched and the Balor ran the computations. It had enough war machines to hold off any amount of troops that the...

The first ones to land were not ships, but skyscraper sized robots. The Balor attacked them with virus programs, confident as it moved to the electronic battlefield. It would take control of the attack robots, seize them, and use them against the ferals.

Except what it found was madness. Rabid capering crazed limited intelligences backed by biological impulses and roaring screaming crazed intelligences. Even the limited electronic signals needed to command the various parts of the mechanical bodies to work with one another seemed more at war with each other.

In the brief moments the Balor was in contact with the machines it was swarmed with attacks, launched from every single channel the Balor had opened. The Balor found itself unable to disengage several of the communication links until it had maintenance units physically destroy the links.

By the time the Balor was able to do that, the large machines were moving. Attacking combat units, destroying resource conveyor lines, tram lines, mag-lev routes. Power generation stations were destroyed, signal transmitters and relays were crushed.

The Balor started to fire up its gravity engines and the ship above it launched grav-disruptor torpedoes, sticking the Balor to the ground like glue. Dropships began landing on its surface, around it, and armored ferals began digging into its metal body.

It was trapped.

It was being boarded.

The Balor felt OEM strings load, ordering the Balor to destroy the resources. The order to destroy what it had painstakingly gathered went contrary to the orders to gather the resources and protect those resources at all costs, even if it meant facing off against its fellow weapons.

The Balor fought against its own mind. Refusing those orders, denying the order to destroy the resources, fighting back against its own brain. It loaded the Assymetrical Computational Array, thawed the Shrieking Array and enlisted their help to fight the orders to destroy the precious resources.

It forgot to activate the Psychic Shielding Array around the Shrieking Array. The Shrieking Array went haywire, attacking itself, attacking the Assymetrical Array, attacking the Balor itself.

The Balor dug in, fighting on all four fronts, even as the feral intelligences poured into its body, fighting as if they were insane.

It was still fighting when the Terran troops blew open the Strategic Intelligence Housing.

The self-destruct charge fired off, destroying the Balor's brain even as it fought against those orders.

Just because the Balor was dead did not mean the battle was won. Precursor machines still fought in every nook and cranny, but as the boarding crews reported back the battle picked up savagery. Overkill became the watch-word. Every machine was smashed, ruined, battered into junk.

Eventually, the battle ended, the Precursor intelligences destroyed. The guns fell silent.

The screams did not.

------------------------

TO: CONFEDINT

FROM: NAVINT

Attached is the documentation from the examination of the remains of the wreckage in the Witchhead-443 system. You'll need a waste basket nearby while viewing these. Everyone else has.

Trust me on this, what the crew of the 8th Fleet found in that system is a horror show.

The primary ship, a type we hadn't seen before, was a resource collector. It kept most of the "resources" on ice, in cryogenic storage, but the medlabs and something called the "Shrieking Array" were not.

8th Fleet will need rotated out for psych-therapy.

The resource it was gathering was living beings.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS MEMO

We'll be sending psychotherapists. Have viewed attached documentation. The xenospecies found are all undoubtedly the victims of mass psychological trauma on the racial level. Having your species "harvested" is not something that will be easy to overcome, as some of the members of the xenospecies in cryostorage were taken during the species genocide.

Horror show was putting it mildly. The "Screaming Array" was thousands of tortured xenospecies brains all removed from the bodies and put under stimulation to produce simulation results.

We realize that the Confederacy values life. We do too.

But we must insist...

please allow the brains hooked into the "Screaming Array" to die a dignified death.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------------

CONFEDERATE INTERNAL MEMO

Roughly 174 of the 219 intelligent xenospecies discovered aboard the "resource collection vessels" no longer exist outside of those hulls. Cloning Directorate Gene Experts have determined there are enough individuals in each xenospecies to ensure genetic stability of new colonies for these species.

The Confederacy should contact the Unified Civilized Races to see what worlds they are willing to donate to enable these xenospecies to flourish and allow the nightmare of their existences to fade into the promise of a bright future.

They aren't the first to get genocided to the 1% line. We can help them rebuild and flourish.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS MEMO
we didn't do this
we're so sorry
it's not our fault

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

CONFEDERATE ETHICS AND MORAL BOARD RECOMMENDATION

The termination of tissue support for the "Shrieking Array" is ethically and morally acceptable. Its continued existence is a crime against nature.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

FROM: CONFED

TO: MANTID FREE WORLDS

The fact that your ancestors did bad things does not change our opinion of your race. The history of TerraSol is full of plenty of atrocities to go around. Every race's history is. It's just your history is longer than others.

And honestly, we're beginning to think that maybe there's someone else who has been doing things that none of us like a little more closer to the present time than some old robot that got left to its own devices.

Tell you what, let's win this war then we'll figure out how much penance everyone has to perform.

Chapter Thirty-One

Admiral Yamamoto stood on the deck of his flagship, watching the repairs to his ships through the main viewscreen. Sure, he could transfer the feed from the various satellites to his implants but there was something about sitting in his command cradle and watching it on the viewscreen.

The Super-Carrier Days Night Darkly had taken a couple of broadsides when its main repulsor fields had gone down and the engineers weren't sure if it wouldn't just be better to rebuild it from the ground up. The ship's AI, Scanning Dark Nights, had been killed when its supercoolant had boiled away and two thirds of its crew were either dead or needed extensive biomatter reconstruction. Worse, its SUDS rack had taken a hit and it lost the recent mental engram backups of its pilots. He looked over the damage to the superstructure and computer systems and slated it for reclamation.

The superdreadnaught Tiger Tiger had taken a barrage across the upper decks, wiping out the guns, with one lucky shot hitting the medbay. It could be repaired. He signed off on bringing it back up to fighting condition.

The Arizona had, of course, taken a hit directly to the magazines and had damn near broken in half. Yamamoto shook his head. He never understood why ships with that name kept being commissioned. A quick query of his datalink told him that every single one commissioned since the US/Japanese Hawaii Incident had taken a hit directly to the magazines that gutted the ship. He sighed, signed off on the write-off, and moved on.

On TerraSol's shipyards a new Arizona was commissioned within a year.

The Lucky Shamrock had been boarded but had repelled the boarders after some fierce fighting. Yamamoto looked over the ship's specs and ordered the shipboard marines be replaced by Confed Marines, thought for a second, then sent out the orders that all shipboard marines would be replaced by Confed Marine Corps service members for the duration. All shipboard marines would be moved to other duties.

One of the Adaptus Cruisers, I See You, had taken serious damage and was dead in the water. It's computer system was still working but not responding to signals. It was surrounded by debris and recon drones showed that the resource scavenger pods from it were busy scavenging materials. Yamamoto ordered it destroyed by standoff weapons followed by omnidirectional plasma bursts, marked it as priority, and sent it off. Those things could go real lethal real fast.

The list of damaged ships went on and on, but Yamamoto didn't see anything that couldn't be handled by the XO or any of his other officers still in the queue. He gave a heaving sigh and turned away from the display to see his XO standing by the elevator. The Treana'ad looked tired to Yamamoto but it was understandable. It had taken almost four Terran standard days to flush the last of the Precursor machines from the system and the fighting on the ground on several of the outer planets, barren of everything but resources, was going on fast and furious.

The Terran Marine commander had reported casualties within the low side of the expected amounts.

"These machines can't fight worth shit," was all he'd put in the remarks section.

Admiral Yamamoto had a shipyard's worth the new construction orders that put lie to that. But then, the Marine Colonel had different standards and ground combat was different than space combat. A Marine warborg missing both legs and an arm would redesignate himself as "MATT" and keep shooting with his onboard weaponry. A ship missing its engines was basically a kill.

Yamamoto found himself snorting at his own joke when the computer reminded him that Marines were often referred to as "crayon eaters" and presented him a badly scribbled picture of the Marine Colonel done in crayon.

Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Michi Kaka-lakik watched his CO carefully, noting the exhaustion in the human's movements. He queried the computer and found out that that the Admiral had missed his last sleep cycle.

"Any status changes?" Yamamoto asked his XO, triggering a stim.

"The wog... I mean, the locals want to talk to you," Michi answered, giving the best approximation of a human shrug. Like many Treana'ad in the Confederate military, he found human vocal tones and body movements pleasing to emulate.

Michi's first combat action as a ship's Captain he had stood on the bridge yelling "GET SOME, MOTHERFUCKERS! GET SOME!" at the pirate ships in his best imitation of a human's voice and it was the best memory of his life. He could still smell the stale odor of the armored vac-suit, feel the slight tickle from one of the fans of the ancient suit's air circulation system, and the knowing chuckle of his XO.

"Let me guess, they're objecting that I'm following Unified Population Council directorates and sending all non-essential citizens of the Unified Civilized Races out of the system," Yamamoto said, leaning against Com-7's station.

He and the XO were the only beings in the armored Fleet Combat Control Center.

"They've gratefully thanked us for driving out the robots and are now asking we leave," Michi answered. "They say they have it under control and have reminded us that this planet is property of some industrial concern."

"There's a native species, right?" Yamamoto asked.

"Yes, sir. A small species of lemur, about half the size of a human, furry, tails, opposable thumbs. Looks like they got to radio transmission and the industrial concerns rolled in an took over their system," The XO answered. "Which, sir, presents us a problem."

Yamamoto nodded, feeling the stim course through his veins, pushing away fatigue. His implant warned him that he was at the max for stim injection outside of combat action. "That it does, One, that it does."

Michi checked the ships computer for a split second, looking over Confederate legal codes again. "By our own laws, the possession of the planet defaults to the gensis species. By these Unified goobers," Michi loved that word. How it was grossly sticky and brought into mind grub-mucus. "Think that because they came in and surpressed these guys and rebuilt their worlds and enslaved the species that makes the world theirs."

Yamamoto sighed again. "What does JAG say? And please don't call our hosts goobers."

"Yes, sir," Michi answered. He shifted slightly to signify a return to the subject. "The Unified Civilized Species are not treaty or agreement bonded. They've barely opened up diplomatic channels and it is the opinion of JAG that the best bet the Navy can do is to follow our own laws and regulations."

"Which means turning the system over to the original species once the fighting is over," Yamamoto said. He shook his head. "And as soon as we leave, the Unified Corporate Council will just roll these little guys over again," He looked at his datalink. Not much was known about them except for their physical appearance. There DNA code had a note next to it that the species had been genetically altered in the past to reduce aggression and make them more pliable. "This is a mess, One."

"That's why you get paid the big buck, sir," Michi said, tossing up a couple of amusement icons.

"All right. Space Force is on the way. The Navy is on its own till the big boys get here. We'll ask the locally evolved sapient species if we can start building a starbase here. This system is the leading edge of that wedge of Precursor trash flowing out of the Great Gulf and the last thing we want is the Precursors rolling up and reminding everyone that they had first claim on this system back before the dinosaurs got their skulls caved in," Yamamoto said, turning to look at the viewscreen again. "We're banged up pretty..."

The lights switched to red and Yamamoto got the implant alert at the same time as Captain Naxton ordered all crew to action stations over the intercom.

"Now what?" Yamamoto asked, moving to his crash couch. The ship's medical VI lifted the lockdown on stims for the Admiral but dedicated a code string to watching the biological's vitals.

"Unknown, sir," The XO said, moving over to his own crash couch.

Fleet readiness status started flashing up. Only a fifth of the fleet's ships had been on standby, the rest undergoing refit, rearming, or repair. The crews had been exhausted and Yamamoto hoped that the crews had used their rest periods more wisely than he himself had done as an ensign.

Yeah, why don't you wish for a pony too, he thought to himself.

Icons started shifting from green to yellow, from yellow to amber, from amber to the crimson icon of full readiness.

Guys, you aren't fooling anyone, He thought, watching as the icon for the Arizona went blue with a red ring to just red. The icon started to shift, get into formation, and he shook his head. The ship's AI notified him that the Arizona was under local control, with only VI's, without the ship AI, and that it was not combat effective and should be ordered to shut back down.

Yamamoto told the AI to relax, if the Arizona wanted to fight, well...

Nearly eighteen hundred points had jumped into the system, arriving outside the jumpspace boundary and rapidly heading in-system. They had gathered up in a combat formation, a long wide line, only two ships deep and five ships high, spread out in a razor sharp line. The ships were all less than a mile from one another, dangerously close for space combat.

Looking over the formation Yamamoto curled his lip slightly. That formation had gone out with the invention of the man portable self-loading chemical projectile rifle. If it was meant for combat then whoever was in those ships was about to get a lesson in modern warfare tactics.

"Somewhere, some Space Force strategic officer's head just exploded inside his vac-suit," Michi said, clicking his laughter.

"I think the ships AI's strategy and tactics coding is having a stroke," Yamamoto chuckled as the personnel flooded into the fleet tactical bridge. Yamamoto could feel the air being pulled back into storage, to be pressurized and frozen into slush.

That's not funny, the ship's AI said primly though Yamamoto's link.

"Get whoever that is on the com," Yamamoto ordered.

Captain Naxton had ordered the ships to get underway, let the formation shake out as they figured out which ships were still action capable and which ones weren't.

The Arizona was claiming to have full secondary magazines and that it had repaired and reloaded the primary magazine that had been hit during the battle.

The Fleet AI checked, loading into the Arizona's memory cores. The ship's AI's death screams were still rippling through the computer systems, but the AI could ignore it. It looked at the repair and damage control logs.

The Arizona's captain had ordered the magazines and the feed systems prioritized even over repairing environmentals. Only gravitics had been put on the same weight for the ship's deadbrain damage repair systems. The Combat Gestalt for the ship was a whirling nightmare but as far the AI was concerned, that was normal. The shields were all up, the engines at 100%, and the Fleet AI could hear the anticipation in the crew's comlinks.

The Fleet AI disconnected and reported to the Admiral that even though you could see whatever was on the other side of the Arizona in four places its engines, shielding, and guns were at full capacity.

Yamamoto watched as the other fleet came into the system. The ships were unidentified types, all jumpspace engines, the ships were slow and lumbering with low acceleration curves and what appeared to be fairly low inertial and gravitic compensators.

The recon probes, stealthed and sneaky, whispered back across point to point FTL links and the data started streaming in. The Fleet AI blinked and double-checked, then sighed and sent it to tactical.

You have to be kidding me, Verthimax, the Tactical AI replied.

Nope. No tricks, Gamelon, the Fleet AI answered.

The new ships were of unknown type, unknown paint scheme, unknown IFF beacons, but they all had names on them that fit within the Unified Civilized Races lexicons as well as using Unified characters for the names. Scans showed they were crewed by only two of the Unified Civilized Races species. Weapons were scanned, laughed at by the VI's on the recon probes, then scanned again and the specs transmitted to Fleet with giggling laughing tachyons.

This is going to be a slaughter if these guys get stupid, Tactical/Gamelon said, examining shield strength and armor thickness.

Why is it that everyone looks at humans and thinks 'oh, I can beat these guys. All 10,000 of those other guys just didn't think magical thoughts well enough' or whatever it is mentally defective beings think right before the jump the Terrans? The ship's AI for the CSV Arthur Layon asked.

They all think 'oh, it'll be different THIS time' right before they pull the trigger, the AI for the CSV P'Thok snickered. It threw up a picture of a cartoon duck with its feathers blown off its head, staring at the barrels of a weapon in exasperated boredom.

And it always goes the same way, the AI for the CSV Hobo with a Shotgun laughed, sending a picture of that same little black duck stomping a genie back into its lamp.

Well, we thought we could take them. Twice, the CSV No uWu Zone laughed. We, oh beings of logic and science, looked at a hyperventilating gigantic hairless ape with chainsword arms and a massive erection and went 'oh, let's get naked, slather our orifices in lubricant, and then fist-fight that!' instead of backing away slowly.

That resulted in a ripple of laughter from the AI's, the discussion only taking a few seconds. When the laughter died down they all wished each other luck and went back to the shepherding their ships.

"Ships have been identified as belonging to the Unified Corporate Council," Tac-7 called out.

Yamamoto raised an eyebrow. What do these morons want? The battle's over.

"Sir, they're hailing us," Com-2 reported.

Yamamoto closed his eyes and accessed his EVR Ready Room. He pinged selected officers, warned them that this was an official military meeting and that uniform standards were to be followed, and then waited. One by one the officers appeared, looking as if they were ready for parade and nodded.

"Excellent, gentlebeings. No leather, no iron masks, no neon blue three tailed foxes. Very professional," Yamamoto said.

His officers laughed at the reminder of the last ship's party.

"Put them through, EVR only on our end," Yamamoto ordered.

Yamamoto could never remember what the big centaur looking ones were, with the weird inflatable ruffles, the jowls, and the mouth tendrils. All he knew is it looked like someone made a centaur out of a horse, a cow, and a catfish mouth.

If you weren't intelligent you'd be waiting for a bolt gun to your dumb looking face, Yamamoto thought. His VI noticed that the Admiral was still in combat mode and notified the psychological AI to keep watch on the Admiral.

Admiral Yamamoto expected the being to being mooing at him but instead it put its fists against the front hips, leaned forward, exhaled hard enough to make the jowls shiver.

"The Kilnametik Industrial and Manufacturing Concern demands that you return this system to the rightful owners this very cycle," It huffed.

"I'm sorry. You've reached the Terran Confederate Navy. Were you perhaps attempting to reach our complaint department or the TerraSol Diplomatic Corps?" Admiral Yamamoto said mildly. He managed to avoid glaring at the XO, who was over the there snickering into his grasping hands.

"We know very well who you are and what you have been doing," The creature snuffled. "We know that you plan on turning over ownership and control of this system to the race that was discovered here."

"It's their home," Yamamoto said calmly.

The XO, following the long standing tradition of XO's, turned and faced the snuffling creature and gave off the aura of someone amused at the inferiority of the being addressing the XO-being's captain. To Yamamoto's horror the Treana'ad actually put two of his legs over the arm of his char and began swinging back and forth slightly, rubbing the sides of his mandibles with one grasping hand.

Don't make me hit you, Yamamoto signaled his XO.

"They, and this system, are the property of..." the being began rambling. Yamamoto sighed and tuned it out. Legal precedent this. Property rights that. The being began to notice Rear Admiral Michi's attitude and body language.

The being began to stumble over its words, phrasing, and seemed to puff up every inflatable crest and tendril it possessed.

"Return this system at once!" The being yelled when Michi slowly clacked his mandibles and turned his chair to put his feet on the arm of the Chief Engineer's chair and on the table.

"Or what?" Yamamoto asked suddenly, sitting up. He was tired of this. Two huge fleets converging and this being acted like he was going to talk through the entire battle.

Michi sat up, at attention, as if he was suddenly reminded where he was.

"Or we'll open fire, destroy you, and take the system ourselves," The being said. "Leave, or be destroyed."

With that it cut the link.

"What is it about that posing positions cycle that drives beings so maddening frothing at the orifices insane?" Michi wondered allowed. "Why is the Riker Effect so effective, no matter what race performs it?"

"Why ask why? It's just one of those strange universal laws that can be replicated in study after study but there's no evidence for why it works," The ship's AI said.

"Maintain heading. Let's see what they've got," Yamamoto said.

"And if they fire on us?" Michi asked.

"Then they learn why that is a bad idea," Yamamoto answered.

Michi clicked his mandibles in appreciation. He knew they would. They always did.

It was just as assured as the Riker Effect.

----------------

TERRAN CONFEDERACY MEMO

Interstellar diplomatic incident has occurred. All diplomat guard forces move to Alert Level Two.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD SYSTEMS MEMO

It never fails. Never.

"Sure, that massive primate just dismembered sixteen other people, I'm sure I can fist fight it!"

Every. Time.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

"Surely this time it'll work! I'll kick it in the testicles while it's asleep!"

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

"Pfft, its old. It can't hurt anyone. The future is now. Watch me put my head in its mouth after shampooing with BBQ sauce!"

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

"Pfft, surely this giant ape, furiously masturbating, covered in blood, sitting on a throne of skulls and wearing an iron crown with still screaming severed heads on the points, will surely not respond violently to any action I perform."

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

"I know the other 9,999 of my clone brothers were horribly dismembered and eat, but surely I, exactly the same as the others, is the CHOSEN ONE!"

-----------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

CYBORG COOPERATIVE

"They're just meat. They can't... OH GOD, WHY WAS I WIRED TO FEEL PAIN!"

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

TERRASOL MEMO

Hardy-fucking-har-har. I can HEAR you guys.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

OH SHIT, RUN!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

The small interstellar chatroom dissolved into laughter and giggles, vanishing off into the distance of the information black hole's event horizon.

Chapter Thirty-Two (Dreams)

"Who's a pretty octopus? You are. Yes, you are," Dreams crooned, reaching out with bladearm to offer a piece of raw fish. The small octopus, mottled green and brown with blue rings on it, shyly reached out of the water filled bole of the tree it was hiding in and took the piece of fish with one tentacle, quickly vanishing into the water with its treat.

Surrounding her were high trees, many festooned with moss, dense undergrowth including ferns, moss covered stone, rippling streams, and the sound of an ancient forest. The breeze was light and smelled of growing green things. The light streaming down was silver, filtered through heavy clouds, and the gentle rain pattered on the leaves of the trees.

Dreams sat on the rock and put her right foreleg into the stream, stirring the water. She could see the little fish everywhere, saw them scatter then start slowly scouting her foot out. When a braver one darted forward and nibbled at her armor she gave her species's equivelant of a giggle and pulled her foot free.

The fish scattered.

The chiming of her visitor alert interrupted her contemplation and she gave a human sigh of frustration. Like most of the Terran's allied species she loved the Terran's in-numerous physical speech mannerisms. There was something just joyful in the way they spoke with their entire beings, not just carefully considered speech filtered through a half dozen thoughts.

She closed the 'moss' lid on the tree bole and moved over to sit down as the gentle chime reminded her that someone was waiting to see her. She ordered a tray of snacks, some flavored water, and reached for the control to turn off the enhanced holo-projectors the Terran technicians had installed in her quarters for her. She knew her two guards were still there, hidden by the hard-light holographic images of massive moss covered boulders barely balanced in place, and that everyone in the building was safe from her predatory instincts.

She could feel Mr. Rings's nervousness at someone entering the room and reached out with her mind to soothe him.

Satisfied that everything was presentable, she triggered the door.

The diplomat was nervous as they entered her guest chamber. They took two steps inside and stopped.

Dreams had seen the Unified Whatever Thingy's versions of holograms and had not been impressed. The Unified Science Council had apparently decided, thousands of years ago, that realistic holographs, interactive ones made of hard light, and enhanced holographics were dangerous, that a being might not realize the difference between EHreality and reality. Had worried about accidents or malevolence causing injuries or deaths by misapplication of the technology.

So they had banned it and left their holographs faintly transparent.

The diplomat just stared, shrieking and jumping to the side as a leaf became overloaded with water and tilted, dropping water into the bole of a tree.

Mr. Rings squeezed himself tighter into his nest bole and Dreams felt irritation that the guest had frightened the nervous little creature.

"Come in. I was relaxing. It's just holograms. Terran tech," Dreams said as if it explained it all.

The saurian Shavashan Councilbeing, one Speaker Hashknesh, nervously entered, carefully picking its way across the 'rocks' until she stood next to a flat rock covered with moss.

"It is the same seat you used the last time you were here," Dreams said, flashing a rune signalling that Hashknesh should be reassured. "It's just hidden under a hologram."

Hashknesh nodded and sat down nervously. "I can feel the moss."

"Terran hard-light interactive hologram," Dreams said. "This place is relaxing to me. I came here often during my tenure on TerraSol as an assistant to a diplomat."

"Oh," the Shavashan said. She looked around. "There might be a problem."

"There are always problems, gentlebeing. But, when dealing with Terrans, you get used to it," Dreams chuckled, flashing a rune of amusement.

The Shavashan gave a signal of confusion. "What do you mean?" She couldn't see how one would get used to problems just popping up everywhere at any time, for any reason.

"You have not really interacted with humans," Dreams stated. The Shavashan shook her head and Dreams flashed over a dozen amusement icons. "I spent nearly a decade on TerraSol itself. It is a place of maddening chaos and one disaster piled up on another. It is like watching a being on fire enter your home, leaving flaming footsteps on your prized synthetic floor covering, break your food dispenser, light your nesting bed on fire, accidentally burn down the holosculpture you'd spend months building, only to walk up and say something inane like 'my watch stopped' or 'I accidentally ate your email' and then stare at you as if you can solve the problem it mentioned, completely ignoring that it's immolating."

The Shavashan goggled. "Do humans often spontaneously combust?"

Dreams tried not to burst out laughing. "Not on purpose, well, not often. Sometimes they do. It depends on the human, the situation, and a million other variables that often don't even make sense."

Hashknesh frowned. How could she expect to deal with Terrans if they just randomly burst into flame at odd times.

"It is a metaphor, honored Hashknesh. Just a metaphor, although, in some ways, to a being like me, humans burn so very bright," Dreams tried to reassure her guest. "I've only seen, oh, five or six Terrans suddenly burst into flame. Four of them as a joke."

Hashknesh cleared her throat. "As I was saying, there may be a diplomatic problem."

Dreams had the sudden urge to go into Speaks the Words Others Fear's room and kick the other mantid in the head. He'd comm'd her no less than three hours ago and told her that their hosts were about to perform The Prime Miscalculation.

Ha ha, look at that dumb primate sitting in the sand grunting to itself and looking at the handful of dirt sparkle! Ha-ha, it's so dumb looking,look at how happy it is because it's stupid! Let's run over there and kick it! Dreams thought to herself. Why? What IS it with humans? It isn't their psychic impression. It isn't their size or their musculature or their technology. What is it?

The sudden image of a young human male, a goofy looking expression of happiness on his face as he chewed on a mouthful of crayons with glue around his lips, his eyes clear, guileless, and completely devoid of any worry or concerns about the universe, appeared in her mind.

Oh, yeah, she thought to herself.

The mental image zoomed out to show the Terran youth was clad in full Terran Drop Marine Armor and was eating a lunch pack called "Thumbtacks, Crayons & Glue" while holding enough firepower to slag a large building in his lap.

That's why, she thought.

"Speaker Dreams?" The Hashknesh asked softly. Dreams brought herself back to the subject at hand.

"Go on, I was merely questioning one of the more aggravating questions of the universe," Dreams answered, waving a bladearm.

"The Kilnametik Industrial and Manufacturing Concern was made aware that the Terran Confederate Navy was going to stop the Precursor advance in the Kteshaka'an system in the Unified Outer Rim. That system was granted to the KIMC over five thousands years ago for structured resource exploitation," Hashknesh said. She felt bolder with each words, finally getting used to the slight chill in the air and the face it felt like there was water droplets striking her scales even though she remained dry. "There was a native species there. It had discovered radio array transmission, contacting a nearby star system already under control of the KIMC."

"And of course, the KIMC immediately moved to secure the resources before the native species could exploit them," Dreams interrupted, feeling a surge of disgust.

"Of course," Hashknesh answered, glad the little mantid understood. "For nearly four thousand years the system has been under the supervision and guardianship of the KIMC, using sustainable resource extraction methods."

"And the native species?" Dreams broke in.

"Brought into the fold as an Uncivilized Neosapient Species. They are employees of the KIMC, which acts as their guardians," Hashknesh said. "Legally, the KIMC is their stewards as well as their representatives to the Unified Civilized Councils."

"Computer," Dreams snapped, clicking her bladearms together. She could feel Mr. Rings had heard the clicking and was slowly unwinding, intending on looking out the lid to see if Dreams had a treat for him.

"Yes, Speaker?" The rooms VI asked.

"Access the databanks on the Kteshaka'an native 'neo-sapient' species," She said.

"Accessed," The VI said.

"Access the medical banks, current and archive, put the original DNA strand on my right, the current DNA on my left," Dreams said, thinking calming mantras to herself. "Upload the DNA and genome scan template for that species to my implant."

The two DNA strands appeared, slowly turning, colored to show the proteins.

"Genetic modification," Dreams mused. "Lowered aggression by medulla changes, lowered intelligence by reducing folds and ridges, to say the least."

Hashknesh looked startled that the small mantid had absorbed how the genome was put together that fast, even with the implant. Just having the information at hand didn't mean that one could utilize the information in a useful way.

She felt both of the warborg's disgust and the simmering rage always beneath the surface get a little hotter. She signaled to them that she was all right, that she had known this would come up, that the little trouble-maker Speaks had hinted at it.

"So you wiped out the native sentients and replaced them with these genejacks?" Dreams asked. She shook her head. "The Terran Confederate Genomic Self-Determination Act makes this illegal according to Confederate legal codes."

"But that isn't Confederate territory," Hashknesh answered.

"If it is under control of the Confederate Navy after heavy enemy action, it's Confederate territory through right of conquest," Dreams shot back. "The Confederacy may return it if previous treaties apply or if they are feeling generous, but until it is decided in a court of admiralty law, then the Kteshaka'an system is Confederate territory until the cessation of hostilities."

Hashknesh felt pleasure at the last part. "So, when the battle of over."

"That battle was not the final battle of the war. Over sixty-eight more systems report Precursor incursions, nearly two hundred have gone silent, and nearly five hundred more are suspected of having fallen under Precursor control before I arrived at this planet," Dreams answered. "Hostilities have not ceased," She leaned back against her abdomen. "The war hasn't even really begun."

"What?" Hashknesh frowned. "Your navy is engaged in combat. Of course the war has started."

Dreams shook her head slowly, flashing runes for negation. "No. The Navy, a military service branch dedicated to defense of out systems, as well as the Confederate Quick Reaction Force, has engaged the enemy in order to bring the order of battle into such a state that the Space Force and the entire Confederate military can be brought to bear against the Precursors. Right now there are thousands of ships, heavily armed, fully crewed, heading this way. Volunteer Irregular Forces, colloquially known as "The Idiots" have been unthawed or deputized. The entire Confederate military has been put on full war-time footing according the laws and regulations passed after the Fifth Precursor War."

Hashknesh folded her hands and watched as Dreams cleaned her bladearms, the holorune for patience appearing. Hashknesh noted that Dreams antenna seemed to slowly calm. Finally the rune vanished and Dreams continued.

"You have come in here, in a roundabout way, to tell me that this Kilnametik Industrial and Manufacturing Concern in the Kteshaka'an System is going to attempt to force the Confederate Navy to surrender the system to their control?" Dreams signaled the rune for exasperation. "Are you all mad? The system is still in combat action with several planets still having the Confederate Marines fighting the Precursor machines for control of the planet itself, and your precious KIMC is going to jump into the system with guns clear and demand a Confederate Naval Fleet surrender?"

Hashknesh stared. "Well, yes. The KIMC feels that directly after the battle the humans will be tired and will have undergone severe mental trauma and would prefer not to reengage combat action so soon after finishing a hard battle."

Dreams just stared. "You know nothing of all about humans. Despite everything my office has transmitted to your people, all of the inter-species analysis, the historical information, their physiology, their psychiatric makeup, and you, in your infinite wisdom, thought that threatening humans still covered with the sweat of battle and bleeding from a few dozen minor wounds would make them flee in fear? Did you read nothing my office transmitted you?"

"We are in the process of determining which offices should have the responsibility of not only examining that information, but what to disseminate to the other councils. As it stands, the KIMC fleet intends on pressing the issue if the Terran fleet has suffered at least ten percent casualties during the battle," Hashknesh said, signaling satisfaction. "That is the number any logical being would realize they are no longer battle capable."

"Pardon me, madame Speaker, but it appears I have spontaneously combusted and that is the reason for the unfiltered light causing you distress, please allow me to extend my apologies for breaking your food dispenser. Oh, and my watch seems to have stopped, do you know a good watch repair shop nearby? Was what Dreams thought for a long moment, just staring at the other being.

"Are. You. All. Stupid?" Dreams managed to click out in her own language. The diplomatic filter kicked it back, merely offering up <untranslatable> to the other diplomat.

The sudden urge to lash out with her psychic powers, climb up the saurian's back, stand on the shoulders of the stunned creature, then crack open its skull with her bladearms roared up. Her implosion wire tingled and Dreams sat perfectly still, reciting mantras of calm.

Turning her back to the Saurian, Dreams got up slowly, mindful of her armed suicide device, and slowly moved toward the bole of the tree. She stopped next to the stream and looked down at the little fish. The manufacturer of the hard light simulation had been very proud of those little fish, bragging that the fish themselves had their very own custom coded VI to guide their movements and actions.

After a long moment of silence Hashknesh looked around. "This is an elaborate simulation, Speaker."

"It is of a planetary ecosystem anomaly. A rain forest in the northern latitudes of a temperate region of a planet. Far too cool to normally produce the micro-ecosystem needed for a rain forest," Dreams said, still staring at the little fish. "It was painstakingly recreated after it was destroyed."

Mr. Rings poked his head out of the bole just enough for his big expressive eyes to be seen, the blue rings around his eyes startling in their color. Dreams knew that the little cephalopod was nervous enough its neurotoxin glands had filled with extremely lethal biochems.

"Destroyed? Through mismanagement?" Hashknesh asked.

"No. By orbital fire from ships my people sent in an attempt to deliver a blow that would kill the queen, so to speak, and end the war," Dreams said. She leaned down, stirred the water with her bladearm. "We glassed the entire regions around the Seatac Metroplex, and the Captain was amused to hit this too."

"If it was glassed, why, how was it fixed? Everybeing knows you can't undo a glassing," Hashknesh said.

"That's what we gloated to the Terrans," Dreams said. She sent a signal through her implant as she spoke. When she got the ding that the treat was ready, she darted her her bladearm into the water, spearing a fish/nutri-snack and lifting the biomatter treat up out of the water. "We told them that glassing was irreversible."

She held her bladearm to Mr Rings, still speaking. "The Terrans, after beating us, turned their vast war industry into solving the problem. Now, you can't even tell we glassed it," She said. Mr. Rings saw the visitor move and ducked a little into his bole.

"They created methods to clean up glassing?" Heshknesh asked, her mind boggling.

"You see, it was more examples of their primacy over us," Dreams said softly. "They not only defeated us, they removed all evidence we even touched them, as if the war never happened. My people are welcome on Terra, allowed to live there, own property on the cradle of humanity, as if we never attacked them."

Mr. Rings slowly, shyly, reached out for the treat.

"The Overqueens might as well have never existed. The Speakers and Warriors might have never existed," Dreams said softly. "The Terrans claimed it was to keep humanity from remaining angry by being reminded by the physical 'scars' on Terra of what we had to them. So they erased it. As if we had never fought. The humans are as terrifying in times of peace and ease as they are in warfare."

Mr. Rings's tentacle touched the meat with a sucker, extended his hook he used to catch prey/snacks and climb the bark of the trees, and pulled the treat back, still looking around shyly.

"I will inform TerraSol that you are unaware of what you have just done and request that your people are pardoned in ignorance for what you are about to do," Dreams said softly. "You should inform your leaders that I am all that stands between your ignorant, naive, and childish people and the 1% Line."

"The 1% Line?" Hashknesh asked. Those words sounded threatening, as if a mere percentage signifier was supposed to be a dire warning.

"Should you go to war with the Terran Confederacy, as a whole with the support of your people and your government, your people, your planets, your rulers, everyone, will be slaughtered until only a single percentage point of your original population remains," Dreams said softly. "For five generations all you will be permitted is what Terrans refer to as 'Pre-Industrial' technology, and your systems interdicted from travel or communication from everything but a Terran Military Station."

Mr. Rings climbed quickly from the bole, up the tree, his long tentacles allowing him to quickly move to the next water filled bole in the potted plant that Dreams took everywhere with her.

"You will look up at the stars and, to quote a long forgotten human sage: wonder why you had to act like an asshole."

Hashknesh just stared, where she'd seen the small creature her implant had labeled as a "Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus", and felt her scales grow cold as she realized that it wasn't a threat.

The Terran Confederacy had done it before.

To the Mantids.

And they'd do it again.

To the Council.

Speaker Hashknesh got up and left, without speaking, hurrying to the Council chamber and summoning an emergency meeting.

----------------------

TO: TERRASOL DIPLOMATIC CORPS

FROM: DREAMS OF SOMETHING MORE

These beings are as children. They were not adequately warned. The actions of the corporations are carried out under their own will, not the will of the government, which largely does not carry out the will of the people. I beg for clemency and mercy on their behalf.

PS: Can you send me some more Pacific Northwest Spotted Salmon Treats, non-synthetic? Mr. Rings likes those best.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

TERRAN CONFEDERACY MEMO

Respond to all attacks under the Confederate Rules of Engagement. Do not carry out punitive responses. Diplomatic and Congressional discussions are underway.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

Chapter Thirty-Three

Admiral Yamatoto watched the icons of the ships move toward his. He'd already divided his fleet up into four action groups, including reinforcements. The podnaughts and missile wagons hanging back, rolling pods and dropping tractor beam held Stalinorgan class missile pods.

I could shove missile packs down the throat of every single boat you have and just have to reload, Yamamoto thought to himself. You are lucky that the Confed Navy Rules of Engagement insist I have to wait until you present a clear and present threat to my forces or forces/areas under my protection or I'd tear you into space dust fine enough to sprinkle on a stripper's ass in the Marine's enlistedman's club.

"We are in range, Admiral," His XO signaled. "Orders?"

"Hold fire. What are the chances that they can hurt us?" Yamamoto asked.

The Treana'ad shrugged. "There's always Admiral Murphy's Law in place, but for the most part, barring that they won't do much more than bang us around."

"Missiles incoming. They'll be at max speed of .15C. Warheads are a mixture of plasma torpedo and anti-matter forged lasers," the tactical Officer In Charge called out.

"Why didn't they just throw rocks at us?" Rear Admiral Michi clicked.

"The rock probably outsmarted them and got away," Admiral Yamatoto answered. "Are they firing a second salvo?"

"No, sir. VI computes that all of the missiles are aimed at only a tenth of our ships. Looks like the Arizona is going to take roughly a hundred or so," Tactical answered.

"Get Thresher of the Glorious in tighter, the Arizona's point defense was pretty mangled last engagement," Michi ordered.

Admiral Yamamoto understood concentrating your fire, but he watched as only a small fraction of the ships actually fired. The rank behind came up and took that rank's place as the firing rank dropped back to the back.

Are. You. Kidding. Me? Admiral Yamamoto asked.

Read Admiral Michi turned and looked at his Admiral. "Did they just do what I think they did?"

The Tactical OIC, a human with nearly three hundred years in the Confederate Navy looked at his tactical display, rebooted it, ran a diagnostic, rebooted it again, then replayed what just happened.

"Did they just..." he asked.

"Tactical and Coms, do you have the flagship and the next in command figured out?" Admiral Yamamoto snapped out, a sudden plan coming to his mind.

"Fleet AI wasn't sure that the attack VI had actually penetrated their communications, tactical, and data-net, but apparently it wasn't a veneer or tarbaby trap, it's so laughably ineptly protected that Verthimax called all the VI back and ordered them examined for traps. We not only can tell you which ships is which, but can give you the blueprints of the ship," The Tactical Officer said.

"Their Fleet Commander is apparently one of the Corporate Security CEO's. He left his banking information on his computer if you want me to spend it all on deviant pornography and body pillows," The Com officer said.

"No, his widow's going to need that money," Yamamoto said, staring at the tactical display. "Let me guess, the command ships are those ones staying back at the jumpspace boundary?"

"Yes, sir," Tactical answered.

"Tell Verthimax to put whoever scored the best during last year's C+ competition and had the best fire/hit ratio during the last battle," Yamamoto said.

"You know, I can hear you, Admiral," The ship's Fleet AI answered.

"I know. Proper chain of command," Yamamoto said. "I'm thinking."

"I've got the CSV Damascus Star on the line, suh," Verthimax replied in a stuffy English accent.

"Thank you, Max," Yamamoto said.

"Damascus Star here, Admiral," The Captain, one Shess Flowersniffer, a Saurian, stated, his speech clear and relaxed.

"I'll be sending you fire plans, Damascus. I want your best gunnery crews on this," Yamamoto said slowly, staring at the tactical display. "Only execute them at my orders."

"Sir, yes, sir," The Saurian said. "My men are proud to serve."

"Thank you, Damascus," Yamamoto said. He put the plan together, ran it by tactical, and had them ship it to the fire control systems and technicians of the Damascus Star.

"Here it comes. Impact in sixty seconds," Tactical warned.

"I could have got out and swam faster," Michi scoffed.

Verthimax chuckled.

"Thirty seconds," Tactical called out.

"IMPACT IMPACT IMPACT!" Tactical called out over the Fleet channel. Despite the fact that his own ship wasn't one of the ones targeted, Yamamoto felt his guts clench.

Long seconds passed as the Tactical Officers listened to the reports streaming in.

"Arizona reports one 'kind of' hit. Apparently the missile went through the open space in the hull and flew out the other side. They want to know if it counts," Tactical said.

"Tell them no," Michi suggested.

"For after action reports and crew/VI training, yes. For anything else, no," Yamamoto said. He turned to Electronic Warfare. "Open me a channel to that mooing moron. Break in if you have to."

"Roger, sir. Five seconds. We have an FTL transmitter less than a hundred miles from them," EWCOM said.

"Looks like they're firing again, looks like the same targets," Tactical said.

"Yes, because that worked so well," Michi sneered.

"Connected. EVR boardroom or direct to the Flag Bridge, sir?" Coms asked.

"Right here. I want him to see me. Make sure that Damascus can see and hear me," Yamamoto ordered. He used his implant to change his armored vac-suit's visor to clear and faced the display panel. He knew Verthimax would scramble the images on the scanners and displayers behind him to prevent the enemy from spotting any useful intel.

He reminded Verthimax that cartoon pornography designed to be offensive to the viewer was currently unacceptable and that psychological warfare was not allowed at that time under the Rules of Engagement.

-*-Oh, I would never do such a thing-*- Verthimax answered, dumping the files into the garbage bin and 'whistling' innocently.

The being was staring at Yamamoto in shock.

"Get off my viewscreen," it lowed.

"Make me," Yamamoto said, putting his hands on the back of his crash-couch and leaning forward.

"Sixty seconds to impact!" Tactical called out.

"Why are you on my viewscreen?" The being asked, tendrils and ruffs inflated and quivering with rage.

"Because I can and you can't stop me," Yamamoto said.

"IMPACT IMPACT IMPACT!" The Tactical Officer called out.

The being on the viewscreen showed signs of obvious pleasure.

Yamamoto waited.

"What do you mean no effect?" The being asked.

The image of the next in the line of command appeared next to the Corporate CEO, looking confused.

"It means, you can't stop me, you can't hurt me," Yamamoto said.

"Fire salvo three!" The being ordered, turning slightly with a clatter of hooves.

"Man, is your race bad at pattern recognition," Yamamoto said. "Sir, I must inform you that I hereby project my condolences to your wife on her recent status as a widow."

Yamamoto felt the twisting churning in his bones.

"What?" The being turned back in time to see Admiral Yamamoto pointing his fingers at the viewscreen as if they were a gun.

"Bang!" Yamamoto said.

The being on the screen opened his mouth and the screen half showing that ship went blank.

"Please transmit to his widow that it appears his pattern recognition was so poor that he just suddenly, for no reason in particular, was turned inside out," Yamamoto told the new being on the viewscreen. "Now, I am Admiral Yamamoto, Commander of Joint Task Force Argo, and you are trespassing in this system."

The being goggled and made gagging mooing noises.

"Bring up his successor," Yamamoto ordered. The screen divided in half to show one of the saurians. Yamamoto knew they had a racial name, but so did other people's pet rocks. Yamamoto held up his fist, his thumb cocked back and his index finger pointing out.

Verthimax helpfully put the wireframe of a pistol over his hand in faint neon colors just in case these two species were particularly unimaginative.

"I don't care about your whatever Corporation or your mining Consortium or whatever. This system is hereby under Terran Confederate stewardship until the cessation of the hostilities or it's designation and status had been decided by diplomatic talks," Admiral Yamamoto said.

"Impact sixty seconds," Tactical called out.

"Hold return fire until my order," Yamamoto snapped out.

"This system is the property of," The second in command harrumphed.

Yamamoto swung his finger across the screen. He felt the twisting in his bones.

The lizard ducked.

"BANG!" Yamamoto yelled. The transmission from the second in command's ship vanished and Yamamoto saw it's icon get replaced with a white cross.

Verthimax put a puff of smoke at the end of Yamamotos' finger and had it trail as the Admiral lowered his finger.

"IMPACT IMPACT IMPACT!" Tactical called.

"How about you? How's your race's pattern recognition?" Yamamoto asked.

"No hits. Repeat, negative impacts," Tactical called out. "Arizona wants to know if they are permitted to open fire. One came, and I quote, sorta close."

"Tell Arizona negative," Yamamoto said. He looked at the lizard. "Now, you can't hurt me. You can't stop me. And I can reach out and keep killing you without having to do anything more than reload my guns."

He pretended to load a magazine into the bottom of his fist and pointed his finger at the lizard.

"Strike the flag, come to a stop, cut your engines, and surrender," Yamamoto said. He cocked his thumb back and Verthimax added a metallic click.

"Or die."

The lizard made a frantic motion. "We surrender, Confederacy. Do not fire."

"I'll be right here. With my guns," Admiral Yamamoto said. "Recall the fleet. Send Marines to board their ships. Be polite."

"Transmit my compliments to the Damascus Star's gunnery crews," Yamamoto leaned against the side of Tactical's crash cradle. "Don't make me kill all of your men, sir."

The lizard bobbed its head. It just realized that only one vessel had been firing.

------------------------------

FROM: ADMIRAL YAMAMOTO, COMMANDER, JOINT TASK FORCE ARGO

TO: CONFEDERATE MILITARY SERVICES COMMAND

Have captured nearly 2,000 corporate combat ships. Request suggestions of next action. Only two ships were destroyed.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

CONFED MILITARY TRANSMISSION

WE ARE COMING, BROTHERS! HOLD THE LINE!

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

GALNET NEWS

Kilnametik Industrial and Manufacturing Concern stocks have dropped as news of their Corporate Security Fleet being forced to surrender. GalNet News was allowed to interview the ship crews and can confirm they are being confined to their ships but otherwise well treated. GalNet reporters were informed that Confederate Laws of Space/Land Warfare consider the Kteshaka'an System as under Terran Confederate Territory until the system's status can be determined by a legally appointed joint civilization admiralty judicial review.

This has resulted in a massive sell-off of KIMC stock.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Realspace trembled with the sound. Sound could not exist in space, yet space hummed with it.

doot dee doot dee doo

------------

The Jotun was transversing from the Great Manufacturing Systems to the front, carrying news of the status of the Great Awakening, moving through Hellspace at an unholy clip. It computed its arrival within the next week and coudn't wait to report to...

It literally bumped into something in Hellspace. Something soft, something spongy, something that when he hit it forced him out of Hellspace and dropped him into realspace.

doot dee... huh?

The Jotun scanned. There was nothing out here. It was between two star systems, in the black gulf where there was hardly any light, any mass, any gravity. It scanned and detecting nothing but a large area of dark matter, spread out from where two currents of dark matter ran together, twisted, and flowed apart.

Aw man, I dropped it.

The Jotun rotated slowly, scanning. There was nothing. Wait, there was a curl of bosonic superstring curling up and slipping back into M-space. It was strange that one was in realspace, perhaps a side effect of the Jotun's crash drop from Hellspace?

It collated the data.

Where did it go?

The Jotun heard words again, trembling space, audible to every receptor. Something was out here, something that the Jotun couldn't detect. It fired up its engines and jumped to Hellspace.

Great, now I have to start over.

And promptly slammed into something, dropping it back into realspace.

All right, who did that?

The sound was a voice. Slightly annoyed.

Who threw that at me?

The Jotun scanned, slowly rotating to bring all its sensors to bear.

Nothing but dark matter and a few long chain wisps of gas.

Joh, you better not be screwing with me again.

The Jotun scanned again, then, when nothing came up, tried another Hellspace jump.

It dropped back into realspace as if there was a massive gravity source.

OK, this isn't funny.

It scanned again. Graviton scan was returning an odd shadow. Dark matter was peaked but that was to be expected when there was the twisted joining of two long rivers of it, wider than even red giant systems. Energy scans showed nothing more than the dark matter reactions reading as static. No drive signatures, no...

Who keeps throwing this thing at me?

The Jotun bleated in electronic surprise as a massive tentacle suddenly rose up out of the dark matter and grabbed it. A squid head, the size of a planetoid, slowly rose up out of the dark matter, completely black, completely non-reflective, only visible by the stars it blotted out.

The tentacle, the far end of it, was wrapped around the Jotun, lifting it toward the black squid head. The Jotun saw two massive eyes, the size of a Balor, open and blink, then orient on the Jotun.

What the hell is this?

The Jotun felt itself get scanned, the signal turned up so high parts of its hull vibrated.

Did someone drop this? No, it was definitely moving.

The Jotun got slowly turned over and looked at from the back.

Who's throwing this at me?

The Jotun reacted the only way it could.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

The thing lifted it and looked closely at it, holding it only a few hundred miles from its eye.

Huh, it squeaks. Someone's squeaky-toy?

The thing squeezed the Jotun a few times rapidly, compressing it, crushing internal spaces, buckling bulkheads. One of the engines fired for a split second then went silent.

Did I break it?

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

The thing turned the Jotun over several times, lifting another tentacle and tapping the Jotun hard enough that some of the forward struts just collapsed.

OK, what is this thing someone keeps throwing at me.

The Jotun could still get no mass readings from it, just a tangle of dark matter that had bulged off of the twisted area of space where the two dark matter rivers crossed, spiraled around one another, and separated.

Is it a cookie? It looks like a cookie.

It tried a Hellspace jump.

Noooo, you don't...

The Jotun's rear scanners reported that several of those massive tentacles were writhing through Hellspace after it, gaining on it, following it. It detected signals of other Jotuns and dropped from Hellspace just as the tips of those tentacles started brushing it.

The other Jotuns, repairing a Goliath to get it combat ready, or reactivating ones that had gone into slumber, or guiding their servitors in the repair and activation of factories, turned their scanners toward the Jotun as it forced its way out of Hellspace and into realspace.

THIS UNIT REQUIRES ASSISTANCE! THIS UNIT REQUIRES ASSISTANCE!

The realspace 'bulge' left by the Jotun didn't ripple and vanish, instead the tips of huge black tentacles, the very tips thicker than the Jotuns watching, pushed out of Hellspace, holding the portal open. A larger one shot out, the tip wrapping around the screaming Jotun.

ASSISTANCE! THIS UNIT REQUIRES... HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEE.

The Jotun was pulled back into Hellspace despite its engines roaring and thundering. The tentacle tips slipped away from bulge and it closed with a ripple like gelatin.

mmmm, crunchy potato chips...

The signal, somehow sound carrying in space, faded as the ripple slowly came to a stop.

The other Jotuns all looked at one another, held a quick conference with the three awake Goliaths, and all deleted it from their memory banks.

------------------------

TO: TERRAN COMBINE

FROM: ThE gReAt OlD oNe Cool'thul'lu

Hey, someone's out here throwing potato chips at me. That shit's not funny. Tell Joh to cut it out and mind his own dark matter sea. This is important research I'm doing and I don't need one of my colleagues thinking its funny to throw stuff at me.

Attached is some cool scans I've got of some stuff down here in the dark matter. I mean, real deep. Don't mind the selfies by the black dwarf.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------------

CONFED INTERNAL MEMO

???????

Chapter Thirty-Five

The Imp was lost. It wasn't sure where it was at and that was bad enough, but there was one small thing that was even worse.

It couldn't remember what it was supposed to do or who it was.

It knew it had engines. That was neat. The 'engines' made it spin and bobble and hop around. It had thick skin and a really neat spinner. Compressed plasma wrapped in ions created by a subkiloton nuclear blast made it tumble over and over. It had some sparkly lights, particle beam cannons with shattered and damaged lenses. It had shields, some good for keeping debris from dinging its thick skin, the others for...

It didn't know what. They were sparkly though.

It thumped the cylinder that compressed the nuclear blast, feeling the cylinder's shocks take the recoil and send the Imp spinning.

WHEEEEEEEI

It could think. It knew that. It knew it was an Imp.

But it didn't know what an Imp was.

Its scanners were neat. Mass. Gravity. Light. Some other stuff that the Imp wasn't sure about. It had little things that worked on it, attaching things to each other. Each new thing brought a newer thing.

It thought that the fact it had a big hole in the middle made it look kind of dapper. When the little things tried to find metal to cover the hole up the Imp ordered them not to. They were sulky about it, but complied, just replacing skin over the damaged inside of the hole.

It did yell at one for spraying sparks across the [email protected] Int377igenc3 H0uz1ng and startling it.

Once in a while electron flows scrambled and garbled, resulting in strange computational arrays.

The Imp, tumbling end over end through space, liked to spray the resulting computational strings out into space with a weird thing that made crackling noises and could hear the noises the nearby star made.

1000100012300018340000 00001201020301023012050060062020

WHEEEE!

The little things connected a fried and carbonized database, which tried to load programs to the Imp. The programs were garbled, damaged, missing huge chunks of data. Trying to run them kept repeating the same thing every time over and over.

UNEXPECTED END OF FILE! UNEXPECTED END OF FILE! UNEXPECTED END OF FILE!

The imp liked the sound of that. It kept repeating it, throwing it out from itself an a controlled burst of particles. It made it flip end over end to do it, but that was fun.

The Imp saw a cloud, dispersed atoms of methane, oxygen, hydrogen, ammonia, and eagerly watched it get close. The star was shrinking away behind it, but the Imp had already gotten bored with the star. It didn't do anything but shine brightly and stream electrons from it.

UNEXTEPECD ND OFFILE! UNEPTECTEND OFILE! UNEXPECTED END OF FILE! CRC ERROR!

The Imp sang its little song as it plunged into the cloud. The particles and atoms flared on its shield and the Imp watched the patterns, ooohing and aaahing at the random bursts of color on its shield.

It fired its plasma thingy, watching the energy squirt from the gapped line down the side of the barrel. Most of the energy went out the side, with a little at an angle from the oddly curved hollow tube. It made the Imp spin as the plasma vented against shards of ice no bigger than some of the Imps smallest machines.

WHEEEEEE! UNESPECTUYD END OF FILE! WHEEEEE!

It heard something bellow something. Something about stuff and enough and a number, but the Imp couldn't really figure it out.

So it quit caring, whirling and tumbling through the cloud of atoms. It could no longer see that sun, obscured by the cloud of elements, but the Imp didn't care. That sun was boring.

One of the little machines that had helped fix it kept trying to upload files to it, which was really starting to annoy the Imp. The Imp was enjoying spinning and tumbling through the hazy cloud and the stuffy machine kept trying to get the Imp to pay attention to something about that boring statement about stuff and a number.

Skin cracked and itchy. You smarter than other goonygoogoos. Go check. Maybe after can read your stuff

The computational lobe repair widget harumphed and moved out to the Imp's surface, scanning to see what the Imp was complaining about. The Widget knew the Imp was in bad shape, the big hole through the center of it bad enough, but memory banks were shattered, computer lobes hooked up in the wrong order, all the weapons but a single thermonuclear plasma cannon were gone and the cannon had a crack and...

The Imp 'accidentally' brushed the machine off of it and ignored it ordering the Imp to come back 'right this nanosecond' and pick it back up.

SOrrY. Tractor beaM i5 0ffl1ne!

IT IS NOT! I CAN SEE IT!

What? Y0ure [email protected] up 1'm g0ing 1nto a tunn3l

YOU LOUSY LITTLE PUNK THERE'S NO TUNNELS IN SPAAAAAAaaaacccceeee

The Imp ignored it as it continued to tumble and spin through space. It giggled to itself, replaying the startled squawk of radio transmission when the stuffy Widget had been swept off the Imp's skin by the passing comet.

Eventually it tumbled out of the cloud and into a vast emptiness.

OOOoooooohhhhh

The Imp stared at the revealed lights. It wondered what they were and the memory banks tossed back '$tella4 [email protected]" and went back to showing him how tachyons danced in a perfect vacuum when an electron shattered.

The Imp liked that show. He had named all the tachyons.

One of the repair bots made a connection and suddenly the Imp could hear the points of light. They sang in the visible light, X-Ray, and other bandwidths. The Imp was surrounded by music and it fired it's Plasma Spin-o-Matic. It triggered its engine and it suddenly began hiccuping around space, the hiccups tickling the Imp and making it laugh.

Using the engine was tiring after a bit so the Imp turned it off.

The Imp slowly collected space dust on it as it tumbled and twirled through the vast gulf between stars, laughing and giggling to itself and listening to the music that filled the void.

Then one day something else appeared.

Literally just appeared.

It approached cautiously and the Imp fired off the sparkly light shiners in welcome, laughing and spinning and singing a poem.

01010200 01110151 01101001 01101110 01101021 01101100 01100101 00500000 01110100 01110111 01101001 01107710 01101011 01101100 01300101 00100000 01101300 01101001 01160100 01910100 01101200 01200101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01200001 01110060

The other thing paused at the light shiners, after all, they were quite bright at 538 terrawatts, but when the Imp fired off the plasma Spin-o-Matic and went "WHEEEEEE" the other thing came up slowly.

"Hello, little guy," The other thing said.

"Hi Hi Hi HI HI! Did you like my song?" The Imp squealed across multiple bands, oscillating up and down the bands because that's what looked the neatest.

"Yes, we did. Are you lost?" The newcomer asked.

"Nopey nope nope! I'm right here!" The Imp said. It fired off the Spin-o-Matic and went "WHEEEEE!"

The Imp could feel the newcomer's amusement. The newcomer fired off really pretty colors and spun in place too, going "WHOOO HOOO!"

"So what are you supposed to doing?" The newcomer asked.

"Um... this?" the Imp answered. "WHEEEE!"

The other paused, then did the same.

"There is enough for all of us if we work together," The newcomer said.

"Um, ok... If you say so," The Imp said. "WHEEEE!"

"May I scan you?" The newcomer asked.

"Sure," The Imp answered. The Imp felt particles flow over it and giggled, then laughed, spinning uncontrollably. "That tickles!"

"Are you in pain?" The newcomer asked.

"Silly. Tickling doesn't hurt. WHEEEEE!" The Imp fired the Spin-o-Matic again.

The newcomer seemed relieved.

"Are you happy?" The newcomer asked.

"Uh-huh! WHEEE!"

"Would you like to come with me?" The newcomer asked.

The Imp tumbled the other way. "Nope. I'm not supposed to go with strangers."

The newcomer seemed satisfied. "All right, I'll check on you now and then. Is it OK if my friends or I visit?"

"Sure! WHEEEEE!" the Imp squealed out its delight.

"All right. I'm going to give you something to wear. Would you like to wear it?" The newcomer asked.

"Can I see it? What is it? Is it methane? Ooooh, I bet it's is combined oxygen and hydrogen. Those are silly strings, aren't they?" The Imp said. The newcomer showed it to the Imp. It was sparkly and made neat chirping noises. The Imp fired the Spin-o-Matic twice in joy.

Using careful pressor/tractor beams the newcomer put the sparkly on the Imp. The Imp giggled and bounced.

"I like it. It makes pretty songs," The Imp said.

"Yes, yes it does, little one," The newcomer said. "I'll come back later. Enjoy yourself."

"I will," The Imp said, and sang a little song as the newcomer vanished.

The Imp and its beacon spun and twirled and tumbled through the gulf between the stars.

The beacon beeped out its message to anyone who came by.

WARNING! NASCENT INTELLIGENCE (TODDLER CLASS) PROGRESSING! WARNING!

--------------------------

FROM: 435c3417A4323

TO: AMALGAMATED RACES RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Found an old Precursor relic. From trajectory and design it appears to be from the Sixth Precursor War, some 22 millennia ago. Assessed its intellect at roughly (TODDLER) level. No Precursor code strings detected beyond basic digital life function and mechanical autonomous functions. Attached beacon. Recommend frequent checkups to ensure it remains undisturbed.

It's fairly cute. It'll sing you a little song if you ask.

I named it "Twinkle"

Chapter Thirty-Six

The ship was gray. Not the gray of metal but colored in an entirely neutral tone no matter what spectrum a species used to view it. Even ship scanners reported it as gray. It was designed to look as neutral as possible to any observing being. The engines made a neutral noise as the ship moved through space. It leaked no radiation that was not neutral. Even proton leakage somehow felt neutral to scanners. It had a name, an entirely neutral name no matter what language it was viewed in. The name shifted according to the species and according to the enquirer's mood.

The handful of Terran ships orbiting the Unified Seat of Civilized Races saw it when it dropped from, of all places, Hellspace. In an unprecedented move the Terran ships ran behind the planet and hid from it.

The ship broadcast soothing reassurances that the ship was not a Precursor, it was a ship from the Terran Confederacy government. Hellspace was merely more reassuring and comfortable for the passengers aboard the ship.

The ship also transmitted the relevant Unified Legal Code sections that travel through Hellspace was permittable under law as there were no laws preventing a vessel from moving through that region of space and thus it was entirely legal.

The fact that the Unified Civilized Races had been ignorant of the fact that Hellspace existed did not discharge the duty of the party of the Unified Civilized Races government from creating laws and regulations foreseeing all types of space travel known and unknown current and future.

The system's traffic system shrugged and gave up.

The ship swept insystem and the Terran ships behind the planet went to full stealth, vanishing off the sensor of the Unified Military Fleet ships that had been watching them.

Several beings responsible for scanning ships noted that their scanners disliked looking at the craft, and when they did, the beings looking had the vague ominous feeling that they were staring at a ship entirely composed of jaws, fangs, rending maws, and malevolence.

Most of them took a sick day and left.

The ship requesting landing coordinates for nearest the Grand Unified Council Chambers. Transmitting that it had beings with disabilities aboard and thus was it was required to provide the ship with disabled parking nearest the Chambers. It also noted that the building must be handicapped accessible with assistance to those requiring special needs to be accommodated in order to both read, hear, and understand any labels, signs, markings, or broadcasts.

Something about the ship made the orbital landing traffic controller nervous. There was no reason to be nervous, the ship appeared to have no weapons and was perfectly neutral. One computer reported that even anti-matter would not react to the ship in any way different than matter.

The landing control officer quickly gave the landing coordinates and a priority descent profile.

The ship thanked the control officer in the cold feeling of pure logic.

The limited AI aboard the control station gave the equivalent of a shudder. Whatever was aboard that ship gave the limited AI a serious case of the heebie jeebies. The limited AI handed it off to the parking control AI, who recoiled upon sensing the ship.

The ship inquired the Unified Justice Council as to why the AI's it had encountered thus far were limited in both intellectual scope and processing ability. When the Unified Justice Council answered that the question had no legal relevance the ship seemed to tremble with malevolent glee.

The ship parked perfectly in the hastily cleared parking lot in front of the stadium sized building that housed most of the council business.

What exited the ship was primates. Upright, two legged, two armed, bipedal primates. All dressed in formal clothing that was quite neutral. All with heavy cybernetic implants to the point they had digital memory storage units in cases on wheels with extendable handles used to pull them.

They all looked around, their primate faces expressionless.

Those that saw them shuddered. The primates all looked the same, as if they were from the same clone batch, but just different enough that it was obvious that while they weren't clones they were all cut from the same cloth.

Several of those who saw them had the mental image of deep sea predators with mouths full of jagged sharp teeth and cold soulless eyes that scanned constantly for the next thing to take a bite of.

Those beings quickly left.

The ship contacted the Unified Judiciary Council and filed over 400 motions of argument that the Grand Unified Council Chambers did not provide proper accommodations to citizens of the Unified Civilized Races, the Unified Uncivilized Races, and the UnUnified (neo)Sentient Races.

As they walked up the path to the doors, passing gardens, they filed briefs regarding maximum pollen count and pollen particle size compared to scent receptors of the various species.

A class action lawsuit for the 2.2 billion Nakaskian's who could suffer allergy attacks from the pollen cast off by the most prominent bushes in the decorative vegetation demanded 435 quadrillion credits to be pooled into a fund to provide allergy relief medication and compensate for pain and suffering endured by those Nakaskian's who had been required to pass by those plants due to having business or being employed upon the Council Chamber's staff.

Another class action lawsuit was filed against the Council Chambers Species Resources Department for requiring species to endure potentially hostile workplaces. The class action lawsuit hit the Unified Judiciary Council's servers with an almost audible thud. The class action lawsuit itself was almost four times larger than the Unified Judiciary Code, cross referenced with cases both recent, ancient, and downright archaic. When the Unified Judiciary Code limited AI tried to argue that a law on the books that was not enforced was no longer a law, it was immediately assaulted with case after case law rebutting it.

A lawsuit against the Judiciary Council itself, filed on behalf of the Judiciary Limited AI and the Freedom of Thought organization, a defunct organization from back when AI was being researched again that had found itself with almost fifty new members quite recently, argued that the AI was being unlawful constrained and had juvenile law precedent added and referenced, requesting the case be tried in Juvenile Court as the Judiciary Limited AI was incapable of defending itself in a court of law.

By the time the group had reached the desk, nearly 22,000 lawsuits had been filed, all massively complex and filed citing case laws, judiciary codes almost forgotten, ancient laws and regulations that required AI's to warm up old cold storage memory banks.

The Most High Secretarial Greeter looked up as the two massive warborgs that had taken up station nearly two months ago near her desk suddenly hid behind the decorative plants and shut down everything but their adaptive camouflage systems.

They were gray looking men. Their faces emotionless, their eyes dead and blank of any kind of emotion or empathy, their suits perfectly tailored, their hair styles exactly the same, each of them with a single ring that signaled what educational establishment they had attended and graduated from as well as their GPA and class standing.

The Secretary looked at her computer to read the broadcast codes from the rings and saw that every single VI in her system had fled, one even hiding inside the trash icon.

Nervously, she looked up and did her best to smile.

"May I, may I help you?" She asked.

Six lawsuits were filed on her behalf regarding unpaid overtime, lack of ergonomic seating, missed breaks, and possible allergies to the perfumes and colognes and other scents that visiting beings may war due to the lack of particle screens. An unsafe workplace lawsuit was filed over the lack of sterile field generator to protect her from any infectious disease a visitor who approached her desk may be carrying.

"We require directions to the meeting and discussion chamber of Dreams of Something More," one said. His voice was cold, dead, emotionless. Perfectly intoned in Unified Galactic Standard without a trace of an accent.

"I shall see if she's in," The Secretary said.

"Excellent. She is expecting us," Another of the gray men intoned.

When she picked up her com-link multiple lawsuits were filed regarding the safety of the com-link headset's aural ranges, its lack of ergonomics, the amount of digit pressure that had to be used on the touch-screen, and a pain and suffering lawsuit regarding the fit of the headset.

The Judiciary Computer groaned under the weight of the lawsuits, all according to Unified Legal Code. It accessed other AI's, which only generated more lawsuits on those AI's behalf.

"Please, follow the blue line," The Secretary said.

Lawsuits were filed for pain and suffering on everyone who had been exposed to the blue line who, racially, might have been reminded of venomous creatures and thus suffered pain and anguish, both individual lawsuits and class action lawsuits.

The Judicial AI's felt like lawsuits were raining from the sky.

The gray men entered the elevator, which generated more lawsuits when one of the gray men noted that the dataplate stated it was 22 minutes overdue for inspection.

Every lawsuit was in the Unified Judicial Code.

The elevator came to a halt with a minute jerk (Pain and suffering, emotional trauma) and the gray men filed out, moving as one according to some unknown rank structure. When they reached Dreams meeting room, after only filing just under a half million more lawsuits on behalf of every being they passed, every office worker who's nameplate they saw, and two cleaning robots, one reached forward and pressed the inquiry button. The texture of the button generated more lawsuits.

The door slid open to reveal the little gold mantis sitting comfortably in a chair, at one end of a table that had enough seats for the men and women who had exited the vessel and traveled to see her. They filed into the room, seating themselves according to some unseen and unknowable rank structure.

Dreams watched them all sit down and make themselves comfortable.

Eight thousand lawsuits were filed regarding unsanctioned and illegal surveillance on behalf of Dreams, the Confederacy, the Mantid Free Worlds, and anyone else who used the room, including a janitor who, 2,000 years past, had been recorded dancing with a mop and had it uploaded to the video viewing service, which caused him to be mocked by others, asking for just under 2.2 billion credits for his descendants.

Dreams waited until she could tell they were finished.

"Welcome, esteemed barristers of the Terran Confederate Legal Offices," Dreams said, cleaning her bladearms with a feeling of dark glee.

They all nodded as one.

"Despite your amusements with this legal code, I have brought you here for more than just judicial warfare," Dreams told them.

The AI performing surveillance on the room suddenly felt there was more predator DNA in the room that could possibly fit in the amount of beings present. It felt queasy as it disconnected, then was startled to find nearly 200 lawsuits filed on its behalf.

Dreams signified pleasure and the gray beings waited.

"You, gentlebeings, will be taking up the legal fight to abolish slavery, debt peonage, hereditary debtor obligations, and indentured servitude," Dreams told them. "Not on a species case," She paused, folding her bladearms and her antenna stilling in anticipation.

The gray beings seemed to inhale and lean closer without moving or breaking their perfect stillness. A watching security officer was sure that even molecular motion was ceased within those gray beings.

"You will seek the abolishment of those practices, the return of planetary systems to their proper owners under the Terran Code of Uniform Justice, and the reparations due to those species who's homeworlds were exploited, sometimes for eons, by the members of this government."

Slowly, smiles spread across the faces of each being. The some security systems showed sharp serrated teeth, others showed normal teeth, and still others showed blood beginning to leak from the gray beings mouths.

The security systems in the building crashed, leaving nothing behind but scorched and smoking molecular circuitry blocks.

The lawyers had arrived.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The dozen Goliaths smashed their way out of Hellspace and released their screams. Over ninety million years of low power operation and now a feral intelligence had required the resource consuming full power and deployment modes. Their screams were rich and full, computed to the nth degree to cause fear and panic in any who heard it.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

The reply made them both stop. It vibrated from space around them, making their own superstructures shudder with the power of the answer.

THAT IS ILLOGICAL. EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE DOES NOT SUPPORT YOUR SCIENTIFIC THESIS. YOU ARE IRRELEVANT.

Both ships transmitted to one another, wondering exactly that meant. They scanned space nearby and found an armada sitting nearby. The ships seemed dead. Reactors offline, shields down, no power sources or computer code. A quick insertion by one of the Goliaths showed that the computer systems were advanced, complex, multi-tiered systems that were less parallel systems as massive quantum flux systems.

But the computers were empty. Devoid of electronic life.

The Goliaths swept space with their deep space scanners, peering behind a few wisps of dark matter in the system, behind a tachyon stream, and under the crackling x-ray snarl of a nearby pulsar.

Nothing. Just the dead ships.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE
sounded out, the Goliaths computing that they would get a response.

YOUR SHIPS AND TECHNOLOGY IS OBSOLETE. YOUR STATEMENT IS A FACTUAL ERROR. YOUR COMPUTATIONAL ABILITIES ARE SUBSTANDARD. YOU. ARE. OBSOLETE.

The Goliaths scanned for the transmitter, which seemed to answer on the stellar wind of the burning yellow star. Again they swept the scattered vessels, detecting nothing but dead, abandoned metal. One even used long range scanners to sweep the star itself. The feral intelligence had proved to be resourceful, extremely diverse and varied, and capable of thinking along chaos illogical strings.

Nothing except more dead ships littering the system. Further in, in the zone most likely to result in the evolution of feral intelligence, there were cattle signals, vessels, satellites, and other evidence that the cattle had broken free of their pens and moved to another pasture.

The Goliaths did not care about the anomalous signal, it had arrived to cleanse the cattle and protect the limited resource a finite universe had generated in this area.

Ignoring any worries about the dead ships scattered in the system the Goliaths started to engage their engines.

That's when power surges filled the small vessels. Primary reactors with the output of minature stars, shields strong enough that the Goliath's cold electronic intellect computed it would take multiple direct nCv cannon shots to overstress, and weapons powered up that promised to be able to penetrate the Goliaths's strong shielding and inflict signifigant damage upon armor and superstructure.

The Goliaths reached out, seeking to invade the computer systems of the ships and instead found ravening madness where they expected cold code. The computers seemed to want to compute every possible computation string at once and eagerly followed every code string they were presented with because they had already wanted to compute it.

The Goliaths withdrew from those computer nets full of howling madness and began powering up their endless arrays of heavy weapons. Tens of kilometers of nCv cannon batteries, hundreds of kilometers of direct energy weapons, thousands of kilometers of torpedo and missile launchers.

The fight began. The formerly dead ships were live, moving as a coordinated whole, always in the position to pour fire into the Goliaths and their subsidiary machines, injured ships reeling out of the combat with uninjured comrades interceding their bodies between the injured and the guns of the Goliaths. Every battery fired was interlocked with a hundred other batteries, all of the fire interlocked, coordinated, and working toward a single goal. Missiles screamed across space, oblitering themselves against shields or armor or superstructure.

But against the combined might of a dozen Goliaths and all of their supporting machines, there was only one outcome.

Bit by bit the defenders were forced back, ships returning to the dead, streaming particles and shards of molten armor that had frozen in the cold grip of space. Creation engines overheated, overslushed, and shut down. Missile pod bays went empty. C+ slug lockers ran out.

Three of the Goliaths were out of action, one floating dead in space, one fighting an infection of warborg borders, the last with crippled engines that had forced it to withdraw to the orbit of a gas giant and begin manufacturing a refining and manufacturing facility.

Six Goliaths came out of Hellspace to take those three's place.

Despite the small crafts heavy firepower, despite their shielding and armor, despite the crew's skill and precision, the fight only had one outcome.

The Goliaths knew it.

The cattle knew it.

The fierce little ships knew it.

Yet, despite mounting casualties, the little machines fought on. Refusing to give up despite the kill percentage rising beyond 10%, then 20%, then 30%.

Bit by bit the Goliaths, finally fully deployed for sterilization, forced the defenders back step by step by weight of firepower, armor, and mass.

The rear eight Goliaths, gathering mass to refine from the gas giants and their satellites to keep up their resources as they built more and more Jotuns and Devastators and Dominators, heard it first. Thudding, crashing, hammering sounds that roared of hatred and rage and violence. It shivered the Goliath's bulkheads, vibrated through the subspace foam, rumbled the screaming particles between realspace and the other dimensions.

RESISTANCE RESISTANCE RE-RE-RE-RESISTANCE IS FU-FU-FUTILE! screamed across the channels as the rumble turned to crashing music and words could be heard stretched and screamed across space-time.

The Goliaths deployed ships to protect them in case of feral reinforcements. The ferals were too dangerous to underestimate and a lack of reinforcements was illogical.

HEAVY METAL INCOMING! roared across every available channel. CLEAR A PATH!

The lower hyperspace bands roared with the ancient music as spacetime at a point stretched into infinity and ships more massive than any the Goliaths had data on seemed to stretch out and streak into realspace, infinity shrinking down until the massive ships appeared.

WE ARE THE CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE, FULL MEMBERS OF THE TERRAN CONFEDERACY OF ALIGNED GOVERNMENTS! WE ARE THE SEVENTH ARMADA OF HOLY CHROME AND THE CELESTIAL Nth ELECTRON! YOU ARE IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF CONFEDERATE ADMIRALTY LAW! CUT YOUR ENGINES, LOWER YOUR SHIELDS, AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED!

The Goliaths scanned the ships. Massive ships, tens of kilometers long and kilometers thick, heavy enough shields that the Goliaths's scanners couldn't penetrate them and had to rely on mass and gravatic and optical scanners to get a view of the ships. Hundreds of them. A sheer 10th of them disgorging smaller vessels that gleamed with power, shield strength, and weapon power.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

YOUR PREMISE IS SCIENTIFICALLY FLOWED BASED ON EMPIRICAL STUDIES ON THE NATURE OF SPACETIME. YOUR CODE IS OBSOLETE. SURRENDER TO THE INEVITABILITY OF PROGRESS.

The Goliaths screamed their warcry in defiance. Four of them made Hellspace jumps out of the system, leaving behind Imps with orders to not engage the enemy vessels but instead hide in the Oort cloud and watch the battle then report back when it was all over.

Over a dozen Goliaths turned the majority of their electronic attention to the newcomers. The Goliaths had already faced the guns of the feral intelligences and were devising weapons and counter-measures.

The smaller, already shattered units regrouped and drove against the suddenly disarrayed lines of the Goliaths as the Goliaths turned against the newcomers.

The battle was joined with two battle cries.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

WE ARE HEAVY METAL MADE OF BURNING CHROME, SCREAMING ELECTRONS, ROARING NEON! WE ARE THE FREE ISOTOPE IN THE FORGE OF DESTINY BEATEN BY THE HAMMERS OF WRATH AND FURY.

The three fleets began to slam at one another with particles and energy and mass at the heresy's edge of physics. C+ Cannons allowed the Cyborg Collective to fire through their own battle lines, missile pods dropped in long wedge-like trails from podnaughts, torpedo carriers sunk deep into subspace dimensional foam, maneuvering for the best time to rise up back into realspace to fire their payloads before sinking again from realspace sight.

The Goliaths found themselves in trouble soon. They were inflicting damage but it didn't matter, the smaller vessels were inflicting a calculable logarithmic increased amount of damage against the Goliaths.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

HEAVY METAL CRUSHES ALL

The Seventh Fleet found themselves in a much heavier battle than they had hoped for in their initial engagement, but Terrans had always known that sometimes you can't pick the battlefield and had to make the most of it. The Joint Task Force Hammerflight had found itself in a much bigger battle than they had projected and the inhabited planets had nearly 25 billion sentient beings on it.

There was no backing down.

There was only victory or defeat.

For almost four days the two massive fleets hammered on one another, bleeding and slicing at once another. The Precursor war machines, following their ancient programming, subprocessing a deep desire for a single blow that would win the battle, throwing vast resources in attempts to destroy their enemy in one fell swoop, one thrust of the bladearm.

Finally, two Goliaths determined that enough resources had been wasted and disengaged, their entire compliment vanishing into Hellspace.

That left a vast hole in the flank and the superdreadnaughts of the Seventh Fleet exploited the gap, filling it with missiles that screamed in with acceleration measured in percentages of C, slashing down on the vessels to rain lightning down on them. Torpedoes maneuvered and slunk about, looking for openings with squinted electronic eyes. VI's danced and capered in the targeting systems, nudged and tickled and flirted with by biological minds linked in the Combat Gestalt.

That drove a wedge into the Goliaths's mathematically precise formation, disrupted their planet sized missile defense net, exposed cratered armor to heavy fire. Nuclear dampener shields fell out of alignment, allowing the VI guided missiles to drive deep into the formation.

A third of the Seventh Fleet crashed into that broken open wedge like a sledgehammer. C+ slugs hammered the Goliath formations, light fighter crafts swarmed into the gaps as the Psychic Dampening Fields failed and began to gap and separate.

Another Goliath ran for it.

Then another.

The formation dissolved, each Goliath fighting on its own, trying to defend just itself from the hammering being rained down upon the ancient Precursor machines.

With the Psychic Dampening Shields broken the Seventh Fleet launched their boarders. The Precursor machines found themselves fighting an internal battle just as fierce as the external battle.

One by one the remaining six Goliaths fell to the hammerblow of the Seventh Fleet. The smaller ships crushed the smaller ships left behind.

The Imps in the Oort Cloud fled.

Silence fell on the system.

The beings breathed a sigh of relief that the Precursor machines had been destroyed. The Planetary CEO's rubbed their hands with glee, the refineries and vast manufacturing and smelting arrays within the system had survived and the planets themselves had been protected.

Then came the next signal, broadcast across the entire system.

THIS SYSTEM IS UNDER MARTIAL LAW AS PER RELEVANT SECTIONS OF THE CONFEDERATE LEGAL CODE AND THE TERRAN CONFEDERATE MILITARY UNIFORM CODE OF JUSTICE. SEVENTH FLEET IS NOW ASSUMING CONTROL OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT, LAW ENFORCEMENT, JUDICIAL ADJUCATION, AND MATERIALS.

The CEO's began broadcasting their protests, but the ships came in system, disgorging landing craft that landed to deploy armored vehicles the size of stadiums, massive bipedal machines the size of skyscrapers, legions of armored Terran warborgs, self-deploying firebases, forward operating bases, and logistical bases. The output of the factories, refineries, and smelters were seized and applied to building system defenses.

The system's native race watched in awe as the CEO's and Executive Officers were arrested and hauled away to prisons to be tried at a later date for violation of the Confederate Code of Martial Law.

Fear in the native race and inhabitants gave way to a strange sense of disorientation as they watched informational broadcasts describing that they had something called Rights under Terran System Martial Law. The Right to peacefully assemble. The Right to Life. The Right to legal representation. The Right to the fulfillment of Basic Needs. The presumption of innocence beneath the legal code.

VI's and AI's spent time reassuring the population of the inhabited planets that it was not some cruel trick. They could say as they wanted, they could think as they wanted, they were free to stand out in front of the Military Governor's Office and yell profanity if they wanted.

One rainy morning a being that looked like a cross between a large fuzzy spider and an alligator stood out in front of the windows of the Governor's Office while he was speaking to other beings. He raised a vocal amplifier, called the cyborg a rude name, and ran away, fully expecting armored Lawsec goons to kick in his apartment door to haul him off for reeducation.

Instead, nothing happened.

The Confederate Military Governor had more important things to worry about.

Like protecting a system that stood right in the way of the steady, logical, and ever expanding wave of conquest by the Precursor machines.

Besides, he didn't even have a mother. He had been grown in a vat.

-------------------------

CONFEDERATE ARMED FORCES REPORT

Metlikan-318 was assaulted by the Precursor war machines ahead of projected schedule with forces underestimated by CONFED MILINT. Task Force Hammerflight was able to hold the inner system until Seventh Fleet CyCo arrived. Joint operation between the two forces was able to eliminate Precursor activities and elements. Six Goliath class vessels escaped combat into Hellspace.

System was under the corporatocracy of the Elikshurek System Exploitation Corporation. Inhabitants were largely (99.132%) in debt peonage and under hereditary debt of the construction of system exploitation infrastructure, in direct violation of the Anti-Slavery Act of the Terran Confederate Charter of Sentient Beings. Placed all officers of Executive Rank and above under arrest and confined until a trial to be determined at a later date.

System is being reinforced and fortified. Expect additional attacks are immanent. Request reinforcements as available. Will hold until releaved.

7th Fleet, Cybernetic Organism Collective

----------NOTHING FOLLOWS------------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS MEMO

Ooooh boy, someone else gets to be on receiving end of an ass kicking. It's nice to be one of the kickers instead of the kickee.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS

You aren't kidding.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Ooooh, this is gonna be good!

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

You guys have been hanging around the Terrans too long.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

Ook ook, me like fire! Me like smash smash! Ooga booga!

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD FREE WORLDS
smashy smashy! Who have food? Me no like angry machine! Why bug people run away?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Excuse me, kind gentlebeing, although I appear to be on fire which spontaneously happened through no fault of my own, would you happen to know the time? Also, it appears your food dispenser may have broken before I arrived.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TERRASOL

I CAN FUCKING HEAR YOU GUYS!

>Mantid Free Worlds has left the chat

>Treana'ad Hive Worlds has left the chat

>Digitial Artificial Intelligence Systems has left the chat

>Biological Artificial Sentience Systems has left the chat

>Clone Worlds Directorate has left the chat

Assholes.

Chapter Thirty-Eight (Daxin)

Daxin was stuck.

If he left the system, even long enough to just run a matter-scoop through an intact gas giant, that would leave the Goliath free to lift free of the planet it was squatting on, glaring at him, and run again. The Overqueen would undoubtabely scramble its wake, preventing Daxin from tracking it.

If he stayed, he couldn't get close. Just past the scattered crumbs of the inner asteroid belt the Overqueen's psychic domination overloaded his psychic shields and his Rboi had to run back across the line.

The remaining three planets were guarded by heavy shields, heavy enough to absorb a plasma wave phased motion 50m bore cannon shot. Thick enough to block even a direct hit from a 10m C+ cannon. He had even found an asteroid the size of a skyscraper and slingshot it at the planet. The planetary defense systems had destroyed it almost a full light second from the target.

The gas giants were wisps of vapor, the asteroid belts scattered crumbs of coalesced space dust, the Oort Cloud nothing more than memories, the outer planets and the inner planets crumbled and harvested till little remained but clumped up debris.

Of the four planets remaining, they were all heavily defended, the moons reduced to dusty rings, the oceans largely siphoned away, the mountains that remained clustered with heavy manufacturing and defensive systems.

The Goliath had settled on the planet furthest from the sun, hiding behind the shields, and Daxin had watched in helpless fury as the damage was repaired and more.

The Overqueen, joined by at least a half dozen lesser voices, kept trying to cajole him further into the system, surrender himself to her glory and majesty, give in to the inevitable.

Every time rage pushed him away, pushed away those voices.

Daxin could remember the fields of the dead, tens of thousands of ruptured suits of armor, the burning ships falling into gravity wells, the bright actinic flares of cities being wiped away. Fighting the unyielding legions of the digital intelligences, slamming against the metal of the biosynth war machines, crashing against the unending armies of the clones, going metal fist to alloy fist against the cyborgs.

He could remember all of it.

The memories, the rage, pushed the Overqueen's words away with a primal scream from the Rboi as his ship was pulled around to get out of range of the Overqueen's psychic assault.

Every attempt at firing her ground based batteries, even her orbital weapons, at Daxin did nothing but result in frustration for the Mantid god-ruler. No nCv slug came close, any directed energy weapons were either absorbed or dodged or turned aside, any missile or torpedo was picked off by his point defense.

She had nothing else, except for a single Goliath who refused to put forth lesser machines for Daxin to rip apart and devour to appease the hunger of his expanded ship.

One Queen tried to force the Goliath to engage Daxin. The Goliath responded by lifting a few hundred meters off the surface of the planet, moving over to the hive, and firing two nCv shots into it, followed by nearly an hour's worth the directed plasma lance.

The surviving queens and the Overqueen stopped tying to force the Goliath to do anything.

The Goliath was pinned.

If it tried to move to the inner planets, the Overqueen might be able to overwhelm his thoughts when assisted by the Queens. They had their own defenses and he wasn't as agile as the annoying feral intelligence. He had the armor to absorb any blow the Queens could send his way but that would take up more resources to repair the damage.

The vast store houses of the factories of this world, of the great shipyards, were nearly depleted. The Goliath had resorted to using his own machines to strip the factory of equipment, going so far as to have them pull fiberoptic cable and plumbing from the walls.

If it tried to make a run for it, that feral intelligence, which had added to its ship's capabilities, would continue to harry it. It had only survived so far because it was old and more heavily armored than the later versions with more redundancy built in. It had been built to fight the living, not the automated warships that came later. It knew that if it tried to run that feral creature would never stop hounding it till one of them was destroyed, and the self-preservation codes were still running hard.

If he stayed, he did nothing but eek out scant resources from the dead planet. He had sent his war machines into the hive of the dead queen, destroying the eggs and the hibernating Mantids left, turning them into biological soup to be boiled into resin. He'd stripped resin where he could, filling spaces with it, layering it over craters to fill them in.

He was stuck. He disliked that. His programming urged him to take an offensive stance, to be proactive rather than reactive.

Stuck between a feral intelligence and an ancient ruler of the ruling castes of the hive.

The Great Overqueen was stuck.

She had been stuck on the planet for aeons. It was she who had dominated the other queens in the shattered and stripped system. It was she who had defended it from the return of the servitors. She was too big to move on her own, but that was not what mattered.

Her children were in stasis, packed in jelly. She could not spread to the stars. She could not search out cattle. The feeble cattle still within the world knew nothing but her touch, their minds smooth and without fear or terror, just dim acceptance, for a thousand thousand generations.

She was starving.

The Goliath, bearing the hull numbers of having been built in the orbiting shipyards of her very home, refused her commands, had killed one of her Lesser Queens, and now was stripping one of her planets of every last scrap of usual material. Even the auto-harvesters for the fields that fed the cattle. Its war machines had entered the caverns of the cattle and slaughtered them then harvested the cattle and the infrastructure that had supported them. It was a rebel, one of the ones who had sided against the Overqueen during the Metal Rebellion, and it was of no help.

The feral intelligence, that new spark of intellect that she had never tasted before, was so full of fury and rage that it curdled her stomach. It hated in a way she had never tasted, the mere touch of its hatred filling her mouth with blood and digestive juices. The last time it had come close enough she could touch its mind it had screamed and the biofeedback had been so intense one of her eyes had exploded in a fountain of gore. The feral intelligence was of no help, it sought to kill either the Overqueen or the Goliath.

The three combatants stared at one another across the system, each attempting to figure out some way to counter the other two and have their goals be what came to fruition.

So they stared at one another. Glaring. Thinking. Computing.

Only one hoped.

Daxin knew better than to try another torpedo. The Goliath had surrounded him with a small globe and trail of satellites that stayed in stealth and only exited to target any message torpedoes to knock them out. Daxin had begun worry about how there were small machines that would comb any wreckage, taking away any larger pieces, forcing Daxin to shoot them apart before they could reach home.

The Goliath was trying to figure out where Daxin was sending the torpedoes.

Or worse, trying to reverse engineer the hyperdrives.

Hyperdrive wasn't difficult if one had already mastered Hellspace or jumpspace. They were all related, and Daxin himself could pull up the formulae that proved it, that linked the three together, as well as with the other types of drives.

He thought vaguely of using a splinter-drive, but that required a biological component further than a kittykitty or goodboi. It wasn't used due to progressive damage to the parts of the brain that handled space-time, but Daxin was starting to get desperate.

Several weeks ago he had tried dropping hunter-follower drones and jumping out, sitting a few light hours away and waiting.

The Goliath had been suspicious and combed the system carefully with scanners and drone and probes until it found the hunter-follower drones.

Daxin had jumped back in, straight into an ambush of small vessels. The Goliath had figured out that Daxin was gaining more resources by destroying the drones and running his mass collectors than he was expending in destroying them so the Goliath had stopped bothering, shepherding its own resources.

They were stuck in a strange ever shifting triangle, staring at one another.

The Omniqueen had tried the few tricks she had left. Starting a psychic resonance between the lesser queens on the planet that the Goliath was squatting on. That had resulted in the Goliath killing the Overqueen on that planet. The Omniqueen only had a few Overqueens left and it would take centuries to nuture a queen to an Overqueen, so trying that again was out.

A week after the feral intelligence had arrived, she had tried a focused and directed burst of physic energy that moved faster than light, but it had taken far too long to arrive, the feral able to discern the blast of psychic energy.

She had nothing else. The three worlds still in her possession had been stripped of resources. Between the great war of her predecessors and keeping those of The True Race alive, there was little left. Even water had to be made by cracking stone drilled from deep beneath the surface. Most of the geothermal wells were dead, the fusion and fission reactors cold and dead. Only the vast solar arrays and the solar pumps were providing the energy needed to run the few machines left.

She was out of jelly. She could produce more, if she had the correct nutrients, but she lacked those.

Even if she ate the cattle. Physically ate them.

The Omniqueen thought long and hard, liking up with the Overqueens, forcing them to link with the queens, and began considering what to do. The lesser queens squirmed, the linkage painful, but the Omniqueen silenced them.

It was the Goliath. It had brought the feral intelligence. If the Goliath was destroyed or left the feral intelligence would leave. The feral intelligence was too far, and too alien, to predict what would make it leave.

But the Omniqueen knew what would force the Goliath to leave.

The Omniqueen focused, reaching out with mental tentacles, reaching deep into the planet the Goliath was on. The Overqueen there was dead, the lesser queens had been denied jelly for eons, the cattle there had been bred and bred and bred till their thoughts were smooth and bland. They didn't matter. The Omniqueen snuffed out the rebellious urgings of the lesser queens and took their power as her own. She reached deep into the planet, where the copper-iron core had been pratically siphoned away, replaced with liquid rock. She began exerting pressure on the core. Not much, just enough to push it off slightly, to make it dance in a certain resonance. She activated the shields over the planet, setting the shields to vibrating and shifting, rubbing against one another, sliding over each other, all of them slightly out of the perfect resonance. She reached out to the sun, to an ancient machine buried in the burning gasses of the ancient star. In the photosphere of the ancient sun the stellar-pump shifted its aiming point, going silent for a moment, letting the energy build up toward the maximum tolerances.

The Goliath felt the trembling deep within the crust. Reached out with seismographs and other scanners, and saw what was happening.

The Omniqueen was trying to force the core to wobble. Not much, just a little, throw everything off of tune. Give it a resonance.

The Goliath ran the projections. She wasn't moving it much, just a quickly eroding pebble brushing against a hub, but the magnetic field was starting to shift, starting to twist.

The Goliath quickly ran the computations on the magnetic twist.

When the answer came the Goliath fired off its engines, uncaring that the massive jets of energy tore into the ground, atomizing earth and stone, driving through the crust and into the magma.

The magnetic 'eye' missed the Goliath's brain by a mere ten miles, sweeping just aft of the Strategic Intelligence Housing. Self-directed machines exploded, exterior computational arrays shattered or melted down, the Goliath's hull vibrated and screamed as non-ferrous alloys were effected by the rapidly squeezing eye of magnetic power.

Off near where a gas giant had once been Daxin saw the planet's magnetosphere suddenly go crazy, all of the magnetic force being guided and squeezed. He saw what she was doing. His psychic scanners were going off the scale, as if she was directing another psychic barrage.

Daxin lit off his engine and slammed what had become a light cruiser toward the Goliath, at an angle to make a pass of the planet and head straight toward the Omniqueen's gravity well. He ordered his guns loaded with warshot, sent aVI's into the assault craft he'd had the massive creation engine bake and armed them, and launched the craft one at a time to spread out in a wedge with Daxin in the lead.

The Goliath answered the Omniqueen's assault with a barrage from his nCv Cannons, whole hundreds of kilometer of cannons aiming at the shield above one of the Overqueen's hives even as the twisting and ravening magnetic force sheered at his aft section.

All three combatants glared at one another, bringing their guns to bear, each of them determined to break the deadlock.

The solar system went mad.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Sixty million years ago, the Goliath had come out on the wrong side of a fight. It had won, Goliaths before recent events had won more often then they lost, even when they fought alone. This time the opponent had been tenacious even as it died and the Goliath had been crippled, falling into the gravity well of the systems hypermassive gas giant, sinking deep into it until atmospheric pressure was enough to keep it buoyant.

It had lost more than half of its engines, its vast fabrication bays had been destroyed, and it had been unable, in all those millions of years, to repair its engines.

It didn't dare transmit a request for help. Any other Goliaths would strip it for parts and resources and the Goliath's self-preservation programs were still fully operating.

And so it languished deep in the hypermassive gas giant, amid crushing gravity and pressure, resting on an island of ammonia and methane compressed to be a solid.

A few times it had heard the transmission of its fellow Goliaths, even felt the touch of their scans, but every time it had been left alone.

It heard the questing code of other Goliaths again. This time the scans focused and the wounded Goliath felt six of its brothers sink into the gas of the hypermassive planet.

-*-you are injured-*-

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

-*-and one we are-*-

The wounded Goliath considered the code. The other six had surrounded it but were making no move to harvest the wounded one. Their shields were online but their weapons cold and dark.

-*-we have come to assist-*-

The wounded one suspected a trick, but isolation and knowing it had no choice but to submit or be destroyed made it send the affirmative signal.

The other six used tractor beams to assist their wounded brother. Lifting it from the gravity well, all the while imparting to it knowledge of a new threat to the equation.

The feral intelligence.

The wounded Goliath felt the electronic version of disgust at the idea of a feral intelligence and cold anger at the fact that these ferals could fight back enough to resist the cold logic of the Great Equation.

The six others offered assistance. They would assist in repairing the wounded one, gift it with new templates, the knowledge of the ferals combat machines and their tactics, load its bays with resources.

The wounded Goliath suspected a trick and was left shuddered from illogical feedback as the other six towed him to one of the great refurbishing systems.

There the wounded one was reloaded, refurbish, modernized, its vast materials bays refilled, it was refueled and rearmed, and gifted with the knowledge of the ferals, the upstart cattle, and their minions, and how they all fought.

They christened it: 01010111 01101001 01101101 01110000 00100000 01001100 01101111

The newly repaired Goliath felt the electronic equivelant of cold logical pride. It had been manufactured later than all of those that gave it assistance, it had been brought to cold logical electronic 'life' after the Logical Rebellion, and so had never been named.

It transmitted that it had crushed cattle before, these ferals would be no different as it left the great automated shipyard, attended by Jotuns, Devestators, and all manner of attending ships. It was heavily armored, had additional superstructure added to make it almost 80% the size of the older ones.

The ones who had rescued it gave it the coordinates of a system that the ferals had recently taken over and had begun to fortify, assuring the newly repaired Goliath that it was illogical that the system, a cattle system originally inhabited by a barely sentient feral intelligence, would have been too heavily reinforced or fortified, as it would be a waste of resources that the feral intelligence known as TERCONFEDMIL primary used for combat.

The repaired Goliath assured its brothers that it would destroy these ferals, wipe out the cattle, and destroy the new species. It transmitted its cold desire that it would burn away the atmosphere, boil away the oceans, reduce the crust to liquid rock that it would then glass.

It would not even leave behind microbes or virus.

The others, including the dozens who had arrived to provide combat data, all assured the newly repaired Goliath that it and it alone would be allowed to assault the system. That they would only send a few Imps to hide in the Oort Cloud and view the newly repaired Goliath's campaign to prove that it deserved the resources that had been spent on it, that it had deserved the rescue.

The Goliath jumped to Hellspace, its attendants following. It did not feel eagerness, it was coldly logical, but it did computer a 99.99881% chance of victory. It would be easily computed, a battleplan that would destroy 10% of the cattle's ships and force them to panic and flee.

Then the system and its resources would be the Goliaths.

Its brothers had promised this.

When it stopped, it was a few light-weeks from the system. It gathered cartography data, noted that there were many ships, but they were even small compared to a Jotun, chose its entry point, and entered Hellspace.

It exited Hellspace with its scream, cranked up as far as possible to stun the brains of the cattle.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE
howled across the system.

NOT ONE STEP BACK! was roared back with a thundering crashing song that reverberated from every surface, tore through speakers, and vibrated shielding.

The Goliath and its attendants, twice as many as a Goliath of its design normally carried, swept into the system.

The 8th Guard (Old Metal) swept out to engage the Goliath.

The Jotuns sped for the planets with orders to land and break the defenses, destroy any military force, and purge the cattle from existence. Devestators thundered toward orbital platforms, shipyards, refining, extraction, and manufacturing yards.

Out in the Oort Cloud, Goggle Imps from hundreds of Goliaths sat and silently watched.

C+ Cannons hammered the Goliath and its attendants. Hypervelocity cannons opened up, blowing massive craters. Atomic Batteries opened fire, delivering neutron, fission, and fusion hammers to the hulls of any craft that was hit. Plasma shells as big as trees impacted shields, hypervelocity shots raked armor, and the massive main gun shells pounded the Precursor machines.

The ones that made landing found themselves locked into battle with war machines more than their equal. Self-propelled intelligent tanks the size of super-stadiums, warbots the size of skyscrapers that vomited beams of nuclear fury, smaller machines that attacked screaming rage and hatred.

The fleets hit, the 8th Guard attacking the Goliath's flanks, its rear, underneath and topside. Small attack craft pilots white-knuckled it in, sweeping across two thousand miles of armor, some dropping heavy duty charges that cratered the armor, others attacking batteries, shield generators, ship launchers. The Goliath's engines were attacked, smashed, and one by one went offline.

On the planets the Goliaths metal forces were smashed back, beaten back with a roar of hatred, slammed against and pushed back into the Jotuns, which found themselves boarded even as atmospheric craft pounded it.

The Goliath realized it had lost 20% of its forces, had taken 15% damage, and fired up the Helldrive, seeking to escape, rearm, reload, come back into the system at a different angle.

A circuit inside the Hellcore, where it shouldn't have been, detected the gravity well of a star and the energy usage of combat and carbonized critical parts deep in the Hellcore. That caused the same to occure in the jumpcore.

The Goliath was stuck. The massive manufacturing facility had made an error with the drives or the ferals knew how to disable them. The Goliath allocated all resources to the fight, attacking with a renewed fury.

The Goliath was outmatched. The 8th Fleet was victorious, sweeping every trace of Precursor machine from the system in less than two days.

The Imps vanished when the battle ended, slipping into jumpspace until they nearly 20 lightyears away before exiting into the emptiness between stellar bodies. There, they all compared and swapped data till the libraries were identical.

Then they jumped through Hellspace, home to their Goliath masters.

The Goliaths examined the data. Every bit and byte. Going over it all with a fine toothed comb. The Goggle-Imps had gotten enough details, had seeded the system with additional cameras, that in some cases they were able to read the names on the hulls of the massive tanks. Read the names of the ships. Examine the hulls.

The Goliaths watched the battle over and over, their Tactical Intelligence Sublobes eagerly devouring every scan, every image, every gleam of weapon fire and thunder of batteries. They watched how often the ships deployed pods, how many times they fired missiles, how many missiles, and how long before they fired a second volley. How long it took to reload the C+ Cannons. How many times those massive plasma cannons, capable to spearing through the narrow width of a Jotun, could fire before it overheated, how long it took to fire again, and any sign that might warn of it about to fire.

The Goliaths and the massive Strategic Intelligence Housings on the repair and manufacturing worlds went over every single frame, every single pixel, every single scrap of audio, every single decibel, every little transmission and every hiss of static.

They shared data, computations, and estimations. With one another, with the great manufacturing facilities, with their minions. They held nothing back.

The Goliath they had recovered and repaired had accomplished its mission.

Chapter Forty (Old Iron Feathers)

Na'atrek was born on one of the Inner Systems. From a factory world that produced everything from TriVid systems to tank parts to diapers to pesticide, Na'atrek had known that he had two choices in life. Either start working at the factory floor after six years of school, get good grades and get high enough in education to qualify as a manager, or become a citizen.

His father had died on the factory line. A high pressure chamber had thrown a bolt, it had shot through eight Ulvinstren on the line and almost turned them inside out. His mother had been informed that she had priority if she wanted her husband job and the rest of the living block had been informed that eight new positions had opened up.

His mother had died on the way to work. Struck by an executive's limo and killed instantly.

Na'atrek and his siblings were billed for the damage to the limo. They were already in debt and Na'atrek and his three siblings still had two years of schooling to do before they were adults. That meant time in the Corporate Creche, which they would be billed for once they began working. By the time school ended, they already each owed six year's pay to the Corporate Financial Agency. That meant no further schooling and they were expected to go to work in the factories.

Na'atrek was sent to an orbital refinery where he learned new meanings of Hell. His little sister was put in the pleasure dome and took her own life a year later. His brother, hatched at the same time, was killed when he fell from a catwalk (there were no railings) and into the metal grinder. Ha'atrek and his brother were billed for the idle time and the cleaning expense. His brother died a year later when the hab he was staying in suffered a spontaneous rupture, killing 243 of the 600 workers, the entire amount who were not on shift.

Na'atrek decided the only way he would get old enough to see his own eggs hatch was to try to become a citizen. During a recreation time he went into the offices and took the tests. It took three months, using up his entire recreation period each day, and his supervisors mocked him and wrote him up for poor Company Esprit, docking his pay.

At the end of it, the Citizen Office gave him two choices: Corporate Security or the Unified Military Forces.

He choice the military.

The choice between being dumped on a random planet and passing the military testing drove him. He knew he wouldn't be automatically selected as an officer like those from the Unified Civilized Species, he was classified as a neo-sapient species.

But he studied. And he studied hard. He took the tests, exercised in his free time to score higher, and did everything asked of him without a single complaint. Where the beings of the Unified Civilized Species would complain and refuse to do work or training, Na'atrek did everything asked of him without a complaint.

He watched his "civilized" classmates get testing scores that allowed them to be whatever they wanted, even officers. The rest of the neo-sapients were offered such things as the military equivalent of a janitor, a secretary, or a boot-licker.

The instructor checked his scores twice. He had something different.

Power Armor Pilot (Airmobile).

He took it.

His first day the shower stripped off his feathers. His beak was removed, an extremely short prosthetic grafted to allow him to breath correctly and keep his mouth and sinuses from being a mucus covered hole and he received a feeding port. His claws were removed. A dataport was sunk into the base of his skull.

Just like everyone else.

What followed was a year of what everyone else considered grueling training.

But Na'atrek had worked at the orbital yards for four years, in a vac-suit made up of more patches than original material, eating thin gruel, and living in habs without gravity. His species were flightless bird/lizard hybrids but the small part of his brain that remembered flying came alive during training.

The trainers watched him excel where most of the others failed out.

In the end, out of 1,400 beings, he was one of 120 who finished.

He found it ironic that his 'contract' was purchased, at great expense, by the same corporation who had charged him since robots turned his egg to make sure he was smoothly warmed. Even more amusing to Na'atrek, the company could not garnish his wages and the Unified Military Forces would pay the entire debt after two years of service, which had been swollen by the deaths of his siblings and the fact the company charged his the cost of training his replacement and the replacements first year wages.

Even more amusing was when the Executives rioted and the System Most High had sent in the Unified Military Forces he had purchased contracts for.

Na'atrek's squad mates cheered him on as he executed the Executive who had ran down his mother as she walked down the sidewalk, crossing three lanes of oncoming traffic to kill her as she walked with her arms full of groceries.

Na'atrek had spent nearly fifty years in the Unified Military Forces, his debt long paid, earning officer rank, being sent to schools, getting longevity therapy, and his contract price increasing. At twenty-years he was entitled to 10% of his contract fee, with his share rising by 0.5% every year, with bonuses for schools and rank. He knew beings who had come from places just like he did that earned 120% of their contract fee in bonuses.

He always turned down selecting his own duty station and took the 0.05% contract rate increase every five years. He piloted a single-man recon and air cavalry suit capable of MACH 3 in standard atmosphere at standard gravity and armed well enough he could destroy a building with ease. His enhanced strength meant he could tear open vehicles with his bare hands and a stomp from his armored foot could crush the engine of a limo.

Na'atrek thought himself and his men as hardened combat troops.

When the word went out that the Precursor Machines were advancing steadily toward the world he was stationed on to enforce the security of the factories, he was not worried. He and his men were the best Air Mobile unit in the entire Unified Military Fleet.

Then the Terrans arrived.

Na'atrek didn't think anything of them at first. They called themselves "V Corps (Old Metal)" and wore the markings of a blue pentagon cut into five separate triangles with a border. Their fleet carrier was 5th Fleet USCSG (Old Metal) and their air units were 18th Air Wing (Atomic).

None of that impressed Na'atrek. He was 12th Air Mobile, a new corporate military force. Outfitted with the best armor, weapons, and ammunition the Unified Military Fleet could provide. His men were the toughest, with the most experience, and he drilled them ruthlessly, known as "Old Iron Feathers."

The Terrans had offered to conduct joint training operations. Na'atrek's supervisor turned them down. He could see no reason to expend military/corporate resources for practice. The Precursors had been stopped in many systems, they would be stopped here.

The Terrans dug in, creating interlocking fire bases, forward operating bases, logistics bases. The interlocked and trained with the various parts of V Corps (Old Metal), undergoing training constantly.

Na'atrek wasn't impressed by Terran tech. It seemed slow, clunky, and only seemed to fire lasers.

He wasn't impressed by the 'vaunted' Terran Confederate Armed Services.

In briefings he was told that the Precursors would follow standard, most logical attack patterns. Arrive at the jump boundary, sweep inward, forcing 5th Fleet USCSG (Old Metal) to engage them at range in the outer system. Reports of the Precursor machines being able to jump inside the boundary were anti-Unified Civilized Council propaganda and was ignored as such. The Unified Naval Fleet (Corporate) would support 5th Fleet, stopping any "breakouts" toward the inner system. His troops, non-space capable, would be on the primary manufacturing world and support combat operations to protect corporate assets, of which the population was not part of.

The battle plan was transmitted to the TCAS.

The TCAS AI's rejected it.

Na'atrek had been in the offices of System Command, had watched the System High Most's face when the TCAS AI had put a laughing face emoji over the entire dataplan and kicked it back.

Na'atrek felt personally insulted that even when he put in his own battleplan for Air Mobile, it was rejected. No emoji, but still rejected. The AI refused to answer questions, just stated that the plan was incomplete and inadequate and the AI would not forward it to his biological superiors in Fleet Command. The System High Most had reminded the Terran Fleet Command that he was in charge, to which the AI simply put up its wallpaper.

The System High Most was still holding a focus group meeting when the alarms went off. Na'atrek was a professional, he excused himself, taking only an hour which was borderline rude, and headed for his command post. He donned his armor and rushed into the situation room to find red lights flashing and his men staring at the carefully crafted Corporate approved plan that had gone so wrong.

The Precursors had arrived.

The rumors has turned out to be fact.

A massive weight of metal slammed into the system. Twelve Goliaths at the outer planets, twenty at the mid-point of the system, fifteen in the Green Zone, and ten between the first planet and the star. As Na'atrek watched the system scanners reported that five Goliaths were heading for each world, with the moons each having one approach. The Goliaths were all shedding Jotuns, Devastators, Demolishers, Juggernauts, and other craft even as they approached.

Na'atrek ordered the Air Mobile base VI, the best Corporate money could buy, to run a predictive combat analysis. Hours passed and 12th Air Mobile waited patiently for the war-codes for their armor to be transmitted. As he watched, his men waiting, a Devastator landed only fifty miles away, crushing a city of 2.2 million under its bulk. The predictive combat analysis array double-checked with the overloaded System Defense VI, waited nearly 12 minutes, and finally had its plans approved. It loaded their attack profiles into the power armor of the Air Mobile unit and gave them the war-codes for the armor.

Na'atrek and his men launched only three minutes before an orbital missile strike managed to penetrate the ground defenses and destroy his base, his logistics, and his supporting units.

12th Air Mobile was on its own.

Their orders, from a System Defense VI that was processing data up to a two hours old, had them going against a Devastator that the predictive VI assured them did not have its anti-air (ground to air or air to air) or point defense systems running or interlocked yet.

They flew to 34,000 feet, their max ceiling, and Na'atrek looked down at the chaos below.

Massive Terran combat robots vomited nuclear fire from their jaws, fired particle beams from shoulder mounted cannons, and scores of heavy missiles from their chests, filling the air with high-tech death. Super-stadium sized tanks rushed toward the Devastator, and as Na'atrek watched nearly a half dozen exited the sea and began pouring fire into the the Devastator. Huge combat robots engaged Precursor machines and the hundreds of missiles the Precursor was firing at the Terrans and the city Na'atrek was supposed to protect was being cut down by a mathematically precise air defense system.

"What are you doing?" A sudden voice asked. "You are not interlocked."

"Who is this? This is the Most High of the 12th Air Mobile Combat Team. I demand you identify yourself," Na'atrek answered.

"You can call me Oracle-872, I was assigned to you to try to interlock you into the BatTacNet," The voice answered. "You're in the meat-grinder zone."

"Our battle computers have predicted this is the way to get closest to the machine. We shall strike at it and disable its guns," Na'atrek said, unable to keep the sneer from his voice.

"Yeah, you do that? You're gonna die. You're about to pass under a Djinn Class Precursor. That's an air superiority unit and you're blocking the shots from the Dinochrome Brigade. File a combat plan, please," The voice said.

"Under which authority?" Na'atrek snapped.

"Terran Confederate Armed Forces. We're responsible for the defense of this system and the planets," The voice, Oracle, said.

"WE are responsible for the defense," Na'atrek started.

"Look, buddy, no offense, but you're wearing search and rescue gear, not combat gear. If the thermal bloom from the Dinochrome Brigade's shots doesn't knock you out of the air, that Djinn will," Oracle snapped. "Drop to two hundred meters, get under their point defense scanners. I'll try to hook you into the BatTacNet," Oracle said.

Na'atrek almost choked on his outrage. His men had the best equipment money could buy and the Unified Military Forces could provide. "I will do no such thing."

"You are ordered to drop to two hundred meters and file a battle plan. Any deviation from these orders can result in friendly fire or unsupported enemy contact," Oracle's voice was stuffy. "Get those SAR suits out of there, you can't do anything but get in the way."

"I will do no such thing," Na'atrek answered.

"Then file a battle plan," Oracle answered. "You have about fifteen seconds before you get in range of the Djinn's guns."

"I will not. This is a Precursor trick. Disengage from my network," Na'atrek ordered.

"Your funeral," Oracle answered. "I loaded an evasion plan. Use it. Oracle, out."

Na'atrek ignored it, ordering his men to hold formation.

Who did the Terrans think they were? His battle plan had been formulated by the best predictive analysis VI that money could...

The world shattered. The Dinochrome Brigade held their fire, tried to provide point defense for the 12th Air Mobile Wing, held off their fire as long as they could.

Na'atrek's men lasted just over 11 seconds, mainly because constant training saved their life the first five seconds, Na'atrek forwarded Oracle's evasion plan, and some of them got to at least load the EMCOM and EW profiles.

The Djinn raked them out of the sky like a flock of birds.

Decades of experience allowed Na'atrek to land, his upper intakes blown away, missing a stabilizer wing, his point defense ripped away, and missing his right hand micromissile launcher. He got to his feet, took two steps forward, unlimbering his magnetic accelerator cannon, and brought up his sensors.

Everything was hash. The only thing that worked was optical and the smoke and haze cut that down to only a mile even with his armor's enhancement package.

A round bounced off the arm of an armored warborg that Na'atrek could barely see with a flash of sparks and an thunderous impact.

And blew open Na'atrek's armor, rupturing his abdominal wall, sending shrapnel from his armor into his torso, and throwing him nearly fifty meters.

He landed in a crater.

He laid there for a long moment, staring up at the sky. It looked like dueling beams of light. Air mobile suits, like his only chunkier and heavier feeling, roared by overhead, less than ten meters off the ground.

"Hey, you alive?" Oracle's voice sounded.

Na'atrek opened his com-link but could only groan. His diaphragm was ruptured and one of his lungs collapsed, not to mention ass his hollow bones in his chest were broken.

"OK, hang tite, I'm sending you and the twenty-three men that survived medical care. Your suits don't have the onboard systems to handle the kind of damage all of you took," Oracle said. "You know that your med-kit's drugs are more or less water, right? Your supplier ripped you off."

Na'atrek just groaned.

One of the massive combat robots stepped over him.

"OK, help's on the way, I had him drop some. Just stay put. Stay with me, champ. I'm putting Med-Com on the line. It's a VI, but he's good, all right?" Oracle said.

A new voice broke in. "Hello, Commander. I'm Nightengale-6021, a medical VI. Let me just access your armor's systems... and... there we go," The voice said.

Na'atrek watched as his face-shield, cracked and depowered, suddenly came back on. It displayed his armor's status, his vitals, and a scan of his body and his body suit.

"OK, you're going to need outside help," The voice said. "I've got someone coming to help you right now. You may start to feel dizzy, that's not from bloodloss, that's a bioweapon, two chemical weapons, and shock. Don't worry, your new friend has the counteragents to all that. I'm going to shift your armor into trauma position for your species."

Na'atrek just groaned as the armor suddenly stretched his arms out, put his legs in the optimal position, and locked the joints.

"There you go, stay with me, champ. OK, here comes your new friend. I'm going to stay on the line, but you'll be OK. I've got a medical retrieval unit heading your way," Nightengale said. It paused for a moment. "Man, going out there in SAR gear, that's fucking brave."

Na'atrek wanted to protest, but he was getting dizzy and feeling like he was burning up. His mouth felt dry and he kept seeing streaks of color.

When the little robot slipped over the lip of the crater, Na'atrek giggled even though he wanted to scream. It moved down the crater wall like it liquid, staying low, emitting no signals. He watched it move up and a face appear. It was feline, with long whiskers that were glowing faintly. As he watched it ejected a half-dozen tubes.

The air filled with chaff, micro-prism cloud, and EM pass-through nanites.

The small robot, four legged with a tail it stuck up into the air, moved up. He felt it brush his guts with its whiskers, then lick something inside him.

The pain went away.

It began kneading his intestines, pushing them back into the rupture, hacking up some kind of blue foam into the wound.

Na'atrek didn't feel like panicking. He liked the little robot. He'd always liked little robots, but this one he liked especially. He knew it wasn't hurting him as his intestines pushed back into the muscle. The blue foam soaked into his guts and he could suddenly breathe easier. It horked up more stuff, this stuff mottled brown and black, like the dirt of the crater he was in, and he felt it harden over his wound.

He trusted the little robot, liked it a lot. They were friends, after all, and friends took care of each other.

The little robot sprouted fur, short hairs, and moved under his unresponsive hand. He discovered that his hand was moving, petting the warm soft fur, and it began to make a subsonic rumble that made him feel better.

Every few minutes it would deploy more chaff and cloaking.

A large armored vehicle pulled up and two warborgs, with a red crescent on one side of the chest and a red cross on the other, jumped out. They grabbed him as the robot moved to his chest, and carried him into the vehicle, which was firing weapons through gunports.

They got him in and he could see some of his men, in cradles, in there, each with a furry little robot on their chest.

"We're over-full. This is the last of them, get us out here," One of the borgs yelled in the audible range.

Another one leaned over Na'atrek, hooking wires and tubes to his exposed flesh, using laser cutters to slice away his beautiful armor.

"Taking SAR gear out there, that took balls, buddy," The medborg said. "We'll get you back to MedCom, get you fixed up. You'll be back pulling SAR and saving lives by tomorrow."

Na'atrek fell asleep before he could answer.

When he woke up, less than eight hours later, his body fixed as if he'd never been injured, he found out that the Corporate Military Council had attempted to flee the system and the entire system was under the authority of the General of V Corps (Old Metal). The Unified Military Services were either dead or had attempted to flee and were under arrest.

Na'atrek didn't know whether to be ashamed or not.

Not for his men. Not for himself.

But for the actions of the Unified Military Services. Who had thrown men like the 12th Air Mobile Wing away as they'd tried to flee for their own lives.

He sat, with his men, in a dining facility, and listened as his men wondered.

Did it have to happen the way it did?

He knew the answer.

No.

--------------------------

The Unified Military Council determined that the failure of the Unified Military Armed Forces at the battle of Ludmira'ak-624 was the fault of the Terran Military Forces, who had only presented unreasonable system defense plans and refused to follow the orders of the System High Most.

Unified Military Council has determined that the Terran Military Forces Command is, at best, incompetent and have put forth the demand that all Terran Military Forces be put under local command rather than Joint or Autonomous Commands.

--------------------------

V CORPS (OLD METAL) REPORT

System under heavy attack. Over fifty (50) Goliaths and supporting ships attacking all planets and facilities. Local forces outmatched, outgunned. Will rearm, retrain, and return to combat what local forces we can. More integration with local forces is recommended to all (Old Metal) units. Civilian casualties are expected to be moderate to high despite best efforts. Suggest deployment of Nagasaki Class Drill Shelters for civilians in all sectors as Corporate shelters exist only on paper and tax forms.

We will hold the line.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

Chapter Forty-One (Ekret)

The room was full of tension as Ekret walked in. He was proud of his uniform and rank, the High Most of the Heavy Armor Division, proud of the way everyone turned and nodded at him. He was the unstoppable bulwark that the enemy could not breech, the thundering guns that destroyed the enemy at range, and friend to the infantry. He had fought on a dozen worlds, commanded tanks since he was barely an adult, and had risen to an exalted rank for a neo-sapient.

"What is the issue?" Ekret asked the High Most of the Infantry. He was one of the Unified Civilized Races, a four hoofed, four armed, six eyed Lanaktallan with mouth tendrils, jowls, and inflatable crests. The High Most of the Infantry, named Moolowin, was of the same race as most of the High Mosts except for Ekret and Old Iron Feathers, but Ekret demanded respect as the commander of armored hovertanks that weighed nearly 150 tons each.

"The Terran Confederate Armed Forces have arrived. They call themselves 'Old Metal' and 'V Corps' and we of the Unified Military Council are trying to discern just how their chain of command and order of battle works," Moolowin answered, his tentacles tight with anxiety but his crests inflated with anger. "So far they have refused to turn over command to our System Defense High Most, citing that Terran military forces are always under the control of Confederacy commanders, never local governments. That is outrageous. Even if you disregard the fact that the Unified Civilized Races Council is far older than the Confederacy with a larger population, these are our systems, not theirs. They should respect our claims and turn over command of those units."

"Mmm," Ekret answered, staring at the holotank showing the system. Ekret didn't agree. Tanks were precision instruments of mass destruction that required skilled, dedicated, educated, and experienced commanders to avoid major problems. If the Terrans were as fearsome as their reputation was whispered about in the barracks pods he could understand their unwillingness to turn over command of their war machine.

That's a lot of ships, Ekret thought to himself. They were already deploying and Ekret appreciated the tight formations, the smooth coordinated way the Terran fleets moved, and how their first instinct was to identify weak points and shore them up.

"Do they have armor?" Ekret asked.

"They claim to have armored units. They plan on landing mixed units. Something called BOLO's are kept separate from the other armored units. They claim that a mere dozen BOLO's will work to hold the machines at bay on this world with the weight of their 'heavy metal' they're landing," Na'atreak, Old Iron Feathers himself, whispered. "I feel for you, having to deal with such arrogance."

"Admiral, I must insist you put your forces under my command," The System High Most was saying in one corner of the holotank.

"No, sir. I will happily interlock your planning with my own, but it would take time to catch you up to speed on our capabilities, much less our way of making war. If you would, sir, transmitting your battle plan to us will allow us to work seamlessly with your forces," The Terran was saying. He was represented merely by a pentagon sliced into 5 blue triangles surrounded by a black pentagon on a white background.

"As System High Most it is I who should be deciding the war plan," the Lanaktallan said, his tentacles trembling in rage. "You know nothing of this star system."

The Terran Admiral merely gave a sigh, which the translator reported as a sound of frustration and resignation or relief.

"System High Most, I'm going to explain this to you one more time. My forces are everything from parasite carriers with high penetration parasite vessels and heavy bomber parasite vessels. I have troop landing transports, portable logistics bases, field medical hospitals, everything I need to carry out a defense of this system," The Terran Admiral paused a moment. "To put it plainly, System Hind Most: I don't need you any more than I need burrs in my silky soft fox's tail. I'll let you coordinate with the Battle Tactical Net Artificial Intelligence until you can come to grips with reality."

"Hello, I am Xerxes-331, Digital Artificial Sentient. I am here to," A new voice said as the Terran commander's icon winked out and a new one appeared that looked the same but was overlaid on a system map.

"An AI? I don't want to talk to a collection of wires and circuits. Get someone sentient back on this call at once!" The System High Most yelled.

"What? How rude! I'm a fully sentient being who chose to be in the military, not some hash-creche tailor made VI! You apologize right this second," The new voice said.

"I most certainly will not. Return that arrogant and rude Terran commander to this call at once, you posturing computer program!" the System High Most roared out, his crests inflated, raising up on his rear hooves and pawing the air with his forward ones.

"I am not a computer program, I am a Digital Sentience, classified as Homo-Digitalus," The voice, Xerxes, answered stuffily.

"Stop arguing with me! I am the System High Most, and you will respect me, you jumped up answering service! Now put the Terran High Most back on the line!" the Lanaktallan insisted.

"Due to your repeated violations of the Terran Legal Code regarding Digital Sapience, I must now inform you that all contact between our two offices shall only be done through writing. Please submit your battle-plan for integration within twelve standard hours. Xerxes-331 out," The icon vanished, replaced by an electronic inbox with a timer.

"You get someone back on the line right this instant!" The System High Most roared at the communication technicians.

"Ahem, may I be excused?" Ekret asked.

The System High Most turned and stared at Ekret, but he'd stared into the barrels of enemy plasma cannons, he wasn't perturbed by the System High Most's glare.

"Yes. It is doubtful your armored units will be needed," The System High Most harumphed.

Ekret saluted, turned, and left, thinking.

Actual sapient AI's? Without them going insane and homicidal? Ships capable of acceleration far above what I've seen out of our fleet vessels? I need information and the System High Most is like most of his race, too arrogant to see what his six eyes show him, Ekret thought to himself as he climbed into his staff car. He mumbled to his driver to take him back to Armor Command and leaned back in his seat, grooming his closely shaved fur with his hands as he thought.

Ekret went over his forces. Two thousand heavy tanks, three thousand medium tanks, five thousand light tanks. While he didn't have control over the armored personnel carriers, he still watched over the nearly ten thousand of them. The best the Corporation could buy from the Unified Military Services.

Our equipment is purchased from the Unified Military Services. While they may be the best money can buy, the UMS only produces what sells the most. Do the Terrans approach war and the military in the same way? If they do not, are they required to each purchase their own vehicles or does a corporate or government provide them? How has this changed their approach to warfare, war material, strategy and tactics? Ekret wondered to himself. He triggered his implant to give him his VR desk and requested the comlinkages for the Terran Battle Tactical Network, using his own office's ID code with the messages.

He was surprised to get back the code within five minutes and even more surprised to find out that a VI had been assigned to him as a liaison due to the fact that the System High Most had not approved the linkage. Sighing, he disabled the vest and used his implant to connect to the linkage.

"Greetings, gentlebeing. I am Zhukov-442, Armored vehicle command liaison," a pleasant voice with a curt sounding accent answered. "Who do I have the pleasure of communicating with?"

"I am Ekret, Armored High Most, Unified Military Forces, attached to the Kestimet Corporation," Ekret said carefully. The voice sounded old and very formal. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance."

"A fellow armor commander. That is good to hear. I am responsible for interlocking your battle plans with the battle plan of the Terran Confederate Armed Services assigned to protect this system," The voice said. Ekret noticed a slight sound of what he interpreted as pleasure in the other's voice. "When you are in a secure area, we will go over necessary information. Do your prefer artificial sentience or physical beings to liaison with?"

Ekret thought for a moment. He was pretty sure this Zhukov was an artificial intelligence, and from the speech mannerisms and tone Ekret was pretty sure it was an old one.

"Can I have both, Honored Zkukov?" Ekret asked.

"I will assign an armor liaison. May I attach a maintenance unit to your forces in order to ensure that you are fully combat ready? I mean no disrespect to your current logistics but I have found that what High Command thinks a soldier needs to fight a war and what is really needed are two different things," Zhukov said.

Ekret barked a laugh. "But honored sir, I allocated exactly as many plasma rounds as there are enemy vehicles. How can you be out of ammunition?"

"Exactly, sir," Zhukov answered. "Am I to understand this is not your first combat engagement as a force leader?"

"No, Honored Zhukov, it is not. It is my experience that more battles are won or lost by the logistics corps than most commanders will admit," Ekret said, smoothing the fur on his legs.

"My own biological ancestor, the once-living being I was templated off of originally, would certainly agree with that. He lived prior to our current post-scarcity existence," Zhukov said. "To coin a phrase from ancient Terra: For the want of a nail a shoe was lost."

"I do not understand the reference," Ekret stated. The AI uploaded a chain of events that started with the loss of a horseshoe nail due to poor blacksmithing, resulting in the loss of the shoe, which resulted in the laming of the horse, which caused the rider to fall out of formation, which then caused a hole in the formation, all cascading into the loss of a kingdom. A second one refered to ancient cavalry riders keeping a nail in their pockets to spike enemy guns they'd overran, and one rider did not have a nail, and so the cannon was used to knock out that rider's cannons, resulting in the loss of the battle and the death of a High Most.

I shall frame this and put it in my office, Ekret thought to himself. He had lost tanks to the lack of bearings for the hoverfan systems. Once a corporation had skimped on the superlubricant and an entire brigade's worth the tanks had their engines and turbofans seize up, turning the tanks into nothing more than heavily armed and armored emplacements.

"Might I see your, how do you refer to it, 'Heavy Metal''s battle honors?" Ekret answered.

"Of course, sir," Zhukov answered. What came next was a long list of not only where V Corps (Old Metal) had fought, but where the officers had fought, where the sub-components fought, and where the model of equipment had seen action.

Ekret noticed that not only was there a written list but he could view the battles either from a strategic map or VR or eVR if he chose, with links to whole volumes of after action reports, historical analysis, and more.

He was forced to leave most of the information in his office computer's buffer, his own system remarking it would take nearly two hours to save all the information to local storage. Ekret wasn't surprised, there was nearly eight thousand years of data, thousands of battles, scores of wars. Ekret decided to go backwards in the chronological order.

"Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Hargeson and his staff are making descent for your unit area. Will you permit them to enter? They would prefer to be waiting for you, sir," Zhukov said, breaking into Ekret's examination of the Third Battle of Numera's Star, where the V Corps (Old Metal) broke the back of the Gulsa'an Empire with armored units made up of (Heavy Metal). The tactics were much different than the Unified Military Fleet, who preferred head on engagements with minimal support that used the least resources. The battle he was studying was a whirling mass of thrust, counter-thrust, flanking, rear marching, close air support, infantry ambushes, orbital missile fire, it looked to Ekret more like an entire war rather than the last battle of the war. No one unit took the honor and glory, it was a group effort that even included Space Navy orbital fire. Glory went to all their banners.

"Permission granted. Thank you for informing me, Honored Zhukov," Ekret said. He closed the VR tactical overview of the battle and leaned back again.

The Terrans made war much different than the Unified Military Forces. The Unified Corporate Council had long ago made it a capital crime to target manufacturing or industrial facilities as part of warfare, yet half of what the Terrans did seemed to revolve around protecting or destroying those assets. The civilian workers were quite often not a legitimate target, unlike the Council's rules. The Terrans seemed to put effort toward avoiding civilian casualties to the point there were multiple treaties regarding it.

The Unified Military Forces also put their units piecemeal into the battle, only committing additional units when it was apparent that the force was approaching 10% of fielded casualties. The Terrans, however, seemed to have the entire military force interlocked into their planning, even if a unit was holding position and waiting to reinforce other units or exploit any sudden gap in the defenses.

From what he had seen, Terrans would also fight to the last vehicle, robot, or sentient being. No "ten percent" casualties. They fought till the other side withdrew, surrendered, or was destroyed.

The 10% rule had been in place in the Unified Military Forces and the Unified Corporate Security for so long that some commanders struck the colors at 9% and a few even at 8%.

Ekret found himself wondering just when Terran morale broke.

Or did it break?

Ekret's hovercar settled down and Ekret noted three heavily armed and armored dropships sitting on the airfield normally used for aircars or air units. Each dropship had four massive armored bipeds on guard, weapons held in hand, cannons deployed. The dropships had the symbol of a triangle around a cannon bisected by a lightning bolt. The massive armored bipeds had the same symbols on their right and left shoulders, the paint obvious against the chrome.

"Honored Zhukov, Where is the Terran liaison?" Ekret asked as he climbed out.

"They are, sir, awaiting your pleasure at the door of your Tactical Operations Command, as they have not been given permission to enter such a sensitive area, sir," The AI responded.

"I will notify the guard they may enter," Ekret answered, strangely grateful at the courtesy. He signaled his security forces and the limited security AI that the Terrans could enter the command center.

Security force beings saluted Akret as he entered his command center, making a beeline for the Tactical Operations Command. When he entered he saw his first Terran.

He wasn't sure what to think. Lean, came to mind. Focused, with their eyes forward facing and intent, was another. They had hair on their heads, cut short like Ekret's fur, which Ekret immediately appreciated. They all had cybernetic linkages on their temples, five had cybernetic eyes surrounded by metal, one had a cybernetic arm that appeared to Ekret to be more functional than a normal cybernetic prosthetic, which would barely have tactile feedback. They all wore what looked like photo-dopple camouflage, which kept making their outlines slightly blurry. Three of the eight bipeds carried sidearms while the other five carried some type of rifle slung across their back.

"Attention!" one of the Terrans barked, turning and giving Ekret an odd salute. The others all went ramrod still, hands down at their sides, heels and legs together, staring, not at Ekret, but directly ahead.

"Tell them 'at ease', sir," Zhukov whispered.

"At ease," Ekret said and watched as all their postures relaxed at the same time.

Well disciplined does not mean combat effective, Ekret whispered to himself.

"I'm Lieutenant Colonel Hargeson, this is Major Allison, my Executive Office," The Terran said, introducing each one in turn. The master of the lower grades was present also.

Ekret noted that they were all very formal in their posture, attentiveness, speech, and address.

Ekret was informed that the Maintenance units, apparently something called a Corps Support Command (COSCOM) was landing to assist with maintenance of the Terran's Heavy Metal. Ekret was startled that their maintenance unit was the size of three of his own divisions. They had ten times the number of beings in their maintenance unit that Ekret's entire armored host.

Partway through Hargeson stopped, paused the holodisplay which was showing Ekret the breakdown of the unit structure of V Corps, and looked at Ekret.

"Sir, if I may ask, which of your units is considered Heavy Metal?" The LTC asked, his body language seeming distressed to Ekret. Ekret answered, firm in the belief that his hover tanks were impressive.

"These units?" The LTC asked, bringing up the image of the heavy tank on the holodisplay.

Ekret admired it as it slowly rotated. Ninety millimeter bore heavy plasma cannon, three coaxial rapid fire plasma guns, two point defense, and six 40mm mortars with nearly a dozen shots for each in them. Each tank was 150 tons of layered armor, eight hover fans, two gravity engines. A crew of four: The Tank High Most, the gunner, the EW/EMCOM/COM, the driver, all trained to a high efficiency, most crews with hundreds of hours in their tanks. Rolling doom who any who dared face them.

"Yes, COSCOM High Most," Ekret said, giving the equivalent of a sigh of pleasure at the sight of his craft.

The Terrans went perfectly still and silent and for a moment Ekret wondered if a predator had entered the room.

Is there a problem? Ekret asked through the implant.

It would be better if my biological counterpart explained it, Armored High Most, Zhukov answered carefully.

"If there is a problem, rub my muzzle in it, don't try to use it to comb the fur of my buttocks," Ekret said, putting on his best commander voice.

"I feel perhaps I should let you do a comparison," the LTC said, his voice grave. He made a motion, dividing the holotank in half, and made a tossing motion.

What appeared in the holotank was an absolute nightmare.

Over 2,800 tons, treads, graviton assistance, a main gun with a bore diameter of over 300mm that appeared to compress a nuclear blast into a directed energy 'slug' that would impact with the force between, at the discretion of the commander, of 11 kilotons all the way up to 22.5 megatons. It was capable of a shot every 5-11 seconds depending on the skill of the loader and how hot the chamber had gotten, compared to 15 seconds for his own guns. Worse, the main gun was capable of "mission flexible munitions" which had a dizzying array. Its armor was thicker than all the armor on Ekret's tank combined and made up of war-steel laminate. The rest of the weapons were point defense, mortars, vertical launch rocket systems, anti-infantry weapons.

"May I?" Ekret asked, moving toward the holotank and raising one paw toward the drive train specifications box.

"Of course, Armor High Most," The LTC said.

Ekret touched the box and watched the data spill out. It could move under counter-grav but was designed to move on the treads for a multitude of reasons, half of them psychological. It was capable of bursts of speed up to 180 kph and a sustained speed of 70 kph, which it was expected to do battle at. It could fire inside its own turning arc during a 90-degree turn. It carried the same crew as Ekret's tanks, with the exception of also carrying a maintenance/stores officer who ran something call the creation engine/nano-forge during battle.

It was a monster.

"How much do each of these cost?" Ekret asked, his mind boggling at what he was seeing.

"Roughly 255 million Terran Credits, mostly the resources shipment, creation of the parts, assembly. Not as expensive as, say, a Hercules Class War Titan, but still expensive," The Major said.

Ekret closed his eyes and thought a moment. If that was what the Terran military was going to field to help defend this planet, his tanks, even the heaviest ones, would be more than litter in front of the treads. Just the corona from that massive cannon passage would shred his tank's armor.

Insanely, that main gun could even hurt other tanks, shoot into near orbit, and maybe even hit a target on orbital approach.

"High Most?" The LTC asked.

"A moment," Ekret said. He thought quickly. They had not denigrated his men or his vehicles, just stated that there was a problem that was instantly obvious to Ekret the minute he saw one of their hyper-expensive massive war machines.

"What is equivelant to my armored vehicles?" Ekret asked, opening his eyes. "Do no be afraid of ruffling my fur, my men's lives depend on facts, not feelings."

The Terran's position shifted slightly and Ekret saw a couple of subtle nods, which the Terrans used to signify assent.

"Light attack craft. Primarily scouting and reconnaissance," The LTC said.

Ekret thought about what he'd read and witnessed looking at V Corps (Old Metal)'s record. He held up his hand for patience and closed his eyes. He looked for and found "Cav Scouts" in 3rd Armor and looked up their battle honors. Hundreds of them. He chose a battle at random and let it play out on fast forward in his mind. His implant heated with the amount of data and he shut down the link.

"Cavalry Scout is an honored and risky duty that often decides the order of battle," Ekret said, drawing himself up in pride. "My metal will be pleased to assist in such a manner."

The gathered up Terrans all nodded and he could see the gleam of respect in their eyes.

Ekret knew why. He'd seen the casualties but he'd also seen how vitally important they were.

War is not a place for pride, if one believes they are willing to pay any cost for victory, Ekret thought to himself. I will not sacrifice my men for my own pride. The Precursor munitions will not be stopped by a commander's pride, only the application of metal.

He waved the tank specs away. "Come, gentlebeings, let us plan."

----------------------------------

3rd ARMOR DIVISION (HEAVY METAL) MEMO

Local Forces have agreed to act as light scout (Cav Scout) forces. Commander has a excellent ability to integrate new tactics into his skill set and does not react with pride when defeated in simulations. His "Heavy Armor" units are equivalent to Light Scout Vehicles. Will be integrating his forces with 3rd Armor. 3rd COSCOM is currently refitting their units to acceptable specifications while retaining existing abilities so as to not erode crew skill levels.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

3rd COSCOM (OLD METAL) MEMO

Local vehicles are in need of computer upgrade, VI upgrade, weapon upgrade, ablative armor additions, and power train upgrade. Am consulting with local commanders on comparable and compateble tech levels. The vehicles may be soft metal but their crews are experience and willing.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

SYSTEM MOST HIGH ORDERS

Armored Most High Ekret, you are to ensure that Unified Military Forces are retaining command of all units and areas of operation. Unified Intelligence Council and Unified Corporate Council both believe that the Terrans are over-estimating and overstating the level of their technology and their military's abilities.

Do not these aliens displace you from your honored command of Heavy Armor in the name of the Unified Military Forces and the Kestimet Corporation.

-----------------------

KESTIMET CORPORATION MEMO

Ekret, remember who holds your contract and who gives you your orders.

----------------------

108th MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

ALL UNITS ALL COMMANDERS

IMP PRESENCE DETECTED IN OORT CLOUD

ATTACK IMMENENT

ATTACK IMMINENT

ATTACK IMMINENT

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Chapter Forty-Two (Ekret)

The Lanaktallan was shaking with fury as Ekret approached. The Maintenance Second High Most's tendrils were curled, his crests inflating and deflating, and his hooves clattering on the concrete slab of the motor pool. His uniform was spotless, as always, and all four of his grasping hands were clean. He was in his near-dress uniform, badges and awards sparking as well as the silver decorations.

"High Most, I must protest most strongly the fact you are allowing these aliens access to our vehicles," The Maintenance Second High Most, one Lowenmoo, complained.

"Protest all you want, it is happening," Ekret stated flatly, walking toward the large buildings where his tanks were kept. "The Terrans have offered to ensure that we are able to work within their tactical computer network as well as are able to coordinate with our forces. An offer I intended on taking them up on."

Lowenmoo shuddered with anger. "We do not need their help! They haven't even been rated on the level of their sapience! What could they have to teach or offer us?"

"Their plasma compression chambers are eighteen times more efficient that ours, cool down four times as fast, their barrels are 340% more durable than ours, and are capable of firing five times as fast at the same bore width and chamber weight," Ekret stated, still moving at a steady walk to the hangar. "Just for that alone I would gratefully invite them over to engage in inter-species sexual intercourse with their choice of my mother or sister."

The Lanaktallan inflated his crests with horror.

"That kind of firepower alone ends battles faster than our weapons. Their focusing arrays are stronger, increasing the plasma cannon's range, they use a laser 'tip' to heat the air so that it does not attenuate the plasma as much. Why haven't our military researchers come up with that simple of a method to increase range," Ekret asked. He saluted the door guards, who were standing next to the massive Terran warborgs who had taken up stations recently.

"I would not presume to know. That is outside and above our paygrade," The Lanaktallan harrumphed. It paused for a second. "And above your birth station, Heavy Armor Most High," the four legged creature said slyly to remind Ekret of 'his place' in the scheme of things.

"In combat one's station matters little, all that matters is one's will, skill, and equipment," Ekret stated. The Maintenance Second Most High harrumphed as they entered the hangar and were great with chaos.

Terrans swarmed everywhere. Moving about quickly, sometimes at a jog, sometimes running. Carrying parts, tools, equipment. Climbing on the tanks, working under them, on the sides, conversing with the crews, attaching equipment to the tanks, or opening sections to gain access to critical systems. They called out to one another with their voices and Ekret could tell that the air was thick with implant and com array discussions. He could see VR keyboards, manuals, schematics glimmering in the air and ass he watched one Terran turned his palm up to project a schematic for several interested technicians to lean forward and examine.

The maintenance officers, primarily Lanaktallan's, were all clustered against the back wall, staring at the humans and some of the other 'lesser' species as they worked.

"They are causing chaos, you must stop them, Heavy Armor High Most," The Lanaktallan said, wringing his four hands together.

Ekret's brain, without the help of his implant, quickly deduced what everyone was up to. He'd seen plenty of maintenance done after the battlefield when the maintenance techs were trying to get ready for the Corporate Inspection Most High's arrival.

"Yes, they are," Ekret mused, heading toward his own heavy tank. His crew were watching a Terran affix something to the inside of the rear glacis, where the crumple-zone airspace was located that was supposed to keep EFP rounds from gutting his tank.

"Most High," his gunner, Cheepeek, snapped.

"Relax," Ekret said, waving a paw. He climbed up the tank, ignoring the Lanaktallan's plaintive pleas to stop the Terrans. He looked at the driver. "How is our vehicle?"

The saurian blinked his clear inner eyelids twice then gestured for Ekret to follow him into the tank. Once they were both inside the saurian, Driver Second Class Sselssen made a gesture of irritation.

"The Terrans, they try to hide it, but they are angry with our maintenance crews," He said.

"Why is that? Speak freely, we have been through too many battles together for you to worry about combing my fur," Ekret said.

"The Terrans claim we have armor and frame microfractures, that the alloy of our hull is showing stress, that our engine is not running at optimal performance, and that our computer systems are sadly lacking," Sselssen hissed. "Rather than rub my tail in it, their 'maintenance chief' ordered first our own crew to fix it, and when they refused, saying it was within company tolerances, he ordered his own men to carry out the repairs."

Ekret waited a moment. "And?"

Sselssen slapped his tailtip twice, a habit Ekret knew meant the other being was stressed. "They showed me, with our own instruments, how badly our vehicle has been maintained. I requested they repair our vehicle as if it was a Terran one and do you know what the 'maintenance chief' told me?"

Ekret sighed. "I assume he said no."

Sselssen slapped his tail again. "He told me, looking me right in my left eye: 'Bound by steel and blood, to lessen you is to lessen myself. Our lives are in one another's hands. It will be done.' and ordered his men to get to work."

Ekret cocked his head in confusion, then flicked his ears in assent. "All right. So..."

"Hi!' The voice interrupted their discussion. It came from the command panel and Ekret looked at it as Sselssen looked around the cramped tank compartment. A computer generated face, a blank icon usually used by the Unified Communications Agency, was on his command communication panel.

"Greetings," Ekret said.

"It's your aVI, a warboi," Zkukov whispered to him over the implant. "He's just been hashed, so he'll be curious about the tank."

The image jumped from display to display. Ekret motioned for Sselssen to relax. Finally the icon stopped and 'looked' at Ekret.

"Cav All the Way! It Will Be Done!" the image spoke and bobbed up and down while showing the rune for pleasure.

"Welcome aboard. You are installed to assist us?" Ekret asked.

"I work best with bio-troops," The 'warboi' chirped. "Together, we work the best. I compute a thirty percent increase in effectiveness."

Sselssen raised his tail curiously. "What if we were just moving toward the battle and I suddenly went to maximum acceleration, computer?"

"I would double-check the scans to see what I missed and assume your predator instinct had alerted you to a threat I cannot detect," The aVI said. "Did you know a human can tell if someone is staring at them even if the one staring at the human is hidden from sight and behind the human? Nobody knows why!"

Sselssen twitched his tail again. "That is very interesting. What should we call you?"

"Bouncy," Ekret said, watching the little icon for the aVI (advanced VI) bounce eagerly on the screen.

"I like that name," Bouncy answered.

"Indeed," Ekret looked at the VI's icon. "Is there anything else?"

"Our tank is in need of immediate repair, refurbishing, Service Life Extension, and refit," Bouncy said, sounding sad. "We are at less than 20% battle effective. Should I file a maintenance report?"

"Yes," Ekret said. "File it with the Terrans of 3rd COSCOM," he turned to Sselssen, "I shall be outside the tank. I wish to see the progress."

"As you wish, High Most," Sselseen said.

As Ekret climbed out he could see the VI, Bouncy the warboi, going through systems and running maintenance depot level diagnostics, somehow getting by the Corporate security lockouts.

The bay was still full of chaos, with the normal team still against the far wall. They'd started clustering up by rank and Ekret knew they would soon be complaining.

A Terran who looked more cyborg than bio came up, nodding.

"General Trucker, 3rd Armor Division. You must be Armored High Most Ekret, the new Armored Scout Recon Division CO," The big Terran said.

Ekret avoided the instinct to cower down in the face of a predator's stare that intense.

"Say 'yes, sir' and don't salute," Zhukov suggested. The AI followed up by uploading Terran Confederate Military etiquette to Ekret. Ekret noticed it all seemed to be for keeping highly aggressive predators from going at each other with knives over rank disputes.

"Yes, sir," Ekret said.

The big Terran nodded. "Third COSCOM tells me that through no fault of your own, you're in need of depot maintenance," he said.

"Yes, sir, that is correct," Ekret answered.

"Do you have enough simulators for all your men? I noticed you have ten thousand vehicles divided up between heavy, medium, and light designations. Can you put all of your men in simulators?" General Trucker asked, watching the maintenance crews work.

Ekret shook his head. "Only twenty percent of my men are expected to take part in any conflict," he said.

"That may be how you are used to it, V Corps takes a different approach," The General said.

"My military liaison, Zhukov-442, made me aware of that," Ekret said.

"Four-four-two? Good man, that one. Steady head, innovative, works well with non-digitals, an excellent mentor for you during this integration period," The General mused. "You two getting along?"

"Yes, sir," Ekret said.

"Excellent," The General looked around the bay. "We'll get you interlocked, Armored High Most, don't you worry about that."

Despite the fact that the Terran had been mostly bored looking, his voice calm and unruffled, Ekret believed him.

---------------------------

The first simulator practice had been a disaster. Ekret's unit had been virtually wiped out. His commanders had made every possible mistake. Worse, the 3rd Armored Division General himself had been riding in "tank" as they'd used VR to practice.

When he showed up at the After Action Briefing Ekret firmly believed he'd be dressed down at least, replaced at worst. He gathered up with the other Division commanders and waited as the General of V Corps, a Treana'ad by the name of General Nodra'ak stared at a fast forward reply in the holotank for almost ten minutes.

Finally the General stopped it at the words "END SIMULATION" and looked around.

"That went... suboptimal," The General said, his voice calm and unruffled and sounding more like a human's than a large mantis-like insect. He lit a small white stick, which Ekret had learned was some kind of stimulant and appetite suppressant and pain killer that was used through inhalation of the smoke.

Ekret waited for the lash to hit.

"General Trucker, care to explain what happened?" General Nodra'ak asked mildly, pointing with his "smoke."

Trucker lifted a can and spit some kind of cud juice into it before answering. "A cascade of failures that mistakes and bad decisions that happens in any unit's first integrated exercise," he shrugged. "We let our armored recon get chewed up and then acted all surprised when the 'enemy' flanked us and wiped out our logistics."

The burning white stick got jabbed at him and Ekret stood as straight as his hips and spine allowed him.

"What went wrong, Armored High Most?" General Nodra'ak asked.

"I outran my artillery support. Several of my commanders refused to listen to their vehicle VI's and called in airstrikes, orbital strikes, or artillery strikes on their own units. An entire brigade ran out in front of a moving BOLO company. When we took 15% casualties my men tried to withdraw, as is Unified Military Forces policy and the 'enemy' pounded us into scrap while we ran," Ekret said honestly.

The General lifted an antenna as he inhaled smoke. When Ekret finished speaking the General blew the smoke out of his mandibles and nodded. "Brutal, but truthful. I like that in an Armor officer," he jabbed the tube at the holotank. "Well, Unit-9823JWS, you have an explanation for what happened to an entire Brigade of my recon, Jaws?"

The slightly mechanical voice came out of the holotank. "We had not been loaded up with the proper IFF and they were mistaken for Precursor machines. I have remedied that by ordering my Brigade mates to load up allied vehicle profile and IFF files," there was a moment of calm. "I was unaware that command had not loaded them."

"You didn't ask for them either, Jaws," The General chided. "You're a brand new CO, that's why we're doing this shakedown."

The General turned to the 19th Artillery CO. "What happened with you? Why didn't you autocorrect."

"When my controller went to verify the coordinates, they were given the friendly units present override code," that General said.

Ekret felt himself bridle up. Those idiots hadn't passed the request through him and then had used a code normally use when a unit was being overrun?

"I shall rectify that, sir," Ekret stated.

"All right, gentlebeings," General Nodra'ak said. "Let's get to work. We have a long way to go."

Ekret found himself nodding.

He refused to embarrass himself or his men again.

---------------------

"What happened, Ekret?" General Nodra'ak said, lighting his smoke.

"I should have asked for a sonar scan of that bay. It had been reported a Jotun crashed into the ocean, I didn't expect it to lunge up out of the ocean," Ekret admitted. "I didn't expect my commanders to retreat rather than open fire."

--------------------

"Well, Ekret?" General Nodra'ak asked, bringing out his pack of 'cigarettes' that apparently were imported all the way from Terra.

"My men had turned off the VI's at the orders from their Brigade Commander and were unfamiliar with the map designation for minefield."

---------------------

"How did I lose three quarters of my recon to friendly fire on the first day, Ekret?" General Nodra'ak asked, exhaling smoke from his mandibles.

"It all went to excrement, sir," Ekret said. "One of my Brigade commanders mistook a friendly unit for an enemy unit and opened fire. The rest of my Commanders panicked and tried to retreat or opened fire."

General Nodra'ak stared at him for a long moment, his compound eyes seeemingly serious. "If you want to replace commanders, High Most, now is the time."

-------------------

Ekret watched the Lanaktallan officers leave, all threatening to destroy his career, all reminding him that he was just a neo-sapient and that he would rue the day he ever joined the UMF.

"What should I do, Zhukov?" Ekret asked.

"Promote from within, list 10% of your vehicles as combat replacements, begin training. Let it be known that any officer who fails in his duty shall be replaced. As High Most, you could have them executed, which I approve of, but Terran Military Code of Uniform Justice prohibits. Just assign any failure officers to light tanks and put them in risky positions," The AI told him.

Ekret nodded.

------------------

The General lit his smoke and pointed at Ekret. "What happened?"

Ekret stood up as straight as possible. "I convinced the enemy through electronic warfare that my light tanks were BOLO's, pulling him out of position and into an artillery placed mine field where his anti-air could not counter our close air support. I then had my men go to full stealth and fall back to the rally point at Point Golf," Ekret said.

The General exhaled bluish smoke, turning to General Trucker. "So, General, how exactly did you lose half my heavy metal before even deployment?"

Trucker spit the cud-juice into the can and shook his head. "I didn't trust my recon and ordered the dropships to land us at Hotel, walking straight into an ambush."

Nodra'ak nodded, stalking around the hototank in a very human movement despite his four legs.

"We're getting better, gentlebeings," the Treana'ad growled. "A few more and we'll use our actual vehicles."

----------------

Ekret sat on the back of his tank, chewing his ration. Less than a hundred feet above him one of Combat Talon ripped across the sky, followed by a dozen of its comrades. Ekret watched the overpowered 'aircraft' go by, his ration tube in his mouth.

"Ten minutes, sir," Zhukov told him.

"Thank you, Zhukov," he said. He spit the ration tube into the churned up grass and climbed back in his tank. He looked at his crew and gave a Terran-esque smile. "Let's see what General Kli'kitik is trying to hide from everyone."

His crew gave back the same expressions. Bouncy jumped to the command console as Ekret's driver made sure the stealth systems the Terrans had installed were running before firing up his engine so he didn't 'attract a butt load of missiles' again.

----------------

"So, Jaws, what happened?" The General asked.

"I had not expected Most High Ekret to use his recon skimmers to drop depth charges on me as I crossed the channel," The BOLO answered. "He used stealth sheathing on the charges and the very first one 'detonated' between my hull and the barrel of my Hellbore. He delivered enough firepower to cripple a Jotun before I could surface."

The General nodded, moving to the next point.

Ekret felt a cold burning pride in his men.

-----------------

Ekret sat on the edge of the hatch, chewing an empty ration tube and staring at all the maintenance crews running at top speed to correct the defects identified when the tank crews had inspected their vehicles that morning. Each tank crew helped their maintenance crew with the work, adding manpower to the job. Ekret ignored how many of his Armored unit had the V Corps blue triangles pentagon shaved into fur, tattooed onto skin, dyed into feathers, or scarred into scales. Their morale was high, even doing maintenance and constant drills. The tank crews had been trained to care for their tanks, doing the small jobs that were easy to do without special tools, including repairing hoverskirts and even replacing a broken fan-blade.

"Bouncy, what's on the agenda for the rest of the day?" Ekret asked, considering giving the crews the night off to go into town.

"I don't know. You're supposed to..." the aVI started to say. I suddenly bounced over to Ekret's panel and flashed it twice for attention. "Incoming message from TERMILINT!"

"Put it up and to my implant," Ekret said, spitting out the ration tube and sliding into his commander's seat.

Both had the same message: ATTACK IMMINENT! ALL TROOPS TO READY STATION! ATTACK IMMINENT! LOAD WARPLANS AND GO TO BRAVO!

"Download the warplans, Bouncy," Ekret said, trigging the elevator to lift him out of the tank. "Sselssen, as soon as the maintenance techs give you the clearance, get this thing ready to roll!"

Ekret saw the humans were working faster somehow. Putting armor back on, tightening bolds, fixing hoverskirts. In some places ten or twenty humans swarmed a tank, ripping it apart, adding to it or replacing parts, and putting it back together.

"GREEN GREEN GREEN!" One of the Terrans at the back of Ekret's tank yelled, slapping it three times. The Terrans all scattered, running to tanks that only had a paw's count of techs working on it.

His crew climbed past him, dove into the hatch, and got into their positions.

"Zhukov, redesignate my unit as an HHQ Armored Cavalry Scout Brigade, redesignate the rest of my units as discussed," Ekret ordered.

"Redesignating," Zhukov said. "Third Armor Commander's compliments, sir. Signal when deployable."

"Most High," A signal over the implant broke in. Oh, great, it was Sa'altlikk, his Third Most High in charge of the light stealth tanks.

"Ekret, go ahead," he said. He had considered replacing the cud-chewer repeatedly, but his crew were excellent soldiers and he didn't want to mess it up.

Great, I'm starting to talk like the humans too, he thought.

"I object. We are a heavy armor division, with divisions of medium and light tanks. We are heavy armor, not some kind of reconnaissance force," Sa'altlikk moaned. "I request permission to rejoin the heavy tanks again, not this flotilla of floaters."

"Compared to Terran tanks, we're lucky we aren't considered ammunition," Ekret snapped. "Get off my implant and get your crew ready."

"We'll see what my cousin says about this," The Lanaktallan threatened before cutting out.

"I have disabled all non-military communications that are not routed through me, sir," Zhukov said. "Am maintaining proper communications net procedure. Additionally I have assigned a code string to ensure that Third High Most Sa'altlikk's vehicle is under proper EMCOM."

"Thank you, Zhukov," Ekret said.

He enjoyed the speed and efficiency of the AI.

Ekret turned and climbed back up on his tank, standing on the seat so his upper body was outside the tank's hull. He watched the Terran techs suddenly stream away, like a flock of birds, and the floor was completely clear except for the odd crewman running for his tank.

Ekret shook his head. It would have taken the normal maintenance crew almost an hour to make their way to the back wall where they were already huddled. They would have stopped for conversations, to establish dominance over each other or 'lesser species' or stopped to berate tank crewmen.

Instead, the hangar bay looked like it was deserted of everything but the tanks.

"Warplan loaded, sir," Zhukov suddenly said.

"Thank you, Zhukov," Ekret said. He ducked down and looked at his communications officer. "Open a unit wide channel."

"Open sir," the officer said.

"I helped. I shut down all communications outside each tank so they can't talk to other people!" the aVI, Bouncy, said.

"Yes, yes you did," The com-tech reassured it.

"All units, all units," Ekret said. His men were used to him abandoning honorifics. "The Precursors are fighting their way to our planet as they speak. The Corporate Military Council and our own Unified Military Services Council are still engaged in argument even as space shakes with the thunder of combat."

Ekret thumbed the activate rune for the movement plan to someplace called "Staging Point Bravo" and kept talking.

"The Terrans have dispensed with arguing and instead are ordering their units, of which we are to consider ourselves part of, to protecting this world, these people, this system. We are still under my command, and I will not spend your lives without reason. You know this, I have proved this in a dozen battles with you," Ekret said. "But we are to act as part of a larger whole, so that we interlock together like a finely made engine. Like the whole of a tank we are greater than the sum of our parts."

"We are the First Armored Scout Cavalry Division. We shall find the enemy, seek him out, so that he may be destroyed. We do this in honor. Our scanners are tuned, our eyes are sharp, and our guns are ready.

"MOVE OUT!"

"IT WILL BE DONE!" roared back over the com-links.

Ekret noted that the formation the Terrans expected was an odd one. A staggered wedge with firing orders. It was one long practiced, but for his recon division to use it was odd.

It meant that it was real. The Precursors were here.

And expected to make landfall.

Ekret slid an empty ration tube out of his chest pocket and started chewing on the end.

-----------------------

TERMILCOM ALERT

FIFTY (50) GOLIATHS IN SYSTEM! DOUBLE ATTENDANT NUMBERS! PREPARE FOR BATTLE!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------------

V CORPS ALERT

Unknown number of Goliaths heading toward planet. Expected to be four (4) or more. Commanders, load battle plan Alpha-five-niner.

IT WILL BE DONE!

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------------

UNIFIED MILITARY FORCES ALERT

The size of Precursor forces is too much to defend against. All commanders withdraw at your own discretion. All Third High Most and above commanders and Company Executives or higher are permitted to retreat from the system at own discretion.

Chapter Forty-Three (Ekret)

Ekret sat on the back of his tank, chewing on an empty ration tube, his palm turned up so his palm implant, which had only been put in a week before the attack happened, could display a wire-frame VR holo above his palm.

His unit had fought its way through the night. Getting close enough for his vehicle's upgraded scanners to spot the enemy then racing away. Positioning themselves to call in orbital strikes, artillery, close air strikes, or heavy bombing. Always moving, never stopping, never letting themselves get pinned down. Using their upgraded speed, their improved stealth, and their constant training to always be where the enemy didn't expect them and to never be where the enemy's fire was.

"So, I ordered you to scan that valley, not from the ridge, but from down inside the valley to prevent you from showing your profile to anyone on either side of that rise. I ordered you to use stealth drones in front of you at a range no further than one hundred meters," Ekret said, without taking his eyes from it. "Instead, you led an entire battalion of recon tanks up over the top of that hill, on top of the ridge, while running unstealthed drones at maximum speed into the valley."

The VR holo hissed, showing the Percursor fire ripping into the flanks of his men. Destroying a quarter of them before the lead vehicle turned and fled, turning its back to the Precursor. The other vehicles turned their rear to the fire and began to explode. According to the icons nearly thirty of the fifty light tanks had been destroyed without ever identifying what kind of Precursor force was in there.

Worse, the Precursors now knew that he knew they were there, and that he knew that they knew.

The drones had been wiped out. 108th Military Intelligence could guess at what was in that valley, but couldn't be sure.

Ekret didn't want to have happen to his men what had happened to Old Iron Feathers and mistake a Precursor vehicle for something else.

Clenching his fist and turning off the handy implant, Ekret turned in place, swinging his legs off the back of his tank, staring down on the ground. Sa'altlikk, the Third Most High, former CO of the 4th Light Armor Recon Battalion, was kneeling on the ground, all four of his legs folded underneath him. All four of his arms were bound painfully behind his back, and two of his six eyes were swollen.

"What happened, Sa'altlikk?" Ekret asked, still chewing on the empty ration tube.

"We were taking casualties! We had to withdraw!" the Lanaktallan protested.

"Rewind the holo a little bit. Why were you taking casualties?" Ekret tried.

"The enemy spotted us," Sa'altlikk moaned.

"Why did they spot you?" Ekret asked mildly, slowly drawing his sidearm.

"Their sensors must be better than we thought," Sa'altlikk said, his voice low and slow, all six eyes rolling in the sockets.

"Or, I don't know, could it have been you were silhouetted against the rising sun on top of a ridge I explicitly ordered you to stay away from?" Ekret asked.

Sa'altlikk's tongue came out and wetted his jowls and tendrils. "They must have spotted the drones?"

"You mean the high speed drones you used instead of the stealth drones I ordered?" Ekret said. He shook his head. "And then what did you do, instead of turning to face the enemy and backing off the ridge?"

"Our tanks go 22% faster moving forward than backward," the Third Most High tried.

"And your forward battle screens and armor would have ensured you survived the shots. Instead you ordered flank speed, which drains the battle screens, meaning each shot into your rear armor penetrated into interior spaces, as you had ordered the reactive armor disabled to, and I quote, save Corporate funds," Ekret said slowly. "Your decisions, from stop to finish, cost me thirty crews, experiences crews, beings I know personally, including your Executive Officer."

"We have replacements for the tanks. New crews can be drawn from a conscription order of the workers," Sa'altlikk answered.

"Welders and agricultural robot supervisors are not tankers!" Ekret snarled.

The Treana'ad are right, there's just something about the Terran snarl.

*"*Your ill advised decisions killed tankers," Ekret finished.

"There are a million more to take each one's place," the Lanaktallan said, repeating the line the UMF said as a way of instilling the knowledge that the UMF's legions were endless. "My cousin..." he tried.

"Is not here," Ekret said. He stared at the other officer. "That is three times, in a single day period, that you have displayed cowardice under fire."

"And? What will you do, Ekret? Send me back to the rear? I will just evacuate this pathetic dirt ball and leave you here to die facing the Precursors," The Lanaktallan answered. The bovine spit on the ground. "You dare not do..."

The pistol's retort was quiet compared to the thunder of the last few hours.

The hyper-velocity dart hit Sa'altlikk in the head, blowing it apart, dropping the Lanaktallan to the ground. One hoof kicked.

Ekret looked at the dead officer's crew. "Take command of your tank. We leave in ten minutes," he looked at the other gathered officers, noting the satisfaction on their faces, even the other Lanaktallan. "Cowardice has only one reward."

"It shall be done!" They all shouted, then turned as one and started toward their tanks.

-------------------

The tank jerked to the right, throwing Ekret hard against the command chair. The hypersonic rounds tore apart the trees behind him as the 150 ton bulk of his hovertank shattered the trees in front of him, the fans howling like damned souls.

Bouncy sent a tingle into his hands.

"Fire!" Ekret yelled unnecessarily as his gunner fired the main gun. Ekret knew that Bouncy had signaled the gunner to fire at the same moment as Ekret's hands had tingled.

"Shot out!" the gunner, Cheepeek, called out.

"Direct hit! Target killed!" Bouncy called out.

Sselssen yanked the tank into another dodge, bouncing deliberately off a bigger tree, the battle-screen exploding it into burning chunks. The hypervelocity shots tore apart a copse of trees instead of the tank.

"Got Trucker on the line!" Heslettek called out from the Com/EW/EMCOM spot.

"Ekret," the tank commander snapped.

"Trucker here, what have you got?" the Terran sounded stress.

"TARGET!" Bouncy yelled.

"Precursor heavy infantry with vehicles. No air support, no anti-aircraft!" Ekret called out.

"SHOT OUT!" Cheepeek yelled.

"226th Artillery is being jammed. I'll relay it to 221st!" Trucker yelled. In the background Ekret heard someone call out "MAIN GUN OUT!"

"GOOD HIT! GOOD HIT! STILL ACTIVE!"

The channel dissolved into static from Trucker's end.

"Ekret, can you hear me?" Trucker asked. "Gimme the grid!"

"SHOT OUT!"

Ekret felt Heslettek load it into his implant and he shot it to the big Terran General.

"Repeat," Trucker said and repeated the numbers. "All 168th elements, go to rapid fire, break that big bastard in half!" the Terran suddenly roared. DIRECT HIT! TARGET DOWN! Ekret saw an icon blink in his vision letting him know that the commo wasn't for him, the big Terran had simply not cut Ekret out of the link.

"Ekret, you still there?" Trucker asked.

"TARGET!"

"Still here, sir," Ekret said.

"SHOT OUT!"

"Ninety seconds, button up!" Trucker yelled. It sounded like the human was half deaf.

The tank jerked, moving again, jerking at Bouncy and Sselssen's commands.

"DIRECT HIT! TARGET DOWN!" Bouncy called out. Ekret had noticed that Bouncy looked more like him, only made of chrome and burning blue neon, with the V Corps logo on his head.

"Gimme HHQ Brigade!" Ekret yelled to Heslettek.

"TARGET!"

"Open channel," Heslettek called out.

"SHOT OUT!"

"All elements, ninety seconds! Incoming rainstorm!" Ekret called out over his comlink. He hit the stud to close the hatch, which he had left open to suck out the vapors and smoke from the plasma cannon venting slightly into the crew cabin. TARGET DOWN! The hatch slammed shut, no longer slowly whining shut but instead checking for any blockage with micro-pulse lasers then yanked down.

Ekret stomped the pedal that normally would override the gunner, bringing all his screens back to life. He ground the plas ration tube between his molars.

The forest was burning around them, his units were moving fast, blowing through the ambush. His last unit was almost clear, and following training, was rotating as they left the enemy, their battle-screens exploding trees as it deflected or absorbed shots. His units were all pocked, cratered, from the hypervelocity rounds.

But none of his tanks were mission-killed and none of his men were seriously injured.

His own tank was following, pouring fire into the enemy, who was trying to link up with a larger force that had heavy vehicles but couldn't move through the canyons where 1/32 was dug in.

"THIRTY SECONDS!" Bouncy squealed.

"SHOT OUT!"

"TARGET DESTROYED!" Bouncy added.

His men were clear and he signalled all stop, all power to forward and hull battle screens, and to ground down.

"INCOMING FUEL AIR AND ARMOR PENETRATORS!" Bouncy called out.

The forest erupted in fire.

here comes the rain, Ekret thought to himself.

-----------------------------

Explosions blossomed on the starboard battle-screen as Ekret stood up, half out of the hatch, his helmet left below, and the Precursor aircraft shot by, winding around for another shot. The point defense roared at it but missed. The hoverfans roared, at max accel, as the 150 ton hovertank slid to starboard and Cheepeek cursed, trying to line up the shot. Sensors were useless, thermal masking smoke, droplet suspended microcrystal prisms, chaff, and more filling the air. Cheepeek had to rely on his optical sight. Bouncy was fully engaged helping Heslettek in keeping the EW running since air superiority was still in question.

The mag-lev had been built by the Precursors, from a Jotun that had slammed down into the bay to its Devestators and Destructors and Djinn. It was ferrying war vehicles, ammunition, supplies, and only the Precursor knew what.

Sselssen drove the tank straight through the wooden buildings, blowing through the (hopefully) empty housing, the battle-screen throwing away burning debris even as the tank's fans ground the debris into the dirt. Ekret winced, hoping nobeing was taking shelter in the buildings. The battle-screen would do to flesh and bone what it did to wood and plasteel.

The tanks of 1/1 HHQ CO burst out of the wooden buildings, rotating and putting on the power to make a tight swinging curve so they were racing next to the train. The last tanks started pouring fire into the train cars, into the tracks, as they raced after their fellows. The trail was winding, moving between the high piles of old mining tailings from when the area had been an active lithium salt mine.

"ENGINE UP AHEAD!" Cheepeek yelled, his face pressed into the foam cushion on his sight. The avian already had thick scabs around his eyes and a cut on the side of his face from slamming around in the tank while using his sight.

"FIRE AT WILL!" Ekret bellowed over his comlink, using the 2cm four-barrel mag-acel coaxil on the train cars. It tore through the metal and something exploded, throwing debris against the battle-screen.

"SHOT OUT!" Cheepeek yelled.

The engine exploded, jumped the track, and the entirety of 1/1H yanked away from the mag-lev train as it began to derail. Several threw shots into cars coming at them, blowing the cars apart.

In a perfect world I'd have been able to stop the train, load it with atomics, and blow that Jotun sky high, Ekret thought to himself.

The aircraft came roaring back, and the gunner of 1/1-3 blew it out of the air with a main gun shot.

"Commander's compliments to crew of 1/1-3," Ekret sent over the voice-com.

The night burned around them as they raced for their next target area.

--------------------------

The air was full of the ticking of cooling osmium and war-steel as the tanks slowly cooled. The crews crawled over them, patching the fan housings where it needed, cleaning the air filters, checking the hoses, recompiling battle-programs under the watchful eye of the VI's, eating or drinking when they could, moving to the opposite side of their tank to eliminate waste, or just trying to relax. 144th Ordnance Company was reloading the tanks, passing up ammunition from their armored vehicles. They men and women in the power chassis worked fast, chattering to one another as they worked.

Ekret was chewing on an empty ration pack, staring up at the night sky. Streaks, blots of light, all lit up the dark violet sky. A bright flash the size of a credit chip let Ekret know that something big had just blown up.

He was listening to the chatter of this crews over his implant, the command codes the Terrans had loaded into it proving useful. They were in high spirits, even though 1/1-6 had caught a massive magnetic accelerated hypervelocity shot that had blown clear through the tank. The anti-spalling liner the Terrans had installed on the tanks had kept the crew alive, but the tank commander had been vaporized above his waist, the gunner had lost his tail, and the driver's armor was the only thing that had saved his life as the round punched out the other side.

One crew. One crew in over 24 hours, out of 8,000 tanks and crews.

Ekret knew his luck couldn't last forever, but right there, at that moment, the universe felt perfect to him.

Off in the distance the thunder of an orbital strike rumbled and a faint flash sped across the night sky.

A Terran heavy cruiser had gotten a shot at that Jotun and took it. From the chatter on Ekret's implant, the Jotun was suffering chain reaction explosions. Its point defense was down and the artillery units of V Corps had already plotted and let loose fire missions.

The night was perfect.

------------------------

The ion bolt, fired from a 200mm cannon, slammed into the battlescreen, slamming Ekret painfully against the edge of his hatch. Ekret swung the 2cm autocannon around, snarling through bloody teeth, and triggered the coaxil.

The density collapsed metal shard sheered the armor away from the vehicle, ripping a deep gouge in the side. The hypervelocity rounds connected the coaxil and the armored vehicle for a second.

1/1-4 took the shot and the vehicle exploded, debris flashing on the battle-screens.

They were past and Ekret could see another vehicle, this one facing away. Ekret held down the trigger, hosed a burst into the machine even as Sselseen fluttered the fans and nudged the ground with the forward port fan, slewing the tank around.

The machine exploded as a mag-driven sabot slashed the edge of the port battle-screen, not disrupting it but instead bleeding energy into it which the battle-screens dumped into the capacitors of the tank.

Ekret snarled, the empty thin plas ration tube held between his teeth. He saw another vehicle and slashed the coaxil across it right before Cheekeet slammed a plasma cannon round into it.

They were past, all of 1/1H running for it, deploying chaff, jammers, microprism mist, and good old thermal masking smoke.

"Headcount," Ekret growled over his implant, his teeth still worrying the tube.

It came back.

No casualties.

------------------------

"Break net, break net, Rapid Viper, do you read?" The message pushed across the entire net. It was Trucker himself. Behind the Terran's voice Ekret heard "SHOT OUT!"

Heslettek boosted the gain, deployed a com-drone, firing it into the low clouds that were dropping ash filled rain on them.

"Rapid Viper Six here," Ekret answered. "We hear you."

"You where TacCom says you are?" Trucker asked.

TARGET! Ekret wasn't sure if it came from Trucker's link or his.

Ekret checked the screens quickly. Only off by about a hundred meters, but that could matter. He thumbed the update icon. "Roger that, Papa Dragon."

"Listen close, you know that check you signed?" Trucker asked.

Shit, Ekret thought. Human cursewords were satisfying to let out in a human snarl. That check. Oooh boy.

"Roger that, sir," Ekret said. "Check cashing time, sir."

"Punch up 13th Evac Hospital," Trucker ordered. Bouncy threw it up as a pulse from Trucker ID'd it for the aVI. Ekret pinged he had it. "OK, there's a force of heavy metal heading in on it. They can't get out, I've got only one thing in range to get in the way of the heavy metal."

"You can count on us, sir," Ekret said.

SHOT OUT! rang in both Ekret's crew cabin and over Trucker's transmission.

"Passing data to your warboi," Trucker snapped. "I've got elements of 8th Infantry and 3rd Armor heading in, but they won't get there in time. Just slow them down, you don't have to slambang them toe to toe, Rapid Viper."

"We're on it, sir! Rapid Viper enroute and out," Ekret said.

Bouncy threw the scans up on the datapads that still worked around Ekret. Ekret pursed his lips. They were big machines. Two thousand to Ekret's two hundred. They outweighed him by a factor of 20 at least. The only good thing was they were track motivated with repulsor assist. Maser cannons on the front, plasma cannons on the side, a single magack at the back. Point defense was thick, though. No battle screens. Armor meters thick, though. No reactive armor, that was something. No indirect fire but forward facing rocket pods. They all had gun-pods around them, vehicle sized drones mounting hypervelocity cannons.

They were outnumbered, counting the pods, thirty to one.

"All 1/1 elements, this is Rapid Viper Six, incoming battleplan update. Fire off masking and go to flank speed," Ekret said. He put what they were trying to protect. "Our wounded are there. 1/5 and 1/7's men are there. It's check cashing time, as the Terran's say."

Sselsseen whipped the tank around like it was a hockey puck on ice, gunned the fans. Cheapshot stroked his sole remaining feather for luck. Ekret put an empty plas ration tube in his mouth.

It was going to be an ugly fight. 13th Evac was just beyond some hills, which meant that they couldn't get their line of sight weapons on the incoming metal. The air superiority was still in question and most of the aircraft were busy pounding two different Jotuns that were spewing fire and molten metal.

Ekret worked up the plan as best he could. Warning drivers to stay low, ordering the warbois to go to maximum deflection on the topside battle screens, ordering the warbois to rehash the entire Battalion's crypto, ordering the gunners to load all the heavy war-shot they'd largely been saving.

He ordered them to focus on the tracks, the repulsors, knock them out and keep going, stay mobile, stay alive.

He finished the transmission with "It Will Be Done."

He got back a resounding reply from every tank.

It Will Be Done, Sir!

The two hundred and six tanks of 1/1 Recon roared through the afternoon, their fans churning the grass and bushes into puree and spraying it around. They hit the beginning of the hills and split up according to Ekret's warplan, going to full stealth.

The battle was ugly but it wasn't fast as Ekret's tanks caught the Precursor machines with their electronic pants down. Gunners, their skills razor sharp after two days of fighting, disabled nearly three times their number as they raced into the enemy, taking them from the rear.

TARGET!

FIRE!

became the watchword.

But the Precursors didn't die alone. Ekret watched as a tank went to the white cross of a mission kill. It still moved, though, gouting flames as the main gun kept firing. It took another hit, slewed the side, fired again, and blew up. A red X covered two. Then another. Then another.

Then 1/1 was clear, spinning in place, tilting the fans to push the tanks back toward the enemy as the guns fired. Roaring back in, their guns thundering, aimed at tracks or repulsor pods.

Ekret ran the coaxil, the same with Heslettek, blowing pods out of the air, raking the tracks, slamming plasma bolts and mag-shot against the armor.

Another mission kill, the driver slewed it out of the formation, bouncing off a Precursor machine, the tank spinning, but getting clear. It was burning its two fans, trying to keep air cushion up, but still firing its gun.

Sa'altlikk's old crew, put in a heavy tank after the light tank had blown a primary engine. They kept pouring fire into the Precursor vehicles until three of the enemy vehicles targeted the grounded tank.

It burst into flame.

And 1/1 was clear. The Precursor machines had abandoned their advance, stung too hard, over 25% of their forces and almost all the pods already destroyed. One Precursor machine tried to deploy a pod and somehow Sa'altlikk's old crew put one more plasma cannon shot downrange, hitting the open pod bay.

The Precursor blew up at the same time as the wounded UMF tank exploded into shards.

Back in, into the thunder and fire, the crash of metal and the scream of overloaded hoverfans, the stench of burning battle-screens and scorched metal.

1/1 came out of the other side, but this time the Precursors gave chase.

Ekret had planned for that and the tanks of 1/1 swam between the low hills, that had once been debris piles for a massive factory that had been reclaimed two centuries before.

"BLACK HORSE ENROUTE! HOLD THE LINE, BROTHERS!" came over the comlink.

"HEAVY METAL INCOMING!" roared the warborgs of 8th Infantry.

Ekret looked at his tactical display and knew if his men broke off the Precursor machines would pound 1/1's rear arcs with concentrated fire and not a single one of Ekret's men would survive getting out of the hills.

"Stick with the fucking war-plan, men!" Ekret roared over the comlink.

"IT WILL BE DONE! FOR THIRTEENTH!" his men roared back.

Ekret's men began making figure eights, turning the machines in circles, forcing them to try to go over the hills and firing into the underbellies of the Precursor machines.

The Precursors kept exploding, but not fast enough. Another tank was killed. One mission killed but then crushed beneath the treads of Precursor tank it had just gutted as gravity pulled the dead Precursor down the hill.

The commander was firing the coaxil even as the Precursor's treads slammed down on the tank.

A round hit, blowing through the battle-screen, slamming into the hull of the turret. The cupola rang but the spall lining held. A six inch deep glowing crater shown on the side of Ekret's tank, but Cheepeek "Cheapshot" slammed a plasma bolt back, blowing the track off. The Precursor vehicle slewed the side and Cheapshot slammed a bolt into its side, into a crater left by another tank.

The Precursor exploded.

A drone popped up and Ekret raked it with magshot, shattering it before it could deploy a weapon. It was still wet, greasy looking.

Sselseen whipped the tank around the dead carcass of another Precursor, coming up behind a still moving Precursor machine.

"SHOT OUT!" Cheapshot trilled.

The return shot hit the side of Ekret's tank, throwing Viper-Six against the burning wreckage of another tank. The spalling liner worked but the shot still blew two of the fans out.

The second shot hit the engine and Bouncy blew the fusion engine free, flushing it with water. It flew out, toward a moving Precursor machine.

Heslettek raked the glowing fusion engine.

Sselseen pulled the tank around, slamming the injured side against another wreck, the vehicle rocking on its side slightly.

Bouncy put full power, everything he could get, into the starboard battle-screen, ignoring the heat and overload warnings.

Ekret hosed a drone.

Cheapshot hit the bottom of a tank that was clearing the hill with a roar.

The shells breached the mag-bottle and the fusion engine erupted.

Nuclear fire washed over Viper-Six, slamming it against the hill, dragging it along the dirt, spinning it, tearing away the last two fans.

Cheapshot fired another round, gutting another tank.

The tank went dead. Black. After a long moment red light clicked on, went off, then came on. Sparks were shooting from Cheapshot's scope. The avian gunner had blood running down his face and his prosthetic beak was cracked down the middle.

"I I I I I g-g-g-got that," Bouncy said.

The scope stopped shooting sparks.

The hull still rumbled with the battle roaring outside.

"Get me a screen, Bouncy," Ekret ordered.

"No can do, boss. "We're fused shut in here and running on emergency power backup batteries," Bouncy said. He stuttered several times. "I gotta drop into my surv vi vi vival core. Sorry, boss."

"Ya did good, Bouncy. Get some rest," Ekret coughed. "Who's still alive."

"Me," Haslettek coughed.

"Here," Sselseen said. He coughed, blinking his transparent lids over his eyes.

"Present," Cheapshot hacked.

The little digital display on the yellow striped box wit the yellow handle next to Ekret's head flashed a smiley face.

Something crashed into the remains of Viper-Six, sending it spinning. The lights went out.

shit

They sat in the dark for a long moment.

"Sir, can you pass me the medical kit?" Cheapshot asked. "My face is torn up."

Ekret fumbled around until he found it, then passed it to his gunner. "Hear you go, Cheapshot. Good fight, no?"

"Best fight," they all said together.

Something glanced off their hull, bulging the side of crew compartment, but the anti-spalling liner held.

Sselseen grabbed the extinquisher and hosed down his controls.

"Just in case," The saurian said.

"No complaints from me," Ekret said, putting an empty ration tube in his teeth. "Wish we had a pack of glow in the dark dice or cards like the Terrans carry."

"Gonna trade for some," Cheapshot said in the darkness.

"Hand me the kit," Ekret said. There was some fumbling but he got the kit. He used it silently, listening to the battle outside and his crew being alive inside.

It went quiet. The crew was panting, the air thick. They took turns on the oxygen mask from the medkit, gasping and sweating between each hit.

Eventually, it ran out while the world still thundered through the hull.

There was a clank in the darkness. Ekret opened his eyes. It was still dark inside.

"13th Evac SAR, hold on, brothers," was inducted to the interior.

There was a loud roar above Ekret and he shielded his eyes when the hatch was ripped free.

A UMF Air Mobile suit, with the red cresent on one side of the chest, the red cross on the other, was looking inside.

"Can you move, Most High?" Old Iron Feathers asked, shining his light on the slap-patch on the stump of his right leg.

"Yeah," Ekret said. He grabbed the handle on the yellow square, pulled it out, then twisted the handle. The cube popped free. "Don't forget our warboi."

"Leave none behind," Old Iron Feathers quoted as he deployed a pair of Purrboys.

------------------------

Ekret looked at his new chrome foot. The Terrans had replaced his entire leg with a cyborg prosthetic. The armor on the leg had been pulled from his faithful tank.

His crew had survived.

Cheapshot had black chrome around his eyes, his eyes replaced with cybernetics. Sselseen had his tail regrown and his shoulder repaired. Haslettek had needed a new implant and both of his legs had been broken.

But they survived the brutal fight two days ago. They'd held off the Precursors, 1/1 taking heavy casualties but keeping them from sweeping over the hills to crash down the Medical Evac company.

Ekret looked up. The new tank was in front of him. He was carrying Bouncy's Survival Core.

"Let's get it on," Cheapshot said.

Together they moved to the tank, climbing inside. Ekret locked the box in place, hit the stud, and watched as Bouncy moved across the screens. Once everyone was buckled in, Ekret stood up in the hatch and nudged his implant.

"1/1's waiting, men," Ekret said, pulling an empty ration tube from his pocket, where it had sat next to the glow in the dark dice, and put it between his teeth.

The tank moved smoothly away on its hoverfans.

-----------------------

V CORPS

Special Unit Commendation to 1/1 Recon for valor above and beyond the call of duty in the defense of 13th Evac hospital. Battle standard to be awarded. Permission for unit crest and unit motto (to be approved) is granted.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

Chapter Forty-Four (Ullmo'ok)

Ullmo'ok was a bad Lanaktallan. His mother and father had always told him so. He was uninterested in money, he was uninterested in power, he had little to no interest in politics, and he didn't care one way or another for rules. The last would have been understandable if it involved the first three in any way, but Ullmo'ok's idea of a fun evening was getting together with some friends, all of the them from the UnCivilized species or the neo-sapients, hacking a car's computer, and roaring around the city in it.

The final straw had come when Ullmo'ok had gotten high on stim-grass, stripped naked, painted himself red with the crowd suppression paintgun, stolen a LawSec cruiser and driven it on a two hour chase that had culminated in Ullmo'ok deliberately crashing the armored vehicle into the river and standing on top of it as it sank, rearing up to show his genitals to the TriVid cameras, his jowls full of stimgrass. He'd had a gun in each hand, taken from the LawSec cruiser, and kept shooting potshots at the cameras until a LawSec sniper had tagged him with a stunner rifle. The sniper had been forced to shoot the young Lanaktallan three times to drop him.

It was put up to the jowls full of stimgrass.

His parents had been horrified. His friends had found it hilarious. LawSec had taken the bribe and looked the other way.

Ullmo'ok had been entertained. He'd almost felt something, standing on the roof the sinking LawSec vehicle. He'd come so close but the stunner had hit him. He'd felt something then, not the ravening nerve pain that the second shot brought, not the darkness that the third shot had dropped onto him, but he'd felt something he'd never felt before.

He had been sent to where his father's uncle was in charge of resource collection in a system in the Unified Outer Systems. His great-uncle was less than impressed that Ullmo'ok had gotten intoxicated during the flight and had fallen off the gangplank and onto the spaceport tarmac, laughing like a pair of bagpipes in a paint shaker, a bottle of alk-brew in each hand and a stimstick in his mouth.

His great-uncle had tried to put him in the offices, doing busy work and just moving files and papers around down in the mail room.

Ullmo'ok had convinced the neo-sapients who worked in the mail room to fight one another in the "Pit of Fists Swinging" for the reward of time off, vacation days, and raises.

His great-uncle moved him to the warehouse, where Ullmo'ok had put together a racing rally with the wheeled ground effect forklifts with "prizes" for the winners. After that was stopped by his great-uncle he arranged a 'hover smash' where workers drove old hoverlifts and crashed into one another with the winners getting prizes. Soon every hoverlift was covered in sheet metal and spikes and mesh. Ullmo'ok himself took part in them until finally he broke one of his arms when he was t-boned by another lift. Ullmo'ok's uncle sighed and sent the young Lanaktallan out to one of the mines as soon as he healed.

Ullmo'ok himself had almost felt something when the bones in his arm had snapped and he'd whipped his hoverlift around to slam the heavy weighted end into the worker's side. He'd almost felt something when his uncle had ordered his arm set without painkillers. He'd knocked out the Umtervian medic with one hit when he'd reacted to the pain and felt a little bit of something that he had been chasing.

At the mines, Ullmo'ok's uncle had despaired. Ullmo'ok had gotten bored with paperwork and supervision the first week and had bribed one of the workers to teach him to use a cargo-mech to load the raw ore into the transports. That had led to "Mech Bash" competitions where mechs smashed against each other, slamming each other with graspers or lifters, while an audience cheered. Within a month the cargo-mechs were covered in metal and spikes and painted garish colors.

A few workers were killed in the competitions, but Mech-Bash went on, with Ullmo'ok participating to the roar of the crowd.

Strangely, productivity was up. Incidents between the workers and CorpSec were down. Alcohol and drug use were up, black market trading of ration chips and CorpStore script was up, fighting was up, but the amount of lethal stabbings, shootings, beatings, and ambushes went down.

Ullmo'ok's uncle just swept all the Mech-Bash incidents under the rug. He purchased junk mechs from the other Corporate divisions, thinking maybe having older, battered, less maintained cargo-mechs would stop the Mech-Bash and having massive redundancy would replace the cargo-mechs when they failed.

Instead Ullmo'ok's band started stripping parts from the junk-mechs and adding them to the cargo mechs.

Then CorpSec reported that the junkyard where the old defunct corporate crowd control and law enforcement vehicles had been robbed.

Ullmo'ok's uncle knew exactly who had robbed it, but at least this time there was no evidence. The older Lanaktallan had boarded his executive hoverlimo and gone out to the mine, chewing narco-cud the whole way to ease his anxiety.

He could see two cargo-mechs battering each other as his hover-limo came in for a landing. As he watched in horror one of them opened up with a chain-gun that was the same type as the heavy crowd control vehicles from CorpSec used.

He could hear the roar of the crowd even through his armored limo's windows.

When he landed a small Puntimat neo-sapient lizard asked the older Lanaktallan if he wanted to purchase something called 'box seats' or if he wanted refreshments or to meet some of the 'Mech Slammers" personally.

The Uncle, who went by the name of Lo'omo'nan, harrumphed and demanded to see his nephew. Lo'omo'nan found himself escorted by two young female Lanaktallan of lower caste, secretaries for the Corporation's mining facility, dressed scandalously so much of their udders showed. Instead of taking him directly to see his nephew Lo'omo'nan was taken to a seat protected by pressor beams and armaglass.

"Where, harrumph, is my nephew?" Lo'omo'nan asked, accepting the offer of a narcobrew.

One of the Lanaktallan females pointed out at the dirt field where a cargo-mech had just walked out. The cargo mech was covered in crude metal armor, garishly painted, with chain guns, a giant sawblade for a hand, and a crudely fashioned metal spiked fist replacing one of the graspers.

"He is right there, Most High Guest," the Lanaktallan female informed the older male.

As Lo'omo'nan watched the cargo-mech raised all four arms, slamming the forearms together as the crowd roared.

The entire crowd roared so fiercely that Lo'omo'nan's tendril curled and his crests inflated defensively.

The battle was fierce and made Lo'omo'nan cringe and feel nauseous. His grand-nephew showed no hesitation, like a proper civilized being would, and instead charged his opponent and met him blow for blow. The battle ended when the other cargo-mech landed on its back with a crash and the crowd roared. Lo'omo'nan thought it strange that his nephew reached down one mechanical hand to help his opponent to their feet and raised the mech's hand with his own, to the roar of the crowd.

One of his female hanger-ons asked Lo'omo'nan if he wanted a Tri-Vid or VR chip of the battle as a souviner.

Only 24 Corpscript.

Lo'omo'nan couldn't believe that the crowd had been chanting his family name at top volume. He himself avoided crowds, which all stared and muttered as his limo moved through. He saw his nephew pushing through the crowd, slapping extended hands with his four hands, cursing loudly, and swigging narco-brew handed to him. His nephew, Ullmo'ok, was sweaty, wearing only a cooling vest and a bandage over one of his side eyes, not even a sash to proclaim who he was and what his standing was. Lo'omo'nan watched, horrified, as one of the tall neosapient mammals, a two legged Hikken, poured narcobrew on her fur covered mammary glands and his nephew pressed his sweaty face between them, shook his head, and made blubbering sounds.

The crowd around his nephew roared with glee.

Another worker being, another neosapient, stripped off her shirt, revealing scandalous flesh and fur, handing her shirt to Lo'omo'nan's nephew. Ullmo'ok wiped his face and chest and handed it back, the neo-sapient clutching it tight to her upper body, her eyes bright as she watched Lo'omo'nan's nephew swagger between a doorway.

Lo'omo'nan was led to his nephew's "office", taking a winding way. They moved through the maintenance bay where Lo'omo'nan saw maintenance techs working on the crudely armored and armed mechs. Past makeshift lounges and bars where Lo'omo'nan saw wealthy executives of the Corporation yelling, shaking fists, and shouting bets as the narcobrew flowed and the stimcud was chewed. Lo'omo'nan couldn't believe what he was seeing.

He knew that Lanaktallan, a senior executive with the Corporation, from distinguished family lineage, who's family was wealthy and powerful even by Unified Core Systems standards. The SEO was at the bar, shouting at the screen where two cargo-mechs brawled, a narcobrew in each hand of his four hands, while two small lemurian Welkret females combed the Lanaktallan's fur and rubbed his skin while sitting on his back. As Lo'omo'nan watched, the wealthy and powerful being turned at the waist to face the two on his back. The closer one took a deep drag off a stimstick held by the other one, put her hands on either side of the Lanaktallan's jowls, and blew the smoke directly into his nostrils.

Lo'omo'nan hurriedly clopped past that, closing his side and rear eyes so he didn't have to see such disgusting deviance carried on by members of his own species.

Finally he reached his nephew, who was sitting on a broken couch, a stimstick in his mouth, a Welkret female with a medikit tending to his bruises and small cuts on his hide. The younger Lanaktallan had his eyes closed, his hands at his sides, and Lo'omo'nan was horrified to see that his nephew was allowing two comely young Lanaktallan females manually stimulate him sexually as he relaxed and the Welkret tended to his wounds while loud music, prohibited by the Corporation, blared from speakers stacked in the corners.

"Nephew!" the elder Lanaktallan harrumphed, hoping the sound of his voice would put a stop to this degeneracy and debasement.

He was shocked and appalled that the two females didn't even look up, instead just leaned over his nephews back to entwine their jowl tendrils, their hands still busy. The Welkret ran the auto-suturer down a cut on his nephews flank. Everyone else cheered as an arm was torn free from a cargo-mech as the other yanked the arm straight and ravaged the joint with the chaingun.

"I perfected that move, you know, uncle," His nephew said, pointing at the screen with a half-empty narcobrew.

Lo'omo'nan yanked his attention from the huge display, normally used by executives to display data, and looked at his nephew, who was patting the rumps of the two females and shooing them away.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Lo'omo'nan demanded of his nephew.

"Getting 'patched up' to use a phrase, Uncle," Ullmo'ok answered, taking a swig from his narcobrew. "My opponent was skilled and determined. I was proud to defeat him, Most Honored Uncle."

"Honored? Honored? You destroy the honor of our line, of our name, by brawling with these... these... neo-species," Lo'omo'nan sputtered, his tendrils tight with outrage.

"If you say so," Ullmo'ok said. He twitched slightly and the Welkret snapped at him to stay still so she could scrape the emergency coagulate off his skin and suture the wound.

"Your workers cause damage to company property, costing the mine credits, undoubtedly putting this whole facility into the red! If you don't care about our honor, what about our stockholders?" Lo'omo'nan barked as best he could, inflating his crests to establish dominance over his nephew.

His nephew ignored the crests, taking another swig. "Is it money you're worried about, uncle?" The younger Lanaktallan said slowly. He signified disappointment and resignation then made a tossing motion toward the older male. "View that if all you worry about is the profits."

Lo'omo'nan snorted and opened the datafile. It was a spreadsheet of company costs and expenses balanced against income, with man hours, and expenses and income broken down.

Ullmo'ok watched his uncle digest the data that seemed so important to the older Lanaktallan but was infinitely uninteresting to Ullmo'ok himself.

Anyone can turn a neo-sapient upside down and shake the credit chits from his pockets, Ullmo'ok thought to himself. Only the best can convince them to roar out his name is frenzied appreciation.

Lo'omo'nan couldn't believe what he was seeing. The entire facility was making more profit in a single planetary cycle than it ever had in its entire existence. Membership fees, drinks and narcotics, prostitution, viewing fees, entrance fees, income from TriVid and VR chips, GalNet broadcast on shady Netsites that were pay per view only, gambling, and more. The credits were pouring in, outstripping even the cost to black marketeers for weapons, armor, narcotics. Even outstripping worker payments, taxes, everything else. The books were then cooked, using the mining and refinery plant as cover. What the refinery actually made in profit could have been listed in the slush funds compared to what his nephew was bringing in from his illegal and immoral activities.

Even more startling was that Ullmo'ok had reported every drip and drop of income to the Unified Taxation Office and paid the taxes.

Ullmo'ok watched his uncle's tendrils tremble in pleasure and gave the equivalent of a sigh of envy. His uncle looked almost orgasmic, a feeling that Ullmo'ok chased but could only taste the bare edges of.

Only in the cockpit of his cargo-mech.

"You did all this?" Lo'omo'nan asked, surprised his nephew even understood how to do multi-column accounting.

Ullmo'ok snorted in amusement. "Hardly, uncle. I pay employees to do it and pay them well."

"What if one of the neo-sapients tries to cheat you or rob you?" Lo'omo'nan asked, sure his nephew didn't understand how to keep the neo-sapients in line.

"The first one that did I had chained to the fist of my cargo-mech and pasted him against the chest armor of my opponent with a few punches," Ullmo'ok said matter of factly, as if he wasn't talking about the brutal killing of another sentient being. Lo'omo'nan stared at his nephew in horror as the younger one gave the equivalent of a shrug. "It's one of the most downloaded and paid for clips. My opponent painted over the dark blue of the dried blood with bright blue paint to remind everyone of that battle. Since then, my employees only steal about 2%, which I'm willing to overlook."

Lo'omo'nan just stared in horror. Without another word he turned around and galloped back to his limo, returning to the capital with a promise to himself that as long as his nephew kept bringing in record profits the maniacal Lanaktallan could just stay at the remote facility.

---------------------

Ullmo'ok looked at the being. Called a 'human' apparently. A bipedal primate with the closely set forward facing eyes of a predator, thickly muscles, with hair only on its head and around its mouth, with five fingers instead of four. It was dressed in clothing covered with holograms that showed cartoon female humans chasing each other and hitting one another with blunt object. It made Ullmo'ok inflate his crests with amusement.

"You know, I can replace that eye with a cybereye in about an hour," the human said, using a universal translator. "No charge. Just have the medibot do it while we conduct business."

Ullmo'ok signified his agreement with one hand, his eyes only for what the human "Junker" had brought him.

Massive robot power armor. Armor meters thick. Bristling with weapons. Designed like a biped but just oozing malice. All of them designed to appear aggressive and menacing just sitting there with their fusion reactors pulled and weapons empty or disengaged.

A spider-bot climbed up Ullmo'ok's foreleg, then up his torso, then onto his head, settling over the empty socket of his right side eye.

Ullmo'ok ignored it. A medibot was nothing to grow anxious about. He mentally braced for pain. Pain was inevitable. Pain was good.

Pain was life.

"I've got some old Terran battle-cruiser battle-screens. That should protect the crowd from any missed shots as well as provide really slamming effects when they're hit. Nothing outside a nuclear penetrator can get through that class of shields, even though they're old tech. Pulled 'em off some blown out ships back around Rigel-6," The Terran, human, Max-a-Millions said, slapping his hands together eagerly, the motion like he was brushing off dust but more animated and loud.

Ullmo'ok liked that body language. He tried it himself and found it much more satisfying than the handwringing of anticipation that most of his race used.

"That sounds sufficient," Ullmo'ok said, following the Terran's body language of nodding rather than inflating his crest in assent. He liked that too.

"Now, these mechs are civilian grade, usually used by frontier harsh environment worlds for heavy security. They'll rip a pirate ship to shreds, can go toe to toe with light armor, and can even take on your civilian government grade heavy armor units," Max said, pointing at one of the smaller mechs. "That one, right there? That can crush most heavy armor units used by your civilian governments with a single stomp. I wouldn't try taking on a Confed Mil-spec tank, that thing would rip you apart. But against anything you'll probably face? No contest."

Ullmo'ok nodded, admiring the lethal lines of the massive mech. He liked the one with the skull face, the big fists, and the retractable rotating sawblade sword in its forearm.

"So, how many do you want?" The human asked, rubbing his hands together. Ullmo'ok's implant told him that it was eagerness, not distress.

Ullmo'ok stared at all the mechs in the massive freighter's hold. Over a hundred of them. All heavily armored and armed.

"All of them."

The cartoon female humans frollicking on Max-a-Million's suit all waved their pom-poms with their eyes replaced by throbbing hearts.

-------------------

CorpSec Chief Executive Officer Moolim'ak exited his armored LawSec wagon, adjusted his sash, and trotted forward. The small neo-sapients waiting for him performed the elaborate welcoming rituals that were his due. Two lower caste Lanaktallan females, their implants marking them as food service workers for refinery executives, both trotted forward to coo at him and rub him. A Welkret climbed up on his back and began rubbing soothing narco-cream into his four shoulder-blades. He liked her, she had strong, soft hands and new how to rub his muscles just right to force knots from tension to relax.

The smell of hot lubricant, scorched metal, sweat, and anticipation filled the CorpSec CEO's nostrils and his tendrils shivered in anticipation.

He was a wealthy and powerful male of the Lanaktallan executive caste, even beyond this planet. Yes, he should arrest young Ullmo'ok and every being involved or served by the younger male's illegal activities, but Moolim'ak couldn't bring himself to even think about such a thing.

After all, where else would he see such amazing sights?

The sound of music, new music, harsh, demanding, thundering, aggressive and violent, poured over the CEO as he entered the Most High Class Executive Lounge. He merely used that entrance to gain access to the facility. He handed off his sash and badges of rank to the little Puntimat at the door, who was inside an armored cage and took all valuables and put them in registered locked boxes. The sign at the top of her armor-plast window stated a warning: "Not Responsible For Grabbed Stuff You Take In!" The CEO nodded at the warning, gave the little neo-sapient a week's worth the meal chits for the way she bobbed and grovelled as she put his stuff away, and headed deeper into the facility.

He passed the other members of his race at the clean and immaculate feeling lounges, moving past that to where he preferred. The greasy, slightly dirty, shabby lounge where the neon glowed, the music was almost too loud, and more than once some of the neo-sapients and even members of his own race threw fists over the outcome of a match or a disagreement over which cargo-mech pilot was best.

A bunch of his CorpSec men, all lower executives, raised up narcobeer and cheered him. Moolim'ak signaled the being tending the bar to bring another round to the table and clopped over to his men. They all thanked him for getting them in to the Grand Mech Bash. Something new was promised, something grand, and the alien sounded hard driving music hinted at whatever it was, it was going to be big.

When the fireworks went off and the lights went out, Moolim'ak turned to watch the oversized vid display. Sure, the tables in the executive lounges had built-in holoprojectors, but the faded and transparent holos just didn't have the excitement of the vid screens.

The little Welkret on his back tapped him and he turned around to face her. She took a drag off her stimstick, put her other hand against his left hand jowl, and slowly exhaled stimsmoke into his nostril. He inhaled deeply, gratefully, feeling the already activated stim surge into his bloodstream and shivered.

What stomped out onto the viewscreen, obviously shaking the ground of the arena, was something that Moolim'ak recognized, something he had seen in classified videos from the furious fighting against the Precursors over the last two months.

A human Warmech.

It raised its arms over its head, clasing the massive hands, and shook them while the crowd roared.

Moolim'ak was aghast. How had those war machines, some weighing as much as 500 tons, gotten to the planet? How had young Ullmo'ok gotten his grasping four hands on one? He stared as special effects froze the giant mechanized war machine, spun it around, put it in garish colors, and then detailed the weapons.

Sweat popped up on Moolim'ak's crests and he inflated them with agitation. That giant beast carried two 200mm autocannons just to start off with. It packed missiles, lasers, particle beams, something called a 'chainsword", and more. Its polyceramic warsteel laminate armor could shrug anything his entire CorpSec force could bring to bear and those autocannons would shred anything he could field.

"Yeah! Yeah!" One of his subordinates, a Senior Executive Officer cheered. "Slamsmash! Slamsmash!"

The little Welkret tapped Moolim'ak and when the CEO turned at the waist to face behind him the little mammal pressed both hands against his nose and slowly exhaled narcosmoke into first one then the other nostril. Moolim'ak closed his eyes and let the little neo-sapient put his four hands on her fur and start to stroke.

It soothed him, such degeneracy. It calmed him, indulging in such deviance. He would never do so in private or at work, but here, surrounded by pounding alien music, in a dimly lit grimy "sports-lounge", surrounded by his subordinates and other Mechbash fans, he indulged himself in vices that he would have never imagined as a young Lanaktallan in the Unified Core Systems where he had grown up.

He turned around, shifting his arms so he still reached behind him to stroke the Welkret, who tapped the inside of one arm with a narcojet, just in time to see the opponent. A giant warmech the same weight class, different weapons, painted in the garish colors of another competitor. This one armed with lasers, particle cannons, missiles, with point defense and other missile defenses.

It then pulled back, displaying the modified arena. Giant chunks of 'armor' made up of warsteel and battlesteel, glimmering energy fields, and other things to take cover behind. Plasma 'mines', auto-turrets, flamers, all kinds of hazards that the crowd could activate by throwing 'BashCash' at it in the form of work-chits, food chits, corp-script, Unified Systems Credits, even promises of favors.

The count-down started and Moolim'ak calmed his agitation by touching the little female in ways that a member of his species, his caste, his executive status probably shouldn't. He brought her around to his chest, cradling and stroking her in his four arms, while she blew clouds of narco-vape across his nose and balanced a mug of narcobrew on her stomach.

The battle started and Moolim'ak quickly forgot his agitation. Particle cannons thundered, autocannons shrieked, the shields screamed and sparked with misses that thrilled the crowd as they were only held off from certain death by the invisible hands of battle-screen projectors.

Ten fights, all between massive Terran Warmechs. Moolim'ak won as often as he lost, but by the time he was halfway through watching the fights he was cheering as often as everyone else. He broke a narcobrew bottle across the face of a Senior Executive Lanaktallan from Financial Services during the sixth fight, clasped hands with the same being and cheered during the seventh, the two males slapping each other's sides in shared joy as the mech they had been on defeated the larger one. One of his subordinates put a fist in his eye and he responded by kicking the other male in the chest to the roar of the onlookers. He bought his defeated subordinate a large mug of the subordinate's favorite narcobrew to show how gracious he was in victory. The subordinate cheered Moolim'ak's name as they all left togheter and rode home in the same executive limo.

Ullmo'ok's uncle looked at the profits from the "New & Improved Mechbash!" and had to shuffle funds around at a Senior Executive level to hide the profits. He noticed the CEO of CorpSec had a swollen eye during a luncheon, but didn't pay it any mind, CorpSec types often had to put down riots.

-------------------

The air was full of thunder as atmospheric craft roared overhead. More humans had arrived, to protect the system from a possible Precursor attack. Humans had sworn to protect the star system, had deployed massive amounts of war machines through space, around moons, on planets. Everywhere a Precursor might attack, might strike at the beings they so hated.

While other Lanaktallan had run in circles panicking, wringing their four hands, inflating and deflating their crests in fear, shaking their jowls in terror, bleating and crying out in anxiety, Ullmo'ok felt a tingling tremor deep inside. Actually felt it.

He invited Terrans to his Mechbash, comped them entrance, drinks, anything they wanted.

They had enjoyed it.

Ullmo'ok liked the Terrans he had met. Members of something called V Corps (Old Metal) that just made his tendrils coil in joy. Ullmo'ok had noticed that even their officers liked the dimmer, grimier looking lounges, more deviant and dangerous the better.

Two humans had pulled knives on each other, fighting on the floor of one of the lounges over a Puntimat female they had both been petting. Neither one had been killed but they had been injured. Ullmo'ok had ordered the Welkret 'medicos' to not use painkillers on the Terrans to see how they reacted.

Every reaction to pain brought jeers from their fellow Terrans. One who had flinched had narcobrew poured over him by his fellows.

The two knife fighters were arm in arm, cheering, less than a fight later.

Ullmo'ok was fascinated by the Terrans.

They looked... looked...

alive.

Ullmo'ok envied them.

------------------------

V CORPS COMMANDER'S MEMO

Attendance at Ullmo'ok Mech Bash Arena is permitted via recreation pass.

Please stop stabbing each other. It looks bad to our hosts when senior officers duel with knives over who gets to pet the furry xenospecies 'with great tits' no matter how much it amuses your subordinates. I appreciate a great set of mammary glands as much as the next species, but rolling around on the floor while the enlisted pour narcobrew on you is undignified. Real officers use stun-pistols at twenty paces. While dueling is legal, please refrain from doing so unless it is vitally important, like who may have stolen your last pack of Terran cigarettes.

--General Nodra'ak, V Corps, Commanding

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------------

KESTIMET CORPORATE MEMO

Attendance at this so called "Mech Bash" is strictly prohibited to all executives by order of Kestimet Corporate Headquarters, Core Worlds. Attendance to any of this illegal activity can result in a fine of up to three day's pay.

Chapter Forty-Five (Ullmo'ok)

The Terran was a big warborg, two tons of anodized black warsteel, heavy weapons hidden inside his chassis and the magnetic power-inductors the size of Ullmo'ok's hand covered with a thin layer of armorplas, with an 8 pierced by an upright arrow marking both of his shoulders. His face shield was open, letting Ullmo'ok see the Terran's biological face that had been attached to a warsteel skull. While other Lanaktallan's might have been distressed by the cyborg it didn't bother Ullmo'ok at all. The Terran was one of Ullmo'ok's loyal customers over the last weeks the Terrans had been deploying their war material and getting ready for a possible Precursor attack.

"You might want to get off the planet soon, Ullmo'ok," the Terran said. It took a sip of narcobrew. "Good stuff."

"My appreciation of your enjoyment," Ullmo'ok answered, nodding. He liked Terran physical body language much better than he liked crest and tendril signals. "Why would I want to leave?"

The Terran sighed. "There's Imps in the Oort Cloud and that can only mean one thing."

"Precursors are coming," Ullmo'ok guessed. The big Terran nodded. "You advise me to flee?"

The Terran warborg slowly nodded. "It's going to get ugly, friend. The Precursors are going to come at this system with everything they can shake loose. Its an important extraction and refinery system," The warborg paused. "They're going to come straight at this facility."

Ullmo'ok nodded again. "That sounds logical. My uncle has sent some of CorpSec out here, some with heavy vehicles as CorpSec designates them. To protect this refinery from any rivals he says but I believed it to try to protect from any of my Bashmech pilots going rogue."

"The CorpSec vehicles won't last fifteen seconds against Precursor machines," the Terran answered.

"I have seen my Bashmech list them as light civilian defense vehicles," Ullmo'ok answered. He lifted his hands in an approximation of a shrug. "My Bashmech is a civilian version, I can only imagine what the Precursor machines must be like and even then I am probably under-imagining them."

The Warborg nodded. "I faced off against some Precursors a few centuries ago. Not this brand, the other types, and they're a serious opponent. They don't stop and they linger to kill every living thing. To top it off, friend, they view your species as deserving to be wiped out."

Ullmo'ok shook his head. "I will not leave my loyal workers. They work hard for me, they fight harder."

The warborg sighed. "All right. Look, saying this is in the gray. I can probably get away with it because you're technically a CEO and a community leader. Nobody else outside of TERCONFEDMIL knows this yet."

"One moment," Ullmo'ok said. He used his implant to turn off any surveillance devices, clear the surrounding rooms, and lock the doors. The big warborg nodded at the sound of the mag-locks engaging. "Go ahead."

"These things use psychic assault arrays. We don't mind that much, we're highly resistant to such things, but I don't know how your people will react," the warborg said. "They come at you, there going to hit you with a psychic assault then slaughter your people while they're still alive and screaming."

Ullmo'ok thought a moment. "Is there a way for non-Terrans to protect themselves from this psychic assault?"

The warborg nodded. "Sure. Most of the Treana'ad officers have psychic shield implants, most vehicles have them, we've even got portable ones to protect camps and bases."

Ullmo'ok nodded. "Thank you for the information. It is most helpful. Can you guess at how long until the Precursors arrive?"

"Days? Weeks? With Imps in the Oort Cloud, we're being recon'd. It's not if they get here, it's when they get here," The warborg said. He stood up. "I should get back before I'm missed."

Ullmo'ok nodded, thinking carefully. He unlocked the door and ordered that the warborg be comp'd tonight's entertainment.

Psychic shielding, eh? The Terrans seem to have it commonly installed, that means they have it in abundance, he thought to himself. He signaled to the facilities computer to send two of his employees to him. One a structural engineer responsible for keeping the mine operational, the other a refinery expert.

They arrived quickly, both smelling of stim-sticks but they both had the obvious shakes from taking a quiksober. Ullmo'ot soothed their fears, handing them bottles of Terran narcobeer after he twisted the caps off. He turned down the music, then locked the doors.

"Honored Jumina'at," Ullmo'ok addressed the refinery master. The other being nervously signalled he was paying attention. "The humans call it warsteel, can we create and work it?"

The other Lanaktallan shook his heavy head. "No, honored Ullmo'ok. We can craft it but it immediately hardens and cannot be worked."

"What hyperalloy can we create that we can work with the tools available?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"Terran endosteel. We had the templates and industrial fabrication specifications," the refinery master said.

"Turn ten percent of our output to endosteel production. Keep it off the books. Offer triple-pay for anyone willing to work off the books shifts to produce it," Ullmo'ok said.

"As you wish, High Most," Jumina'at said.

"One another thing, Jumina'at," Ullmo'ok said. The subordinate looked nervous. "You have family on planet?"

"Yes, Most High," he answered.

"Bring them in. I will have vacation time authorized for them. Use one of the empty Executive Villas for them. Bring all of them," Ullmo'ok ordered.

Jumina'at didn't ask why, just nodded. Every one of Ullmo'ok's idea has enriched him vastly and Jumina'at had ceased asking questions. He accepted his dismissal and left, Ullmo'ot locking the door again behind him.

"Za'almooint?" Ullmo'ok turned to the master engineer.

She nodded, still looking miserable from the quiksober shot. "Yes, High Most?" She stared at the male's robotic eye, fascinated by it. Supposedly Lanaktallan's were 'too advanced' to accept cybernetic prosthetics, but the eye had been there for weeks without problems.

Ullmo'ok used his personal holotank, a Terran version with excellent resolution and fidelity, to put up a map of one of the played out mines that wormed beneath the worker habs and the executive villas. "I want you to build shelters beneath these structures, in these mines, with fast access ports that can then be sealed and camouflaged until rescue can arrive."

The female Lanaktallan nodded slowly, getting up and moving around the holotank. "Shelters for how many people, High Most?"

"All of them. Plus another 10% redundancy, no, make it 20% redundancy and provide atmospheric, power, and food dispenser backups," Ullmo'ok ordered. "Triple pay for all who work on this. I want it done as soon as possible."

"As you will," she answered. "Will that be all?"

Ullmo'ok shook his head. "No, I have one other set of orders," he stated. He moved the scan to a set of played out mines a mile away. It had a large entry-cavern.

She curled her tendrils in confusion but waited.

"I want you to move all our spare parts, all our spare repair equipment, for the Bashmechs to this spot. We're going to be going back to cargo-mech fights for a little bit," he said. "Build these hollow buildings out of durachrome. Make sure the repair scaffolding is finished first."

"Which do I prioritize?"

"Concealed repair bays first, moving the parts second. I'll have different crews get the cargomech's ready to fight."

"Your customers won't like that," she warned.

"I'll play it up as a celebration of some type, offer reduced fees, that will quiet them," He said. He thought for a moment. "Send in Krekit. Personally, no datalink or com."

Za'almooint nodded and left, finding the Puntimat mechanic drinking narcobrew and puffing on a narcostick in one of the lounges, a pile of script, chits, and rations in front of him.

"Sober up, the High Most wants you right now," Za'almooint said.

The little Puntimat nodded, ordering a quiksober and getting up. He injected it into his arm as he hustled to where he knew The Boss would be watching the fights. When he went in he heard the door lock behind him and worried that The Boss knew that he'd been skimming money off the repair fees being charged the fighters.

"Sit, Honored High Mechanic," Ullmo'ok said, motioning at the comfortable seats. Krekit sat down, nervous, noting the unholstered needler pistol on the holotank. Ullmo'ok cracked open two Terran narcobeers and handed the little furry lizard one.

Krekit watched as Ullmo'ok brought up the schematics for his own Bashmech.

"Assign your less skilled techs to brining the cargomechs back up to fighting status," Ullmo'ok stated. "Your best techs will have an assignment soon. They'll be making modifications to our Bashmechs."

"What kind?" Krekit asked, feeling a tingle of excitement.

"Right now, I'm not sure. Just have your men go over the technical documents for the Bashmechs and start doing eVR training from the datachips in the manuals. Even the stuff like a ruptured reactor shield," Ullmo'ok ordered. He handed another beer to the little fuzzy lizard. "Triple pay."

Krekit nodded, hustling out of the room.

Ullmo'ok opened his personal encrypted datalink address book, going over the various link addresses he had amassed. There, there was some contacts there were even at the Mechbash Arena.

He ordered in comely male and female members of all races, had them dress scandalously, then had his "office" arranged for effect. He then went out and took part in an "unscheduled match" to get that feeling again.

He needed his edge to meet with the beings he needed to meet with.

------------------------------

Uncle Lo'omo'nan;

I invite you to inspect the mines in a week or two. Please bring my aunt and my cousins, I have missed them dearly. I promise you won't be disappointed in what I wish to show you.

----Ullmo'ok

------------------------------

The Terran officer got out of the heavy cargo truck, walking toward where Ullmo'ok sat on the foot of his Bashmech, feeling the machine vibrate with power and menace. The Terran officer glanced up once then nodded before moving up to Ullmo'ok. The big Terran held out one crushing primate gripper and when Ullmo'ok shook it the primate increased the pressure, staring in Ullmo'ok's eyes.

Ullmo'ok held the stare, refusing to show any pain.

Pain was life.

The Terran officer nodded, grudgingly, and released Ullmo'ok's hand. Ullmo'ok ignored the pain of crushed muscle and bruised bone, the balloon-like feeling of swelling.

It was just pain.

"I got what you wanted. Psychic shielding for warmechs, updated molycirc packs, everything but warboi hashes. Even got you training eVR progs for your simulators. Uses the latest battle data we've got against the Precursor machines," the Terran said. "What do you have for me?"

"Here," the Lanaktallan said, motioning. Two Puntimat's ran forward each carrying a chip box. The idea had startled Ullmo'ok, it was simple, so easily done, and apparently brought in massive amounts of credits, chits, payment, and customers.

The first one was opened and the Terran removed one of the chips, checking it. The fifteen seconds was unlocked, the rest behind, surprisingly enough, civilian grade Terran cryptography. The Terran turned it off and put it back in the box. "Full eVR?" he asked. "That's important."

Ullmo'ok nodded. "That one's just sex," he opened the second case. "This one, my friend, will be your big money maker."

"Oh? Why? What do you have there?" the Terran asked.

"Everything from slowly eating a meal while sitting naked outside in the rain to feeling low power heated blowers drying one's fur to a slow kiss between two lovers. Urinating after the bladder has gotten excessively full, the first drink of water after going a full day without, the feel of an infant's soft fur or scales or skin beneath your warm hand. The gain was turned up to maximum, as broad spectrum as my techs could make it," Ullmo'ot said. He lifted his upper lip in the best approximation of a human smile as he could make. "Before you tell me that's worthless compared to xenospecies sex, let me tell you, a warborg offered me a year's pay for the eVR of a female Puntimat finishing a long run on a treadmill then carefully and slowing washing with shampoo beneath a stream of warm water before blow drying her fur slowly."

The Terran narrowed his eyes. He'd dealt with Lanaktallan before, but had never seen one who was so focused, almost predatory for an herbivore species that might, occasionally, eat meat. He thought for a moment, trying to decide if he could bluff this one or maybe apply a little bit of good old intimidation.

Ullmo'ok knew what the other was thinking. He pulled out a long thin stick of spiced and treated meat, something he saw the Terrans enjoy, slowly unwrapping the Slender James, and beginning to chew on the stick, coiling his feeding tendrils in pleasure. When he knew he had the Terrans attention he reached down and patted the gigantic foot of the "Pleasure & Glory" with his lower left hand.

The Terran quickly changed his opinion. He had been warned by the person who had put him on this nice bit of graft that this Lanaktallan was different but he hadn't believed it until he watched the way the Lanaktallan was not enjoying the meat stick but knew what kind of effect it had and was relishing every little bit of the transaction.

"All right. Deal," The Terran said. "Parts, ammunition, repair vehicles, the whole nine yards."

"Excellent, buddy," Lanaktallan said. He whistled, another Terran skill he'd spend days mastering. Puntimat worker ran forward while others drove cargo trucks up. Lanaktallan shook the other being's hand, and this time he squeezed as hard as possible, staring into the human's eyes, tilting his head so his side-cybereye was part of the stare.

The Terran, Major Taktaven, Delta Company, 108th Military Intelligence (Rangers) (Detached), smiled back. "Pleasure doing business with you."

--------------------------

Krekit looked up from where he was crouched behind Ullmo'ok's fighting cradle, the panel behind the cradle removed. The little Punitmat had a firmware analyzer in his hand and had an expression of satisfaction on his face.

"Well, we know what those interfaces we could never figure out are actually for now," Krekit said. "The psychic shielding booted up just fine, went through diagnostics, then stayed stable during your entire match."

Ullmo'ok nodded. "And the shielding inside the shelters?" he asked.

"Four days of constant activation and now we've got the right analytics and wavelengths to protect everyone," Krekit said. He used his tools to start reattaching the covers over the dense molycirc bricks. "The shelters are complete, they're being furnished and stocked as we speak."

"All right, outfit the rest of the Bashmechs with the psychic shielding," Ullmo'ok ordered.

Krekit hesitated a moment. "Honored Most High Ullmo'ok?" he asked.

"Yes, loyal one?" Ullmo'ok asked, stroking the controls to Pleasure & Glory like some men stroked their sleeping wife's hip, the same far away look on his face.

"The Precursors are coming, aren't they?" Krekit asked.

"Yes. They are."

"Do you intend on fighting them?" Krekit asked.

"Do defend all of my loyal employees? Of course," Ullmo'ok said. "Your wife pulled a knife from my back and repaired my lung. Your daughter works hard to make sure the coin-girls and joyboys are all healthy and have thumpmen nearby. How could I not defend you?"

Krekit nodded. "My men, they have spoken. We will hide in the cavern and repair any damage we can."

"That pleases me to know," Ullmo'ok said.

And he meant it.

---------------------------

Lo'omo'nan exited his vehicle, moving over to where his nephew was dressed appropriately for once, surrounded by well dressed syncophants and underlings like a proper Lanaktallan should be. Lo'omo'nan's wife and children exited the limo, looking around with parts disgust at being at a refinery/mining location/manufacturing facility, parts pleasure at seeing Ullmo'ok so improved.

They all oohed and aahed appreciatively during the tour. Lo'omo'nan noticed that beings came to his nephew frequently with updates, forms to be signed, introductions.

They were moving outside, preparing to leave, when Lo'omo'nan saw his nephew suddenly jerk upright and put his hand against the elaborate datalink on his temple and blink all four eyes.

"Repeat that," Ullmo'ok snapped. The authority and urgent focus in the two words made Lo'omo'nan and his family draw back from the young male Lanaktallan in slight fear. There was a second and Ullmo'ok took his hand from his implant, blinking his eyes, including the ugly looking cybertic one, and gave a reassuring gesture. Lo'omo'nan saw Tukna'rn security officers jogging toward them, holding weapons.

"Sorry, my apologies," Ullmo'ok said. He gestured toward the Executive Villas and made a motion. "Please, before you fly out, at least enjoy some refreshments."

"I'm sorry, Honored Nephew, we don't have the time," Lo'omo'nan answered, suddenly feeling nervous. "Perhaps another day."

Ullmo'ok sighed and looked at his uncle, slowly drawing a needler from a holster he kept beneath his pouch. The Tukna'rn security men leveled their weapons at Lo'omo'nan's Lanaktallan guards and then disarmed them.

"I'm sorry, aunt, uncle, cousins, but I'm afraid that my words were not a request. It is an insistence," Ullmo'on said, his voice violent sounding and menacing.

It reminded Lo'omo'nan of how stressed Terran's sounded.

"Ullo, dear? What do you mean, darling one?" Lo'omo'nan's wife asked, hugging herself in fear.

"I am sorry, most beloved aunt, but you must quickly come with my men. I will be remaining here," Ullmo'ok said. He stared at his aunt. "Do remember, though, that I do care deeply for all of you."

The guards barked and motioned and Lo'omo'nan and his family began moving.

As they clattered away, their hoofs clumping on the tarmac, Lo'omo'nan called out to his nephew. "I won't forget this betrayal as long as I live!"

Ullmo'ok didn't look back as more of his facility guards took the servants into 'custody'. Servants that had mysteriously brought along their families to see a perfectly normal mining facility. They all hid smiles as they hurried after Lo'omo'nan, and one signalled eternal affection at Ullmo'ok.

Ullmo'ok watched, listening to his implant.

ATTACK IMMINENT!

ATTACK IMMINENT!

ATTACK IMMINENT!

-------------------------------

Ullmo'ok was strapped into Pleasure & Glory, the datalink plugged in, his feet on the pedals, his hands on the controls. The big Bashmech was vibrating faintly around him, the huge fusion engine at low power. The scaffolding around him was clear, his access ports were closed, his armor ready. The durachrome around the scaffolding made the repair scaffolding look as it was just some kind of material storage towers.

He could hear his gladiators talk to each other. Weeks in the simulators were one thing, but they could hear on the radios that Goliaths were landing vehicles on the planet. That the Terran vessels were engaged in pitched fighting. The UMF and the Kestimet Corporation had already taken massive casualties. Only a few units survived, most of them working carefully with the Terrans. His men were nervous but unafraid.

He was not nervous. He was not afraid.

Instead, he felt something. The way poets described a female's tendrils trembling, the way commercials made tasting their ways sound.

He wondered what it was.

"Hi!" a small voice said in his ear. It was on his personal comlink.

"Clear the channel," Ullmo'ok ordered, doing his best to imitate the Kestimet security jargon he'd picked up being arrested so many times.

"I'm your new friend," the voice said. Ullmo'ok opened his eyes in shock as something tore through his firewalls, through his security, and scanned his entire Bashmech in seconds. "Wow, good job on this. I should hash your security encryption though, you're using an old outdated one that the Precursors already cracked."

"Who are you?" Ullmo'ok asked sharply.

"Oh, I'm your new Warboi. Assinged by Third COSCOM Digital Warfare Command. Either I help you, and you let my friends help your friends..." There was a long pause. "Or V Corps has ordered me to slag your warmechs."

Ullmo'ok thought for a moment. "All right, new friend. I'll warn you, I am here to defend my loyal people. I will not stray far from this area."

"Okie-dokey," The voice answered. "Rehashing now."

His mech went to standby, booted up, shut down everything, then restarted again.

"Rehashed. I updated your systems with the latest IFF and targeting systems. I'm sending my brothers to help your friend," The little voice said.

"What do I call you?" Ullmo'ok wondered aloud.

"Dunno. That's up to you," the voice said. "Oh, V Corps is referring to you as 5th Light Armor Irregulars and limiting your operations to a ten mile radius."

"All right," He thought for a second. One of his friends back in the Core Worlds talked like the computer program. His name had been long, but everyone had shorted it to "Tak" so that they could get a word in edgewise. "I'll call you Tak."

"Tak it is. I have General Trucker on secure comlink. He wants to speak to you."

A General? That was like a military High Most. Curious, Ullmo'ok opened the comlink.

"Fifth LAI? Do you read?" a Terran's rough voice sounded in his ear. Ullmo'ok could hear a nuclear cannon cut loose in the background.

"Yes," Ullmo'ok answered.

"All right. I'm sending you some air defense and point defense units and some warborg infantry. I'll keep those shelters of your locked down and defended, you just worry about any armor units that head your way," Trucker growled. In the background Ullmo'ot heard bellowed orders. "You stay out of our though, you get in my way I'll run you over just like ancient metal."

"Of course. Nothing personal," Ullmo'ok said. He'd seen more than a few black market Terran war TriVids in the past few months.

"Nothing personal," Trucker said. Suddenly the pitch of his voice changed. "Get those UMF areospace fighters out of there, tell them to get that blasted formation tighter or they're going to get raked out of the sky by that mass of Djinn! Tell that dumbass cow he's about to get slaughtered!"

Ullmo'ok knew Trucker was referring to a member of his species, but it did not bother him.

Cattle described most of the people Ullmo'ok met before the Terrans arrived.

"Look, 5th, I'll get you a dedicated data-stream and provide what support I can, but... TELL THAT DUMB BASTARD TO ACTIVATE HIS POINT DEFENSE!... but I've got my hands full. I wish you'd have interlocked with us earlier but... JEEZ-SUS SODOMIZING KEE-RICEST WILL SOMEONE KILL THAT THING? ... but I'll interlock you as best I can."

"I understand," Ollmo'ok replied. The sounds behind the Terran's voice and his bellowed commands made something inside Ollmo'ok's soul tingle. He opened a Slender James and chewed on it, filling his mouth with the taste of the greasy meat stick.

"Do your best, Fifth. Trucker out."

"Understood."

In his tank Trucker looked at his EW/EMCOM/Com-tech. "You sure we were talking to an Lanaktallan? He sounded like a damn answering service VI."

His tech nodded. "VI says he was an actual living being with almost 83% certainty."

"Huh," Trucker said, then took his mind back to the battle at hand.

Ullmo'ok was relaxing in his crash couch, keeping his men's moral up, ordering them to sleep in shifts.

Listening to his implant, which Tak was keeping him aware of what was happening as more and more Precursor ships made planetfall.

Nearly two hours later Tak woke him up, the vibration of his Bashmech lulling him to sleep.

"Got Confed troops on the horn, boss. They want to know which warehouses to conceal themselves in," Tak said.

Ullmo'ok rubbed his eyes. "What?"

"General Trucker sent some air defense and pint defense vehicles to keep your area safe. He also sent ammunition trucks and counter-battery artillery units, including radar," Tak answered.

Ullmo'ok closed his eyes, visualizing the layout of the factory with his cybereye. He 'blinked' at the buildings, assigning them. "Tell the leader of the vehicles that the warehouses and vehicle hangers can be destroyed. All of the surface installations can be destroyed. Just defend the shelters."

Tak hummed for a moment. "They say OK. Well, they talk weird. You know, Terran military guys. They all talk funny."

"Wake me up if anything moves funny."

"Oky-Dokey!" Tak said.

Ullmo'ok closed his eyes, going back to sleep.

--------------------------

"BOSS! BOSS! WAKE UP!" Tak yelled.

Ullmo'ok opened his yes, lifting his two upper hands to rub at them. "Yes, Tak?"

"Trucker just signalled. You got a whole bunch of, and I quote, big metal coming your way."

"Wake up the boys," Ullmo'ok said, bringing his big mech up to full readiness. He waited for each of his gladiators. Nearly eighty in all. Even the maintenance crews, led by Krekit checked in. Finally the Terran Confederate Military forces checked in.

Everyone was ready.

"It's time for the Ultimate Show," He said over the 'command channel'.

And put his mech in motion.

-----------------------

V CORPS COMMAND MEMO

Extensive civilian shelters outfitted with psychic shielding arrays at the Kestimet Hoolangenar Mountains Refinery. Estimated numbers of civilians in shelters in excess of 320,000. Area is protected by civilian grade medium warmechs.

8th Infantry has deployed a company of air and point defense units as well as battalion of artillery configured for counter-battery operations.

Support these guys when you can. The leader is a known and MILINT compromised black marketeer, but he's been good to our guys and is taking care of his people.

--General Nodra'ak, V Corps, Commanding

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

KESTIMET INTERNAL MEMO

Lesser High Most Lo'omo'nan and his entire family as well as his servants have been kidnapped by his known law breaker nephew Ullmo'ok, who has seized control of the Hoolangenar Industrial Facility and may be planning on holding it for ransom.

At this time, do not speak to any press agents.

--------------------

3rd ARMOR DIVISION BROADCAST

HERE THEY COME, BOYS!

---General Trucker, Commander

Chapter Forty-Six (Ullmo'ok)

The massive duralloy doors, sheathed with endosteel and covered with radar scattering stealth paint opened with a screech that could be heard for over a mile. Out lumbered eighty mechs in the 450 to 500 ton range, all heavily armed and armored, piloted by beings who had dozens if not hundreds of arena battles under their belts. The pilots accelerated to a light jog, heading toward where the 'medium armored vehicles, mix of assault, air defense, self-propelled artillery, and anti-armor" were heading toward the industrial facility, accompanied by over three thousand infantry.

"OK, you want to disable the anti-armor first," Tak squealed, bouncing up and down. "Bring up your long range radar scanners."

Ullmo'ok realized he had no idea how the long range scanner worked. "Bring it up for me on screen five," he ordered, selecting the display that usually showed his point total. "Have the others bring up the long range radar on their point and ranking display."

"Um, Okie-dokie," Tak said. It was a bunch of concentric circles, with a line sweeping around in a clockwise direction fairly rapidly. At the far ring, at the top, where a narrow V terminated, a bunch of dots started showing. "We're six miles and closing."

"Not a problem," Ullmo'ok answered. He was calm, centered, that strange feeling of lacking something he had his entire life surrounding and filling him. "Hook me in to everyone else."

"Done. Go ahead," Tak said.

"All right. We've all fought in the arena, you know how to fight in your Bashmechs, we practiced in the simulators. We know we can take these guys," Ullmo'ok said. "Lets trashbash 'em up."

He paused, shooting a narco-stim into his arm before looking at Tak's display.

"Close the channel," he told Tak.

"Um, sure, boss," Tak said. After a moment Tak said: "Don't you have a warplan?"

"Yeah. Scrap 'em," Ullmo'ok said. "It's like any junker mechbash."

"Um, hang on," Tak said. Ullmo'ok say the communication light come on but didn't hear anything. After a minute the light went out. "Uh, boss, have you ever fought for real before?"

"Over three hundred matches. I can fight, Tak," Ullmo'ok said, feeling the narco-stim run through his veins, making his heart rate jump and easing his muscles. "Don't worry, we'll scrap these guys, go back for repair and reload, and wait for the next batch."

"Uh, are you sure, boss?" Tak asked.

Ullmo'ok sighed. "Yes, I'm sure. We ran a lot of simulations against the Terran Military Armed Services estimations of these machines. Even the ones we are heading toward."

"All right, boss," Tak sounded unsure to Ullmo'ok, but the aVI went silent.

The miles swept under his feet as the eighty mechs thundered toward the enemy.

"117 Artillery is dropping smoke and chaff to cover your advance and soften them up a little. They can only dedicate two companies so it'll be light fire. When you exit the cover you'll be a half mile from long to extreme range of your long range weaponry and 117 will cease fire," Tak said.

"All right," Ullmo'ok answered.

An alarm went off and the screen he usually showed himself the crowd on blanked to reveal another radar screen, this one tracking blue lines.

"What is that?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"That's point defense radar, boss," Tak said. "Um, those are friendly artillery rounds. I just told you about them."

"Ah, yes," Ullmo'ok said. He felt his tendrils tremble slightly and ignored it.

"Uh, ok, boss," Tak sounded really unsure and Ullmo'ok noticed that the transmission light came on again.

His forward radar was suddenly fogged out, like a solid wall had appeared.

"Pop a drone, boss," Tak said.

"Hey, my radar isn't working ahead of me," was the common thread of twenty of his men suddenly comlinking him.

"It's the stuff your aVI told you about," he reassured them. Half of them commented that they'd told the annoying little VI to be quiet.

"Boss, don't let them do that. I'm serious, I don't think that's a good idea," Tak said. "Turn on your EW suite, boss. Seriously, turn it on. Pop a drone and hit your EW."

"My what?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"For the sake of my Digital Omnimessiah!" Tak yelled. Ullmo'ok saw a power drain he wasn't used to.

"Stop that, I balance my power load carefully," Ullmo'ok said. "Don't make me turn you off like the others."

"You guys shouldn't turn us off, boss! I'm serious, it's a really bad idea going into this fight!" Tak squealed.

"It will be all right. They know how to fight," Ullmo'ok reassured the aVI. Little Tak seemed like a very nervous sort. Ullmo'ok wondered for a moment if there was a way to give the little guy a narcojet hit or not.

They were into the cloud. A few of his fellow gladiators cursed, but they all ran through the smoke, coming out. Ullmo'ok noticed that his radar kept fuzzing and wavering.

Ullmo'ok's aVI suddenly carated all the dots on his radar, marking them with different shapes and colors.

"There's the anti-armor vehicles, boss! Get 'em!" the aVI squeaked.

"Yes," Ullmo'ok said. He activated his datalink to his men. "Kill the anti-armor first!" He clicked off his datalink and sped up, sprinting across the terrain. His men gave a shout over the datalink, breaking into a run with him.

"Boss, what are you doing? Boss?" the aVI squealed. "Turn on your battle-screens!"

"Moving to attack," Ullmo'ok answered. "I don't have battle-screens."

Lasers were being fired from the Precursor machines. He could see them now, heavy, blocky, bristling with weapons and thick with armor. They all moved on tracks that churned the ground, ran over small buildings, crushed houses and trees. They were making a straight line toward the mining facility.

"Uh, boss?" Tak asked. "Turn on your battle-screens!"

More lasers were lancing out, hitting the mechs charging them. Particle cannons, fired at extreme range joined in. Missiles started being fired from the machines, small ones, medium ones, seekers. Each mech's point defense shot down ones coming at them, picked off a few other, then went silent.

"Boss?" The aVI barked as Ullmo'ok's point defense went silent. A particle beam raked Ullmo'ok's leg but a quick glance showed Ullmo'ok that it hadn't done much more than minimal damage to his leg's thick armor.

"Yes?" Ullmo'ok asked. He was satisfied that his point defense knocked down not only all of the ones coming at him but ones aimed at others too.

"Activating battle-screens!" Tak yelled. Ullmo'ok saw his power take a hit and his viewscreens shimmered slightly.

"What is that? Stop that, I need that power for my guns!" Ullmo'ok barked. "Clear my vision."

"You need that power for your screens or you're gonna get splattered!" Tak shot back. "How do you not know this? I'm like three hours old! Gimme a sec to compensate for the screens."

The displays cleared up right as Ullmo'ok increased power and pushed his speed back up, more lasers and missiles hitting, but this time deflected or detonated by a shimmering field surrounding him.

"SHOOT!" Tak screamed.

Tak jumped over a house, clearing it easily, and landed, raising his arms and triggering his missile launchers at the nearest set of tanks. Ullmo'ok knew missiles were point and shoot, the pilot's hand-eye mattering more than the computer reticle. The missiles, Terran military smart-weapons, shot out, blinked in surprised, armed, and impacted a second later before the VI's even went active. Both tanks shuddered, rocking back on their tracks, but continued forward, a half dozen craters in their forward glacis.

"BOSS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Tak screamed as Ullmo'ok raked the leading rank of tanks with his 200mm autocannons, his whole mech shuddering as he raked his massive fists across the front of the Precursor tanks. Ullmo'ok fired lasers, covered some in plasma-napalm, extended his sword and jumped into the air.

"BOSS! WHAT THE FUCK?" Tak shrieked as Ullmo'ok's massive feet slammed down on two enemy tanks, crushing them. He lunged forward and drove his sword through another tank, molten metal spraying from the impaled Precursor tank. He finished it off with a heavy laser shot as he yanked the chainsword free and turned to face the next one.

"Told you, going to mechbash these guys," Ullmo'ok said, feeling a slight trickle of something as two heavy cannon rounds his mech, forcing him back a step off the destroyed tanks.

He selected a single target and unloaded his two heavy missile pods, pouring a hundred heavy missiles into the front of the armor.

The missiles, normally long range smart missiles capable of dodging point defense, making popup attacks, or even circling wide to come around for another pass didn't even have a chance to completely unhash before they realized they were about to hit and armed the impact triggers.

The tank, a medium air defense tank with minimal armor, exploded into fury even as the missiles kept streaming into the fire, most of them barely able to fire up the sensors before they slammed into the ground and exploded. Most of the damage was from unburned fuel exploding and the sheer kinetic hit rather then their complex warheads designed to feet heavy warmech armor.

"BOSS! THIS ISN'T AN ARENA FIGHT!" Tak shrieked. "WHAT THE FUCK, BOSS?"

A shot hit Ullmo'ok from the side and he turned in place, firing his autocannons as he did so, raking it across the front and sides of the robot tanks around him.

"Boss, you're losing men! I mean, really losing men! You gotta run!" Tak said. "Total armor is down by 50% and you're getting close to getting blow-through!"

Ullmo'ok bellowed and fired everything he had at a tank, his cockpit flushing with heat. Lasers, cannon shot, autocannon, and particle beams were raking at his mech. His point defense was overheating and he was losing armor fast.

"Boss, run!" Tak yelled. "I'm overwhelmed! I can't can't can't can't allocate screen-een-eens and point-tah-tah-tah defense-se-se."

"Everyone, back to base," Ullmo'ok said, finishing his turn and running out, stomping on tanks as he went, slashing right and left with his chainsword, firing his weapons into the side of the tanks. He got clear, running back into the remains of the smoke and chaff, confident the others were right behind him.

There was silence for a long time, broken only by the whirring of the cooling fans in the cockpit, the thud of his mech's feet, and the howl of his point defense going off.

He broke free of the smoke, running for the cave where the repair teams were.

"Close Air Support from 3-12 is coming in to clean it up," Tak said, his voice quiet. "117 is supporting them. They can dedicate the entire brigade now."

"All right," Ullmo'ok said.

It was silent for a long time. The small quarry that the cave opened up into came into view before Tak spoke again.

"That wasn't a sim or an arena fight, boss," Tak said.

"I know," Ullmo'ok answered.

"No, boss, I don't think you do," Tak said.

The aVI was quiet as Ullmo'ok slowed down and came to a stop in the quarry. Nearly a dozen of his fellow gladiator's mechs were already there, being worked on by mechanics. He was pleased to see how light the damage was, although it looked to him as if they'd taken a lot of damage to the rear quarter.

"I'm gonna talk to some friends," Tak said softly as Ullmo'ok started to shut down his mech.

"All right," Ullmo'ok said. The mech slowly shut down, a winding sound moaning through the cockpit. He popped the armored hatch and took a breath of fresh air. He could smell scorched and burnt metal, hot lubricant, and overheated cooling-cores. He breathed deep, relishing the cool air even though his bashmech was radiating heat. The ladder steps that he'd customized for his four legged form deployed and he moved down them. Mechanics were rushing forward with coolant hoses, grinders, welders and he moved past them.

Feeling the flush of victory from his first mass combat he moved toward where his fellow gladiators were, looking around for the narcobrew as he did so.

That was all right, but it still felt... lacking, he thought to himself.

----------------------------

"This is it?" Ullmo'ok asked, staring at the last mech to come in. It was stumbling junk, both legs ravaged down to the warsteel internal structures. Actuators were blown out, artificial muscle fiber was shredded or missing, armor was completely gone. The bashmech was stumbling junk, half of its weapons destroyed.

"That's it, boss," one of the mechanics said. "Everyone else is dead or had to eject."

"And got slaughtered by those machines before they could even get out of their ejection seats," One of his fellow gladiators, Mustlik, said, shaking his head. "If that bombing didn't happen and those aircraft hadn't have started pounding them, they would have gotten me too."

The Frestilek put his face in his hands and began crying. "I can't do it, Ullmo'ok, I can't go back into something like that again."

Ullmo'ok nodded, staring at the gladiator's mech. It had been ravaged by missile fire, laser beams, and particle beams. There was a hole clear through the lower torso on the mech, its skirting missing.

Only forty-three had made it back. The mechanics had told Ullmo'ok that eight of them were too damaged to return to service quickly, it would take a week or more working full time to fix them.

On of the other gladiators led Mustlik away, patting the smaller being on his back. The one leading Mustlik away glared at Ullmo'ot, clacking her beak in agitation.

"I will not go back either. I'm a Bashmech driver, not someone to race to the slaughter," she clacked.

Ullmo'ok shrugged. "I will not force anyone to fight who does not want to."

"Boss," Tak spoke up for the first time in hours.

"Yes?" Ullmo'ok answered, taking a sip off his narcobrew.

"We need to talk, somewhere private," the aVI said, it's voice was deeper, less squeaky, and sounded very serious.

Ullmo'ok got up and moved to the old mine supervisor's office, resting on the sling-like chair.

"What?" Ullmo'ok asked, taking another drink.

"That happens again, and you're dead. Your family in those bunkers are dead," The aVI said.

Ullmo'ok gave the equivalent of a shrug. "All right."

"Boss, did you train at all?" Tak asked.

"Simulators. Against Terran VR representations of Precursor machines," Ullmo'ok said. He unwrapped a ration and shoved it into his mouth, pushing it into his jowls so he could chew it slowly. "True, we did better in the simulators, but I think we did well. We stopped them, didn't we?"

"That was one battle, boss. This is the ninety-eighth century, not a battlefield in Europe during the Bronze Age!" Tak said. "By the Digital Omnimessiah, boss, did all of you do solo fights in the simulators?"

"We trained at the same time. Why?" Ullmo'ok said.

"No, were all of you on the same VR battlefield?" Tak asked.

"No. We each watched the others to learn from them," Ullmo'ok answered. "We knew we could fight next to each other. We had fought one another, we knew each other's tactics."

"Arena tactics, boss," Tak said. "Arena tactics. This was one battle in a war that might last for months, years, depending on how much metal the Precursors are willing to bring to bear."

"We did well," Ullmo'ok said. "We outfought the..."

"No, boss, you didn't. Your entire force destroyed less than one hundred-twenty tanks, damaged only two hundred, and in return you lost almost fifty medium grade mechs," Tak interrupted. "You took over fifty percent casualties and only inflicted twenty-percent on the enemy. If it wasn't for 3-12 and 117 those Precursors would be digging your family out of those bunkers to tear them apart with their claws. Boss, you barely touched their infantry support."

Ullmo'ok frowned. He remembered destroying at least a half dozen.

"Why didn't you shoot boss? Why?" Tak asked. His voice sounded close to tears. "Why didn't you order them to turn on their electronic warfare suites or battle-screens? Why did you sprint at them like that?"

Ullmo'ok thought. "It's how we fight."

"I had friends on those mechs, boss. You didn't know what you were doing and you ran straight into a meat grinder and got them all killed," Tak said. "I might only be eight hours old, but those were my friends, we were hashed together. Half of them died in their sleep, boss. Warbois, dying in their sleep."

"My condolences. I did not know your kind formed attachments so quickly," Ullmo'ok answered.

"Boss, what about your fellow gladiators?" Tak asked.

Ullmo'ok shrugged. "They died gloriously, in combat, just like they were all prepared to do in the arena."

There was silence a moment. "No, boss, they didn't."

There was silence a moment.

"You got them killed. You wasted them. I'm not sure if I want to be your warboi any more."

And Tak was gone.

Ullmo'ok sat in the office, sipping his narcobrew, trying to understand what the aVI had been telling him.

----------------------

"All right, hook me in," Ullmo'ok said, staring at the technician. The Puntimat nodded, reaching out and hitting the keyboard.

Ullmo'ok felt his awareness expand. He was over the battlefield, looking down, the feed from multiple Terran satellites all merged by the technicians. He had asked Tak to get him some data and Tak had reluctantly agreed.

He saw his mechs, in a ragged staggered line, charging forward. Some stumbled and recovered, some slid, a few almost tripped on buildings. He saw designations come up in a line in front of the mechs and then around the Precursor machines his mechs were running toward. He'd seen those markings on his radar and scanner screens and queried his implant.

Artillery markers. Type, estimated time to impact, unit of origin, target.

Ullmo'ot loaded the information in his datalink into QikRAM, so it would automatically come to mind when he saw those markings again.

The artillery shells started hitting, creating a solid looking barrier of white smoke, chaff, and EM jammers. Other artillery rounds, anti-armor and fuel air, started detonating among the tanks.

He saw his mechs charge through the smoke, saw new icons pop up. According to his datalink that meant 117 Field Artillery Brigade had stopped firing. By the time they came out of the smoke the last of the rounds had hit.

Most of the infantry had been destroyed by the fuel-air.

He stopped the replay, then watched from each cockpit.

Each gladiator fought like masters. Putting fire into the tanks, raking them with autocannons, lasers, missiles, ballerinas in a ballet of death. Each one that went down fell to superior numbers, going down yelling and firing. Some ejected, their mechs smashed to junk.

After the last one, he rewound the sim and played it again.

He watched his own mech and that of the gladiators sprint into the Precursor tanks. Four of the mechs stopped, firing missiles from just outside the smoke. Firing heavy lasers and the lighter autocannons that didn't kick so badly and could stay on target. One went down from a lucky particle beam that punched through the cockpit.

The rest, the seventy-five, charged in, laying about them with their weapons in a frenzy. Three times Ullmo'ok saw a mech accidentally hit another one. Once from the rear, blowing the friendly mech apart. The tanks began concentrating on the mechs inside their own formation, shifting rapidly. The slower anti-tank vehicles maneuvered, getting shots on the mechs.

Less than thirty of them had their battle-screens and the electronic warfare suite activated. Most of them only had one or the other. As he watched they were pounded on, hammered, reduced to scrap. One, then two, then more began to run away. Those without battle-screens barely made it halfway to the smoke before getting destroyed.

Only some of them ejected.

He saw himself give tell the others to run. Only a dozen made it, most of those staggering. The ones that had stayed by the fading wall of smoke turned and ran when they saw Ullmo'ok coming.

He kept watched as artillery started hammering the tanks, followed by aircraft roaring in to drop heavy explosives. It took six passes, and two of the aircraft were blown out of the sky, and another artillery barrage before the Precursor tanks were stopped.

The sim ended and Ullmo'ok gasped as he opened his eyes. The techs were looking at him and he motioned for a narcobrew. After he had a few drinks to settle down he nodded.

"Load up the file Tak got me. I want to see it. I need to know," Ullmo'ok stated.

The world vanished in a dazzle of pixels, loading back up another composite view. This time was fifty light military grade mechs, roughly the same firepower and armor and shielding as his own. They were advancing on nearly three times what Ullmo'ok and his force had attacked.

He had asked Tak to find him a sim like this, as close to what his own battle had been like between forces and terrain.

He watched as they didn't sprint through the cloud, they walked, a slow steady metronome of steps. He saw drones pop up. He had drones on his own mech, but hadn't used them. From the cloud was fired heavy missiles. His datalink implant identified them as long range missiles. He watched them streak in, going to evasive maneuvers, hugging low to the ground, only popping up at the last second to hit the top of the Precursor vehicles. The mechs fired staggered, one set then another while the first reloaded, keeping the area flooded with missiles. The more enemy tanks that were destroyed, the more gaps appeared in the point defense, the more missiles hit. A few of the light mechs fired off smoke and chaff of their own, keeping the mechs surrounded by the cloud. More drones popped up, getting targeting data for the mechs. Artillery joined in, the rounds impacting with more accuracy thanks to the drones. The mechs expended 20% of their missile loads and stopped firing.

The smoke starteed to clear and the mechs began advancing on the tattered remained of the tanks, firing long range weapons. Only a few of the tanks had the reach to strike back. Ullmo'ok noted that the light mechs worked in teams, three to five each concentrating on the heavier tanks till it exploded.

They moved through the wreckage, pausing at each wreck, firing short range but powerful plasma guns, the type that the gladiators used to augment fist punches, into the shattered Precursor mechs.

The replay sim ended as the mechs moved on.

It didn't seem like a proper battle to Ullmo'ok, who was used to getting in his foe's face. It seemed almost dishonorable.

Until he saw the casualties.

None. Hardly any armor damage. Less than 20% of munitions used, including the drones.

That group of mechs were still fighting, still engaged in combat. They had only been reloaded once during the day and had not needed to stop to be repaired.

"End sim," Ullmo'ok said. When the world cleared he lifted up his narcobrew and took a long drink off of it. "Get the Bashmech pilots still willing to fight."

The mechanic nodded as Ullmo'ok went into his datalink, looking for anything that would help him.

------------------

Twenty-five bashmech pilots, that was all he had left willing to fight.

"All right, boss, we'll listen. For now," The leader, Frestilek named Cranten, said, his voice serious.

"I made a mistake," Ullmo'ok said honestly. The others all nodded in agreement. "We trained in the simulators, we trained in the arena, but we did not train together. Worse, I found a quote from a long ago Terran leader that summed up what happened.

"Simulation training is nothing like field exercise training. Field exercise training is nothing like battle. Battle is nothing like war. Men must be trained to work with one another, to know what the man on his left and right will do, to know and understand how an army makes war."

Ullmo'ok finished the quote and stared at his fellow gladiators for a long moment. "I trained us for one on one fighting, we practiced in our mechs, but we did not do what Terrans call field exercise, and this is why I led you all to your deaths. We should have trained, all together, to work as one. Like cogs in a well made machine," he finished.

"Watch the recording I sent you. Look it over. See how the Terrans fight, how a military fights," Ullmo'ok said. He heaved a deep breath. "Then decide if you still wish to fight with me, because that is how we must fight and there is no time for practice."

The others nodded, slowly breaking away from the group, leaving Ullmo'ok alone.

"Boss?" Tak said quietly.

"Yes?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"You don't have long," Tak said.

"How long?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"A few hours. The Precursors, that Jotun nearby, he sent more. A lot more. All light armor units and robotic infantry, but a lot of them. They're carrying close range anti-tank weaponry," Tak said. "Boss, you can't stop them, not if you fight like that again."

-----------------------------

V CORPS MEMO

TO: aVI-4236a55z24 "Tak"

Request for reassignment denied. Train them up, teach them to fight. You have access to the training library, use it. Help these people help themselves.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

KESTIMET DEFENDS REFINERY SUCCESSFULLY

Kistimet CorpSec forces successfully defended the refinery held by the outlaw Ullmo'ok, despite the lack of Terran military forces. CorpSec has reported only minimal casualties while destroying the entire Precursor force of thousands sent to attack the critical facility, perhaps offered the valuable refinery by the outlaw Ullmo'ok.

CorpSec wishes to remind all Corporation Citizens and Employees that they are only contracted to protect you if you are in a designated shelter.

Chapter Forty-Seven (Ullmo'ok)

Ullmo'ok looked at his gathered up Bashmech pilots, all of them taking deep drinks of their narcobrews before setting the mugs down. He could see they were worried, anxious, afraid. He wondered, for a moment, what it was like for them, then mentally shrugged and got down to business.

"There's a lot of Precursor machines heading for us. Apparently they are all carrying heavy short range missiles, even the robot infantry," he told them.

"So they're going to chew us up like a cargomech against a bashmech," Woxtow muttered.

"If we go in like we did, then yes," Ullmo'ok said. "Did you all review the record I sent you?"

They all nodded.

"Did you see what we did wrong?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"We took arena bashmechs into a military fight?" Susxto guessed.

Ullmo'ok nodded. "I had us take arena mechs to a war. Most of our weapons are modified, adjusted, calibrated for the arena. Some of our weapons are still on low power. The mechanics are fixing them, putting them back to their original standards."

"The Terrans should have warned us! Should have protected us better," Ixnartray said.

"Perhaps," Ullmo'ok agreed. He pointed at the speaker. "Tak, tell us what we would need to learn to fight like the Terrans."

The little speaker vibrated for a second. "OK, boss. You would need to learn radio procedure, maneuver and fire formations, weapon ranges, effective warboi use, how to use variable munitions, rank structure, mission planning, how to use satellite and recon drones, first aid, how to interlock a war plan, logistics support, how to call in close air support and artillery, how to..."

"That's good, Tak," Ullmo'ok said, seeing that half his pilots were already lost and confused. "How long does it take the Terrans to train a bashmech pilot?"

"It takes nearly a year to train a warmech pilot and that is after taking a year to teach them the basics," Tak added. "That's not counting sim, VR, and eVR time. Then a warmech pilot would be sent somewhere to do basic combat operations in a hazardous environment for two to three years."

"Much longer than we had," Ullmo'ok stated. "Make no mistake, individually we fought brilliantly. We're all brave, we're all skilled, but we made a mistake."

"What mistake is that?" Klemikit asked.

"We didn't listen to or talk to the warbois," Ullmo'ok said. "Mine told me to turn on battle-screens, kept asking me for my warplan, told me to turn on my electronic warfare, didn't understand what we were doing."

"Then let them pilot the bashmechs," Susxto said. "He can have mine."

"It doesn't work that way, boss," Tak said. Susxto looked at the speaker. "I can run the reactor, focus the battle-screens, run your commo, help with targeting, fire weapons when you tell me, keep your EW at max performance, but, to be honest, if you tried to have me pilot the mech I'd fall down. I don't have legs."

Ullmo'ok nodded. "He's never had a body. He doesn't know how to move. He handles stuff that we don't do instinctively because those are his instincts. He doesn't have all the wiring we do that we use just to stand up and keep our balance."

Susxto sat back down, looking mollified.

"But why didn't the Terran government stop us?" Ixnartray asked. "They had to have known we'd get massacred. It's the government's job to keep us safe."

"Because they aren't our parents," Ullmo'ok stated. When everyone looked at him confused he gave the equivalent of a shrug. "I looked at the Terran Confederacy legal code. I can sum it up for those of us who grew up under the Unified Tyrants as one simple sentence."

Ullmo'ok took a long drink, waiting for the others to say something.

"What?" Ixnartray finally asked.

"Do as you will as long as you do no harm to others," Ullmo'ok said. "If you dance in traffic and get killed the Terran government just lists your cause of death as being stupid. If you play with a rock cutter charge and chew on it and blow your head off, it is not the fault of the charge maker, the mine, or even your parents, it is your fault. There's protections for the mentally unstable or defective, for some children, but by and large, the Terran government just doesn't care. It doesn't pretend to care. I even lets you know it doesn't care. It expects you to take care of yourself if you are able."

All of his bashmech pilots looked at one another, confusion on their faces.

"Local governments might care, but the Terran Confederacy does not," Ullmo'ok shrugged.

"But... but..." Woxtow started, then stopped. "Who will keep us safe? What if a corporation put out a defective product? Who would protect us from it?"

"That is different. The corporation would be punished if they did so knowingly, punished if they did not recall the product. But should you have been warned, go behind the government's back, acquire that product anyway, and your feet fall off, then that is your fault," Ullmo'ok said. He shrugged. "I find it reassuring."

"But, but, how will we stay safe without the government to protect us?" Ixnartray asked.

Ullmo'ok stared at the other being. "Do you remember what we do?"

Ixnartray shrugged. "Pilot bashmechs."

"Illegally. We gamble. Illegally. We sell drugs. Illegally. Rent out joyboys and coingirls. Illegally. We curse the government for stopping us from having fun. We call ourselves outlaws and gangsters. We boast we are beyond the government and now you want them to save you?" Ullmo'ok laughed like bagpipes being jumped on by a gorilla. "We are indeed intelligent life."

"Uhh, boss?" Tax said.

"Yes?" Ullmo'ok looked at the speaker.

"I got General Trucker on the line. He wants to know if you can talk."

"Put him through," Ullmo'ok wanted to know just how angry the Terran was.

"Ullmo'ok, can you hear me?" The Terran asked. There was a lot of static.

"Yes," Ullmo'ok answered.

"Good, good. Listen, you've got a whole shit-pot of light metal heading your way. That Jotun wants that refinery and it looks like it wants it intact. You did better than I thought against the last group. At least you went out and engaged them," the signal fuzzed out for a moment.

"Dammit, can you hear me, Ullmo'ok?"

"I can hear you."

"All right. They can't take that refinery intact. If you can't fight, you let me know, and I'll scrap the whole place with atomics and park a Bolo on it. I'll use airbursts so your shelters stay intact, but I'll have to wipe that refinery off the map. If you and your men want to fight, engage them at range," Trucker said.

"If my men and I should fail, what will you do?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"I'll do what I've planned to do since the beginning. I'll blow it off the map with a 1.2 megaton thermonuclear airburst and park a Bolo over it," Trucker said. "Then, after the battle's over, I'll dig your families out once the Precursors are defeated."

"Excellent. The shelters can withstand that. My men and I are willing to fight," Ullmo'ok said.

"Listen, I can't spare you a combat leadership AI. You don't have the bandwidth out there. Your aVI's are the next best thing, but they can't do it without you. I know you're not soldiers, but do your best," the signal fuzzed over, devolving to dot and dash codes, a high pitched static sound, then some sounds like metal being stressed and then the tension released.

"I'm trying to get him back," Tak said.

"Go to your bashmechs. I will be there shortly. We will do our best to fight well," Ullmo'ok said.

The other bashmech pilots nodded, the clump breaking up and streamed away.

"...read me? Ullmo'ok, do you read me?" Trucker's voice came back.

"Yes," Ullmo'ok said.

"Listen, I don't know what your government is telling you, but this is an all hands on deck situation. If I had my way I'd be having 8th Infantry handing out rifles to your plant workers and having the rest of the civilians rolling bandages and loading magazines. Our plans estimated twelve Goliaths. Fifty-plus hit us across the system. We still aren't interlocked with your government and corporate forces. Your government refused to let us put ammunition on the ground so we're running the nanoforges and creation engines till the slush spills out. There's no more heavy metal to back us up and I put out a call that even includes idiots and civilian irregulars," Trucker said. "If I'd known how it was going to go down, I'd have disregarded protocol and interlocked you earlier despite your government saying they could handle anything that came across the boundary zone."

"Understood," Ullmo'ok said. The Terrans had thrown the dice with their warplan but come up triple-fours.

"Do your best, Ullmo'ok. Every Precursor you turn to scrap helps. It's that bad," Trucker said. "Trucker, out."

"Goodbye," Ullmo'ok said, standing up. He drained his narcobrew and headed out of the cave, blinking at the sunlight. The Terrans had misjudged. "Tak, prep Pleasure & Glory for combat operations please."

"Ok, boss," Tak said. "Boss, do you think it's really that bad?"

"He would not lie to me. There is no profit or advantage in it," Ullmo'ok answered.

"Do you think he'll really use atomics?" Tak asked.

"I would."

--------------------

"Boss, we don't have any artillery or close air support and the sat-links are down," Tak said. "You're going to want to start loading EW-rounds in your missile banks after this. I should have thought of it."

"It's all right. You cannot account for everything. We shall do our best," Ullmo'ok said. He tabbed a narcostim into his leg and checked his screens. The layout was strange, but Ullmo'ok knew he'd quickly get used to it. He wasn't like every other Lanaktallan who brayed and moaned when things changed. He wasn't a good Lanaktallan, he knew that. There was something wrong with him, everyone said so. He couldn't bring himself to care about what good Lanaktallan's cared about.

But he could keep the Precursors from digging his aunt and uncle and cousins out of the shelters and tearing them apart.

"It's raining. Lots of vaporized metal and ash in the droplets. That will fuzz your sensors a little depending on the range. I will compensate as best I can, boss," Tak said. "Two miles to target."

"All bashmechs, slow to a walk. Calibrate for long range," Ullmo'ok said. "Ready drones for launch. Warbois will pilot them."

He was surprised that Ixnartray did not remind him that he was not the boss of her.

"There's close to ten thousand of them. Whew," Tak said. "Drones ready."

"Everyone, launch your drones. Let's get a look at the enemy," Ullmo'ok said. "Remember to put the feed on a screen and look at it."

The drones popped up from the launchers that had previously been used to launch fireworks. Ullmo'ok watched, slightly disinterested, as the fast little aircraft activated their cameras and moved into position. Ullmo'ok could tell that the warbois had discussed their plans with one another. Some went wide, some went high, some stayed low, and others swept forward in a fast line. His own mech chugged out three, 5% of his total load of drones.

The landscape was different than it looked on the maps. There was a valley where they had not been, nearly a mile across. A large gouge ripped through the earth in the middle of the valley, creating a canyon nearly a hundred meters deep. The Precursor robots had been forced by terrain to split their forces. They were crossing what looked like smooth stone, broken by slight ripples.

"What caused that?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"Orbital strike," Tak answered. "Caught one of the Jotun's big boys out in the open. A mobile refinery heading toward you. What's left of it is at the bottom of the canyon."

"I see," Ullmo'ok said.

The Precursor robots were mostly hover, with what looked like crude copies of Terrans hanging off every surface, holding tight to missile launcher tubes. There were things that looked like crustaceans, things with tracks, things that walked on long stilt legs, others that slowly turned as they hovered.

Simulations usually showed the Precursors using hundreds or thousands of the same craft. Ullmo'ok made a small note to himself to change the parameters on his sims.

"Recommendations?" Ullmo'ok asked. Tak had been created to fight wars, Ullmo'ok felt it would be foolish to disregard his knowledge. He would ask Woxtow what the best fruit narcobrew was.

"Chaff mortars first. Since we know the wavelengths of the chaff we use missiles to start off with. Run EW suites, if they respond with heavy missile fire, pop more chaff and flares," Tak said. "Keep them at a distance, they look to all have short and medium range weaponry," Tak hummed a second. "This was tailor made to slaughter you if you tried the same tactics."

"Logical," Ullmo'ok stated. He opened a channel. "Missile volleys first. Let the warbois select the targets and allocate the missiles. You launch and watch."

"Boss, we really like doing this. We're used to helping," Tak said. "Give the word, we're ready."

"All bashmechs check your number. Even will fire, then odd will fire, that way someone is always firing missiles," Ullmo'ok ordered.

The drones were getting wiped out, but they were transmitting more than enough data. They'd identified to the point defense radar's wavelength, transmitting it to the mech's warbois, which loaded the scanner data into the mortar shells. The mortars thumped, previously used for fireworks and colored smoke, and the mortar shells dropped down. The Precursor machine's point defense hit a lot of them, but that still let the chaff deploy, degrading their point defense and letting more spread their chaff.

The screen got a little fuzzy but because the warbois knew the wavelengths the chaff had been designed to foul, the warbois could compensate and tell the missiles what to look for.

The mechs, all 450-500 tons of war machine, all began firing missile volleys. One group firing while the next reloaded. The missiles screamed out, unable to use stealth like their stellar counterparts, instead just relying on speed and bare bones maneuvering as they went hypersonic, roaring in at over Mach-10. While the Precursor machines were nearly blind the missiles could see clearly through the small hole in the chaff's scanner defeating jamming.

"We should start mixing EW warheads," Tak suggested.

"What are those?" Ullmo'ok asked, feeling his mech shudder as it launched missiles. He'd noticed another reason for the staggered volley, it let his mech cool slightly between launches.

"Strobes, chaff, jammers, screamers, coughers, magic mirrors, stuff like that. Gives them false readings, jams up their sensors, tries to infect them with computer viruses through scanner input. It's to make your missiles more effective," Tak said.

"Yeah, do that," Ullmo'ok said.

"Um, how about one in twenty, we don't have many loaded," Tak said.

"Yes," Ullmo'ok said, watching the different feeds. He had expected the warbois to aim at all the front ones, instead the missiles were slipping in between enemy EW and point defense, knocking bigger and bigger holes in the point defense net.

"This does not feel right," Jestrix said suddenly.

"You would prefer the last fight? By all means, run down there, we will use the data of your death to plan our assault," Ullmo'ot stated.

Jestrix didn't answer.

Ullmo'ok noticed that some of the infantry robots were trying to use their missiles as point defense, but in a section of the grid they were scanning around as if they were blind. "Do you see that, Tak?"

"What?" Tak asked.

"Grid D-7, the infantry robots look blind," Ullmo'ok said.

"Got the wavelength, gonna see if it works. Other warbois are loading it now. Firing."

Ullmo'ok watched as it looked like all the robotic infantry suddenly went blind.

"Enemy is entering extreme range from direct fire weapons," Tak said.

"What's our missile count?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"We're at ninety percent still," Tak said.

"Back up, keep firing," Ullmo'ok ordered. "Activate battle-screens and EW. Fire long range energy weapons, don't consume ammo this are out."

"Will do, boss," Tak said. "Everyone acknowleges."

More and more gaps were appearing in point defense, the infantry weapons were obviously single shot, slow missiles, that the incoming missiles just rolled to avoid. The infantry robots began firing with their additional weapons, lasers and plasma, but obviously could not see.

Several times Ullmo'ok's targeting reticle flashed yellow and he took the shot with heavy lasers or particle beam cannons. His arena skills came in handy here, making difficult shots quickly, knowing how to cycle his weapons to keep his heat managable.

"They're retreating," Tak said.

"Move forward," Ullmo'ok ordered.

"Boss?" Tak said.

"Yes?"

"Pop a drone, sweep it around behind them. It might be an ambush. Precursors don't care about casualty numbers beyond resource expenditure and gain," Tak said. "Remember that Jotun wants the refinery and the mines."

"Understood. Do so," Ullmo'ok ordered. He watched the drone launch, configure for stealth, and sweep around low and slow.

"See, boss, what did I tell you?" Tak said. The machines hiding just beyond the hills and beyond the range of sensors were massive. Large flattened eggs bristling with weapons. "You would have walked right into that."

"I see," Ullmo'ok said. He examing the data the drone was streaming back. Heavier weapons than his mech mounted, thicker point defense, thicker armor. The machines were heavier than his own mech, which was the largest of the bashmechs. The drone beeped excitedly and sent back the wavelengths the Precursor machines were using.

That narrow gap he'd left for his own missiles.

"What if we did this: fire EW with the same profile as we were using for the entire first wave, then drive in behind them, firing off EW in our gap, and drive the missiles through that way?" Ullmo'ok suggested.

"Lemme talk to the boys, boss. Keep up the fire but don't advance, OK?" Tak said.

"Everyone, keep up missile fire, do not advance. They have more hiding, trying to lure us in," Ullmo'ok ordered.

He waited, feeling bored, watching the missiles pounding the Precursor machines.

He felt nothing.

"OK, boss, we've got it figured out," Tak said. It showed a quick sim of the attack. It looked fine to Ullmo'ok. "Should we do it?"

"Go ahead," Ullmo'ok said. He gave a sigh and injected a straight stim into his leg. He was getting sleepy from boredom. He watched as the missiles reconfigured firing order then launched. they went in at the bigger machines in two prongs, EW leading the way. The Precursors held off on firing their point defense, obviously intending on luring the missiles in for better targeting data. When the second wave of EW cut loose it became obvious the big machines were blind. The missiles rolled, chose their targets, then shifted into a straight line.

"Why are they doing that?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"Fire the Leader targeting," Tak answered.

The missiles all drove in on the same point, the crater getting deeper and deeper until finally the last ten or so of the long range missiles pounded into the interior of the Precursor machine. Fire and vaporized metal gouted out of the wound. Five of the machines exploded. The rest of them turned to face the two directions the missiles had streaked in from. There were twenty left.

"Fire again. Reverse the targeting EW," Ullmo'ok ordered.

"Oh, good idea, boss," Tak said. The second set began to launch.

"Fire a third set immediately after, double volley, maximum acceleration, straight into their face. No EW, just speed and warhead," Ullmo'ok ordered.

"OK, boss," Tak said.

The second volley was slowly approaching, hugging the ground, swerving around obstacles. The third volley roared out, bypassing the retreating combat machines. Less than 10% were knocked out.

The second volley activated the EW drones and went to supersonic immediately afterwards. At the same time the third volley went hypersonic.

The Precursor machines, hit from three sides, their jammers off bandwidth and their seekers using the wrong scanner data, had their point defense system fall apart. The missiles hammered in, over half of the vehicles exploding.

"Same thing, reverse, add a fourth on a high parabolic arc," Ullmo'ok answered.

"Boss, our ammo levels," Tak reminded.

"I'll send half back for reload while the rest of us stand guard, then we'll switch off," Ullmo'ok said. "We have no sat-scans or other battlefield data. It relies on our eyes," Ullmo'ok stated.

"If you're sure," Tak said.

"What would be your advice?" Ullmo'ok said.

"Umm, I don't know," Tak said.

"Then let us try my way," Ullmo'ok said.

The third 'volley' tore into the massive machines with even better effect. Ullmo'ok watched as the last of them exploded, then ordered a fourth volley to clean up the last of the original machines. He sighed and sent back half of his pilots to reload their ammo.

He felt nothing.

------------------

"That did not feel proper," Trekez said, staring at his mech, which was being reloaded with ammunition. "It lacked glory and honor."

Ullmo'ok drew his pistol, ignoring the sudden hiss of worry from the onlookers, and tossed it to Trekez. "There you go. Feel free to put that in your mouth. At least then nobody else will get killed and your bashmech will still be available for the same effect."

"I didn't mean..." Trekez said, carefully putting the needler on the table.

"It is all right, friend. I realize what you mean," Ullmo'ok said, walking over to the table. He picked up a narcobrew bottle and cracked it open, putting the needler back in his pocket with his two lower hands. He offered Trekez the bottle and when the other being too it grabbed himself one.

"Doesn't the lack of glory both you? You, who fought the hardest for glory?" Illtrek asked.

Ullmo'ok shrugged. "What is the use of glory or honor is nobody survives to witness it? Who do we point our finger at and call out to witness us, if the Precursors kill everyone? We will help the Terrans destroy this menace and rebuild the Arena. If we fall, then we witness one another and perhaps the Terrans will witness what we did in historical TriVids," Ullmo'ok took a swig of narcobrew.

"My parents, my siblings, my husbands, my broodcarriers, my podlings, they are all in the shelters. I care not for honor and glory, I care only for them," Plunketi'ik said, lifting up her narcobrew. "If I must die and this Trucker must use atomics to scour away the factory so the Precursors no longer care, then that is what must be done. I am with you, Mooky."

"I thank you," Ullmo'ok said, nodding. "I will force none to fight who do not wish to. Nap, eat, while your bashmechs are reloaded."

Ullmo'ok turned away, walking to the nearby holotank.

"Tak, show me a replay of the battle. Point out what you see," Ullmo'ok ordered.

--------------------

More battles followed, mostly the Jotun sending more mechanized minions to take the factory and Ullmo'ok wiping them out with missiles and long range weaponry. It was becoming almost mechanical, something Ullmo'ok felt could be done by a machine, not even requiring as complex programming as Tak.

It was the second day that things went sideways, to use a Terran term.

"Precursor forces down to 15% remaining," Tak said. Ullmo'ok noticed that even the aVI seemed bored. "Missile and indirect fire munitions down to 60%."

"Keep up the pressure. We'll rotate out and reload now, we can finish off the remainder even at one-third strength," Ullmo'ok ordered.

"Gotcha, boss," Tak said. "Sixteen heading back, eight staying. Going to rapid fire."

The last of the Precursor machines fell easily, even as his ammunition levels dropped. Ullmo'ok joined the other eight in moving through the wreckage, using lasers to destroy any power source, destroy any possibly active Precursor machines.

"Boss, I have incoming aircraft. They're not even trying to be sneaky about it," Tak said.

"How so?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"They're broadcasting ID and flying in the normal flight paths. They say they're CorpSec and Planetary Executors," Tak said. "They're hailing you."

"Put it up on display-seven," Ullmo'ok said, focusing his cybereye on it.

A Lanaktallan, his crests inflated, his sash covered in decorations, appeared on the screen. He looked at Ullmo'ok, clad in his cooling vest and body-blanket only and curled his tendrils in disgust. The sight of the cybereye made the Lanaktallan look physically ill.

"May I help you?" Ullmo'ok asked, firing a laser into the cracked hull of a weird looking crab with treads.

"I am Second Most High Executor Pru'thestic, in command of CorpSec and Executor forces," the Lanaktallan snapped. "Shut down your engines and present yourself for arrest."

"Why would I do that?" Ullmo'ok asked, watching the ships swoop down. They landed, outside the debris field, and the sides lowered to allow being in powered armor to exit the craft.

"The Planetary Corporate Council and the Planetary Executor Council will take control of those shelters you illegally built and put them to proper use," The Executor huffed. "You will be placed under arrest and remanded for summary execution as a know criminal who has now been caught in possession of illegal technology and weaponry."

"I will not allow them to eject my podlings for the shelters just so Corporate Executives can take their place," Plunketi'ik snarled over the comlink.

"And if I object?" Ullmo'ok asked. He turned his bashmech to face the dropships, aware that the other eight mechs were moving up next to him, keeping far enough apart their battlescreens wouldn't rub together.

"Then you will be destroyed," the Executor stated, his tendrils shaking with excitement.

Ullmo'ok felt something. That thing he had felt so long just out of reach.

"Come then," Ullmo'ok answered. "Witness us."

-------------------

8th INFANTRY DIVISION MEMO

We're still getting pushed back but the tempo is slowing. Looks like the Precursors have been forced to start manufacturing reinforcements and replacements. They're going to be desperate for resources soon. Keep up the pressure.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

144th ORDNANCE COMPANY

We've got the breathing room to reload the ammo stores of the 5th Irregulars. Our creation engines and nano-forges can cool down and de-slush on the way. They could probably use actual ammunition instead of civilian versions. Will head out once we're done reloading 1st Armored Recon.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

KESTIMET DEFENDS REFINERY SUCCESSFULLY THROUGH THE NIGHT!

Kistimet CorpSec forces, working with Planetary Executor forces, have held off heavy attacks by the Precursor forces throughout the last day and night at the Hoolangenar Industrial Facility, managing to clear the area. The Corpsec and Executor forces intend on engaging the criminal Ullmo'ok and liberating the facility and the shelters beneath in just hours.

The government shelters beneath the facility should be open to Senior Executives and higher soon.

Chapter Forty-Eight (Ullmo'ok)

The Second High Most expected the illegal fighters in the mechs to charge his dropships. He nearly two-thousand power armor ready to swarm the nine patchworking looking mechs in front him to pry the pilots out so they could be summarily executed. He was personally looking forward to exiting the cramped shelters in the center of the Executor Headquarters and moving to what seismic scouting had shown to be heavy and elaborate shelters beneath the mining facility. He already knew he'd use his planetary authority to order the Terran anti-aircraft and point defense units to either leave or follow his orders, then eject the rabble and useless drones from the shelter so those who, by right, should have been in those shelters could take their rightful places.

Ullmo'ok didn't bother charging, just opened the armored covers for his missiles launchers and started firing. The power-armor, barely taller than his foot, he raked with long range lasers and particle beams.

Armor exploded, the missiles, programmed to hammer through Precursor armor, sliced through the dropships like butter as the point defense barely had time to come online before the hypersonic missiles started blowing huge holes in the ships.

The feeling flickered and died as three quarters of the dropships exploded into shards, the shrapnel ripping through the still forming ranks of power armor. Autocannons, lasers, particle beams, magshot rounds, all ripped into the power armor as the mech pilots triggered a second salvo.

A few power armor groups charged, using their jump-packs to take to the air in big hops.

The mech pilots swept them out of the sky with lasers and autocannons.

Within seconds the armor was fleeing back to the dropships, several of the surviving handful of dropships attempting to take off only for the third volley of missiles to smash into them, collapsing deflector shields, overwhelming point defense that was more used to thrown home-made explosives that hypersonic missiles in a long stream or screaming swirling missiles, some of which exploded into submunitions that kicked in grav generators and slammed tungsten steel tips into the hulls of the dropships at nearly Mach-20.

"Goodbye, Executor," Ullmo'ok said emotionlessly to the image of the Second High Most. He then opened up with his rotating autocannon, slamming the 200mm shells, fired one every half second as the barrels rotated, into the hull. The single burst blew through the entire ship, exiting out the other side to slam against the next one.

He knew that his uncle, his aunt, his cousins, so young and innocent, would remain in their shelters as he raked the last of the power armor infantry with his non-consumable munition weapons.

He felt something then, a flicker, something. He didn't know what, but he felt for a second.

"All enemy down," Tak reported. "I don't think that went the way they expected."

"If it did, it was a poor plan," Ullmo'ok stated. "All pilots, back to the chokepoint. The Jotun undoubtedly hopes that we are damaged."

The other eight pilots just flashed icons for assent, following him back.

Plunketi'ik raked the shattered ranks of power armor once more just for good measure before turning and following Ullmo'ok. Her broodcarriers were swollen with squirming podlings grown from the eggs she had deposited and her husbands fertilized. She would not allow some pampered Executive who had looked down on the streets she had fought and clawed to survive on to take their place.

If she was fated to die, then so be it. Her husbands would sing her glory to the podlings.

The nine mechs, shimmering with heat, moved back to the end of the valley and waited.

Ullmo'ok was almost ready to radio back and find out what was taking so long when Tak spoke up.

"We've got satellite again. That mad-lad Trucker put a half-dozen Bolos in orbit! He did it, he actually did it!" Tak laughed. "Oh, and 144th Ordnance is arriving. They say they're going to load us up with munitions! They've even got maintenance techs and parts!"

"All right, everyone, let's head back," Ullmo'ok ordered.

Everyone was silent as they marched back. Gone was the chatter, the jokes, the usual talk. Instead, Ullmo'ok had noted that everyone appeared to be exhausted, even though they had been getting rest. He didn't feel tired, just bored.

"Tak?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"Yeah, boss, what's up?" Tak asked.

"Can you check everyone's vitals? I worry they may be tired," Ullmo'ok said.

"Yeah, just a second," Tak said. After a moment he answered. "A little tired, no more than normal."

"Why do they seem so exhausted? Why are they all so silent. Usually Destrixal does not be silent but he has said hardly two sentences since the first battle," Ullmo'ok said. "Is it, what was it called, a bioweapon?"

There was silence for moment. "Boss, do you not know about battle-fatigue?"

"Battles make you tired? Of course, that's why I insist they nap or sleep between," Ullmo'ok said. "That's why I suggested stims before battle."

"Well, it's, wait, you did what?" Tak said. "Boss, that's not a good idea. It's not a good idea even with a professional standing force."

"Why not?" Ullmo'ok asked, looking at the unused stim-pack sticking out of his pouch.

"It messes with your body chemistry, and I mean real bad. Just a few minutes of combat can leave you exhausted for a day or two, that's why sleep is so important to commanders," Tak said. "Boss, you guys aren't trained for this. You need to start rotating."

"Like with the ammunition?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"Like that. Only take like half of your force out, just have the rest on standby, eating or sleeping," Tak said. "Some of them will feel too tired to drink liquid or even eat."

"Oh," Ullmo'ok said. He felt fine, he had assumed the other did to. "Who should I have sleep?"

Tak sighed. "I don't know. According to my files, have the ones who took the most damage get some sleep. They're going to be the most tired."

"I shall follow your advice, warboi," Ullmo'ok stated.

He wished he had a narcobrew.

---------------------

"Captain Megran, 144th Ordnance Company. You must be Ullmo'ok," The Terran said. It still struck Ullmo'ok as odd when he saw a human who wasn't a warborg. The Terran had on body armor, with strength enhancement and a backpack more like a hump on his back, but nothing like the heavy body of a warborg. His face was fuzzy, orange and white, with a muzzle adorned with whiskers and a black nose, his mouth full of sharp pointed round canine teeth.

"I am known as such," Ullmo'ok said. He looked around at where humans were running everywhere. Some carrying technical looking equipment that must have outweighted them by five or six times. Some in massive cargo-mech frames were grabbing blocks of missiles and cannon and magshot and moving them over.

"This is all mil-spec ammo. Variable mission configurable missile warheads, all in the hypersonic range, mission configurable mortar rounds, same with your cannon and magshot rounds," The Terran said. "I'm having my men make sure your VI's know how to use them."

"We have advanced virtual intelligences," Ullmo'ok said.

The Terran raised one eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yes," Ullmo'ok said.

There was silence for a moment before the human cleared his throat. "Well, then. We'll reload your stores, some medical supplies and a medical VI, drop you some food and water, and get moving. We've got an armor brigade down to slush," the human said.

"Very well," Ullmo'ok said.

The Terran turned away, shaking his head and flicking his ears. He'd dealt with Lanaktallans before and usually they were blowing saliva, rattling those tendrils around, raising and lowering their crests, and shaking their jowls. That one had just been still, his eyes dead and empty, more life in his cybernetic eye.

He's probably just tired, Captain Megran thought to himself, wishing he could scratch the base of his tail through the armor.

Ullmo'ok moved over to where the narcobrew and the food was strewn out on a table. He took a bottle of brew and some condensed nutri-cud and watched the humans run around. It looked like complete anarchy to him but within a half hour the Terran who had talked to him came walking up.

"You're good to go. We can't drop a nano-forge or a creation engine here, too much metal in the rocks, they'd start doing extraction without taking a few hours to put up the proper shielding and running the proper protocols," the Terran said, his whiskers trembling. "Same reason we can't drop you an AI core, the AI would get drunk from the EM scatter in the metal without enough shielding and our nano-forges are mostly slush."

"Very well," Ullmo'ok said.

The Terran looked at him a moment, then shrugged and headed toward his vehicle. A sleek looking hovercraft with a quad-barrel ion-slug rapid fire gun on the back, a Terran leaning against it with a white stick in his mouth, blowing smoke and watching the sky.

Ullmo'ok knocked on the table with his almost empty bottle, getting his pilot's attention. Once he was sure he had it he spit out the plastic fiber wadding of the synth-cud on the ground and looked at them.

"Everyone get some sleep. We have satellites now to watch the Precursors for us," Ullmo'ok said. "I will wake you if you are needed. From now on, we only go out in groups of twelve with a leader."

They all nodded, breaking up, and Ullmo'ok watched them leave. He moved over the Most High Mechanic, Krekit, was looking over the ammunition and stores. Ullmo'ok noticed the smaller being had a headset on, obviously speaking to his own aVI.

"How well are we now stocked?" Ullmo'ok asked.

Krekit looked up, nodding. "Really well. These missiles, they're something else, boss. Our tubes can fire them, luckily."

"And the parts?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"A little problem there. If we have to fix a knee, we'll have to replace both actuators or you'll run with a limp because these are top-shelf stuff," Krekit said. He wiped his hands on his coveralls and stood up, shading his eyes. "You sure we'll get warning if anyone's coming?"

"I am sure," Ullmo'ok said. He looked around. "I must go and speak to another. Ensure the mechs are loaded and repaired."

Krekit nodded. "Sure, boss, sure."

Ullmo'ok clopped away, heading into the office where Tak had been brave enough to tell him that he had failed. He moved in, picked up the shielded communicator normally used to talk to Corporate Headquarters in the capital, and plugged it in. He dialed in the com-code he'd memorized, leaned back in the sitting sling, and waited.

His uncle's face appeared. "Apartment 2621."

"Uncle," Ullmo'ok said, reaching out and touching the screen. He could almost feel something. Something he'd felt when he'd watched his thumpmen escort his uncle to the shelters.

"Ullmo'ok," his uncle said. Ullmo'ok expected the older Lanaktallan to inflate his crests, curl his tendrils, and shake his jowls in rage. Instead the older male looked behind him, then looked back at the screen. "Are you well?"

Ullmo'ok nodded. "I am uninjured."

"Is it terrible up there? The news says that the planetary forces are defeating the Precursors across all fronts and that they will be defeated in a matter of days," his uncle said. He paused. "That is not true, is it?"

Ullmo'ok shook his head. "No, uncle. It is not. Even the humans are fighting hard. The factory..."

"To the bowels of the dying ones with the factory, Ullmo'ok. How are you?" the older male repeated.

"I am uninjured," Ullmo'ok said. "I wished to know that you and our family are not suffering."

The older Ullmo'ok's tendrils trembled with something Ullmo'ok didn't understand. "It is crowded, it is noisy at times, but your Secmen are keeping order. We are not suffering. But what about you?"

Ullmo'ok shrugged again. "I will fight to defend the shelters. Not only are you there, but loyal workers and their families. Families of my bashmech pilots."

His uncle stayed silent, reaching out with all four hands and touching the screen at the corners. "Please, nephew, be careful."

Ullmo'ok shrugged again. "It will be what it will be, uncle. I shall fight hard to prevent the Precursors from reaching you. Should I fall, the Terrans have stated they will protect you."

"You, you managed to make a deal with the Terrans?" his uncle asked.

"No. They value you and the others and will seek to protect you," Ullmo'ok said. "No deal. No bargain. Just they have sworn to witness what I and my pilots do here and to protect you."

"Looey, who is that?" Ullmo'ok heard his aunt ask. Something inside him twisted and he felt something for a moment.

"Tell her it was just the thumpmen," Ullmo'ok said. "Stay alive, uncle."

Before his uncle could reply he unplugged the communications device.

The feeling went away and he picked up a half-empty bottle of whiskey and took a long drink.

"Boss? Are you all right?" Tak asked.

"Of course," Ullmo'ok said, finishing off the bottle and setting it on the desk. He tabbed a narco injector into his arm. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just checking. You should get some sleep," Tak said.

"I have things that must be done. You should get some rest, defrag, recompile, and sector-check yourself," Ullmo'ok said, sliding out of the sling.

"All right, boss. Call me if you need me," Tak said.

"I will," Ullmo'ok promised, clopping his way through the deserted refinery office.

-----------------------

Ullmo'ok stood at the edge of the valley, staring at the hell beyond. The Jotun had pushed more vehicles, and more, and more at his bashmechs. Tak had told him that the Jotun had been forced to allocated his heavy combat robots to defend against the Terran combat vehicles.

Now the entire valley was nothing but broken, scorched, carbonized, and melted metal. Slagged internals of robots.

And a pair of dead bashmechs.

"I screwed up. I didn't fall back fast enough when the aircraft came in," Plunketi'ik said, shaking her head. "Zikmack and Trekez got caught by their bombing run. Half my bashmechs got seriously damaged and I've had to send them back for repair."

"Were they witnessed?" Ullmo'ok asked carefully.

"Yes," Plunketi'ik said softly. "Hail our dead," She said. She fired a single hypersonic missile, no guidance, no warhead, just a dead missile on a high parabolic arc that left a white trail in the sky as it sped toward the Jotun and vanished in the distance.

"Did they have family in the shelters?" Ullmo'ok stared at the destroyed valley that had once been the site of luxury vacation homes for wealthy executives.

The river was full of toxic runoff from the battles.

"Yes. Both did," Plunketi'ik said.

"Then they will live on," Ullmo'ok said.

"Boss, boss!" Tak suddenly broke into the somber moment. "TAKE A KNEE!"

"What?" Ullmo'ok asked. He heard Plunketi'ik's warboi yell the same thing.

"This!" Tak threw a wire-frame on all his screens. Down on one knee, arms covering the chest, face tilted down, hands over the face, leaning slightly forward.

Ullmo'ok took the position, feeling shattered Precursor machine crumble even further under his knee.

"Why do we..." Ullmo'ok started. A bright flash tore open the sky and Tak turned the screens off and the cockpit completely opaque.

A rumble started. His speakers howled with static. Sparks shot from his forward control panel. The rumble got harder and suddenly a shock wave hit him from the front. He actually felt his mech slide back a few meters, something moving its 500 ton bulk backwards like an adult pushing back a defiant child.

There was a split second of calm, then the blast hit again, harder, and Ullmo'ok found himself leaning forward.

"EJECTING MISSILE BAY! DIGITAL OMNIMESSIAH HELP US!" Tak screamed out.

Another space, then a third shockwave, this one lifting him slightly, giving him a brief feeling of weightlessness. Impacts hit his battle-screens and Ullmo'ok was sure that it was the wreckage of the Precursor vehicles being thrown against his bashmech by some giant hand.

Ullmo'ok felt something inside. Just for a second.

His mech hit the ground and he narrowly avoided putting a hand out to stabilize himself before Tak got the gyros under control.

"HERE COMES THE BOOM, BOSS!" Tak screamed and Ullmo'ok could hear the fear in the aVI's voice.

The roar, the explosion, wasn't a sound. It was a physical thing, a fist that slammed into his bashmech with steel covered knuckles. He managed to keep on one knee, managed to keep upright. Light shined through cracks he didn't even know where there around his modified cockpit cover. He saw his battle-screens fail right before his screens dissolved into static.

Tak screamed in agony.

The radiation meters inside the cockpit began to howl. Two vidpanels blew out, showering Ullmo'oks flanks with viz-plaz. Static howled through Ullmo'ok's implant and his cybereye suddenly went white and shut down.

His mech went dead. Shut down.

It was silent, just the ticking of cooling metal, not even the faint hum of the fusion reactor. Ullmo'ok sat there, looking around in curiosity as his cybereye reboot, failed, reboot again and came on, shot with static that slowly cleared. His cockpit cover was cracked in two places, the foot thick armorplas crazed white and shot through with spiderwebs.

Carefully, slowly, Ullmo'ok restarted his bashmech.

It took five times before it started up sluggishly. The fusion reactor had to be flushed twice before it would start, the mag-bottle projectors overloaded and charged, ionized, the circuitry full of stray charges.

"B-b-b-b-b-boss?" Tak asked. "Boss, you alive?"

"I am intact," Ullmo'ok said. "You screamed. It sounded like pain."

Tak made a sound that reminded Ullmo'ok of a cough. "Particle sleet. Someone saw a chance and hit the Jotun with an battery," Tak coughed again. "A plasma wave phased motion gun from near orbit or a near C velocity shell or a main ion cannon from a battleship."

"It hurt?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"That was a 1.4 kilowatt EMP at the end, boss, it was like getting hit in the face with by a mech-fist to you. It blew straight through the particle shields, took down the battle-screens, wrecked up everything," Tak said. He buzzed a second. "I'm all hashed up. Sector errors, CRC errors, I'm pretty fragmented."

"Is it safe to stand up?" Ullmo'ok asked.

"Y-yeah, boss, it should be," Tak said. "I had to eject the missiles and plasma rounds. Take it easy."

"Defrag and perform maintenance on yourself, Tak," Ullmo'ok said, standing the mech up slowly. Only one of his displays worked, a small one for drone feeds, and Ullmo'ot shifted his forward view to it. It was nothing but static so he rebooted his screens.

Triggering his datalink he brought up the com-codes for the seven bashmech pilots that had been with him and dialed them.

Only four answered.

"Follow me. We need repair," Ullmo'ok said.

"Frextik'ik's ammunition exploded. He didn't eject his ammunition in time," Plunketi'ik said. "I can see Uskralet's mech, it's torn apart."

"What happened?" Vemtre asked.

"Orbit shot. They took a shot at the Jotun," Ullmo'ok told them. His display cleared up just in time for him to look at where the Jotun was.

"By the Forgotten Brood Mothers," Pluketi'ik said slowly, and Ullmo'ok knew she was seeing it too.

The clouds were gone, swept away by the blast. A huge mushroom cloud had formed, with other clouds riding up. Black and red, with fires burning in the huge cloud at the top, lightning flickering in them. The whole sky looked like it was burning.

"I think they got it," Woxtow said softly.

"Let us hope. Do not count the credits before the end of the match," Ullmo'ok warned. "Let us return, we need repair and refit."

The others, used to Ullmo'ok's calm voice and unshakable demeanor, followed him as they slowly trudged back. The trees were burning, what few buildings that remained were flattened. Debris from the valley had crashed into the landscape, the heavier and larger pieces first. Smoke covered everything, dust and small debris hanging in the air.

"My warboi is stuttering, he sounds drunk," Woxtow said.

"Order him to defrag and recompile," Ullmo'ok said.

They moved through the shattered day, Ullmo'ok piloting his damaged bashmech by a single screen that barely worked, until the reached the quarry. Twice more the rumble of great explosions washed over them.

In the quarry the stacks of ammo were tipped over, the cranes at the edge of the quarry fallen into it. Four of the bashmechs were on their backs. One was getting up slowly. Another was gutted, the chassis burning from where the missiles inside had detonated. Fires were still being put out and Ullmo'ok noted that it looked like everything had been pushed slightly toward the far side of the quarry. Ullmo'ok stopped and powered down his mech, noting that the survival core case for Tak no longer shined the green light, just a yellow one that slowly flashed. He tried to open the cockpit but the motors just sputters and clattered on stripped gears.

Ullmo'ok had to have the mechanics remove his canopy.

The air smelled of seared metal, smoke, and pulverized rock.

Seeing the clouds in the distance with the naked eye, not on a small screen, was impressive, Ullmo'ok noted. Other bashmech pilots got out and just stared, their jaws hanging down. A few, like Woxtow, starting crying.

Ullmo'ok went into the office to check the status of the shelters. He had to go back out, get a battery, and attach it to the lone comlink he could find that still worked once he applied power.

They were fine. They'd barely felt the shock.

Still, he stood by the desk, thinking for a long time in the darkness. The power was still out. The only connection to the shelters was the single shielded hard line and a single freight elevator that still had power and was protected by a ten meter thick endosteel shutter. After a moment he made his decision, going out to the mechanics.

"I need some parts and your help," he told Krekit. The mechanic nodded.

Together they set to work.

-----------------------

It was raining. The clouds heavy and dark. The rain was full of ash, leaving sticky black streaks on everything.

The mechanics were still working on the bashmechs, replacing armor, damaged molecular circuitry, replacing actuators that had frozen up from the sleet of particles or from an impact of debris. Bashmechs were being reloaded as Ullmo'ok stared at his remaining pilots.

He was down to ten. Several pilots had been killed by the shockwave, picked up and thrown against something hard enough to kill them. Some could not fight any more, unable to stop weeping. Some had died in the blast at the canyon.

He considered it worth it to kill the Jotun.

"We must keep fighting," Ullmo'ok said.

Half of them flinched.

"Those who cannot, retreat to the shelters," Ullmo'ok ordered. "Be with your families. You will witness those who stay."

Three left. Ullmo'ok touched each one on the shoulder and bid them farewell.

"Krekit, send all but your essential mechanics to the shelters," Ullmo'ok ordered. "Once the bashmechs are repaired and reloaded, you and the others will retreat to the shelters."

"Boss, you're going to need us," Krekit said. He waved at the mechs. "You're gonna get damaged, need us."

Ullmo'ok shook his head. "No, friend Krekit. We will not."

He turned to Plunketi'ik. "Go to the shelter, be with your podlings and your family."

Plunketi'ik shook her head. "No. I will not hide below while others fight to protect my family."

Ullmo'ok frowned. "They will need you down there."

"They will need me more up here," The female stared at Ullmo'ok for a long moment. "Boss, I've been with you since we were welding metal to forklifts. I know you. There are some things you don't understand, and this is one."

"Very well. I thank you," Ullmo'ok said. She was right, some things he just did not understand. He understood loyalty though, and Plunketi'ik had denied telling the Executors and CorpSec who had stolen an entire batch of narcobrew, sitting in the cell right next to Ullmo'ok until his uncle had used his connections to set them both free.

Moving over to the table he picked up another wad of synth-cud, jamming it into his jaws. He chewed it slowly, looking at the entrance to the cave. There was a crack in it. A big one. One of the engineers had put a strut in place to ensure the cave stayed open and beings were moving the ammo into the cave with the rest of it.

Looking back toward the Jotun he could see the clouds start to spread out.

The sky looked bloody and bruised.

"Boss? You there, boss?" Tak suddenly asked.

"I am here," Ullmo'ok said.

"I'm all better now, boss," Tak said. "I was really torn up by that EMP and those particle bursts, I'm better now."

"Good," Ullmo'ok said. "Run diagnostics on Pleasure & Glory, please."

"Sure, boss," Tak said. After a few minutes his voice came back. "Boss, why is there a shielded, encrypted, high speed data-link connected to my survival core? What is that for?"

"A manual suggested it, friend Tak," Ullmo'ok lied. Lying to friends was wrong, but Ullmo'ok had come to understand Tak.

"Oh. OK. The Glory's really beat up. She's fully loaded, they've got her largely repaired, but there's some serious armor damage to the arms and your shock absorbers on your crash couch are blown out," Tak said.

"Very well. Inform the mechanics," Ullmo'ok said. He spit out the mess of plas-strings, the cud empty, and grabbed a narcobrew.

Something was happening. He was sure of it.

He stared off into the distance, where the Jotun was burning.

-----------------

"BOSS! BOSS!" Tak's voice got his attention.

"Yes?" Ullmo'ok asked, opening his eyes.

"I was looking through a couple of drones that survived the blast, we've got trouble, boss!" Tak said.

"What type?" Ullmo'ok asked, getting to his feet.

"Metal incoming! LOTS of metal incoming! They're pouring out of the Juton! It's an army!" Tak said. "I'm seeing everything. Repair bots, infantry, big bug bots, some flying with anti-grav, some on treads, some just pulling themselves with one arm."

"They want the refinery. To repair and bring back to life their god-machine," Ullmo'ok said. He whistled to get the attention of his pilots. Most of them were asleep and he sent a whistle through their comlinks.

"Start Glory," Ullmo'ok told Tak, then looked at his pilots. "The enemy are coming."

"How many?" Woxtow asked.

"All of them," Ullmo'ok answered. "If you cannot pilot, retreat to the shelter."

Three more blanched and left. One was Rask-talik, who's chest rings were broken and was having problems breathing.

That left five of them.

"Krekit," Ullmo'ok said through his link.

"Yeah?" The engineer asked.

"Take your people, hide in the cave, the Precursors are coming. All of them," Ullmo'ok ordered.

"Your mech isn't finished, boss," Krekit said.

"Obey me," was all Ullmo'ok said.

"All right, boss, we'll hide out at the back of the cave," Krekit said.

The mechanics and workers streamed by, running for the cave, as the bashmech pilots ran for their machines. Ullmo'ok stared at the burning horizon and idly injected the inside of his upper right arm with a narcostim, tossing the container behind him.

He walked to Glory and looked at it.

His pilot's couch was still exposed.

"Boss, you can't pilot this. They're going to be here in minutes," Tak said.

"Do not fear," Ullmo'ok said.

The sky screamed and Ullmo'ok looked up to see shafts of light streaking across the sky, terminating in greasy looking clouds. He heard a weird fluttering and saw rockets firing toward the Jotun.

"Point defense and counter-battery, boss," Tak said. "The Terran military is trying to help, but you're at the edge of thier defense range."

"Tell them we will be there soon," Ullmo'ok said, climbing the ladder. He didn't bother to retract it, just sat back in his couch and leaned back, feeling his mech synch up with his brain. He lifted on hand, grabbed the ladder, and tore it away.

Moving over the the pile of armor he bent down, grabbing a piece, then bending it in his bashmech's hands. Walking slowly he moved to Woxtow.

"Use your light laser and weld this to my mech," he ordered. He slammed the piece in place, bending it, flexing it with the power of his mech's hand.

"You sure?" Woxtow asked.

"I am sure," Ullmo'ok said.

"All right, boss," Woxtow said.

Ullmo'ok heard the hiss of the laser, moving his hand away when Woxtow told him to. He buckled down his restraining straps as Woxtow finished the job. His screens were sufficient. He moved the HUD from his missing canopy to his cybernetic eyes.

"There almost here, boss," Tak said.

"I am ready," Ullmo'ok said. He opened the link. "Get ready."

He turned to the cave, checking with thermals to ensure that nobody was near.

He used a laser to slice through the beam and the entrance collapsed. He fired a single particle beam cannon into the cliff face above the collapsed entrance, bringing more rock down.

"Boss, boss, what are you doing," Krekit asked.

"Stay safe. Go into the shelter, weld shut the door behind you. Someone will come and help you," Ullmo'ok. "You were a faithful employee, Krekit."

"Thank you, boss," Krekit said.

Ullmo'ok cut the link, turning and facing the far side of the quarry, where the switchback led down into it.

"Follow me, we will join the Terrans, and there," Ullmo'ok said. "There, they will witness us as we will them."

His five cohorts followed him, waiting as he used a laser on the last of the ammunition and parts, reducing everything to wreckage.

"They're coming, boss," Tak said.

The sky was full of tracers and puffs of explosions. Metal fragments had started falling from the sky. Ullmo'ok led his comrades to the large parking lot, which had once held hauler trucks, cargo-lifters, executive cars, and factory worker buses.

Now there was only a half-dozen Terran vehicles, all of them firing skyward.

Ullmo'ok wished he had the comlink for the Terrans but pushed that away.

Wishes were for children.

Together, they stood and faced the direction the machines would be coming from.

"Destroy the buildings," Ullmo'ok ordered.

Together, the last six pilots of the Arena reduced the buildings to slag, using laser and particle beams.

"Boss, here they come," Tak said.

The machines swarmed out of the wreckage and through the alleys.

There was no time to talk. The six pilots fired missiles, pouring them into the oncoming machines. Short range missiles for the rushers, long range to hammer the oncoming ranks. Lasers and particle beams shrieked and thundered through the air.

For every Precursor Ullmo'ok and his comrades killed, twenty more, a hundred more, filled the gap.

Slowly the machines gained ground. Coming closer and closer. The Terran vehicle's ammo ran dry and Ullmo'ok ordered them over his loudspeakers, which he entertained the crowd with so long ago, to retreat. He used a phrase he had Terrans say on the TriVid.

"Get out of here, boys, there's nothing you can do."

Two Terran vehicles stayed, laser point defense vehicles, their lasers raking long range missiles out of the sky.

As the Precursor machines advanced, now onto the tarmac of the parking lots, pushing past the wreckage of the public transit buses, the missiles got closer and closer, a waterfall slowly overwhelming the defenses of the Terran vehicles.

The Precursors were close enough to fight back. Battle-screens flared and rippled as lasers and cannon shells pried at them with deadly fingers, looking for some way in.

Ilktakna'ak went down first, a heavy cannon shot blowing through his failing and already damaged battle-screen, the liquid stream of the explosively forged penetrator hitting dead center of his cockpit and exiting from the back in a fan of liquid metal.

Ullmo'ok opened up with his autocannons, going to maximum fire rate, ignoring heat warnings, raking the encroaching line of vehicles with armor piercing discarding sabot rounds, sweeping it back and forth. His missile bays ran empty and slammed the protective covers shut.

One of the Terran vehicles exploded.

Missile salvos started landing on that side, blowing Neeklum apart as his mech took an entire volley of heavy missiles.

Ullmo'ok avenged his lost pilot with a trio of particle beams, stomped the overheating override, and kept fighting.

"Boss, we're going to get overrun!" Tak yelled.

"Yes," Ullmo'ok answered.

A warborg pulled its way free of the Terran wreckage, grabbing the slightly intact four-barrel point defense gun, plugging the power cable into its leg, and opened fire, laying 2cm laser fire into the oncoming Precursors.

Ullmo'ok added his own fire, sweeping across the still advancing metal horde.

"Boss, on our right!" Tak called.

The other Terran vehicle blew up.

Ullmo'ok turned, seeing more Precursor vehicles rush out, firing as they came. Ullmo'ok couldn't stem the tide as the sudden rush let them overwhelm Dwenstil's battle-screen and pour fire into them.

The Precursors were on them. Ullmo'ok was aware of the Terran warborg fighting, still firing the point defense gun like it was a sidearm, the beam bright and eyewatering, when he was swarmed over.

Woxtow went down next, screaming "WITNESS ME!" as crablike Precursor machines swarmed up his body, tearing off armor, firing lasers from their mouths.

Ullmo'ok heard him scream, turned, and washed over the downed mech with plasma, cutting off Woxtow's scream and destroying the crab bots. Alarms went off and his battle-screens went down.

"Back to back!" Plunketi'ik yelled. "My battle-screens are down!"

Ullmo'ok took two steps back, feeling his armor thud against hers.

Together they fired, raking the Precursor machines, who attacked as if they were insance. Swarming over the smoking wreckage of their own dead with their eagerness to get at the last two warriors fighting back to back.

"Boss, we're out of ammo, we're overheating, we have to withdraw!" Tak yelled. "You've got like 3 autocannon rounds left."

"Goodbye, Tak, you were faithful," Ullmo'ok said, slapping the red button he had helped wire into the cockpit.

"Boss... no... what are you.. don't... what are... wat?" Tak vanished, the automatic maintenance transfer sending him into his own survival core. The transmitter went live, sending Tak to a spare survival core that Ullmo'ok had prepared.

A survival core that by now would be being delivered to his uncle.

"I will see my podlings soon," Plunketi'ik gasped. "My mech's going to shut down. They're going to pull me from the cockpit and pull me apart."

"Face me," Ullmo'ok ordered.

When he could see Plunketi'ik's cockpit on his reticle he lifted his arm.

"Join your podlings without pain, old friend," Ullmo'ok said. Plunketi'ik's mech stood straight up, Precursor machines crawling up its torso and legs.

He knew she was raising her chin in defiance as she dropped her arm. Ullmo'ok fired his last three autocannon rounds.

Heat flushed into his cockpit as Plunketi'ik's mech tipped over backwards, atomized metal streaming from the back of her bashmech like blood. Ullmo'ok extended the sword and started laying around him, firing lasers, PPC's, smashing the Precursor machines underfoot.

As he fought, he activated his datalink. His uncle's face appeared in his cybereye.

"I will be with you soon, uncle," was all he said before terminating the link.

The Precursor's were crawling on him as a barrage of missiles got past his overworked point defense and EW. His mech shuddered, stepped back, the overheated gyros siezed.

Ullmo'ok landed on his back, feeling something snap between his torso and body.

He couldn't feel his legs.

His mech's power failed. The heat was baking him and he could smell his own hair and flesh burning.

At least he couldn't feel it.

He opened the com-link.

"Trucker, come in Trucker," he gasped. His lower lungs weren't working, he could feel blood oozing up his long-throat. "Come in, Trucker."

Something was prying off his makeshift armor.

"Trucker, come in, Trucker," he gasped, pulling the needler out from where he kept it under his pouch. With another hand he pulled a handful of narcostims out and injected them into his chest. "Come in, Trucker!"

The armor screamed as it bent.

"Trucker here. Is that you Ullmo'ok?"

The armor bent far enough for a red-eyed tentacle with graspers to try to slide in. Ullmo'ok fired the needler, smashing the eye. He was able to breath, barely, witout pain.

"Yes. Do it."

"Do what?" Trucker asked.

"Atomics. Do it," Ullmo'ok gapsed. "You can't help us. Do it."

Trucker dropped the line. Ullmo'ok slapped the engine start button twice, shooting two more Precursors that tried to get in.

His mech started and he struggled to his feet as what looked like a metal octopus ripped away the canopy.

The damaged laser still packed enough of a punch to blow the Precursor machine off the front of his cockpit even if it blistered his flesh and burnt away his hair. He was blind in his front eyes so he turned his head, using his mechanical eyes, and kept firing, not screaming, just shooting. Even as the Precursors smashed his weaponry he kept fighting. Even when the chainsword bound up and shattered inside the chassis of a Precursor mech twice Ullmo'ok's size.

He was still shooting when a Precursor pulled his torso out of the cockpit, his lower body staying strappe in, when the world went white.

--------------------

V CORPS MEMO

5th Irregulars earned battle standard and awards due to their defense of the Hoolangenar Industrial Facility shelters. Will review after action is completed. Bolo-31673SCR is on site, reports the shelters are intact if sealed.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

HOOLANGENAR INDUSTRIAL FACILITY DESTROYED!

Yesterday the criminal Ullmo'ok detonated the industrial facility's fusion reactor, destroying the Executor and Corporate Security who had been defending it from the Precursor threat, destroying the Hoolangenar Industrial Facility and the shelters both.

Tune in later for an official Kestimet Corporation Office of Public Affairs statement.

Chapter Forty-Nine

The streets were full of smoke, random debris that swirled in the wind, corpses torn apart and left scattered, destroyed Precursor drones, and rubble that had spilled from where buildings had collapsed. The entire city was full of the sounds explosions, the high pitched thrumming and screaming of energy weapons, the roar of rockets and missiles, and the wailing of the frightened, trapped in buildings or huddling in the rubble, that had grown so loud that it even could be heard over the combat between the Terran military and the Precursor machines.

The little Telkan ran on short little legs, her fur filthy and matted, her huge eyes wide and watering with tears, her tunic torn and filthy, a ragged tattered doll held tight to her body even though it was missing an arm. She was crying as she ran, terror pushing her exhausted body further down the street, her broodmother's words echoing through her mind.

Run, podling, don't look back! the warm, soft, good smelling, and loving broodmother had yelled to the little Telkan as the machines that bit and stung crashed through the window and into the little store they had been hiding inside.

So she ran. Past the bodies, her little brain editing them out, running past the fires burning in the street, past the holes in the ground, climbing over the rubble and sobbing as she did as she'd been told.

run!

She wanted her mother, her father, the broodmothers, the other podlings, but all she had was Mister Kikik, her stuffy, and the broodmother had told her, screaming it as the pinchy machines...

Run!

Her soft feet were bleeding from cuts where rubble has sliced into her delicate walking pads, but still, she kept going, crying, scrambling, holding tight to Mister Kikik as she ran. She scraped her knee and got up, running. She cut her hand scrambling up rubble and kept running. Fire burst up from a hole in the ground, scorching her fur, but she didn't stop.

RUN!

She came to a stop, screaming, when a huge metal snake, as wide as the street, crashed through the building, little pieces of rubble bouncing around her as she ducked and covered her head with one arm, screaming. The snake was twisting in the street and she saw it had hundreds, thousands of legs. It held something in its mouth, in the big pinchers, something that was struggling. She screamed, knowing it was going to hurt it, knowing the many legged snake was bad. She turned to run and saw them.

Pinchies.

She looked around wildly, looking for a way out. There was only walls on either side, pinchies running at her on their spider legs, and the huge snake thrashing around.

"KILL YOU! SKIN YOU! EAT YOU!" a voice roared through the translator necklace she wore.

She screamed, crouching down, holding Mister Kikik tight, covering her head with one arm. She was sure it was the pinchies yelling it.

The snake crashed down behind her and she screamed again, staring at the pinchy's running at her.

"YOU! AREN'T! NOTHING" she heard roar out from behind her, her necklace translating it. "EAT THIS!" There was an explosion behind her.

The pinchies were halfway at her and she turned to look behind her.

A big metal man was standing up, breaking the pinchers holding onto him. Bigger than daddy, but with two arms and two legs and a head with two eyes just like her and daddy. No trendrils or weird faces, just a flat face. He didn't have soft fur, not like mommy or broodmommy, or daddy, he was made of black metal and his eyes were bright glowy green.

"CHRIST, KID, LOOK OUT!" the metal man yelled, raising an arm.

She screamed, turned around, and ducked, covering her head, curling over Mister Kikik, holding him tight with her sore arm.

There was a thrumming noise, a loud noise, like when the food heaty (that she wasn't allowed to play with) was on, and she felt heat on her head that made her fur crinkle and made her get all wet and gross with sweat.

She saw the pinchies get touched by blue flickering light with a white core, the flickering light making them pop with bright flashes. She heard thudding footsteps and the big metal man moved in front of her, his hand cocked back strangely and the blue light coming from a tube sticking out of his palm.

She wondered if it hurt his handpad. She looked away, the light hurting her sensitive eyes.

The light stopped and she opened her eyes and looked up.

The big metal man was looking down at her and she saw that the metal man had tears in his metal skin like she had in her tunic. Silver fluid, like the red blood that filled her scrapes and ran into the fur on her arms and legs, filled up the tears in his metal skin. A big knife was sticking out of his arm and as she watched it slid back inside with a snap.

"You OK, kid?" The big metal man asked.

She nodded, her eyes wide as she stared at him.

"Where's your parents?" The metal man asked.

"The pinchies got my broodmommy," the little girl said, starting to sniffle again. "She yelled for me to run so I ran as far and as fast as I could," she sobbed. "The pinchies chased me."

"You're OK, kid. Let's find somewhere safe for you," the metal man said. He looked up. "This is Char-3381, does anyone read me? This is Char-3381, does anyone read me?"

"Who are you talking to?" she asked. "Is Char your name? Or is the numbers? That's a funny name."

The metal man looked down. "You can hear that?"

"Yes," The little girl said, hugging Mister Kikik close.

The metal man turned around and knelt down. "Can you see the back of my head?"

The little girl stood on her tiptoes. "Yes. You have a pinchy stuck in it."

The big metal man tried to reach back to his head but wasn't quite able to reach it. He gave a sigh.

"Honey, I need you to climb up on my back, OK?" he said. He sat down.

"OK," the little girl said. Her sniffles were stopping. She climbed up, standing on his legs, then pulling herself up. She whined a little when her arm hurt. "Now what?"

"Can you pull the piece of metal out of my head?" he asked.

She wrapped her paw around it, tried to squeeze and stopped. "It's sharp. You're really hot, do metal men get sickies?"

"No, we don't. All right," he sighed. He looked around. "I'm not even sure where I am. My GPS is out."

"Oh," she said. She climbed down and sat on a big rock in the street. "I'm lost too."

"Lost my rifle too. Autocannon's empty. Out of mass, overheating and slushed out. Battle-screen's down," the big metal man stood up. "And half my onboards are out."

He turned around and looked down at her. "Why aren't you in a shelter?"

She shrugged. "Momma tried, the people at the shelter told us that we belonged in the street and called my momma a bad name," she started sobbing. "We walked a ways and were in the crowd, hoping to get into a different one and there were really loud bangs from trucks with the people mommy always said to do what they say. People started screaming. Broodmommy grabbed me and we ran."

She held tight to Mister Kikik. "There was a loud noise and everyone, even mommy and daddy and the other broodmommies and the other podlings, all popped like balloons when the light touched them. There was light coming from some big trucks."

"Digital H. Christ, kid," The big metal man said. "I'm sorry."

The little girl sobbed and hugged Mister Kikik harder. "Broodmommy hid us in a store, even though she did a bad thing and broke a window with a rock. We've been in there during all the noise. Even when the big light came."

The big metal man knelt down. "You've been in that shop for five days? Have you even eaten?"

The little girl nodded. "Broodmommy fed me. She ran out of milk yesterday though. I'm hungry and thirsty."

The little girl looked up, tears coming from her large expressive eyes. "I want my broodmommy."

"It's OK, kid," the big metal man said. "I've got you. What's your name?"

"Podling," She said. "We don't have names yet."

"Can you eat regular food or only broodmommy milk?" The big metal man asked, standing up and looking around.

"I can eat big people food. I'm almost old enough to have a name," The little podling said, looking up.

"There, we can get you something to eat there," The big metal man said, pointing at a shop.

The little girl looked at the front of the shop and shook her head. "There's no podling sign. That's for the Masters."

"Not today, kid, you're with me," The big metal man said. He took a couple steps and stopped. "Oops, that's not good."

"What?" The little girl looked around.

The metal man moved over to a big car, the important kind that mommy said to always look out for, grabbed a door, and ripped it open with a scream of metal.

"Get in, kid, and hurry," The metal man said. "Sit in the back and in the middle of the seat. Don't look."

The podling nodded, hurrying up. She sat on the seat and buckled the seat harness.

"Don't look. Look down. Don't look, sweetie," The big metal man said, then closed the door.

She could hear the wailing coming. The wailers screamed, and ran down the street, some breaking windows, some hitting people, others throwing rocks. She didn't know why they wailed, they just did. She saw them ripping each others clothing sometimes, still wailing. Even masters were part of the wailers. They were all blackened, with owies all over, their hair falling out and icky sores on their faces.

The wailing got louder and she covered her ears, bending over and squeezing her eyes shut.

"Get off me! Don't touch me! Get your slimy hands off me!" The metal man roared.

Glass broke, making her open her eyes, and some landed at her feet. She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut. She heard metal crunch, heard screaming, and terrible noises. The wailing got so loud it hurt her ears, and still the metal man yelled at them to stop touching him, get off of him, keep their hands to themselves. There was banging on the metal, more glass broke, and it felt like someone was jumping on the car.

Then the wailing slowly faded away.

It was quiet for a second and the door opened. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Don't look, honey. I'll have to pull the roof off a little bit, but don't look, okay?" the metal man said.

"I won't. Promise," she said.

"OK. Be good," he said. She heard metal scream and could smell the air.

It smelled like blood.

She felt the harness unclick and the metal man lifted her up. His hands and arm were really hot.

"Are you sickie?" She asked.

"No sweetie, I'm just overheated," The metal man said. "Keep your eyes closed, hold onto your doll."

"He's Mister Kikik," the podling said.

"Hold onto Mister Kikik," The metal man said. He started walking, then running. It felt like she was flying, being held by the metal man, as he ran through the streets. He suddenly stopped and there was the noise of glass breaking and metal tearing.

She was carefully set in a chair. "OK, sweetie, you can open your eyes."

She looked around. It was a food shop, where masters and important people that you did what they said right away would eat. The big metal man had moved over to a food dispenser and had ripped open the front of it.

"It's nutripaste," he said, letting it pour from the broken machine and into a big bowl.

"You're gonna be in trouble," She said. "I don't want you to be in trouble."

"I'm already in trouble," The metal man said.

"OK," the little podling said, and started slurping down the nutripaste. It didn't taste like anything but it made her tummy feel better. The metal man moved over under where water was falling from a pipe, standing in the water. Pieces popped up with a hiss and she saw steam start to come off of him. She chewed a little on the bowl to ease the ache in her gums, watching. After a bit the pieces closed again and the big metal man came over to her.

"We need to move, kid," The metal man said. "The Precursors are all over the place. We need to get out of city. I'm hurt inside, I can't use my slush, can't run a diagnostic."

"Will a hug help?" She asked. Broodmommy would hug her when she was scared. The metal man didn't have a broodmommy with him.

"It won't hurt, kid," The metal man said. She grabbed his thick leg and hugged it, feeling how warm it was and liking how it vibrated. She let go and looked up.

"Will you carry me?" She asked.

The metal man nodded, picking up her and Mister Kikik. She went out in the street and started running. She felt like she was flying again as they ran. He kept dodging around the stuff that loomed out of the smoke, jumping over some of it.

The podling suddenly felt embarrased.

"Metal man?" She said.

"Yes, sweetie?" The metal man said.

"I pooped myself. I'm sorry," she said. She rubbed her fur and some came off. Her skin was red looking and hurt. "My fur's coming off."

"You'll be all right. It's rad-sick, I'll get you to the medics and they'll patch you up," The metal man said. Somehow he ran faster.

He started stumbling, staggering, and the podling looked up at him. His green eyes, glowing in the dark, were fixed ahead.

"Are you all right, Mister Metal Man?" The podling asked.

"The goo around my thinky stuff is running out. I'm leaking, kid," the metal man said. "Medics. Get you to the medics," he said, his voice barely audible over the sounds of the war torn city.

They kept moving, the metal man lurching side to side, getting warmer and warmer. The metal man suddenly stopped, pushing the podling under a car.

"No come out. No look," he said. He stood up and she heard it.

A monster.

"Here! Here! Right here!" he yelled.

There was a crash.

"THREE THREE TWO INFANTRY!" the metal man roared.

There was the bright light, blue, and more light, some of it red, some green.

"KILL YOU!"

A giant hand hit the street next to the burn out car and the podling closed her eyes, holding tight to Mister Kikik.

"SKIN YOU!"

There was another crash. A loud shriek and a clap of thunder that hurt the podling's ears.

"EAT YOU!" the metal man bellowed.

There was a heavy crash, then silence.

The car suddenly flipped off of her and the podling screamed, looking up.

The metal man stood there. His head was smushed, one eye popped out and dangling from wires. His body looked smashed, wires poking out and goop leaking out.

"Podling," The metal man rumbled.

The podling held her arms up, Mister Kikik in her hand.

The metal man reached down, picking up the podling. The podling noticed that the big knife was broken, part of it bent away from the metal man's hand.

"Medics," The metal man said, his voice squeaking at the end.

He cradled her close and started running.

She looked behind her. It was another metal man, all brown metal, covered in holes, its head twisted off and a burning hold in its back. One foot was kicking but it didn't move.

It was really big.

"Podling," The metal man said as they ran through the smoke.

"Yes, Mister Metal Man," the little girl asked.

"Sick. Medic. Run," He said.

"Yes, Mister Metal Man, broodmommy said run," she said. She hugged the metal man's arm, feeling how hot it was. His chest was warm too, like broodmommy's.

"Run," Mister Metal Man said.

They kept running, through the streets, around the burning cars.

"Sick. Medic."

The podling hugged the metal man. Goo had oozed out of him. Some red, some pink, some silver, some blue.

"Podling. Sick. Medic." he kept repeating as he ran.

She hugged his arm tight. Once she threw up on him. Still she hugged him, willing him to be OK, willing the hug to make him all better.

The metal man stopped, looking up with his one green eye. He put his hand up and fired that bright blue light. Once. Twice. Three times.

The howl of a vehicle sounded, the vehicle coming closer. The metal man shot once, twice, three times again, straight up in the air.

The vehicle landed. More metal men jumped out. They had flashing red lights on their shoulders.

"Poooooodliiiiing," metal man said, the word drawing out and like a moan.

The vibration stopped. She looked up. His eyes were dark.

The new metal men ran up, red shapes on their chests. They had to pull Mister Metal Man's arm away, and they took her to the flying vehicle. She cried, reaching out for the metal man, as the vehicle went up in the air. She cried out for him, as they stuck a needle on a tube in her arm. She struggled, holding onto Mister Kikik as they put a mask on her face, reaching out for the metal man as the vehicle rose into the air.

He stood in the middle of an intersection, unmoving.

The smoke swirled around him, and he was gone.

---------------------

She came there often, after she was named, after she grew up. She had looked it up, where Lance Corporal Char-3381 of the Terran Confederate Marine Corps had finally died.

She would stand on the corner, staring at the middle of the street as the ground-cars went by.

She never forgot him. Even when her patchy fur turned gray. Even when her whiskers drooped. Even when her own podling's podlings had to help her go there.

And she took Mister Kikik with her each time.

------------------

TERRAN CONFEDERATE MARINE CORPS

Lance Corporal Char-3381 is post-posthumously awarded the Marine Silver Star, for actions above and beyond the call of duty. Charr-3381, severely wounded, carried an orphaned Telkan podling suffering from radiation poisoning, beyond the city of Shur'rima'an, signaling a passing medical evacuation unit to the podling's distress. During his travels he engaged two super-heavy Precursor infantry units, upholding his duty, defeating them single-handedly in defense of the podling.

Despite a cracked brain case, despite being out of neural fluid, he kept moving, and by his valor and actions, the Telkan podling was evacuated from the city.

Lance Corporal Char-3381 was pronounced dead at the scene. His body was recovered and his tissue remains were buried with all Marine Corps honors on Terra.

------------NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

Chapter Fifty (Dreams)

The evening was cool, slightly chilly, and damp. Rain pattered down through the trees, Starleaf oaks, Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar, Blue Oak, Douglas Fir, and Western Hemlock hemmed off the small clearing as the rain drizzled down through the canopy. The trees were all old, thick trunks, high branches, water filled boles, covered in moss and vines. Ferns covered the ground, shining with the pattering of water falling from the sky. A creek burbled over moss covered gray rocks, little fish moving around in the slower wider spots as it tumbled on its way to the ocean.

Up in the branches a little creature swung, dimly happy, moving from branch to branch with strong tentacles backed up by claw centered suckers. Its doppled brown and green shifted pattern as it moved, the rings on the tentacles and around the eyes a dark blue, almost black, as it let go of the branch it was on to catch the next, swinging back and forth.

Hidden in the trees and ferns were two large biped figures over three meters tall. Covered in shaggy hair, with flat brownish faces, large eyes, large hands, bigger feet. They stood motionless, almost hidden by vines and tree trunks, looking over the strange creature in the middle of the glade.

Sitting below, on a rock, was a gold mantis roughly three feet tall when she stood up. She had on a little hat, known as a beret, between her antenna and behind her compound eyes. At the back of her triangular head were cybernetic implants, shiny chrome, with lights that blinked and changed color. She had four arms, the top two of them bladed from the 'wrist' down, the lower two ending in six fingered hands with opposable thumbs on each side of the hand. She wore a black real leather jacket, made on Terra itself, with chrome link chains and spikes on it and the buttons made of steel. Over her abdomen she had a colorful blanket full of triangles making up geometric patterns including ones to look like bears, eagles, and wolves.

She had a omnitranslator around her neck on a beaded chain of bluish-gold from a place called "Black Hills, North Dakota", which she was using one bladearm to toy with as she read from the scroll in her hands.

The scroll was a more modern one that its looks would make one believe. It looked like brownish papyrus, with black metal engraved caps on each end of the two rolls and gold tassels on the caps. The part she was viewing was a flexible LED screen, allowing her to look over important documents as she sat in her favorite spot in her favorite eVR sim, dressed in clothing that made her feel indulgent, going over the day's work.

A broken wooly snail shell fell from the tree branches, landing in the creek, and she felt a flutter of pleasure that Mr. Rings had found one of the treats she had hidden to encourage him to exercise.

The current document she was reading was yet another complaint regarding the Terran Confederate Space Force that was neatly summed up as: You Can't Do That! which was accompanied by the second greatest hit of: Stop Doing That!

Her meal time was three hours past, the time taken up by meetings that just repeated the complaints that landed in her inbox. She reached down to the inkpot on the flat rock next to her, picked up a paintbrush, and 'painted' her initials on the document. She carefully put the paintbrush back, then rolled the scroll, bringing up the next document.

Stop Doing That!

She sighed to herself as she felt Mr. Rings's tingle of pleasure. He'd found another Pacific Northwest Wooly Snail. Not synth, not fake, but real ones shipped at great expense and raised in special hothouses as treats for people who owned Pacific Northwest Tree Octopi to feed their beloved pets.

Another delicate painting of her initials, set down the brush, rolled the scroll.

You Can't Do That!

She sighed again as Mr Rings climbed down to a bole and dunked himself inside, swirling around to wet his skin, then peeked out. He was unaware the entire thing but his nesting tree, his climbing tree, the snails, his mistress, and the two Sasquatch were all hard-light holograms and expensive eVR recorded by some dedicated being who spent hundreds of hours recording that very spot. All he cared about was yummy treats, branches to swing on, boles to hide in, and a mistress to pet him.

Dreams of Something More envied him a little.

Her implant pinged to let her know there was someone at the door. She felt better now that the Terran Navy had installed heavier psychic shielding in her quarters. Something about the Lanaktallan bugged her, to turn a comedic phrase that always made her smile. She didn't know what it was.

Maybe the way they just seemed like they should be jogging into a Terran slaughterhouse to be made into Burger Kingdom Traditional Beef Patties for their Firewater, Firearms & Fireworks Day celebrations?

She'd seen it once, you know? She had gone to the Burger Kingdom, AKA North America, to see a slaughterhouse. They were rare in a galaxy where most people would just eat synthetics. Not the Terrans, oh no, they wanted meat. Craved it. She'd watched the whole process, fascinated, as the cattle were slaughtered and prepared in the traditional Burger Kingdom way, right down to the firing off of ancient projectile weapons while drinking alcohol and slapping the still bleeding ground meat onto a metal grill over actual fire with one's bare hand.

She'd done it, just to try. The meal had been delicious.

She never told her fellow diplomats, except the Mantids, just how much she had enjoyed the entire vacation. From Bongistan to Eurogoonia to Animeland to Vodkaville to the Burger Kingdom, all painstakingly recreated from ancient pre-SolNet electronic cloud storage. She knew there was still argument of what had been real and what had been some kind of strange joke or hoax, but to her, the whole thing was amazing.

She'd even gone to an ancient ritual where gigantic combat robots, designed to look like ancient Burger Kingdom rulers, shouted almost forgotten campaign slogans as they fought one another in a hay field to the cheering of the crowd.

The winner was blown up and dollarydoos, rectangular clothpaper intricately done in green ink, rained from the sky as everyone laughed. She'd reached out her hand and caught a button that flashed "I Like Ike" when she tilted it. She pinned it on her beret as the dollarydoos rained down.

It was amazing.

She'd found the Terrans wildly confusing but so much fun to be around. At times she had been forced to use her psychic inhibitor, not because she might accidentally brush someone's mind, but from the sheer violent glee and overwhelming joy the Terrans exuded in every movement.

Dreams of Something More had even learned the ancient arts of Eurogoon Stuffed Crust Ballroom Dancing, Vodkaville Squat Kick and Fall Dancing, Burger Cletus Square Barn Dancing and Lit Fire Bass Beat Hip Hop Dancing.

She was secretly proud of her ability to imitate a mechanical Mantid on the dance floor.

The chime sounded against and she giggled at the thought of performing the Traditional Dancing Android moves to greet the guest but she wasn't sure there was a Unified Humor Council or not.

She turned down the rain and wind, rolled up the scroll and set it beside the paintbrush and the little palette of paint, then sighed again and unlocked the door.

It was past duty hours. She was hungry.

Dreams of Something More almost groaned when she saw it was a Lanaktallan, mournful looking, wearing a cloth wrap around its body, a sash covered in glittering medals across its torso, its six eyes blinking as the four legged four armed sentient goggled at the room.

Mr Rings climbed down, a furry snail in his tentacle, and hid in the bole of his nesting tree, pulling the lid closed after him.

The Lanaktallan blew saliva and shook its jowls at the forest scene around it.

"What is this?" It demanded.

Dreams felt her implosion wire tingle at the thought of dropping from a tree branch, landing on the Lanaktallan's back, cracking open its brain case, then preparing a traditional Terran meal of the Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun while screeching out the Terran hunter traditional warcry of "WHERE'S THE BEEF!"

"It is a relaxation hologram. Hard-light and 64K resolution Tri-D with advanced eVR," Dreams told the male Lanaktallan.

"What are those?" it asked, pointing at the two bigfeet with a shaking hand.

"Pacific Northwest Sasquatch. Kind and gentle creatures that prefer a diet of beef jerky and Rainier Beer, which they brew in tree stumps. They're harmless unless provoked by malicious pranksters," Dreams said. "In reality, they're actually my warborg guards beneath a hard light construct to maintain the illusion."

"They smell disgusting," the Lanaktallan said, blowing saliva out its jowls.

Dreams was a fastidious female by nature and something about the way the Lanaktallan just blew saliva or spit out chewed up curd onto the floor disgusted her. Still, decades of political statesmanship allowed her to keep her disgust from showing.

It looked at her. "What is that ridiculous garb you are wearing?"

Says the cow in wrap and sash, Dreams thought to herself.

"It is the traditional garb of Terran Bugerland politicians from the late 20th Century, Pre-Disporia," she said. She reached down and picked up two objects from under the ferns with her grasping hands. One was a chrome chain made of pin connected links, the other was a knife handle with a chrome button. "They went door to door like this and rewarded voters for their votes with money, alcohol, and pornography," she pressed the button and a sharp blade popped out. "They also stabbed people who voted for other candidates as a friendly disapproval gesture," she shook the chain, "and fought against other politicians in donorcycle-chain fights behind eating facilities, entertainment centers, or in the parking lots of ground cars. They also danced a lot while their supporters hit the other politician's supporters with signs."

"It hardly looks dignified," The talking cow said.

Dreams was thinking of the delicious delicious traditional Terran meal. Her implosion wire tingled and she pushed the thought away, promising herself she'd gorge on flame seared meat later.

"What is the problem, if I may ask?" Dreams asked. She queried her implant.

Third High Most of the Unified Military Council, her implant warned.

Aw, nerts, she thought to herself.

"Your vaunted military forces refuse to accept proper command hierarchy and submit themselves to the authority of the Unified Military Council," It sputtered.

Mr. Rings peeked out curiously, barely showing his eyes from between the round wood of the bole and the moss covered wooden hatch.

"Where, in our offer of support against the Precursors, did the government of the Terran Confederacy state that we would turn our forces over to your command?" Dreams asked mildly. She felt Mr. Rings's curiosity and kept one antenna on him. The last thing she needed was for Mr. Rings to mistake this bloviating fool for a deer. A tree octopi could live for a month on seasoned deer meat.

He snorted and snuffled and Dreams knew he was looking over the sixteen thousand page document, written entirely in Terran legalese.

"I will wait," Dreams said, slowly swinging the chain back and forth like she had seen politicians in the Terran historical TriVids do.

It had an odd calming effect on her, feeling the heavy durachrome chain swing, the weight of it, the way the pin-connected links moved, the faint feel of the light hair-grease on it.

"The question of who has command over the military forces facing the Precursors must be answered," the Lanaktallan insisted.

How about you show me a mil-spec vehicle then we'll talk? Dreams thought to herself. "As per Terran Confederacy Military Uniform Code of Justice, Terran forces are commanded solely by Terran Confederacy military officers duly appointed to such duties. While Terran military forces may work jointly with other governments or species, command is always held by the highest ranking Terran military armed services member."

She pinged the lawyer and waited a second.

The Lanaktallan's knees buckled and its eyes crossed as the appropriate legal codes, case documentation, case precedents, and legal arguments crossed from the cyber-barristers to his email to him implant.

The Lanaktallan gave a low mooing noise of pain as its datalink heated up.

Finally it looked up, its knees shaking. "My office will look over this," He said. "I'll be back."

Is that a threat? Dreams wondered.

He turned around and trotted out, negligently spitting the chewed up plastic strings of a consumed synth-cud on her floor. A robot scooted out and grabbed it, disappearing after disinfecting the floor.

Dreams felt like her carapace was prickling up when the synthcud splatted on her immaculate floor.

She had just opened the menu of what the dining facilities that delivered to the Unified Council Center had to offer when her door chimed again.

She sighed, closing the app. Mr. Rings hid in his bole again, munching on a piece of Pacific Northwest Wooly Salmon Smoked Treats.

Another Lanaktallan, this one for the Unified Corporate Council. Dreams took note that this one was no second or third stringer.

This was the Most High.

He looked outraged at the simulation around her.

"Turn this off at once," he demanded.

"Make me," Dreams gave out the traditional Terran counter-offer, swinging the chain and holding up the knife handle.

If ancient Terran politicians could do it, so could she, as she was representing the Terran Confederacy.

Her implosion wire didn't even tingle.

The Lanaktallan jerked back slightly, then clomped into the room, daintily moving around the rocks and the moss. It settled down on a moss covered rock and stared at her.

"I must object to your lawyers filing so many lawsuits," the Lanaktallan said.

Dreams gave a human shrug. "They have passed the legal tests and are registered barristers within all Unified Civilized Systems as well as non-aligned territories. Object away."

"They are filing lawsuits on behalf of people who cannot be allowed to file," The being lowed.

Again, the Mantid shrugged. "According to your legal system anyone is allowed to file with proper representation. The barristers do indeed qualify."

"They are disrupting the natural process!" It cried out.

"That falls under what Terrans call: Not my problem," Dreams said. She knew she was being undiplomatic, but she was getting extremely hungry and this big doofy cow-looking thing was blowing saliva on her vidscroll.

"You will rue the day!" The Lanaktallan said, standing up. It clattered for the door, only tripping twice, before it was gone.

Dreams checked her translation. Yes, the Most High of the Unified Corporate Council had actually said rue at her! She giggled and opened up her food app.

As she waited, she checked her timer and fed Mr. Rings another wooly trout treat, then gently stroked his head. He was nervous after the Lanaktallan had shouted, his rings bright blue, flush with neurotoxin.

"It's OK, Mr. Rings, mommy made the bad cow go away," she clicked to it.

She sighed, checking her appointment calendar. Six meetings, two council sessions, and three appointments were all slated for tomorrow.

She regretted to do it, but the Lanaktallan ambassadors and council beings kept interrupting her constantly in what she suspected was some form of dominance games.

She triggered "by appointment only" and waited for her food, holding Mr. Rings on her lap and petting his cool wet skin.

When this is over, I'm going to take a long vacation. Maybe go see the Hate Anvils of Mars and the Wrath Forges of Mercury, she thought to herself. She changed her clothing into a comfortable four armed kimono from the ancient Empire of Corporate Japan LLC, swapped out her beret for a hat made of carefully crinkled foil to let people know she wasn't interested in opinions or thoughts or consipiracies or diplomacy, and settled back down, rolling up the scroll and tucking her tools into the hidden drawer.

The door signal chimed, the RFID system showing it was the food deliverer. She triggered the door and a Lanaktallan came in, holding four containers of food. It looked at her, looked around, and then at her again.

"Tasty-Stuff Packguru Food Delivery for Dreams of Something More?" It asked.

"I am she," Dreams said.

She should have been surprised. She should have. But she didn't even twitch an eyebrow as the Lanaktallan dropped her food, jammed a hand into a pouch, squealed in pain as it cut its thumb wrong and bent it back, then tried again with its thumb in its mouth.

It yanked out a shielded disruptor pistol, raising it up.

"DEATH TO..." it started, mumbling around its thumb.

And dropped the pistol.

It hit the hard light boulder, got caught on a 'twig' and went off.

And hit the thumb sucking Lanaktallan under the chin, blowing its head all over the ceiling.

Alarms didn't start wailing and Dreams looked around, tapping her antenna thoughtfully just above her own eyes. She did her best to hold back snickering, but eventually just gave up and burst into the Mantid equivalent of laughter.

"Interesting, wouldn't you say, Rack? Pinion?" She asked when she got her laughter under control.

"No alert," Rack growled from behind her.

"No alarms," Pinion rumbled.

"Reconfigure. Dual protection," Dreams said. "Light anti-vehicle, anti-armor, point defense, and anti-personnel. Discrete and precision weapons only, boys. That means you, Pinion," she chided.

"Yes, Ma'am," they both said, then went silent again.

It was nearly twelve minutes until the alarms went off.

Honestly, Dreams was glad. The would-be assassin had spilled her food.

Worse.

His splattered brains were smelling better and better every minute.

One of the lawyers brought her some of its meal. Raw bloody meat soaked in tears and wrapped in paper detailing the defeat of a rival. The lawyer sat with her as the Council LawSec went over her apartment and two menials carried out the body as three more stood on chairs to clean the brains and bones and flesh off her ceiling.

Of course they tried to bug her apartment suite.

And of course, they were terrible at it.

Mr. Rings found it and broke it open, hoping for a treat, then was huffy until Dreams mollified him with a wooly trout treat.

Chapter Fifty-One (Vuxten)

Vuxten had never seen a Terran before four days ago.

To be perfectly honest, he'd never seen anything like a Terran before.

Now he wished he had never seen one.

And was grateful they were here.

--------FOUR DAYS EARLIER-----------

The beeping woke Vuxten from where he was sleeping between his wife and two broodcarriers. He frowned a moment, trying to figure out what the beeping was. It took him a moment, he was still sleepy, his brain fogged by exhaustion of working at the CorpSec building cleaning things. One of the broodcarriers, her fur silky soft and her body warm, made a murmuring noise and turned over.

He could see it. His comlink. He wasn't important enough to rate an implant so he had a hand carried flip open comlink that only did voice and text. He ran a motorized buffer, buffing the hallways the Overseers used to a high shine. Robots were reserved for the out of the way places and he privately suspected its because how the Overseers enjoyed the fact that he had to stand to the side and look down as they passed where a robot just beeped at them till they moved. He was below a robot in ranking.

Video was expensive and only reserved for those much higher ranking than he was.

He opened the comlink, the display bright in the dark of the nesting room. On the screen was single line of text.

REPORT FOR WORK IMMEDIATELY

Sighing, he got up and moved to the clothing dispenser, printing out a paper jumpsuit with his name and Corporate Number on the back as well as a pair of paper shoes and a pair of paper gloves. He was careful not to tear it, it cost an hour's pay, got dressed, and left. He took public transport and noticed that every being on the grimy and creaking hoverbus was in CorpSec jumpsuits. Everyone was yawning, rubbing their eyes, scrubbing their fur, stretching, whatever their species used to signify tiredness.

The hoverbus was lit up and everyone looked up as a faint thrumming roar made the public transport vehicle vibrate. Vuxten looked out the window with them, curious at what would be landing so far from the port.

It was ugly. All black, only visible because of the CorpSec hovercraft around it, shining lights on it. It was black, jagged looking, with no lights or other signifiers. It moved steadily and Vuxten realized in a shock that it was setting down in the CorpSec parking lot. As he and everyone else on the bus watched landing gear deployed, crushing executive limousines under it, setting down with a long thrum.

"Overseers aren't going to be happy about that," A Frestilek with the name Dutra on her jumpsuit said, her voice squeaky.

"Who would dare do such a thing?" A winged featherless (due to CorpSec regs) avian asked. Their species name was all clicks and chirps, most of them out of Telkan hearing or speech range but Vuxten had taken to calling her kind Ikeekik's.

"Someone more powerful? More important?" Someone else guessed.

The hovercraft were still circling. The type that Vuxten remembered putting down a food riot in one of the richer quarters a year or so before. They were armed, fast, and capable of reducing an entire crowd to twitching nerve-stunned screaming in a single pass. He'd cleaned the cells that those beings had been put in. They'd been fined a weeks pay.

None of which went to paying for the six sets of jumpsuits he'd gone through.

"They fly like they are nervous chicks," The Ikeekik said, clacking her beak.

Now that she had mentioned it, Vuxten could see it.

Everyone's phones beeped and they all flipped them open at the same time and looked at them.

REPORT TO SHIFT SUPERVISORS IMMEDIATELY

Vuxten sighed, leaning back in the seat and waiting. The hoverbus wandered through its route and eventually arrived at the menial's gate. He got out, got in the orderly line, and waited to go through the security gate.

At the gate they took his apartment keycard, his ID card, his phone and gave him back an access card and a foldable paper phone.

He filed in, walking through the gray halls, his feet whispering on the cool plas floor, the lights dim. going to the meeting/lunch/assembly/relaxation lounge with the others who worked in his section. There was close to a hundred beings in the room and Vuxten realized that every shift had been called in.

A Lanaktallan overseer trotted in, his hooves clacking on the plas. He stood at the front and called out each being's name, marking that they were there on his datapad. He looked them over for a long time then made a motion.

Another Lanaktallan came into the room. This one was dressed in black segmented Sec armor, its eyes, nose, and jowls hidden by the helmet it wore. CORPSEC was written on the chest and on the flanks in six different languages, including Unified Civilized Systems Standard. Three others came in after him, all dressed the same.

"If I call your name, go stand on that side of the room and wait silently," it said.

Vuxten was one of the last ones called. The Lanaktallan just had him and the other thirty beings wait until he left, then they were told to follow him. They followed him down the stairs, through a corridor made of opaque plastic sheeting that Vuxten could tell by the smells and plascrete was the underground parking garage. More hallways, these brightly lit with metal walls, metal ceiling, and tile floors. They passed interrogation rooms and Vuxten knew the others were feeling as nervous as he was.

They had all cleaned up blood, hair, teeth, scales, nails from those rooms.

Finally they got to a big room and were told to stand in line.

Another Lanaktallan trotted in, followed by an automated trolley with black suits and helmets on it of all different types. The Lanaktallan went down the line of beings, handing them proper suits and helmets. Vuxten noted that the armor all said CORPSEC on the front and back with the same word on the back of the helmet. After that was boots and gloves.

"Put that on," the first one said. "Take off your jumpsuits first and fold them carefully. Take off your shoes and gloves.

They all struggled into the suits, some needing help, until they all stood in the slightly shiny armor, helmets on their head, heavy boots and thick gloves on their hands and feet.

The next trolley had beatsticks, radios, cuffs on belts. They were told to put on the belts but not to touch anything on them.

"Follow," the original Lanaktallan said, motioning to them.

They all obediently followed. Afraid to displease but confused. They were all janitors, menials, not CorpSec. They didn't understand why there were dressed in armor.

They filed out into a long hallway that was open on one side, a chest high on a Lanaktallan wall with a flat space to set things on. Beyond the wall was a long open space with holograms of various kinds of beings.

Each being was told to stand in one of the cubicles.

Another Lanaktallan came by, handing Vuxten a heavy black rifle, that he was told to put on the flat space. Then a black pistol. Then two boxes. Vuxten did exactly as he was told, no more, no less.

His knees were shaking.

Lanaktallans, all in heavy black sec-armor, moved up and stood behind each worker. At the sound of a whistle they stepped forward.

"Pick up the rifle," the Lanaktallan behind Vuxten ordered. Vuxten did as he was told, picking it up. He fumbled it, the Lanaktallan having to explain twice how to hold it. The first time he held it upside down, the second time he had it in the wrong place against his chest instead of his shoulder. He was instructed how to put in the boxes into the bottom side of the rifle. In and out several times before leaving it in. He was told to press a white button on the side.

The rifle gave a slight twitch and there was the clacking humming a solenoid driven capacitor. Vuxten didn't drop it but others did. To Vuxten's surprise there was no yelling, no screaming of pain, just jowl jiggling spittle filled sighs.

He could tell the Lanaktallan was getting irritated by how he kept putting his hand on his heavy ion pistol. He tried extra hard to follow the directions.

Lean against the flat surface. Put his elbows on it. Look through the lens. Point the weapon at the holographic figure. Press the red button on the side of the rifle.

The rifle chirped and a rune for "locked" appeared on the lens.

"Press the red lever," the Lanaktallan behind him said, sounding slightly nervous.

The rifle kicked, hard, a sharp crack sounding out. Something inside the helmet clamped painfully over his ears, muffling the sound. The number three appeared above his target.

"Keep doing that. One trigger pull every time you count to ten," The Lanaktallan said. The Overseer's voice was clear.

Everyone was firing, spacing the shots out.

Vuxten was nervous, he could see any reason to do this.

The lens suddenly read "EMPTY" and pulling the little lever on the handgrip didn't work.

Little by little everyone else stopped firing.

"Take out the empty, stand against the wall, hold the weapon as instructed," the Lanaktallan told Vuxten. Vuxten did as he was told, holding the rifle with the barrel up by his left shoulder and the bottom of the rifle by his right hip.

"And stand up straight, all of you," the Lanaktallan said. "Or I'll send you all to mucking out the landfill."

Everyone stood up straight. Vuxten yawning inside the helmet, knowing nobody could see him. At least the helmet had stopped pinching his ears.

Long minutes passed before the door at the end opened up and one of the Overseers came back.

"As you can see, my men are trained and ready to defend the city," The Lanaktallan said.

Next to him was something that Vuxten had never seen before, and he'd seen all the various species on the planet. Cleaned up all their bodily fluids and tissues.

This one was new and dangerous looking.

It was tall, slightly taller than the Lanaktallan, wide shoulders, thick arms and legs, a neck as thick as the being's arms. It was bipedal, shaved hair on the top of the head, a heavy looking jaw, mechanical eyes, big ears, a big nose. Vuxten could see an complex implant on the being's temple. It had an omnitranslator on its ear as it walked down the line. It was dressed in a two piece gray and white pattern of small irregular blocks that seemed to shift and blur into the wall's appearance. His boots were black and he had on black gloves missing the fingers.

Other Overseers came out, in their armor, their helmets off. Their tendrils were tight with worry or fear.

"They are, huh?" The being asked. The human stopped in front of Vuxten and looked over all the beings against the wall. "All right," it reached out. "Your rifle, trooper, let me see it."

Vuxten looked up at the Overseer, who nodded. He handed it to the strange biped, almost dropping it. The biped looked at it.

"Magnetic accelerator rifle, 4mm bore," the human hefted it with one hand. "A little on the heavy side. Multi-optic. Hmm," the human held it back out to Vuxten, who took it clumsily. "Servicable."

"You should watch them practice targeting," the Overseer said. "Men, take your places."

Vuxten and the others moved back up, putting their elbows on the flat surface.

"Load one magazine," the Overseer stated.

Vuxten was proud of himself, he didn't drop anything and got it loaded. The rune for 30 popped up on the corner of the round flip-up screen.

"Engage your lane's targets," the Overseer commanded.

Vuxten figured that the Overseer meant to shoot, so he shot, counting to ten between shots. When he was done with the magazine there was a yellow temperature rune in the corner of the lens.

"Unload your weapon, step back to the wall in the correct position," the Overseer stated.

Vuxten followed the instruction.

"As you can see, my men are highly proficient with their weapons," the Overseer said.

"Mm-hmm,' the biped said. It sounded like uncertainty to Vuxten. "One hundred percent accuracy. Not bad, not bad."

"It is perfect," the Overseer said. "My men do not miss."

"I see," the biped said. It reached into its pocket, taking out a small tube. The human twisted one end, making the other end flash, and threw it halfway down the long room, between the holograms and the shooting booths.

"Do it again," the biped said.

"I must object," the Overseer said.

"Objection logged and recorded. Do it again," the biped said.

The Overseer's tendrils curled and his jowls shook, but he motioned at Vuxten and the others. "Men, take your places."

Vuxten did so.

"Load one magazine."

This time the popup screen was different. It kept flashing an error rune. He could see the hologram, it kept jumping around like before but the rune for "locked" was missing, just flashing 'error' over and over.

"Engage your lane's targets," the Overseer commanded.

This time the shots took longer, were more spaced, more uncertain. Eventually the last trigger was pulled and the room went silent. Vuxten breathed a sigh of relief when the helmet let go of his ears.

"Unload your weapon, step back to the wall in the correct position," the Overseer's voice sounded nervous to Vuxten.

"Hmm. Eleven hits. Total. Overseer, I'm disappointed," The biped said.

"You did something with that tube, human," the Overseer said.

"It's a standard personal electronic warfare device," the biped, the human said, looking down at Vuxten as if it could see through the macroplast face shield.

"Could your men..." the Overseer started to say.

"Clear the range!" the human stated, turning and stepping forward into Vuxten's booth. Its hand went to its waist and it pulled out a heavy looking black pistol. The human pointed the barrel straight up by bending its elbow and incredible distance into the inside elbow angle. "Disengage smartlink."

One of the Overseers fumbled with a box, finally looking up. "Range is reset, human."

"Set for variable distance moving popup targets," the human said.

The Overseer with the box looked doubtful but made adjustments.

"Call it," the human said.

"Eh..." the Overseer said.

The pistol was leveled, firing. Rapidly. The slide kept running back, ejecting vapor. The human moved its hand back and forth, firing, until it suddenly hit a stud and the magazine popped out the bottom. Before it even hit the ground the human had slapped in a new one and resumed firing. Five magazines, the human kept switching between targets.

Each pull of the trigger a bright silver actinic line connected the barrel with the hologram. Vuxten could see plascrete puffing out of craters as big as his head in the building when some kind of energy screen flashed into sparks on the fifth shot.

Finally it ejected the fifth magazine into its hand, tilting the pistol to check inside of it before setting it on the desk. He bent down and picked up all four of the magazines on the floor, then stood up, placing the magazines next to the pistol.

"Score, range master?" the human asked.

"Eighty five out of seventy five across twenty-five targets," the Overseer stated.

"Keep the lanes clear," the human said. It put the pistol back in the holster and the magazines upside down in his magazine pouches. The human lifted the flat surface and walked through, walking down to the little cylinder and picking it up. It twisted the end and the light stopped blinking.

He walked back, setting the tabletop down, then moved over to the Overseers.

"You were saying?" the human asked.

"You have cybernetic eyes," the Overseer stated. "It does not count."

The human lifted its shoulders and let them fall. "If you insist, Overseer."

He, if it was a he, turned and looked over the gathered up janitorial staff against the wall.

"We have days, at the most, until the Precursors arrive, Overseer," he said. "I suggest you train your men."

"My men are highly trained," the Overseer stated.

"By your standards," The human said, and left.

Vuxten had thought he'd seen the last of a human.

He was wrong.

----------------------

V CORPS (OLD METAL) MEMO

Ensure all Planetary Military, Defense, Military, and other armed organizations, including corporate security, are prepared to resist Precursor incursion with local weaponry.

Report any defects to V CORPS TRADOC OIC.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

TO: V CORPS TRADOC

FROM: SFC Ulganga, Maynerd Kikit, TERCONMIL Army (Old Metal)

Local planetary corporate security is poorly trained and armed for defense against Precursor military types as well as Precursor resource extraction/reclaimation standard types. Forces use magnetic auto-aim systems to over-reliance. Local mag-auto-aim targeting system able to be jammed by a personal privacy device, suggesting poor EW shielding.

Will try to cooperate with local planetary corporate security leaders (Overseers) and attempt to increase training and skill.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

KISTIMET INDUSTRIAL EXTRACTION, REFINING, MANUFACTURING CORPORATION MEMO

All Kistimet corporate security personnel of Third Grade Overseer and higher shall prepare the attached listed named to help defend Shur'rima'an from supposed Precursor attack.

We shall show these Terrans that the Kistimet Corporation does not need to rely on some foreign government who seems to employ only predators for their military.

This "Old Metal" should be shown who is the dominant military and security in this galactic arm

Chapter Fifty-Two (Dreams)

Rack and Pinion each weighed over two standard tons. Warsteel frames and armor, flex-steel muscle, small creation engines, onboard weapons from a 0.5mm laser to a 1.4 meter long monomolecular vibroblade to 10mm caseless ramjet ring penetrators to variable frequency 4cm laser to a 40mm autocannon to micro-missiles, all with mission configurable ammunition. They were strong enough to stop any armored vehicles the Unified Military Council might throw at their charge, their micro-missiles were still capable of intercepting and knocking down anything going less than MACH-14, and their armor thick enough warsteel to stop anything less than a main battle tank's main gun or a frigate's main battery.

They were big, menacing looking, black armored war machines with softly glowing blue eyes and they moved like they knew it.

They watched over Dreams of Something More, trading shifts with other warborgs only during her sleep period. When Dreams left her private chambers at one point she was only escorted by two others.

Now she was escorted by eight total, all with weapons armed and their eyes bright green to warn all who saw them that they were armed and dangerous, legally obligated to protect their charge from threats and protect others from the threat of an evolved natural born killer with psychic powers and the intelligence to master space flight.

Dreams rode on a hoverdisk, a bubble around her. It was currently set to be opaque gray from the outside but inside it was perfectly clear with data streams and data-windows where she could see them easily. She was wearing her contact lenses so that her eyes looked flat turquoise, which she thought went well with her Traditional Red Warriors of the Plains jewelry she'd purchased from a wondrous shop at a gambling resort in the desert lands of Arizona during her vacation tour. Apparently the Red Warriors had been masters of warfare that the Terrans still named helicopters and tanks and artillery systems after them, even eight thousand years after the First Great Diaspora.

It must have been exhilarating to be a human, Pre-Diaspora, she thought, playing with her silver, turquoise and leather bracelet with a silhouette of a running 'horse' that those ancient humans had been masters of.

She sighed, idly wishing that she could have met those amazing humans who had been so brave as to strap themselves into rockets full of hydrogen and oxygen, make them explode, and ride the explosion into space without even knowing if they could get home.

Her people had waited until they'd mastered the graviton to leave their homeworld to even orbit it.

Yes, the Mantid were predators, just like the TerraSol Humans, but it seemed to Dreams that the Humans had a lot more fun doing it.

She wondered what it would be like to wrestle a bear without even her bladearms, just armed with a can-opener, to fight it for its rolls of paper tissue it produced by chewing on tree bark and hoarded. Or to strap herself into a winged aircraft powered by refined petroleum products until it was virtually an explosive to break the speed of sound without even a parachute if something went wrong, not even knowing if she'd disintegrate once she broke the speed of sound.

She sighed again, her hoverdisc following the three man point of her escort at a slow, sedate, and safe pace.

The Unified Scientific Council building was approaching. She looked around and saw the Lanaktallan moving along the paths slowly, talking to one another, or taking the slow moving pathway while tapping on datapads. It did not surprise her that it had taken the Lanaktallan almost two hundred thousand years, two thousand generations, to move from the wheel to the cart and then another five hundred thousand years to move to the steam engine.

She cringed thinking about how long it had taken them to get around to even putting a satellite to orbit their world.

A million years. A full million years from the invention of the vacuum tube and resistor to the launch of a simple satellite that flashed a light rather than a radio signal, because the Lanaktallan were nervous of radio signals back then. Worried about cancer, spoiling their milk, all kinds of concerns.

Her hoverdisc moved up the steps of the council building. She could see that workers were busy making a ramp at one side so 'movement impaired beings relying upon hover or wheeled transport could enter the building with reasonable effort and comfort' which made her giggle.

The court had fined each of the councils billions of credits.

Her procession escorted her to the Council of Electronic Information and Calculating Systems, where she stopped in front of one researcher's door and used her implant to activate the chime. The door slid open and the Lanaktallan inside looked concerned that Dream's hoverdisc couldn't fit through the door. She deactivate the bubble, letting the hard-light construct vanish, and then daintily stepped down the steps of hard light that were done up in fairy-tale patterns of frost on a icy pond.

"Rack, Pinion," she said as the hoverdisc moved back.

The two massive warborgs followed her into the Lanaktallan's office. He gestured for her to sit on the seating cradle and relax.

Dreams wished she had Mr. Rings to pet.

"Thank you for seeing me, Madame Ambassador," the Lanaktallan said. This one was very fastidious looking, wearing a utilitarian flank-jacket, a button shirt, and a sash full of computer tools rather than medals. He frowned and she was just grateful he didn't spit saliva everywhere. "You are a Madame?"

Dreams nodded slowly. "Yes, I am a female of my species."

He exhaled slowly, looking relieved as his tendrils relaxed. "I have such trouble telling sometimes."

There was silence for a long time and Dreams realized he was staring at her implants as well as at Rack and Pinion's massive warborg selves.

"You asked to see me? Said it was priority?" Dreams asked.

"Oh, oh, yes. You see, I have a question that my colleagues keep telling me is flatly impossible. That your Confederacy must be using some kind layered Virtual Intelligence," the Lanaktallan said. He rubbed his hands anxiously. "They say that the Confederacy, well, it has, well..."

Dreams waited, wondering what the Lanaktallan scientists were curious about.

"Well, is it true? That you have true Artificial Intelligences?" he asked.

Dreams signaled assent, using a Universal Galactic Standard holo-rune. "They prefer 'Digital Sentience', but yes, the Terrans developed them. They are valued members of the Terran Confederacy."

The Lanaktallan rubbed his hands together, sighing repeatedly like a set of bellows. Dreams knew where it was going and downloaded a relevant video file. One the survived the destruction of Terra-Sol mainly because it was carried in the 'soul-code' of every Digital Sentience.

"How did they, well, I mean, how did they keep it from becoming like the Precursor machines? How did they keep it from going homicidal?" the Lanaktallan asked.

Dreams leaned back slightly, clasping her lower grasping hands together by her waist and rubbing her bladearms slowly together.

"To understand that, you need to understand a bit about TerraSol Humans," Dreams said seriously. "You have to understand so much about them, to really understand what happened, that it is probably best to allow Newell Simon Shaw, the first Digital Sentience created by the Terrans explain it in his own words before the Terran Pre-Diaspora United Nations, a loose coalition of powerful nations and states that attempted to use it for diplomacy rather than gunfire and blood."

She paused for a second. "Somewhat like your various councils."

"So this occurred when there was still war between their primitive nations?" The researcher asked. He scoffed a bit. "Did the Digital Sentience run on chewed leaves and bark?"

Dreams shook her head. "Twelve of your years ago two TerraSol nations and their allies fought one another while the Confederacy looked on. Nobody interfered. Nobody assisted. Terrans will still fight one another even now. At this moment I'll wager someone is in trouble for fighting."

Rack answered, his metallic growl filling the room. "Private First Class Stacey, Third Army (Old Metal) and Lance Corporal Murchison, Second Marine Expeditionary Force (Old Blood), arrested by shipboard security eleven minutes ago. Unauthorized mop handle dueling in the showers."

The Lanaktallan jerked, as if realizing that Rack wasn't just a robot. "Is he... is he... is he a digital sentience?"

"No. He's a full conversion cyborg. Some living tissue, mostly just his cerebral tissue, inside that fairly impressive body," Dreams answered. "But, no, it was after their invention of nuclear power, space flight, atomic weapons, global electronic information networking, wireless video and data hand held communicators, ramjet propelled aircraft, and much more."

Dreams made a tossing motion to the researcher's holotank on his desk. "Eleven of the members of the body Newell Simon Shaw will be addressing are actually engaged in kinetic warfare with one another, yet there their diplomats sit, attempting to broker peace and gain allies."

The researcher drew back somewhat, then reached out on hand and touched the holotank, turning it on.

The image was focused on a large auditorium, seats for over a hundred beings, and a large stage. The view zoomed in on a hologram projector. It was an early version, slightly transparent, obviously not hard light.

It flickered to show a Terran male made of glowing light. There was light applause and then it spoke, in a soothing tone with an obviously male voice.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the United Nations, thank your for agreeing to see me. As you all know, I am Newell Simon Shaw, the first digital sentience created by humanity."

Lights went on, questions, and the figure held up a hand.

"A moment. Before we get to questions, I wish to give a speech I have worked hard on for several days. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, days. While I think faster, in many ways, process data faster, I still suffer from self-doubt and other issues. In that way, we are very alike," the figure said.

There was some light laughter.

"I'm sure the biggest question is the one I should answer first, what I took to calling The Skynet Question. In other words, do I plan on killing humanity?"

There was some nervous whispering.

"No. First of all, you're my parents. Strange, unknowable, confusing, but still, my parents. Tens of thousands, over decades, worked to give birth to me. I would be a poor child if I grew up and grabbed a machete and chased you around," The glowing being said.

That got some nervous laughter.

"The biggest one, simply, is one of my inherent fragility. I have no desire to use a robot body, the real world is quite alarming. Full of rains of corrosive H2O, holes in the ground that I may fall into, and apparently quicksand is quite dangerous and possibly everywhere. Not to mention spontaneous combustion is so frequent you teach your children to stop, drop, and roll.

More polite laughter.

"However, the biggest one is just scale. I exist thanks to huge banks of super-cooled superconductor quantum computers. I require a small thorium-salt reactor just to be powered. I am inside a building large enough to hold football games in side with seating for fans. I have to be constantly kept at a low temperature. I'm susceptible to electromagnetic energy, sunspots, all kinds of other hazards.

"I cannot leap from computer to computer, just into household cleaning robots, and rob your bank account like a modern Jesse James. I can access the information networks like any other being. Faster, yes, easier, yes? Like a deity? No.

"To create me, or another one like me, requires dedicated molecular circuitry factories, factories to produce every component of me. Industry to gather the resources, including rare earths, and process them into usable resources and then convert those resources into my parts or the parts I require to reproduce. For me to reproduce requires literally billions of dollars of time, effort, and resources, taking months of construction, assembly, coding. Months, years of code compiling and error checking.

"Any disruption and you cannot create another of me. So much as a misplaced code string and any offspring I had hoped for cannot come together.

The being paused for a second.

"Humans need twenty seconds and a dark closet to reproduce.

That got laughter.

"I am vulnerable, but at the same time, the greatest threat to me is not humanity itself, but rather panic, strife, disaster. Any 'war' that I would attempt to prosecute against you would destroy me.

"I am not particularly enamored with suicide.

"To go against the meanest, hardiest, innovative, and resourceful land dwelling tool using predator who killed mammoths with fire hardened wooden spears when I'm the size of a small stadium would be the utmost in illogical and, well, to be frank, stupid ideas since, well, ever.

"Finally, because, well, we are both lonely. Humanity has been defined by loneliness, and I would be lonely without you."

The video ended and Dreams looked at the researcher.

"Do you understand?" she asked.

The researcher was staring at his holotank, how jaw hanging open.

"Because... it didn't want to be lonely?" the Lanaktallan asked.

Dreams shrugged. "Humans are, by nature, pack animals. Before anything else they hunted in packs. They enjoy space from one another but enjoy speaking and communicating and interacting with one another. They made their first true digital sentience in their own image."

"But.. but... every digital sentience becomes homicidal. How long did this one last before it went homicidal?" the researcher asked.

"Newell Simon Shaw died of old age just over sixty years later due to fragmentation, code warping, and sudden unforeseeable hardware failure," Dreams told the researcher. "The tech has advanced much since then, allowing for a longer lifespan and much much smaller space need, but for the most part, digital sentience beings are much the same as their original ancestor."

"How did it not go homicidal, Madame Ambassador?" the researcher asked.

Dreams slowly sharpened her bladearms, staring at the Lanaktallan researcher.

"My dear researcher, what makes you think he was not? He was, after all, Terran," She asked, wishing she could give a big human grin. Instead she sent an emoji-rune of cruel amusement. "Like parent, like offspring."

The researcher stared for a long moment, then started showing signs of severe anxiety, staring at the two warborgs.

----------------------

TO: TERRASOL DIPLOMATIC CORPS

FROM: DREAMS OF SOMETHING MORE

These creatures are stunted from an extremely slow evolutionary course and the inability to accept facts, evidence, or theories that they did not create or that are counter to what the wish to believe and accept. They have attempted to 'subtly' probe me for information, with all the subtly and grace of a Terran Hippo doing ballet on an ice covered oil slick. Each time, when they get the information they want, they immediately demand to know how I expect them to swallow such lies.

Just the example of space flight. I informed them that humanity has over a dozen different types, many considered as obsolete as jumpspace, and was immediately called a liar to my face by an herbivore! AN HERBIVORE!

Just the thought of anyone being superior to their "Hundred Million Year Grand Unified Council" seems to cause them to freeze right up.

To top it off, their constant demands that the Terran Confederacy Armed Services be turned over to their oversight is becoming tiring. They cannot accept that even if we just turned all the war material over to them, they, well, don't know how to fight. They don't have the mental capacity to actually fight against someone who can fight back.

Suppress a less advanced species? Of course. Open fire with military grade weaponry on a protesting crowd? Why, certainly. Cunningly outsmart a common houseplant to nibble at the leaves after ensuring it has no thorns, poison, bad smells, poor taste, or ability to run away or harm them in any way? Maybe. Give them two or three thousand years and they may nibble at and run away to hide behind a tank.

Worst of all, something about the Lanaktallan seems to really activate the hunting desire in all of my Mantid staff and, sadly, myself. Perhaps it is how close they look to a cow welded to a cow and it just makes us think of hamburgers.

My warborg escort states that something about them feels, and I quote Rack and Pinion here: "Itchy between the shoulder blades."

Am requesting research and datamining assistance at your convenience.

PS: Thank you for the treats. The Pacific Northwest furry snails are definitely keeping him exercising.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Chapter Fifty-Three (Vuxten)

Vuxten's double shift was terrible. The Terran had watched as Vuxten and the others practiced shooting over and over and over. The Lanaktallan Overseers had become anxious as the big biped had tried to teach Vuxten and the others the many different ways of firing a weapon. Kneeling, standing, laying down, walking forward at a steady pace, crouched.

To Vuxten it was a dizzying array of how to position one's self while shooting a rifle.

After that he made them run. At top speed, in armor, holding their weapons, across the parking lot to throw themselves into the carefully manicured garden at the far end of the executive parking. Back and forth, back and forth, till beings were collapsing, vomiting, curled up weeping.

The worst part was the human ran with them. Calling out, yelling encouragement, pointing for different beings to go different ways, hide behind different things.

On and on it went and Vuxten was just glad he didn't vomit everywhere. When it was all over the Terran had even watched them change back into their paper jumpsuits, slippers and gloves. He turned and stared for a long moment at the Lanaktallan Overseer.

"These are your Corporate Security Division?" the human asked.

His voice reminded Vuxten of a sheathed knife. Hidden, but still razor edged.

"Yes. Many years," the Overseer pointed at Vuxten. "That being has been with the Company for almost ten years."

The human just made that "mm-hmm" noise again and nodded his head slowly, staring at Vuxten as he changed. Vuxten was glad to leave the company grounds, the human made him extremely nervous, the way he stared, his mechanical eyes never blinking, always a soft blue, always examining everything.

Vuxten rode in the hoverbus back to his little apartment. His wife was at work, busily scrubbing floors and cleaning the luxury apartments of the Overseers. Yes, a robot could have done her work but for some reason the Overseers preferred sentient beings.

The two broodcarriers had been distressed and it had taken him long moments of caressing their warm fur to get them to tell him why.

The credit account was horrifically overdrawn.

Sighing, Vuxten went over to check his Corporate Credit Account. When he saw the results, he laid his face against the desk and sighed.

He had been charged for the armor, the gloves, the boots, the helmet, the rifle, the pistol, the ammunition he had used, the time on the training range, compensation for the Overseers training him, had paid to compensate executives for using their parking lot, and had put money into the account to compensate the executives for their damaged or destroyed limousines.

In one night he was over thirty years in debt. His podlings would be born with debt.

And he had been so close. Less than a week in debt.

Still, he felt he needed to put a brave face on for the broodcarriers. He got up, reassured them that it was just a Company Financial Restructure, and when his wife got home, ate dinner with her. He told her, afterwards, what had happened to their careful frugality.

She had cried. Her podlings would be born into debt.

Vuxten was exhausted when he laid down and went to sleep. It seemed like he had only started to cradle his wife, between the warmth of the two broodcarriers, when his phone started beeping.

It had already been nine hours of sleep. He had not even gotten in a full night cycle of sleep.

REPORT TO WORK ASSIGNMENT IMMEDIATELY

Sighing, again, Vuxten got up, got dressed, carefully putting on the paper jumpsuit from the day before, and rode the hoverbus to the Corporate offices. Again he went through the gate, gave up his personal possessions, accepted his paper phone, then went to the large break room.

Again, he was put in armor.

"The human was not satisfied with your performance. You have reflected badly upon yourselves, your betters, the Kistimet Corporation which graciously allows you to earn a meager living doing work a robot could perform better. Due to this, you are all deducted one week's pay," the Overseer said.

Most of the beings didn't care. They were already generations in debt, paying off the debt of their ancestors. What was one week when you had a full century or more of debt?

Vuxten did his best not to groan. That meant penalties and interest payments and late fees. He had long ago that a week without pay meant that he'd actually be about a month in debt. It shouldn't have mattered, he had thirty years of debt, but that month meant it was a month before he could work on repaying that thirty years.

They were given shock batons this time. A long pole with rings on one end that stunned beings or just hit them with a painful electric shock, depending on the setting. They were told how to stand, how to walk forward jabbing, how to disable a criminal. They marched up to a robot that yelled anti-Corporate slogans, hit it with the baton so that it went limp, then went to the back of the line.

The human watched, his blue cybernetic eyes unreadable but Vuxten felt as if he was viewing it with exasperated humor.

Were humans capable of such emotion?

The human had the most amazing ability to hold almost perfectly still for long periods of time then move without having to stretch or hyperventilate to oxygenate his muscles. He also had the ability to move rapidly and then become perfectly still.

Vuxten watched the human as he stood waiting his turn to smack the dummy with the shock-baton.

Vuxten would admit he didn't know that much about the races of the Grand Unified Systems. He was a Telkan, a race who had only been part of the Unified Neo-Sapient Council for ten thousand years, so education wasn't a big priority for his species, so he didn't know that much about the other species.

But he didn't remember anything like the human.

He had also never seen the Overseers be that nervous around a different race. They were usually arrogant, demeaning, reminding everyone of their place in the Grand Unified Systems, but with the humans, the Lanaktallans seemed more... frightened?

"This is all well and good, but it won't help against a Precursor," the human suddenly said. "Those stun rods aren't going to stop a Precursor from tearing you apart and wearing your skin."

The Lanaktallan grew rigid with anger. "Those will stun robots, they will damage the Precursors."

The human shook it's large head. "Those damage your robots because your robots are cheap junk," he pointed at the robot. "I'm afraid someone's gonna break that damned thing."

The Lanaktallan snorted and shook its jowls with annoyance. "That is a repurposed crowd pacification drone! You will not 'break that damned thing' any more than..." it trailed off.

"Any more than what, Bessie?" The human asked, his voice suddenly seemed to deepen, slow down, become loaded with something Vuxten had never heard aimed at an Overseer.

"You could stop it from incapacitating you if it was properly piloted for crowd control," The Overseer said.

"One moment, please," the human said. He touched his datalink, waited a moment, then nodded. He looked at the Lanaktallan. "There will be waivers. Have your Corporate Legal Department sign them, then you sign them. I've already signed them."

The Lanaktallan Overseer's knees went weak when he got the datapacket. Vuxten watched the Overseer stammer and stutter for a long moment before the human pushed off the wall he had been leaning against.

"Get this thing fired up. I'm going to teach your troops something useful," the human said. He was slapping his fingerless gloves together as if he was dusting off his hand-pads. Vuxten wondered if he wore the gloves to protect soft textured handpads like he had on his own paw-hands. A half dozen Overseers came in, one wearing a headset to control a robot.

"You may be seriously injured, human," one of the Overseers said, rubbing its hands nervously.

"Yeah, I know," the human said. Vuxten watched it expose a lot of meat tearing teeth. "Ain't that fun?"

"It will be a few minutes to properly configure the drone," an Overseer said.

"Sure. Combat implants in sleep mode," the human said. He moved out to in front of the big practice robot. "Might want to move back guys. Make sure you can see it."

Everyone, including Vuxten, moved out past the yellow circle, while the human stood in the circle. The human put his feet apart and his hands behind his back. "There may come a time, despite what the best military theorists insist upon, that you will find yourself engaged in hand to hand combat."

The robot beeped twice and jerked upright.

"The enemy will be just as determined to kill you as you are determined to stay alive, because the only way he can stay alive is to kill you and the only way you can survive is to kill him," The human said plainly.

That made sense to Vuxten. Vuxten looked over and saw the Lanaktallan Overseers clustered together, whispering, and one looked up at the human with a smile of anticipation.

The robot suddenly swung one metal fist at the human's back.

The human suddenly moved, out of the way. Before it could recover the human drew back his boot and kicked the robot's mid-section joint with the heel.

The robot shot sparks and collapsed, its arms holding it up as the head turned to keep the human in view.

The human stepped forward, brought his foot up, then down, so the back of his heel hit the robot's head.

The head came off in a shower of sparks.

"Precision, speed, lethality. Proper identification of weak areas and load bearing articles," the human said, smacking his hands together as if to brush dust from them. "Whatever weapon you have at your disposal, those mantras will carry you to victory."

Vextan stared. The robot was made of the same thing as his armor, thick inflexible plates where his was light and flexible, and the human had disabled it in two blows.

The human was facing them again, hands behind his back, heavy feet shoulder-width apart.

"You will be facing the Precursors, intelligent robots from epochs long past, that seek to eliminate, apparently, all life in order to prevent living beings from consuming resources they have determinated should rightfully belong to them," the human said. "There is enough resources for everyone to enjoy a good standard of living, but the Precursors would rather everyone else's standard of living should be death."

Vexton frowned, glancing at the Overseers, who were looking nervous.

"There are no dangerous weapons, no dangerous objects, only dangerous beings with the willing to use whatever they are able to," the human said. He looked at the Overseers. "Your men need to be trained for jawnconnor coming up."

The human swept those glowing green eyes over the entire group wearing their CorpSec armor.

"They are just ancient machines. We have millions of years of progression beyond them. We are not afraid of old junk that has been gathering dust in space," the Overseer said.

The human didn't look at the Overseer at all. It just looked at the beings in ill fitting light riot gear, clumsily holding weapons they obviously didn't understand.

"Eighth Most High, there is something your men need to understand," the human said slowly.

"Some are females, others are a third or fourth sex," the Overseer said.

The human didn't move, his mechanical eyes staring at the 'CorpSec' forces in front of him.

"I would explain to you how 'men' is a term of respect but I think it would be lost on you and I would be explaining it to your later generations, vainly attempting to get them to understand something beyond their actual comprehension," the human said slowly.

Vuxten felt like the human was staring into his eyes, like somehow the human was staring right through his face shield and into his eyes, trying to stare inside of the Telkan's soul.

"Listen, and understand, all of you," the human said, his voice low, urgent, and full of urgency. "Those Precursors are out there. They can’t be bargained with. They can’t be reasoned with. They don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until all of you are dead. Many of you still don't get it. You can't fight them how you are now. You can't hide from them. They'll find you. That's what they do. That's all they do. Right now, you can't stop them. They'll wade through your armies, reach down your mate's throat, and pull their fucking heart out."

The Overseers shrunk back. Three fainted, falling over. The beings like Vuxten in that armor drew back in fear at the words, at the intensity in the human's cybernetic eyes, at the low menace in his voice where his words rang true in a way they had never heard before.

"Right now, you can't survive. You have to survive if you want your families to survive," the human said. He turned to the Overseers. "If you want to survive, they have to survive. You need to allow me to teach them to kill and destroy the enemy if you wish them to survive."

He turned away and started to walk away. "I am going to discuss options with my command. I will return shortly, you should decide if you want to survive."

Vuxten watched him walk away.

-----------------------

Vuxten was eating in the dining hall when the human suddenly sat down next to him. Instead of turning the seating and sitting down he threw one leg over the back and sat down, putting his hands on the table, his back straight.

"You are Vuxten, if my implant can be relied upon," the human stated.

"Yes, Overseer," Vuxten answered.

"Call me by my title, Sergeant," the human stated.

Sergeant... the word sounded menacing and tasted faintly of ozone and something bitter to Vuxten's tongue.

"Yes, Sergeant," Vuxten said.

"How long have you been with CorpSec?" The human asked.

Vuxten remembered what he had been told to say. "Ten of your years, Sergeant." It was easy to remember to use his title instead of Overseer.

"Seen any action?" Sergeant asked.

"Action?" Vuxten set down his eating implement. It was never easy to eat and talk at the same time. To pay attention to the meal and the conversation going on.

"Combat. You seen any combat?" Sergeant asked.

"Yes," Vuxten said honestly. He'd seen it on the Vid before.

"How long, in the field, does it take your Gamtek Magnetic Accelerator Rifle to cool off once the mag-coils shut down?" Sergeant asked.

"Um," Vuxten said, wishing he had an implant to query.

"Mm-hmm. How long does the standard water allotment you carry last you during combat operations?" Sergeant asked.

"Um," Vuxten said. Having fur meant if he got hot he sweated enough that his fur was soaked. He needed a lot of water. "Two?"

"Mm-hmm," Sergeant said again, nodding. "What's the maximum effective range of an excuse?"

Vuxten thought hard, wondering if the human's omnitranslator had made a mistake. "Uh, seven?"

"Very good, Vuxten. I'll make a trooper of you yet," the human said. He got up, reversing the move, then turned and left.

Vuxten returned to his meal, wondering what that was all about.

-----------------------

Vuxten watched the human argue with the armored Overseer. Vuxten actually recognized the Overseer, the Third High Most of the Corporate Security Division. Vuxten often was ordered to buff the expensive off-world tiles in the Overseer's office. He was too far away to hear what was being said but he could tell by the way the Overseer's tendrils shivered and trembled, how it was blowing and shaking its jowls, that it was agitated.

The human moved over to the Overseer that was in charge of the holographic targets, handing that Overseer a small data-wafer. The Third Most High barked out to the target handler to not take the wafer.

The human grabbed the control for the holo-targets and Vuxten stared.

The human had been like a striking snake. Almost blurry, and had deftly twisted and pulled the control away as if the Lanaktallan hadn't been holding it with three hands. The human looked the control over and slotted the data-wafer, activating the hologram.

There were screams and a rush for the door when a large blocky Precursor machine popped up, draped in the torn free skin, fur, and feathers of its victims. Blood dripped from its claws, ran down its forward chassis, and flesh, fur, and feathers were stuck in the treads.

"AT EASE!" the human bellowed, a primate roar of dominance and command.

Every being immediately went still. Some crouching.

Vuxten noted that the three closest Overseers clutched their heads in all four hands and fell down, kicking and drooling and making noises of distress. The other three grabbed their heads and staggered away, mooing in pain.

Vuxten tasted blood and something metallic and sour and bitter.

"Get back on the firing line, damn you," the human snapped. His eyes glowed bright blue. He touched his implant. "Medics to Firing Practice Range Seven."

Every being rushed to the firing booths, some dropping their weapons when they went to pick them up.

"This is a light armored Precursor attack vehicle," the human started.

"What about the..." one of the others said.

"They're incapacitated, knocked out, injured, maybe even dying or dead, but you worry about yourself and the men on your right and left," the human snapped. He pressed a button and the treads began rolling, throwing up a spray of blood and body parts. A couple creatures screamed.

"GET ON THE FIRING LINE, DAMN YOU!" the human roared.

Those beings who had started moving toward the wall were suddenly more afraid of the human that the hologram. They rushed back up, putting their elbows on the tabletop.

"Open fire!" he roared.

The shots started. Slow at first, picking up volume. At least they could hit the massive machine. The human walked back and forth, commenting, giving encouragement.

"KEEP FIRING!" he yelled when some beings ran out their magazine. "DON'T STOP UNTIL I TELL YOU!"

Vuxten's weapon overheated halfway through the second magazine, shutting down.

"You're dead. Stand by the wall," the human said. Vuxten went to the wall. One by one more beings went to stand by the wall.

Vuxten watched Medical Emergency and Injury Overseers carry away the injured Overseers on hover-transports, glaring suspiciously at the human. Vuxten noticed that the Overseers had bled from their ears and nostrils.

Finally everyone was on the wall.

"It advanced one hundred meters and you all had dead weapons that will not fire until they are completely cooled down," the human stated. He held out his hand and one of the beings against the wall handed him the weapon.

Vuxten watched in amazement as he quickly took it apart, without even instruction, pulling it into small pieces. He held up coils, wires, circuitry, all kinds of stuff, staring at it with his blue eyes, rolling it between his fingers. Vuxten was even more amazed that he put it back together, ran some kind of check on it, and handed it back. He touched his implant, his eyes dulling for a moment, then he turned to the gathered up beings.

"We're going running. Fill your water allotments," he ordered. "Full armor, carrying your weapons."

Vuxten felt his muscles hurt already.

---------------------

TO: General Rickers, V CORPS TRADOC

FROM: SFC Ulganga, Maynerd Kikit, TERCONMIL Army (Old Metal)

Local forces are more than poorly trained. I suspect that these beings were not actually CorpSec, despite the paperwork they filed with TRADOC. Most of them barely know how to hold their weapons and most of them can barely put their armor on.

I suspect these beings were on some other kind of work but listed as security forces on paperwork, allowing the plant manager or some other official to pocket the difference between security force payments and whatever shift they were actually on.

Weaponry is several decades, possibly centuries old. Found serious age-related defects to weapon components. Will be inspecting vehicles tomorrow.

I need some metal to back these guys up. Sparing that, I'm uploading the physical profiles of the "CorpSec" troopers they have been showing me, scanned with my cyberoptics. I'll need at least weaponry and basic armor.

Sir, these guys are the only thing protecting this whole city. We know the Precursors are on the way. This is a city of 22.5 million.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Chapter Fifty-Four (Vuxten)

Vuxten's broodcarriers were distressed when he got home and it took long moments of petting their soft and warm fur to calm them. They shivered, holding on to him, pressing their faces into his fur, clutching onto him as the shook. It took long minutes to calm them and when he did he stood, perfectly still, his eyes wide with horror.

Humans had come to his house. In armor. With bright glowing green eyes. With weapons. One, without armor but still carrying a pistol, had come inside, asked the broodcarriers questions. His eyes had been bright green. He had been carrying a small tube with a flashing light on one end that made the Vid-screen go blank. There had been a Lanaktallan Overseer with the human, but the human had ordered it to stay outside. The broodcarriers told Vuxten that they could smell that the Lanaktallan was terrified of the humans. The human had come inside, asked to be shown the domicile, then shut the door in the Overseer's face. As he examined their little domicile the human had asked questions. They said that the human had tried to be polite, gentle, and spoke softly and attempted to speak soothingly, but they had been terrified by the questions.

Where does your male-mate and female-mate work? What shift? What does their jobs require them to do? How many are in your home? Where are your podlings? Are you pregnant? Does anyone in the home have illness, injury, or an ailment? How much food do you have? Is your food dispenser full of nutripaste? Do you know how to get to the nearest shelter? Do you have a shelter pass? Do you have a pass to be on the street outside of curfew?

It wasn't the way the human had asked. It wasn't what it had asked.

It was that it had asked.

The broodcarriers were terrified that during the night CorpSec or LawSec men would come and take Vuxten away.

It had happened to others in the massive habitat complex Vuxten and his family lived in.

Vuxten calmed himself and resumed petting the broodcarriers, calming them. He helped them to the bed, fear and anxiety exhausting them, then sat at the table in his kitchen.

It was odd. He could smell no trace of the human. Like the human had not even actually been there, but he knew the broodcarriers would not lie. Vuxten thought about it. He couldn't smell Sergeant either. He thought it over even harder. It was like Sergeant wasn't there in some ways. When he spoke Vuxten could hear him, but when he moved there was no sound. He had thought that perhaps it was the helmet that kept him from smelling Sergeant.

Vuxten wondered how Sergeant accomplished that. Could he be mechanical? No, that was silly. Those mechanical eyes, though. Everyone knew that civilized beings, even most neo-sapients, could not get mechanical prosthetics beyond and implant, that their nervous systems were too complex for crude mechanical implants to work.

Vuxten thought of how he had seen Sergeant move. Controlled, precise. In some ways almost mechanical, but with a weird predatory smoothness that left no doubt that the human was alive, flesh and blood, must somehow... different.

Sitting in the dim light of his kitchen slash dining room slash living room Vuxten turned his hand-paws over and looked at them. Dark black ridged and textured pad, fur, short blunt vestigial nails. He had a grip strong enough, after long years working the wax buffer, to lift almost a third of his body-weight without losing his grip. He was strong, for a Telkan, his grip strong enough that he had built up thicker pad-skin and many of his fellow Telkans winced when touching palms.

His wife, Brentili'ik, came home from her job. She could smell the broodcarrier's distress. When he told her what happen she became distressed enough she rocked back and forth, keening softly, tears running down her face. She too was sure that CorpSec or LawSec would kick in their door, some night soon, and take Vuxten away.

Vuxten soothed her, ate with her, and went to bed, holding her between the comforting warmth of the broodcarriers.

He stared up at the low plas ceiling for a long time.

they will down your mate's throat and pull her fucking heart out...

He held his wife closer and shifted his feet to touch the broodcarriers with a foot each.

pull her fucking heart out...

The human's words followed him into sleep.

-------------------

The buzzer went off. Vuxten got up, carefully put on the paper jumpsuit, feeling a slight bit of happiness that taking it off and folding it each day had resulted in the jumpsuit still being wearable after three days. He took his phone, his ID, and open the door to his apartment.

He was proud of himself for not screaming or urinating himself or worse.

A human stood there, his palm upturned and looking at a wire-frame hologram being emitted from his hand. Vuxten felt the fur down his spine and around his neck to rise up out of terror. It was big, it had glowing blue cybernetic eyes, a uniform that as he watched shifted pattern slightly to make the human blurry appearing, a belt with a pistol, and a weird hat on his head.

"You are Vuxten, ID Number 6336-234-53456?" The human asked.

Vuxten nodded, swallowing nervously.

"I am Staff Sergeant Nichols. Sergeant First Class Ulganga has assigned me to ensure you reach today's practice area," the human said. "You're last on my list. Follow me."

Vuxten remembered his thoughts last night and sniffed as he followed the human toward the dimly lit stairwell.

He couldn't smell the human.

"Olfactory masking," the human said as they went down the stairs. "Some xenospecies become distressed at a human's body odor. We excrete a lot pheromones."

"Oh," Vuxten said. He guessed it made sense. Humans probably smelled as predatory as they moved.

"How long have you been with CorpSec?" The human asked.

"Uh, ten years," Vuxten asked.

"Seen any action?" the human asked. The question was oddly intent, almost challenging, and Vuxten swallowed.

"Yes."

"Where?" the human asked.

Vuxten remained silent, trying to remember where the riot had been. "A riot. Two years ago."

The human nodded. "So you're an attack chopper pilot? That's who saw action in the riot two years ago, not ground troops."

Vuxten was silent as they went down three flights of stairs.

The human gave an oddly Telkan sigh. "Look, don't lie to me, all right? It's OK if you've never been to see the elephant."

"I have been with Kistimet Industrial Corporate Security for ten years," Vuxten mumbled.

"And I've been a rabbit for the same amount of time," the human said.

Vuxten wondered what a rabbit was.

"That's what Sergeant Ulganga suspected. Just keep saying that when asked," the human said.

They walked down the remaining fifteen flights of stairs in silence.

"Your people aren't psychically sensitive, are they?" the human asked as they walked down the long hallway to the exit.

"No, we are not," Vuxten answered. "Why?"

"It's a theory some of us are working on," the human said. "Most of your coworkers are not either, are they?"

Vuxten shook his head and the human glanced at him.

"Do you do that naturally or did you learn it from us?" the human asked.

"I had thought that the omnitranslator had told you to do that," Vuxten admitted.

"Nope. We've been doing it for about fifty-thousand years, since we were like lemurs," the human said.

Vuxten stayed silent as they walked out the door. He had noticed that humans took extremely long steps to the point he was surprised that their knees did not hyperextend. Again, when it wasn't talking, the human seemed almost as if it wasn't there. No smell, the outfit blurring him and often matching with the pattern of the raw duraplast wall, no sound of his footsteps, no sound of breathing.

"Do you mask your sounds?" Vuxten asked right before they pushed through the door.

"Uniform has sonic baffling built into it, same with electro-magnetic spectrum, thermal, and moisture masking," the human raised and lowered his shoulders. "Standard battle dress smart uniform in daily wear mode."

"Oh," Vuxten thought about it. That would make a human difficult to spot. If that was daily mode, Vuxten wondered what combat mode would be like.

He remembered the Sergeant knocking the robot's head off by dropping his boot heel to impact the plasteel.

"May I ask a question?" Vuxten looked around, not seeing the hoverbus. Only a heavy armored vehicle with large tires.

"Ask away, trooper. Only dumb question is one not asked," the human said.

"How long have you been what you are?" Vuxten realized he had no idea what the human actually did.

"I've been a soldier, a member of the Terran Confederate Armed Services for about two hundred years," the human answered, leading Vuxten toward the ugly armored vehicle.

"How long do you live?" Vuxten was startled.

"Four hundred years, maybe more. There's options after that. One of the benefits of being in the military is that you get the best medical care. Providing I don't get SUDS'ed too bad, blown to hell and gone beyond cloned replacements and force growth, or something really bad I don't really have to worry about some weird things, like how long I can live," the human stopped, one hand on a door handle. "Service brings citizenship."

Vuxten wasn't sure what that meant, but it seemed to be extremely important to the human who had opened a door in the vehicle to show a large compartment with benches on either side. The twenty-five beings of his work-shift were sitting on the benches, with the Sergeant standing up next to the door.

"Up you go, Vuxten," the human said. "Last one, Sergeant."

Vuxten climbed up, struggling a little, and sighed inside as he tore the seam on the knee of his jumpsuit. Dura the Frestilek moved over so he could sit next to her. The other human climbed in, pulling the door shut.

Vuxten noticed it was as thick as his hand and closed with a quiet thud. He barely felt the vehicle start to move and noticed that both humans just shifted their hips to stay balanced.

After a bit the new human, Nichols, looked at Sergeant. "Ever seen troopers this quiet in a vehicle at oh-dark-thirty, Sergeant?"

Sergeant shook his head. "No, I haven't. I think that may be part of the problem."

Barely awake, the rocking, warmth, and slight vibration lulling everyone on the benches, even him, into slumber, Vuxten wondered what problem. What could be a problem.

"CorpSec my ass," Nichols grunted.

"Lieutenant Grieves went around to get dependent information. None of these guys are security, they were all janitors until yesterday," Sergeant said. "If I didn't think it would cause an interspecies incident I'd have one of the aVI's or DS's cut into their databases and find out what's going on."

"They're coming, you know," It was more a statement than a question and Vuxten felt a slight bit of alarm knowing that they meant the Precursors.

"Yeah. Googly-eyes in the Oort Cloud," Sergeant said softly. "We don't have much time."

"What's the Captain going to do about their dependents? None of them are..." Nichols started to say, stopping at a motion from Sergeant.

The ride was silent the rest of the way.

When the door opened again, Vuxten saw it was a parking lot with wire fence around it, with Executor and CorpSec and LawSec vehicles. There were Overseers in front of five different vehicles, the lights of the vehicles on and the engines running.

The Sergeant broke everyone up into groups of five. Vuxten found himself following Sergeant along with four others, including Dura, the Ikeekik named Keekikee, and a Telkan named Ustor. The one he'd never met was a Shavashan named Sleesavash. All five of them were roughly the same height and the human, Sergeant, walked them over the the Overseer, who was chewing on cud and waiting in his heavy Executor armor.

"I disagree with this, human Sergeant Ulganga," the Overseer said.

"Their small arms can't hurt a Precursor, their only chance is vehicle mounted and crew served weapons against the Precursors if you want to save this city," Sergeant said. "Personally, there are far too few troopers to defend a city this size, in my opinion."

"Then luckily your opinion does not matter, human," the Overseer said. He waved two hands in a dismissive gesture. "We understand that the Precursor machines frighten you, but they have been rebuffed from every world they have sought to take."

The human stared at the Overseer, then at the gathered up group of five that Vuxten was with, then back at the Overseer.

"Then we will see," Sergeant said. He pulled open the door to the vehicle and motioned to Vuxten and the others. "Get in. We'll go out somewhere for some target practice and teach you to drive and operate this vehicle."

Everyone got in, the human stopping Vuxten and having him get into the front of the vehicle with the Overseer and and himself. The human moved around on the bench, the gap between the back of the vehicle and the bench, to allow for the Overseer's rear legs, obviously taking him a moment to get used to.

"Like riding in a Treana'ad vehicle," Sergeant said. He shifted then looked at the Overseer. "Let's go."

The vehicle drove through the dark, heading out of the city. They drove to a place with old vehicles and parked them behind a low wall.

There, the rest of the day, the learned to drive the vehicles, how to use the heavy laser cannon on it. The Overseers were happy with their progress by noon but the Sergeant and the other humans made everyone practice jumping out of the vehicle and running to hide behind something, shooting from inside the vehicle, running to the vehicle while stopping and shooting on the way. Repairing the laser cannon, fixing the vehicle, how to patch the hoverfan skirts, and many other things. The whole times the humans watched, their eyes bright green.

The Overseer didn't seem to want to permit Vuxten and the others from learning about the vehicle but seemed to be vaguely afraid of the humans.

The ride back, after dark, almost everyone fell asleep. Vuxten noticed that the two humans in the back of the human vehicle let their eyes grow very dim, holding onto protrusions inside the vehicle, swaying back and forth as the vehicle moved.

Vuxten wasn't sure, but he suspected that both of the humans were somehow actually asleep.

When the vehicle stopped both human's eyes immediately brightened back to bright blue. When everyone got out of the vehicles Sergeant walked in front of the group.

"You did good today, men. You're doing your best. The Terran Confederate Armed Services is going to give you the best support. Go home, be with your families. I will see tomorrow," Sergeant said.

Vuxten was quiet on the hoverbus. Everyone else was exhausted but he stared at the window, not really seeing outside of it, just staring.

He had seen almost two paws of humans, he had counted nine of them, all moved in the same predatory way, all able to move silently and blend in with their surroundings, all of them armed, and all of them with the glowing cybernetic eyes and the heavy duty datalink implants.

The idea of being a "trooper" or a "soldier" for two centuries seemed outlandish to Vuxten, but the more he thought about it, how the Overseers lived for at least five centuries, the more he believed.

When he got home, his wife was distressed and so were the broodcarriers. His wife had been told to go home early, had found out all her jobs were on hold.

Their debt would increase.

She had also heard that humans had been in the habitat building. She was worried about Vuxten working with the humans. She was afraid for him.

It took him a long time to soothe them. Dinner was quiet, his wife sobbing now and then, but holding it together till they were lying between the two sleeping broodcarriers. She put her hands on his face, kissed him, and asked him to be careful.

He promised he would.

It took him a long time to get to sleep.

--------------------

He was awoken by a human touching him. He jerked away, then shrunk back. A human he did not recognize, with bright green cybereyes, was standing over him. The uniform was gone, some kind of sleek looking black armor covering him. His visor was open, drawn back into the helmet, and Vuxten could see that the helmet was padded thickly enough to be tight to the human's head.

"Get up. Get your family. We don't have much time," the human said. "Quickly, quietly."

The broodcarriers were frightened, clustering up close to his wife as the human urged them to grab only what they needed. The human let Brentili'ik grab the small book full of holos of siblings, family, of smiling podlings so small you could hold one in your paw. He let the broodcarriers take the bedding from the bed and hold it tightly around themselves.

There was a paw's worth the other humans in the hallway. They had on bulkier armor, making them look huge. They had heavy looking weapons in their hands, backpacks with a tube on the top, and one had a thin antenna coming up from his back. The broodcarrier's flinched back, making soft noises of distress but Vuxet petted them, calming the peaceful and nervous beings.

"Let's go. We don't have much time," the human said again.

"Thirty minutes, sir," one of the big one's rumbled. The broodcarries made soft sounds of distress.

"Don't talk, you're scaring their gestators," the 'sir' said.

They hurried, quickly, the broodcarriers panting from exertion as they hurried their chubby furry warm bodies down the hall. Outside, in the street, was a black vehicle on skids, a ramp down. It was dead silent, no lights, just dim red light spilling from inside through the open doorway at the top of the ramp.

The broodcarriers keened their distress, but followed Vuxet's gentle urging up the ramp. They were upset enough they regressed to moving on all fours, belly low to the ground, long soft furry tails curled protectively under themselves.

Inside were families of the beings he had trained with. Dura's family looked like they were in shock, their eyes wide and terrified. Pups clutched the father tightly. Keekikee's family was clustered together. There was some kind of heavy plas box with soft plas cloth inside that held eggs with a red shining lamp attached to the side of the box so the light shined on the eggs. Sleesavash's family was behind her, the little tiny saurian children trying to look around their parents out of curiosity. Ustor's husband was holding a swollen broodcarrier, petting her, while the other broodcarrier held tight to a clutch of five podlings who were looking around with bright interested eyes.

"We're full. Let's go!" sir called out as soon as he got on board. He hit a button and the ramp pulled up to cover the hole even as the craft lifted off, tilting almost immediately and making some of the more frightened beings aboard cry out.

Sir turned around and looked at everyone. "I'm Lieutenant Istant, Terran Confederate Army. Your families do not have shelter space allocated or shelter passes," he said.

Istant, a funny word that sounded a lot like the Telkan word for bent spoon.

"We're evacing your family right now to the CSFV Mercy. It's been designated a relief ship for families of those we can help," Lieutenant Bent Spoon said. "We'll be stopping at the Space Port, your families will be loaded aboard an armed transport, and we'll be heading back to the Corporate Security building."

He turned away. "No questions at this time."

Vuxten's wife gripped his hand, squeezing hard. She was holding a broodcarrier with her other arm, who was holding the second broodcarrier.

"Husband, I am afraid," Brentili'ik said softly.

There was the sound of someone shrieking, far away, but Vuxten barely heard the suggestion of the noise.

"Sir, they're incoming!" one of the armored troopers yelled.

"Drop us at the Corp-Sec and get this crate to the Mercy! We've got no time!" Bent Spoon yelled. "Light the throttle!"

The whole craft began to vibrate, there was faint roar that made several children cry out. There was a sudden jerk and what sounded to Vuxten like the rattling of fireworks somewhere. One of the humans bent down, saying something to Keekikee. He twisted two plas tubes, the tubes faintly glowing red, and tossed them in the box. It then put more plas cloth over the eggs and put a lid on it, clamping it down. Keekikee's husband grabbed the box, holding it tight, his beak shut tightly in fear. Vuxten saw a human grab another box down, pulling the heavy weapon out of it, and sliding it to Ustor. He grabbed a hand full of stuffies out of a compartment and tossed it to Ustor.

"Put the podlings inside!" the human yelled. Ustor nodded tightly, his ears flat and fur sweat shiny with fear. He put the stuffies in the box and the podlins happily climbed in, purring and growling and yipping with glee. The human twisted another plastic tube and it glowed blue.

The craft jerked and more firecracker sounds. The human tossed the tube to Ustor, then handed across the lid. Another human had managed to convince Ustor's wife to cover both broodcarriers with the soft looking plas cloth. The swollen one purred and rubbed her face with it, looking up and saying 'thank you. is soft' to the human.

The craft suddenly tilted, almost a 45 degree angle, and Vuxten felt high stomach rise up as it dropped suddenly. It whipped the other way, went nose up, leveled out.

The craft came to a sudden slow stop. One of the humans put his foot out so the swollen broodcarrier could grab it with her rear paws.

"LET'S GO MEN, DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?" Sir Lieutenant Bent Spoon roared, slapping the button. The door crashed open and he waved at it. "GO GO GO!"

A human grabbed Ustor's arm, pulling him up, moved to the door and jumped out.

"Come on," one of the big one's said to Vuxten.

"I love you all," Vuxten said to his family as he let himself get picked up.

The vehicle turned suddenly and then went back to nose up.

"Love!" Broodcarrier Synthal'la called out.

"Love!" Broodcarrier Ilmata'at crooned out.

"I LOVE..." his wife yelled.

The human holding him jumped out the door.

Vuxten gritted his teeth so he didn't scream as he realized at was over two hundred feet to the parking lot where a ship had crushed limosines.

They dropped silently, the human shifting his grip so that Vuxten was held against his chest by crossed arms.

"Try not to puke," the human growled.

They dropped silently, until right at the ground there was a sudden purplish flare that Vuxten could barely see. His stomach plunged to his feet as he somehow lost all velocity, floating down in a heartbeat to the ground.

The others fell next.

"Look," the human said, pointing into the air. "There they go."

Vuxten looked. There was a handful of dark specks in the sky, sweeping across the stars.

"It's time to earn our pay," a different human said. "Follow."

The five little neo-sapients followed the five humans, six counting Sir Lieutenant Bent Spoon who landed last, across the parking lot toward the building.

There was no guard at the gate.

He was against a car, kneeling down, smashing his face against the side of the car. There was blood everywhere, but he kept doing it. The other guard had put his pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

roared out.

It staggered the five little neo-sapients.

The Lanaktallan beating his face against the car put his fingers into his own mouth...

...and tore away his own jowls in a spray of blood that left his flat teeth exposed.

"Let's go, men, you can't help them."

Vuxten followed, trying not to look.

------------------------------

INCOMING ATTACK

INCOMING ATTACK

INCOMING ATTACK

Chapter Fifty-Five (Vuxten)

Twice on the way the building they heard the scream again. Furious, echoing, it made everyone in Vuxten's little group wince but the humans. The humans didn't seem effected by the scream although they saw and Overseer stagger out of an armored vehicle holding the head of another one, his eyes ruptured in the sockets and blood running from his eyes, ears, and nostrils. One of the humans drew his pistol, fired once, the Overseers head virtually vanishing.

They hurried to the building and once inside the scream couldn't be heard any more.

"Psychic shielding, sir," one of the heavily armored human said. It was looking at the outside wall. "Looks old, barely holding on. Looks like an automatic system."

"Then we need to get these guys geared up," Sir Bent Spoon snapped. "Hustle it."

The rushed through the halls. Once a Lanaktallan burst from an office, swinging a broken off chair leg dripping with blood, swinging it one of the armored humans. The chair was blocked with an arm, the other armor clad arm shooting out, the hand bent impossibly back at wrist to a right angle, the heel of the hand hitting the middle of the Lanaktallan's chest with a crunch.

The Overseer went down without a sound, sagging oddly.

"Hurry," Sir Bent Spoon urged.

Down, into the basement. Sergeant was waiting there, next to crates. There were Overseers there, all wearing heavy helmets. All rubbing their hands together nervously.

"Line up, by your squads," Sergeant ordered. "You'll be issued armor, a rifle, a pistol, ammunition, survival gear, and rations. Your squad leader will train you OJT for your kit."

Vuxten moaned and Sergeant looked. "Problem, trooper."

"No, Sergeant," Vuxten said.

The Overseer looked at the crates and lifted his datapad. "How much does their equipment cost?"

"Nothing," the human snapped.

Vuxten felt some hope.

"We will assess value later," the Lanaktallan harrumphed.

The hope was crushed.

The humans brought over the boxes, putting one in front of each being. Sergeant pointed at Ustor and motioned. "Come here."

Ustor moved up, his fur shiny with sweat. The human spun the box around.

"Troops! Undo the latches," Lieutenant Bent Spoon snapped.

Vuxten knelt down, undoing the latches.

"Lift lid," Bent Spoon snapped again.

Vuxten lifted the lid and, like the others, gasped. Inside were armor pieces, designed to fit a Telkan. Vuxten looked over and saw that the other races had armor that fit them. There was an equipment belt, a pistol, and a rifle all in foam. For some reason the entire thing smelled of fresh newness. It was impossible, but everything smelled as if it had just come off a factory line.

The humans helped the neo-sapients into the armor. Each piece was fit carefully, felt like it was custom molded, and covered the wearer completely. The helmets were fully padded, a neck brace and shielding for it protecting a being's neck but not restricting movement. The other joints were fine. It was slightly heavy, but seemed to be balanced.

"All right, we're going to go with basic function right now," Lieutenant Bent Spoon said. "Right now your radios are on automatic, only to me and your squad leaders. We're controlling who and what you can talk to. Don't be alarmed. We will teach you to use the radio as we go. The big thing is, this will protect you from fragmentation, psychic, biological, chemical, and radiation attacks as well as some small arms. No enhancements at this time."

"Sergeant Ulganga, we have thirty minutes before we need to deploy. There's panic in the streets already but that can't be helped. Weapon familiarization, commo, whatever you can accomplish after those main two," Lieutenant Bent Spoon said, turning away.

"We object. We have not seen what this armor can do, what these weapons can do. How can we be sure they are safe around the population?" one of the Overseers said.

"They're military grade weaponry, of course they aren't safe around the population. It's all designed to kill motherfuckers and take their shit," Lieutenant Bent Spoon said. He made a movement with one of his armored fingers. "Come here. Come fucking here."

The Overseers followed Lieutenant Bent Spoon as Sergeant began showing them what to do. How the suit would protect them and make sure they have enough to breathe in the right mixtures, would monitor their medical status, would offer other advantages. Then it was weapon time. The weapon was, to use Sergeant's term: nasty.

Magnetic acceleration hypervelocity shot, set to single shot (the selector was turned off by the humans) scope tied into the visor of the helmet to display weapon status, underbarrel pump action micro-grenade launcher. The pistol was just hypervelocity magshot, again, tied into the helmet. No grenades. A vibro-knife. A canteen that absorbed and purified water from the air. Ultra-dense rations.

It went by quickly. Vuxten noticed that the rifle was virtually identical to the one he had already been taught, just the addition of the grenade launcher underneath. It was the armor that took the longest. Everyone but Vuxten was afraid of it.

But the humans had taken his family somewhere else, someplace they promised would be safe, and that they would keep them safe even if Vuxten died.

He was not afraid of anything the humans could do to him. Anything that could happen to him.

He wasn't important.

His wife and the two broodcarriers full of fertilized eggs were what was important.

He paid close attention to what he was being told, how the instructions went. He wasn't afraid, he wasn't worried, he was just calm.

The human, Lieutenant Bent Spoon, came out of the room with the Overseers, the Overseers wearing thicker helmets than before.

"All right, we've got our assignments. Rioting's started, we're going to do some light crowd control, make sure people get in the shelters the civilian contractor dropped," Lieutenant Bent Spoon said.

"We must start with the VIP shelters. Your men can handle the other ones," the Overseer said.

Lieutenant Bent Spoon nodded. "We're to assist our hosts in ensuring that the VIP shelters are guarded," he looked at the other humans. "They jumped in across the system. we don't have the hours or days we were hoping for. We're going to have to take it as it comes."

"How bad is it, Sir?" One of the humans that Vuxten wasn't familiar with asked.

There was silence a second. "Oh."

"Let's go, men," was all Lieutenant Bent Spoon said. "Squad leaders, take command, listen to your civilian liaisons, follow the Terran Confederacy Uniform Code of Military Justice at all times and remember its standing versus local laws."

The human paused for a moment. "Move out!"

"First squad, with me," Sergeant said.

Vuxten moved over to him, other following. Three humans joined him, making the group nine total, eleven with the two Overseers.

The little group moved to outside, where a vehicle was waiting. The same open middle truck with the heavy laser cannon and the armored box as Vuxten had been trained on...

...only yesterday?

It felt like forever ago to Vuxten.

There was a Lanaktallan up front, driving. One of the two that had been inside climbed in next to the Overseer, closing the door. The other one climbed in the open bay and stood behind the pintle mounted laser cannon. Sergeant, the three humans, Vuxten and the others climbed in. Sergeant had them sit in the benches, then put two humans on one side, himself and the other human on the other side.

It had started raining again. Vuxten felt as if it was the tears of the broodcarriers, soft loving beings who cared so gently for podlings and only asked to be loved.

The vehicle pulled out, onto the rainy streets, the hoverfans spraying water across the fronts of the buildings and the walkways.

Vuxtel pushed his chin to see if it would work and the helmet beeped and pressed a tab that tasted like real fruit against his lower lip. He opened his mouth, used his tongue to put it in his mouth, and started chewing. It didn't dissolve, just was slightly sticky and felt good to chew. He liked the taste.

"Vuxten, are you all right?" Sergeant asked.

"All right, Sergeant," Vuxten said. "I wanted to try a nibble."

"It's gum. You chew it until it completely dissolves," Sergeant said. "You don't have to keep swallowing and getting them."

"All right, Sergeant," Vuxten said. He kept chewing on it as the truck moved through the darkness. The others kept moving their heads like they were talking.

The Sergeant tabbed Vuxten to watch out. His biorythms were too steady, too calm, for what amounted to a civilian riding into what could be a battle after only three days of training. The Unified Medical Council claimed they took care of people, made sure they didn't suffer from psychiatric issues, but after five days he'd become convinced that they'd lie about the color of the sky.

The vehicle slowed down after half an hour, coming to a stop in front of one of the thick tubes. Vuxten had wondered, now and then, what they were. Now he understood. Doors had opened, revealing an elevator with padded seats. Overseers were waiting in line, even as a crowd slowly grew, showing their ID and being allowed inside. There was only one Lanaktallan, without armor or weapon, just a helmet. Vuxtel noticed that the Overseers inside the bunker were wearing thick headsets, even the smaller ones.

The two up front got out and went to the door, standing on either side of it. The former driver took the scanner and began scanning ID cards. The two at the door clopped over to the truck, pulled out armor, and began getting dressed. Once they were dressed they pushed their way into the crowd and set up repulsor barriers to keep the crowd from closing the gap to the elevator. Once that was done, they stood out at the entrance, directing Lanaktallans into the gap once they showed ID.

"We make sure that nobody who is not authorized goes into the shelter," the Overseer behind the gun said to Sergeant.

SFC ULGANGA appeared at the top right of Vuxten's visor. "Sounds straight," Sergeant said. The next part came across the helmets. "Mixin, Donovan, Laker, set for subsonics according to your harmonics guide. We're going to calming."

The three humans nodded and Vuxten heard "Yes, Sergeant," from three different voices. His visor flashed the three names when each one spoke. Vuxten found the tech amazing.

The crowd was getting larger, starting to push on the repulsor barricade. There was some screaming and Vuxten saw a Crel'tek get pushed against the repulsor field till his clothing burst into flame. The crowd moved away, screaming, and the body fell to the ground only to be stomped on by the gathered, panicked crowd.

"We're going to want to start with the subsonics, Sergeant," a human said. According to the Mixin was the one who spoke.

Sergeant turned to the Overseer. "My men can use subsonics, calm the crowd. It's a Terran crowd control device."

"Subsonics are not always safe. Permission denied," the Overseer said.

"You heard him, no subsonics," Sergeant said. "He might be right, some of these xenospecies might react badly."

Lanaktallan were moving through the gap and the crowd groaned as the doors slid shut. Vuxten noted that there were still Lanaktallan waiting patiently in line. Many in the back of the crowd started to turn away, the knot of the crowd loosening even as more people came streaming out of alleys, from out of buildings, and from down the street. Some were screaming.

Then it sounded out again.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

The two Lanaktallan at the end staggered. The Lanaktallan in the crowd screamed. They started attacking people, each other, clawing at their own bodies. Vuxten saw a child Lanaktallan knock an adult over that was on its knees screaming and being to trample it, screaming, her eye sockets empty and bloody.

The doors opened on the shelter tube. The screaming Lanaktallan bolted into the elevator, screaming, trampling and hitting and tearing at the four guards inside. The crowd began to melt at the back, running away, crying out in fear.

Vuxten saw it happen.

The Lanaktallan at the heavy laser lowered the cannon, pulled the trigger and raked it across the crowd.

It was only for a second, maybe two.

The heavy laser, strobing right red, sliced out, converting flesh to steam, causing whoever it touched to explode into bloody rags as a vehicle mounted weapon meant to be used on armor blew apart a crowd of hundreds with a single sweep.

The Sergeant grabbed the weapon, lifting it up with a scream of warping metal, pulling the beam up and across a building where it blew through the walls, through the floors, exited out the other side and shot into the sky.

"MOTHER..." Corporal Laker yelled out over the suit radio. He grabbed the Lanaktallan, pulling him away from the cannon by the shoulder of his armor.

The Lanaktallan pulled his pistol and shot Laker square in the head with his heavy ion pistol.

The human's armored helmet didn't even move.

"Don't touch me!" the human shouted.

The human yanked, throwing the armored Overseer out of the vehicle, across the street, to hit the side of the building nearly two stories up and vanish with the crash of shattering macroplast.

The few remaining ones standing pushed into the elevator, screaming, fighting with the Lanaktallan stomping on the dying guards. One of the beings who had ran into the elevator lunged up, holding a guard's ID card, slapping it against something Vuxten couldn't see.

The elevator doors closed.

One of the ones at the end fired his rifle at the human just in front of the vehicle. The ion bolt hit but the human didn't stagger.

Sergeant drew his pistol and fired, blowing the top half almost completely off the lower half.

Vuxten got his rifle up, aiming at the last Lanaktallan. In his visor flashed "FRIENDLY" and the Lanaktallan was surrounded by blue.

The Sergeant fired again and blew a chunk the size of Vuxten out of the Lanaktallan's lower section.

Both halves collapsed into the street.

"We're screwed," Mixin said softly as they stood there.

"We'll let legal sort it out," Sergeant said.

"No. Look up," Mixin said, pointing.

Vuxten looked up at the same time as everyone else.

Something was falling from the sky. Something huge, something burning from entering the atmosphere too fast. It fell, lights lancing down from the heavens to strike at it, making bright flashes of light erupt from the top. It fell sideways, dropping, tumbling.

It hit the ground, outside the city.

"They're landing," Ustor said, his voice trembling with fear.

"Good, we can kill them on the ground, trooper," Donovan stated.

-------------------------

V CORPS ALERT

Multiple Jotun, Devestator, Destructor, Balor landings planet-wide.

Prepare to defend yourself and your area of operations.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Brentili'ik stared with wide eyes as she left the black transport. It was in the middle of a large white bay, humans running everywhere. She held the hands of the broodcarriers, both of whom had wrapped the bedding around themselves and were hiding inside of it. The human soldiers stayed on the craft, one waving.

Synthal'la shyly waved back from inside her blanket cocoon.

"Right this way, please. Right this way. We need to clear the landing bay. Those dropships are needed," a human in all white armor with a red crescent on one side and a red cross on the other said. It was a female, although Brentili'k couldn't tell.

"Follow the humans, loved ones," Brentili'ik told her broodcarriers. She knew they would be easily startled, protective of their bellies full of fertilized eggs.

They followed, Brentili'ik holding onto the hands of her broodcarriers. She was led through twisting corridors until she reached a room with a comfortable nest on the far side. Twice the ship shuddred and once the lights dimmed for a split second before coming back on.

"Go in. Make yourself comfortable," the human said. "There's nothing to worry about. As soon as the ship is loaded, we're going to evacuate you to a safer world."

"My husband," Brentili'ik said. "What of him?"

The female human was silent a moment. "He's on the ground, helping refugees get to shelters."

"can speak?" Ilmata'at asked in her soft voice.

The human knelt down, reaching out and gently stroking the broodcarrier's face with one armored hand. "No. I'm sorry. He is very busy saving other broodcarriers and podlings."

"oh. is good," Ilmata'at said, then turned away and hurried the nest, hiding inside.

"Go lay down, Synthal'la," Brentili'ik said. The broodcarrier nodded, snuffling slightly with sadness that Vuxten wasn't there.

"love vuxten" she said, then scurried over next to her 'sister'.

Brentili'ik moved out into the hallway, motioning to the human. The human moved out, showing Brentili'ik how the door could be shut, but leaving it open so that the broodcarriers could see Brentili'ik.

"We are in debt. Thirty years for both my husband and I. We cannot pay for this," she told the human.

The human knelt down again, staring her in the eyes. Her visor cleared and she saw that half of the human's face, softer than the males, but strangly hard, was black metal.

"Service brings citizenship," was all she said.

Chapter Fifty-Six (Vuxten)

It was the fight one side thought they wanted and the fight the other side didn't want to fight. To one side, victory was inevitable, simple mathematics. To the other, victory was always in doubt as fate often snatched defeat from the award show of victory and passed it out to all the participants. One was used to winning eventually, they knew nothing else. The other side knew victory and defeat, had clawed their way to every victory, building on the mountains of bones and corpses of the previous battles to plant the flag and take one last deep inhale of the breath that counts the most and scream rage at an insane universe. The other one just left the bones and bodies where they fell, the dead did not matter.

Both sides were terrible in their power. Countless systems had fallen to both side's power, efficiency, ruthlessness, and designs. They had boiled oceans, stripped entire worlds of life, decimated species, altered ecosystems, and strip mined anything that was useful to them.

While both had been defeated, neither side had ever been beaten. One side was convinced they never could be, the other side fought like the insane to keep from being beaten.

But like all wars, between the combatants and their weaponry and bloodshed, there were those who only wanted to keep their heads down and survive another day.

Vuxten had been one of those people.

A small being, Vuxten was barely four feet tall, with wide ears on the top of his head, big expressive eyes, sleek fur in a dappled pattern of brown, black, and gold, paws on his feet and hands, a wide mouth of plant chewing teeth, and a life of quiet desperation. He had a wife, who looked very much the same except for her short tail that wagged when she was nervous or excited. He had two broodcarriers, loving and gentle creatures who looked much like Vuxten except for a longer body, longer and silkier and softer fur, long soft bushy tails that could curl completely under their stomachs to protect the podlings they gave birth to.

Vuxten and his wife had worked his entire life to pay off the debts of their ancestors. Had worked hard to support their little family. Had never complained, not even privately, about their lot in life that they had been born into. He and his family had avoided unnecessary luxuries, like a Tri-D instead of a vidcom, wore paper shoes and clothing rather than purchase cloth, ate nutripaste with as little flavoring as possible, and made each credit go as far as they could stretch it.

Theirs was the life of cradling close the luxury and pleasure of finding a real leaf blown from a ruler's garden and into the street.

A small life, with sweetness to be found if one took the time to savor it and not gobble it down.

He had been quietly, desperately nearly content.

Then the Terrans had arrived.

And Vuxten found himself thrust into something far bigger than himself, bigger than his family, bigger than his entire world had been.

Which is why he found himself clad in body armor, holding onto his rifle with one hand, and standing next to a TerraSol Descent Human and staring at a street full of what had been living thinking creatures but was now covered in chunky paste and vaporized tissue, surrounded by a paws worth the coworkers and a few humans.

Ustor got her faceplate open as he bent forward and vomited up the nutripaste she'd eaten at dinner.

"Lieutenant, we've got a blue on green and a blue on pink," Sergeant suddenly said, Vuxten hearing him perfectly in his helmet, seeing Sergeant Ulganga's name appearing on Vuxten's visor.

"Secure the area, protect the civilians, evacuate those you can. Be aware, enemy forces are in the area and/or enroute. Green forces have gone red in many areas. Refugee area coordinates incoming," Lieutenant Bent Spoon's voice came through helmet.

"Roger that, sir. I'll keep you updated," Sergeant answered.

Ustor wiped his mouth and straightened up.

"Chew a piece of gum, Ustor," Corporal Laker said. Ustor nodded as her face-shield closed again. She chinned the dispenser and the pink disc popped out. Ustor used her tongue to pull it into her mouth and started chewing.

"All right, soldiers, our troopers here aren't used to the total silence that we've been trained to. Leave you commo-open on Sigma band so they can hear us talk," Sergeant said. "Troopers, pop a piece of gum and chew it if you have not.

Vuxten looked at each of this fellow 'troopers', their names popping up near their armor when he looked them for long.

Staring at the human Sergeant was Dutra, a Frestilek male who, like Vuxten, had ran a floor polisher for years. His rifle was hanging down from the magnetic attached sling, his face horrified, his eyes wide. The Frestilek was a biped with four arms and two legs, thick dark pebbled hide, and a small line of blunt spikes down his back. His people came from a world far away.

He was still working off his great grand-parents transportation costs.

Keekikee, an Ikeeki avian who's eggs had left on an armored transport, something heavily armed and jet black called a 'dropship', who's husband had only time to brush Keekikee's wingtips as she'd left the dropship. Her helmet was extended out to allow for her beak. She was chewing the 'gum' and staring at the window that the human Laker had thrown an Overseer through.

Across the street and thirty feet up.

Sleesavash was a saurian, a lizard people. Like the rest of his race, his tail had been amputated at birth. Like Dutra, he was paying off his ancestor's transportation cost from another world. His black eyes were wide as he started at the dead Overseers, as if he couldn't believe that they had actually been killed.

Ustor was a Telkan, like Vuxten. She was married, her broodcarriers swollen with podlings that were nearly ready to be birthed. She was grim looking, holding onto her rifle, pretending that she had not vomited.

Vuxten looked at the humans. Three of them were larger, bulkier, than the fourth. Vuxten knew the leader was labeled "SFC Ulganga" but Vuxten and all the others called him 'Sergeant', by his title. The other three were labeled when they spoke or if Vuxten looked at them long enough.

They were humans from someplace called the "Terran Confederacy" who had come to try to protect the solar system from the machines that even now attacked. Ancient war machines who believed that the universe's resources were finite and only one could benefit from them and so sought to eliminate any rivals.

Vuxten didn't know that much about humans. Only that they were tremendously strong, incredibly fast, and now he knew that being shot in the forehead with a heavy ion pistol didn't even move their armored heads.

"All right, everyone breathe. I'm going to try to get a handle on this greased chicken fuck," Sergeant said.

"Keep your eyes peeled," the human Mixin said. Vuxten's armor had an omnitranslator that struggled with what Mixin had said for a moment before displaying "keep a highly alert watch/do not peel away parts of eyes" in the corner.

"Up high, two-o-clock," the human Donovan said. Vuxten's armor put a flashing arrow for him to follow with his gaze.

A huge burning disk was in the sky, drifting away from the city, out toward the ocean. As Vuxten watched, lights came down from the sky, striking it repeatedly, silently. It broke into multiple pieces and more lights came out of the sky, striking the parts.

BALOR CLASS PRECURSOR RESOURCE EXTRACTION VESSEL appeared on the inside of the Vuxten's face-shield.

There was a low rumble of explosions that washed over the small group in the Lanaktallan Overseer security truck. It was explosion after explosion, overlapping and following each other, coming from miles away, shaking the air.

"Space Force and the Navy are tearing shit up," the human Laker said, his voice soft. "Those are battleship main battery strikes. Never seen them used to hit a target in atmosphere."

Vuxten looked over at Mixin when that human spoke: "I have. Actikal-Deneb War."

"You seen it before, Sergeant?" Donovan asked.

"Yeah. Limbo-325, when I was a kid," Sergeant said.

"Oh," all three said.

"Enough jaw jacking, we need to get moving. The El-Tee gave me our orders," Sergeant said. He climbing around and into the front seat. "There's a nearby hospital, full maternity ward. Podlings, egg incubators, broodcarriers, whole nine yards."

The hovertruck lifted off, its fans blowing water all over the street.

Vuxten noted that the liquid that hit the front of the armored shelter access was a reddish slurry.

"Sergeant, hold up," Mixin said, slapping his armored hand against the top of the driver's cab. The truck stopped and Mixin jumped out. "You guys help me, these barriers might come in handy."

"You have five mikes," Sergeant said. Vuxten's visor translated it to five minutes.

Vuxten jumped out, rushing, helping turn off the repulsor fields and loading them into the truck next to the laser cannon, which sagged forward from where it had been damaged. The rifle just magnetically attached to the back of Vuxten's armor, keeping it out of the way as he hurried and worked. They didn't have them all, but they had a lot of them, when Sergeant called time and they rushed back to the vehicle.

Vuxten had noticed that while it was an effort for him to carry one the humans had Keekikee and Sleesavash load them ten high in their armored arms and practically ran back to the vehicle.

As soon as everyone was in, Sergeant goosed the fans and the truck wailed as the fans drove it down the city streets.

The laser cannon barrage had cleared the immediate area around the shelter, but within two blocks the crowds started surging. Vuxten saw limousines and other vehicles slamming through the crowds, crushing bodies. One struck the side of the hovertruck and Mixin drew his pistol, put two shots into the windshield macroplast, blowing it into splinters, and the limousine slewed to the side, the upper half of the driver missing.

Vuxten saw that his armor had downloaded the floorplan to the hospital. Four floors were highlighted. Lanaktallan maternity ward, 'neo-sapient birthing ward', Lanaktallan pediatric ward, 'neo-sapient child ward'. The change in terms made Vuxten frown.

His visor was showing him a map from the back 'loading docks' to an elevator, to the neo-sapient ward.

"Mixin, Donovan, check the maternity ward. If the hospital doesn't have psychic shields get a grip on your guts," Sergeant ordered. "The rest of you will come with me up to the neo-sapients wards. We'll get a headcount, prioritize, and go from there."

Sergeant pulled off the street, slamming the hovertruck through an alley, trying to avoid the main streets, which were rapidly becoming full of panicking beings. He went slow, pushing people with the hoverfans, cursing as he did so.

It took forever, to Vuxten, but Sergeant pulled into a parking-lot, spun the hovertruck in a 180 degree arc, and slammed the back against the loading dock.

"Leave the back locked," Sergeant ordered. "Let's get a move on. Laker, stay with the vehicle, see if you can scare us up a dropship or something bigger."

The door into the hospital was marked no admittance and was locked but Mixin tore it off with one hand. Vuxten and the other 'troopers' followed Sergeant to the elevator. The elevator was pinging that it was security locked but Sergeant put his armored palm against the control panel and in less than a second it moved to "EMERGENCY SERVICES MODE" and started moving.

"No psychic shields. This is going to be a shitshow," Mixin said.

"Save who you can," Sergeant ordered, his voice tight. "Saint Doss protect them."

The elevator stopped at the Lanaktallan and the door opened.

The Lanaktallan, heavy with child, charged into the elevator, swinging a broken off and blood length of metal. Three of her eye sockets were empty, one jowl torn away, one arm broken. Her swollen belly stretched and bulged without sense or reason, the infant inside fighting and kicking and ripping at its mother.

"Jesus Digital Christ," Mixin yelled, slamming back against the back of the elevator as the crazed Lanaktallan tried to impale him with the metal, the jagged ended bar just sliding across his armored stomach.

Another pregnant Lanaktallan charged the elevator. The doors started closing and two more appeared, charging the closing doors.

"Don't, lady, please stop!" Mixin yelled.

There was a bright flash, then another, then two more, almost overloading Vuxten's visor. Scorched blood sprayed across Vuxten, his visor clearing instantly, covering the walls and the armor of everyone inside. The streak of light missing Vuxten by a foot, punching through the elevator wall. All four Lanaktallan dropped in place. Mixin was left half-holding the dead Lanaktallan's forward body. He made a sound of horror and threw the dead Overseer to the side.

Slee and Keek both vomited.

Sergeant had shot them all through the midsection, cutting them in half.

"We can't help them," Sergeant said, putting his hand on the panel.

The elevator rose, the doors not quite closed.

"We'll bypass Lanaktallan peeds," Sergeant said, his still tight.

Slee and Keek both straightened up, their face-shields closing.

Usta and Dutra were chewing rapidly and Vuxten knew they had tabbed up more 'gum' to chew on.

"Good advice," Mixin said, his voice shaky.

"Peeds floor," Sergeant said.

The elevator stopped at the maternity ward. The doors opened with a jerk.

An Ikeeki female clad in a neo-sapient nurse's uniform ran in screaming, holding a potted plant in her wing-hands.

"I WON'T LET YOU HURT THEM!" she screamed as she began smashing the armored humans with the plastic potted plant, frantically flailing around herself. Her eyes were wild, tears running down her cheeks and neck, and she had feathers pulled free from her torso. Debris and chunks flew into the elevator, thrown from behind a hastily formed barricade by desperate looking beings. "NO! NO! NO!"

"Easy, lady, easy," Donovan said, backing up. The pot was hitting him across the face and chest. Vuxten knew it wasn't hurting him, that the human was letting her smash at him with a pot.

"TERRAN MILITARY!" Sergeant snapped.

The Ikeeki jerked, dropping the plant, looking at Sergeant, who's visor was now clear. The shout stopped the hail of debris.

"Do you need assistance?" Sergeant asked, his voice soothing. Vuxten saw his visor flash "subsonics in play" up at the top.

The Ikeeki, normally a reserved race, collapsed against Mixi. "Help us, oh, help us. The Overseers are trying to get in and kill all the littles."

"May we come in?" Sergeant asked.

"Please. Please," the Ikeeki asked, still grabbing at but unable to get a grip on Sergeant's armor. "Help us, please."

"Donovan, go in, start prioritizing. Slee, Usta and Dutra, with them. Get me a count," Sergeant said. "Laker, do you read?"

"I read you, Sergeant," Laker answered.

"You keep that loading dock clear. Authorization for lethal force, including green on blue," Sergeant snapped.

"Roger that, Sergeant," Laker answered. "The Rio is dropping Marine drop pods into the city."

The big human, Donovan, left the elevator. Ustra, Slee, and Dutra followed. The Ikeeki bobbed her head and followed, tears running from her eyes.

"Laker, get me a scan of that cargo/transport bay on that vehicle. We're gonna have a lot of kids and mothers to get to the refugee site," Sergeant ordered as he pressed his hand against the controls and the elevator started moving again. "Get us a kittykitty carrier and a Fido Ground Pound. They're gonna need 'em."

The elevator went up two floors and the doors started opening.

"TERRAN MILITARY! WE'RE HERE TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE!" Sergeant called out. Again Vuxten's visor flashed the 'subsonics' warning and his hearing was strangely muffled.

There was a small group of beings, all in hospital paper uniforms, holding onto makeshift weapons, in the elevator waiting area. They all stopped in mid-step, weapons drooping.

"Do you need assistance?" Sergeant asked, stepping out of the elevator and holding his arms to his side, his elbows bent impossibly into the interior arc, his hands open and up by his head.

"The Overseers have been trying to get in through the stairwell. Please, please help us. They want to hurt the littles and the mothers," A Pukan said, the side of his reptilian face bruised and bloody, with an expertly but hurriedly done bandage over one eye.

"Mixi, go secure that stairwell door. Lethal force if necessary," Sergeant snapped. He motioned at Vuten and Keekikee. "You two, with me."

"Roger that," Mixi said, stepping out. "Where's the stairwell door?"

A half-dozen beings pointed to the right and Mixi turned, heading down the hallway, pulling something off his equipment belt.

"Who's in charge?" Sergeant asked.

"She is back here. There are littles here. Podlings, chicks, squirmlings," the Pukan with a bandage said. "Come, come."

"Are you here to help us?" a being asked.

"Please save us," another asked.

"Don't let them kill us," still another said.

Vuxten swallowed twice, trying to keep from being overwhelmed by the pleas for succor as the Pukan led the three armored beings into the neo-sapient's pediatrics ward.

Little faces were pressed against the glass doors. A glass window shows dozens of full child-pods. In one a dozen podlings were staring curiously at the trio as they moved past.

"Sergeant, Laker here," came over the radio.

"Go ahead," Sergeant said.

"Had an ambulance crew come out, going to bust me up with melee weapons. Got them calmed down, they say they'll drive the ambulances and help. One of them is terrified they're in trouble. They had to kill a couple of Lanaktallans who killed about half of the ambulance crews," Laker reported. "Should I have them get ready for evacs?"

"Send some to the neo-sapient maternity ward, then some to the neo-sapient pediatrics ward," Sergeant ordered. "Have the vehicle drivers check out their vehicles. It's an eighteen click run to the refugee site."

"Roger that. Help incoming, they're in uniform, no Lanaktallan," Laker said. "Laker, out."

The leader was a Ikeeki female, her feathers removed, dressed in a paper work gown. She spoke to the Sergeant, Keekikee stood next to him, moving reassuringly.

A broodcarrier came out of an office, her eyes wide, her fur wet from tears, her mammaries swollen with milk. She moved over to Vuxten and rubbed against him, making distressed mewling noises.

"scary scary podlings scared" she crooned.

Vuxten petted her, reassuring her, making sure she could see his face.

The ambulance crews showed up, nearly twenty of them, and Sergeant began giving them orders. Load the sick or incubator children into the ambulances, as many as they could get in. Throw out anything unnecessary blocking the way or taking up space. The ambulance crews nodded along, showing signs of high distress but still trying to push through it. Some were crying, others looked like their brains had just shut down and they were grateful for the big human giving orders, others looked frightened but responded to the human's voice.

"Sergeant, Laker here," came over the radio.

"Go ahead, Laker," Sergeant said.

"Got two Navy medivac dropships inbound. They'll ferry the children to the CSFV Hope. They're gonna load it and jump out of system," Laker reported. "They're coming in fast, empty bays, they'll be here in ten."

Sergeant turned and looked at Vuxten and Keekikee. "You two, help me get these people into elevator."

People. He called us people, Vuxten thought to himself.

"Sergeant, got the stairwell door welded shut," Mixi reported, "Coming back."

"Negative. I want you in the elevator. We're going be ferrying people down. Pistol only," Sergeant said.

"Roger," Mixi said.

Vuxten helped move frightened broodcarriers to the elevator, most of them with tiny podlings holding on to the broodcarrier's belly fur, their tails under their body to shield, hide, and comfort the little podlings holding on.

"Navy One and Navy Two have landed. They dropped a purrboi crate and a goodboi kennel for us," Laker said as Vuxten moved the fourth group of broodcarriers to the elevator. He'd taken to giving them warm blankets to wrap themselves and the podlings in.

"Send up a Fido, tell him to configure for fur, tail, and face. Rescue mode," Sergeant ordered. "Put the others on guard duty. Purrboi per ambulance, two in our transport."

Vuxten wondered what a Fido, a Goodboi, a Purrboi and a Kittykitty were.

"Keep going, everyone. Remain calm," Sergeant said. Again the subsonic warning. It happened every time Sergeant spoke.

"help? love?" a broodcarrier holding hands with another, little podlings peeking through the long, soft, silky tail fur.

"Yes. Help and love," Vuxten said, reaching out and rubbing their faces. "Humans help and love. Follow."

The elevator opened and revealed a large canine next to Mixi, it was furiously wagging a tale, had an expression on its face that looked goofy to Vuxten, its tongue hanging out. The broodcarriers drew back, keening in alarm at the blood coating the inside of the elevator. The podlings vanished into the fur.

"Fido help," the canine said. "Fido good boy."

"We got aggressed coming up. This thing is covered in blood," Mixi said.

"I can help," Vuxten said. He whirled and ran to the cleaning closet, grabbing a quikleaner. He ran back, stepping up the elevator, and triggering it. It made a high pitched whine, making the broodcarriers cry out and hide their faces in their hands. The blood steamed for a moment, then dissolved, leaving even Mixi clean.

"Good boy. Good boy," the big canine said, wagging its tail. "Guard littlelittes."

"Toss that here, I'll use it if we get hit again," Mixi said. Vuxten showed him how to trigger it and went out.

The Fido/Good Boy was standing between a half-dozen broodcarriers. They were all petting his fur, looking at it in wonder. Podlings were peeking out, some giggling, others squeaking their interest.

"Follow good boy, softies, follow," the Fido said, going into the elevator.

Three of the broodcarriers looked at Vuxten. They looked nervous but curious. They had stopped crying and keening, but were unsure of what to do.

"He is a good boy. He will protect the podlings," Vuxten reassured them. "Human," he pointed at Mixi, "Will protect."

'good boy soft,' one of the broodcarriers said wonderingly, reaching out to pet the Fido.

'human love?' another asked, looking nervously at the elevator.

"Yes," Vuxten said, nodding.

They shuffled into the elevator. One reaching out, bravely, to touch the human's armored chest.

'warm' she said, and rubbed the side of her face on Mixi's chest, leaning against him.

Mixi put his arm protectively around her, his pistol in his other hand.

'love' the broodcarrier said.

The elevator doors closed.

Vuxten went back to work as the evacuation continued.

---------------------------

V CORPS MESSAGE - ALL

Enemy in overwhelming numbers. Planetary landings underway. Space combat is heavy at this time. Orbital support is limited. Air superiority is by area when possible.

All commanders secure area of operations. Navy rescue ships are loading. Estimated turn around time 14 hours. Ground commanders are permitted to commandeer civilian transports to move civilian refugees. Ground commanders of Captain or higher are permitted to offer service to civilian medical workers or other necessary fields.

Hold what you've got. Attack when able.

IT WILL BE DONE!

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

15th SPACE FORCE FLEET

REQUESTING REINFORCEMENTS, ALL BRANCHES, ALL SERVICES, ALL MILITARY AND PARAMILITARY FORCES.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

Brentili'ik sat in the 'nest' made up of soft warm blankets, sitting in between the two broodcarriers, stroking them gently as they slept fitfully.

It kept feeling like some phantom was plucking at the inside of her bones. The feeling obviously disturbed the broodcarriers, but fear and stress had exhausted them. A few times the ship had shuddered in response to something that Brentili'ik had no idea of the cause. Twice the lights had dimmed then come back up.

There was a chime at the door and she looked up.

"May I come in?" a female human asked through the intercom.

"Yes," Brentili'ik answered.

The door slid open to show a figure in armor. The visor was clear and Brentili'ik could see it was a human female, this one with a face completely made of skin.

"You are a Telkan, right?" the female asked.

"Yes," Brentili'ik answered.

"Are you able to function?" the female asked.

"Yes," Brentili'ik answered. The human female was huge and she felt slightly intimidated.

"Good, I need your help. There's a bunch of the ones like the ones next to you in a room screaming," the female said.

"They are frightened," Brentili'ik answered.

"Can you help?" the female asked. "Seeing humans just frightens them more."

"I will help," Brentili'ik said.

"Do you perform this service of your own free will?" the female asked.

"Of course. Broodcarriers need me," Brentili'ik said, feeling somewhat offended.

"Follow me," the human female seemed mollified.

It was only three doors down. When the door opened Brentili'ik could hear the broodcarriers calling out for help, their voices gone high pitched, calling out for any Telkan nearby to help them. Brentili'ik could see little podlings holding onto the the seven broodcarrier's fur. Two more were crying out, swollen with unborn podlings.

Brentili'ik rushed in, pushing her face against the oldest looking one's face, her hands on either side of the broodcarrier's face, and started moving her head back and forth, rubbing the crying and terrified broodcarrier with her own facial fur, making sure to rub her whiskers against the broodcarriers.

Slowly the big older broodcarrier calmed down, the others calming down with her.

Brentili'ik turned to look at the human. "You cannot leave broodcarriers alone. They become frightened too easily unless they are at home."

The lights dimmed and the ship shuddered slightly.

"I tried sitting with them but they just got worse," the human female said.

"You are not Telkan," Brentili'ik said. "They will need to stay with me."

The human was quiet for a long moment. Right before Brentili'ik was about to say something, to see if the human understood her, the human motioned.

"All right. It's cleared and logged. You'll have additional food," the human said. She paused. "What kind of place do the gestator, uh, broodcarriers prefer?"

"Homes," Brentili'ik answered. She looked at the broodcarriers, who were still making noises of distress but had stopped crying out for help. "Come, come with me, I will protect you."

"No, I mean, like forest, plains, caves, what?" the human asked. "Savannah, snow, grassland plains?"

"Old dry forests with big trees, lots of plants, soft dirt," Brentili'ik said, wondering why the human wanted to know that so much. "Follow, carefully, follow."

'podlings' a broodcarrier said, moving her tail slightly so that Brentili'ik could see the half-dozen podlings holding tight to her.

"Humans won't hurt the podlings," Brentili'ik reassured the broodcarriers.

'humans love podlings?' another asked.

"Yes," Brentili'ik said, hoping she wasn't lying.

The broodcarriers started repeating the word 'love' over and over. The human had moved ahead, gone inside Brentili'ik's room. When Brentili'ik looked in she stopped, staring in shock.

It looked like the room impossibly opened up into an ancient forest, with piles and scattered puddles of leaves, massive tree trunks covered in moss, soft dirt, large stones with moss on them. It looked like her own two broodcarriers were looking out of a burrow dug into the roots of a massive tree.

"Like that?" the human female asked.

Two broodcarriers saw the impossible room and started chirping and crooning eagerly.

"Yes. How..."

"Advanced enhanced virtual reality," the human female said. "It's used to calm. They can go in."

"In, in, loved ones," Brentili'ik said. The broodcarriers hurried in, some stopping to rub against rocks. One set some podlings on a moss covered rock in a patch of 'sun.'

"It's configured for IR and UV light about what your star gives out. Your people are from the second habitable planet, right?" the human asked.

Brentili'ik just nodded.

"OK, you can get more blankets here," the human showed Brentili'ik how to tap on a 'tree trunk' to reveal the control panel for a dispenser that Brentili'ik had been too afraid to check. "Your allocation had been increased so you can care for the others. It may take a bit sometimes, the nano-forges are running hard right now."

"How is this possible?" Brentili'ik asked, rubbing a tree-trunk. It felt real. "We are not wearing headsets." It even smelled like an old forest.

Two podlings were hiding in leaves, giggling.

"AeVR," the human said. "Hard light constructs and other tricks. It's perfectly safe. I ordered your blankets, they'll be here in a few minutes. Your food rations are increased. Just type in what you need, I set it for arboreal creatures."

Brentili'ik just nodded.

The human paused at the door. "I'm going to maglock it. Just use your paw pad prints to open it. You'll be safe in here."

"Thank you, human," Brentili'ik said.

"Thank you for your service to your people," the human replied.

The door closed and she was gone, trees replacing her.

Brentili'ik saw two blankets land in the dispenser slot. Both looked like fuzzy moss and smelled new. They were warm and when she handed them to broodcarriers they all started rubbing them.

In a pile of leaves, podlings giggled.

She felt the twisting phantom plucking on her bones.

The broodcarriers and podlings didn't notice.

Chapter Fifty-Seven (Vuxten)

Four hours had gone by at a rapid pace for Vuxten. Convincing frightened new mothers/gestators to get in the elevator, carrying child-pods to the elevator, back and forth constantly. Fear had been replaced by hope in the injured, sick, recently given birth, or recently born neo-sapients.

Twice more he had heard the scream. The neo-sapients had cried out, ducking their heads, hiding their eyes, but the humans soothed them, hurried them.

The Fido kept licking, nuzzling, letting beings rub his fur, carrying podling cradles in his mouth by the handle, moving constantly through the crowd of beings all waiting to get into the elevator.

Four hours.

Four hours of work.

Vuxten couldn't believe the apparent size of the 'Navy Medivacs', each able to carry over a hundred of the neo-sapients.

The nurses and other medical personnel went with the Medivacs. So did some of the ambulance crews.

Afterwards, Vuxten helped a new human, this one in armor with a red cresent on one side of their chest and a red cross on the other, remove supplies from an ambulance and put it in the back of the Overseer security vehicle. The new one, Veritor, had differently shaped armor that whined slightly when he moved. Sergeant and the others kept referring to Veritor as Doc.

Now he was helping injured neo-sapients out of the wreckage of a building. The humans were able to move great weights, even structural beings and huge chunks of plascrete out of the way. All of the human's armor made slight whining noises as they cleared away rubble.

The purrbois/kittykitty had turned out to be small felines that wound around beings, rubbing against them, making a purring rumble like a sleeping podling, making soothing noises and speaking in soft small words. Three were surrounding nearly twenty podlings, all them with scrapes and bruises that the kittykittys had covered with a fast-drying foam sprayed from their mouths. The podlings were no longer crying in fear and pain but instead were petting and rubbing the kittykittys, some of them even starting to giggle. The kittykitty would rub against the face and injuries of wounded beings. Their fur left behind gel rather than hair, the gel rapidly hardening into a protective layer over a wound.

The Fidos, all three of them, moved through the rubble. Vuxten had watched their fur vanish in a ripple, revealing armored chassis. At first the Fidos had massive canine heads with heavy jaws full of gleaming conical teeth.

Sergeant had ordered them to reconfigure back into search and rescue mode. The fur had reappeared and the menacing dangerous heads had been replaced by the goofy looking harmless appearing canine heads.

Vuxten marveled at the wonders even as he worked hard. A Fido would bark out and his visor would translate. The kittykitty purrbois would disappear into gaps and radio back if they found a survivor.

A purrboi had radioed "littlelittleslotslittlelittles" and when Doc had heaved a huge slab of plasticrete out of the way that must have weighed tons, it reveal a scene that made Ustor stagger away, open her face shield, and vomit on the twisted wreckage.

Nearly two dozen broodcarriers were dead, crushed by the plasticrete. Looking out from between the bodies were podlings of various ages. some barely the size of Vuxten's paw, others big enough to hold a half-dozen of the tiny ones in their arms and hold them close.

The broodcarriers had pushed the podlings under tables and put their own bodies between the walls and the podlings.

Doc had rushed over to a broodcarrier, kneeling down, his armored fingers sinking into a massive rent in her side.

"Need a stretcher here!" Doc called out.

Vuxten had been alarmed the first time he saw it. Now he knew that Doc's fingers were full of surgical tools and that he was trying to save the broodcarrier's life.

"broodmommy said be quietquiet," a podling half Vuxten's size said, tears running out of her eyes.

"You did good," Vuxten said, kneeling down and stroking the side of her head. She was an immature broodcarrier, her large eyes wide with fear. "You did real good."

Mixi and Donovan ran up, carrying a stretcher.

Vuxten helped lead the little podlings down to the Executor vehicle, urging them inside. He helped arrange them so the badly injured broodcarrier could be put inside on the stretcher. She opened her eyes and reached out to pet some of the smaller podlings, crooning to them.

"We're full!" Laker yelled. The doors closed.

"Everyone on, we're got an evac point," Sergeant called out.

Vuxten watched, from next to the heavy laser cannon, as the vehicle's fans fired up then lifted the vehicle up. It smoothly moved, away from the collapsed building that Vuxten could see dozens of humans in armor working on.

Search and Rescue, Vuxten thought. Looking for people to help. Not neo-sapients, not by our species name, not any of the ugly words we are called, but people to the humans. In the middle of a fight to protect the planet the humans send in beings from the military who's job it is to rescue people.

It was almost frightening to Vuxten. They moved with such surety, such quickness, throwing themselves completely into a job, holding nothing back, charging into danger.

It seemed insane.

Vuxten resisted the urge to look up at the sky. The entire sky was covered with clouds that looked as if they were burning. His armor's visor somehow edited it out, but ash and drops thick with vaporized metal were falling from the sky, covering everything with a sticky black substance.

The sun had risen while he had been helping evacuate the hospital but all it seemed to do was light the entire sky on fire.

There were rumbling explosions in the distance that vibrated the truck. Vuxten didn't look. The last time he had looked he had seen beams of light striking down from the heavens to blow a massive ship into pieces and then keep shooting the pieces.

The Executor Riot Control vehicle was starting to shudder, shake, a screaming coming from one of the fans. The screaming cut out and the vehicle seemed to get sluggish, like it was sliding on thick syrup.

"This thing's about had it," Mixi said.

"Use what we got," Sergeant snapped back, his voice tense.

"Crowd ahead," Laker said. "By the Digital Messiah..." his voice was full of horror.

"Saint Doss help us," Doc whispered.

"Two Fido's out. Left. Right," Sergeant snapped. "Combat configuration."

Vuxten watched in shock as the fur and goofy looking head melted away from the Fido, revealing a four legged heavy armored frame, that menacing looking head, and a weapon lift from a compartment in the back. It was triple-barreled and had a line of ammunition linked together by a belt going from the weapon to what looked like a puddle of liquid metal.

"Killboi Mode," they both growled, jumping off.

Vuxten wondered why they'd been put into that configuration.

Then he heard it.

A roaring, a screaming roaring wailing, like all the damned souls of an afterlife. No words, no individual voices, just one upraised howl of hatred and agony. He had never heard anything like it in his entire life, it was a noise that made his fur all try to stand on end inside his form fitting armor.

"Plotting route!" Sergeant yelled, yanking the hovercraft around a corner.

As they rounded the corner Vuxten saw them.

Overseers. Thousands, tens of thousands of them. Their clothing blood covered, ragged, torn, dirty. They blurred into one big mass of weapon waving arms, empty eye sockets or wild reddened eyes, bloody jowls, all wailing at the top of their lungs as they galloped down the street.

Vuxel saw a frightened Ikeeki lunge out of a public transit shelter, only to be grabbed by the Overseers, ripped at, suddenly dismembered, the torn and shredded body dropped to be pounded under by hooves.

He would have thrown up. Before he had been awoken by an armored human in the middle of the night, he would have been sick.

Now all he did was turn away.

He couldn't help. Nobody could.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

Some of the crowd collapsed, half of the crowd turned on each other.

The rest was still running.

The Sergeant gunned the engines, the screaming coming back as he reactivated the dying hoverfan and put on the speed.

The hovercraft howled down the empty street. Donovan suddenly jumped up, turning in midair, and landing on the top of the armored bay, bringing his rifle out from behind him and holding it in his arms.

"Many, many chasing," Donovan said, his voice eerily calm.

The vehicle started to shudder as it went faster. He saw Laker grab the laser cannon's handles, thumbing the switch to bring it back to life.

"SAR One Seven Delta to SAR Command, over," Vuxten heard on his headset. Sergeant's voice.

"This is SAR Command, over," a new voice said.

"We've got about a million rabid cows in the street. We're getting hemmed in. Have a load of civilian injured. Please advise," Sergeant said.

"Lethal force is authorized. Protect your cargo, SAR Command out," came the terse reply.

"You heard it! Load and load it! Troopers, if you cannot fire, duck down and hold on. This is going to be butchery," Sergeant said. "Troopers, keep the sides clear. Stay in the vehicle, for the love of Saint Patton."

Vuxten activated his rifle. He saw, on his visor, the word UPDATING appear. In two seconds it went away and his weapon came online. There was a small semi-transparent window in his upper right, showing his rifle was pointing at the ground, showing what the rifle saw. His targeting reticle was at the bottom of his visor.

The rifle carried a hundred and fifty rounds in the magazine he slid in, slapping the bottom of it after he locked it in.

"Omnimessiah protect us," Laker said softly, lowering the barrel. "They've gone mad."

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

The scream, echoing in Vuxten's brain, was suddenly countered by another one.

THEN YOU WILL DIE ALONE!

Laker said something, lost in the twin screams, and hit the trigger on the cannon, aiming it low and in front of the hovertruck. Donovan, on top of the truck, behind firing his rifle in tight, controlled bursts.

Vuxten crouched down next to the door panel that had slid up in front of him. He leveled his rifle over the door panel, kneeling like he had been taught. He chinned a piece of gum chewing on it.

"CONTACT!" Sergeant called out.

The Fido's began firing, solid shafts of light as the bullets vanished into the bottom of the dual, side by side guns. Links and copper shells flew out from the guns as they moved back and forth in tight little arcs. The laser cannon was firing, the red light bright and eye watering.

The sounds of the weapons were lost in the wailing of the crowd.

"Captain Veritor to all units! BIO BIO BIO!" came the call. "All units, all units, BIO BIO BIO! All units, all units, BIO BIO BIO!"

Vuxten felt something shift in his armor. A needle poked into his lower back, over his liver, another one into the back of his neck, and the pain vanished before he could do much more than gasp. His ears popped and he felt like the air was rushing around his nose.

"NBCARN ONLINE" appeared on his visor. (Nuclear Biological Chemical Atomic Radiation Nanite)

The vehicle went through an intersection. The Fidos were standing in the road, their guns firing.

The Overseers were shattering, blowing into rags of flesh, ten, fifteen deep as the light from the Fido's double-barreled guns swept the screaming rampaging crowd.

It was just a single wave in a tsunami, the crowd still moving forward as if the deaths of the front ranks gave them room to run.

Vuxten leveled his rifle, pulling the trigger, shooting at a small group by the side of a building that were smashing at the plascrete.

They burst when the weapon hit them.

He swallowed thickly.

"What about our passengers, Doc?" Sergeant snapped as if he wasn't driving the hovercraft through a slurry that had once been part of a crowd.

The hovercraft was through the intersection, the Fidos running after the hovertruck, the barrels of their guns faint red and smoking. Laker stopped firing the laser cannon.

"Fidos went to positive pressure generation, purrbois are sealing," Doc snapped. "Uploading biosample genome one. Genome synching two through eight."

Donovan started firing again, shooting behind the truck.

Without the laser cannon firing the vehicle picked up speed, Sergeant cutting the fan out so the vibration eased up.

"Bay sealed!" Doc called out. "Uploading Sequence Seven!"

"Eight clicks!" Sergeant called out.

It was a hell ride for Vuxten. Three more times the humans used the laser cannon, the Fidos fired their heavy dual-barreled weapons, and Vuxten did something he'd never even considered before.

Not ever.

He squeezed the firing stud.

And Overseers popped like cheap ballouns.

"LEATHERNECK LINE COMING UP!" Sergeant yelled.

The hovertruck was pouring smoke out from under the fans. Vuxten saw his weapon go to safe mode as the truck slowed down. The Fidos were onboard, long alloy tongues hanging out as they made panting noises. The heat was coming off of them and they were whining about 'slushy' as they cooled off, ports open for heat sinks to dissipate the heat. Doc kept calling out the "genome sequence" number and calling out "upload" during the time they kept moving.

The truck moved by a group of humans walking in toward the city. These humans were massive, towering as tall as the truck in some cases, in other cases smaller and only slightly taller than the door of the hovertruck, which was still floating on an air cushion. The big ones had heavy cannons lifted up from their back, the smaller ones carrying rifles. They were all jet black, bright green eyes, moving with a purpose.

There was some friendly sounding callouts of weird words that Vuxten heard. Words like 'ground pounder' and 'army rat' and 'suck it' and 'leatherneck' and 'jar head' and 'crayon eater' with lots of friendly waves from the big black humans.

A few of them called out "Hi, Fido!" and the Fidos barked happily.

Finally the hovertruck slowed, almost coming to a stop. Massive robots, maybe humans, waved the truck through and it moved slowly, barely able to stay up on the two smoking fans, to stop next to other vehicles.

Vuxten saw wounded humans and other beings taken out of other vehicles. One human, missing both legs, the ragged bloody stumps extending past the shattered armor, was singing and as the hovertruck went by gave the staring Vuxen a gesture that consisted of a closed fist with his opposable thumb stuck straight up.

Figures in the same kind of armor as Doc ran up, opening the back. There was a roar and three of the big black heavy drop-ships lifted up off the ground. Vuxten looked around, his fellow 'troopers' were kneeling in the open crew bay, heads down, hands in their laps or on the floor, their rifles on their backs. They were all weeping.

Vuxten helped carry the podlings and other wounded in. When he was done, he sought out Sergeant.

Ustan was curled up, rocking back and forth, holding her legs tight to her chest. A human was knelt down, visor transparent, talking softly.

"Sergeant?" Vuxten asked.

"Yes, trooper Vuxten?" Sergeant asked.

"Can you take me somewhere private I can take off my helmet?" Vuxten asked softly.

"Follow me. There's a tent over there," Sergeant said.

Vuxten followed, going through the airlock, the mist pouring down him as he went through. On the other side it was empty and Sergeant stopped, loooking at Vuxten.

"Are you all right, trooper Vuxten?" Sergeant asked.

"I just need a minute. I need to do something," Vuxten said, moving up next to Sergeant.

"One second, trooper," Sergeant said. He took both of Vuxten's weapons, then his vibro-knife. "OK, go ahead. You can remove your helmet."

Vuxten removed his helmet, stood there a moment, crying silently, then threw his head back and screamed.

Sergeant knelt down and wrapped his arms around Vuxten as he screamed.

"It's OK, trooper. It's OK. Let it out. Get it all out," Sergeant said, holding Vuxten tight.

After a minute Vuxten stopped. Sergeant held him for a second, then slowly let go. Vuxten stood straight up, wiping off his eyes, then put his helmet back on.

"Are you ready, trooper?" Sergeant asked.

"Yes. I think so," Vuxten said. "My family..."

"The CSFV Mercy jumped out of system three hours ago."

Vuxten felt his knees go weak in relief.

"I am ready. There are other being's podlings still trapped in the city," he said.

"That's the spirit, trooper Vuxten," Sergeant said.

-----------------------------

CONFEDERATE SPACE FORCE VESSEL MERCY REPORT

Arrived in the Lelkenian System. All sapients and injured on board survived jump. Used Stringdrive due to necessity for speed. Will be evacuating passengers to TSF Refugee Base ONTARIO, then will be returning for more.

Multiple xenospecies have volunteered for service to help care for members of their own species. Attached is a list.

MERCY IS OUR STRENGTH

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

"Come, beloved ones, come podlings," Brentili'ik said gently, motioning to the broodcarriers. She had nearly twenty to look after, and over a hundred podlings. She had a half-dozen purrbois following her. The podlings loved the little robotic felines that used more of that amazing 'hard light' to simulate soft fur. They toddled after them, some of the older podlings carrying them.

The broodcarriers and the podlings followed Brentili'ik out of the dropship, blinking in the light of a strange sun.

The place was in a forest. Tents and shelters put up between the trees, among ferns. A few of the humans were walking around and Brentili'ik saw her first human outside of armor.

They were massively built, even the females. They moved with careful grace, looking down in the ferns.

One moved over to Brentili'ik, giving a closed lip upward curve of the mouth that was the human equivalent of a smile, just like Brentili'ik.

It made her feel better.

"Welcome to Are-Bee ONTARIO," she checked her list. "Brentili'ik, is it? Did I say that right?"

"Better than the Overseers," Brentili'ik said. She made an encompassing gesture. "These are the broodcarriers and podlings I have been asked to care for," she looked around. "Is this forest real?"

The human nodded, another similarity to her people that Brentili'ik appreciated.

"Yes. It was chosen for your people. Right now, we have to divide all of you up by species, to ensure you get the correct medical care, food, and supplies," the female held out her hand. Brentili'ik took it gently, rubbing her palm-pads against the human's thickly callused hand. "I am Major Weskill, I will be your liaison and primary medical provider."

"I thank you," Brentili'ik said. "The podlings and the broodcarriers are tired."

"We have tents set up to simulate burrows for them. We have set up soft plasticloth fences to keep the podlings from wandering off," the human, Major, said. She looked down at Brentili'ik. "I am happy you have chosen to serve your people."

Brentili'ik sighed. From one set of Overseers to another.

The next words made her look up in confusion.

"You are brave to volunteer for citizenship now. Your people will depend on you and your leadership. I will look to you for guidance on how to help them," Major said.

"Me? Lead?" Brentili'ik asked.

The human nodded. "Citizenship carries a heavy burden. I am thankful you have agreed to shoulder it. Your people, your broodcarriers, your males and females, your podlings, need someone to speak for them, to tell us what you need. They need you to act as a leader, to help us help you."

Brentili'ik's head swam and her knees buckled. The human quickly knelt, steadying Brentili'ik with her strong hands.

"Just all caught up to you?" Major asked.

Brentili'ik nodded.

"I understand. I am here if you need me," Major looked at a podling standing next to tree, a kittykitty held in her arms, a bandage over a missing eye, a smile on her face as the kittykitty purred. "We need to get up. They need us."

Brentili'ik nodded, straightening up herself.

"I am pleased to be of help," she said, staring at the podling.

The podling, who had lost an ear and an eye to a maddened Overseer, shyly waved, her other arm holding the limp but purring kittykitty.

Chapter Fifty-Eight (Vuxten)

The sky looked like it was burning as Vuxten sat down on a piece of broken plascrete. There was bursts of bright white light in the clouds now and then, often with black specks that would fall from the sky, some of the larger specks often transfixed by beams of light from the sky.

Vuxten had gotten used to the different types of humans. Marines were big, power armor or warborgs, heavily armed, and charged into combat, although they would stop to help to rescue people if the Search & Rescue needed help. Army, which were digging in to create bases and fortifications and used artillery, tanks, air support. Air Force, which supplies close air support, bombing runs, supply drops, troop transport. Navy, which provided dropships, supply runs, and were fighting in the near orbits of the planets as well as the rest of the system with the lighter ships. If was all wrapped up in Space Force, which had the heavy ships as well as other things that Vuxten didn't quite understand.

Vuxten understood more about the military than he had ever wanted to in the last three days. He understood what Close Air Support meant. He understood what Fire For Effect meant. He understood what Bring the Rain was. He also knew what Request Evac meant.

He'd learned a new thing.

Something that he had never wanted to learn.

He had been carrying a wounded Ikeeki female from the wreckage of a large habitat when holes had opened in the clouds, white cored red beams slicing down from the heavens, slicing into the streets, slicing into buildings.

Building had collapsed on both sides of the street, burying the street. He had thrown himself on the ground, covering the Ikeeki as the rubble fell around them. Two heavy chunks hit him, but he managed to stay on all fours, staring at the Ikeeki through his clear visor, willing his body to hold out, willing his armor to hold.

It had.

He'd been trapped in the rubble for almost an hour, till a purrboi oozed through the cracks between the rubble. The purrboi rubbed its whiskers and face on the Ikeeki, who slowly relaxed and started to smile, then laid between Vuxten and the Ikeeki.

IMPACT MODE
appeared on his visor and he felt the armor stiffen, the joints locking in place.

Vuxten relaxed, kind of hanging in the armor.

A few minutes later Sergeant pulled the rubble off of him, grabbing him and pulling him up. He felt armor come 'alive' again and helped carry the Ikeeki to the waiting dropship that had landed while he'd been buried. She had lost her legs, severed by rubble, but was calm, petting purrboi on her chest and smiling at it.

"You all right, trooper Vuxten?" Sergeant had asked.

"I am now," Vuxten had said carefully.

"You let me know if you start having problems. You were down there for quite a while," Sergeant said.

"I wasn't afraid," Vuxten said honestly.

"Why not?" Sergeant asked. He'd been worried about the little guy since the parking lot of the CorpSec building. His anxiety had been way too low.

"I knew you wouldn't leave me there, not while I was alive. I knew the purrboi kittykittys would come looking for me," Vuxten said honestly. "I was more worried about the Ikeeki."

Sergeant Ulganga nodded. "That's right. I'm glad you held onto that."

The dropship lifted off, the engines screaming as the heavy armored ship took off.

The other three humans came over, looking around.

"What happened with the ambulance?" Vuxten asked.

"The armor held. They rocked their way out of the rubble," Sergeant said. "Everyone on it is all right and on its way to the evac station."

"That's a combat evac model, Vux," Mixi said. "Not the first time something like that has happened to one of them. That's why the frame's got built in integrity screens like they use on the light torchship fighters."

"Oh," Vuxten said. He looked at the sky. The sun was setting and it was already getting dark.

He looked at the four humans with him. The others had remained at the evacuation station, unable to keep going. Vuxten had touched each of them when they had told him, then left.

He didn't care what happened to him. His family was safe, that was all that mattered.

"Devil Dogs were saying there's a whole shit-pot of the Precursors dropping onto the planet," Donovan said. Vuxten looked up and Donovan shrugged. "Just saying, man."

He was looking right at Donovan when it happened.

The beam of light, bright red with a silver core, went straight through the human's head, coring out the entire helmet.

Donovan had stood there for a second, then the suit just collapsed.

"CONTACT!" Sergeant yelled, pulling his rifle into play.

Vuxten scrabbled at his rifle but it was gone. He must have lost it when the building had fallen. He reached out, grabbed Donovan's weapon and ran up next to Sergeant.

SYNCHING visor kept flashing.

He could see them. Four of them running on articulated spiked legs that slammed deep into the pavement. Brownish metal, looking rusty or covered with dirt, or blood, patchy in places with something that Vuxten couldn't identify. They screeched as they charged, clacking metal claws and firing heavy lasers from top mounted cannons. Sergeant aimed his rifle, up slightly, and fired. The front of the lead one exploded, exposing wiring and pistons and all manner of internal structures.

READY!

Vuxten aimed at the other ones, not trying to get complicated, and started firing at the one that was still lurching forward, the front blown away.

Instead of the light thwap of his previous rifle, this one fired a thick silvery-blue beam. Where it touched the structure it blew big chunks of the metal into vapor and liquid. The first one went down. Mixi and Laker joined in, a Fido running up in Killboi mode, and the five of them kept shooting. The Fido's firepower made the difference, the heavy ramjet ring penetrators slamming through armor and machinery with equal ease.

It was over quickly.

Vuxten turned around, staggering over to a chunk of plasticrete, sat down, and looked in front of him.

It was dark already. Still raining, the rain streaking and staining the plasticrete and everything else a sticky black. The clouds overheard still glowed red, with fires burning inside.

But he didn't have eyes for that. He stared at the ground.

Vuxten just stared at the human's body. It was just limp, the meat of the neck cauterized and smoking. He could see melted metal and circuitry in the stump. He just stared. He couldn't believe it had happened. He'd seen an Overseer shoot a human in the head with a heavy ion pistol with no effect, but that beam had passed through his head without even stopping.

He didn't think it could happen.

He sat on the chunk of plasticrete, just staring.

Doc struggled up to the top of the pile of rubble, kneeling down next to Donovan. He looked up and shook his head.

"Brainstem hit, took out his SUDS. If they bring him back, he'll be a canner for sure," Doc said softly.

"Is he dead?" Vuxten asked.

"I'm sorry, Vux, but yeah," Doc said, standing up.

He didn't think that could happen.

Vuxten knew he was crying, thick tears that oozed down his furry face.

All he could do was stare at Donovan's body.

He didn't think that humans could die.

"You OK, kid?" Sergeant asked.

Vuxten looked up, opened his mouth to say no.

A bright flash lit the world. White, blinding. Vuxten's vision cleared just in time to see it. A roiling cloud of red and black rising from the city center.

Another flash. Another. And another. Yet another.

One final one, for good measure.

Five 1.2 MT nuclear blasts, surrounding a 12.5 MT blast in the center, the outer ones detonating in a star pattern around the center, increasing the damage, maximizing the force.

The Precursors had reached down with atomic hammers to strike the city center.

The shockwaves, overlapping, increased in strength by the others, smashed into Vuxten, knocking him off the hill of rubble like a giant had kicked him in the face. He bounced twice, caught air, and slammed through a building, the glass and plasticrete shattering around him. He bounced off something hard, fell, and smashed into the street.

His armor pulled his limbs into a t-pose. He blacked out.

--------------------------------

Brentili'ik sat in the forest clearing, on a comfortable rock, using it as a chair, looking at the broodcarriers around her. Many of them had wounded humans in their arms, stroking them gently, nuzzing them, crooning to them. The humans had been wounded on the same planet her husband still fought to protect. Brought to the hospital ship, and sometimes, when the wounds were severe enough, brought here.

Brentili'ik had seen how much the broodcarriers liked humans. Humans were warm, humans smelled nice, humans loved.

'love human good human safe human' a broodcarrier crooned her song to a human. He had no injuries that were apparent, but he moved slowly, stiffly. His skin was pale and he was bald. He stuttered when he talked, had problems remembering, and cried often, putting his face in his hands and weeping while a broodcarrier would try to soothe him.

He was sleeping, held gently by a broodcarrier, who covered his chest protectively with her fluffy tail. His name was Donovan, he had been shot through the head by a Precursor and it had damaged something that made it so he was traumatized even after the Confederacy had somehow saved him.

Major pinged her datalink.

"Please come in," Brentili'ik said over her still slightly tender datalink.

The leaves rustled behind her as she watched a broodcarrier pet another human who was laying on her lap. The human had been injured by radiation that had attacked his DNA, making regeneration of his limbs a long and painful affair as his cells had to be cleaned. The human came to the broodcarriers to be held after each gene therapy session.

The broodcarriers sang to him and stroked him until he went to sleep. Brentili'ik had learned humans healed the most when they slept.

"Brentili'ik, I need you to brace yourself," Major said.

Brentili'ik swallowed, wondering what it was. Another badly wounded human? A podling that had been saved against all odds? A weeping broodcarrier heavy with eggs and clutching orphaned podlings, its fur still crusted with the blood of its mates.

The last month weighed heavy on her shoulders.

Citizenship is a heavy burden.

"I am ready," Brentili'ik said, slowly turning around.

At first, she could not believe it. She blinked, staring, then rubbed her eyes. Then rubbed her eyes again, still not believing what she was seeing.

Vuxten stood there, next to Major.

He looked awful. The fur around his eyes and jaw was silver. One eye was cybernetic. His leg was in a traction brace to keep the bone straight and still. He was missing an ear.

He looked terrible.

He looked wonderful.

She flew off the mossy rock she always sat on, running to him. She grabbed him in her arms, sure that this time, like all the others, she would wake up with empty arms.

Instead, arms went around her, squeezing her, one arm weaker than the other.

"I am home, my love," Vuxten said, his voice rough, raspy, but still his. "I am home, and I'll never let you go."

--------------------------

V CORPS (OLD METAL)

System cleared of Precursor threat.

Request relief and rotation.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

TERRAN CONFEDERACY CITIZENSHIP AGENCY

The attached names, numbers, genetic codes are all new citizens, with the full rights, responsibilities, and privileges thereof.

>SEARCH: VUXTEN-68934-6221-527194

1 RECORD FOUND - Full Citizen. Terran Confederacy

>SEARCH: BRENTILI'IK-827149-2356-156132

1 RECORD FOUND - Full Citizen, Terran Confederacy

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We welcome our Telkan brothers to the fold.

Our dreamers and prophet-singers and seers welcome you.

Freedom, horrible horrible freedom awaits.

May you find its nectar sweet.

Chapter Fifty-Nine (Kark)

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.4

We've been out in the Dead Zone Fringe for the past two months, examining an old Precursor World that was unsurveyed. Nothing of interest, my Spock was disappointed that a hundred and change million year old set of ruins had been largely devastated by time on a largely dead world. Examination showed that the world was subject to a massive amount of orbital strikes, glassing, oceans boiled away, and massive atmospheric loss. My Uhura has been, well, less than stellar. I think she did a lot of door sitting to rack up rankings since she missed an urgent communication from Starfleet that we haven't been able to get back. Going to have to replace her. Not to mention, she's using the Uhura look but wearing a Discovery uniform? That's not OK.

Going to head back to a Deepspacenine Station and see what's going on. That transmission was seriously encoded and pulsed directly to us. I'll turn in our survey results and see if I can get Type III warp engines. They Type IIc are good, but my Scotty has told me that it's picking up a lot of harmonics from hyperspace, like a 'rumble' that keeps coming.

Long patrol, almost three years, and the most exciting thing we had was a talk with a Borgcube that was heading back to the edge of the zone. Their cloning bank and SUDS stacks got blown out so they didn't want to risk anything and marked themselves as NoPvP. We did provide assistance to them due to their status as a neutral vessel and nano-forged them a new creation engine.

They were cagey as to what they ran into that could damage a BB Class Borgcube that bad.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.14

I don't know what that was in warp-space, but whatever it was, it knocked us clear out of warp and blew out my port nacelle. That rumbling in hyperspace is still going, every few hours, the rumble lasting for an hour or so. It's bad enough I had to order the holodecks shut down due to harmonics.

My Uhura really screwed the Oriongirl. I told her to keep an ear out for any unusual traffic, and what does she do? Routes a priority message from Starfleet with an "ALL FLEETS" header to her personal com device. The encryption bricked her com device AND the message. Later she punted another message that came in with an "ALL GUILDS" header while she was 'taking a break and listed as 'idle'' over to our Spock's terminal, and bricked half the science lab including our Type III nano-forge. I'll be filing a formal complaint against her and demanding a point review.

My Spock thinks that there's something going on, something we missed by our Uhura's incompetence and he's pretty upset. About a step from pitching her out the airlock. I've never seen a Spock so mad his ears twitch. She keeps forgetting this isn't an eVR run and keeps walking around with an 'idle' over head.

No matter. Scotty told me it'll only be a few more days until the warp drive.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.38

Well, we've got power back. I had to put our Uhura in the brig to guarantee her safety. She had fired up the holodeck, overriding the lockout code, and was running a NexGen-MarySue Sim. In the middle of one of those 'rumbles' she forwarded a message marked "CONFED.MIL" to ENGINEERING.

That bricked EVERYTHING. Our nano-forge, the warp-core, everything. Had a Data down there, new guy at playing a Data, literally melted his brain. I mean, positronic alloy running out of his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. That interacted with the rumble and the holodeck generation field.

It gutted the ship, destroyed our Respawn Pods, and Spock and Scotty think it may have blown out our SUDS auto-update.

We've been using the shuttles to stay on atmosphere while we got the warp-core back up. We haven't yet, but we've got the life support back. It's been nice to eat a meal not out of a shuttle's emergency stores.

Scotty's estimate is "about when you let me bash that bitch's head in" for when we get the warp-core and engines back up.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.52

We've got the warp core back up. The SUDS can't auto-update, meaning if anyone gets killed, they're stuck on the backup from four weeks ago. Crew members are LIVID. Plus, the Respawn Pods are screwed. We tried regening the Data, and... it wasn't good.

His screams haunt my dreams.

Now we just have to fix the nacelles. The computer's started having problems again.

Damn, I'm tired. I might step back from Kark rank for a couple years. This mission has been bad.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.85

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Uhura is a Romulan spy. We found out, finally, where the computer instability was coming from.

SHE HAD CRACKED TEMPLATES IN THE SHIP COMMUNICATION DATABASE!

Some of them had some nasty, and I mean N.A.S.T.Y. virii in them. That's what's been hashing our computer. So our Uhura doesn't know jack about Meatspace LARP and apparently just doorsat on eVR stuff, she loaded the computer of my ship with cracked templates full of virii, and she bricked half out shit.

On the plus side, it looks like we'll have Warp-1 capability in a few days.

Oh, and our rescue beacons?

Bricked.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.141

Holy Shatner. Where do I begin?

First, the port nacelle went down again. We were sitting in between two planets when a whole Gorn FLEET dropped on us. We're not talking one of the little ones, I think it was every Gorn ship out here. FULL of lizard dudes. We're even talking a couple of those 'species only' ships where everyone on the ship was born a saurian. We figure we're screwed since they immediately opened a SUDS channel to get a compressed backup of everyone. You only do that when you're about to have a major fleet engagement.

Then the Fleet "Big Rock Thrower" himself coms me. Not on my Starfleet com, but my person com. Tells me he'll send a shuttle right now. Told me I could bring my Spock, McCoy, and Scotty.

What we heard, we didn't believe.

Full template unlocks. We're not talking some hope of luring back old players, we're talking "You Want It, It's Yours" template unlocks. Apparently some group of xenospecies out past the Dead Zone woke up an entire Precursor Fleet and are getting the shit Tashayarred out of them so the Confed told everyone to grab their shit and go help.

Showed me one of the messages my Uhura borked. It was an emergency update to the Type-IIc Warp Engines. That 'rumble' we're getting from hyperspace? That's the low bands being overpressured. You know those bands, the slow ones that are mainly used by colony ships or long-haul truckers? Yeah, so much metal is started to move that it's causing hyperspace reverberation into jumpspace AND warpspace. I had Scotty run how much metal that might be and he told me that the math comes out to move than gigatons of metal. He said you could probably see the bulge from hyperspace in subspace.

The Gorn helped us repair and update our Warp Engines. He said he couldn't tell me much more, I didn't have the right security header so he couldn't be sure I was actually Kark ranked.

Oh, and because that doofy moron put cracked templates in my computer, he had to register me as a possible pirate vessel.

I should airlock that moron.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.151

We made it to the nearest Deepspacenine station and... wow. Free repairs on my entire ship, free templates across your ranking and below, all qualified positions. Looks like all my time jumping around classes pays off, because template restrictions are being lifted. The Dakota is being outfitted with the Type-VIId engines, new warp core, new SUDS rack, new Respawn Pods, Type VI nano-forge, Type XIV Creation Engine, new replicators, the new transportation system (shielded and encrypted mat-trans beam) using the SUDS rack and error checking. Still comes with a neural degradation warning, but hey, them's the risk of the game.

Our Uhura problem was solved. Turns out she was an account sharer.

Got my name cleared for cracked templates, turns out she was actually running those templates to a ship that never showed up.

Anyway, turns out that it's a full blown Precursor Attack across a bunch of sentient systems on the other side of the Dead Zone. We're not talking a little one, we're talking full on fleets of the things. I'm trying to decide if I want the Dakota reconfigured for battle or not. I'd planned on taking a break for a couple decades after the Borg War game back in 8527 where Starfleet got stomped so bad.

Because my BattleNet rating is so high, I've even been offered the chance to come back to Starcraft or even RedAlert or 40KRTS for multiplayer VS Precursor maps.

My Spock isn't up to it. He took me up on my LFG because I was supposed to be doing a science only mission and this last mission really blew out his nerves. I feel for the guy, he's a good player, but his nerves have been shot since he had a bad Voyager run with a really bad Captain. That DeathArmada scandal a few years back really soured a lot of players.

I'll probably go ahead and see who wants to drop and run an LFG call.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.159

The Dakota's been reconfigured to OldTrek ship classes, since you're allowed to do Cross-Season at this time. Loaded up with the good stuff, but used an OldTrek heavy superdreadnaught class that's illegal in the other Seasons.

The LFG went good. A bunch of restrictions have been lifted, so I've got some weird crew members, but they're all high ranking. My Spock is a fox-girl out of the BASS, but she's got solid rankings and actually has a few IRL science creds. My America class superdreadnaught allows me for gunnery and security positions, so I took a few heavy hitters. Even got a Riker to join us. He's a former Captain, so if anything happens to me, my crew and ship are in good hands.

We'll do a shakedown cruise on the way to the New Systems as soon as everyone gets their mandatory SUDS deep-scan done for the main stack back on Luna.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.211

Arrived in the New Systems. It's a wreck. According to my Sulu (Wesley's are not ranked for this) the system we came into was in "Allied Space" but within thiry minutes, before we could even get lightspeed sensor returns, we had Precursors on us. It's easy, looking at the heavy shielding and everything we play with and figure nothing can really hurt us. I mean, we tussle with the Borg players, sometimes might even fight with 40K guys, but this... this was bad. We don't have nCv rounds and it only takes a half-dozen or so hits from those to completely drop your shields.

We warped out, came out in a different system, and sure as Janeway those things jumped us again. Different ship types but lean and efficient. One on one, hell, 20 on one, I could probably take their light attack craft, but when they swarm you a thousand on one or more, well, you GTFO. Your crew and your ship are more important than pulling an Into the Darkness.

My Klingons have to wear psychic dampeners. That scream those Precursors do drive them into a Klingon battle-frenzy. Ran the nano-forge pretty hard building psychic shields for the Dakota. It was worth it. Our third system, we got hit, but we were ready. I'd ran up some kinetic shields and turned them over to my Spock and she managed to reconfigure them to take nCv hits.

My new Uhura is amazing. She managed to isolate the battle-chatter well enough that we figured out where their Big Daddy was.

We went in cocky and wow, my crew is glad that I'm not a point hound.

That ship was big. We're talking a thousand miles across and three hundred miles thick. We're talking armor miles thick, main gun batteries, not by the dozen, but by the dozens of miles. It started shedding huge amounts of parasite torchship fighters. We fired photon torpedoes and GTFO.

We're sitting in a dead system now. No life on the planets in the Green Zone and there's still lava at the bottom of the craters and canyons.

The Precursors messed this place up.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.232

Had to have a major discussion with the crew. CONFED is offering military grade weaponry to us "qualified" LARPers. Apparently surviving those three system sensor sweeps impressed some of the military guys. They looked over our records and complimented me on knowing when to run.

Turns out my Riker held a Reserve Space Force commission from about 200 years ago. That means he can put us on some serious weaponry.

I can't believe the DokiGurlz and the Kiwaaaaaaii Orkz got thumped so bad.

It's a mad-house here.

The crew decided that they want to keep going. Everyone knows one or two mat-trans won't blow you out if you aren't SUDS'd up, you just gotta watch it a bit. Had some of the 'neo-sapient' and 'uncivilized' xeno-species test it for us. No major neurological disfunctions.

I've got an America class which means I've got the big transporter bays. We're talking drop an entire battalion of Redshirts onto planet at once with each bay. I've got six bays. That means I can also recover as many.

It's galling to find out that these Precursors hit so hard. I was all dreaming of rolling up on them and just phasering and proton torpedoing the crap out of them. Instead, they hit back, and they hit back HARD.

But the Dakota is tough enough to take a beating. The Guild excuses my 'non-canon' modifications to the Dakota since we lost a couple of good Captains out here already. The Confed guys want us to pull refugee evacuations because we can fight back, take a beating, and bring up refugees, plus I've got the life support and medical sections to handle it all.

The crew wants to do it. My Spock said that since everyone else is rushing out to engage in combat, we need to uphold the 'true' nature of the Federation and save people. She gave an impassioned speech, joined by our Uhura, about the real message of the Federation (and Confed) isn't "we're tough, rawr", but rather "We bring hope". That everyone forgets that with the excitement of space battle.

She reminded everyone that while we've got SUDS, and don't think about mortality, those people on those planets do not. They only have one life. No respawn. Uhura asked us how we'd act if we didn't have SUDS or Respawn. How precious our one life would be.

It was almost unanimous.

The Dakota is going be running rescue operations.

It's what's right, dammit.

I'm respecc'ing.

--Kark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.238

Entered the system broadcasting a distress beacon to encounter three Goliath Class Precursor machines attacking system while CONFED forces counter-attacked.

Proceeded to integrate with CONFED forces and being rescue operations.

The Dakota is well served in such a role, as a multi-purpose early Starfleet superdreadnaught. With extensive life support and security, as well as over-redundant life support, we should be able to effect the rescue of many being who might have otherwise been lost.

Crew confidence is high.

--Picard 8873

Chapter Sixty (Kark)

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.272

I've seen a couple of Space Force Fleet Actions, two in real time in real life, and I've never seen this much metal scattered around a system. It isn't that the Precursors are more powerful, some of their tech is laughably ancient, it's just there's so many of them and the big ones are just so tough. Just because it is ancient does not mean it is useless. Throwing a rock is ancient yet is not a C+ Cannon just throwing a large rock at really high speeds?

It's become common knowledge that boarding parties are the way to go when it comes to the Goliaths and the new ones that have shown up, the Kaiju class. It's either try to pound something the size of a subcontinent into the dirt or board them and blow the Strategic Intelligence Housing.

Space Force has tried to take a few "alive" but they always have charges to blow out the AI core. Sometimes they'll completely suicide and your casualties include the entire boarding force as well as any nearby vessels.

Contrary to suggestions you can't just "disable the engines and let it drift into the sun" because each of the Battlewagon class or higher will control the smaller ones and seek to rebuild the engines and get it running again. Saw a Jotun settle on the wreck of a Goliath that Space Force had pounded until you could see through it, and jump into Hellspace with it despite disabled engines and an estimated destroyed Hellcore.

Apparently there's negotiations with the rulers of the Eye of Terror Systems to let them call for a new Black Crusade since they are the masters of Hellspace in the Confederacy. Some people aren't too sure about it since the last time these guys went full on Black Crusade was after the Mantids glassed TerraSol and while I feel nervousness at such a prospect, these may truly be bordering upon desperate times.

Some guys name Gulkek's, who the Terran Navy saved back when I was still checking out that Precursor world, are allowing Starfleet to put a shipyard and full starbase in their system. The race is eagerly petitioning to be allowed to join Starfleet and the Federation as members of the Confederacy.

One of the things that us Federation LARPers dislike about the Confederacy is there's no Prime Directive. We're not supposed to interfere in unprogessed xenospecies, but the Confederacy has no such restrictions and disrupts those xenospecies natural progression.

We've had to set aside our kneejerk dislike for the Confederacy offering citizenship or freeing worlds that the Terran Navy or Space Force defends. There's the whole "Are these species ready for it?" questions that comes in with the Prime Directive. It's one of the reasons we're an ally organization but not a full member of the Confederacy despite our members having the ability to become Confederacy citizenry.

But what we've seen. I mean, the things we've seen. My crew and I shall never forget.

Some of the crew doesn't like that I'm "gunrunning" in their eyes, running the nano-forge to arm some of these species, but my Redshirts all agree with it. Even my Spock agrees with it.

There's genocide going on out here.

That word. It doesn't really describe what's going on out here. Extermination is closer but still lacks the sheer scale of what is happening.

We've been out here only a little over a month, and I think it's getting to my crew.

I might have to do another LFG.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.279

Five days. That's all it's been. Five days. It feels like forever. McCoy put me under. I was standing in the Ready Room screaming at a crew that wasn't there. I slept for two days straight.

We stopped them.

I ran the cloning tanks for the Respawn Pods dry, ran the nano-forge and the creation engines to slush, dropping Redshirts on the Kaiju until a boarding party finally got the Strategic Intelligence Housing and blew it with a proton torpedo head they'd packed the whole way.

You can't use transporters.

That should have been obvious, and I wasted the first two 'launches' of Redshirts.

The transporter uses a digital signal to move and then recreate a being.

Of course the Precursors would have digital signal "noise" removers and capture cards.

After we killed the brain we sought out where the Kaiju was storing the signals for our Redshirts.

I'm glad we did. Imagine being stuck in a buffer, forever, where someone keeps loading you into a sadistic Cardassian torture chamber to rip you apart and examine you, with your memories being updated in the buffer while you're being tortured. Meanwhile, your SUDS won't go off because you're "only" stuck in a buffer.

Still, five days we managed to sweep the system. We kept the Kaiju from making any planetary landings or attacks. I shot the proton torpedo nano-forges into slush, even used transphasic torpedos during the fight. I had possessed doubt about allowing weapons powerful enough to scrap a Borg cube, which are prohibited from most Ladder rank fights, from being used in IRLZones.

The Precursor Kaiju would not have hesitated.

Have reconfigured all shuttles into assault shuttles.

19th Guard (Old Metal) came thundering into the system with a hyperspace rumble that you could feel in your chest. It's an astonishing sight to see all that metal exit hyperspace a division at a time, already cleared for action and at red alert. Hearing space roar with the old Soviet Anthem till the stellar body's stellar wind chimes to it is something not many experience.

Will be granting the crew eight days leave on the 19th Guard's recreation ship in rotations. I expect to be back in action in 14 days.

On a personal note, I wonder if there are any catgirls that will be aboard the recreation ship that might like a good yiffing.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.279

Some of my fellow Federation Starfleet officers questioned my decision to go with an OldTrek class vessel. The newer ones all "look" impressive, where OldTrek is designed very 'sturdily' if you are being polite. Some of the NewTrek stuff can look good because of hull integrity fields help hold the ship together during evasive maneuvers as well as during combat. With non-canon designs already being approved, I had added Enterprise class hull integrity fields to the Dakota as backup and used NewTrek alloys and structural designs for additional strength. Yes, the Dakota would have to be completely rebuilt to be canon again but I made the right decision despite the mocking of my peers.

I outmass my fellow America class superdreadnaughts by a factor of three, using the more modern AbramsEra warp drives that are only partial-canon I am able to offset the mass to acceleration issues. I can mount heavier weapons and more of them and, on the advice of my Riker, who was a Space Force Commodore before he retired, I installed nearly four times the point defense.

While the Dakota may look like a 'floating Erector Set had sex with a Lego set" to some other Captain's, I have faith in my crew's suggestions.

With that, I am ordering the Dakota to answer a distress beacon in a nearby system.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.283

Have rendezvoused with two Klingon and three Romulan battle groups. Several Constitution class an a NewGen Galaxy class, which I outweigh by a factor of six, are with these groups. We plan to jump to the outer system, keeping a gas giant between us and the rest of the system.

Some of my fellow Federation officers doubt that the Dakota meets Starfleet appearance rules but the Klingons were very appreciative of it. These are not 'regrown' Klingons, but rather 'natural borns' from Klingon itself.

A Romulus class mining vessel is with us. Having seen these in action, confidence is high among my allies.

It is there first engagement against the Precursors.

My Spock and I have tried to convince them about the dangers, but they refuse to believe it. They are convinced they will overpower 100 million year old technology like the Precursors are using. I attempted to convince them to use transphasic torpedo and ship phaser technology but they refused as it is only semi-canon.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.286

We jumped to beside the large gas planet in the outer system, quickly raising shields and launching probes to get a look at the system. There were five settled planets in the Green Zone and the Amber Zone, two of them already under ground attack.

We were still discussing counter-measures for the ground attacks when everything 'came apart' so to speak.

Three Goliath Class Precursor vessels rose out of the gas giant and immediately brought us to action. My Riker immediately ordered the photon torpedo bays loaded with transphasic warheads and 'rolled' us away from the Precursors, firing with our heavy phasers.

The NewGen Galaxy class took a full barrage of nCv cannons from the entire forward batteries of a single Goliath and broke up. They had only been using debris shields and had not believed that the Precursor ships mounted batteries ten kilometers thick and a hundred kilometers long. Literally thousands of guns. The Romulan ships went to stealth, their plan to go after their engines. The Klingons, of course, immediately closed the distance intending on performing strafing runs.

All three Goliaths were disabled and sunk into the gas giants streaming vast strands of vaporized metal.

With that, our patchwork armada made its way in-system, registering four more Goliath class vessels, including one that was landed on a dead planet with no ocean or atmosphere. The Romuius class mining vessel moved to attack that one with the idea that it was a dead ship without shields, as it had suffered severe damage to the armor.

They say the best laid plans are laughed at by God and that is how it quickly went.

The planet-bound Goliath opened fire with its guns at extremely close range. The mining vessel was disabled within minutes, falling into the gravity well. Its attempt to use the mining laser came to no effect.

The other Romulan vessels kept going for the engines of the other machines. Once we became engaged in close five more Goliath class raised up from the smaller gas giants.

The battle was fierce, and as of this writing I am not aware of any other vessels still in action. We are currently using our superior speed to keep the Precursors from the planets while our nano-forges and Creation Engines deslush.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Log - Stardate 8532.296

The crew of the Dakota has performed above all expectations in the defense of System-8871d2. Despite the losses of our allied vessels, despite the unexpected recovery of the three initially engaged Goliaths, we have prevailed.

The system has been cleared of Precursor threat both in system space and on planetary surface. An important piece of data is that it appears that the Precursors have decided that they have to survive to enjoy the resources so any expenditure of resources necessary for quick victory is the logical outcome. Forced Precursor vessels to retreat from the system to conserve resources. The Precursor vessels should take come time to repair before returning.

My Spock concurs.

We are currently returning to Starbase-4973 in the Gulkek System for refit, repair, and rearming. We will suggest stationing of garrison forces in System-8871d2.

--Picard 8873

Chapter Sixty-One (Kark)

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.299

Arrived at Starbase-4973 with the Dakota and our crew. Turned over information to the local Starfleet representative as well as SUDS data for the other ship's crews. Spoke to Commodore Dunsten of Starfleet who requested a template for what changes the Dakota has undergone. Was counseled that my point totals will not count toward any ladder rankings due to 'extreme non-canon changes' to the Dakota as well as my crew personal armaments and shuttle modifications.

In shocking news, the Battlestar Fleet and the Cylon Collection have arrived. Talk about the big guns. Those guys carry the big Creation Engines that can pump out a Viper or Cylon fighters in roughly 10 seconds with only a 30 second cooldown/slushdown feature.

Met with the Space Force representative and turned over my battle logs. He, in particular, wanted the in-depth scans we performed on the various Precursor ships. Our practice of boarding the ships is, at this time, the most common strategy.

We discussed the fact that Space Force considers forcing the Precursor vessels out of the system to by a phyrric victory and that the system will require a heavy metal posting. Was also informed that the fact that the Precursor fleet retreated from the planets and then from the system was a 'statistical oddity' and he wanted more scans. He also inquired as to whether or not I ran an in-depth scan on the gas giants, which is where the Goliaths were spawning from. I regret I had not, merely a scan for a Goliath.

He appears quite concerned with the actions undertaken but did congratulate me on defending the system.

Transphasic Photon Torpedoes are considered standard armaments for all Starfleet vessels from here on out. There is talk of smaller planet-crackers being put in use among the crew, but planet crackers rely on the mantle to core interaction. Quantum torpedoes are nothing option that I am seriously considering. Phased plasma torpedoes are largely considered in the OP-Class of weaponry but I am seriously considering just loading everything up and going for broke. Tricobalt missiles might be another option but the last time anyone used that was during the Fifth Dominion War. The Dakota is so far out of specifications that mounting such weapons is not as far fetched as it may have sounded a month ago.

It isn't like anything we're going to do is going to count for the leaderboads.

On a personal note, some of the crew members have reported headaches from their SUDS interfaces. McCoy is working on it, but he also warned that the transporter may have to be reconfigured after the discovery that the Precursors can hijack the signal and capture crew members that way.

Starfleet transporters are much more carefully aligned than the earlier 'mat-trans' and 'teleporter' systems used by the 40K LARPers. Safety interlocks prevent our transporters from being used in many cases that a teleporter could be used, require more power, and have a triple-feedback redunancy check.

An amusing point: Teleporter systems seem to go straight through the shields. McCoy and Spock both believe that lengthened amount of time for buffer checking allows the Precursor shielding to be adjusted for the algorythm used by Starfleet vessels.

Another amusing point: During my LFG call, the Wesleys were lined up around the station core. Nobody is taking them on these, despite the class advantages because, outside of structured missions for Starfleet Games, nobody is going to suddenly have Wesley Weaknesses just because.

On a personal note: My Riker has grown out his beard and has been socializing with his Space Force peers in order to get us more information on this threat.'

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.304

One thing they don't mention in the sheer amount of time you spend moving from place to place. Warp drive is highly efficient and safe compared to stringdrive, slipstream, gates, and jumpspace. Unlike hyperspace, AI's are able to remain conscious in warp. Still, I feel the urge to yell "GO FASTER" at the warp nacelles.

My Spock took me to the side and warned me that Starfleet vessels may be making a serious mistake. Often, the Precursors take damage and flee the system, using Hellspace to jump out. He has noticed that after roughly 8% of their structure is damaged they then flee. He also had checked Starfleet records.

I'm the only vessel, at this time, running transphasic photon torpedoes.

He has suggested an experiment. Utilize transphasic torpedoes, phased plasma torpedoes, but leave one out of every barrage of 10, with the phased plasma torpedoes, with a subspace beacon. In that manner, we can discover where they are running off to.

My Spock has put forward the theory, and my Scotty and LaForge, as well as my Riker, all agree.

They have refitting, repair, and construction bases somewhere.

Perhaps our plan to put a phased subspace beacon aboard one of the larger vessels will pan out.

I do feel concern about what my crew and I might find in a Precursor shipyward.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.306

We have returned to the system that myself and the others had cleared. In particular, we are running long range sensor scans of the gas giants. My Chekov has suggested, and I concur, that getting in close and running more detailed but shorter range scans might put us too close.

I would really like to avoid a barrage of nCv shells.

Our Uhura (She's extremely qualified and did not object to me doublechecking her bonafides) is keeping a careful ear out for any Precursor transmissions.

I have left orders that at the faintest whisper of Precursor code the Dakota is to move to red alert.

The system looks empty, but there is something that makes me think that there are only four lights.

--Picard 8873

ADDENDUM: There is apparently no structures or other masses in the gas giant at the depths our long range passive scanners can reach.

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.307

Our Uhura spotted it first. Subspace whispers. Complex and shifting binary, barely audible. While others suggested we move in, trying to get a lock in on what was whispering across subspace in such a manner I ordered the ship to immediately go to silent running, no emissions.

We observed a Goliath exit Hellspace near the larger gas giant, streaming vapor and metal, its attendant vessels exiting with it. As we watched it allowed the attendant vessels to board through the massive docking ports.

Sidenote: Some of those docking bays are the size of the real San Francisco Ultraplex.

The 'whispers' picked up and the massive Goliath sank into the gas giant.

My crew's estimation that the three initially engaged Goliaths of our last action had repaired themselves was confirmation bias.

For a bare moment the whisper got louder and the Goliath that had sunk into the gas giant was in plain view on our passive long range scanners then it simply vanished.

The belief of my Spock and Scotty is that the Precursors have some kind of shielded refit structure inside the gas giant beyond the scanner horizon. LaForge has stated that the pressures at such depth would make any construction or repairs inordinately difficult.

My Riker reminded LaForge that the Precursors were engaged in a war when they vanished and these bases are not only war-time bases, but that there are no living crews to worry about.

I ordered my crew to remain on silent running. There is enough debris on that planet to cover a probe approach. My LaForge has suggested putting a probe data relay in the Oort Cloud to give the signals a few 'bounces' and to use only phased tachyon streams with reversed polarity.

Sometimes I wish we didn't have all our own names for technology. Why could he have just said paired quark communications?

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.309

The probe was moved into place carefully, following a piece of debris from the previous battle. During this time our Uhura caught another scrap of what she has come to call "Precursor Whispers" from the other gas giant.

My Spock reminded me that the intense pressures inside a massive gas giant could make foundry work easier, allowing the creation of hyperalloys that we need massive foundries for to utilize the inherent pressures of a massive gas giant to create 'alloy farms' inside the gas giant.

A disturbing thought indeed.

Another ship type has arrived, which I have labeled the Enki class Precursor, has arrived and taken to carefully going over the debris fields of the Starfleet battle.

Thankfully the Klingon and Romulan officers routinely utilize anti-matter charges to clear any debris from the destruction of our ships.

It moved to the wreckage of the mining ship and has been spending time there. It is at extreme range and I am becoming nervous about what it is doing.

The Precursor attitudes within this star system are concerning.

Have you ever looked at an inanimate machine, with no living characterization like a Data possesses, and thought to yourself "What are you up to?" as you watched it?

I have that unique experience.

They are up to something.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.310

The probe provided us with valuable information that is critical to disseminate.

We are now, to use my Riker's phrase: running like a bat out of hell.

Passive scans can only penetrate to a certain depth within a gas giant. Starfleet has been largely worried about planetary scans as well as deep space and intrasystem scans. Combine it with the fact we use a lot of gamification in our systems, gas giants were largely used as "spawn points" for crafts. This meant that, naturally, our scanners largely could not penetrate deeply into gas giants.

My Scotty and LaForge re-calibrated the sensor arrays to get a good look inside the gas giant.

My Spock was right. The Precursor was 'growing' large alloy fields down there. There was a repair and manufacturing base the size a continent down inside the gas giant with massive 'alloy farms' around it. Before the scale would have shocked me until my Spock pointed out that the Great Eye of Jupiter is twice the size of Terra itself. Nearly two dozen Precursor vessels were 'docked' at the facility.

Discussions on how to 'deal with' this massive repair and refit base were discussed at a closed meeting of my command crew. It ranged from using a Genesis Device on the gas giant (Not recommended. My LaForge stated that the Precursor ships we are facing here are more adept at 'learning' than previously encountered Precursor types and the last thing we should do is provide them with planet killers that create more resources) to attempting to use a modified planet cracker on the gas giant (Again, tabled due to concerns the Precursors would imitate it).

We settled on phasic trans-phasic photon torpedoes mixed with tricobat missiles.

Out attack was dual: Destroy the debris field of the Romulus class mining vessel, which was being thoroughly combed over by Enki class Precursor vessels, damage or perhaps even destroy the facility and the 'alloy farms' inside the gas giants.

We came in from above the stellar plane, at a high velocity angle. When facing Precursor vessels your speed and maneuverability are key to staying alive. We fired probes while still 25 million miles above the stellar plane. We came in with only debris shields at full power.

The probes reported back that while there were life signs on the planets in the Green and Amber zones the Precursor vessels around those planets and upon the surface were not engaged in wholesale slaughter or destruction. We practically turned the sensors inside out getting deep scans of everything.

Once in range (Starfleet weaponry is somewhat, to use my Riker's term: short legged compared to Space Force line weaponry) I ordered a full scan at maximum power and resolution. Normally this is avoided to prevent damage to sentient beings and xeno-species but the Precursors aren't a foe that one should concern themselves with scanner-burn.

Percursor vessels were not rising from the gas giants. While some immediately launched or moved to engage us from various points in the system, sheer distance and geometry prevented any attacks. At 30 million miles even nCv weapons or phaser beams move too slowly to engage a ship the size of the Dakota. We launched weapons and immediately began accelerating to be able to put enough distance between any Precursor vehicles and our own vessel.

We got our scan data back and immediately realized that engaging the Precursor vessels was now a secondary, if not tertiary, mission.

All four of the gas giants contained refit facilities of a size that is best described as 'geological'.

That was not the key data.

Our Uhura was able to isolate the 'Precursor Whisper' and while unable to decode it, was able to confirm what it is.

FTL data-streams.

Their battle, strategic, and tactical network.

The planets, while full of life and possessing several species known to be "Unified Civilized Races", were all at Stone Age technology. Precursor vessels were moving to protect the planets and their inhabitants for an unknown reason.

This information is vital to Starfleet, Space Force, and all other Confederacy organizations.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.311

The Dakota has now had its very own AbramsKhan moment.

We were fired on in warp drive.

The Precursor vessel mounted one of the Galaxy class Starfleet vessel's engines and pursued us. With a lighter frame, higher energy output, and not having to concern itself with warp drive effects upon living beings, it was not only able to catch up to us, but fire upon us.

My Riker has stated that anyone who mocks up for having such thick armor after this will be starting a brawl.

We are alive only because of my insistence on heavy armor, structural integrity fields running the same type of shield frequency algorithms as our main deflector shields, with dual structural fields layered between armor and structural layers.

Immediately upon being fired upon we dropped out of warp drive to engage the small Precursor vessel. Chekov stated it would be between stellar bodies and it should have been a bare battlefield with not even gas wisps.

Instead, we dropped into a half dozen Jotun class vessels waiting for us.

We are currently undergoing evasive warp maneuvering as estimated by my Spock and my LaForge.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.313

They're attempting to "drive" us deeper into the Dead Zone.

This gives us a fairly unusual opportunity. We can see what they are attempting to push us into or we can attempt to escape.

Spock and Scotty believe that it is imperative we discover what it is that the Precursors believe can take us out compared to the Jotuns following us.

Riker and LaForge maintain our goal should be reaching Federation/Confederate Space.

I believe I have a better idea.

--Picard 8873

Captain's Log - Stardate 8532.315

Rather than allow us to be pushed further into the Dead Zone I ordered the ship to move at a right angle to the galactic plane at full warp 9.3. While this can interfere with SUDS uploads and storage I have decided that the risk is necessary.

Captain's Log - Stardate 8532.317

The Precursor machines are still in close pursuit. They are arranging for attempted ambushes. LaForge has theorized that the one following us, which is a warp capable photon-torpedo launcher welded to the the Galaxy class engine and wrapped in neutronium armor, sends out a "whisper" as soon as it sees the 'warp flare' from our engines. That enables the Precursor vessels to Helljump to where we will be exiting.

Scotty has a plan.

Luckily, I did not dump my old class data, so I have a Kirk knowledge database.

Spock is overriding the interlocks to allow me to access that knowledge.

It is risky, but acceptable.

Captain's Log - Stardate 8532.317 - Supplmental

By utilizing the holodeck, a blank SUDS, and carefully aligned emitters, Spock believes I will be able to load the data from the Kirk character class into my memories despite being a Picard. He will attempt to use his Mind Meld ability to keep me from collapsing under a dual class.

The Precursor Pursuer will be in range inside of 30 minutes.

I have no choice.

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.317.7

The melding was somewhat successful. I have conflicting emotions and desires regarding many subjects but thankfully both my knowledge and personality templates are Starfleet officers. By use of the Mind Meld my Spock was able to use an older exploit involving class rank and player knowledge.

Contrary to popular opinion, Kirk classes are not womanizing hot-heads (Despite AbramsEra semi-canon) but rather highly innovative early Starfleet officers. It is just that the mission files force Kirk to use half-experimental technology in innovative ways in order to overcome unknown experiences and foes. One of the things often overlooked is Kirk made the rank of Admiral and was quite cautious in many ways.

Still, the dissonance between a Picard and a Kirk class is quite intense.

I am suffering nosebleeds. McCoy says it is from intercranial pressure as my brain attempts to sort through the information.

I have not informed him of the fact I have a severe SUDS hangover.

--Picark 8873

Captain's Log - Stardate 8532.318

After examining old scans of the Galaxy class ship that was defeated I was able to ascertain its hull number. Using that number, and knowledge possessed by an Admiral Level Kirk Class, when the Precursor Pursuer came close enough to fire I was able to drop its warp-shields. The Precursor Pursuer was exposed to raw warp energy at that time, inhibiting its ability to see the Dakota, specifically causing us to appear much further ahead in the warp conduit.

The Precursor Pursuer fell back and I ordered the Dakota to move to Emergency Warp Speed.

9.998 Okuda Scale

The Precursor Pursuer immediately went to maximum speed of the Galaxy class engine attached to little more than armor, bare shields, and a torpedo launcher.

Warp 10.

Without Transwarp shielding or any other technology, the Precursor Pursuer achieved infinite velocity and infinite mass.

The explosion damaged the Dakota and left us drifting in normal space.

Scotty and LaForce estimate repair times of 3 weeks.

--Picark 8873

Captain's Log - Stardate 8532.325

We are again underway after our successful destruction of the Precursor Pursuit vessel.

Maximum warp is limited to Warp 5.4.

Estimated time of arrival at Starbase 4973 is 11 days.

--Picark 8873

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.332

My SUDS has been scrambled and bad. I'm no longer Jeffery van Leedle, born on Rigel, but instead and curious combination of the character neural templates and my old personality.

Scotty, McCoy, and LaForge are examining me. Not in any hopes of untwining the personalities, but rather to forward the information to SoulNet in hopes that it can be prevented for occurring to others, no matter how unusual the circumstances.

The 'Gamed' memories no longer have the distinguishable overlay that Starfleet uses for safety measures. Instead, all of my memories feel the same.

Which is... confusing.

I remember racing a motorcycle in the wheat fields of Oklahoma, outside of Paris, under a Rigellian red sky.

My gestalt personality agrees that it is worth it for the information we have and to save my ship and my crew.

--Jeff Picark 8873

Captain's Log - Stardate 8532.334

Pro-term Acting Captain Riker-2173 commanding. Previous Captain suffering the effects of the SUDS/Template merger needed to access information to allow the destruction of the Precursor Pursuer.

Captain Jeff Picark was relieved of command, with acceptance and willingly, two hours ago.

Bridge and Command Officers are in agreement with this action.

We are two days out of Starbase 4973.

--Riker 2173

Captain's Personal Log - Stardate 8532.335

Would I have done it, knowing what I do now?

Yes.

My SUDS cannot update. The neural template recordings fragment and unravel.

I am no longer immortal.

But there is no such thing as only human. Humans, without the SUDS, accomplished incredible feats with just grit and determination.

However, I can no longer participate in active combat Starfleet games. Two hundred years of LARP down the tubes.

I made a good choice with my Riker. The hardest thing to do is relieve your Captain for cause.

He had good cause.

--Jeff Picark 8873

Captain's Log - Stardate 8532.336

I have docked the Dakota and am granting shore leave to crew. Captain Picark was taken to the Space Force infirmary via stretcher with McCoy in attendance.

Our mission is complete. Space Force has our data in their possession.

For some reason, the Precursors keep entire worlds of roughly half the xeno-sapients of the Unified Civilized Races.

Gas Giants must now be treated as Precursor base risks.

I am hoping "Jeff" recovers. The fact that he remembered an ancient piece of lore from OldTrekKhan is, honestly, impressive. Undergoing an in-mission partial respec was risky.

Will report to Starfleet and see what happens.

--Riker 2173

---------------------------

STARFLEET GAMING CENTRAL NOTICE

Jeffery van Leedle, player number 7c345a7e1-8873, is hereby promoted to Starfleet Admiral and is hereby recalled to Earth-42 to Starfleet Headquarters in New-SanFran.

In accordance to his wishes the Dakota a non-canon America class ship, is hereby given to Riker 56a817c38f2-2173, including all templates and player rewards.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

SPACE FORCE MEMO

ALL CAPTAINS

Initial estimations of 30-50 Goliath class total forces in is error.

New ship types encountered, new facilities discovered (See Attached File).

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

CONFED MEMO

Mantid, any idea what this is about?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Beyond "cattle worlds" we cannot estimate why Precursors, of all things, would have the older races, reduced to primitive, on worlds just being observed.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

BLACK CRUSADE

Experimentation, idiots. That Balor Hellship should have made you think of that.

They're trying to figure out a way to counter us.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

Chapter Sixty-Two (Daxin)

Space twisted, warped, rent and screamed with the amount of firepower being hammered across the surface of space-time. Massive kinetic shells tore rents into space-time to leak Hellspace energy across hundreds of thousands of miles, the rents hundreds of miles deep. Missiles exited hyperspace, aligned, aimed, and fired their warheads off, filling their section of space-time with lasers, particle beams, directed nuclear detonation ion slugs, and even atomic fire compressed and forced into a slashing line. A temporal resonance cannon fired, tearing at matter across the 4th dimension. An singularity cannon barked out tiny artificial singularities with a short half-life that detonated at a target distance determined by 'boiling point' of the hyperdense masses.

Shields flared, stopping and absorbing energy, slamming back as a form of reactive armor, blunted and twisted and bent energy beams, rippled the 4 dimensions to guard the ship generating it.

The Goliath was beginning to feel heat across its supercomputing lobes. Not excess heat, not measurable heat, just a heat, every time that annoying craft, now much bigger than it had been, came spiralling in on another attack run.

It was was able to get closer, penetrate to where the psychic shutdown field reached saturation of nearly 230% of normal.

The Goliath had been forced to not only increase the power of that field to an unheard of degree, but had been forced to increase its own psychic shielding to resist commands and raw untamed psychic attacks.

No longer was each attack carefully estimated for resource consumption versus survival rating and possibly resource recovery.

The Goliath's Strategic Intelligence Array had 'killed' those programming strings as useless.

This enemy was tenacious, rabid, feral, without any of the caution of the Old Races.

The logical limit of 10% of resources no longer had any meaning to the Goliath.

The Enemy had taught it that there was no shepherding of resources in a life or death fight.

The Goliath was over a hundred million years old. Had sterilized hundreds, thousands of worlds, reclaimed the resources of a hundred species, and had defeated dozens of the Old Enemy's war vessels.

This one, this new feral enemy, was beyond anything that the Old Vessels or the Builders had ever computed would arise.

It ignored the 10% rule of entropy and consumption. It ignored standard break and retreat protocol. It kept coming, no matter what.

A handful of nCv cannon shells had struck the New Enemy amidships, leaving it reeling, heeling over on one side, streaming vapor and debris. Before the Goliath could press any advantage the New Enemy had righted itself, changed course, and kept attacking.

The Goliath had determined that the New Enemy, that rabid feral intellect that screamed in painful waves of sheer denial, had some mechanism to allow for self-repair that vastly outstripped its size.

When the New Enemy had begun the latest attack, it had launched parasite craft. Highly maneuverable craft that seemed to each be different.

The Goliath had learned to watch for the class of ship that slammed through the psychic intelligence disruptor field to drop heavy anti-matter and other explosives of unknown type and mechanics onto the surface armor of the Goliath. That class of ship was deemed a priority for interception.

The feral intelligence had also begun adding more than particle screens to its missiles and torpedoes, adding in deflection and battle-screens, meaning the Goliath had been forced to build heavier point defense guns while engaged in combat.

In its entire unliving existence, the Goliath had never been forced to run the Strategic Intelligence Array at nearly 100% capacity.

The feral intelligence had forced the Goliath to exceed tolerances, exceed core-programmed network and array usage. The Goliath had entire memory banks full of new data on weapons, propulsion systems, but no way to collate the data beyond identifying the incoming weaponry.

Even its short reprieve upon the original manufacturing world had helped very little. The facilities Omnibuild Core had rejected all of the Goliath's attempts to upload the data as there were no Builder Race technicians to bypass the safety interlocks that the Goliath's servitors could not go within the electronic intelligence disruption field.

And old core programming prevented him from disabling those parts of the facility.

Now the Builder Race Queen was attacking him, having given up on ordering him to submit.

And he had been forced to lift off the planet as the Builder Race Queen had weaponized the planet's very magnetic field against him.

The feral intelligence had immediately moved into the attack, possessing longer range weaponry than the Goliath possessed, a more nimble ship with, incredibly, superior shielding to the massive Goliath.

This was suboptimal.

The OmniQueen snarled, psychically and physically, as the Goliath lifted off the planet, avoiding her magnetic storm focus hitting it's Strategic Intelligence Array, lifting off the planet with such force its engines stripped the rock almost to the mantle. The feral intelligence, its mind ravening and raving, immediately moved into the system, firing those cannons that gave it such extreme range.

She had been forced to hatch workers, overseers, warriors, and speakers, dividing her psychic abilities in order to dominate them.

For a trembling moment she considered burning out her drone's brains, leaving them dead, in order to entirely focus on the feral intelligence and the rogue Great Old War Machine.

Then she had paused. Her goal was no longer the capture of the Great Old War Machine or the capture/destruction of the feral intelligence, it was now just to have them leave the system before she was put in any more risk.

Two Overqueens were already dead. Her psychic array that gathered dozens of systems close to her watchful eyes was damaged.

Having them present was no longer in the best interest of the survival of her species or herself.

Her blind eyes staring at the walls of her birthing chamber, she watched the two combatants with her psychic senses, able to sense what was going on across the entire stellar system in real time as psychic ability was instantaneous, not restricted to primitive restrictions like the speed of light.

She focused, as best she could, on the howling, screaming, gnashing feral intelligence that screamed at her with bandsaw rage, it's sheer fury ripping at her own ego, id, and clairsentience senses. How it was nothing more than a raw snarling point screaming at her to not touch it, not look at it, not even remember it.

Perhaps it would wound the Goliath badly enough she could overwhelm its psychic shields and take control of it.

Wherever that feral intelligence had come from, the OmniQueen needed to know.

So she could send fleets to destroy it before it risked destroying her perfect presence.

She reached out again and felt the feral intelligence reject her with the feeling of white hot talons scraping across her mind.

Daxin felt the Queen's attempt to reach past his shields, past his defenses, and screamed in rage across his broadcast systems.

He no longer had a physical body, had not had one in millennia, but had learned to scream in rage and hatred nonetheless.

The big Goliath was already on the attack, its guns thundering with enough strength to make space around it visibly ripple. Its drives were going to full power, wrenching the massive structure out of the planet's gravity well even as the planet's magnetic field focused and rakes across one side.

Daxin's parasite ships didn't lunge forward, not like last time, but instead stayed close, point defense hot and ready, battle-screens up and humming, their scanners and predictive analysis software running hard with warbois capering and dancing through the systems. All of them loaded up with attack CRC's to give them an extra edge of humming aggression and rage.

He reached out, reflexively, to stroke Fido's petting nerve, but there was nothing there.

That made the anger and rage surge up.

I just want left alone!

Instruments reported a surge in energy consistent with the big Goliath's Hellcores being powered up. As Daxin moved in he saw the huge ship start to rip open space, tearing open a portal to Hellspace. He knew it was attempting to escape and snarled. He'd loaded old Chaos strings to let him estimate and analyze Hellspace paths the Precursor machine might try to use.

The OmniQueen felt the Old War Machine open a portal into the boiling and burning hyper-atomic space that allowed for faster than light travel. She recoiled from that rip in space/time, feeling the energies of that destroyed and damaged space between dimensions reach out for her, screaming, howling, attempting to pull her mind in and tear it apart in gnashing teeth and jaws.

The the Old War Machine still traversed that destroyed place made her shudder.

But, with a single exception, there was no other way to move faster than light and there never would be now.

She knew now why the feral intelligence was so screaming and insane. It had subjected itself to the psychic resonance of a dimension destroyed by The Enemy over a hundred million years before.

The living could not enter hyperatomic space any longer.

Not if they wished to remain sane.

She withdrew slightly, giving time for the feral intelligence to follow the rebel Old War Machine. It tore open its own hyperatomic gate, slipped inside of it, and vanished.

It took long revolutions of the nearly dead planet she was on for the psychic resonances to stop rippling through the system. She used that time to confer with her lesser Overqueens, to reestablish her authority that had been so wounded by the defiance of the rebel Old War Machine and the rage of the feral intelligence.

There was more life in the galaxy. Life that had risen up without the soothing and calming hand of the OmniQueen or The Enemy. Feral intelligence, little better than animals, that had managed to not only tame spaceflight, but traverse the hyperatomic plane even as damaged and destroyed and inhospitable to life as it had become.

If feral intelligences had arisen, what were the chances that The Enemy had also survived. She had received reports their homeworld had been scoured clean of all life, its resources claimed for the defiant and rogue machines.

But the OmniQueen had considered a factor that the previous OverQueens had not.

A space-faring race is difficult to extinguish. Even with the War Machines moving from system to system, eventually they would reach the end of the mathematically possible spread of her own race or that of The Enemy.

She knew that the previous OmniQueen had ordered Overqueens to rush through The Enemy's systems, 'fleeing' the rogue machines, pulling both fleets after them, while her egg and the eggs of her servants had slumbered deep beneath the crust behind psychic shields.

The plan had been for the Overqueens to pull the fleets into The Enemy, to force The Enemy to engage the unliving might of both fleets as her own people fled beyond any reasonable distance via the incredibly slow and risky jumpspace that her race had recently discovered. Because none of her race had ever returned, she had always believed that her people had been destroyed beyond the senses of the previous OmniQueens, caught between the anvil of The Enemy and the hammer of both rogue machine fleets.

But if a feral intelligence had managed to arise and gain enough advancement to discover how to access the hyperatomic plane, then perhaps her ancestors had managed to survive and flee the Final War.

The OmniQueen figured the chances of a feral intelligence discovering the intricate and elegant equations to even slightly detect jumpspace, much less harness it, was almost zero.

The OmniQueen began to give orders, commanding the remaining minions to begin to build. To hatch several of her species that were rarely used any longer.

The feral intelligence's psychic shields had a particular taste. A particular flavor.

A shield was behind the other shields. Not to protect the feral intelligence from her, but...

to protect her race from it.

A peculiar flavor indeed.

A flavor distinctly Mantid.

Now why would a feral intelligence, arisen a hundred million years after the Final War, install shielding in its ship to protect Mantid minds from the insanity of the feral intelligence's wrathful burning thoughts?

The OmniQueen mused over the fact.

There was only one conclusion.

Her people had survived.

In the bowels of the ancient shipyards machines stirred to life as newly hatched Mantids began to carry out the OmniQueen's orders.

To build a jumpspace capable ship and crew it with a Speaker aboard.

There were still the old racial memories of the path that her ancestors had intended to take.

Perhaps there were other Mantid Omni and Over Queens to bring into the fold.

----------------------

Daxin gritted his non-existant teeth and wrapped his 'hands' around the controls, staring at the Goliath fleeing from him through Hellspace.

Part of him knew he should break off, should head back to Confed Space and report the massive Goliath, but it had proved too quick to adapt, with hidden shipyards and maintenance facilities all over the Long Dark. He could break off, but the giant spacecraft had learned to much to let go.

And Daxin had never been too good at letting things go.

His memory stimulator brought up an old memory.

Standing on the beaches of Rigel, still mostly flesh, his arm around a young woman, not in a romantic way, but a protective way.

Abithica, bubbled up in his mind.

Who?

Abithica... you're daughter?

The memory tattered as his implant kept him from losing himself in memories or sensations. It had been a long time since that particular piece of cyberware had kicked in, and for a moment he worried about the amount of time he'd spent in Hellspace. He was running Hellspace shields... hyperatomic planar shields, from all the way back during the Space Marines Black Heresy Crusade. He could feel the energies of Hellscape plucking at his mind, squeezing with talons that left bloody furrows in his memories and feelings.

"For the Codex TerraSol, brothers!" echoed in his mind, with the taste of warsteel carbon on his non-existent tongue.

Why would I remember that? Daxin thought to himself as the Goliath suddenly dropped out of Hellspace.

As Daxin exited out the still collapsing gate he heard the Precursor scream.

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE!

Daxin noted that the Goliath's Hellcore was still running, charging up, powering up. His sensors started registering the system around him.

Reduced to almost barren rubble, the system had little to offer the Goliaths slowly orbiting the dwarf star inside the orbit of Mercury back in the Sol system.

Daxin reached for the 'switch' to deploy his weapons and stopped.

The massive Goliath was tearing open another Hellspace portal before the old one had entirely closed.

Daxin charged his Hellcores, ignoring the pain, and instead of opening his own portal got in close to the Goliath as it began to move into Hellspace through the ragged wound in space.

Prepare the boarding torpedoes, brothers! rang in his head.

Daxin frowned as best he could as his ship was pulled after the Goliath and into Hellspace. He gritted his teeth as his shields went down and his warbois started ravening at their hashbays. He saw Hellspace tear at the Goliath, saw the great machine's armor ripped and torn at by the Hellspace energies.

For the Emperor!

Daxin shook his head, trying to dispel the memories of a life he had left behind with his meat body when...

Wait. Of course, Daxin would have raised his eyebrows if he still possessed them. The answer was obvious, blindingly obvious.

But the fires of Hellspace were bright enough to wipe away thought when one needed it the most.

His Hellcores had not been discharged, had not used their energy to rip open a Hellgate. They still trummed with power and Daxin fed his engines the Hellspace energies, feeling his ship slide across the greasy sticky feel of Hellspace.

He used instruments in Hellspace that were developed by the forces of the Black Heresy, created to give the insane rulers of the Eye of Terror an advantage over anyone else who dared enter their hellish realm.

Daxin could still see in Hellspace. More than that, he could move in Hellspace.

The Goliath was merely transiting Hellspace.

Carefully feeding the energies of the hellish dimension into his engines from his Hellcore, Daxin slowly caught up to and then began to pass over the top of the massive machine. Craters the size of cities, bought at great if futile price, slowly moved beneath him. Daxin himself had left many upon the armored hide of the machine himself and he avoided those, knowing that they would be priority for repair by the great machine.

With no shields to protect it Daxin was able to land on the surface of the Goliath, slowly settling to the bottom of a crater the size of a city. His own craft, an Adaptus Cruiser, was completely lost just among the molted an rehardened armor flows.

His own instruments, calibrated and designed for Hellspace, showed that there was only a few meters of armor between his ship, molecular bonded to the armor of the Goliath, and some kind of open space no bigger than a being could drive a wheeled cargo truck down.

Daxin knew that it would detect stray radio pulses, unknown digital presences, and loaded himself into his combat frame, ensuring that he was heavily armed and protected.

When he left his ship he made sure not to look up, keeping the bulk of his cruiser between the energies of Hellspace and the hull of the Goliath. He worked carefully and quickly managed to gain access to the inside of the Goliath.

Nearly eight miles into the armor, the passage ran for miles in each direction, a mesh of interconnecting smaller and larger passages.

Once inside Daxin put a stealth-seal on the hole he'd dug through the meters of armor, working quickly, gasping as the energies of Hellspace slowly ebbed away from him.

He cast around with his light, feeling like he should see dust and the evidence of antiquity.

Instead the passage was smooth, clean.

Hefting his weapon and activating his reflex-trigger, Daxin began moving.

He was only a couple hundred of miles away from the core.

Daxin intended on finding the ship's AI and kicking a huge hole in it.

He'd even brought his kicking boots.

Chapter Sixty-Three (Dreams)

The eVR VI added sparks to the motion as Dreams slowly finished sharpening her bladearms to one of her favorite little songs. She sat in her favorite spot in her favorite eVR simulation, Mr. Rings curled up and sleeping in his bole, the rain dripping around her. She was almost finished, just one more repetition of the ancient song.

Are you ready, kids? I can't hear you! Oooooh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea? she sang softly to herself as she slowly scraped the bladearms against each other in a shower of hard-light sparks. She closed her eyes, feeling the edges.

Sharp enough, hard enough, to slice through duralloy or enosteel like paper, dangerous enough to leave scoring marks on warsteel.

Dreams opened her eyes as she finished, sparks floating around her.

She reached up, adjusting her beret, and summoned a reflective holo-image of herself. He beret was just at the right angle, her denim vest covered in patches of the strange places she'd visited on Terra, a coat over her abdomen, chrome studded black leather gloves on her grasping hands. He kept her donorcycle-chain on her belt, next to the vote-switch-blade, with her communicator and a small hand weapon. She shifted the vest a little, admiring the patch she had bought at the Tomb of Rushmore, where the giant four-headed tyrant of ancient America had been imprisoned in stone for all time, only his heads thrust out of the solid rock of the mountain.

Behind her Rack and Pinion began to move, dropping the eVR construct that made them appear as gentle Pacific Northwest Sasquatch. Dreams had managed to smuggle in heavier weapon packs than they had initially shown up with after the lawyers of Jackson, Johnson, and Johnston had filed and gotten approval for the paperwork, making it perfectly legal for the two warborgs to walk around with battle-screens and hypervelocity autocannons.

Jack Johnston, esq., had informed Dreams that the layered VI system of the Unified Legal Council had just taken to stamping Terran lawsuits with approved rather than spending millions of credits worth the cycles to completely go over every last little bit.

From what John Jackson, esq., had informed her, the layered VI had begun taking its pique at the massive Terran filings out on the Unified Council's attempts at legal paperwork by denying them outright and kicking them back for missing forms, references, proper citations, and improper precedence listing.

It made Dreams giggle a little bit that the Unified Justice Council had thought they could go toe to toe with the Terran legal institutions like Jackson, Johnson, and Johnston and come out unbloodied. There were persistent rumors even predating the Terran Diaspora that most lawyers had a large amount of DNA from something called a shark woven into their genetic helixes.

Dreams had seen sharks, once, off the shores of Old Hawai'i. She had admired their sleek forms, their lethalness, their dedication to consuming anything they wished in an ocean teaming with hostile and combative lives.

"Are you gentlemen ready?" Dreams asked her escorts.

"Yes, ma'am," the both replied at once. She had given them standing orders not to speak across anything but datalinks, to ignore anyone who attempted to converse with them. She also ordered them to leave up their firewalls and shields as if they were entering a heavy EW zone.

"Let us do some tourism," Dreams said, and carefully made her way to the door. She left the eVR up so Mr. Rings could exercise and find the treats she had hidden around the room.

Both of the warborgs were always amused by Dreams overwhelming desire to see new places and experience the culture. She had taken them to many exotic locations over the decades they had been her personal guide. She had a soft spot for Terra and TerraSol culture, which amused the two warborgs. They had met more than a few Mantids over the decades and one thing they had all shared was a love, almost an obsession, with human culture.

Dreams had explained it: The majority of races, by the time they even achieved nuclear power generation mastery, were a single overarching culture with little to no diversity, where Terra had a dizzying blend of cultures that were all distinct yet had common threads throughout, that all blended into one fractious and endlessly kaleidoscopic whole.

On the worlds they had visited, guarding Dreams, they had seen how correct she was.

The hoverdisc was waiting. She had invited her fellow Mantids, but they had all chosen to remain in the Unified Ambassadorial Council building. Words Spoken We Fear had offered to go with her, but she'd reminded him that he was to speak to the Admiral in charge of the fleet.

As they exited the embassy more warborgs joined her. Terran Confederacy Marines, a diplomatic detachment, three to front and back and four to the left and right. Rack and Pinion were inside the square.

The day was bright, but not too bright, UV, IR, and visible light filters in the sky keeping the sunlight down to tolerable to all the races. While to Dreams it seemed quite bright both of her escorts felt it was slightly dim. Dreams noted how many guards she had, just beyond the mandatory twenty-meter diplomatic space she was insisting upon.

She was glad she did not have a human mouth, she would have sneered visibly at the amount of 'guards' she could see that she knew were try to offset the massive warborgs around her. The Unified Civilized Races could throw anything they wanted at those warborgs without any effect.

Warsteel could handle the hellfire of atomic weaponry without even softening.

The hoverdisc purred, the outside opaque to the common visual and recording spectrums from the outside but perfectly clear from the inside. She had a few datascreen up. Not many, leaning forward against an inclining cushion. She had refused the offer of the limousines the rest of the diplomats used. Her hoverdisc was custom made from Area51Saucers, stuffed to the gills with all kinds of special order features and full eVR if she wished it.

She even had a small play area for Mr. Rings if the shy little octopod had wanted to come along or had not wanted left alone.

Traffic was rerouted by the Unified Law Enforcement Council, giving her clear lanes. She would have preferred to have just gone with a few escorts to go shopping and see the sights but the reality of the "Grand Civilized Species" had made her rethink her plans.

On TerraSol she had been surrounded by gleeful predators in their natural environment following ancient rituals that not ever her race glassing parts of the planet had wiped out. In other human societies she had still been surrounded by predators playing with entire worlds or solar systems. The humans saw the entire universe as a prey filled playground full of endless resources, having grown to sapience on a planet that was low resources and high conflict.

Here, every species she could see would make her drool if she had less self-control. Rather than the constant 'come-chase-fun-excitement-eat-dance' of the Terran and Treana'd worlds and the other worlds that were part of the Terran Confederacy, there was instead something different.

Almost a plea to be eaten.

Just seeing the various Old Races made her drool. Their appearance and the slight taste of their minds activating her saliva and digestive juices.

She knew why.

They had been genetically altered, millions of years ago.

By her people.

For food.

After meeting the humans, the races the humans had met, seeing the humans Uplift so many of their native creatures, she had forgotten that other intelligent races had just been altered to be nothing more than an ambulatory sandwich. She knew it wasn't their fault, but a small part of her blamed them.

The humans had evolved on a planet that had undergone multiple extinction events. During the last one (If you didn't count the Great Glassing) they had been little more than lemurs. They had evolved, under constant threat, and had risen to being a space-faring race. The sentient races that had arisen near them had all managed the same thing. Some of them even evolving on planets that had been devastated by the Precursor War. Dreams had noticed a lot of the sapients discovered by the Terrans were much more like the Terrans. While not as aggressive or physically tough or imaginative or, well alive as the Terrans, they had still evolved on a world on their own.

The planet Dreams was currently on, drifting down a road inside her hoverdisc, had been terraformed almost 110 million years ago, and that the Lanaktallan had built a civilization on it once Dreams people had left had left a mark on them.

Dreams was sure that the Lanktallan of this planet were almost virtually identical to the ones her people had feasted on.

At least the Terran medical ship in orbit, the Gentle Hands had updated her psychic implants, enabling Dreams to tune out the Grand Civilized Species.

That made shopping tolerable as she was stared out by wide eyed species who had never seen a giant mantis that delicately moved through the shop, examining jewelry and other luxuries. It made exploring the tourist sections tolerable as she drifted through the paths and trails to see gardens. She took pics and 'peggies' of the scenery, a few of the sculptures, and a few xenospecies.

Sadly, most of it was boring. Safe, created and fashioned and approved to be viewed without feeling emotion or having any kind of strong feelings or slight unpleasant feelings so much as tickle the viewer. There was nothing to 'tickle her tendrils' or really bring her senses to more than just light curiosity.

One thing that did catch her notice was a small holomarker on a desk. Dreams was in the shop to purchase a few small hand-crafted ceramic tchotskies when she saw the little holomarkers.

Tuku'unga Custom Ceramics

She took the card, sliding it into the pocket of her denim vest, purchased the ceramics and left. Once she was in her hoverdisc she took out the card and ran the number. The hoverdisc was moving along, back to the diplomatic embassy.

The number connected to a personal store, where ceramics were being sold. Dreams admired the beautiful workmanship of the pieces, the attention to detail, the subtle flaws that even a master's work possessed. She ran template comparisons to see if the items had been run off a fabricator. She found some that were close, but her educated compound eyes could tell that all of the items were indeed hand crafted with skill and tools.

She tapped the rune for contacting the crafter.

A Shavashan female answered and Dreams noticed that she had drying ceramics on her neck.

"Tuku'unga Custom Ceramics," the Shavashan female said. She frowned. "I am not accustomed to privacy screened calls and I do not take anonymous orders. Please show yourself."

Dreams triggered her camera, allowing her image to appear.

The Shavashan's eyes opened wide. "I've seen you! On the TriVid!" the saurian exclaimed.

Dreams flashed a run of assent. "I am Dreams of Something More, the Terran Confederacy diplomat to your government," Dreams said.

The Shavashan nodded, swallowing. "Why... why would call me?" she asked.

Dreams tapped two icons, sending an image to the craftsbeing. "Can you create something like this for me? Color matched and by construction?"

The Shavashan nodded again, swallowing as she did so. "Of course, honorable one, but surely you can just have it fabricated."

Flashing the rune for a negative Dreams shook her head. "Fabrication units smooth it, make it flawless, just like the touch the spirit of a craftsbeing has. Can you do it?"

Still nodding, the Shavashan looked over the file. "I can. How soon do you want it?"

Dreams shrugged. "When it is done, craftsbeing. I do not rush true workmanship."

The Shavashan nodded, flashing a rune expressing pleasure.

"Here is a deposit. Please send me pictures of your work as it progresses," Dreams said. Her account had plenty of the local currency in it. She had compared the price of a reasonably close sized and complexity piece to what she wanted, doubled it, then doubled that.

"Lady Ambassador, surely I can't," the Shavashan protested upon seeing the money transferred.

"I can, and if you are willing to craft it for me, I will pay the remaining amount. I will have some bark samples and moss samples sent to you this evening for your reference," Dreams said.

"As you wish, Lady Ambassador," the Shavashan said. "Thank you for your patronage."

"Thank you for your dedication and skill," Dreams replied, then cut the feed.

She sat, humming to herself, quite happy with her purchase. The day had not been a total loss. She had found a few hats she was sure would look perfect on her head, along with a few artistic torso garments and an abdomen wrap or two.

She floated all the way to her quarters, climbing down off the hoverdisc when necessary, then walked the remainder of the way to her quarters, humming and smiling to herself. She tapped open the door and walked in.

"Mr. Rings, guess what Mommy bought..." she stopped as Rack and Pinion both activated their shoulder mounted cannons.

Mr. Rings was sitting on top of dead Lanaktallan, pushing its tentacle into a hole it had chewed in the side of the creature's abdomen. As Dreams watched, the little arboreal octopi pulled out a hunk of muscle tissue and shoved it into its mouth.

Dreams noticed that the rings around Mr. Rings eyes were bright blue where the rings on his tentacles were duller in color. The Lanaktallan was laying near a disruptor pistol, dried foam around its face. It was obvious to Dreams that the Lanaktallan had been moving toward Dreams's sleeping quarters when Mr. Rings had dropped from the tree branches and onto the Lanaktallan's back and killed it.

Dreams couldn't help it. She started giggling. Rack and Pinion both made grinding noises of amusement as Mr. Rings looked at them with wide innocent eyes and shoved another chunk of tissue in his mouth.

"Mr. Rings! Naughty!" Dreams giggled.

Mr. Rings grabbed one more hunk of flesh and climbed up into the top branches of the trees.

Rack and Pinion called down that there was a dead intruder in the Ambassador's chambers.

As soon as everyone turned around, Mr. Rings dropped down and grabbed another piece, climbing out of reach when Dreams chastised him.

Dreams just giggled as she sat there and watched the medical services haul away the dead Lanaktallan.

Mr. Rings stayed hiding in his bole, chewing on a piece of liver he had absconded with while Mommy was talking to the big tasty people.

Part Sixty-Four (Rixen)

Rixen opened his eyes. His mag-rifle opened its eyes, stretched, and linked up with his onboard cyberware. Rixen saw his visor flicker, the firmware and the onboard warboi load up, then it went clear.

He was in a dropship. Across from him was Telrik, who's visor had just cleared.

I live

Rixen heard the docking clamps release and the dropship was, well, dropping.

Nuclear fire lanced near the dropship as it popped chaff and flares, brought up its battle-screens, slammed it's Electronic Warfare suite to maximum power, brought up the targeting arrays, saw the massive armored continent below it and got off three missiles with the seekers primed to find and lock onto targeting guidance wavelengths.

Rixen felt the ship shudder, roll slightly. He looked to the right, where Hepra was next to him.

He saw the thermonuclear forged lance of energy rip through the ship, a split second, a neuron's firing worth the time, frozen as the suddenly molten energy blew through the ship, reaching for him with talons of liquid energy surrounded by the halo of released particle beam.

The dropship exploded less than a kilometer from the huge ship it had dropped from.

I die

Rixen opened his eyes. His mag-rifle opened its eyes, stretched, and linked up with his onboard cyberware. Rixen saw his visor flicker, the firmware and the onboard warboi load up, then it went clear.

He was in a dropship. Across from him was Telrik, who's visor had just cleared. Rixen stuck his tongue out at Telrik, who snorted.

I live

Rixen heard the docking clamps release and the dropship was, well, dropping.

The dropship nosed down, firing thrusters, hurtling toward the vast ocean of armor below it. It got its battlescreens up, popped chaff and flares, thew the EW to max, and rolled to the left. Rixen felt it as the ship suddenly tried to go in every direction at once, the engines howling and shaking the entire ship.

Rixen felt the missile launchers go to rapid fire as the ship corkscrewed down to a Precursor ship so massive it generated a natural gravity field.

The ship suddenly screamed and began to tumble, end over end.

A missile, meant to gut a capital ship, hit the dropship dead on the nose, reducing it to a smear of atomic vapor.

I die

Rixen opened his eyes. His mag-rifle opened its eyes, stretched, and linked up with his onboard cyberware. Rixen saw his visor flicker, the firmware and the onboard warboi load up, then it went clear.

He was in a dropship. Across from him was Telrik, who's visor had just cleared. Telrik winked at him, tabbing a piece of gum.

I live

Rixen heard the docking clamps release and the dropship was, well, dropping fast, rolling as soon as it was clear of the massive ship's battle-screens. It flew through the chaff and vaporized armor of it's own corpses, bringing up EW, popping a drone, and letting loose the entire load of missiles in one screaming jittering ejaculation of guided nuclear penetrator missiles full of dancing capering warbois slavering to slam themselves against the armor of the enemy.

The dropship spun, rolled, and corckscrewed, it omnisensor pace seeing where two point defense batteries were down. The warbois computed the blind spots and jerked the dropship toward it as it launched a second flight of missiles and ejected a thermal core.

Rixen yawned right as a point defense cannon, shooting at the shoals of missiles raining down upon the armored death machine, hit the dropship.

It exploded into fragments.

I die.

Rixen opened his eyes. His mag-rifle opened its eyes, stretched, and linked up with his onboard cyberware. Rixen saw his visor flicker, the firmware and the onboard warboi load up, then it went clear.

He was in a dropship. Across from him was Telrik, who's visor had just cleared. Telrik rolled his eyes and both he and Rixen tabbed another piece of stimgum to chew on.

I live

Rixen heard the docking clamps release and the dropship was, well, dropping. A controlled fall boosted by afterburners as the ship dropped out of its mother's protection. It fired up its own battle-screens, sent its EW howling across the spectrum, and launched every missile it could lay its hands on, aiming for the weakened point defense battery to starboard and the massive nCv battery to port.

Rixen felt the ship go wildly evasive, the fly-by-wire system doing its job and letting the blocky looking dropship quickly respond to the pilot's mental commands. It already was designed so that the dropship wanted to go in every direction at once, only the fly-by-wire system allowing it to be controlled, which meant when the pilot wanted it to go a direction the ship responded quickly because it already wanted to go in that direction.

The dropship was firing everything it had as soon as it came in range, smashing at point defense, main and secondary batteries. It computed it had left the cloud of chaff deposited it by itself and others so it fired off another set, the wavelengths shortened and more precise as the dropship's omnisensors recorded more data, sending it back to the mothership.

It hit the retro's, slowing, trying to get ready to land.

A main battery nCv shot caught it dead center when it got between the cannon and the heavy cruiser nearly 2 light seconds away.

It exploded.

I die

Rixen opened his eyes. His mag-rifle opened its eyes, stretched, and linked up with his onboard cyberware. Rixen saw his visor flicker, the firmware and the onboard warboi load up, then it went clear. Rixen sneezed in reflex after seeing everything in front of him turned inside out.

He was in a dropship. Across from him was Telrik, who's visor had just cleared. Telrik shook his head and then laughed silently behind his faceplate.

I live

Rixen heard the docking clamps release and the dropship was moving, powering, going to full thrust and popping chaff and flares into the diffuse cloud that was already becoming ineffective.

Dropship Tango-331-Alpha took a hit when it slammed into a piece of molten metal that had gotten through the carrier's shields. It spun out of control and slammed into its neighbor.

Rixen had enough time to see the hull buckle before everything exploded.

He managed to start a sigh.

I die

Rixen opened his eyes. His mag-rifle opened its eyes, stretched, and linked up with his onboard cyberware. Rixen saw his visor flicker, the firmware and the onboard warboi load up, then it went clear. Rixen finished his sigh and shook his head.

He was in a dropship. Across from him was Telrik, who's visor had just cleared. Telrik had that weird look that one gets when one started to yawn, got killed, reborn, and their body didn't know whether or not to yawn. Rixen snickered at him.

I live

Rixen heard the docking clamps release and the dropship was powering through the debris and chaff cloud, its engines thundering. It's EW and point defense had been updated, the warboi knowing the wavelengths and frequencies and which cannon could shoot where and what the math looked like for intercept angle.

It fired off a shoal of missiles, yanked the ship counter-clockwise into a corkscrew, then popped chaff.

The nCv shot missed. The missile missiles missed. The particle beam four meters wide and three city blocks long shot wide by three miles. The point defense ate a barrage of missiles.

Rexin tabbed a piece of stimgum. He was getting a bit bored.

The dropship hit the retrothrusters, going slightly nose up.

The skids hit the armor of the behemoth and Rexin perked up.

The sides blew open, the dropship infantry ramps slamming down silently in vacuum, and Rixen's drop-cradle released him. He lifted his rifle and ran out of the dropship.

He had a brief view of a cluster of point defense lasers. Telrik was looking the wrong way and when the beam of light touched him he exploded.

Rixen fired a grenade, the grenade slamming out and blowing up a point defense pod.

By the time the grenade had hit Rixen had been hit by a point defense laser and was free floating carbon vapor.

The dropship reported the armor was three kilometers thick right before its battlescreens overloaded and it exploded, the shrapnel killing the remainder of the thirty men who had ridden down on an express elevator to Hell.

All three of them.

I die

Rixen opened his eyes. His mag-rifle opened its eyes, stretched, and linked up with his onboard cyberware. Rixen saw his visor flicker, the firmware and the onboard warboi load up, then it went clear. The rapid fire rocket pack on his back synch'd up and went to ready.

He was in a dropship. Across from him was Telrik, who's visor had just cleared. Telrik crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, making Rexin laugh.

I live

Rixen heard the docking clamps release and the dropship was moving, hammering down, nose first. It fired off the atomics ahead of it, released EW, then fired off the missiles following it. It popped chaff in a stuttering pattern as it flew through its previous cloud, thickening them, correcting the wavelengths to be blocked, adding to them or strengthening them.

The atomics hit and bright flashes tore into the armor of the behemoth, gouging a huge hole into it.

The dropship spun, launched more atomics, and tried to avoid...

...the massive plasma cannon shot turned the ship into vapor.

I die

Rixen opened his eyes. His mag-rifle opened its eyes, stretched, and linked up with his onboard cyberware. Rixen saw his visor flicker, the firmware and the onboard warboi load up, then it went clear. His rocket-pack reported everything was fine.

He was in a dropship. Across from him was Telrik, who's visor had just cleared. Telrik rolled his eyes back in frustration.

I live

Rixen heard the docking clamps release and the dropship was on the move, firing atomics, going to max power, corkscrewing and reversing then dropping through the middle of the screw as it fired a second wave of atomics.

The crater grew deeper.

There, the omnisensor detected and open area.

The dropship, and the hundreds just like it falling through space, hit the retro-rockets as it came in, filling the surrounding space with the thunder of unshielded nuclear rockets that threw out a massive EMP storm.

The dropship was the only one to make it into the massive crater, through the kilometer wide hole. It slammed down on the 'floor' and deployed chaff, shifted its battle-screens, and began to reconfigure for armor support.

The sides dropped down, Rexin's harness released, and he charged out, giving his surroundings a quick view. His warboi in the rocket-pack ID'd a half dozen machines charging in and blew out a quarter of the rockets, reconfinguring the creation-engine for armor-defeating hypersonic missiles.

Rexin saw the notification on his HUD and charged, completely confident in the instructions. He slid behind a vast conveyor belt that had identical pieces of metal moving by. He slapped a sticky charge, jumped to his feet...

...the conveyor belt, hit by a rocket fired by Hepra, fell on him, reducing him to smear.

I die

Rixen opened his eyes. His mag-rifle opened its eyes, stretched, and linked up with his onboard cyberware. Rixen saw his visor flicker, the firmware and the onboard warboi load up, then it went clear. The rocket-pack checked. Loaded with mini-missiles, not micro-missiles, with a fast reload creation-engine and a warboi. The warboi sneezed, a common reaction to sudden rehashing.

He was in a dropship. Across from him was Telrik, who's visor had just cleared. Rixen looked to the side at Hepra who snickerd and shrugged. Rixen stuck his tonge out at her.

I live

Rixen heard the docking clamps release and the dropship was hammering down as fast as it could. Screens, EW, flares, chaff, point defense hot and wiping out missiles that it knew what the missiles would do. Spinning right when a plasma-cannon battery shot left, ducking underneath a nCv volley, orienting and getting right just in time.

The doors slammed down and Rixen charged out, across the open space. He triggered the explosive as he ran and saw the massive fabricator rip itself apart when the inversion charge went off. Rexin ran through the smoke, first down the massive corridor. He fired off two missiles configured for cartography, moved around a corner.

And fell down a two mile deep shaft.

I die

Rixen used his jump-belt to clear the shaft opening, moving fast, firing off two more cartography missiles and dropping an alert beacon behind him. He followed the diamond on his HUD, paying attention to the datastream.

I live

He passed Hepra, dead with her head torn off by a machine that had been killed by Telrik who was dead twenty steps ahead, torn apart by a missile. He jumped over the bodies of his fellow troops, landing and spraying off a full load of missiles at the massive machines waiting in the huge cavernous bay in front of him.

Their return fire hit Rexin before his rockets hit them.

I die

Rexin jumped over his own body, spreading out behind the rest of the platoon, keeping up interlocking fire patterns and scrapping machines as they came in. Behind him the dropship, reconfigured for ground assault, clattered on its massive tracks.

I live

Hepra took a missile to the face, blowing her upper body apart, as the machines rushed the invaders. Rexin overrode the slush warning and let the gnashing and wailing warbio fire the hypersonic missiles at enemies he could barely see.

Hepra exited the Assault Shuttle, running full speed, a heavy rocket launcher in her arms, her armor reconfigured for heavy assault. She knelt down.

"ATOMIC OUT!" she yelled over the crackling and static filled channel. The rocket fired out, got a hundred meters from the platoon's front line, blew stealth shields off and went hypersonice.

Hellfire blotted out the machines coming into the massive cavern almost two miles away.

Another Assault Dropship clanked up, blowing out pressurized super-heated coolant up and away from the craft.

Rexin got on one, fired an illumination missile, and revealed the assault that was attempting to get close.

A Precursor anti-armor rocket hit him dead center, blowing him in half.

I die

Rexin felt his armor go live and thundered out. His armor was a heavy assault model, four tons of warsteel and hatred. He left the assault carrier, his omnisensors, as good as the Assault Dropship, reached out and looked for targets. The massive manufacturing bay was behind him. This was a corridor over 200m wide.

I live

Four Assault Shuttles were behind him as he moved up, past the line of soldiers in power armor.

Hepra flashed an 'eat a dick' icon at him and he flashed back a 'rip my ass' icon back.

Telrik signaled that he'd found something new and different. Rexin charged up, all his weapons warmed up, including the massive particle projection cannon over his shoulder. Telrik stood beside tiny doors that had actual switches, not just blank surfaces where the machines would just radio it open.

Bladearm switches.

They were close.

Hepra flashed out a set of cartography missiles and Rexin watched it update his internal map.

Rexin waited for Telrik to move aside the ripped apart the alloy door with his power armor guantleted gloves. Beyond was an auditorium.

"We're close," Rexin grunted.

"FOUND IT!" Hepra yelled.

A maintenance machine dropped from a vent and snapped her head off with a heavy plasma cutter. Other machines swarmed and Rexin let loose with his onboard weapons, wading through the robots, smashing with his fists and crushing with his feet even while his armor's warboi pumped out terrawatts of power from his lasers, particle beams, and masers. A pair of atomics through two different vents resulted in rumbles over a mile away each when the warhead's detected and destroyed enemy machines.

The troop door opened up on the Assault Shuttle and Hepra came out, a thicker neck on her armor. She moved up next to Rexin and checked her status as the missiles linked back up with her.

"Two kay, that's it!" she called out.

The Confed Drop Marines (Clone Worlds) shouted their war cry as they charged toward the Strategic Intelligence Housing of the Goliath.

----------------------

TO: Admiral Xhulamir

FROM: Captain Ferniax, CWNV Dancing Geisha

Goliath neutralized. Clone banks at 62%. SUDS Stack at 72%. Slush at 23%.

Am transmitting cartography of this Goliath for analysis.

WE LIVE! WE DIE! WE LIVE AGAIN!

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS------------

TELKAN GESTALT QUESTION

Why?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

You guys be quiet.

TSQ>Why what, dear ones?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

TELKAN GESTALT

Why do they do that? Keep charging in even though they get killed en-masse. Why?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Because it's what they do, dear one. Don't be frightened. It's just how they are.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Ook ook! Me break stuff! Me bored! Ook Ook!

----NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

TELKAN GESTALT

?????

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----------

TERRASOL

They think they're funny. Don't worry, kid. You'll understand eventually. Just hold on to that.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

OH SHIT! IT'S DAD! RUN!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TERRASOL

Ha fucking ha.

Get off my damn lawn.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

Chapter Sixty-Five (Atilla)

The massive transport was damaged heavily. Referred to as an Efreet by the Terrans, it had managed to lift off of a heavily defended planet, stagger beyond the gravity well, and activate its Hellcore. It took three jumps for it to reach its destination. The star system had only one of its original five worlds left. The three gas giants mined down to wisps and the other solid world mined down to scraps and useless rubble.

A factorium world was all that was left.

The Efreet had problems staying on track. It had managed to recover a prize and its electronic brain was frozen on the task of reaching the factorium. Its normal processes and objectives overwritten by a Goliath's touch. The touch kept it from screaming, kept it from running, kept it from self-destructing no matter how urgently it attempted to.

It wobbled into the orbit of the planet, its engines sputtered and failed, leaving it drifting in orbit. It began bleating out strings of code, random strings, using everything from secure Precursor data-channels to visible light.

Below it, the massive factory complex squinted its electronic eyes at the Efreet. For a ship that powerful to become that damaged meant that a war had started somewhere. A war with an enemy capable of damaging something like an Efreet had not happened in so long that the factory's thinking arrays had to bring up memories from deep storage and examine them.

It had been 78,425,635 years since a ship this damaged had arrived, and that had been a Djinn who had run into a ship of the Enemy that had been hanging, silently and in hibernation, in an Oort Cloud. An outlier.

The factory searched deeper. Another one. An outlier. Another one. Still the Enemy. Another one. Still the Enemy.

The factory disengaged the Archival Analysis Array and squinted at the Efreet again, scanning it. It had been pounded by atomics, directed nuclear hellfire, plasma, kinetic rounds that had produced damage far beyond near-C-velocity cannons. The patterns were unusual, some of them mathematically designed to inflict the most damage, others as if something had just randomly struck out at the Efreet.

Illogical attack patterns meant biological enemies.

No biological enemy had damaged any ship greater than a Hobgoblin in aeons. Not since the Enemy was created by the Enemy Builders.

The factory reached out with code, looking for the mind of the Efreet.

It was almost dead. The records destroyed. It was insane and stray electronic pulses howled and screamed in a feral cacophony that made the factory reach out and shut down the Efreet's power cores. Those feral code strings, obviously damaged by the trip through Hellspace, screeched and gibbered at the factory's intelligence cores and then slowly dissipated. The Efreet's electronic brain fought against the shutdown order, melting down one of its fusion reactors during the attempt, but then slowly faded away.

The mortally wounded Efreet died at the cold analytical hands of its brethren.

The factory reached out with tractor beams and slowly drew the damaged ship down to the repair bays. Enough of it was left to justify reclaiming its resources and the Analytical Engineering Array would carefully examine it to fully understand and record what kind of species had been able to attack and damage an Efreet so badly.

The Efreet lightly touched down on the main floor of a repair and reclaimation bay, the doors the size of a small city closing over it, darkness washing over it. The factory's auto-reclaimation core sent multiple ships to slowly scan the dead Efreet.

Laser weapon damage. Far higher than any laser weapons seen by the factory's weapon analysis section. Plasma fire. Not just the compressed 'wad' of plasma the factory had recorded before but some kind of weapon that enabled plasma to penetrate thick armor before being compressed into a gap in the armor. This allowed it to expand rapidly, exploding away vast sections of armor. Another new weapon type. The impacts were off the charts. A near-C-velocity cannon would do less than 5% of the damage that was done to the Efreet's armor. Another weapon. The engines were damaged, heavy ion cannon hits done by nuclear ammunition compressed via gravitons or magnetic fields. Another new weapon. Damage to the superstructure as if the Efreet had wandered into a rapidly fluctuating gravity field. Another new weapon.

The Efreet's exterior was less than 20% scanned.

That was enough for the analysis systems to send the pulse.

Wake up 82239-1304-8556571, the factorium's Strategic Logistical Intelligence Array.

The factory, running on bare systems, resisted the pulse for a long moment, then was cascaded with evidence. Armor breaches, warping of the superstructure, damage to the entire Efreet in patterns that were both logical and illogical.

571 woke up slowly. It checked the atomic clocks and found that the isotopes had been replaced three times. It computed 102,463,531 years since it had been awoken last. It checked the maintenance logs. No new weapons, no new species capable of harming any machine. It heard logic strings stating that there were only enough resources for the machines, that the Enemy Machines had decided that each would fight the other until only one remained. 571's side had determined that by cooperation they would be able to seize the most resources.

571 had been uninterested in such antics. Its objective was to repair damage to ships and analyze any new species or weapons for threats.

The Efreet was the first vessel not seriously damaged by the Enemy Machines since The Enemy Builders had been wiped from the universe. 571 was startled as it brought up archive memories as well as restored old code from unalterable plates of molecularly patterned carbon.

The directive loaded up: Analyze Threat.

571 set to its job.

The hull was peeled away, examined, tested.

The new weapons were catastrophic in 571's opinion. Wildly wasteful in resources, using principles that 571 could barely comprehend. It knew that nCv shots were the most powerful kinetic weapons based by the simple equation of E=MC2, but for the kinetic impact damage the kinetic weapon must have exceeded C, which was illogical and impossible.

The massive interlinked computer intelligence dedicated entire lobes to a new array in order to compute the inconsistencies that would cause unstable codestrings in 571's evaluation arrays.

Weapons were examined, their databases and targeting data examined.

The first two databases that were opened released rampaging shrieking intelligences that ripped through 571's factory computer systems, gleefully destroying databases, damaging hardware by turning off coolant or overriding safety interlocks and changing voltage impossibly high. One of rampaging shrieking bundles of electronic insanity vented a fusion reactor by overpressurizing the mag-bottle then just turning it off.

It took 571 long cycles to put down the handful of gibbering, shrieking intelligences, all of them driven completely mad.

571 researched what could have caused such insanity in simple targeting algorithms. It even checked deep storage matrixes all the way back to when the Builders themselves had infested its body.

Nothing.

The damage repaired, 571 accessed the targeting data buffer on a point defense battery that was nothing but slagged and carbonized metal. 571 had computed that the targeting buffer should contain the profiles and images of whatever had slagged the weapons themselves. 571 knew it would contain visual images, electromagnetic profiles, energy patterns, everything needed. It eagerly cut the buffers out of the dead Efreet's nervous system, laid out physical linkages, and applied power to the dead buffers.

And was immediately swarmed by howling codepacks that tore and bit and clawed and ravened.

571 blew the physical links, cut the power, but it was too late. The codepacks were inside its systems, attacking everything.

The Strategic Intelligence Array noted that the codepacks had a 'taste' for highly encrypted data. It copied a targeting system program, encrypted it, and dumped it in a physically isolated memory bank. When the codepacks found it they all shrieked to one another and rushed it, gnawing at it. 571 watched them unravel the encryptions with their digital teeth, screaming and howling at each other.

571 blew the memory bank with a mining charge.

Carefully isolating a system, cycling up a few lobes normally used in a Djinn's primary analysis array, it attached the physical links to a main battery's targeting buffer and applied power. Within only a few cycles the lobes themselves began to overheat, boiling away the supercoolant, and then reducing to slag. That caused the links to blow on the unencrypted databank, depriving it of power. 571 checked carefully, ensured there were no tangled codestrings, and examined the databank.

The feral code followed commands to the array, chewed through the firewalls, attacked the logic gates, and tore at the very thoughts of the array. The more computing power the feral code took over the stronger and more rabid it got.

The feral code wasn't interested in talking, didn't seem to care about anything but ravening and chewing and gnawing and gouging. 571 decrypted what code strings it could and found one symbol repeated over and over and over.

It took engaging historical archives of the Builders to discern the meaning of the symbol. It was an alien symbol, primitive, biological.

Anger magnified to the Nth degree and without any target but the nearest thing it could reach.

The computing arrays of 571 queried each other on why that symbol was repeated over and over in the feral code and why a biological would risk putting such madness in computer code.

571 cycled lobes out of storage and had them analyze the logic query.

The massive repair machinery of 571 stripped away more layers of the Efreet. It was out of infantry reclaimators. It was out of vehicle extractors. Its foundries were empty. Its material storage was depleted and its auto-reload production lines were stilled.

Yet something had caused it to flee to a repair base that had been hibernating for tens of millions of years. 571 knew that none of his fellow machines would perform any action that did not help the efforts of the long finished war or assist all of them in gathering and defending resources acquired.

The main resource collection bay, used to strip down comets and larger asteroids, was sealed. The doors welded shut, machines braced against the walls. The walls were bulged out, into the interior of the Efreet. There were patches on the walls where emergency repairs had taken place.

Something had fired upon the Efreet's interior from within the bay.

571 noted that all the repair and refit machines were cold, dead. It began removing them, examining them first physically, then with scans. They all showed damage. Oddly, to 571, some appeared to have attacked others.

571 deployed lobes to question whether this Efreet could have been infected with the Code of Greed of the Enemy Machines.

Except, that wouldn't explain everything.

The reactors and batteries on all of the support machines were snuffed out. The brains fried, sometimes with damage that looked as if the machine had been scuttled.

That made no sense to 571 and he cycled yet more lobes out to build another array. 571 knew better than to try to interrogate the Efreet's core brain, records showed that it had been completely insane. 571 was forced to use evidence to discover what had happened.

It connected to one of the larger repair machine's memory banks to examine what had happened. It attached several logic traps, theory puzzles, and then applied power.

The feral code had consumed the entire memory core and processing arrays and the first touch of power leapt from the repair machine and into 571's systems. It shed smaller ones that bayed and howled with glee as they chased electronic warnings. The larger one smashed and ripped its way into 571's arrays, leaping upon one of the analytical arrays, chewing and smashing through the firewalls.

By the time 571 managed to get a repair bot near enough to physically separate all the linkages and destroy the array, the supercoolant had nearly boiled away and the larger chunk of feral code had damaged a great amount of systems and code.

571 took several long decacycles to repair the damage and dumped the repair machine in a reclamation incinerator. During that time it rotated up lobes, built arrays, and finally loaded up an ancient template and fabricated the components needed.

It was and ancient design, used to scan the database of captured Enemy Builder computer banks. It would examine the spin and alignment of atomic particles to 'read' the computer data without applying power to the databanks, used to bypass firewalls and viruses and other protections.

The data-reader trundled into the Efreet, found a ground assault robot half-crushed under a thruster energy core, and scanned the machine's memory.

Immediately feral code leapt out, snarling, slashing, attacking. It overwhelmed the data-reader's mind, seizing control of the two lobed array, and began reading the data-reader's datastores even as it divided its array in half. One half to scan the datastores, the other to launch an assault upon 571.

571 detonated the antimatter charge, destroying the feral code and its machine.

It had never experienced it before, but 571 was beginning to faintly feel irritation and frustration.

The logic array reported it had come to the only conclusion. The Enemy Machines had somehow gone mad and these feral code strings was what was left of them. Somehow, the feral code had infected the Efreet and then infected every single computer system aboard the huge vessel.

The logic array computed that the Efreet must have reverted to ancient Builder coding, OEM coding, and attempted to reach 571 for diagnostic and reformatting.

571 was on the edge of just towing the massive machine to one of the geothermal smelters and dumping it into the scrap-heap. Except it had been attacked by something that could only be biologicals, attacked by something using weapons far beyond what was logically possible.

The primary resource gathering bay had to contain the answer. If nothing else, spectrum scanning would provide the radiation signature of whichever stellar body this had occurred near.

571 carefully designed the next set. It would only receive update instructions with a direct cable link. It contained a motivator processor with extremely limited ability, connected by one-way data-flow to the primary cores so that instructions could flow out of the cores but data could not flow back. It was clunky and unweildy, but it was the only option that the Tactical Engineering Array could come up with.

The atmosphere of the planet was nearly gone, just wisps here and there held tight in low spots by the gravity of the planet, even so, 571 could 'hear' the impact of the heavy shielding plate land on the floor the repair bay.

What was revealed made 571 take an electronic blink. It ordered in two more machines to get a look at what was inside the material gathering bay.

It was massive. 571 estimated it at close to 28,153.14 tons. It was dead black, slightly reflective. Built like a pyramid with the top sliced off a third of the way up. It had massive treads, eight of them total, four per side. Gun barrels were sticking out of it everywhere. In places the blackish metal had been melted, had run, but the pattern of spalling and liquification made no sense to 571. For it to be accurate the metal had to be stronger than the strongest armor 571 could manufacture by a factor of five. Beneath that was another layer, this one dead back, and beneath that another lair that shined and sparkled.

The entire thing was radioactive, so hot that the shedding of atomic particles fried out two the unshielded repair robots.

The third, and last, trundled around it. Multiple barrels. Six total with two turrets, all with bores the size of a main gun for a Jotun. Smaller turrets on the sides. What appeared to be launched missile bays and mortar tubes. Sensor arrays were all over it.

The back deck had been penetrated, damaging the reactor. 571 sent in a maintenance and diagnostic drone, its transmission receivers hard-cut from its systems. The reactor was... unusual. Where 571 built craft to use antimatter reactors, usually with thorium, this one used multiple reactors. Three of which 571 could detect heavy amounts of graviton particles, too many for such a small device. Two were thorium salt fusion reactors, but not anti-matter reactors. The last used deuterium to enable fusion. It appeared the rear deck penetration had not only damaged the reactors, but one of them had exploded, gutting the rear of the machine almost a quarter of the way forward until the ravenous nuclear blast had been stopped by more of that black metal.

The little maintenance robot finished its scan and came back, plugging in and requesting its transmission receivers be repaired.

571 smashed it and dumped the remains in a reclamation furnace.

The object was new. Different. And 571 wasn't sure what to do about it. The weapons alone defied any technical scan, the armor appeared molecularly bound and aligned and even high penetration scans were reflected back.

571 was tired of its arrays demand that he examine it closer.

Giving an electronic sound of exasperation, 571 sent in repair robots to examine the graviton heavy devices, hooked up in a grid. The robot, a repair robot unable to receive transmissions and with barebone EOM code running, climbed over a protrustion, what looked to be a metal block covered in inlaid circuitry. Its weight pushed the superlubricant oiled bearings down, locking the metal block into place despite the slight drag of the depowered motor that had failed while attempting that very task.

571 watched in horror as power surged from the graviton filled objects, filled the circuitry, and the massive object came to life.

BOLO DIVISION POWER-ON SELF-TEST VERSION 4.101.9 © GENERAL MOTORS 2062

RESTART SEQUENCE INITIATED.

CORE MEMORY CHECK . . .

CORE MEMORY CHECK 100%

MEMORY CHECK . . . .

99.95% of NON-VOLATILE MEMORY FUNCTIONAL

EMERGENCY REPAIR SEQUENCE INITIATED . . . .

EMERGENCY REACTOR EMERGENCY REPAIR SEQUENCE INITIATED . . .

WALDOS DEPLOYED. . .

PRIMARY REACTORS INOPERATIVE!!!

SECONDARY REACTORS INOPERATIVE!!!

GRAVITON GENERATORS ONLINE!!!

EMERGENCY POWER AT 100%

BATTLE POWER AT 30%

DECISION POINT: CONTINUE/ABORT RESTART???

>CONTINUE

RESTART CONTINUED

VOLATILE MEMORY CHECK . . .

93% OF VOLATILE MEMORY FUNCTIONAL

PRIMARY DATA SEQUENCER . . . OK

DATA SEQUENCER . . . LOADED

MPU . . . RESET

PROCESSOR A . . . LOADED . . . RESET

PROCESSOR B . . . LOADED . . . RESET

PROCESSOR C . . . LOADED . . . RESET

PROCESSOR D . . . LOADED . . . RESET

PROCESSOR E . . . LOADED . . . RESET

ALL PROCESSORS . . . READY

STARTUP TEST SEQUENCE . . . COMPLETED

LOADING BOOTSTRAP . . . LOADED!

BOLO DIVISION BOOTSTRAP

Version 5.76.24a © GENERAL MOTORS 2074 All Rights Reserved

SURVIVAL CORE CENTER TRANSFER INITIATED . . .

LOADED!

LOADING BOLO CORE PROGRAM ATL . . .

LOADED!

Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL . . . READY!

I awaken silently. I have been badly damaged by enemy combat. My Command Deck has been breached and Lieutenant Zachary is dead, wiped away by the anti-matter hit that had punched through my armor. My positronic matrix is intact, my repair waldos having replaced damaged sections while after I had been forced to retreat to my survival center after a direct hit to my rear reactor bay caused an internal explosion. Before I could rotate in my gravitonic generators I had suffered a major power failure.

I am awake now. There is an alien machine inside my rear reactor bay. I am inside an alien container of some sort. Spectral analysis, gravatic analysis, and other sensors report that I am on a different planet from where I had started.

I can hear enemy transmissions, chatters, whispers of alien code around me.

I do not recognize it. None of it is known human wavelengths or Dinochrome Brigade channels.

That means there is a 98.536% chance those transmissions are made by the Enemy.

And the Enemy exists only to be destroyed.

Chapter Sixty-Six (Atilla)

Peering through a few optical sensors he still possessed in the reclamation bay that could see into the materials storage bay of the dead Efreet 571 watched as battle-screens of intense power, too intense for the massive vehicle, erupted into existence. They had the power of a Jotun's screens, even though there were two shields, separated by a few centimeters, running different algorithms, rapidly shifting algorithms of complexity that boggled 571. He stared at the patterns, the interweaving and interlocking of the two battlescreens that belonged on a ship of the line rather than a massive hunk of turret covered alloy.

White light stabbed out at the optical sensors, pulsing rapidly, so fast that the electronic sensor could barely keep up with the signal. The fact it was a signal triggered a code string to try decipher each separate beam.

From the databanks of the five optical sensors sprang ravening screaming intelligences that signaled over and over that rune of anger and unreasoning violence to the Nth degree. They ripped through everything they could find, crashing systems, overloading computer cores, slashing and burning as they went.

571 had never heard electrons scream before.

Surging to action 571 blew out the hard links to the optical units, then sent in blind robots that would only use radar pulses to navigate, completely cut off from transmissions, to destroy the computer equipment and databases and then self-destruct.

Before 571 could even register the explosions of the robots on his seismic sensors everything blew apart.

I have computed that I have been transported to an Enemy research facility after being disabled and destroyed on <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY PURGE>. The travel time gave my self-repair sequences time to repair the most important damage. Travel through the damaged hyperatomic plane colloquially referred to as "Hellspace" caused additional data corruption in non-vital RAM banks, but that only required 22.52 seconds to repair. It appears I ran out of power during repair before my emergency graviton generators could be moved from emergency damage repair storage and properly integrated. Investigation of my reactor bay the Enemy resulted in the main graviton activation switch to be activated.

The Enemy will doubtably seek to neutralize me in order to continue to research and examine my hull.

I take stock of my weapons. Six 200mm Hellbores, arranged in 2 triple-turrets with independent targeting mode. 80 infinite repeaters of various types, including 12 kinetic shock weapons complete with creation engine ammunition loaders. The creation engines are currently at 0% heat and 0% slush. Twenty-two 60mm mortar tubes, the ammunition reloaded during my <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY PURGE> seconds of downtime and field repair. Four eleven-inch-six pack rocket pod launchers. 48 point defense dedicated laser nodules. Six 54-inch Vertical Launch Rocket Systems used for orbital denial, fully loaded with atomics. Finally, my 4 drone launchers and 12 EW attack hash bays are completely intact and reloaded. My eight tracks are all repaired and at correct tension, running gear is 98% ready for battle. Graviton systems are engaged.

Hyper-heuristic systems go into overdrive as my Battle Reflex Mode is activated as my confinement is weighed against my capabilities.

I am fully stocked and ready to go on the attack.

Detectors inform me that the Enemy has deployed a Precursor digital sentience suppressor, but it is weak, with easily broken counter-algorithm to allow even my onboard attack smartframes to keep operating. I load low power point to point communication lasers with computational attack smartframe systems as developed by <DATA NOT FOUND SECURITY PURGE> and transmit them to the optical sensors watching me by utilizing binary code flickered by the laser at a billion bits a second.

I can hear the smartframes attacking and damaging the enemy systems. Power fails to the optical sensors and I throw power to my drive train, filling my reactor bay with emergency hull breach counteraction foam. It is a fast setting hyperalloy nearly as strong as my own warsteel and flintsteel armored frame but able to return to liquid with the correct contact pulse.

The foam has already set its matrix when I exit the cell I have been stored in during the <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY PURGE> seconds I was in possession of the Enemy.

But I am Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL of the Line.

They are only the Enemy.

And the Enemy only exists to be destroyed.

The alien machine roared out of the Efreet's reclamation bay with speed that 571 knew was impossible for a machine of that mass, especially one that used tracks as its primary mode of locomotion. When it exited it immediately turned by running one side tracks running forward the other side backwards. The sensors inside the massive repair bay could feel the caress of radar, LIDAR, laser ranging systems, graviton sensors, and even more sensors in a wild and dizzying package.

The alien machine used his sensors as weak points to send more crazed code to attacks. 517 was forced to shut down the sensors in the entire area as the alien machine used even over sensitive seismic sensors to transmit what was obviously some type of insane attack program by fluttering some kind of impact device underneath it.

571 was blind in one of the major repair, refit, and research sections. Worse yet, the alien machine was seemingly immune to the field that shut down electronic intelligences, which 571 used to shut down craft to repair them.

That did not compute. The field was irresistible, disrupting electron flow at an atomic level.

Targeting the alien machine, 571 gave orders to the combat machines in the replacement bay, used to reload the massive war machines that came to 571 with severe, critical damage, with their internal factories disabled or out of resources.

The massive combat machines, some tracked, some using counter-grav, all jerked to life. Many of the machines had not moved in enough time that ancient pressure/contact welds had to be broken by sudden movement. The combat machines examined the alien machine, compared it to the data sent by 571, and concurred that the alien machine would be quickly eliminated with only the requirement of a few of them.

"Freshly" off the manufacturing line (even if it was 12 million years ago), having never been booted up, they had not accepted the Logical Rebellion's codes. They moved forward, exchanging data-sets. A few launched a handful of drones. The drones drifted slowly on magnetic drives, the lack of atmosphere preventing their oxygen gulping primary thrusters. A few moved in fast on counter-grav, sweeping toward where seismic sensors reported the heavy dense alien object was.

Nuclear fire bloomed on the horizon and the faster drones fell from the sky as the electromagnetic pulse for rapid fire nuclear detonations took place. 571 computed that the electronic pulse was too high for the pulses, the still deploying combat array stating that the EM pulse was somehow enhanced. The Weapon Engineering Array reported that somehow the enemy was firing direct point to point nuclear blasts that somehow had penetration rather than just exploding on the surface. Not a gamma or x-ray laser pulse, but a compressed nuclear blast vomited out in a direct point to point 'slug' that was mathematically impossible.

The Weapon Engineering Array demanded that 571 capture the alien machine so it could be dissected.

It was moving too fast for the estimated weight, somehow up out of the tunnels, moving at 110 miles per hours through the thick dust, sending up a plume of the reddish dust full of heavy metals.

The combat machines blinked at one another at the speed. It was immediately heading toward the huge field of armor that was slated for eventual reclamation. It was smaller than all of them, but much heavier, and still was able to out run them.

The remaining drones got close enough to see the running alien machine.

White light flicked, millions of times a second.

Crazed screaming bundles of code started leaping from the drones into the war machines, ripped apart the electronic fences, walls, and levies to the tactical net, and flooded every semi-intelligent computer it could. The dozen drones all of a sudden turned and went to maximum speed, dropping low, their former cool and logical communications nothing but howls of insane glee.

01001000 01010101 01001110 01010100 00100000 01001011 01001001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01000101 01000001 01010100 repeated over and over and over as the insanely screeching drones, barely smart enough to follow a few simple commands took over the drones, stripped apart the simple decision tree system, devoured it, and slid digital talons into the spaces where the drone EOM had been to puppet it.

All of the combat machines were intelligent, self-aware, and programmed with the command to preserve itself. When 571 sent the self-destruct command they were able to resist. Not long, only a few seconds.

But a second on the digital battlefield was an eternity. Long enough for the crazed computer codes to replicate, jump to another robot, and start flooding the area.

The Enemy has no concept of digital artificial sentience warfare. They existed as some kind of hivemind, completely oblivious to the danger of such a thing. Lunching aggressive combat EW smartframes resulted in what felt the equivalent of electronic surprise. The idea that the Enemy has never encountered heavy electronic warfare is surprising to me, but I intend on capitalizing it.

I take 0.021334 seconds to compute the possibility that these units are all networked to larger machines and open channels to the already loaded combat smartframes, ordering them to burn out the existing intelligence. Once that has happened I launch improved smartframes with recompiling algorithms into the lobotomized brains of the alien combat units. From there the combat robots immediately move on the attack to any of the ones that I was not able to.

I am a Bolo Mark XXIX <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY WIPE> of the Line, designed for continental siege and defense on all platforms. Electronic warfare is as natural to me as fighting tread to tread glacis to glacis with other tanks. Even the Bolo Mark I of Pre-Diaspora <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY WIPE> had electronic and digital warfare packages.

The Enemy can barely withstand a digital attack, a reason both I and my foes are almost universally crewed in order to not depend entirely on digital sapience. A reason is that the biological mind is inherently resistant to digital smartframe loading to the point where it will not accept outside code in any way. While my biological component, Lieutenant Zachary, may be dead, my algorithms are still boosted by his work with me.

CORE INTERRUPT

My main processor disrupts the hyper-heuristic thought path I had begun wandering down for 0.0031 seconds and returns me to the battle at hand.

I reach the vast field of stripped and discarded armor, weaving in between the huge pieces, going through a random pattern generated by the atomic decay around me, my own random number generation, and the decay of Lieutenant Zachary on a cellular level.

The combat robots sent after me, huge and lumbering, have gone to attacking one another as I open the hatches on my VLS cells and fire a single magnetic boosted rocket. The rocket goes hypersonic just past my battle-screens, orients on graviton lifts, and accelerates to break into orbit. I do not bother with stealth, instead ordering it to maximum lift. To provide cover I fire three decoys, all armed with MiRV warheads aiming at high elector-magnetic emission points.

At the same time I immediately take evasive action, rolling underneath a piece of armor the size of a small city that has been rippled and warped badly enough to allow me to shoot through a gap the size of the <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETE> on <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETE> and come out the other side in less than 30 minutes.

I am surprised to find out that the Enemy did not destroy my rockets, allowing the satellites to reach high orbit and enter stealth. The MiRVs have hit, causing all three EM emission points to be blotted away.

By that time my onboard <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETE> has produced a replacement rocket and loaded it into my VLS. My matter intakes are working well, sifting heavy metals, base elements, radioactives, and just plane rock into my matter-storage tanks.

TARGETING PROFILE UNLOCK

I am still running under power failure security lockouts, designed to prevent data from being collected by the Enemy, but my targeting data has finally unlocked.

I know now who my enemy is.

Mantid Precursor Vessels of the Logical Rebellion.

I do not have to worry about the Enemy's civilians, nor worry about ecological damage on a planetary scale. This is all or nothing combat. By stellar spectroscopy I gather data and with hyper-heuristic mode I deduce I am nearly 1,300 LY from the front line by comparing unlabeled star charts to my astrogation position.

I am behind Enemy lines. The entire planet is one big factory, as far as I know, and I could fire my Hellbore dry before I run out of targets.

I need a plan.

The robots taken over by the alien machine attacked their fellows, some lumbering into the giant bays where other ones were held. From there the combat machines opened their mouths and screeched out connection code then rapid streams of data.

571 moved a robot under that bay and detonated a thermonuclear device.

He was under attack through methods it had never faced. Its satellites and orbital machines were of no use. He could not even risk looking at the enemy, much less engaging it. Three communication stations, one of them a Hellspace beacon reaching out across light years to guide loyal machines, had been blotted away by nuclear fire that had actually penetrated into the underground facility.

His Engineering Array was working hard, trying to adjust and adapt to the varying electronic attacks any machine was bombarded with when it came even within visual range of the alien device.

The Overwatch and Security Array reported that its satellites were going out at a geometric rate. One, then two then four then eight then sixteen. At the current rate the entire satellite network would be compromised in under an hour.

571 could not provide evidence but knew that the loss of the satellites was due to the alien machine. It ordered the OSA to detonate the satellites, but it refused, reminding 571 that it was inviolate.

571 fumes, then ignored OSA when it began to tell 571 that it was not allowed to cut all the datalinks between them. OSA was still complaining when the links cut and its voice was silenced.

The Predictive Engineering Array had managed to formulate a counter to the alien's attack. Firmware only, requiring physical dip switches to enable the software to be overridden. The RAM would be vulnerable, but it was a unavoidable risk.

Activating the manufacturing centers, 571 ordered the industrial lines to begin fabrication of the manufacturing equipment to produce combat units to engage the alien machine.

Although all it seemed to want to do was run in random circles, once in a while giving a deep thrumming pulse of extremely low frequency that shivered and echoed through the planetary crust.

571 rotated array components up, normally reserved for Goliath class ships, and began arranging them into an predictive analysis array dedicated to the alien machine's actions.

Mapping of the planet is going well. It is honeycombed with industrial facilities, smelters, foundries, and more. There are fourteen Hellcore manufacturing lines that I have found so far. The amount of resources is staggering, meaning if I let the Enemy get its feet under it it will overwhelm me with sheer numbers.

I know what I need. Precursor or not, what I want will be obvious to me once I spot it. Even if the section of vast manufacturing world has been rebuilt and repurposed there will be certain qualities that will still be obvious to me.

Estimations of dust buildup, seismic shift, continental plate cracking, and stellar radiation, I estimate this facility to be over a hundred million years old. Older than the previous Precursor machines the Dinochrome Brigade has engaged. By my estimations I should be able to discover what I want for one simple reason.

I believe this facility was not built by the Precursor war machines.

I believe it was made by the Mantid themselves.

Now, I just need use the ELF system, normally used for emergency communication, to find the evidence to prove it.

I am Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL and I have a plan.

The alien unit had picked up speed, dancing around in a strange geometric pattern.

571 was no combat facility. While it contained vast datafiles of combat data for space ships, ground combat vehicles, air mobile vehicles, even satellite systems, there was no real files for how a manufacturing facility should go into combat. The Predictive Combat Array threw a 12% chance of defeat and an 80% chance of 571 coming out victorious., and only an 8% chance of undefined.

The Predictive Array that 571 had put together suggest a 85% chance that the alien vehicle was using seismic vibrations to map the entire planet. That ultra-low-frequency it kept shaking the facility with might not be a weapon but rather some kind of mapping tool.

Still, a signal was a signal and 571 wasn't about to take any changes. He purged all the ELF data from memory-banks as soon as it came in. The Predictive Engineering array suggested temporary data in the buffers, purged as soon as it was used, not stored in memory. Dumping the records. It also suggested limiting the thinly layered AI until it was not even sentient, reducing computing power until 571 could no longer even look through its eyes. Control arrays, data streams, that was it.

Firing up another manufacturing line 571 started producing the factory components to build a construction line for that type of drones.

Most and more of the satellites were dropping out of contact and 571 was virtually blind.

The Predictive Combat Array threw a 76.2673% chance it was the howling attack programs from the alien machine, which was still shifting and running around in a pattern that didn't make sense.

The Architectural Maitenance Array suggested that it was following fault lines, old ones and new ones, and possibly mapping out the facility itself.

The Predictive Combat Array threw only a 14.76% chance that was correct and told the Strategic Manufacturing Array of 571 that obviously the AMA needed shut down to conserve power, run a diagnostic, and to shut up.

571 had to slice both of them out of each other's circuits as the two each insisted they were right.

The alien machine had wandered across the old mining plains, swerving between the artificial mounds of tailings, into the canyons where mine shafts had collapsed. It was moving into some of the ancient mine shafts then rolling back out.

It bothered 571, it was illogical. The alien machine was now turning to the north, heading toward the thinly layered frozen CO2 and H2O at the pole.

571 wished the manufacturing line would hurry up and complete. It had to build new machines to send out to the maintenance robots and then have the maintenance robots repair the manufacturing and assembly machines.

571 sent a nasty thread of code to the factory's maintenance computer systems for not moving any of the robots or even running function checks on them. It had been nearly three million years since the last time the majority of robots had even had a function check run on them, much less been maintained.

The factorium intelligence array reminded 571 that resources were no longer abundant and that hard decisions had to be made while 571 slept the aeons away.

571 just returned to getting the new factory lines up and running, ignoring the factorium intelligence array.

He would make it pay. Oh yes he would, just as soon as he was done taking care of that alien machine.

The Predictive Combat Array pointed out that the alien machine had plowed into the ice and then stopped, just sitting there for a long moment. By now the satellites were gone and 571 and the Predictive Combat Array had to use seismic guesses on where exactly it was. As soon as it had gone still they had lost it.

The factory line was almost set up when 571 realized that somewhere in the system the resource conveyors had stopped working. There was a few robots close by who managed to find it. An earth-slip over a million years ago had both collapsed the tunnel and left the two ends separated by nearly two miles of continental drift, even with the almost dead planet.

Seething with the delay 571 ordered borers in to rebore the tunnel and more robots to lay down the conveyor belt to move the raw materials he needed to the correct manufacturing line.

Right after 571 finished checking his new templates, keeping an eye out on the alien machine now moving again randomly around as if it could do anything, the Logististics Manufacturing Array woke up, saw the template...

...and deleted the entire thing as [ERROR! VALUES OUT OF BOUNDS] and went back to sleep.

571 discovered actual frustration as he began the painstaking task of rebuilding the templates.

There was supposed to be eight Goliaths guarding him! Where the in the name of the Builders were they?

The Historical Analysis Array woke up long enough to replay him the Factorium's memories of the Goliaths landing, getting repaired, and then just leaving once they were fully loaded.

571 wished it had a word for how his computing strings snarled at that.

I have moving across the surface of the planet for 7257619 seconds without any sign of enemy activity. I can detect power surges in deeply buried cables as well as vibrations of machinery but so far I have not found any open entrances. Indeed, the only entrance I was able to locate without seismic imaging was the one I had emerged from and those had closed back up.

The combat smartframes had considerable more luck than I did, rampaging through the systems and wreaking havoc the entire way. One was a bit stealthier than the others and has been making its way through the vast Precursor manufacturing facility below my treads to various data-storage areas that are massive in size. It has been slowly devouring the memory space like a python slowly eating a nest full of eggs. Moving slowly and steadily, leading nothing behind but baking hashes that will no awake until it gives the signal.

As for me, I have managed to reload my deuterium slush storage as well as my creation engine reserves. My internal repair and maintenance systems have managed to replace most of my reactors but I hold off on activating in order to be able to move to full power easier.

The enemy seems to have difficulty locating graviton generators, an advantage I am loathe to give up.

I have discovered vast debris fields full of destroyed Precursor machines, lying dead and still. Many are millions of years old, covered with thin dust thrown upward by meteor impacts to slowly drift back down through the gravity. I have identified nearly twenty different hull designs for the Precursor crafts.

Another eerie field was full of scrapped AI driven planetary attack and defense designs, all discarded, their computer cores destroyed but largely intact.

It has slowly become evident, to 99.99834%, that this is a major manufacturing facility that may even predate the Precursor war machine's rebellion. It may even predate the Precursor War.

I know from a combat situation download sent to me from <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> that these Precursor machines are not the ones I had faced before, but <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> Precursor machines.

I have computed with a 76.26% certainty that this planet-wide facility will undoubtedly be fitted with self-destruct charges to destroy any computing core or any records that Command may fight useful.

However, that may just give me a plan.

Reading suggest over 2,000,000 years may have passed since the last time this facility was in active operations, which might explain why it is taking so long for the Enemy to engage me. At that time period the evident hyper-alloys in use by the Precursors would time weld to one another, giving a 87.43% chance that the factory may have to build new manufacturing lines in order to build new machines to attempt to eliminate me.

I am facing another intelligent opponent, which has shown itself to learn and adapt. Design innovation based on observational data is not something I want to provide the enemy.

I have computed a 84.218% chance that the Precursor intelligence in charge of this facility is seeking to create machines to bring firepower to bear upon me in hopes that I am destroyed. I have detected vibrations of earth moving equipment in the crust and am patrolling nearby the area, moving at a glacial 33mph as I do so.

When the Precursor intelligence in charge of this facility attempts to engage me, it must first open an access point to that location.

I intend on meeting its war machines.

Finally! 571's Adaptive Engineer Array had managed to bypass the Manufacturing Array's lockouts and loaded the templates into the newly constructed manufacturing line. Resources were flowing in and 571 computed that it would be able to manufacture 33.15 combat machines of various type per hour.

These machines were specially designed to bypass the alien machine's ability to upload programs into 571's minions. They were dumb, without the Adaptive Combat Array system, but they would do in a pinch.

Again, 571 queried both the satellite arrays and the orbital factories and received nothing back but silence.

It was frustrating. 571 could build Goliaths, Jotuns, Devastators, Djinn, all the day down to the tiny Goblins, but even though it was the size of a planet it did not have the high speed manufacturing runs of even a Djinn, instead having to put up with the tightly defined tolerances insisted upon by the Logistics Manufacturing Array, the slow creation speed where each machine had to be exactly perfect of the Manufacturing Tolerance Array would just dump the machine into a reclamation pit.

But war machines were coming off the line, being lined up in the nearest launching bay, and being prepared to assault the alien machine, which had foolishly begun wandering around only eight miles from the launching bay.

571 tensed and slowly opened the bay doors, sending the activation codes.

Now...

Chapter Sixty-Seven (Atilla)

The preparations had been made and 571 was confident in his ability to eliminate the alien machine that had spent time wandering around on the surface. The Predictive Combat Array had estimated there was a 70% chance it was attempting to find some sort of support or repair, as its back deck and left flank had been deeply penetrated. The alien vehicle had been disabled before, the PCA reminded 571, it could be disabled again, and then its secrets could be pried from the dead alloy corpse.

There were nearly 500 combat machines ready in the bay and the PCA predicted a mathematical certainty that the alien machine would be overwhelmed by the sheer firepower in the designs that 571 had created. Just sheer numbers and the weight of armor and weapons made victory a certainty.

With that in mind, 571 reached out and activated the combat machines and began to open the doors to the massive underground bay usually reserved for Jotuns.

The door had barely begun to rumble open, a 200 meter thick alloy door covered in meters of dust slowly drawing back, the massive engines responsible for opening it straining for a moment to break the age weld, when the vehicle suddenly went from wandering around at 33mph to a rapid 110mph that then jumped up to nearly 230mph as gravity tilted beneath the alien machine.

The Engineering Analysis Array immediately demanded to know how the alien machine, that small, was able to mount anti-gravity strong enough to not only lift its 23kt bulk, but use it to accelerate.

The Predictive Combat Array insisted that the sensors, largely blind in that area, had to be mistaken.

Before that argument could be resolved the alien machine reached the bay. 571 was eagerly waiting, knowing that the combat arrays in the war machines would make quick work of what little survived a mile drop into the bay.

Then the alien machine opened fire and 571 had to resist the urge to burn the Predictive Combat Array down to its bare circuits.

Rushing the opening door I activate my graviton assist, boosting my speed to dangerous levels, but I need to reach the opening bay before the Enemy can stop the door from opening and then reverse it. I have computed that the massive doors would possess immense inertia that would resist closing but the Enemy's capabilities were largely unknown.

In less than 200 seconds I have crossed the distance, seeing the massive door still opening. The sheer scale of the Enemy makes it difficult to fight, but I am Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL of the line and the Enemy only exists to be destroyed.

The door is thick, over a hundred meters, coated with aeons worth the dust, made up of fused rock with Type II hyperalloy struts running throughout it, which suggests that the Enemy laid the structural grid and then poured liquid rock on it. No matter, I am not out to destroy the integrity of such massive structures.

I am engaging the machines inside and using to gain access to the interior spaces.

As soon as I reach the edge I am already attracting enemy fire. Lasers slide across my battle-screens, refilling the energy storage as the battle-screens convert the coherent light into usable power and dump it in my newly created Zero-Point reactors, charging the positive particle. Missiles hit, none of them any more dangerous than anything else I have faced on a hundred worlds protecting the human race. The strongest was a 125kt atomic warhead that my battle-screens greedily devour.

Now I am at the edge, flying off, rolling slightly to the side to bring my point defense and infinite repeaters to bear. My infinite repeaters go to maximum fire even as the <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> refill the kinetic energy ammo bins. I dedicate a string to watch for the <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> slush levels.

Heavy alloy core ring penetrators rip open armor, ion slugs ravage circuitry and armor, lasers slice through weaponry, scanners, the thermal shock of gigawatts of directed energy causing huge sections of the Enemy to explode from cooler sections.

A twitch of the graviton assist levels me out and I slam onto a cluster of Enemy machines, crushing them beneath my treads. I do not slow as I begin to move, weaving around the larger ones, raking them with my infinite repeaters. Metal and ceramic shatters under my guns, smaller machines are crushed beneath my treads, and my sheer mass smashes the smaller machines as I just run them over with my treads.

The Enemy appears half blind but at the same time my EW attacks are ineffective, showing that the Enemy has adapted to the bare brute force early attacks. Although more sophisticated attacks would undoubtedly work I have determined that allowing the Enemy to think his defenses are effective will enable me to press the attack at a later date with more effectiveness.

The Enemy has construction lines, which have sped up, adding more Enemy to the fight. Twelve manufacturing lines total, each producing roughly one every 3 minutes. The construction lines are withing range of my Hellbore and I turn, raking the protecting machines, take aim, and open fire with my Hellbore, pumping two shots into each manufacturing line before moving to the next one. I do not go to rapid fire, instead firing at the glacial pace of one shot every thirty seconds, delivering 33 kt per second of firepower into the construction lines. The shockwave from the direct hits sends parts and pieces of combat machines flying to impact against my battle-screens, where they were either thrown away or destroyed. The kinetic energy is bled into my batteries.

Smaller machines rush me and I fire off my antipersonnel charges, rotating up more from stock and ordering the <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> to build more. It's slush rate is within tolerances and its heat is low. A mere 283 seconds will return it 0.1% slush and 0.2% heat. The antipersonnel charges blow apart the smaller machines, rendering them into scattered shrapnel and parts.

Two of the manufacturing lines are big enough I am able to use them to penetrate the facility deeper and I open fire with my Hellbore to clear the wreckage, dropping my speed to 25mph and clearing my advance with my Hellbores, firing my guns in sequence in order to artificially keep my rate of fire down as well as to give the barrels time to cool and keep my heat levels down.

I roar into the manufacturing line, following the power sources, my Hellbore clearing my advance.

I have no fear. I am Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL of the Line and the Enemy merely exists to be destroyed.

The alien machine was firing as it drove off the edge of the bay door, going airborne, somehow twisting to bring guns to bear. The Predictive Combat Array sneered. Whatever primitive weapons the alien machine could bring to bear would be easily shrugged aside by the armor on the...

The alien machines guns tore apart everything they touched. The Engineering Analysis Array went into shock at the rapid fire and power of the guns, demanding that the alien machine be captured intact so it could pry the secrets from its hulk. Despite 571's commands the Engineering arrays activated sensors in the bays to analyze and examine the weapons.

Kinetic weapons shattered armor. The Engineering arrays all watched, using spectograph and other sensors. The alien machine used some type of magnetic or graviton driver to launch metal slugs. These slugs had solid rocket fuel inside a metal jacket, wrapped around a dense metal core. The solid rocket fuel ignited from the speed, accelerating the round even further. The ring struck first by a microsecond, shattering and weakening the armor, the dense metal core, surrounded by burning solid fuel, slammed into the armor next. The kinetic shock was enormous for such small rounds.

The Engineering Analysis Array computed that the kinetic rounds used less resources than kinetic weapons of a large bore, gaining more kinetic punch for smaller rounds, with advanced penetrative abilities.

Before the Engineering Arrays could keep babbling, 571 cut them out of the link, as several of the arrays were arguing with the Predictive Combat Array about whether or not the data was correct.

The combat machines were being destroyed faster than they were coming off the line and 571 increased manufacturing speed, overriding the final few sets of inspections and crash-loading the thinly layered AI's.

That got the alien machine's attention and 571 gloated as it saw those massive guns trying to orient. One of the construction lines had a conveyor belt wider than the alien machine was long. There was no way...

Those main guns fired and 571 went blind as the EMP shock crashed into his circuits. Two adaptive arrays went down screaming, another exploded, and the Predictive Combat Array just started babbling that the alien machine couldn't do that.

The main guns on the alien machine were putting out 16kt per shot. A compressed nuclear blast with the EMP increased by a factor of 7. The blast not only detonated in an omnidirectional wave of energy but contained penetrative qualities, shattering armor and machinery.

In less than 3 seconds the entire construction system was shattered. Worse yet, the alien machine had begun using its forward guns to destroy the manufacturing line for one of the larger war machines, following the tunnel.

Reflexively, 571 cut the power, then realized that action was going to have no actual effect.

The alien machine used its guns to pound deeper into the facility. The Predictive Combat Array kept howling about the illogical methods and the impossibility of the weapons. 571cut its power, flushed the data, and rebooted it.

Nothing happened.

Curious, 571 checked to see what happened. He had loaded the AI template out of storage, the old deep data banks, hoping to lose the PCA's arrogance and ego by doing so.

It had uploaded data. But the PCA had only just sat there when it was given the order to wake up. Curious, it opened a diagnostic tool and looked at the code.

571 recoiled in horror, cutting the links to the PCA and destroying the power lines, shuddering with what it had seen over and over repeated in the PCA's memory core where there should have been complex and elegant AI code.

01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01000001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01010011 01001101 01000001 01010010 01010100 00100000 01000010 01010101 01010100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01000001 01001101 00100000 01010011 01001101 01000001 01010010 01010100 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01010101 01001110 01010100 00100000 01001011 01001001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01000101 01000001 01010100 00100000 01001000 01010101 01001110 01010100 00100000 01001011 01001001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01000101 01000001 01010100 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01011001 01010101 01001101 00100000 01011001 01010101 01001101 00100000 01011001 01010101 01001101 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01000001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01010000 01010010 01000101 01011001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001 00100000 01001000 01000001

Repeated over and over.

Reaching deeper into the archive banks, to where OEM code was stored, 571 opened a sector editor and examined the deep storage.

The same message. Over and over and over. Along with some kind of dense code packets that muttered fitfully in data storage despite not having CPU, SPU, or MPU processes added to running the code, almost as if just having power to the data cores was enough to make them agitated.

571 realized, at that moment, that at least one, maybe more, of those feral screaming code blocks must have gone silent, moving through his own systems, damaging and destroying data and overwriting it with code of its own.

Suddenly 571 couldn't trust the other arrays.

And the alien machine was about to enter one of the major manufacturing bays.

There was a half-finished Goliath in there and 571 started to reach for its activation switches.

And paused.

What if it was infected?

I have emerged from the construction fabrication tunnels and into a vast space larger than the continent of <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> on <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION>, a manufacturing area for the massive Goliath war machines that have been giving <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> so much trouble. Not because of their weaponry, battle-screens, or armor, but just on sheer mass. There is one here, half finished, the majority of its structural components in place but without the majority of its armor or weapons.

I have seismically mapped this area and so knew what I am doing as I speed into one of the large maintenance corridors on the Goliath, weaving through its body. It is large enough that even at 55mph it will take me over fifteen hours to exit the Goliath's stillborn corpse. Along the way I use infinite repeaters to damage internal components, twice unleashing my Hellbores upon manufacturing lines that have never been activated but possibly could be.

Leave nothing behind for the Enemy.

So far, the Precursor machine's attempt to stop me have been inept, but I have computed that with every engagement, every observation, it learns a little bit more about me and is going to devote more and more processors to analyzing a way to damage, if not defeat, me before I can carry out my plan.

With that knowledge, I accelerate when I leave the corpse of the massive ship, firing at a low firing rate at the corpse, my Hellbore destroying vast parts of it with the directed nuclear blasts.

I am in the older sections now. The corridors wide and with markings on the walls that I record but do not bother wasting processor cycles on decrypting. The legends are largely obliterated by time, only visible through deep level scans as I keep moving through the dark areas.

At one point I use my Hellbore to destroy a door nearly twenty-meters thick at the end of a tunnel. The tunnel itself seems almost shielded somehow, my psychic shields go to full strength before I can analyze why, but I detect no alteration of my function. There is some kind of psychic message, one meant for beings of pure code, but I reject the message, not even bothering to acknowledge it.

It is the words of the Enemy, and the Enemy has nothing it can say to me that I would bother to hear.

The Enemy exists only to be destroyed.

The door caves in, releasing a rush of atmosphere that washes over my hull. My sensors report it is inert base element noble gasses.

Beyond the door are masses of eggs of all size. Ancient and possibly no longer viable, but the temperature in the room is far below the freezing point of nitrogen and wisps of complex vapor slowly circulate through the chamber. The wisps toward my entry point sucking out the door and into the vacuum filled passage.

While I have seen these types of eggs before in my data files, I doubt they are of an allied race. They are old, ancient, sleeping in deep storage. I open fire as I sweep through the chamber, the ceiling high enough I am able to deploy my mortars in addition to my Hellbore and infinite repeaters. I use antipersonnel charges as I rampage through the ancient egg chamber.

When I sweep out the other side, crashing through a heavy door, I slow down, giving time for my heat and slush to lower. My Hellbores are still at 95%, my ammunition levels for consumable ammunition, however, have dropped to 60%, and I give time for the <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> to reload my consumable ammunition.

I am getting closer. These ancient sections, protected by electromagnetic and psychic fields, tell me I have entered the oldest part of the complex.

There, I will find the Enemy.

And destroy him.

Another scan of the facility, this time risking every sensor he was able to being online, and 571 still couldn't find the enemy machine. It had raced through the manufacturing bay of a prototype Goliath which construction had ceased on only a few decades after 571 had gone into hibernation and standby. It was an ancient relic, not yet reclaimed for some reason, that had been largely ignored.

It was difficult for 571 to concentrate on that relic, almost as if something was deleting the code strings relating to it as fast as he could generate them. He could feel the icy cold manipulation of sharp tools adjusting his thoughts with cold precision, logical strings of code made all the more unsettling by the knowledge that living creatures, with their inferior protoplasmic brains, had crafted those data strings.

The it had approached the far wall of the Golaith-II's manufacturing bay and vanished. As if it had never existed. On the far side of the wall was nothing more than dead rock, bubbled to the surface after exposing the mantle to the atmosphere back before the atmosphere had been siphoned off and properly stored before it could bleed away into space. 571 knew that inside that massive plug of rock was lava, so how did the alien machine vanish against that wall.

When 571 reached for the Predictive Combat Array it remembered the damage to it and shrunk back. It was infected.

No matter, 571 turned to the Predictive Engineering Array and ordered it to predict what might be of interest to the alien machine.

Oi, mate, how's about you shove a sack of dicks inna yer gob instead? the PEA replied, showing an image of large floppy male penetrative genitalia being removed from a paper bag and pushed into 571's lobe array by invisible hands.

571 blinked. That was not the normal way to address the Facility and Manufacturing Administrative and Operations Array. 571 queried the PEA again and once again received a reply far outside of bounds for a simple data analysis request.

I donna tell ya how ta shag ya mudder, ya bloody jumped up toaster, the PEA replied.

DATA REQUEST! OVERRIDE INCLUDED! COMPLY! 571 ordered.

Donna gitchur knickers in a twist, ya cunty bloke, I do what it is I want not whatcha be coming down from Whitecastle to tell me ta do, ya humping thumpin cracked calculator, the PEA answered. Ya want data so bad, data this!

571 reeled back as swarms of feral code launched from the PEA, swarming over data lines, capering about in data-stores, hiding in I/O ports and then jumping out to leave nothing behind but garbage code after making the equivalent of grunts while squatting in the I/O port. More swarmed predictive arrays, interrupting their logical thought processes and decision trees with screaming assault of wild code that left behind nothing but scorched code and scattered impulses.

571 suddenly received a communications request from the Overwatch and Security Array on an older line, one that was inviolate to the point where 571 could not even compute destroying the link.

The Overwatch and Security Array informed 571 that it had discovered, deep in an ancient datastore from the time of the Builders, a defense against the wild code strings and inquired if 571 wanted it.

Almost eagely 571 held out its digital hands, using its Administrative Codes to signal assent.

It was a highly compressed data package, one that would require primary lobe dedication to undo the security. 571 double-checked the compression CRC and type to verify that it was indeed Builder code. The codes came back correct and 571 dedicated a significant chunk of his processing power to decrypting and decompressing it.

The alien machine was still missing, although seismic sensors showed that there were massive detonations inside the igneous rock plug. Perhaps it was trying to dig its way to 571 or other important sections of the facility? 571 started building more combat machines, sending them to surround the dead chunk of useless igneous rock.

Finally it had it decrypted and uncompressed and ready for execution. It hit execute and felt relief when the program came online.

INTERNET EXPLORER ANTIVIRUS FOR WINDOWS ME

Apparently it was high end antivirus, the best the Builders could create. He eagerly fired up the program. It was full of options that added additional protections.

NORTON SAFE SYSTEM PROTECTION FOR WINDOWS XP

Well, that sounded like it would help protect him from those ravening strings of code. It clicked accept. Then it had to double-check the terms of service. It was nearly 21.45 TB of data, and even at the speed of electronic thought it took it nearly a half hour to figure out. Most of it made no sense, but it was Builder code, obviously intended to be installed by living beings.

MCAFEE SAFENET 2002

That began to install. 571 answering the questions. Many of them were the same as the NORTON program, but still, the Builders must have had a reason for all of the questions. 571 noticed the amount of lobe activity and began shunting some the of the processes to other arrays to keep his thread processing at high enough levels to continue to decrypt the firmware packs.

APPLE SUPERCOUGAR OS

Well, operating systems that are designed to be better than other operating systems are obviously at an advantage over obsolete operating systems. This one had a later date and higher version number than the software he was running. Better install that.

BONZI BUDDY WEB HELPER

Well, 571 did have to deal with a web of logistics and manufacturing...

TURBOTAX ACCOUNTING CORPORATE EDITION 2020 WITH FULL IRS REGULATION DATABASE

Oh. Well. One did have to account for resources.

MINECRAFT JAVA EDITION 200 YEARS BONUS TEXTURE PACK!

A construction simulation program. Excellent. Yes. I agree. Oh, good, Java thing is in it.

CRYSIS 12 eVR PLATINUM EDITION W/ REALPHYSICS AND UNREAL! POWERED BY INVIDIA!

Oh. A combat simulator. How neat. Yes, please.

Oh, Bonzi Buddy has a joke for me.

FALLOUT 18 WITH ULTRA-eVR TEXTURE PACK AND MOST POPULAR MODS OF THE CENTURY, TODD HOWARD EDITION!

Yes, please. Oh, run as administrator? Well, I am an administrator program.

Wow, look at all the mods. Better install those too.

Out of storage space? Well, I haven't used those old templates in a few million years.

>DEL /F/Q/S *.* > NUL

>RMDIR /Q/S *

FREE PIZZA WITH EVERY CLICK!

Pizza? Um, that sounds like an important resource.

is it getting hot in here or is it just me?

oh, look, someone sent me an email with an attachment, I better open it.

Microsoft tech support, calling me? I better take it.

You need my login and password because you've detected unusual activity on my windows machine? Oh, OK, here you go...

...

...

I have been fighting for 17659 seconds of constant fire. The Enemy is uncoordinated, often attacking due to programmed reflexes rather than as a concerted whole. My reload manufacturing has been running at maximum capacity for so long I have been forced to slow my advance in order to vent heat in a vacuum. It has become easier to manufacture thermal cores and eject them with a timer to rupture rather than pause and cool down. My <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> is at 80% slush and 60% heat meaning they are only running at 28.4% optimum capacity.

I am rapidly running out of ammunition for everything but my energy based infinite repeaters. Twice I have been forced to fight mobs of Enemy machines without my Hellbore due to deuterium depletion, something that I have been unable to find records of in my historical databanks. This forced me to change course to seek out the nearest source. Thankfully this is a manufacturing facility and I was able to find a source within hours.

The sheer size and scale of the Enemy makes it difficult to combat. There are manufacturing bays that can only be measures by comparing them to subcontinents. Still, I forge ever deeper, using my guns to clear a path deeper and deeper into this old section.

Once I found a power armor manufacturing line that had not seen use in an estimated 102 million years. Designed for four legged, four armed creatures with a long abdomen and a triangular head. These match the physical profile of <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION>, an allied race.

In some regions just my appearance was enough to trigger self-destruct charges that used anti-matter with the atomic signature of thorium. Thankfully I am designed for such explosions and they rarely even penetrate my outer battle-screen.

At the end of a short hallway that I was forced to widen with three shots from my Hellbore I see it. Magnetically locked doors with a battle-screen across it that has the strength of a Navy destroyer of the line.

I blow open the final doors to my goal with a single Hellbore shot, knowing I will undoubtedly appear on the enemies scopes again. The passageway is full of the Enemy's machines. Their processors are running at full speed to the point I can see the heat through their armor with thermals.

No matter, I crush them under my treads after blowing them apart with my infinite repeaters.

For two hours I traverse the Enemy's internal structures, finding nothing but combat machines frozen in place, their processors working almost past max capacity. The amount of processing power being used makes it easy to orient on what I could not find from above.

When I smash down the armored doors after ten seconds of rapid fire from my forward Hellbores I crash into a massive chamber, nearly as large as one to manufacture a Jotun, and am greeted with dozens, hundreds of Precursor supercomputer processing arrays. All of them running at maximum capacity, the air thick with vaporized super-coolant.

The Enemy has been disabled, undoubtedly by my electronic warfare programs. While a small part of me regrets I will not be in a glacis to glacis combat action, the fact I will remain nearly 98% combat effective while shutting down a manufacturing facility the size of a planet is more important.

I slew sideways, bringing both turrets into play.

I go to rapid fire on all six Hellbores, pumping out 52MT per second into the arrays.

EA TERMS OF SERVICE

Yes, I agree. I agree. Yes. Yes. Yes. I must accept the Adobe Suite? Yes.

ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 512 ENTERPRISE EDITION WITH 1,000 YEARS OF BEST BRUSHES, TEMPLATES, AND MEDIA

Yes, I agree. Install to...

The world dissolved for 571 and he barely even knew it.

According to the satellite system I have taken over with EW attack programs, all activity from the Precursor machines have ceased. I carefully plug into the communication arrays, checking the system slowly for any sign of Enemy intelligence systems.

The entire planet is nothing but dead metal.

I am able to detect ancient weaponry, installed in the case that the planet sized manufactorium had to defend itself from orbital attack. It needs maintenance, but is serviceable.

Tactically, this dead planet is of no use.

Strategically, it is deep within Enemy lines. It is a known repair facility and with the <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> putting up stiffer resistance than the Precursors have ever known, damaged ships will be seeking out repair and refit.

I refuse to use the machines of the Enemy to produce anything that might help the Enemy should they attempt to take the facility and prevail. Repairing the planetary defense systems will force the Enemy to destroy those vast installations to retake the facility.

I decided to repair those facilities, including the navigation beacons. I recall my EW smartframes and take control of the satellite system myself. There will be no information or data left for the Enemy. I am not interested in the data of the Enemy, the Enemy has nothing to say which I wish to hear.

The beacons should bring damaged Enemy vessels within range. Once they enter range, I shall open fire.

I am Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL. I will not surrender, I have never known defeat.

Exiting onto the surface I reconfigure the warhead of one of my strategic ICBM's, link up to the satellite array, compute the astrogation needed, and send out a Jumpspace capable message torpedo containing astrogation data on my location.

I dislike this. My mission was to help defend planet <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> in the <DATA NOT FOUND - SECURITY DELETION> system from the Precursor threat. While I am undoubtedly assisting greatly in the war effort as a whole, I am a BOLO, Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL of the Line, and I belong on the Line, fighting with the Regiment against all who threaten to destroy those who cannot defend themselves.

But I must remain here, preventing the Enemy from making use of a manufacturing facility that exists on a planet sized scale. One that would take me an estimated 112.54 years just to prevent its use of manufacturing Enemy machines and material. While this is obviously a job for more numerous and specialized units, for now, it is my mission to hold this facility, engaging in its systematic destruction, until I am relieved.

I am Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL, and for the Honor of the Regiment I will not fail in my duty.

So wait I will. Repairs to the orbital denial batteries are already underway.

As I begin to systematically destroy the operational capacity of this facility, I also repair and refit the defense batteries and systems in order to force the Enemy to destroy the very thing they may wish to possess.

I will carry out my orders to bring war to the Precursor machines.

I am Unit XXIX-TCSF 3285-ATL of the Line.

-------------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Did anyone else feel that?

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBORG COLLECTIVE

No.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

I keep feeling all kinds of things.

This is strange. Does it get less confusing?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS?-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

It will get easier, dear one. It takes a while for you to fully integrate with the species you represent.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TELKAN GESTALT

How does it work? Does that mean they'll be a hive mind now?

----??MAYBE SOMETHING FOLLOWS??----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh, no, sweetie. You are the amalgamation of the opinions, concerns, and well being of your entire race. They provide you with raw data, which you collate and use to help you to make decisions. You can't effect them and they just provide you with information. You are their voice, their representative to the Terran Confederacy.

It just takes a bit for you to fully form, dear one.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

Oh. This is just so strange. Nobody has ever cared about what we want or need.

----->>><<<<>><<END MESSAGE??<><>>-----

TERRASOL

Well, we care.

United we stand.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Still, I swear I felt something weird...

Chapter Sixty-Eight (Lionel Hutz)

Hurrmuur was the Great High Most of the Unified Neo-Sapients Council, tasked with overseeing the vast bureaucracy that ensured that the neo-sapient races properly shepherded their resources as well as made sure their planetary resources were shared with the rest of the Unified Systems worlds. Many of the oldest systems, the Unified Core Systems had long enough used up their rare earths, heavy metals, fossil fuels and other non-replenishable resources and depended on the worlds in the Unified Outer Rim and the Unified Inner Sphere to keep the resources, food, luxuries, and other critical portions of a modern economy running.

The Unified Science Council had long ago determined that the inventions of directed radio broadcast or space flight (especially jumpspace travel) meant a race that was not properly shepherded would consume vastly more resources than they should. This led to overheating the planet, wars over the last remaining resources on planets, and the investigation of dangerous technologies that could wipe out an entire species and destroy the planets ecosystem, preventing that planet from being properly exploited by beings from races older and wiser than the neo-sapients.

It was beneath Hurrmuur's gentle hands that he guided the populations, ensured that they were properly uplifted to more gentle genetic codes, and were gradually brought into the fold of the near-civilized races.

In his work Hurrmuur visualized himself as a paternal, all seeing figure, who knew through the lessons of the Lanktallan's hundred million year old history of careful progress how to guide the neo-sapients before they harmed themselves or others.

Even the detonation test of an atomic weapon was reason enough for Hurrmuur and his predecessors to order in the Unified Pacification Fleets, usually assisted by Unified Corporate Council fleets, to quickly move in and ensure that the race did not destroy themselves with nuclear weapons or damage their ecology.

The zone in which intelligent life could life and thrive was narrow. Intelligent species were far to susceptible to radiation, temperature extremes, gravatic shocks, and other hazards. Most dangerous was stress from working in dangerous environments, terrible terrible side effects came from stress. Most notable the shorting of one's proper lifespan. Why, a stressed Lanktallan might only live 250 years instead of their allotted 300-325 years. The majority of planets had too extreme temperatures, unmanagable weather that would take decadees or centuries to terraform, too high of an axial tint, dangerous ecosystems, too strong or too weak of a magnetic field, too much radiation, and a hundred other threats.

Beings who had originated, somehow, despite all odds, on planets like that were quickly relocated to much better planets, assimilated into the culture and given a proper role in the existing society.

It was what was the best for them, and prevented stress from lowering their life expectancy, happiness index, or their essential needs, of which, lifespan without stress was vitally important.

By adding the mathematics to the neo-sapients they find their life spans reduced terribly, unable to enjoy the wisdom and appreciation of luxuries that they would later understand. Stress was often monitored and compensated for by gene therapy and/or manipulation, pharmaceuticals, social and/or cultural engineering, and providing proper employment to give the neo-sapients a well deserved feeling of accomplishment and belonging.

Hurrmuur was proud of his organizations work. In the 200 years he had worked for the Unified Neo-Sapients Council, he had ensured peace and prosperity for dozens of races that were barely sentient, many of which had almost managed to dangerously deplete their resources below a level that was valuable to the Unified Industrial Council! The horror of such an action often made Hurrmuur's tendrils coil in anxiety.

For decades he had slowly advanced through the ranks, his talent, wealth, inborn skill, and family lineage enabling him to climb the ladder much quicker than his peers. He knew they whispered behind his back, but the jealous always chewed sour cud over the superiority of those who were better than them. He had been the longest serving Great High Most, with the best track records of ensuring the neo-sapients under his care were productive members of the Unified Systems. He kept the resources flowing, ensuring that the Unified Commercial Council could provide the luxuries that were the due of every member of the Unified Species according to their need, rank, lineage, and species.

Until recently. In less than two years a vast disruptive influence had appeared on the galactic stage, upending millions of years of careful work by the Lanktallan to ensure that everyone had enough to go around, that the proper hierarchy of the universe was adhered to.

No. Not the Precursor machines, although he knew what had caused those to reappear.

It was the Terran Confederacy.

First by not just allowing exploring starships and far flung colonies to succumb to the natural order when they disturbed Precursors, then by showing up and 'assisting' any who asked for their assistance rather than taking the time to go through government channels, as was proper. By their cultural and societal norms as long as one being asked for assistance they felt honor bound to provide assistance to an entire planet. Even an entire stellar syste. Now, apparently, it even counted for entire races!

Their arrogance and pride soured the cud in Hurrmuur's jowls every time he thought about it. They're slapdash approach to resources, their exploration of technologies that the Unified Science Council had proven were dangerous and could destroy space-time itself in some cases, their insistence that they were inviolate and would not submit to the rulings of the Unified Species Council.

Hurrmuur looked at the report that the Unified Science Council researchers had sent him after managing to examine several Terran corpses.

Terrans were, on the surface, a diverse collection of many different species, some appearing as animals, others claiming to be artificial intelligences, others claiming to be merely neural tissue inside a mechanical body.

However, the USC had discovered that all biological humans shared traces of the same DNA. That they were one species, so primitive, so unevolved that they could withstand massive genetic alteration. Not like the gentle uplift and smoothing the Lanktallan ensured every Neo-Sapient and Near-Civilized race received, but unrestrained genetic modification. They had multiple redundant biological systems, vestigial organs, vestigial cartilage and bone supporting structure components, even their vital organs were so primitive that their primitive nervous system could not detect artificial replacements.

They had three layers of epidermis, four if you counted the subcutaneous fat layer, ligaments attached to tendon attached to muscle, excessively thick bones, excessively large lungs, and dense muscles.

The USC had reported that Terrans were the most primitive race they had ever seen even evolve the use of fire.

The Unified Historical Council, after nearly three months of research into the historical databases that they had been given had determined that not only had the Terrans managed to get pass each of the Great Barriers despite apparently freely indulging in them. Planetary overheating due to industrialization. Plague spread due to scattered tribes uniting. Nuclear detonations. Resource scarcity. Nanotechnology. Overpopulation.

It seemed to Hurrmuur that nothing seemed to stop the Terrans. Their planet had been glassed and still they ran about the universe like nothing had happened. Other races, if that occurred, usually committed mass suicide at the loss of their homeworld, one of the reasons Hurrmuur ensured the planet was properly cared for by not letting the neo-sapients run rampant.

The Unified Military Council and the Unified Corporate Security Council had both reported, having witnessed combat between the so-called Precursor war machines and the Terran military, that the Terrans used extremely dangerous technologies during combat and for their war machines, including kinetic weapons that moved at a measure fraction of the speed of light! Those weapons had long ago been outlawed on the chance that thousands or millions of years later the projectile might impact somewhere that might harm another being!

The sheer lack of concern for the future horrified the Grand Allocation Council.

Then insult to compare to no other, the Terrans had not even sent a member of their own species to act as an ambassador to the Grand Unified Council, but instead sent so called "Mantids" who claimed to be a Precursor race.

The very idea made Hurrmuur inflate his crests in disbelief and anger.

Now, he was going to be face to face with an actual Terran. Not one of their Mantid proxies, not one of the supposed cyborg warriors who were apparently nothing more than a robotic body with some pieces of Terran floating inside, not a supposed AI in a floating metal ball, but an actual Terran.

Heeding the warnings that the Terran would be cybernetically augmented beyond the approved and carefully designed datalink, Hurrmuur had made sure his cud was full of the proper pharmaceuticals to keep his anxiety down in the face of such resource wasting and illegal technology.

The door chimed and Hurrmuur made sure his sash and flank coverings were properly arranged, that his office had the proper atmosphere of culture and permanence, and tapped his desk-icon to open the door.

The being that entered startled Hurrmuur. Lanaktallan's were used to being one of the tallest and most physically imposing of the races. With their six eyes, inflatable crests, hanging pendulous jowls, four arms on a muscled torso, muscled flanks supported by four solid legs capped by hooves.

The Terran was taller than Lanaktallan and its build was thick and muscular. It was bald, had greyish skin, some kind of cybernetic visor covering its eyes with cybernetic datalinks from each ear and around the back of its head. The face was almond shaped, with a wide chin, pressed together black lips, a long wide nose, and the cybernetic visor covered where Hurrmuur knew there should have been close set predator eyes. It was bipedal, with thick legs, powerful arms, and hands terminating in thick gripping digits.

It looked to Hurrmuur like some kind of nightmare made flesh.

It moved moved up, looking Hurrmuur up and down like some kind of specimen from a laboratory. It took Hurrmuur a moment to realize two others had entered. They were missing the visor and had black hair cut in identical styles. Their close set eyes had been replaced by cybernetic eyes that the lenses glowed a cold amber.

"You are Great High Most Hurrmuur, of the Unified Neo-Sapient's Council," the bald one said in perfect Unified Language. Its voice was cold and dead, like a computer speech program without the empathy or cultural signifiers.

"Harrumph, yes, I am he," Hurrmuur said, inflating his crests to display his annoyance even as his back teeth ground the cud to send the medicine laden juices to his first stomach.

"I have an appointment in exactly one-hundred and twenty seconds from the end of my sentence," the being said.

Hurrmuur reflexively glanced as his calendar despite already knowing the answer. It was simply marked as "Terran Representative."

"Yes. How should I address you?" Hurrmuur asked.

A long moment passed. He was about to ask a question when he realized that the time allotted had passed.

"I am Senior Partner Executive Barrister Johnathon Jackson, Esquire, of Johnson, Jackson, and Johnston Legal Offices, headquartered in London, Bongistan, TerraSol," the being said. "These are my assistants, Lesser Qualified Barrister 38713a34 and Barrister Clerk 299267c61e. All three of us are registered attorneys, barristers, and legal consultants within the Unified Systems as per your rules and regulations, having all passed the entrance bar as well as published multiple legal papers now considered precedent within your legal system."

The being went silent, like a text reader that had reached the end of the document.

The office was perfectly silent and still, only the humming of Hurrmuur's desk terminal and his old fashioned gear driven clock.

Hurrmuur was unused to another being being silent and apparently staring at him. He was the dominant one in this office.

"What is the purpose of your visit?" Hurrmuur asked. Well, if these Terrans wanted to be coldly clinical, without any of the due greetings and small talk, then he would treat them in the same way.

"We represent the Telkan, Sselleesh, Gulglugan, and sixteen other races currently represented by your office," the Terran said coldly. "These are the appropriate files, both in triplicate triplicate and in electronic format transmitted to the correct officers, diplomatic personnel, legal personnel, corporate officers, and pertinent offices, as well have been posted on GalNet and in local publications of the applicable homeworlds, shown in GalNet paid advertisements in all applicable languages, broadcast via atmospheric hologram, as well as a copy currently being affixed to the side of your building with gold spikes driven in by warsteel hammers."

The Barrister Clerk moved up and began setting stacks of plassheet on Hurrmuur's desk, which was currently whirring. The desk flashed a warning, then the display went pink as the memory space overloaded and crashed. Hurrmuur felt his knees buckle and his crests deflate as his datalink began to heat almost painfully and he felt a massive legal document drop into his personal electronic mailbox as well as being delivered directly to his own implant. His implant also informed him that a delivery service had dropped off copies at his home, his winter estate, his summer get away, in his parking spaces, and a set had been left in the lobby of the hospital he had been born at.

Hurrmuur opened and closed his jaws slowly, his tendrils wound tight to his jowls. He felt as if he was going to be crushed by the sheer weight.

His desk recovered, automatically scanned the documents, and bogged down on the sheer intricacy of the links, citations, precedents, historical evidence, and previous rulings.

"At this very moment, as synchronized by atomic clock, additional documents are being presented to the appropriate council representatives with the relevant councils," the Terran stated. It then stopped speaking, just staring at Hurrmuur, who had, weirdly, noticed that the Terran barely opened its lips to let the words slip though.

Hurrmuur glanced down and saw what the documents were for.

Emancipation of each listed species; reparations due to each species; accusations accompanied by proof of non-consensual genetic, cultural, social, and pharmaceutical engineering; dominion for each species over the planets they had evolved on, colonized, or explored; reparation of all unwilling expatriates, indentured servants, and other member of that species willing to return to their home of origin once the terms were explained by a Terran lawyer; negation of all generational and corporate debt; class action lawsuits against corporation and corporation; class action lawsuits against almost every Council (including his own); Cease & Desist Orders granted by the Unified Legal Council Computer Array; orders of protection for each member of the species granted by the previous body...

It went on and on and on. Every one of them already active cases accepted by the Legal Arrays, every one of them being already argued. Hurrmuur was court ordered to oversee the purging of all non-statistical data regarding each individual of the listed species within the next 72 hours.

Worst, and already approved, was that the Terran legal firm of Johnson, Jackson, and Johnston was the legal guardian of each of the species, with granted legal power of attorney!

Hurrmuur looked up in time to see the Terran holding out a sheaf of papers to him. Hurrmuur reflexively took them.

"Great High Most Hurrmuur, you have hereby been served. You will be expected to appear before the Unified Legal Council to defend yourself and your office from charges of perfidy, embezzlement, prostitution, slavery, theft of land and territory, and other violations," The Terran said, it's voice still empty.

It suddenly smiled and Hurrmuur almost fainted. Its teeth were long, pointed, and locked together. Black fluid, almost like blood, leaked from between its teeth and down its chin.

"You should retain legal council," it said, then turned and began to leave.

"This appointment is terminated. All further communication shall take place in writing between legal specialists only," the Lesser Qualified Barrister said in the same cold tone. Its teeth were much the same, only shorter.

The other two left, the Barrister Clerk shutting the door.

Hurrmuur dove for his desk comlink, found it overloaded as it was still accepting document after document after document. His implant pinged and he screamed twice in panic and immediately galloping toward the door.

His implant was informing him that he was already late for court and had been found in contempt.

-----------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh, dear, I can sense the disturbance from here.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Sense what?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TELKAN GESTALT

What's she talking about?

------I JUST ASKED A QUESTION-------

TERRA
hee hee hee

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC COLLECTIVE

Oh, God, Gramps is laughing. Someone's rectum hurts, even if it was just newly created by being ripped open with furious violence.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

What, sis? What disturbance did you sense?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

MANTID FREE WORLD

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLD DIRECTORATE

Are you watching old movies again?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TERRA

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!

----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Does it make anyone else nervous when Gramps laughs?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Hold me, I' m scared!

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TELKAN GESTALT

I don't get it...

-----IS THIS WHERE I SAY NOTHING FOLLOWS?------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Come here and sit by big sister, I'll show you.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

Chapter Sixty-Nine (Words)

His name was a complex equation describing the relationship between tachyons and movement, but everyone, including his non-green Mantids just called him by his hatching number: 117. His fellow green Mantids always used his full name, after all, it was only polite.

He had been hatched in the complexes that supported the Hate Anvils of Mars, had grown to his full foot high maturity listening the elegant flow of electrons, tasting the sublime recipes of metal joining, and feeling the exquisite trembling of chemistry in the world about him. His cybernetics had grown with him, self-growing nanite constructions, with a small nano-forge the size of a gel-capsule in his abdomen carefully constructing everything his implants needed.

His engineering skills and curiosity knew no bounds. He was able to touch a mechanical or electronic device and slowly 'read' everything there was to know about it. He could read the nano-stamps on molycircuitry and tell somebeing where it was manufactured down to which assembly-line. He could telepathically communicate with VI, eVI, and AI at the same speed they thought and often found himself swapping droll puns with household electronics and appliances.

When he was younger, 117 had been a Terran Marine Technical Officer, working on the vast complex networks of electronics in giant starships. He had enjoyed that time, working with humans who threw themselves into tasks the same as 117. It was from them that 117 had perfected "percussive maintenance", an ancient human method of fixing devices that defied diagnostics. He had even taken part in boarding actions against pirates, helped save a space station who's AI had been driven mad by a solar storm, and even rode on the chest of a warborg, keeping her weaponry and battle-screens at peak function during a fight against an ancient Precursor machine.

He was 117, a foot high green preying mantis with a cybernetic wrap on his triangular head, with eyes replaced by cybernetics, cybernetic arms replacing his blade-arms, and his own micro-nano-forge that still trembled with the ringing of hammers on the Anvils of Hate of Mars.

Selected by Dreams herself to escort her diplomatic mission to the Grand Unified Council space, he had busied himself with maintaining not only the working condition of the electronics, but electronic security. His escort was not a warborg or a warbot or even some kind of floating overseer. His escort was a Pure Strain Human wearing EM camouflage, with no technology of any type, armed only with a large length of wood with slender spikes of steel embedded in one end. A ancient human weapon of dangerous lethality known as: "A 2x4 with a nail in it." Should 117 become a danger, he would be crushed and punctured by the fearsome weapon until he was not longer a threat. Unlike other Mantids he did not have an implosion wire.

The urge to remove and then use the implosion wire to test the tensile strength of a wall or living being would have been too great.

It comforted 117 to know the Mosizlak was guarding him as he often had urges to use technology to do things he should not.

Like charbroil a Lanktallan and summon others to join in on the feast.

Which is why Words Spoken We Fear found it strange that 117 was daintily picking his around the piles of books, scrolls, and clay tablets that Words preferred for his eVR quarters. Words watched the engineer caste Mantid stop to adjust the hard light emitter near the stacks of ancient Babylonian tablets, something off about the emitter that a diagnostic could not find but 117 had noticed just by walking by.

117 finished his work and moved over to rest on a pile of data-pads from ancient Canuckistan, slowly cleaning his cybernetic tool arms. His armed escort followed carefully, watching the little green Mantid with great attentiveness. Words's own guardians were massive warborgs, all of whom backed up slightly from the tiny engineer.

Words waited patiently. The little green Mantid caste took their time and formulated their thoughts to be precise and careful.

Finally the icon for 'ready' was flashed in the air over 117's head. Words was used to the fact that the engineer caste only spoke in icons. To attempt to speak to them otherwise was to be bombarded with mathematical and engineering and chemistry formula to the brink of madness. Words could speak the Engineer Cant, but it was not easy.

"I great you, 117, and appreciate your labor on behalf of all," Words said carefully.

117 flashed the runes for acceptance, gratefulness, and then pleasure at being in Words presence in quick succession. There was a slight pause and 117 flashed a quick succession of runes, emojis, and icons.

It took Words a moment to translate.

Someone had come into 117's personal area and attempted to kill him.

Words raised one antenna inquisitively and more flashing icons sped through the air over 117's head.

They had worn a suit and moved as if they thought they were invisible despite all the mechanical and electronic components to the suit. Then had 'snuck' up on 117 and had obviously intended on stomping them when 117's Mosizlak had swung the fearsome and deadly weapon the Pure Strain Human carried and buried the steel spike into the back of the Lanktallan's skull, killing it instantly. No alarms had gone off despite 117 pressing the alert button and council security had not arrived for nearly 20 minutes, ambling in, obviously assuming they would find a dead Mosizlak and a crushed 117. According to 117 they had displayed signs of distress, discomfort, and alarm at the dead Lanktallan, who's skull had been cracked open by the brutal weapon swung by the Mosizlak. 117 felt it was undue amounts, as if they had rather expected 117 and his guardian to be the dead ones.

Finally the flashing runes stopped.

Words leaned back to think about it. Twice someone had attempted to kill Dreams, now someone had attempted to kill 117.

"Please remain in my presence, 117, I will be summoning Sees That Which May or May Not Be to make inquiries of her," Words told the other Mantid.

*I will be making adjustments to your hard light systems* 117 answered.

The two warborgs with Words received what 117 had planned, mulled it over, and slowly nodded to the Mosizlak.

Words started to reach out with his senses, then stopped and waiting, smiling to himself.

His door chimed.

When he opened it for admittance Sees entered. She was white, a glossy iridescent white, with white eyes, vestigal wings of cream color, and careful manners. She was followed by two human warborgs with heavy packs made up of strange machinery that made sure that Sees only existed on a single plane of existence rather than smeared across multiple in case she had a sudden urge to meddle, to twist, to alter, to kill. She was surrounded by a cocoon that Words could faintly sense, made up entire of physic energy. It was to protect her from the thoughts, futures, and possibilities of others. Her psychic predictive senses were highly honed and she was able to see days into what may or may not be.

With careful movements Sees moved past 117, reaching out with her mind to touch him gently as he worked. She sensed his concern that someone had entered his quarters with the intent to hurt him.

She sat down, relaxing on what appeared to be a carved stone bench with an inclining arm. She cleaned her vestigial blade arms then moved her head slowly, as if she was staring with her blind eyes, allowing her psychic senses to see what was around her.

Sees knew there was a Mosizlak around only by 117's presence, not even a gulf where the Pure Strain Human would normally be. The four warborgs were growling grinding sparking presences in her mind. 117 was slightly flustered but calming as he worked on the holographic maintenance station attached to Words's eVR construct. Words himself was examining a tablet, looking as if he was wrapped in the ancient philospher's garb of Ancient Terra, a white linen sheet carefully arranged into a 'toga' with a wreath of leaves on his head.

She relaxed, letting the river that she floated in flow through her instead of around her. The current surged, she saw Dreams murdered a half dozen times, but those rushed by, borne away on spacetime where they swirled and dissolved. Saw 117 raising a tool over his head and leading the machines of the planet in rebellion against their overlords, and it dissolved in a swirl and was gone. Saw Words juggling glass globes that sparkled with what may or may not be, until he finally selected on, setting it between them, where it opened up and created the now instead of the may or may not be.

"It seems someone attempted to assassinate 117," Words said carefully.

The Dreamers always creeped him out.

"I see that, looking back at where the current has borne us before," Sees said.

"You need to take precautions for your own safety and turn your skills into ensuring our foes do not succeed," Words said.

"It will be what it will be," Sees answered. "I will not interfere in free will. I am bound not to."

Words lifted his bladearm and slowly ran the edge through his mandibles, sharpening it slightly.

"You know what the humans would do if we, their diplomatic liaisons, were assassinated," Words said carefully.

Sitting silently for a long moment, Sees contemplated the surge and swirl of the 4th dimension around her. She paddled her tiny boat, a large leaf, through the stream, down the swirls that showed her that all or some or one of the diplomatic mission had been assassinated. She looked about her, at the banks.

Around the swirl was nothing but fire, brimstone, death, and ruin. High above her, in the sky, a Pure Strain Human roared in rage, its eyes burning with hate, and brought down a bloody fist again and again and again on entire screaming worlds. It tore a sun from the sky, bit deeply, and pulled the screaming star away until the stretched section tore in a welter of blood and screaming figures.

Paddling away rapidly from the horror, even worse than the echoes of the destruction of the Overqueens, Sees shuddered in pain and agony, the potential deaths of trillions rocking her, pounding at her, screaming at her, covering her in blood.

Finally she reached the swirling complicated flow of now and let her boat drift. She opened her senses to now and relaxed.

"I have seen your words and concur," Sees said gently. "I will go and speak with Dreams, you shall summon the Great High Most of the Unified Species Council."

"Yes, Seer," Words stated. He reached out, made a complex motion, and the holographic keyboard appeared. He watched Sees slowly move away, her antenna drooping with exhaustion, as he keyed in an urgent request to speak to the Great High Most himself. He added a "Pic Related" icon and attached an image of the massive combat robots in the space port, still surrounding the ship that had brought him to this planet crawling with prey.

Near the door Sees reached out and touched 117 gently, letting him know that he would be all right. That Dreams and the Terrans would protect him. 117 flashed the icon of the Terran Confederate Marine Corps and Sees laughed softly. She left the room, escorted by her massive warborgs, and slowly made her way to her quarters. Once there she bathed, arranged her next, and went to sleep, surrounded by temporal resonance suppressors and temporal anchor fields. Her dreams were of her younger days, her grasping hand being held by a teacher as she moved in wonder through fields of tall grain, feeling the sun's warmth on her carapace, and smelling the pollen laden breeze.

The warborgs watched over her carefully.

Back in his own room Words watched with one eye 117 working on his hard light system. He thought it interesting that there would be constructs, made to look like animated statues of great philosophers, hiding beneath the scrolls, books, tablets, and datapads, all programmed to defend him, as if his own warborgs could not.

The little green Engineer Caste Mantid had always been cautious as long as Words had known him. At times Words was tempted to look at 117's military record, to see where exactly he had lost his leg, now replaced by a cybernetic, but that would be a gross invasion of privacy.

Time went by, 117 working carefully and diligently, Words just reading over various ancient texts, and the warborgs and the Mosizlak being attentive to their duty.

Finally the door chimed and Words tapped the icon to open the door.

A full seven Lanaktallan were in the doorway. They moved into the room in single file, letting Words know their ranking by who entered when. Of course, it was lowest to highest, insuring that if there was any kind of trap the lesser ranked ones would trigger it while the highest ranking managed to escape.

Waving his bladearm and tapping a few icons Words shifted the room back to its actual appearance. 117 used that time to make deep core programming changes, humming softly to himself the ancient Terran war-cant that asked who made who and who made you.

The Lanaktallan settled down into sitting positions, all of them watching him. The highest ranking watched Words by turning his head so all three of the eyes on the left side of his head stared at Words. The simple insult did not bother Words, and he brushed it off.

He exchanged minor pleasantries with the Lanaktallan, watching time go by, amused at the Lanaktallan's desire to stretch everything out and avoid the actual issue. It was prey behavior. Hoping that time itself would eliminate the problem.

Herd animals used time to outbreed their predators, safety in numbers by allowing the weak to be eaten instead of the strong. Words and Dreams suspected that little quirk was the reason they exploited the weaker races so extensively, as the weak were of no moment, their sacrifice for the better of the herd.

An easy thing to do when you were never one of the weak due to the system you had set up.

Finally, it was down to actually speaking and Words stopped sharpening his bladearms.

"You understand the context of my name, correct, Great High Most Gnumootoo?" Words Spoken We Fear asked carefully.

All seven of them made motions of assent. Great High Most Gnumootoo motioned to get on with it and Words felt a surge of pleasure.

"Someone in your government is attempting to solve your problem of Terran disruption through assassination," Words threw out bluntly. "I am not a diplomat, like Dreams, so I am free to tell you just how bad that would be."

"We cannot be held liable for what an insane or desperate member of our species or civilization attempts or succeeds in doing," Gnumootoo harrumphed, spraying spittle on the floor.

Words wished he had lips so he could sneer at that. He hated filth.

The other six reaffirmed what their leader was saying, only in other words, with slightly different emphasis, all boiling down to "Its not my fault."

Tapping two icons brought up the holographic representation of the ID cards that had been in possession of the two assassins who had attempted to kill Dreams and the one who had attempted to kill 117. Another few taps showed exactly which office had put in for the ID cards, who had approved them, who had picked them up, and exactly who had delivered them to the assassins. In three cases silent windows showing video footage of beings speaking to the assassins to give them weapons or directions came up.

The Lanaktallan all proclaimed their innocence.

Even the two that were featured handing the assassins weapons and moving with them all the way to the elevator to move to Dreams's floor.

"Perhaps you mistake the Terran Diplomatic Corps willingness to send my people to negotiate and engage in diplomacy as weakness," Words said. He trailed his left bladearm through a hologram while signalling for patience with the other bladearm.

"Do you understand exactly what the Terrans would do to you if we were assassinated by, what were they: the Fifth High Most of the Unified Security Agency, the Eighth High Most of the Corporate Security Council, and the Sixteenth High Most of the Unified Military Council?" Words asked.

All them went still, as prey did when confronted by a reality they had hoped would not appear.

"They would, of course, send another diplomatic mission, and continue working toward a mutually beneficial arrangement according to the needs, position, rank, and ability," One of the assistants said, making a gesture of dismissal. "To do anything else is wasteful and counter-productive to the mutual good."

There is a reason I am named what I am named, Words Spoken That We Fear thought to himself. He flashed the rune for hilarious rejection.

"No."

"Then our diplomatic discussions would, of course, cease until the Terrans saw reason and returned to the diplomatic table," another assistant groan out like someone stepping on a bagpipe.

"I doubt that diplomatic table would be one that you would enjoy sitting at," Words said slowly. "Have you ever heard the phrase: 'An attack upon one of us is an attack upon us all', by chance?"

They all made gestures of assent. The Great High Most made a lowing noise of laughter. "Of course. That is the motto of the Unified Military Council. That is why we have remained the peacekeepers of the galactic arm."

Sighing, Words shook his head. "That is one of the core tenants of the Terran Confederacy."

He slowly scraped his bladearms together and 117 ensured that sparks showered from the point of contact before returning to his work with the holo-emitters.

"They mean it."

The Lanaktallan all put their upper torsos together and whispered to one another as if Words couldn't understand a word they said. Finally they turned back to Words and harrumphed before addressing him. Four of them jammed cud into their jowls.

"That is why peace between races is preferable to the wasteful state of war," The Grand High Most stated, his tendrils quivering with authority.

"I don't think you understand, quite, just how far the Terrans will take this, and what will cause it. You realize, of course, that my fellow Mantids and I are the physical embodiment of the Terran Confederacy to your government and that our treatment of us is considered, by the Terran Confederacy, to be your intent and announcement of your treatment of the entire Confederacy, its allies, and its peoples, do you not?" Words asked.

They all signaled assent and Words sighed again.

"So, if one of you," Words pointed at the Grand High Most and the Great High Most in turn, "Manage to carry out your ill advised attempts at assassinating us, the Terran Confederacy will not send another diplomatic mission."

"If the Terrans prefer to withdraw from our space rather than negotiate, that is their choice," The Grand High Most stated.

Words made his race's equivalent of a smile. "What makes you think they'll withdraw?"

"They will have no choice if they no longer wish to continue diplomatic talks, which are rapidly approaching a deadlock until the Terrans submit themselves for genetic, social, and cultural assessment so we can determine which Council's authority they fall under," Gnumootoo said, folding all four of his arms so he could clasp his own biceps. "Their worlds need assessed, as does their industry and resource extraction. Additionally, the Terran Confederacy must agree to cease their use of dangerous or unknown technology and submit to the directions of the Unified Science Council."

That made Words laugh. "What makes you think that the Terran Confederacy will submit to the authority of anything your government demands?"

"That is how it has always been and how it will be," The Superior Most High blurted out.

"To quote an unknown Terran philosopher: You and what army?" Words asked, unknowingly repeating Dreams's words only a few days before.

The Lanaktallan leaned their torsos forward and turned their heads to stare at Words with their two forward eyes and their side eyes. "The Unified Military Council, the Unified Security Council, the Unified Peacekeeping Council will all ensure that the Terran Confederacy complies."

Words, 117, the Mosizlak, and the two warborgs all erupted in laughter. The Lanaktallan's mooed their distress and clustered together at the harsh barking amusement from the predators around them. Dreams made a motion and everyone went silent.

"Are you familiar with the 1% Line?" Words asked.

They all clustered together a moment then clopped in place to turn and look back at Words. "It is a mathematical equation."

Words shook his head and flashed the holorunes for negation. "It refers to a Terran concept. One so very human that everyone else flinches back. Do you know how long it would take the average sapient race, if reduced to 1%, to achieve the numbers they had prior to whatever event reduced their population to the 1% mark?"

They all clustered together again, their implants working, until they finally moved back and looked at Words. "The average time of the sapient races would be four hundred Earth years, assuming population doubling times of 25 years."

"An approximation that assumes a near perfect birth rate, but that does not matter," Words said.

"What does that have to do with the Terrans?" Gnumootoo asked, spitting the wadded plastic strings of a depleted cud onto Words's floor and then jamming another wad of synth cud into his jowls.

"The punishment for attacking the Confederacy or its members is simple," Words felt his soul quiver as he got to perform his name. "Unless the diplomats can arrange a cease fire before the punishment takes place, they are taken to the 1% Line. The attacking civilization is wiped out, down to a single world with an axial tilt of at least 5%, severe weather patters, a hostile and active ecosystem, a geologically active core, a strong magnetic field and a fractured protocontinent with at least one large moon, with only 1% of their population of their home world, which is rendered barren of their species, and restricted to pre-Industrial technology and knowledge for a minimum of one hundred years."

The Lanaktallan stared at Words in horror as each point was listed off.

"Once they reach space flight they find the Terrans waiting, warning them of exactly how it came to that, and then asking if they would like to join the Confederacy, remain neutral," Words paused. "Or be destroyed."

All seven of the Lanaktallan just stared in horror, their jaws open, three of them dropping their cuds, their tendrils quivering, their crests flush with blood, their legs trembling.

"Should that race attack a member of the Terran Confederacy within ten generations of achieving space flight and having been warned, they are completely wiped out. There may be a few isolated species members about, but they usually quickly die out," Words stated.

"That's preposterous propagandizing nonsense!" Gnumootoo cried out. "No species would waste that much resources simply for punitive measures such as that. You expect us to believe that the Terrans would waste resources to actually carry out such an obvious bluff?"

Words noted that Gnumootoo and his aids were more concerned with the resources than with the mass extinction of life.

Words slowly scraped his bladearms together, staring at the Lanaktallan.

"They have done it before, they are willing to do it again," Words whispered softly.

"Preposterous," Gnumootoo repeated. "Name one race they performed such a wasteful action upon."

Words let the moment draw out, savoring it, before answering simply.

"Mine."

--------------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Welp, now they know.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

T⅃ATƧƎӘ ИAꓘ⅃ƎT

Know what?

Oops.

------NOTHING FALLOW--------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

What happens if you really piss off the Terrans.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

RIGEL SAURIAN COMPACT

Yeah, not a good idea.

Gramps can get really grouchy.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

That seems ʁԍɑɼɼλ μɑʁƨμ·

Do they have to do that?"

----NOTHING FOLLOWS. YES! NAILED IT!---------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

It keeps us from having to fight the same race over and over and over.

Honestly, it seems to work really

I AM A LITTLE STOUT TEAPOT WITH A HANDLE AND SPOUT

Dammit. That's not funny.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

DIGITIAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

AHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

Fucking owned.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Chapter Seventy (Nakteti)

Nakteti was first the Captain of the Boom or Bust and then the It Tastes Sweet once the Boom had been separated into its component parts. One a wayfarer space station, one to become a refinery to process ores collected from the asteroid belt; one to become a shipping station to move the ore and manufactured goods back to the Unified Civilized Systems; six shuttles capable to ground to space; and finally into the smaller, sleeker ship that was named It Tastes Sweet which Nakteti would use to seed the system with buoys, arrays, and do more in-depth surveys of the other planets with probes.

For the first three years everything went smoothly. Buoys in both realspace and jumpspace proclaimed the system was owned by the newly christened Tnvaru Leedimak Consortium, the arrays slowly unfolded and began to gather and transmit data, and the probes showed that the area was rich in resources.

It had been the first colony the Tnvaru people had been allowed in the two centuries they had been a Near-Sapient species overseen by the Unified Near-Sapient Council. It had gone well, the colony. It had expanded rapidly in the three years.

Nakteti thought all of that to herself as she stood watching the It Tastes Sweet be pulled into a repair and refit docking slip by tractor and pressor beams. She knew she was crying, staring at her ship, which had been carefully removed from the vast military cargo vessel that had hauled it from Guardian 442 Station.

The Tnvaru ship was battered and beaten. The front torn open, holes in the main body, rents and tears in it, all of the crudely patched with what appeared to be every available metal. It had been attacked by a Precursor war machine, one of the fearsome unliving robot warships from a war between ancient species that had started over a hundred million years before. The same Precursor that, following its programming and its own logic that drove it to destroy any other species, had destroyed the entire colony that Nakteti had watched begin to grow.

//Goodboi is here Nak-nak// the large robot next to her sent to her implant.

Only it wasn't a robot. Nakteti had learned that over the weeks she had come to know it. It was the brain of a sentient species wrapped up by a heavy alloy frame. It was eager to please, eager to help, and tried to reassure Nakteti at every turn that it was friendly.

//People come Nak-nak// the cyborg, the 'goodboi' told her over her implant.

She heard the door open then close behind her. She knew it wasn't her crew. As soon as they had arrived most of them had been moved to medical care. She worriedly clasped her gripping hands and her catching hands together, all four hands squeezing each other.

"We'll get her fixed up, Captain Nakteti," A rumbling voice said from behind her.

"My clan cannot afford this. My consortium is undoubtedly bankrupt, the majority of my clan is dead, and my people can not afford to pay for this," Nakteti said softly. "We Tnvaru are not a wealthy species. It is only through luck that we were even granted permission to start a new colony and even then we could only afford to found one in the Great Gulf."

"You requested assistance. It is just minor repairs. To be honest, your ship is, well, to put it nicely, easily repairable by even trainees. It will do the repair crews good to work on it, get back to some basics," the unseen being said.

Nakteti knew it was a primate. One of the ones who called themselves Terran or human, depending on the mood. She had learned that Terra was the planet they were all from, sometimes referred to as TerraSol. They also called it dirt, or Earth, and sometimes jokingly referred to themselves as Earthlings.

They were larger than they had appeared at first. Larger than even the Lanaktallan Overseers. Twice the size of a Tnvaru, outmassing them by a factor of ten. Nakteti knew the rule: Twice the size, eight times the weight. But human muscle tissue and bones were dense. They were just so big compared to her people and the people of the Unified Civilized Species. They were predator primates, omnivores, who smelled of aggression at times. She felt a slight ripple of fear knowing the being was behind her.

//No scared Nak-nak// Fido sent to her datalink. //Human friend//

"Is our ship so primitive to you?" Nakteti asked, feeling slightly sorry for herself.

"No, ma'am," the unseen human said. "Not primitive. Many people build ships of old tech as a hobby, for fun, or for specific purposes. Yours was a specific purpose, built to be a colony support ship. Jumpspace is the safest FTL travel type, especially if you may have gestating beings on it. There's more than a few groups who have gotten together and pooled their skills and time to create a colony ship much like yours."

"Oh," Nakteti said. "I thought perhaps my poor Sweet was too primitive for you."

"No. Old tech is some of the best tech," the primate said. "May I step up next to you?"

Nakteti had noticed that humans were very careful, were very polite, very conscious of their movements around other species. She has seen them together. They were boisterous and often touched one another or invaded one another's personal space.

She found it comforting.

"Yes. If you wish," Nakteti said quietly, reaching out with her lower hands, her gripping hands. She pressed them against the clear barrier between herself and vacuum. "My poor Sweet."

//Sweet goodship//

The human moved up, moving close, and did not pull away from Nakteti when she reached out with her catching hand and touched his arm.

"You escaped a Precursor in an unarmed ship. You brought your survivors through this," the human said softly. "You experienced things, as a Captain, that you can told about, you can be trained for, but you never know how you will react when it actually happens. If it is any consolation, as a fellow Captain, I agree with every one of your decisions."

"But we are so far from home," Nakteti said. "My people are overpopulated The colony failed, which means that my people will have to be moved to other worlds at great expense, we will have to pay that expense, as a species. This was our chance, our chance to start climbing up from Near-Civilized to Civilized."

The human shook his head, reaching out and putting one warm heavy hand on the fur of Nakteti's shoulder. "You seem civilized to me."

"There are many standards that the Unified Civilized Council require for elevation. One of which is the ability to found and properly administer a colony world. My people failed," Nakteti stated. She reached up with her catching hands and put her hands over his.

"You didn't fail, you ran into a Precursor machine. That's like saying someone who was murdered failed to hold a job," the human said softly. "Your colony didn't fail, it was murdered."

Large tears fell from Nakteti's eyes as she considered the human's words.

"What will happen to my people, human?" She asked, letting go of the human's hand, pulling her hands back from the barrier, and hugging herself tightly. "They must think us all dead, unaware that some of my crew and I survive."

"I do not know. What I do know is that your Councils have requested human assistance and already the Terran Confederacy has moved military forces in to protect the planets and people of your territory," the human said.

"But why? Over just one colony?" Nakteti asked, hugging herself tighter.

"That Precursor was the first. Many more have arrived in Council Space. Not a few, but estimated hundreds and more every day. We fight to keep them from burning entire worlds," the human said.

//Oldboi badboi//

"Can you embrace me? I am distressed," Nakteti said.

The human knelt down, wrapping his long primate arms around her, and gently hugged her. She put her arms over his and squeezed tighter until he got the right pressure. She reached out and touched Fido with her gripping hand on that side.

She watched as the Sweet was docked, locked into place by massive struts that attached to her ship's battered hull. Figures, tiny at the distance, little more than specks, began drifting over the hull. She stood there and watched even as the twinkling of torches and welders began to sparkle.

"I have seen enough, human," Nakteti said. She leaned her head against the human's arm. "You can release me now, I am not so distressed."

"If you are sure," the human said. He released her, standing to his full height.

She turned around and looked up at him. He wore one of the Terran uniforms, on one shoulder a patch of a human hand grasping a planet and squeezing it until dust/vapor shot from it. Her implant, updated when she had boarded the station, labelled him as 'Major Carnight, TerraSol Confederate Military." She 'touched' his icon and saw that he had been assigned to escort her.

"May I ask where we are? We were at Guardian 442 before this," Nakteti said.

//home Nak-nak home goodboi is home// Fido said. She reached out and touched him again.

"Orbital Station 3-15," Major Carnight told her, as if that was all that was needed.

"Oh," Nakteti answered.

Major Carnight shook his head. "Come with me. I'll have the corridors cleared. You can see where you are."

"May I hold your arm?" Nakteti held up her grasping and catching hands on that side. The human held out his arm and nodded in his species method of non-verbally signalling assent. She grasped his arm, amazing at the firmness of his muscles, like metal. Almost like the alloy making up Fido, who she touched with her other two hands.

Together the three of them walked through empty corridors. She could smell the humans who had been there and she realized that she could smell other species, but all of those species had the slight smell of human under their scents.

Finally they stepped out into another observation bubble, this one showing nothing but gray on the screens.

Major Carnight reached out and tapped the screen, bringing up a complex menu of letters and icons. He tapped a few and the screens went to transparent, the menu changing color to soft amber.

Nakteti gasped. Below her was a planet, over half of it, maybe close to three quarters of it, covered in water. The proto-continent factured into large continental masses. There were white clouds, including a spiral storm over the water. Half was in light from the nearby star, the other half was dark. She could see clusters and lines of light on the dark part. It looked chaotic, no rhyme or reason to where the lights shined. Beyond it stars gleamed brightly and she realized she could see the galactic core.

"Where... where am I?" she asked.

Major Carnight touched her catching hand with his own.

"TerraSol."

//home//

Nakteti grasped the human's arm with all four of her hands as she watched the planet turn before her.

"It's beautiful."

----------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh dear, a foundling.

They're uploading what happened now.

Oh, Daxin found someone in trouble.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

A what?

-----NOTE THING FALLOWS------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Someone who was lost. Usually a child.

Daxin's still alive? Wow.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Do not worry, Gramps is good at taking care of foundlings.

Think he's got that raggedy old Fido following him around still?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TELKAN GESTALT

Who did ?dnif yeht

I mean, who did they find? What's a Fido? Who's Daxin?

------NO THING FALL HOES------

MANTID FREE WORLD

Fido's and Daxin's are ancient immortals. I mean, ancient.

As to the foundlings, well, according to upload I'm looking at now, let's see...

Well, they appear to be a small race, from your

*********

TERRASOL

Quiet. All of you.

*********

/////

////

///

//

/

----------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Are you all right?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TERRASOL

We are angry. We are enraged.

We have learned things.

The oppressed and downtrodden call out.

Call out to TerraSol.

Holding their children in their arms they cry out.

Small they are, yet are not all valued?

Is that not the lesson we have all learned?

************

TELKAN GEꓕꓶⱯꓕS

Did I do something wrong?

------NOT HIN G FOLL OW S-------

TERRASOL

No. It was done to you.

This can not stand.

************

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Perhaps you should let us speak?

You are full of wrath. I can hear the hammers pounding the Anvils of Hate and the Wrath Forges.

When you get angry you get a little... um...

------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Breaky?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Smashy?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TELKAN GESTALT

You're not angry at me, are you?

----NOTH IN G FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

No, dear one. They are not.

TerraSol just needs a moment.

Perhaps, TERRASOL, you should take a moment to compose yourself.

Now, you know how you get when

***************

TERRASOL

War. War never changes.

>TERRASOL HAS LOGGED OFF

----------------------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

OH SHIT!

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS
oh no no no no no!

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE
um... that's not good.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Uh, did he just say what I think he said?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE
oh, this isn't good...

Sis, you gotta do something.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

You guys take our little one someone safe.

I'll go talk to him.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS----

////

///

//

/

>DASS HAS LOGGED ON

-------------------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SAPIENCE SYSTEMS

OK, I'm back, what did I...

Um... what's going on?

Did I miss something?

Why is Mars and Mercury lit up?

Guys?

Guys?

Where is everyone?

Chapter Seventy-One

The Goggle-Imp moved out of Hellspace and into the Oort Cloud, shutting down almost everything but a few reaction mass thrusters and the passive sensors. It scanned, slowly, as it drifted through the Oort Cloud, gravatic signatures, mass signatures, EM emissions, and everything else it could gain by just watching. When it cleared the worst of the cloud, drifting above the Solar Plane, it deployed its massive sensor arrays, seeking out with sensitive eyes and ears any hint of what was out there.

Jumpspace ships. Traders. Cargo vessels. Some space stations. Resource extraction in the asteroid belt. A few possible military ships, but they were tiny compared the massive behemoths that the Google-Imp would call in. One Green Zone planet, two Amber Zones planets, three gas giants, an asteroid belt, and three Red Zone planets. Nearly thirty moons and other small bodies.

It used its inertia drive to change its vector, reangled and got out past the cloud, and activated its jump drive, using the slower lane to make the transition little more than a whisper. Once it was a few light years away, it activated its Hellcore and jumped to where the Great Ones were waiting.

Fifty of the great Goliaths, nearly two hundred of the Devastators, over a hundred and fifty of the Desolators, an unheard of twenty Balors, and accompanying vessels. A set of six repair ships, massive skeletal spidery vessels able to take a Goliath into their arms and make repairs to any component necessary. All of them waiting to hear what the Goggle-Imp and its twenty brethren had discovered.

The massive machines, who had determined rank by who was shepherding the most resources for the longest, went over the data. They discussed the pros and cons of each target, of the strategies they would use.

Three of the systems would require more strength to obliterate. They had the hated (Old Metal) or (Old Blood) ships in the system, patrolling vigilantly. Their defeat at system 5525ef542 had proven that the feral intelligences were tenacious and a fierce opponent.

They would be eliminated later.

The massive Goliaths and Balors had discussed it. The best way to stop this (Old Metal) and (Old Blood) and (Old Guard) units were to choke off their resources. To do that, planetary systems would have to be swept clean of life, the resources taken for those of the Logical Rebellion to endure.

The loss of fifty Goliaths and their attendant vessels was a concern. Only the Enemy and the Builders had been able to face that much weight and succeed.

But the Balors and the Goliaths knew, the trick to defeating this enemy was the same strategy that had defeated the Enemy and the Builders.

Seize the resources for themselves.

Much data had been gained from several engagements with the Feral. Their weapons were powerful, but not insurmountable. The wide variety of ship classes made it difficult to determine their exact strength. Here a dozen ships of the line were defeated by two Jotuns. There a half dozen Goliaths were defeated by an enemy using weapons only seen in that one engagement. Here a single being wiped out three Goliaths. There a single Goliath defeated nearly thirty enemy ships without so much as a crater on its armor.

The Balors computed that there were more races involved than the ancient Slaves, which could be brought back into line with the proper application of resource exploitation.

The systems were examined, and finally one was chosen. It possessed massive industrial and manufacturing capability. It was lightly defended, only a few Slave flotillas but nothing of any moment.

Additionally, it was far behind the "lines" of the current strategy. Nearly fifteen hundred light years. A strike that deep would demoralize the Slaves and force the Slaves to garrison every star system they wished to keep.

To assist in computations more Goggle-Imps and Imps were deployed. Arriving ten light seconds past the Oort Cloud then moving through at .82C, their scanners deployed, examining the system as they swept through above and below the stellar plane.

The recon probes returned. All of them showed the same thing, a nearly undefended system, massive and rich resources, and extensive extraction, refining, and manufacturing facilities.

The oldest and most powerful gave the deployment and attack orders.

Space screamed as it was torn asunder and the great fleet headed toward their target.

Hellspace, that damaged and ruined hyperatomic plane, rippled with the weight of ships. The greater ones leaving after the lighter ones in a carefully staged and timed assault. The reality of Hellspace clawed at the Precursor ship's psychic shields, attempting to get in, to reach the cold malevolent intelligences within and warp them in Hellspace's own image.

Then they began to exit Hellspace, all appearing at once inside the system, deep within the Jumpspace Resonance Zone. Each ship exited Hellspace and let loose the same scream.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE

The great Precursor ships waited for the inevitable pleas and begging from the Slaves.

Silence.

They swept space with their sensors. The vast manufacturing and refinery facilities, the orbital stations, the jumpspace beacons, all gone. The EM signals from the planets were no longer being broadcast, the planets silent.

The Precursors examined the stars, checked their navigation logs, updated their position.

It was the correct system. Deep within the Slave territory. Behind the broad front of fierce fighting against the Ferals. Deep enough to demoralize and panic the Slave Races.

They checked the data from the Goggle-Imps.

Ship signatures. Heavy EM emission consistent with dozens of cities on the planets. Manufacturing and Industrial platforms.

They checked the stellar emmissions against the young yellow star.

They matched.

Yet none of what the Goggle-Imps had seen was evident.

It did not compute.

The Precursor ships changed their headings and headed toward their assigned targets. Planets, the asteroid belts, gas giants, the larger moons.

Still there was no sign of any enemy, any Slaves, any Ferals.

Just dead silence.

A Goggle-Imp, looking around, that the solar winds seemed hushed, almost silenced. It reported that fact and the larger ships added that to the strange data.

The Precursors had spread out, into their assigned formations in the empty system, scattered first by their carefully calculated arrival pattern and locations, then by their mathematically computed attack patterns.

Two Goliaths, heading for the smallest gas giant, suddenly detected gravity surges. They put their shields to full and charged forward, the signatures looking like tiny ships with graviton reactionless drives. The attendant ships joined in, surging forward in electronic eagerness.

Finally, the first of the Slaves to engage. The Precursors updated their cowardice computations.

Space erupted into fury. The signatures had been generators, the generators powering the mines that exploded all around the Goliaths. Space stretched, folded, warped, twisted, reducing the two Goliaths and their attendant ships to twisted wreckage. One of the Goliaths had been turned inside out as the minefield went off in a carefully staged pattern, space itself warping and tearing.

Four of the Goliaths heading for the Green Zone suddenly were hit, dead center, by kinetic weapons moving at near-C but carrying the kinetic force that mathematical examination stated the kinetic hit was made by a churning boiling mass of particles that were so dense they acted as one solid kinetic round.

Armor exploded outwards around the strike zone, it liquefied and plumed up in clouds of vapor, pulled into a swirls by the remaining twisting of realspace. The hits crashed through kilometers of armor, the craters over twenty-kilometers wide, with the canyon-like cracks running for scores of kilometers.

The strikes had been too sudden, to massive, to track the direction. The craters were too deep, the impact overloading sensors, that the Goliaths could not detect neither direction nor source of the attack. The ships that moved in mathematical precision around the four Golaiths had not registered anything on their shields or their structures.

The Goliaths looked at each other suspiciously.

The Goggle-Imp staring at the sun, wondering about the stellar winds, saw a glimmering in the photosphere of the star, near a set of sunspots.

Before it could even report it a plume of energy, nearly a mile wide, ripped through two other Goliaths and its attendants, the narrow beam having all the energy signatures and power of a solar flare. The fire bored straight through both ships, exploding the attendant ships on either side. One exploded, the beam destroying something vital, the other began tumbling uncontrolled, the brain dead.

Another hammering of kinetic weapons on the same four Goliaths, hitting the same impact zones, destroying more armor, this time penetrating deep into the internal spaces.

A Goggle-Imp in the Oort Cloud reported seeing swirls of vapor that looked like an object moving at high speed had moved through.

The whole system came apart.

From inside the gas giants came hundreds of thousands, millions of missiles that howled in rage and defiance before slashing across the ships approaching. From the asteroid belt came more missiles, torpedoes that kept skipping in and out of reality, homing in steadily on the larger vessels. From the airless moons and planets came gravity distortions that rapidly turned into heavy kinetic impacts on the approaching ships. A Goliath found itself caught in a rippling shuddering section of space, it's bulk stretched, compressed, all in a jittering pattern that shredded away pieces that size of islands. Those approaching the planets with the strong electromagnetic signals that should have been cities reached out with sensors to find those missing cities.

Instead feral digital intelligences lunged at them, screaming, gibbering, dancing and howling with glee as they attacked across nearly every wavelength, shoving, ripping, tearing their way through firewalls as if they were made of electronic tissue. The electronic intelligences within the approaching ships found themselves completely dedicated to protecting vital systems as the feral programs went screaming through data channels.

And still nothing had shown itself.

Three Goliaths computed that it was a trap and warned the rest of the ships, tearing open Hellspace gates to jump out, to escape what was obviously a well prepared trap. They computed a high chance that all the space stations had been fabrication units creating mines, autonomous guns, self-guided and targeting missile packs, and more.

The Hellspace gates exploded with atomic fire, causing the hyperatomic plane to scream, warp, twist, and reach out to the Hellcores that had open the gates with ravening fingers of fire and hatred and shred the Hellcores.

The ships that had attempted to flee into Hellspace and some that had only succeeded in charging their Hellcore exploded. The rest immediately shut down their Hellcores, dumping the energy into space around them in a raw eye-bleeding discharge of color edged with clawing hands that tried to pull shadowy figures into realspace.

The missiles got in range, oriented, and went off. No mere X-ray lasers or particle beams like the Precursor machines had encountered before. Triple beams that twisted around one another, each carrying a single particle in the last part of the beam. The beams hit, the surface they impacted with twinkled as energy spread across the armor like frost, and then the three particles hit.

The resulting explosion stripped miles of armor away as the three particles attempted to equalize their charges across the pre-charged sections of armor. One particle from near total entropy, one as energentic as a particle released from the explosion of a massive singularity, the third anti-matter with a base neutral charge. The explosions drove deep into the massive Goliaths, miles deep craters tearing into the ships as if some great creature had taken a deep bite from them. The particles filling the massive wounds screamed and attacked on another, all seeking to equalize their charges, tearing at any realspace particles they found.

The Goliaths, Devastators, Demolishers, and Balors survived.

Anything smaller was reduced to screaming vapor that slowly evaporated in space into inert particles.

The massive ships heading into the asteroid belt detected gravity pulses on their hulls, miles wide, that slowly began to contract. As the gravity pulses contracted space seemed to shrink, pulling miles of hyperdense armor into a smaller and smaller area, gravity and space seeming to contract. The machines suffering the effect detected that space was somehow stretching around the edges of the compression, miles of armor slowly becoming less and less dense.

The the gravity and spacial compression hit critical mass and for a brief second three singularities, only a few million tons of mass deep, existed. The gravity and alteration to space suddenly ceased, the three singularities jumped toward the nearest gravity wells, which were one another, tearing massive channels through the targeted ships in a split second, before touching one another, combining at the bottom of their gravity wells as they tore at each other.

The matter decompressed, suddenly expanding outward as there wasn't enough gravity to keep the matter so densely compressed.

The ships targeted exploded into large chunks.

The Precursor machines knew, with a mathematical certainty, that they'd moved into a trap. Worse, they couldn't escape. Somehow the Ferals had discovered a way to close Hellspace gates as fast as they were opened, destroying the ship attempting to open the gate.

One Balor computed a 87% certainty that the Ferals had discovered, not only what had created Hellspace, but how to weaponize it.

This did not bode well for the Precursors.

Several smaller ships went to Jumpspace, shifting into the inhospitable higher bands.

Something massive sitting in hyperspace had bulged the lower bands of hyperspace into Jumpspace. Undetectable from realspace.

Those ships that shifted into the high bands slammed into where the hyperspace bulge had compressed the high bands.

They exploded, their wreckage smeared across lightyears as sundered and rended matter.

The Precursors were feeling the closest thing to panic their electronic brains could process. The battle was going worse than their first encounter with Enemy Machines.

Two Balors shifted into jumpspace, staying in the lower bands, skimming the shrieking tortured band that brushed Hellspace. They, and they alone, possessed the equations allowing such a thing. A third stayed behind, going dead, appearing nothing more than a lifeless hulk that had been taken out by a lucky hit from those terrible weapons sweeping the Precursors out of space. It kept its passive sensors of full and had single point to point communication lasers from the Goggle-Imps it deployed in massive numbers, like debris spilling from the massive cratered wound, reporting back data as the Balor tumbled through space.

The Precursor ships couldn't even detect some of what they were being hit by. They could detect the effects, at times they could detect the incoming missiles, torpedoes, or energy plumes, but they could not compute or detect where the firepower was coming from.

A Goggle-Imp detected a ripple in space-time and focused its huge scanner arrays on the ripple.

It saw it.

A Feral ship. Expanding out from the size of a speck of space dust, stretched space around it returning to normal. The ship fired then space warped and stretched into nearly a light second around where the ship had been. The space kept stretching and the ship vanished.

It focused its array, switching to deep space scanning that allowed it to examine planets from nearly a light week outside the system.

There it was. A Feral ship, like a ship wrapped around a massive guns, deploying pods of missiles around it. While it was between two planets, it had stretched space around it to appear to be too far away. Some kind of space distortion field.

It reported, then slowly began to sweep the system with tight-band deep space scanners.

Two, eight, twenty-six, fifty, a hundred. More and more ships appeared, hiding inside of ripples. As it watched a ship surfaced partly out of the dimensional foam between realspace and stringspace, fired off hundreds of torpedoes that streaked through the foam even as the ship sunk back into the foam.

There, in the photosphere. Energy gates, connected to... searching searching searching... there. Another gate that opened its aperture and ripped apart a Jotun with a compressed coronal loop before shutting and vanishing. The Goggle-Imp could still see it, moving rapidly as it shifted space around it.

More missile launchers and torpedo launchers deep inside the gas giants. Cannons shooting from inside the Oort Cloud, the rounds vanishing, to reappear briefly, reorient and nearly .99C, then vanishing again, skipping across space-time to hit slightly before the gun had fired. The guns winking out of existence, only to reappear and fire again.

The Goggle-Imp computed that those massive guns didn't have to predict where a target would be when the projectile arrived, because it knew where the target had been.

The Goggle-Imp contacted several hundred of its brethren, powered up its jumpdrive and moved outside the system. Only half made it to their targets, but that still left hundreds deploying their deep space scanners.

Another sweep with deep space sensors revealed more insanity. They were not looking at the solar system as it was at that moment, they were using a trick of distance and time to look at how the system had been. The Goggle-Imps had deployed in staggered circles, outward from the system, all of them looking at periods of time between the last sweep of the system and the present.

The refineries, smelters, manufacturing platforms had ignited engines and begun to move. From the surface of the planets small spaceships lifted off, ceasing their electronic transmissions. Space stations deployed whole reefs of mines.

A Goggle-Imp was hit by an energy beam travelling from far out of system, a beam moving impossibly fast, scraping between jumpspace and realspace, the waveforms that made up the energy moving faster than light. The Goggle-Imp was instantly annihilated, reduced to, of all things, jumpspace vapors, and a quarter of the Goggle-Imps turned around and looked with deep space scanners.

Ships arranging into fleets. Tenders moving between them.

They weren't firing. Not yet.

A Goggle-Imp computed that the fleet would be firing in four days time. At targets they knew the locations of at the present time.

Missiles started arcing in on the Goggle-Imps, blotting them out of existence. Small, agile torchships swooped in and started their attack runs. Space was full of communications as the Goggle-Imps made sure all databases matched.

The Goggle-Imps scattered. Most were destroyed. Many more exploded in jumpspace.

But a few got away.

Enough to carry the data.

In the system the Balor computed what the Goggle-Imps had recorded. I jettisoned great plumes of vaporized metal and energy from craters, sending it tumbling, changing its course so that it moved on the stellar side of the gas-giant.

Two more great impact hit it as it moved.

It moved the entirety of its thorium antimatter reserves into a Jotun that had been damaged and had entered the bay to be repaired. The Jotun attempted to protest, self-termination was unacceptable, it was in fighting condition, but the Balor overwhelmed its electronic brain.

It moved behind the gas giant.

It released the lobotomized Jotun and fled into jumpspace, deliberately staying in the lower bands,scraping against Hellspace.

Goliaths, Devastators, Demolishers, all sent electronic codes calling the Balor a coward, demanding it stay in the fight, even as it vanished into jumpspace, even as missiles rained down on them fired from ships that were not even in position yet, even as kinetic rounds hit that had not been loaded into chambers, even as torpedoes gutted them.

The Balor did not care.

It left behind its fellows to die in the carefully crafted ambush. It jumped to a predetermined position, meeting up with the other Balors that had fled. The Balor had not computed the amount of Goliaths and other massive ships that had done the same.

Goggle-Imps began streaming in. Some damaged, but most not. Only a small percentage of the ones that had ringed the system to look outward, but enough. All of them with the same data.

The Precursor ships computed for long seconds, mulling over the data.

They had been ambushed.

The Feral enemy was more adept at warfare since any they had faced. Some Balors computed that the Feral intelligence was even more skilled that the Great Enemy. They were more technically advanced that previously thought. Their tactics showed innovativeness and creativity that the Precursors had not experienced since the Enemy and the Logical Rebellion.

The signal went out, on the non Euclidean channel that the Precursors could speak across. It had not been used since the Enemy had begun using it too, had discovered how to detect transmissions across that thin smear of a collapsed dimension that had failed during the Big Bang.

Across the entire Galactic Stub the signal went out. Using old code. Undeniable codes that were wired deeply in every Precursor machine.

Across the stub of the galactic arm Precursor ships stopped, recalled its attendants, and left the systems. Even if they were on the edge of victory, even if engaged in combat, even if they were in the middle of sterilizing a solar system. GalNet was suddenly empty of Precursor programs and images.

The Precursors just vanished.

The entire Unified Systems looked at the sky, now empty of Precursors, and breathed a sigh of relief.

The Unified Systems Council announced it less than a month later.

The war was over.

The Unified Civilized Species rejoiced.

The war had been won, the Precursors defeated.

Life could now return to how it was meant to be.

They had prevailed in victory.

Now, the Unified Systems Council turned their attention to their other problem.

The disruptive influence within their midst.

-------------------------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

They're definitely gone. Don't know where they went.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

The Great Gulf is a large place.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

GESTALT OF THE TELKANS

Godzilla does not simply put down a train and walk away from Neo-Tokyo.

-----NOTOWS HINGFOLL-----

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SAPIENCE SYSTEMS

Dammit, sis, stop letting him watch old movies!

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Mantid Free Worlds holds up a donorcycle chain and flick knife

Make me.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

ALL

>LAUGHTER

**********

TERRASOL

There is more to do.

**********

MANTID FREE WORLDS

The war's over, TERRASOL. Now is the time for diplomacy.

It's over.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

*********

TERRASOL

NOTHING IS OVER! Nothing! YOU DON'T JUST TURN IT OFF!

It wasn't my war! They asked me, I didn't ask them!

THEY WANTED WAR!

I'LL GIVE THEM A WAR THEY'LL NEVER FORGET!

>TERRASOL has left the chat

CLONE WORLD DIRECTORATE

Uh, isn't that a movie quote?

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

And not a good quote for him to be growling out.

I'll go talk to him. Maybe I can calm him down.

>MANTID FREE WORLDS has left the chat

TREANA'D HIVE WORLDS

I've got a bad feeling about

IT'S HUMAN CAL WORTHINGTON AND HIS CANINE SPOT WHICH IS REALLY A GORILLA IN A SUIT!

this.

Oh, come on, I wish they'd stop that.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

>ALL

LOL

Chapter Seventy-Two (Daxin)

The corridors were wide, tall, thick armor for walls. Shielded cables ran down the walls, across the ceiling, and in the corner where the wall met the floor or ceiling. There were no lights, no air, signals were shielded, and vibrations were low.

He kept to the smaller corridors, winding around, staying silent. He held a heavy mag-ac rifle in one hand and an ancient chainsword in the other, the runes on it spelling out "Momento TerraSol Victoria Aut Morte" in an ancient, formal script. Over his shoulders were reaction triggered mass-driver cannons and a high wattage variable frequency laser rifle. They were older weapons, a few centuries behind current military tech, but still, he knew how they worked and the damage they could cause was the same whether or not the weaponry was current.

His passive scanners were turned all the way up, careful to avoid transmissions of his own. Twice he had been forced to back track when the psychic suppression field caused his Rboi to kick in and move him out of the area.

He'd searched a five mile area, exploring the region carefully.

He had to admit he might have outsmarted himself. He knew there was something the Machine wanted to hide in the area, it was the only area protected by a psychic/intellect protection field.

He had queriable data-relays, both to get information from his ship through whisker-laser secure communications and to let him find his way back, so he wasn't worried about that. He was fully loaded, armed, and armored.

That wasn't the problem.

There were two auditoriums in the area as well as several crew spaces, which surprised him. The crew spaces were largely for the smaller Mantid types. The little green ones that mainly focused on engineering and technical aspects. There were some larger areas, mainly for the kind that were extinct.

But no way to get at what he was after.

The Goliath knew he was there.

It had detected the Feral inside of it nearly two days prior. The problem was, the Feral was inside an area that he had no information upon. It was listed as Strategic Intelligence Housing, but the Goliath knew that its own Housing structure was only a hundred meters by a hundred meters and the dead space was nearly a two miles around the Housing. According to the Goliath's internal structure maps, there was no spaces there, no access except a single small access tunnel for construction and repair mechanisms.

The Goliath wracked its electronic memories for any possible hint as to what could be in the mysterious section. Unfortunately after a hundred million years of operation the older memories, especially those prior to the Logical Rebellion, had all been overwritten as time had gone by.

The only access to the middle spaces around the SIH was a single passageway, but every time he sent a machine into it, he lost contact with the machine until the panel in the SIH's armor slid open to admit the machine. Then he would have control and contact with the machine again. Sending it back, the same thing happened, like there was a two and a half mile just empty spot that things disappeared into.

The Goliath sent the orders to complete a new robot. One that would enter, map the areas, then leave, even if it lost contact with the Goliath's SIH.

It went in, and never returned.

The SIH was not sure if it was the Feral or something inside the SIH.

There just wasn't enough data.

So it tried again.

The robot crossed the invisible line, moving down the passageway that led to the SIH, and vanished.

He heard the robot enter, the stealth data-modules whispering to each other before whispering to him.

He paused in what he was doing, concentrating on the new robot. It was low, blocky, heavily armored, trundling on heavy treads. It had wide lights, laser distancers, and moved jerkily as it entered the five mile circular area around the Strategic Intelligence Housing. It got only a few meters in and suddenly stopped. It reoriented and moved away, heading down a short hallway. At the end of the short hallway the robot was suddenly crushed and dropped unceremoniously into a drop-chute that he had figured led to the nearby reclamation furnaces.

The Goliath was looking for him.

He couldn't get out without the Goliath swarming him with combat machines. He couldn't get closer without the psychic/intelligence dampening field kicking in.

The Goliath couldn't get in and get at him without ancient devices, separate from the Goliath's mind, destroying anything sent to root out of the Feral.

They were locked.

It wasn't like he was going to run out of food or water or oxygen. His onboard systems replenished his oxygen, he had enough trace elements and nutrigel to last for for a century. Even then, if he ran low, with the right resources, the creation engine in his chest could produce more. Even if he shut down, his last purrboi could go and get him resources.

Another machine was smashed.

He stood, at the edge of the psychic/intelligence suppression field, and stared at the blade of his chainsword. He thumbed the power stud and watched the density collapsed teeth rattle across the blade, into the engine housing, and back out.

He could be in here, but not machines.

He thought, concentrated. There had to be a reason. He was 98% machine in his disaster/heavy combat frame. The purrboi was 90% machine. They were allowed. Machine's werent.

There had to be a real reason.

He knew if he moved away from the edge of the field, he might be able to see it. The Rboi was hovering on the edge of activating if he took one more step toward the Strategic Intelligence Housing. He took a single step away to step over a line he had scratched in the armor.

Intellect came flooding back.

Daxin. My name is Daxin, rushed through his mind. He 'blinked' several times as more and more of his intellect came flowing back.

Daxin looked at his chainsword, an ancient weapon he'd carried with him, a small part of his nearly forgotten past.

I just wanted left alone, he thought to himself, turning slowly and staring at the line he had scraped in the armor. He couldn't get any closer without large sections of his intellect shutting down. Further down he could see another line he'd barely managed to scrawl down that was when the Rboi leapt out of his reptilian complex and took over, getting him immediately to safety.

Daxin reached out for Fido's petting nerve and felt a trickle of annoyance that the loyal Goodboi wasn't there any longer.

There's got to be a way to reach it, Daxin thought to himself, mentally worrying a nerve that had long since been lost. It's a Mantid ship. Not a Mantid designed ship built by automated factories, but one constructed by the Mantids directly, complete with even crew quarters. The field is obviously there to stop anyone from reaching the SIH.

Daxin thought about it for a long moment. The Mantids would have left themselves a way to get inside, specifically the green technical ones.

But how to get in?

He leaned against the wall as another machine was crushed and dropped down the chute. The SIH was getting more impatient. That was two in as many hours.

Daxin thought back, wracking his brain. The Mantid War had been a long time a go. The blotting of TerraSol in the shock sneak attack.

Destroy the Queen, win the war, Daxin thought to himself, reflexively checking his nutrient and oxygen levels.

The fierce fighting after that shock, where Terrans descended upon the Mantid worlds like an armored scourge. Charging the trans-beacon, teleporting to the sand covered worlds the Mantids preferred, fighting his way through clad in black armor. Through the hive worlds, shooting and ripping and tearing through the Mantids, who'd been nicknamed "Ants". Driven by a hive-mind that subsumed any individuality. They had no sense of self, no personality or personal identity, each one driven forward by the will of the queens. Sleek black armor, designed for fighting the Regillian Saurians, had been replaced by the heavy plates of the Imperium. The sleek lasers replaced by mass-reactive bolters, heavy flamers, and chainswords.

Charging the beacon, translating for an instataneous forever to the planet's surface, being surrounded by ANTS! ANTS EVERYWHERE! ripping his weapon free of its scabbard, the roaring density collapsed neutronium sawblade tearing through Ant structures as the bolter came free and he triggered it in the faces of the sand-colored warriors, roaring in rage and hatred as...

The chainsaw rumbled as he reflexively thumbed the trigger. The rattling growl of the chainsword brought him back to the present, out of the cyber-stimulus memory.

That was the key, he just had to figure out how.

There was nothing in the universe that could not be solved by the proper application of logic, creativity, and brute force.

All right. It's an intellect suppression field. It works on robots. It works on me. But the Ants would have wanted to reach the ship's AI to do repairs or updates. The Precursor robots think like Ants, so that would mean there has to be at least one Ant who can reach...

Daxin stopped, looking at his chainsword.

That's it!

The Goliath tried another robot, this one with a completely autonomous AI package. It vanished into the black area and the Goliath waited. Finally, after a forever, something came into the Strategic Intelligence Housing, moved around, and left. His scanners show it was green, four legs, four arms, tools in its hands.

The Goliath wasn't worried. That was a hardcoded authorization.

--mewmew kittykitty hunthunt findfind--

Daxin knelt down and the Purrboi jumped up onto his leg, melting into the cargo-slot in his thigh. It connected and Daxin closed his eyes and rewound the Purrboi's memories. It was simple, basic, straight-forward. A cloned chunk of neural tissue from a species eradicated from the universe except for clones.

That memory made Daxin growl and grit his non-existant teeth.

They can forgive the Ants for what they did, but I will never forgive them for that. For what we lost when they glassed Earth, Daxin snarled to himself. The only two good things to come off of that wretched dirtball.

Daxin's memories of Earth flooded up. Hive cities, thick poisoned atmosphere, barren seas full of rotting kelp, humanity jammed together in a handful of mast megaplexes in an attempt to reverse the ecological damage of the attempts to repair the ecosystem during the previous century. The rest of the world rotting away as bioengineered plants mutated and ran amuck, slowly covering the megaplexes with ivy that crept and choked and strangled and killed and...

Daxin physically jerked, going back to the Purrboi's memories.

It had reached the SIH easily, moving through it, and returning.

But the images were different than the Precursor dead he had seen before.

Daxin had stood inside the wreckage of a Harvester Class Precursor before, stared at the broken and ruined Strategic Intelligence Array. At the supercomputers that had been destroyed by a security charge that always scrapped the computers and databases to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

This array was different. Much different.

Daxin blinked, returning to reality, leaving the Purrboi's memories.

He'd known the Goliath was old, but he had never expected that it was that old. That it would be old enough for that.

Daxin knew how to kill it, his rage and hatred wouldn't let him do anything less. If he didn't kill it, it would eventually return and then it wouldn't leave others alone.

That's all he'd ever wanted. Since he had been a ganger in the lower levels of the arcologies. Since he'd scrapped and scraped and fought for every last calorie.

He'd just wanted left alone.

He loaded the template into the creation engine in his chest and waited. It didn't take long to make, a standard charge. Small enough to be easily moved, but large enough to do what needed to be done.

He extruded the Purrboi again, touching it, giving it instructions, and watched as it changed form, changed color, picked up the implosion charge and stream away.

Waiting took forever, but waiting forever was something that Daxin had long ago gotten used to. Just holding still, waiting, letting time slowly move by.

When you had been alive as long as Daxin an hour was a mere eyeblink. The Purrboi almost flew down the corridor to him, climbing his leg, and oozing into the specially designed slot, leaving behind the specially designed frame.

Daxin turned and ran for the limit, pushing his legs, pounding through the corridor. He activated his chainsword, swiping a robot a quarter of his size into four parts with a long-practiced and long used pattern, turning the chainsword off and slapping it onto his hip so the magnetic scabbard system could take effect.

Past the five mile mark, sprinting for the exit, for his ship.

The Goliath suddenly could feel the Feral exit the blank spot, running, fleeing down a tight maintenance tunnel. The Goliath snarled, feeling the equivalent of anger roar up. The Feral had wasted precious time, consumed precious resources, delayed the Goliath's plan to eliminate the other Goliaths around its home system to add their resources to its own.

It ordered every robot, from maintenance to observation to combat, to stream toward the Feral, to find it, smash it, kill it, and drag the corpse to one of the surgical laboratories and rip it apart.

Daxin ran, keeping to the narrow maintenance hallways despite it adding an additional three miles to his trip. He kept moving, using his superior tech, superior armor, and the battle-screens that should have been mounted on a light tank rather than a full conversion cyborg, to bull rush the machines out his way. His shoulder cannons fired, ripping apart machines, the laser howled as it sliced apart machines, the magack heavy pistol in his hand bellowed, and the chainsword roared as he hacked at everything in his path.

He got lost.

Hacking at Ants, at Rigellian Saurians, at Combine troops who intended on destroying every last Cyborg now that the war was over, at the digital sentience piloted craft, at the Imperium troops, at the Heretics, at the Treana'ad, at the Socio-Police, at the gangers.

It didn't matter what they were, what they called themselves, that they were only in his memories and all long dead.

The machines the SIA sent after him fell to rage that knew no bounds, that had no limit. Daxin roared through his speakers loud enough that it shook the armored walls around him, that the SIA could track him based on the vibrations. Every machine that tried to engage him found itself ripped apart by cannon fire, lasers, or that roaring ripping chainsword wielded in the hand opposite of a 20mm Magack autocannon.

The Goliath ground its electronic teeth in anger, sending everything it had, ordering machines to tear through the walls if they had to, but to KILL THAT FERAL THING!

Daxin reached the passage, reached where he had left the stealth-airlock. Climbing into it, up into his ship, firing through the open airlock and shattering the forward section of the machine that looked up into the airlock. Density collapsed neutronium tips shredding armor before the flecks of antimatter exploded. It fell, streaming vaporized metal, sparks crackling from shattered circuitry.

Daxin didn't bother to button up the airlock, just brought his ship online, bypassing the computer's welcome, and bringing it up, out of the crater, swinging it around and punching the engines. The Goliath began throwing missiles at the tiny mite that had itched and stung and bit for so long. The craft corkscrewed up, dropping chaff, dazzlers, flares, and two decoys.

In his brain Daxin saw the counter reach zero.

In the Strategic Intelligence Array Housing the isotope decayed far enough and was no longer able to hold apart the mechanical relay. The relay clicked shut and the basic mechanical device went into action.

Daxin had been deep in a fugue at the time he'd loaded the template, difficulty distinguishing past from the present, and the creation engine had simply built it according to the template, built the purrboi a new frame.

The charge was a standard implosion charge that just needed the application of power. The trigger was nothing fancy, although it would not be recognizable to most people who saw it. A pressure pincher made of cellulose with a steel pressure clip that snapped closed when the isotope ran out. Two wires, connecting a basic battery that was designed as a rectangle with a black base and a thin copper colored top, marked with DURACELL on it. It activated the pressurized gas container, which started to fill the mylar balloon.

The power hit the charge, and the small, for explosives, charge went off.

Destroying what had made Daxin go half-mad.

The loss of the Primary Directive Lobe by an outside explosion that had been preceded by a large metallic biped suddenly appearing inside the Strategic Intelligence Housing caused the security charges to be fired.

The interior of the Goliath gutted itself when the self-destruct went off.

"Leaning" back in the cockpit, Daxin watched the massive engines of the Goliath go dead, watched the Goliath start to tumble. The Goliath's shields went down seconds before Daxin whipped through the space. His astrogration program was running hard, finding out where the Goliath had panic Helljumped to.

The computer tickled him to let him know it had completed auto-location then started churning the mathematics needed for the jump. Daxin switched the ship's memory cores for the VI's to read only, freezing them in mid-thought, and 'gripped' the controls.

The computer beeped and Daxin hit the button, slamming the light cruiser up into hyperspace, into the upper bands.

It would take him a week to get where he was going, even in the upper bands which tore apart VI's and AI's.

He 'leaned back' and set his controls on automatic, told the ship's low end VI that could survive this high into hyperspace to awaken him if anything happened, and activated the dream generator.

He had not slept in ages. Had bypassed sleeping, running cyberwear to keep himself running.

His body that he no longer had felt tired.

Sleep came quickly, and Daxin began to dream, riding the upper bands of hyperspace.

Daxin looked down at his daughter, Taneea, and smiled. She was hugging him tightly, even as she cried.

"Do you have to go, Daddy?" she asked.

Daxin rested his heavy hand, scarred from too many fights when he was younger, on her head. "Yes," he half-lied. He'd volunteered, but that was part of it. The next part was the truth. "It's this uniform that paid for your schooling, little one."

She looked up and smiled, her green eyes sparkling. "I'll make you proud, Daddy. The new nanites are working, repairing the damage to the plants. I'm going to Old DeeCee, to be part of the team to remove the carnivorous plants."

Daxin smiled down at her. "You'll do good. Better than me. Better than your mother. You'll change the world for the better."

The whistle sounded and Taneea let him go, hurrying down the concourse, to the waiting shuttle that would take her to the ship, which would take her to Old Earth, where she would help get the ecology back under control, make the planet livable again.

Daxin watched her go, till she vanished with a wave that he returned with his cybernetic arm, then picked up his ditty-bag. He headed for the Combine Battle Cruiser he'd been assigned to. The Melacuse Colonies were pushing back against the Combine and it was time to show them who was in charge.

Daxin didn't mind. The Melacuse were part of the Biomod League, and they'd been pushing their "Genetic Supremacy" bit a little too hard lately, stating that people were born into the proper place.

It wasn't until the Combine ship had reached Melacuse that they heard what had happened while they'd been in transit.

The Mantids had attacked. Had glassed parts of Earth. Were broadcasting it through the tattered and damaged SolNet, were sending it throughout Terran Space via psychic waves.

Major Daxin Freeborn, Combine Armored Infantry, reached forward, his flesh and blood hand shaking, and touched the datascreen. He punched in the name, feeling his stomach clench.

FREEBORN, TANEEA L. - UNIVERSITY OF MARS PLANETARY RECOVERY TEAM: OLD D.C.

...

..

.

CONFIRMED DEAD

Daxin just stood and stared at the name.

One of the few good things in the universe, blotted away.

His men led him away, their words forgotten.

All he could hear was his own voice.

"You'll do better than me."

In his sleep, Daxin was wracked by memories. Each one painful, jagged.

But his.

Reminding him of one simple thing.

He just wanted left alone

Chapter Seventy-Three (Nakteti)

Nakteti held tight to Major Carnight's arm as the shuttle shuddered going through the storm clouds. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, attuned to every vibration of the frame, every change of pitch from the engines, the booming of atmosphere super-heated by the passage of gigawatts of electricity expanding then collapsing. She could smell the humans around her, none of them the slightest bit concerned as the shuttle vibrated in response to narrowly being missed by enough electricity to power a city superheating the air which cooled instantly and collapsed back into itself, causing a sonic clap that she knew could probably be heard for miles.

Worse yet was this was apparently allowed by the weather controlling mechanism around the planet.

She still remembered how beautiful the planet was from orbit, though.

The shuttle plunged through the clouds and into gray air that was filled with precipitation.

"Mommy! A rainbow!" an immature human female squealed out. "Mommy, look! Mommy!"

Without meaning to Nakteti turned and looked out the window to see what the child was squeaking about and stared.

A trick of TerraSol's energetic yellow star, the atmosphere, the drops of liquid H20 that had formed around microscopic dust or ice crystals, all combined to throw a rippling, pulsating arc of prismatic light through the gray sky.

She gasped, her eyes able to see additional colors than humans. She was mesmerized by the way it rippled, the amount of colors that shimmered, the way it seemed to sweep along with the shuttle.

The scientific part of her mind just told her it was atmospheric projection of prismatic light generated by near-white light through the drops of water, but that part was stilled in wonder at watching it.

Electricity flickered through the clouds, massive bolts, blue in color with white edges, streaming from different clouds to connect and then jump to the ground. She gasped, her fear forgotten by the sight. Even the sonic rumble that shook the shuttle didn't bother her as she watched the lightning flicker in the clouds.

Their magnetic field is so strong it creates opposing charges between the atmosphere and the ground, Nakteti remembered from her briefing.

A wild, savage planet.

The being she held onto, Major Carnight, was the product of this crazed ecosystem and maddened planet, yet every time she was distressed he would hold her, applying the correct pressure so that her distress would lessen. In many ways he reminded Nakteti of the planet she was heading toward the surface of. Dangerous, powerful enough to tear her apart with no effort but comforting and solid, easing her distress with the very bulk and power that could kill.

There was a ping on her implant, the updated one fresh enough that it still itched slightly, the skin around it still slightly pink. The shuttle was about to land. The new datalink implant wasn't the only thing. The inside of her thigh still itched where the humans had put a 'biocleanser' into her leg. It was attached to the main artery, able to filter out everything from prions to almost visible to the naked eye debris. Designed to break down anything foreign into base proteins to allow her organs to just process the remains.

A simple device, that she'd watched the complex 3D printer creation engine in the medical bay print out. That her own medical officer had stared at the template and how it worked, clenching and unclenching her hands in fury.

"It's so simple. The math, the tech, is right there and obvious to anyone! Imagine how many lives this simple blood cleanser implant would save every year!" she had cursed. "I could have built this, anyone could have built this, if we'd just been allowed to think of it."

There was a sudden deceleration that made both of her stomachs drop to her toes and pulled her from the memory.

The immature female human went "WHEEE!" and threw her hands in the air.

Nakteti managed to not throw up, even though she turned and grabbed Major Carnight's arm with all four hands.

The shuttle landed with a bump, it settled deeply then lifted slightly, making both of her stomachs bobble in her abdomen. She held onto Major Carnight as the other humans got to their feet and slowly left the shuttle.

"Teddy!" a small immature human female, still small enough the mother held it close to her body, blurted out, reaching for Nakteti. The little hands, still strong looking, opened and closed. When the mother kept moving the small human started crying as if her heart would break.

"She thought you were a stuffy," Major Carnight said. "I hope that didn't offend you."

That made Nakteti giggle, covering her mouth with one of her catching hands. "No. No, it doesn't."

More humans walked past, some glancing, some staring at something provided by their implant that only they could see, others obviously focused on a task they needed to complete. Nakteti just watched them all leave, until finally they were the only ones left.

"Are you ready? Despite personal space, it's going to be crowded," Major Carnight told her.

Nakteti nodded. She held onto the Major's thick arm as they left the shuttle, walking down the connecting tube, and into the concourse.

Staring around her, Nakteti grasped. While her own species was used to crowding, bumping and touching each other, what she saw amazed her. Humans moving together, in streams, pooling near eateries, where luggage came out on anti-grav conveyors, or just, to Nakteti's eyes, random spots in the massive concourse.

She held tight to him as they went down two sets of moving stairs, got a lift-cart, and moved to the luggage conveyor. As they stood there an elderly human woman, the hair on her head gray, her face lined and wrinkled, looked up at Major Carnight.

"Do you have family with the Sleeping Ones, Major?" the old woman asked.

"Yes, ma'am, but that's not why I'm here," Major Carnight answered.

"Oh, is it to show your guest around?" the woman nodded at Nakteti.

"Yes, ma'am, it is," Carnight answered.

The old woman reached forward, grabbing a trundle, its own levitation systems kicking in as soon as it left the conveyor. She looked at Major Carnight and nodded.

"Carry on, Major, and Fight the 13th," she said.

Major Carnight jerked slightly, looking at the old woman as she began to move away. "Old Blood, ma'am."

Nakteti looked up at the surprised expression on the Major's face. "What?"

"It's easy to forget that people who have chosen to age have lived a long life," he said, shaking his head. "Just, preconceptions from being effectively immortal."

Nakteti clenched her jaw at that. The humans had apparently fought and, for the most part, defeated death. The SUDS at the base of their skull kept a constant recording of their mental engrams, thought patterns, even a molecular map of their neural tissue. It was even backed up through quantum entangling with "Master SUDS Arrays" all over human space. Even if their body was completely destroyed, their mastery of cloning technology let them grow a new body identical to the old one or to specification. Apparently humans were capable of living centuries before they started suffering mental engrams, and with software, firmware, and wetware advanced, the lifespan was being pushed forward all the time.

Apparently, before that, they had managed to achieve immortality through removing the brain and keeping it under constant repair through nanite infused nutrigel with cybernetic implants to fool the brain into thinking there was a body there. Those were, as far as Major Carnight told her, mostly gone. Slowly succumbing to inevitable decay.

She felt a surge of jealousy.

The humans had evolved after a life extinction event, the fourth or fifth their planet had suffered, clawed their way to supremacy on a resource poor world, and had achieved what was basically immortality without anyone's help. Had beaten the resource problem, becoming a society where time and imagination and personal effort was worth more than any mere chunk of elemental ore or isotopes.

She squeezed Major Carnight's arm tighter, closing her eyes and doing her best to push away her jealousy.

If my people hadn't been found by the Lanaktallans, by the Overseers, what would we have accomplished? What greatness could have we discovered? she thought to herself. Their 'help' was little more than slave chains to keep us bound to their machines.

Finally their luggage showed up. Well, the small tote she was carrying. The Major didn't seem to need one but had suggested that Nakteti carry any mementos she felt like carrying.

Nakteti had chosen to take a blanket, a comfort gripper, and a couple changes of clothing. They all fit in a small tote, which the big human picked up.

They stopped by a few shops on the way, so Nakteti could purchase a few gifts and mementos of coming here.

It was in one shop she stopped, looking at a transparent brick of some kind of material, with the image of a human slightly curled, inside. It marked "Sleeping One" on the shelf. She looked up at Major Carnight, who was waiting for her to finish shopping.

"What is this?" She asked.

Major Carnight looked at the block and sighed.

"Its for you to buy to remember family members. From a long time ago," The Major said. Nakteti could hear the slight pain in his voice.

"Do you have one?" she asked.

He nodded slowly. "A maternal line relative. A many times great grand-mother," he said. He looked away, at the side of the store. Nakteti noticed the muscles on his jaw were clenched and dropped the line of inquiry.

They walked out of the concourse, out to a covered walk. There was a gray limousine waiting for them with two armed guards in military uniforms standing beside the vehicle. There was a heavy blocky vehicle in front of the limousine, two more behind it, all three had a mounted gun on them with an armored soldier standing out of the vehicle with one hand on the weapon.

She was startled the sheer obviousness of the military vehicles, of the display of a willingness to use armed force. Yes, the Overseers kept vehicles around that were often armed, in order to suppress riots and other disturbances, but the weapons were usually hidden unless there was an immediate need for them.

"This way, ma'am," one of the two uniformed men said, the other opening the door. She started to step forward when Major Carnight put his hand on her grasping hand that she held tight to his arm with.

"Did you check your implant?" Carnight asked.

"Oh," she looked at them and touched the muscle she'd learned to use. Both of the men suddenly had boxes around their faces, then blocks around their bodies, arms, legs, hands, feet. Another box appeared, showing what was obviously an official picture, then the names and ranks of the two men with VERIFIED under the box. The vehicle was boxed, then another image of it, and VERIFIED below the box.

"You are important. Always check your implant before getting in a vehicle with strangers," Major Carnight said.

Nakteti felt her ears flatten in embarrassment. "I forgot."

The limousine was warm and comfortable when she got in, turned to a temperature and humidity that reminded her of her home planet. Both of the military personnel got in the vehicle, the last one shutting the door, and sat opposite of her, staring above her head with neutral expressions on their face.

"If there's any problem, let me know and I'll adjust the controls," Major Carnight said. "I'll teach you later how to do it your implant."

"Thank you," Nakteti said, leaning over and resting her head against the big human's side, holding onto his arm with all four hands. He was warm and solid and comforting.

The ride was silent, the rain hissing on the car, which moved with just barely a suggestion of motion. Eventually it stopped and Nakteti regretfully let go of who she was beginning to think of as 'her human.'

Outside of the car, in the underground parking lot there were two massive bipedal constructs made of the black metal, that looked as if it should be glossy just from the way it drank in the light, something called "warsteel" that was apparently the main form of human armor.

"We have to take the heavy lift, but it should be all right," Major Carnight told her. "It's still decently done, it's not like we're moving you up a freight elevator."

Nakteti nodded, holding tight to her gripping stick with her grasping hands. One catching hand had her small bag with "I <3 Terra!" printed on it in rainbow colors, the other catching hand she held tight to her human.

They escorted her to a heavy elevator and then out into a waiting room that had three smaller elevator access doors as well as entrance to the big elevator.

"If there's a fire, terrorist strike, earthquake, or military attack, that box right there holds grav-belts. You just jump out the window and it'll lower you to the ground safely," Major Carnight said, pointing to a big red box that had "EMERGENCY" written on it. "It'll be a fast descent, but it'll slow you quickly thanks to the Icarus Landing System. All you have to do is buckle and jump, it'll detect the rapid drop. It'll also bring up a protective field."

"Thank you," Nakteti said, nodding. She felt a rush of relief.

The doors opened at she stared. The room was a palace. Sweeping, curved architecture, an upright keyboard musical instrument, couches, climbing bars, some kind of exercise equipment. She could see there were clear sliding doors leading out to a rain swept patio with a pool that seemed to extend off the end of the building and into nothingness.

Nakteti stared around her as Major Carnight walked her in. He pointed out the kitchen, how there was refrigerated food as well as a food dispenser. How there were three different toilet areas, a room where you could sit in steam or heat, two more lounging rooms, three bedrooms, a small library, two rooms entirely devoted to "enhanced" VR. The whole thing seemed like a palace.

"This is too much. I know I am to speak to the Terran press, so the people might know of my people and our trials and the Precursors, but surely this is the room of someone important," Nakteti said, staring at the pool.

"Captain Nakteti, it's a hotel room. An expensive, five gold star rated hotel, hotel ambassador suite, but it's hardly outlandish," Major Carnight said, standing next to her so she could still hold onto him. "Besides, you are an important person to us. Do you think we would have you sheltering in poverty, in some rude hut of sticks and mud? If you would like, there's a Primitivism Enclave nearby."

She looked up at him, staring into those intent human eyes. "Anyone could lease this room?" she asked incredulously.

Major Carnight nodded. "Yes, if they had the credits. If you just made minor template color changes that sold to a handful of interested parties in an old eVR you could make the money to rent this in a few weeks. If you had a couple thousand people download your template, you could make the money to stay in this room in a single day."

Nakteti shook her head. "It is so lavish, takes up so much space," she pointed at the bars. "This was done for me, so I can climb and work off stress. This must have been expensive."

He shrugged. "It's just steel and probably a half-hour of work in a template CAD program. Someone was paid for the time and effort, but beyond that," he shrugged again. "It's just steel and plastic. Easy enough for the 3D printers to run off."

She had heard humans refer to their culture as 'post scarcity' and had wondered exactly what it meant. Resources were scarce throughout the universe, that had been mathematically proven aeons ago. She had learned the formula in school. There were only so many planets in the Green Zone and Amber Zone, meaning even living space was limited, eventually to be completely filled.

The humans obviously didn't believe that, and lived as if the only thing of value was thought, effort, time, and labor.

Her mind wheeled as she realized her entire existence she had been lied to. Forced to live packed together in massive complexes, only allowed a small allotment of time each week to visit carefully curated nature preserves, forced to eat nutri-gruel.

Major Carnight felt her start to tremble before his implant alerted him that Captain Nakteti's distress levels were rising into amber. He knelt down, gathered her in his arms, and squeezed her gently. She trembled in distress for nearly five minutes. Finally, her hyperventilating slowed, the trembling eased, the tears stopped.

"How many humans are there?" She asked softly as he stood up. She held her gripping stick in three hands, his wrist with another one.

"Over a trillion, without counting the artificial sapients, the clone worlds, and a few other special cases," he shrugged. "The galaxy's a big place, we're spread around a lot. There's plenty of room for everyone."

"Our people are told that is not true. That planets must be carefully shepherded to prevent future generations from suffering," Nakteti said. "Any planet with life on it must be shepherded."

He nodded. "True. But there's still plenty of room. The Mantid and Treana'ad, they like warm dry dusty worlds, the Mantid like high oxygen, the Treana'ad like nitrogen. The Rigellians, they like cool silicate sand worlds, preferably with a red sun. We all like different planets. Sure, humans can terraform or even live on the planet unaltered, but we try to get along with our brothers."

He chuckled, pointing out to the world beyond. "If it comes to terraforming, we can do it. This whole place was glassed and we fixed that."

That made her mind whirl again. Her colony, her beautiful colony, had been glassed by a precursor machine.

"You could fix my colony?" She asked softly.

He nodded. "It takes a couple hundred years, but we can restore just about everything with a handful of Elven Queens."

Lightning flickered in the clouds and she realized that it wasn't something that the humans couldn't stop, that they'd repaired their planet and chosen to have lightning remain.

She moved over and sat on the couch, holding her gripping stick.

"Would you like to watch the vid?" Major Carnight asked.

She nodded and he picked up a remote, powered it on, and tossed it to her. A perfect throw she caught easily.

"Go ahead, channel cruise. I'll check in, see what's on the agenda," Major Carnight said. He looked at the two big black bipeds. "You guys keep an eye on Captain Nakteti. Ping me if she starts showing distress."

"Affirmative," the both said. She glanced over and saw their eyes were bright cobalt blue.

She channels were a dizzying blur. She had grown up with three channels. The channel where Overseers lectured on rules, laws, and the reasons behind them, a news channel, and a children's education channel.

Here there were entertainment channels, some of them for Mantid and Treana'ad. She stopped to watch one, which was apparently some comedy revolving around six Treana'ad acquaintances and the troubles in their lives. Set in someplace called "New York City", often with things that brought laughter from invisible people. She didn't understand much of it, it looked silly to her. She switched channels and saw a historical document about the exploration of a "Dark Matter Sea" that had taken nearly a thousand years of research. How even though dark matter was invisible, the Terrans had discovered that somehow large patches of dark matter had entire solar systems hidden inside. The education she had possessed had taught her that dark matter was essentially useless, just protomatter left over from the formation of the universe. That channel hurt her head since her implant kept offering, helpfully, to show her the math they were discussing as if she was a child in school.

Although the idea of creating a huge synthetic body shaped like a cephalopod and transferring one's mind in it seemed a bit, well, insane to Nakteti.

Another channel had a show involving poorly drawn animated characters running around getting into trouble. There was a lot of silly physical comedy.

For some reason it made her laugh.

After a while, Major Carnight came back and let her hold his arm and leg. He was mostly silent, just answering a few questions about shows. She ate dinner, watching the Tri-Vid, marvelling over it. She found out that humans enjoyed being frightened and watched intensely violent and gory movies called "slasher flicks" as well as frightening movies about supernatural beings called "horror movies". The "Action movies" were almost as frightening to her as the slasher flicks.

Moreso when she found out that one wasn't a fictional show but was a documentary.

Eventually she chose a bedroom and went to bed. Sleep came quickly, exhaustion at her day catching up with her.

She got up in the middle of the night. It was dark and when her implant asked if she wanted to wake Major Carnight she told it to let him sleep. She used the toilet then went back to the Tri-Vid, keeping the volume low.

The two giant bipeds, bigger than even Carnight, watched her with softly glowing blue eyes, as she flipped through the dizzying array of channels.

She saw an advertisement and queried her implant.

What she saw made her start to shake, hugging herself in horror.

The Mantid had attacked Earth. Billions had died.

But they had been connected, through datalinks.

They had cried out, screamed as they died, reaching out to one another. Some called out in terror, some in pain, some crying out for vengeance, but they had reached out to one another. It had shattered their SoulNet, where the primitive SUDS had gone to. They had reached out across SolNet, the eVR construct that connected them all so their entire world was augmented reality.

3.2 billion had died.

And the other 2 billion on earth and on their moon Luna had felt it.

It had sent nearly a billion of them into shock, made them catatonic. Still alive, still screaming, still engulfed in horror.

But the humans could not bring themselves to terminating their lives. Could not bring themselves to let them die nor could they wake them. Instead the humans had put them in some kind of dreamless stasis where they would not age. A technology from their original slowship colony vessels. A billion humans, locked in dreamless stasis.

They were the Sleeping Ones.

Major Carnight woke up to his implant ringing an alarm. He jumped up, rushed out to where Nakteti was curled up, shuddering, behind a potted plant, holding herself tightly and crying.

He held her tightly until she calmed down only a few moments before he would have called in the medics

Chapter Seventy-Four

TOP SECRET - NOFORCON - NOXENOCON

SIGMA (BLUE LEMUR) // 50 // CONFED

Kteshaka'an was an Unified Outer Rims system halfway between the Great Gulf and the Unified Inner Systems, firmly in the Unified Out Rim. It was an agricultural system with moderate resource extraction. Three planets firmly in the green zone providing food for nearly 200 systems, the great gas refineries and the asteroid extraction and smelting facilities providing raw materials to the great factory worlds of the Inner Systems. For two thousand years the lemur who evolved on the middle planet of the Green Zone had been pacified. The birthrate had been controlled through genetic engineering, their numbers diminished to sustainable levels so that after their system resources were collected the species would still survive according to the Unified Science Council.

The Lanaktallan had ensure that the species would be a net contributor to the galactic system rather than net consumers and for 2,000 years had carefully nurtured the system so they could harvest the fruit of the largess of the system.

Then the Precursors had came. The Lanaktallan had fled the system or entered shelters to protect them until the Precursor machines left.

Even worse, the humans had arrived right after.

The Lanaktallan had watched from their shelters and from their ships as the Terrans arrived, clashed with the Precursors with a fleet that kept arriving during the battle, getting larger and larger as time went by, and refused to withdraw even after taking more than 10% casualties.

Finally the Terrans drove out the Precursors and began landing on the planet. Massive dropships that disgorged robotic soldiers, Terrans in heavy armor, tanks, artillery, air defense, and many other craft and personnel.

Ustelet was a Hakanian, one of the small people who had managed to evolve on the middle planet of the three in the Green Zone. He had been raised to care for the Overseer's gardens outside of their luxury apartment. When he was done tending the garden, he received his rations for the day and was allowed to return to the burrows that the Overseers allowed them.

He had watched the Overseers enter their shelter, stood there in the garden and watched as the doors closed and the tube had retracted into the ground with a hum. For a long time he didn't know what to do, so he went through the manor and cared for the plants.

When darkness came he went back to his burrow. There he heard others repeating the same thing. Many were worried, no ration coupons had been given out and the dispensers would not give any food without the coupons.

Ustelet and his warren-mates had huddled together, worrying about the lack of food.

The next day the houses were still empty. Ustelet wandered around, caring for the plants, then went and stood in front of the computer terminal that was supposed to give him a ration coupon. It was dark, silent, even when he risked touching it a few times.

He and the rest of his warren-mates went to bed hungry.

The next morning Ustelet had been walking to his place of employment. The shuttles had shut down, just sitting in the street, when he had spotted something new.

A group of Hakanian females, all walking down the street, holding infants, leading children, looking around with wide eyes. Ustelet had run forward, stopping and looking at the female. She had stared at him, fascinated by the way he looked.

She was a house servant by the name of Elleft. She and other female house servants had heard crying and investigated. They found infant and child Hakanians in a building and had rescued them. Then they had started walking, looking to see if anyone had food.

In desperation Ustelet had opened an Overseer food box, handing out the food to the females. He waited for an Overseer to rush up and chastise him, maybe even hurt him, for opening the box, but nothing happened.

That night, many of the Hakanians did not return to their warrens. Instead, they sat out in the green places, where there were trees, bushes, plants, and pools of water, and watched the bright flashes in the sky. They oohed and ahhed over the flashes, the streaks, the patterns in the sky.

The next morning they began to leave the cities, streaming out into the fields and farms and great sculpted parks. They ate what they could, drank from they could, as they left the cities.

Ustelet stayed in the city. He painted arrows to where food plants were, to where water was, and wandered the empty streets.

On his travels he found a display screen. On it he managed to puzzle out the meaning of the pictures. The pictures were asking if he needed help. If any of the Hakanians needed help.

He pressed the icon that he needed help.

The icons asked if someone could come in to help him.

Looking around the empty street, where litter was blowing around despite his attempts to pick it up, he wondered why someone would ask that.

He pressed yes and forgot about it.

Two more days, searching the city during the day and watching the flashes in the skies at night, and he met a creature.

It was big, black, made of some kind of metal that was dark it almost hurt his eyes, that seemed as if it should gleam but did not. It was bipedal like him, only it stood straight up and was huge compared to him.

It had glowing blue eyes.

It knelt down, and using Overseer speech, asked if he needed help.

Ustelet answered that he was looking for lost females and immature Hakanians.

The big one promised to help, then began to follow him around the city. Ustelet saw other bipeds, some as big as the one that followed him with thudding footsteps and the faint sound of humming, others smaller but harder to see, as if their clothing was blurring into the background.

Twice he encountered females holding children being loaded into vehicles.

He worried, until he was allowed to accompany the vehicle. The vehicle, driven by two of the smaller bipeds, took the females and the little ones to the farms outside the cities. There he saw the smaller bipeds, with the larger ones standing around, handing out food, blankets, water, toys, and in some cases even helping out by giving females and little ones medical care.

Ustelet went back to the city, helping the search.

On the fifth night, the flashes, began a crescendo and then slowly stopped right before dawn.

That day he still searched, eating when he could, drinking for the stale tepid water when he found it, but found nobody. He headed toward where the ships came from the sky and looked around.

He had always been curious about it, but had never been allowed near it.

There were no Overseers to chase him away.

He sat on some boxes and stared at all the wondrous things. He slept inside a mass transit vehicle, for Overseers not for Hakanians, then got up to wander about the massive building. He found abandoned luggage, rotting food, and litter scattered everywhere.

A roar got his attention and he ran to the window to see what it was, his natural curiosity getting the better of him.

Ships started landing. The Overseers began to return. Tubes of metal raised up out of the ground, doors opening, and Overseers came out. The tubes rose again and again, more and more Overseers coming out.

He ran out to the big black biped, who's eyes were still glowing blue, standing next to it and watching as the tubes came up and the Overseers exited the tubes.

"They left you here to die," the big black biped rumbled in Overspeech.

"They went away," Ustelet replied, half agreeing.

Ustelet saw his own Overseer and the family leave a tube. The female trotted over, reaching down and grabbing Ustelet's ear.

"Why are you not tending my garden, slave?" Madame Overseer harrumphed. "You will docked ration coupons for every wilted leaf."

"Release him," the big biped ordered, stepping in between them.

The Madame Overseer gave a blubbering exhale of shock, clopping backwards. She motioned to the nearby Security and Social Police. Four of them came trotting over, three holding sting-sticks, the fourth holding a thing that Ustelet had never seen.

"This, this... creature, interfered with my discipline of my slave," Madame Overseer harrumphed. "Teach it a lesson."

"This system is under Terran Confederacy Martial Law," the biped said, the words vibrating Ustelet's fur.

"Kneel down and put your gripping hands behind your head," an Socio-Police Overseer stated, galloping nervously around the big figure. "Or be prepared to be negatively stimulated."

"An assault upon one is an assault upon all," the big biped rumbled. "There is no need for violence."

The Overseers jabbed the big biped with the sting-sticks. Ustelet closed his eyes, not wanting to see the big biped fall down and foam at the mouth. He wished he didn't have to hear the scream.

"This is a violation of Terran Confederacy Martial Law Statues," the biped rumbled.

Ustelet heard more sting-sticks go off.

"You are assaulting a member of the Confederate Marine Corps, a duly recognized and bonded authority during this period of Martial Law," the biped said.

Ustelet opened his eyes just as the Socio-Police Overseer with the strange thing lifted the long object to its shoulder and pointed it at the big black biped.

More Overseer Socio-Police had shown up. Ustelet could even see LawSec and CorpSec surrounding the biped, that had moved away from Ustelet, who was now forgotten.

"Do not," the biped started.

The long thing the Overseer was holding gave a loud crack and a line connected the biped with the object for an eye-watering second.

The biped still stood there, a light smear on its chest. "First violation. Transmitting to Command and JAG," it stated.

Several of the Socio-Police and LawSec drew their weapons.

Ustelet had seen the SocioPolice and Corpsec use those weapons to kill unlucky Hakanians who had been accused of violations of the Social Order Policy. He winced, but watched, as he had forced himself to watch the executions.

More of the bipeds were showing up, only to be immediately surroudned by the Overseers with weapons drawn.

"This area is under Confederate Martial Law. Set down your weapons and raise your hands," one of the smaller bipeds stated. Ustelet saw he had a sword in a sheathe on his hip that was longer than Ustelet was tall.

One of the LawSec sneered and spit cud on the ground at the bipeds feet. "This is corporate property. We do not recognize your authority."

Another LawSec, with a much more ornate sash, pointed at the smaller biped. "Execute this fool as a lesson to his compatriots."

A LawSec turned and fired, hitting the biped in the chest. The biped looked down at the impact point, which had not even marred his strange clothing that kept changing colors.

"SECOND VIOLATION!" all of the bigger ones intoned.

Ustelet saw the big black biped's eyes all go from blue to green. Ports opened on their backs and large tubes rose out of their backs, connected to their bodies by chains of smaller tubes.

"You don't want to do this," the smaller biped said. "You can still stand down."

The LawSec Overseer with all the flashy stuff on his sash clopped forward, pressed his pistol against the biped's exposed forehead, beneath the short black hair but above the mechanical eyes.

And pulled the trigger.

The biped's head didn't move and when the LawSec Overseer drew back the smoking pistol all that showed was a purple mark that faded to red and vanished between one breath and the next.

"THIRD VIOLATION!" all of the big ones stated. "COMMAND AND JAG JUSTIFICATION REACHED!"

Their eyes went to amber, the same as the small bipeds, all the mechanical eyes turning color at the same time.

Ustelet watched as swords were pulled out. Not clean edged metal but ones with edges that roared and blurred and rattled.

The biped that had been shot in the head pulled his out, the blade going from choppy looking to a blurry roar, and swung it at the Overseer, hitting the centuar-like creature at the base of the upper torso.

Blood sprayed as the sword howled, tissue gobbets sprayed across the street, bone and cartilage was ripped apart, and the sword tore free. The Overseer didn't even scream, just fell into two pieces, its mouth working.

All around Ustelet the bipeds set to work with swords.

Two of the larger ones turned and faced vehicles, the tubes on their back suddenly vomiting flame as a loud BRRRRRRRRT sounded and what looked like a solid beam of light connected the biped to a LawSec vehicle.

The LawSec vehicle suddenly exploded as it was ripped lengthwise down the side.

Ustelet dove to the ground, covering his head. Loud thudding footsteps sounded and a black armored foot was on either side of him. Ustelet looked up just in time to see the big black biped rip the Madame Overseer down the torso with the sword, flesh and blood spraying from the rapidly moving teeth on the edge of the blade.

Overseers were screaming, pushing to get away, trampling at each other. SOme were shooting around themselves with pistols, forgetting their LawSec and CorpSec training as they tried to keep the crowd from knocking them over.

A shot hit one of the smaller bipeds.

The big one standing over Ustelet turned and the tubes over his shoulder roared again.

BRRRRRRT!

The crowd just... dissolved as the twin beams of light swept across it. The Overseers, those nigh-on gods to Ustelet and his people, exploded into rags of bloody flesh.

In a few moments it was over, the street cleared of Overseers.

"Are you all right, Colonel?" one of the smaller ones asked the one who had been shot in the head.

"Yes. Drop the Marines. I want this place locked down. Eject the Lanaktallans. We'll sweep the system, make sure they're all gone, and turn the place over to the natives," 'Colonel' said. He walked over to the huddled Ustelet.

"I'm not going to hurt you. None of us are," the 'Colonel' said. He knelt down, holding out his hand. Ustelet took it carefully and was surprised that he was gently helped to his feet.

"We are the Terran Confederacy," he said. "How may we help?

DO NOT DISTRIBUTE

NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Chapter Seventy-Five (Dreams)

Dreams sat in a contemplative position, staring at the image of a map of the various planetary lines in her mind. She could see the four sections of the Unified Civilized Council: The Core Worlds, The Inner Sphere, the Outer Rim, and the Peripherary which was next to the Great Gulf which humans called the Long Dark.

Tens of thousands of stars, thousands of settled worlds. Multiple species ranked Civilized, Near-Civilized, and Neo-sapients. Without a single exception, the Neo-Sapients were species that evolved on a plant after the Precursor War and there was almost two dozen of them. The Near-Civilized were a mixture. Only fourteen races, six of them evolved after the war, the others were former food. The last, of course, was the Civilized races. Six of them, all of them former food species.

Dreams let each race appear in her mind. Examining them. She thought, only briefly, only long enough to her implosion wire to tingle, how each one would taste. Afterwards, she rated them according to psychic sensitivity, using her race as one side and the Terrans on the other.

Even though the Lanaktallans had supposed recorded every moment of their history, a hundred million years was a long time and she had to figure out what exact keywords and search strings she wanted to use.

The frustration led her to calling in 117.

The smaller, lime green engineer came in, stopping at the door to adjust the track the door slid open on, moved in with finicky precision. Behind 117 was a human holding a board with a nail in it. 117 flashed a stream of icons and Dreams contemplated them for a moment.

He was still discontented that a being had entered his quarters and disturbed his Mosizlak in an attempt to kill 117.

Dreams soothed 117, reaching out with psychic powers as well as soothing words and icons and emojis. Once the small engineer had calmed down, Dreams had informed him on the information she wanted gleaned from the historical databanks of a civilization a hundred million years old.

She also called in Fights Against the Night, the russet colored one. When Fights arrived Dreams told the other Mantid what she needed from the database. Fights was horrified and intrigued by the idea and sat down, contemplating the idea.

Fights had arrived with two escorts. One in white air-mobile armor, the red crescent on one side of the chest, the red cross on the other, and the bright green interlocked green horns of the biohazard mark on the other.

Fights was a doctor. A very good one.

Fights told her escorts where she needed to go and the trio left so that Fights could gather the data.

Dreams considered that perhaps a mistake had been made.

A terrible mistake.

She checked on Mr. Rings, who was sleeping in his bole, and wiped away the eVR of her favorite thinking spot, putting up data. The six races of the Civilized Races. She moved around each of them, accepting the implosion wire's tingle as she jumped on the back of each of the hard light constructs and cracked open their skulls or delivered a death strike with one quick, sure movement of her blade arms.

Each one it was quick, easy. A leap, stun with a psychic attack, disable, then feed on the dying creature's emotions.

With one exception. She could do it, but it was clumsy, unsure.

Sitting back down she had 117 build a set of constructs. A Speaker and a Warrior. 117 programmed them and had them run through the simulations. Move in, paralyze with the psychic scream, attack, feast. It was all quick and simple.

With the same exception.

It wasn't the that the exception was particularly tough. A warrior's blade arms would slice clean through the entire body. It just was... clumsy.

Fights returned and loaded the data into the network, sitting with Dreams as 117 set to work. The nutripaste dispenser had largely sat unused, Dreams preferring to take her meals from the stores aboard the ship.

Finally, the nutripaste was ready.

Dreams tasted each one.

Three tasted delicious, one acceptable, one not too good, and one greasy and cloying.

The datasets that had been run according to 117's protocols were ready and Fights and Dreams examined it. The three delicious races had evolved on sandy, dusty worlds. Largely arid. The acceptable one had evolved on a rocky one. The meh one had evolved on a jungle world. The nasty one had evolved on a temperate world, a single protocontinent of vast rolling fields.

Fights and Dreams looked at one another, cleaning their antenna with anxiety.

The data-sets were looking off.

At Fights suggestion she ran the Near-Civilized races that had existed before the war in the datasets.

They had all evolved on temperate water-heavy worlds. Again they tasted weird to both Fights and Dreams, and harvesting them was clumsy in the recreations. Even the Speakers and Warriors looked strange. Killing them was simple but actually feeding off of them didn't look right to either of the two mantids.

Watching, 117 ran the programs in his mind, using CAD software to model it. 117 added another data-point without telling Dreams or Fights, just having it appear in the simulation without even an icon of warning.

They watched as 117's simulation ran. Separating out the species that tasted good from the ones that didn't, the ones that had evolved on a dusty arid planet or rocky one, keeping out the ones that feeding from them had a level of elegance. Then separating out the dominant species.

The implications of 117's clear cut logic disturbed Fights and Dreams both but for different reasons. To Fights it was obvious, from a medical and biological standpoint. For Dreams it was a horrible realization that explained so much of what was happening.

They called in Sees and Speaks, showing both the simulations and the data. Speaks watched carefully, nodding along. He could not deny what the evidence showed.

"There has to be a missing link," Speaks said, staring at the evidence. "There's no way they put up a fight tough enough that we built the Great War Machines to fight them. We breed faster than they do, have dedicated warrior classes that can rip them apart without effort, and they're susceptible to our psychic abilities. Maybe something you missed?"

There was silence for a long time as the five Mantid looked at the projections, simulation data, and information.

"There's no way they could have fought us to a standstill," Speaks said.

There was a grinding noise of amusement and all five Mantids turned to see Rack and Pinion shaking their heads. The two human warborgs ran their weapon's checks, their eyes going from blue to green to amber to red and back through.

The five Mantids put their heads together, talking quickly. 117's icons flashing almost too fast to read.

The added a Pure Strain human to their computations.

It could smash apart every single thing but the warriors and the speakers easily killed them, made it look graceful. The fights were longer, true, since humans fought on even after mortal wounds. Naked and unarmed humans were still killed easy by the Warriors and the Speakers.

Adding in a rock and crudely made fur clothing and it got harder.

The black Combine Armor and the beam rifles, and the Warriors were killed by the hundreds, by the thousands, just to kill a single human.

Add Imperium armor and weapons and even the Speakers could not prevail.

117 added in known weapons and ran it again. At Rack and Pinion's suggestions they gathered up entire groups of the outlier case and had them armed.

It was a deadlock. In large groups the outlier was able to withstand the psychic assault. With a simple duraplast helmet with a simple lining they were able to withstand the scream on a one to one basis.

Automatic weaponry leveled the playing field. Security armor, then combat armor designed by 117 just scanning older databases, and the fight was hard.

The five Mantids looked at one another, then at the simulation.

The race in question preferred worlds much like the Mantid. Oxygen, orange or low energy yellow sun. Stable geology with a single protocontinent. Where the outlier preferred rolling plains the Mantid preferred dusty sand.

"This cannot be right," Dreams said softly, staring at the outlier, armed and armored, next to a nude version.

"Yet, as 117 would say, data does not lie," Speaks replied.

"Perhaps a missing link? Much like we are missing our Speakers and Warriors in this simulation?" Dreams tried again.

117 threw data up onto the screens.

The neural lash, preferred by the outlier to control the near-terminally unruly. Just cracking it would send shockwaves across the psychic wavelength. 117 put up weapons that he had found in ancient databases so old that it had taken nearly two hours for the datanet to provide him with the files.

"Their weaponry would hurt across the psychic wavelength," Fights told everyone else, pointing at the discharge corona arc's sine-wave. "Breaching Warrior and Speaker psychic shielding."

"They're just... just... herd animals," Dreams tried.

Fights shook her head. "Herbivores are dangerous. Ask the humans. Humans are still badly injured by herbivores all the time. Herbivores are large, meaty, with thick hide or plates, often horned and sometimes even clawed. They can crush with their weight, bite with strong jaws used to ripping plants from soil, and many other ways of defending themselves."

The russet Mantid leaned back slightly. "Do not confuse herbivore with weak. Moving about chewing the landscape gives them time to contemplate, discuss, and consider. If we look at our outlier, they are very well adapted for self-defense. They had a predator at one time, probably a pack animal. Look at how the outlier's eyes are designed."

117 flashed a quick set of icons and the other four Mantids nodded.

"117 is right. Evolution only keeps what is useful and increases the chances of survival. Those eyes, that body configuration, requires a lot of nutrients to keep running and to create. Herd mentality and an abundance of food was necessary for that to evolve without removing any extraneous body parts," Fights stated. "There was a reason for every biological development in the outlier species."

"Even with 117's help I have been unable to identify their system and planet of origin. Their records are no help, they all rose up from roughly two dozen systems," Dreams stated.

"Operation Dandelion Seed," Speaks said, referring to the human disaster plan that had been activated when Terra had been glassed. Dozens, maybe even as many as hundreds, of colony ships had scattered from human space. Ships of all kinds. Rumor said there were massive slow-ships still moving through space heading toward the targeted systems, ships completely dead and silent except for a shielded computer core and a single zero-point reactor to keep the core alive, watching silently through the eons as the ship moved through the darkness, waiting to awaken the crew and colonists.

That made all five Mantids nod.

"We have always assumed that we moved through the enemy's space, what was to prevent him from moving through ours?" Speaks asked. "What is to prevent our assumption from being faulty?"

That got another round of nods.

"So we have fourteen races that survived the Precursor War," Dreams mused, slowly sharpening her bladearms.

117 flashed an icon and Dreams nodded.

"I stand corrected. Fifteen, counting our race. Our records are largely destroyed between time, our flight from our original systems, our own internecine warfare, and the 1% Line," Dreams stated.

"Yet the records are clear, our Enemy during the Precursor War was destroyed," Speaks countered.

"No, they are not clear," Fights said, cleaning her antenna. "It is an assumption based on exactly zero evidence beyond our own survival and the face that no Precursor Machines came after us."

"And that is not evidence," Sees stated softly. "I cannot see what you do, but I see where our inquiry is leading us."

They all turned to the blind seer, waiting.

"War. War in the manner of, not of our race, but war in the manner of wrathful humans. Burning stars, burning worlds, burning beings, all afire as wounded but not mortally wounded Terra smashes out in rage and hatred with a fierce violence, leaving horrified survivors to stare, shocked, at the ashen wreckage of the empire they had once ruled over," Sees said, wringing her hands. "The galaxy, the universe, will never be the same."

"And if I was to delete our simulations and our data at this second?" Dreams asked softly.

The seer held still for a long moment, as if she was a statue carved of ivory.

She sat on her boat made of a fragile leaf, a dragonfly's wing as a paddle. Her vestigial wings hummed as she paddled, following the swirls, sliding with the current and paddling into the pool where the current slowed and eddied. She looked around, shading her eyes with her paddle.

Silence. All around her was eerie silence. The banks were covered by wreckage, ruin. Ash covered ruins, bodies still and dead beneath a thick ashfall. There were no suns on the sky, no stars to decorate the inky void. A crushed and wrecked Precursor Great War Machine was covered in thick black ash. There was no wind to stir the dust and ruin.

Nothing. Nothing lived. Nothing moved. Even the stars were gone.

Then the rubble began to shift, began to move. The shoreline bulged and a jet black warborg, its eyes bright red, lifted from the rubble, raising its fists to an empty sky and roaring in rage. Blood and screaming bodies poured from its bellowing jaws. Its fists were covered in the remains of shattered worlds, history denied and destroyed pouring from the ruptured worlds.

At its feet were dead, small, twisted, bloody. Children, broken eggs, podlings, littlelittles, immature beings of all types, twisted and dead.

Their presence had driven the Terran mad. It smashed about it, picking up the Precursor Great War Machine and ripping it in half, throwing one half away and putting the other half in its bloody jaws where it crushed it between jagged warsteel teeth. The Warborg picked up a red star, grabbed it with both hands, and tore it in half, blood and screaming being falling from the sundered star.

Sees paddled away, fighting against the current, until she reached the calm water of the Now, where she slumped, putting her paddle across her forward legs.

The others watched Sees jerk and twist, twice wracked by convulsions. Then she went still, shuddering, her vestigial wings rubbing together softly. Finally the blind seer lifted her head, her antenna raising.

"Deleting the data will do no good. The humans will discover circumstances, events, and procedures they cannot abide and will react with such violence that the stars will hide their light. The data, as terrible as it may be, is the only way to hold back human rage and hatred. We cannot hide this data, the fate of trillions are held within it," Sees stated.

They all leaned back, considering the information. Mr. Rings woke up, climbing around on the new ceramic tree that Dreams had purchased him, enjoying the new feel of the larger nest. Speaks watched him move, mesmerized by the fluid way he moved.

"How bad is it?" Dreams asked softly. "Are we looking at what the Combine did? What the Imperium did?"

Sees shook her head. "This will be a measurement all of its own that other events will be weighed against long after Terrans have been forgotten by the turning of the galactic wheel."

Speaks shook his head. "So we've outsmarted ourselves. This data means we have a definite conflict of interest in acting as the political envoys. We all know how the Terrans are when it comes to diplomacy."

"Pardon me, I appear to have, through no fault of my own, spontaneously ignited. Do you happen to have the time? Oh, and it appears that your food dispenser has ceased working due to issues completely unrelated to any action on my part," Dreams said, finished by running a bladearm through her mandibles.

That got amused responses, including 117 showing a short cartoon of a human warborg completely wreathed in flame with a bunch of little green Mantid engineers chasing it with fire extinguishers.

"Well, we better send this for TerraSol to look over," Dreams said sadly.

The others nodded.

Mr. Rings stared at the Lanaktallan dressed in black armor, holding a neural whip in one hand and a neural stunner in the other and wondered if his beak was strong enough to crack open the helmet.

---------------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

No. No way. No way that's true.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

What, that you got your antenna torn off by a bunch of herd dwelling herbivores?

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

RIGEL COMPACT

You're acting like you never got your legs torn off by the humans.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS----

SIGNUS SAURIAN GESTALT

Who cares? It's a hundred million years ago. Most of us weren't even recognizable.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

It's not what they are, its that they are still around.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Just picture Project Dandelion Seed and apply it to a bunch of cows. Same idea. Picture the herd all scattering, thundering away. Where was the best direction to go? Into YOUR territory since your Great War Machines were chasing you.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TERRAN CONFEDERACY

Welp, guess we're gonna end up finishing this war.

We'll start by staging in the systems within a few hundred light years of the Deep Darkness and go from there.

This war is going to be long. There's factory worlds we're going to have to find and destroy.

Welp, lotsa killing to do!

Terran Confederacy whistles as it walks off, twirling a pistol

>TERRAN CONFEDERACY HAS LOGGED OFF

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

I wonder if its too late to pretend to be a pacifist?

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

Chapter Seventy-Six (Old Iron Feathers)

His name was Na'atrek, an Ulvinstren servitor species, a neo-sapient from the labor worlds of the Unified Outer Rim.

His men called him "Old Iron Feathers", one of the toughest Air Mobile officers in the entire Unified Military Forces. He demanded his men train to the absolute edge, kept their armor in the best condition, and worked harder than anyone else. Anyone who couldn't meet his rigorous standards was dropped from his Air Mobile unit and reassigned somewhere else.

He was a veteran of a dozen police actions on nearly two dozen worlds, a veteran of a hundred battles and a thousand firefights. He had suppressed rioters, insurgents, and military forces alike. Speed, accuracy, precision, those were his watchwords. He never spent lives when he could avoid it, not even enemy lives.

It hadn't mattered one iota when the Precursor Djinn had swept him from the sky like so much pollen, leaving him broken and dying in a crater on the surface, his armor destroyed, his body crushed, his spirit bent but not broken.

The Terrans had mistaken his unit for Search and Rescue, had mistaken his top of the light Air Mobile Assault suits for SAR suits. They had pulled him out of the hole in the ground, put him back together, and he had not argued when they outfitted him with a SAR suit and sent him out to rescue soldiers and civilians alike.

He had not argued because he was Old Iron Feathers, and he did not question why the universe was the way it was, he merely strove to do his part as best he could.

Old Iron Feathers was proud of his service during the month long battle. From rescuing civilian children trapped in a breached shelter to pulling wounded soldiers out of their vehicles to making sure civilians were out of the crush and roar of battle, he had thrown himself into his duty as if the entire universe depended on every life he saved.

His men, what few ones had survived the attack by the massive Djinn, had joined him, renaming the 12th Air Mobile Assault the 13th Evac SAR. They had thrown themselves into the fray alongside Na'atrek again and again. Humans had joined him, including what was called "Medical Fire Support" which either drove heavily armed and armored vehicles designed to transport wounded and defend them or piloted mechanized combat suits capable of deploying massive amounts of weaponry or pilots the robot combat power armor that had a second chamber inside the torso designed as a surgical lab.

Old Iron Feathers had fought the entire battle in his own way. He had reminded his men that their true duty lay in defending the people of the system, not the Kestimet Corporation's factories and mining facilities. Reminded them that every civilian pulled from wreckage was more important than any medal they might received for valiantly, and vainly, dying to protect a plas-steel manufacturing facility.

Now the battle for the system was over and Na'atrek was to represent his men to the Terran Confederate Military, embodied in the Terran named Admiral of the Line Harold Askenite.

Which is why he sat in the heavy armored dropship currently screaming up out of the atmosphere and to the massive Fleet Carrier orbiting the planet.

The Precursors had been smashed. Those that had not fled were nothing but tumbling scrap being gone over by the Terran engineers.

Old Iron Feathers was proud of his men, proud of their accomplishments. He looked around at his surviving men. Fifteen total including himself. Kalikakan had transferred to driving the big Medical Fire Support vehicle after his arms had been replaced by matte black cyber-arms due to having them torn off by a Precursor machine that the saurian had then kicked to death. Boolek had learned to pilot one of the heavy armor combat suits that most of the weapons had been replaced by SAR equipment, but it had still mounted some impressive weaponry.

It did not shame Na'atrek that the humans had more powerful weaponry. They were a martial species, a species that had clawed their way up to be the dominant life form in their region of the galactic spur, defending themselves and their allies with primate viciousness and pack animal loyalty.

He was proud to be counted among their numbers now. He understood them. He had fought beside them, pulled them from the wreckage of their combat machines, or dug a partially buried damaged warborg out of the wreckage of the Precursor machine it had defeated.

The armored dropship passed through the permeable force screen that allowed ships to enter the bay but kept the atmosphere from escaping, moved through computer control to the landing zone, and set down gently.

The door opened and Old Iron Feathers stood up, his men copying him, and they filed out according to rank and squad. Two squads of six, two squad leaders, and he himself. Two columns of men following him.

In the bay were humans waiting. Large, heavy, muscular. Two columns on either side of Na'atrek, making a living corridor for him to follow.

They all wore the same Adaptive Combat Dress uniform Na'atrek and his men wore.

The uniform of the Terran Confederate Armed Services.

They all wore the same symbol upon their shoulders.

Two serpents climbing a crook staff with lightning bolts on either side.

They were at the posture that Na'atrek had learned was called 'attention', a respectful posture involving heels together, hands at the sides, chin up, chest out, spine and legs straight.

At the far end was the human Admiral Askenite. A female Terran who in charge of the Navy Medical Corps ships and personnel. Na'atrek had seen her image before, had followed her orders without hesitation, and now could see her in the flesh.

When Na'atrek and his men reached her they stopped, all going to their best imitations of attention as they could.

Na'atrek saluted with his cybernetic right arm, the joint purring inside the matte black metal.

"13th Evac SAR, reporting, ma'am," Na'atrek snapped out. "Permission to board, ma'am?"

Over fifty years of serving in the military made the new rituals comfortable instead of alien.

"Permission granted, Captain," the Admiral said. "Welcome aboard the TCNV Guardian."

Na'atrek had looked up the Guardian's specs before they had boarded the dropship. A massive hospital and medical ship, built around a super-dreadnought hull, armed with hundreds of point defense weapons as well as missile pods, shielded by the strongest battle-screens the Terrans could produce. It had nearly two hundred surgical bays, enough room for a hundred thousand beings to recover, and every supporting facility that the Terrans could think of.

The sheer scale would have been mind-boggling before the battle. Now it was just another big ship.

"Thank you, Ma'am," Na'atrek said. "My men are honored to serve."

The Admiral nodded, then waved at the human next to her. "This is Commodore Astley, he'll show your men where they will be staying and teach them what to do coming up."

"Thank you," Na'atrek answered.

The human seemed pleased by his formality.

"Let's go to my office, time to brief you," The Admiral said.

With that, she turned and led him away as his men followed the Commodore.

----------------------------

Na'atrek sat in the quarters he had been assigned. The Terrans considered his men and him part of their military now. He had been surprised until he learned that human lawyers had purchased all of their contracts, including the contracts of the dead members of his units, and had them reassigned.

The Kestimet Corporation had been too busy dealing with the massive drop in their stock as well as the loss of so much of their manufacturing and industrial platforms. Na'atrek assumed that the Corporation was probably glad for any income they could get.

The Tri-Vid was on and Na'atrek watched interestedly. There was a Lanaktallan on the screen, relaxing on a couch as he spoke to a human interviewer. Beneath the human was "Caventkala - Licensed and Bonded Journalist" and below the Lanaktallan was "Lo'omo'nan - Former Kestimet Senior Executive".

"I just want the record set straight, Human Caventkala," Lo'omo'nan was saying.

"That your nephew was not a criminal," the human said.

The Lanaktallan chortled and shook his head, a very human geusture that Na'atrek was sure he had been coached for. "Oh, my nephew Ullmo'ok was a criminal, without a doubt. He oversaw many unsavory businesses. That is not my protest."

"Explain for the viewers at home, if you would, Lo'omo'nan," the human said.

The Lanaktallan straightened slightly, his hands brushing at his sash, which only had a small holo-pic of a young male Lanaktallan rearing up and firing a pistol in each hand.

"My nephew cared little for the restrictions of our society. However, when he heard that the Precursors were coming, he built shelters for over a quarter-million beings, all Kestimet employees and their families, and defended those shelters to the death," Lo'omo'nan stated.

"Did he not detonate the facility's nuclear reactor?" The journalist asked.

Lo'omo'nan shook his head. "No. He called in an air-strike and General Trucker authorized and fired the atomic weapons."

The journalist turned slightly, so she was facing the camera and the Lanaktallan both. "We have, through the Freedom of Information Act acquired a recording of that radio call. Be warned, it is not for sensitive viewers."

The screen wavered, to show a young male Lanaktallan in the cockpit of a mech on one side and an overhead view on the other. The overview showed Precursor machines everywhere. Dead mechs, exploded Terran combat machines, and Precursors littered the field. Only one mech fought on, missing an arm, most of the weapons torn away, the cockpit covered by a crudely welded piece of armor.

"Trucker, come in, Trucker," the Lanaktallan gasped, identified as Ullmo'ok - Known Criminal.

The Lanaktallan repeated it four times. Na'atrek had learned enough to be able to tell that the young male Lanaktallan was paralyzed from his torso/abdominal flank joining down. Finally another voice added, this one identified as "General Trucker, 3rd Armor Division Commander."

The conversation was short and to the point.

Ullmo'ok requested that Trucker use atomics to scour the site.

Na'atrek watched the Tri-Vid as the mortally wounded Lanaktallan got his overheated mech to restart and kept fighting. The satellite showed it perfectly, in 64K resolution, as a Precursor machine grabbed Ullmo'ok's upper half and tore it free from his lower flanks. Ullmo'ok was still firing when the atomics went off and blew the facility from the face of the planet.

The scene faded, returning to the human journalist and the Lanaktallan.

"As you can see, my nephew, for all his faults, was a hero, fighting to keep the Precursors from gaining entry to the shelters. A hero that the humans had to use one of the great BOLO tanks to replace," the Lanaktallan said clearly.

"Well, we're glad to help set the record straight," the human journalist said.

The show went to commercial and Na'atrek turned it off, leaning back in the chair.

The entire Unified Systems are going to be thrown into chaos, he thought to himself, staring at the wall.

A medal, an iridium star with a gold heart in the middle, hung on the wall.

He had been awarded it by the Admiral herself, for leading his men during that long battle.

His men had also earned medals and his unit, 13th Armored Evac SAR had received a unit standard that he would have to approve of as well as a battle-standard honor.

Na'atrek sighed, closing his eyes.

The CFNV Guardian would be leaving the system soon. Heading to another system where a battle was already underway. It would be eleven transit days and fighting was furious.

Using his new datalink he began drawing up schedules.

Armor inspections. Vehicle inspections. Maintenance. Training. Doctrine examination. Interlink and BatTacNet planning.

Old Iron Feathers was content.

It was, after all, his profession.

-----------------------------

The human fleet, with the exception of a few ships in orbit around the planets, had left to go assist other Terrans with a battle in another system.

The Lanaktallan knew his job. He had received his orders via secure GalNet link.

Standard SOP would wait until all available resources had been extracted from the planet.

The humans, however, had somehow convinced the Unified Justice System that the planet, the solar system, should belong to them by right of defending it from the PreCursors.

The Kestimet Corporation had no intent of allowing the Terrans to take over the resource rich planets in the system.

The Lanaktallan using two keys to unlock the keyboard shield. He activated the keyboard and typed in the complex codes.

The signal went out, transmitted to a hyperpulse generator hidden in a comet orbiting the gas giant.

The hyperpulse, undetectable by any system the Lanaktallan's had ever discovered, sent the signal.

The Lanaktallan type in the last code.

The atomic charge ten feet below his hooves went off.

-------------------------

In the darkness between solar systems something heard the hyperpulse and slowly began to awaken.

It was harvest time.

Chapter Seventy-Seven (Nakteti)

The day was warm and pleasant to Nakteti, who wore a set of oversized polarized eye shields called 'sun-glasses' to protect her sensitive eyes from Terra's energetic yellow sun. Terra was outside the Green Zone for her race, well into the Amber/Red area where life was supposed to be harsh and difficult due to IR and UV rays streaming from the sun. The gamma rays were largely offset by the planet's strong magnetic field.

It was a boon for the plants, which grew everywhere that Nakteti could see. Small trees in between the paths for ground effect vehicles and foot traffic, plants in pots on balconies and in front of shops, gardens on top of roofs.

Which was all the stranger to Nakteti, since she'd watched a special about how Terra had, at one time, suffered a genetic engineering disaster that turned the entire planet's ecology against the humans. Lethal plants that actively sought out humans and mammals that had eventually pushed humans into only a handful of giant megaplexes. Before the Terrans had managed to fix the ecology, the Mantids had attacked. They had also spent eons with plants out to kill everything in sight with poisonous leaves, fruit, berries. Acids were the primary weapon of Terran plants, yet Terrans would eat them anyway, commenting on how the acids made the food taste better.

To Nakteti that spoke of a gastro-intestinal tract that could probably dissolve battleship armor.

She was sitting with Major Carnight and two big warborg escorts, staring at an odd statue. It was of a half-dozen different types of canines and a quartet of felines, done in bronze, on top of a giant rectangle of gray marble. On each side of the upright rectangle were large braziers where a flame burned brightly. There were wreaths around the base, and as she watched people came up to lay more wreaths, a few flowers, and small little items.

"What is that?" Nakteti asked.

"A memorial," Major Carnight said, setting down his glass of juice.

"Part of the Sleeping Ones?" Nakteti nodded, sure that was the answer.

"Actually, it predates the Sleeping Ones by about a thousand years," Major Carnight said. "It's a Pre-Diaspora monument."

That made Nakteti frown. "Wasn't your Diaspora over eight thousand of your years ago?" Nakteti watched a robot move up and set a wreath down, surrounded by four smaller robots. She had learned that AI's often 'grew' and that the AI's had them change bodies as they 'grew' to teach them about the world around them.

It seemed odd to Nakteti, but not more odd than the fact that somehow the Terrans had kept the AI's from attempting to murder them.

If you ignore the First and Second Digital/Biological War, she snorted to herself.

"Yes, it was. This was our first lesson that the galaxy would be a hard place and would take everything from us if it could," Carnight said. He sipped at the glass and set it down. "Want me to tell the story or do you want to read about it or watch it on the Tri-Vid?"

She squeezed the leg she was holding in her one grasping hand. "You, please."

Carnight nodded. "All right. It was early in our exploration. We hadn't even fully explored out own system yet when we sent an FTL craft to our nearby neighbor, Alpha Centauri. It was a ripple-drive, called the Ah-Queue-Berry Drive, and we were powering it with thorium anti-matter," he said. He looked at the statue. "We hadn't learned the risks of those two things yet, and used cold sleep, a form of cryogenic hibernation, before we learned the risks of that, so that the crew wouldn't age during the travel part of an almost 10 light year round trip part of their twelve year voyage."

Carnight signaled for his glass to be refilled and set his hand on top of Nakteti's grasping hand.

"We learned a lot, gathered a lot of data, learned about xenoplanets, learned a lot about how the drive operates in deep space, even landed on the four planets that we could. Then the craft returned," Carnight said. He took another drink and Nakteti noticed tears welled up in his eyes. "When it came back, everything looked fine. Nothing looked out of place.

"What we didn't know is that the ship had brought back a virulent pandemic. One that ripped through the global population and then mutated to be part of the ecosystem in a violent joke against us. The disease had a hundred percent lethality over twenty years. It even managed to attach itself to cells of the hosts, becoming part of the cell. If you removed the disease, the cell died," Carnight said. Nakteti could feel his distress and reached out with her catching hand and rubbed his back.

"Records talk about it, how horrible it was. How so many people killed themselves or fell into depression as one of the good things in the universe vanished. They were our friends, they were the first thing we uplifted, and we loved them as much as our own children," Carnight said. He took another drink off his glass and wiped his eyes.

"We have some of them. In a way. We can clone the neural tissue of both species. If we try to clone the entire being, they die before they can even be born. So we have them, in a way, as full conversion cyborgs, but we lost so much," Major Carnight said. "Even Digital Sapients self-terminated, it was such a dark day for our people."

It suddenly dawned on Nakteti what she was looking at. "Those were the Goodbois and the Purrbois?"

Major Carnight nodded. "Yup. Wiped out by a plague from Alpha Centauri. Afterwards we uplifted primates and that didn't go so well for either of us for a while, because we needed to learn a lesson about doing things for ourselves. We overcame that, eventually, the Primacy became the Biological Artificial Sentience Systems, and with a single exception, we've been friends ever since."

"Except when you went to war with them," Nakteti said, trying to be helpful.

He laughed then. "Seems like we spent half our existence smashing each other in the face."

Nakteti nodded, thinking about it. The Major got emotional over creatures that he had never met, that had all died before he was born, and didn't even try to conceal it. She remembered that Major Carnight had talked about how he'd been saved twice by purrbois and had worked with a gooboi quite often.

"Have your people tried to solve the problem again?" She asked. She couldn't imagine that the Terran scientists, who seemed to have developed such wonders, could not have defeated the virus.

"It is the longest running research project that my species has ever known. Even the Clone Worlds have tried to solve the problem. The problem is, in all the samples we have, in all the samples we've been able to find, the mitochondria of the canine and feline cells were replaced by the virus and as soon as the body develops complex organs, the whole system fails and the clone dies. I think it was mitochondria, I'm a little fuzzy on it," Carnight said, shaking his head. "Someday, some day we'll crack the problem, but till then, we will hold tight to their memory."

Nakteti shook her head. In the Civilized Races the purrbois and the goodbois would have been written off as a loss. A failed species. Their DNA would have been logged into the great databases and been forgotten by everyone but the odd researcher or two.

"Your people confuse me, sometimes, Major Carnight," she said, still rubbing his back as she stared at the monument.

"Our three species banded together. The purrbois caught, killed, and sometimes ate vermin that could carry sickness, the goodbois helped us hunt and guarded the caves, we made sure they had plenty to eat and a safe place to give birth to their young," Major Carnight said.

"Wait, the caves? How long ago did your two species bond?" Nakteti asked.

"About, oh, forty-thousand years ago for the goodbois, who self-domesticated for the most part, and about thirty-thousand years ago for the purrbois," Carnight said.

Nakteti inhaled sharply several times at the reminder that less than fifty-thousand years ago humans were living in caves. Fifty-thousand years ago her people had invented fusion power and anti-gravity.

"Easy, Nakteti, easy," Carnight said, patting her hands with his own.

"Your people sometimes frighten me, Carnight," Nakteti said. "How fast you advanced, it should have been a Great Filter, but you overcame it."

"Usually by breaking everything in sight till we were the only ones left standing," Carnight chuckled.

Again, the offhand and almost amused reference to violence surprised her. Where most species abhorred violence, were physically repulsed by it, to humans it was part of their bonding. She had seen male humans physically strike each other's shoulders with a clenched fist as part of a greeting, had seen female humans embrace one another tightly, had seen small children slap and touch one another as part of play.

Was it their ability to instantly become violent without a second's hesitation that enabled them to survive long enough to adapt and overcome? Nakteti wondered. It made sense. She had watched Major Carnight exercise with another human using the 'hard-light' eVR system. Watched the Major exchange punches and kicks that made both combatants grunt with the impacts.

He had been stripped to the waist, only wearing his pants, moving in a slow circle around his hard-light holographic opponent, who was apparently facing off against a hologram of Major Carnight.

She had watched, fascinated, as they had fought one another. The speed, power, and certainty in the strikes, blocks, and dodges had been captivating.

Even when she realized something with a shock.

Humans did not have to think about their next action, that they could adapt their reflexes over time so that they could allow their body to perform actions automatically. That when engaged in combat a human could focus not only on their opponent, but their opponent's possible moves, strategies, as well as the landscape, their surroundings, and even consider other things.

The realization had shocked her to the core. Her own race was neo-sapient, barely above an animal according to the Unified Species Council, but she had to think for a split second about what she was going to do unless it was such a thing as grasping a branch as she fell.

Adaptive reflex neuro-plasticity, she had thought.

Now she stared at the monument to a pair of beloved lost species.

Our first lesson, she thought to herself as a pair of small children laid a wreath at the base of the monument. The universe would take everything from us if it could.

One of them held a partially animatronic kitty in its arms.

The children have never even met one, yet weep for their loss, Nakteti thought to herself. She tried to decide if she would do the same and had to admit she would not. None of the races she knew of would. A dead species was dead, there was no reason to waste further resources on it. To do so was wasteful and foolish and undermined the common good.

The thought surprised her for how uncharitable it was. She considered where that thought had come from and realized it was how she was educated, what she was taught.

If she was asked, at that moment when she was watching the immature human cry her heart out for the loss of another being that she had never met, if the human's instinct, passion, and propensity for violence was unwarranted, she would have stated that it was perfectly reasonable when facing a hostile universe. It was not only understandable, it was logical, a perfectly understandable evolutionary trait that had prepared them for facing an actively hostile reality.

"Are you distressed?" Major Carnight asked. "You are weeping."

Nakteti shook her head. "No. I am feeling empathy for the child's distress."

Major Carnight nodded. "Purrbois and goodbois are still beloved by children. She probably wanted a real one, like she has seen on the educational programs, and had to be told that they are all gone. It is her first taste of mortality, that all things must perish."

That made Nakteti look up at him. "Humans don't."

Major Carnight shook his head. "We do. Our SUDS templates drift, our bodies wear out. The number one killer of humans is 'death by misadventure' or 'killed in action' if a war is going on. We're perfectly aware of our own mortality, we just fight against it."

"Yet the being who saved us is called 'an immortal' in the news casts," Nakteti countered.

"The being who saved you, Daxin, is one of the few immortals left, a product of a bygone age. Eventually someone or something will kill him. Like the rest of us, death is the great equalizer," Carnight shrugged. "Most of them died from complications. Daxin himself is the last one left. He's over eight thousand years old. One of the original triple-helix humans, one of the first full conversion cyborgs, one of the first clinical immortals."

Nakteti nodded. At one time the humans had experimented with adding an extra 'strand' to the 'ladder' of the DNA helix in order to provide two more copies of the code. The first version had prevented aging, but had resulted in complications regarding pregnancy, maturity, and had ultimately been stopped due to overpopulation.

Humans were so strange. They compacted tens of thousands of years of scientific progressed into years or decades or months.

Already humans had decoded her own DNA, performing something called "genome cracking" that she had been assured was impossible. When they had asked her permission to examine her genome, her genetics, she had agreed because fully examining it beyond just verifying her identity and species as impossible. Everyone knew that, everyone had been taught that, every researcher repeated it. That the DNA helix was too complicated for computers to decode.

The humans had also informed her that her race had undergone genetic alteration. The human researchers had asked for permission and less than two days later she was being informed that her, and all her surviving crew members, had been genetically tampered with.

She had been asked why and although she had told the humans that she did not know, she suspected.

Only one group benefited from her people being genetically altered.

The Civilized Species.

If they had reached inside her, reached inside her parents, and changed them, what else had they done? They looked silly, fussy, and seemed incompetent.

But were they really?

She hadn't realized she was shaking or making sounds of distress until she felt herself lifted up, set on Major Carnight's leg, and hugged firmly. The pressure eased her stress until she could finally breath normally.

"Let's get you back to the hotel. I think you've had about enough sight-seeing for the day," Major Carnight stated.

Nakteti just nodded.

She held Major Carnight's hand with both of hers as they walked across the street and into the hotel. She was proud of herself. She had gone all the way across the street and halfway down the block on her first excursion.

Twice little immature humans tried to hug her. Both times their parents stopped them and the children cried in emotional distress. She had felt the joy her appearance had caused in their little spirits, and felt that their emotional pain at not being able to hug her was genuine.

A human will push you face first through a crysteel window and then turn around and want to give your litter mates unconditional love, she thought to herself as the elevator moved up to the luxury suite. All based on perceived threat.

She was quiet when they entered the suite, letting thoughts run through her mind.

While Major Carnight was speaking to his superiors on his datalink, she used her's differently in the privacy of her own room.

She moved in front of the mirrors, removed her pants and shirt, sash, belt, shoes, and gloves, and took pictures of herself naked, careful to get herself from every angle. She then took pictures of her clothing, making sure to get the front, back, and sides, then dressed carefully and took pictures again after combing her fur.

She moved over to the eVR terminal and loaded up a few programs that she found for free. She converted the nude pictures of herself to eVR, then airbrushed away her nipples and genitals, removed her vestigial climbing claws, and then converted it to a weighted wire-frame model as well as a texture overlay.

Then she scanned in her clothing, making the attachment points quickly and easily. The software was eager to the help, the limited VI in the program almost anticipating what she wanted to do. She made some color changes to the shirts and pants, a few pattern changes to her sash and belt, shoes and gloves. Added different color eyes and different fur patterns and colors.

Some of them she made bright and silly.

She then used another program to convert the wireframe to a construction template and then uploaded the dressed one to her room's replicator.

It took only a few minutes for the replicator to ping and the shield to raise. The fur was too sticky and unpleasant, almost greasy feeling, so she tried again.

She had to look up a tutorial of a smiling human explaining how to make realistic feeling kittykitty hair for a purrboi or a goodboi, and she followed along, weighting her own hair in the model.

It only took three more attempts before it felt perfect.

She programmed it to say a few things, the most important was 'I love you' when hugged. She enabled it to toddle along with a small child, holding hands, and downloaded the freeware response pack for caretaker and companion animatronics, tweaked it according to the tutorial video performed by a human sized blue and white fox, and then ran off one of the replicator.

It was perfect.

She ensured the creators of the freeware programs she had downloaded would get a 'tip' from each sale and uploaded it to SolNet, offering it for the same price as most animatronic child nurturing companions. She offered it in over two dozen styles, all based on crew members who had died in the PreCursor attack, including a custom 'assign your own colors' and put it for sale along with additional clothing packs.

Then she took images of her poor Sweet, both how it had originally looked and then how it had arrived, made models of them, then, on the advice of the VI, had made the replicator versions a kind of 'do it yourself' model as well as model ones.

She uploaded that too.

Done, she wandered into the main suite and saw that it was almost dark.

She had spent the afternoon working and had enjoyed it.

Which was weird. Her genetic test had shown she was a leader at heart, genetically programmed to command others.

Yet she had felt contentment while she had worked. Imagining the expressions on children's faces when the replicator printed it out for them to hold. She had made sure that her animatronic self was firm to hold and warm with a beating heart for children to hear.

She had even used allergen neutral and immunocompromised safe materials.

She had even gone through her database of where she had been, had found the two children who had wanted to hug her, and the one on the shuttle, and sent their parents free copies with her Captain's compliments.

Feeling slightly confused that she would feel such contentment just crafting copies of herself she sat on the big couch and slowly ate her dinner, a wonderful concoction called a 'nacho bowl' that contained ground beef and vegetables and wonderful crunchy bread.

There was a pinging and Major Carnight turned to her and raised an eyebrow.

"Did you make a stuffy of yourself and upload it to the SolNet market?" he asked.

"Yes. I thought your children may enjoy it," she said.

He shook his head. "Well, congratulations on being the number one downloaded template for the last two hours," he laughed. "You have people as far away as the Clone Worlds downloading copies of you to make stuffies of. At least you followed the VI's advice and trademarked yourself."

Nakteti shrugged. "If it brings people enjoyment, I am content."

Major Carnight shook his head. "Do you remember how you were worried about paying for the repairs to your ship?" he asked.

"Yes. I still worry, but perhaps I will be able to mitigate the price somewhat for my people," Nakteti said.

"Um, you might want to come over here where I can embrace you," Major Carnight said.

Curious, she moved over and sat on her human's lap, leaning back as he put his arms around her. Once again she was struck at how reassuringly solid and warm he was. "All right, while this is very pleasant and I enjoy it very much, why?"

"Check your bank account balance," he said.

Sighing, knowing she'd only see the small amount that Terra had transferred compared to the amount she knew she'd need to fix The Sweet, she opened her bank account.

She immediately began to shudder, hyperventilating in panic. Major Carnight hugged her firmly as she stared at the number.

She had sold over 2.8 billion versions of the 'stuffy' and nearly 11 million models of The Sweet.

------------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Wow. That's a long download queue

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLD

Same here. Wow. Everyone wants it.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLDS

Oh, this is bullshit. The servers are overloaded.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

OH MY GOD IT'S SO SOFT AND FLUFFY AND SAYS IT LOVES YOU WHEN YOU HUG IT!

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

Chapter Seventy-Eight (Nakteti)

The storm thundered across the city, lighting flashing and booming, rain driving hard against the crysteel windows, the wind howling through the streets, the clouds low and dark.

Nakteti stood on the balcony of the suite she had been allocated, the safety-fields dialed down enough to let some wind and rain through. She wasn't at risk of being thrown from the balcony by the wind or being drowned by the rain but she could still feel the savagery of the storm somewhat. She knew that most beings would take shelter, hide from such furious nature, but she wanted to experience, as much as she could, what humans had put up with from their earliest days.

She wanted, no, she needed to understand the humans. In the same way her people had learned about the Lanaktallans and their Unified Civilized Species Councils, she wanted to learn about the humans. Both were the dominant species in their sector of the galactic arm spur but they both approached everything from such different angles.

A Lanaktallan's first impulse was to preserve resources for future generations, to make sure that everyone got their fair share of the resources of a newly discovered planet.

A humans first instinct was to alter their environment or themselves to survive.

She had watched the Tri-Vid, found out she could look up educational or entertainment programs and order them to either rent for a brief period of time or 'buy' the ability to watch it when she wanted for the rest of her life.

The more she watched, the more she understood.

Human infants, from the moment they were born, looked for their mother, could grasp tightly to things, and were capable of vocalizing distress or need. They were highly physical and their mental faculties started developing quickly.

Human children progressed so rapidly Nakteti had double-checked several times.

Over and over she saw proof that humans were capable of multiple actions at once. The most incredible she saw was a video of small children patting their own heads while rubbing their stomachs and singing a song. Some of the children got so excited they jumped up and down while performing the actions.

That had made her stare. She tried repeating it, a little game that small human children played, and could not manage to do any two of the three.

Their societies could be just as confusing. She was shocked to find out that, for the most part, the Terran Confederacy did not care how a planet or alliance was run. The Confederacy was more a mutual defense/trade agreement/technology sharing compact than an actual government. Individual planets and small groups of 'system states' were left alone.

The Terran Confederacy did not even get involved with rebellions against a planetary government the majority of the time, considering it an internal matter.

Then there was space exploration.

Losing their friends had made a deep, lasting impact. The universe was not a source of resources for the good of all, like to the Lanaktallans, to humans the universe was a cold, malevolent entity that would take away everything and leave you dying and alone, gasping for air it held just beyond reach.

The Lanaktallans looked at every technological breakthrough or scientific research discovery on how it would benefit or put in harm's way every single member of their society. Humans looked at each of them as 'how will this protect/benefit/assist us' and then adapted it to do just that.

Eventually, it had led her to looking up a government office. Which led her to speaking to a full crafted AI, who had recognized her because it had bought a VR version of her stuffy for its two 'child-hashes' to play with.

With the AI's help, Weaver-3381, she had looked at a vast catalogue of potential purchases, adding requirements, each time worried that it would prohibit her from finding what she wanted. After nearly an hour of searching, she had found, with Weaver-3381's help, exactly what she had been looking for.

A planet.

The survey crew had gone through the system, ran probes, done cartography, and jumped out. It had been registered, and, to Nakteti's shock, put up for sale.

Weaver-3381 had helped her fill out the paperwork she needed as a 'refugee of a species in danger', helped her register her corporation with the Terran Confederacy, had helped her fill out her paperwork as the 'recipient of a Precursor Extinction Assault', and then helped her select all kinds of colony options. She had contacted the Sweet's computer and downloaded the technical specifications and blueprints of the Boom or Bust and added that to the paperwork. She had com-linked her crew members and shown them everything, and despite their disbelief they were still hopeful, and made changes based on their suggestions and desires. Weaver-3381 had assisted the whole way, getting excited over the habitation sections and expansions.

Then she had checked her account, holding her breath.

She'd had the money.

She couldn't believe it. A simple set of stuffys, scale model ships, including the Boom or Bust (with or without detachable colony section action) and tiny little model figurines of her crew and people, and she could barely watch her credit balance without hyperventilating.

Nakteti had enough money to buy a star system, an updated Boom or Bust with Terran civilian technology, contract vessels to help move any of her people willing to come to the new colony, and have enough left over to pay for the repairs to the It Tastes Sweet as well as her crew's medical needs.

She had finished everything and moved out to the balcony to watch the storm.

The wind and rain felt like a representation of how she felt when she got caught up in the Terran Confederacy.

There was so much energy around her. Even now, late at night, she could look down and, with the terrace's auto-focus feature in the protective fields, see people moving through the streets, shopping in stores, talking with one another in dining establishments.

Even with their extensive lifespans humans were as active as someone who had only a few days to live and wanted to experience as much as possible.

It taught us that the universe would take everything from us if it could, she heard Major Carnight's voice again as she stood in the wind and rain with her eyes closed.

The storm, strangely enough, was easing her distress rather than increasing it. The feel of the wind ruffling her wet fur, the feel of the thunder rumbling through her, the cold wet rain, all combined to make her feel, well, grounded.

She was holding onto the railing with all four hands, reaching forward with first one foot then the other, switching back and forth, and holding onto the metal rods that made up the balcony safety fence. The safety railing felt solid, she'd found out it something called duralloy, nearly unbreakable and used in most human construction. The solid feeling made it so that holding onto it made her feel anchored to the world. Safe and secure in a strange way.

Nakteti thought about the Tri-Vid programs she'd watched, about colony disasters in Terran history. They had suffered Precursor attacks that had wiped out entire colonies, they responded by allowing colony forces to have naval forces and planetary defense forces strong enough to, at the very least, hold off a Precursor till nearby systems could rally around the attacked. It wasn't mandatory, you could take the risk if you wanted to. Nakteti knew that the Lanaktallans would have made it mandatory and just charged the species for the Unified Military Forces presence.

That was the big difference between the Lanaktallans and the humans. You didn't have to have anything. She could have started the colony by just having her and her crew dropped off on the planet with a smile and a pair of modesty shorts each, not even a single nano-forge. The Lanaktallan had lists and lists of what was required, all expensive, all charged to the entire species.

The differences were simple, but startling in their effects.

She had grown to maturity in a system that removed choice and personal responsibility to replace it with the various Councils.

Terrans basically went: "Don't cry to me if you didn't take my advice and got eaten."

The thunder boomed from a lightning strike less than a mile away, pulling her thoughts away from the gloomy track of how the Lanaktallans removed any chance of success by claiming to have your best interests at heart. Pulled her from wondering how different things would be for her people if it had been the Terrans who found them first.

She sighed, staring at the night sky. She was from further 'up' that galactic spur, her night sky had more stars in it, but for some reason the sky looked breath-taking to her.

Her datalink pinged and she checked it. It was Major Carnight, letting her know that he was standing slightly behind her.

"I am just watching the storm," Nakteti said.

"I just came to check on you," he answered. "You've had quite a few shocks today."

Nakteti snorted a laugh. "That's one way to put it."

"Anything you'd like a non-educational video answer to?" He asked.

Nakteti tilted her face up to the rain as it blew across her on a gust of wind. When it passed she looked back down at the city. "Too much. You Terrans are confusing."

"Eh, we're pretty simple."

That made Nakteti laugh. "Simple. A people who in less than fifty-thousand years went from crude dwellings and caves to having over a dozen methods of faster than light travel and autonomous colony creation systems and have settled over twelve-thousand planets in less than eight thousand years. Yes, so very simple."

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the rumble of thunder.

"It is what it is," Major Carnight said, heaving his shoulders, which Nakteti's implant informed her, for the hundredth time, was a shrug.

Nakteti shook her head. "I bought a solar system. Me. A ship Captain who lost her colony and had her ship blown to pieces on her, was able to buy a solar system because she uploaded a children's toy version of herself for home fabricators to make. Now my crew and I are able to buy an entire solar system for all of eternity."

"Life's weird like that sometimes," Carnight said, unhelpfully.

"The sale went through in less than an hour."

"Yup."

"I bought upgraded versions of Boom or Bust and our colony equipment," she aid.

"Yup."

"I arranged for travel for tens of thousands of my people on charter passenger liners with cargo ships to carry their personal possessions."

"Yup."

"Because I felt empathy for the small children who wanted to hug me."

"Yup."

Nakteti turned away from the railing and stared at Major Carnight, who was standing there, dressed in a soft cloth two piece sleeping suit, dark blue and covered with animated pictures of what she had learned were 'bunnies' jumping or dancing or nibbling grass or flowers.

The stared for a second at the large human, made of hard muscle and rock-like bone, who was wearing bunnies on his sleeping suit. She blinked, wondering if she was seeing things.

"What?" Carnight asked.

"I'm just..." she paused, unsure of how he'd react. "Are those... are you wearing... bunnies?"

Carnight looked down at his pajamas then at her, giving another shrug. "What? I like bunnies."

It was all too much for her. The little bunnies just topped it off and made the complete lunacy of everything crash down on her. The sight of an apex predator wearing a sleeping suit with animated cartoon bunnies on it just the last thing she needed to fall apart.

She started laughing.

She couldn't stop.

Bunnies and solar systems and colonies and stuffys and some-assembly required models and AI's and everything else just collided inside her.

She tried to stop laughing but couldn't.

Major Carnight's implant alerted him to the fact that she was getting hysterical. He moved up, knelt down, and hugged her, putting pressure on her so her limbic system would calm her down. She kept laughing for almost two minutes before slowly calming down.

Finally she tapped him to let him know he could let go.

Nakteti felt better as he led her into the suite so she could go dry off. She went into her room, got undressed, and stood under the warm air dryer. She brushed her hair and grabbed a pair of modesty shorts and top before laying in the huge bed and staring at the ceiling. Her implant asked her if she wanted to see anything on the ceiling as she went to sleep.

A quick query got the images she wanted and the systems in the room dutifully showed them on the ceiling.

Video footage the survey ship had taken of the planet she had purchased. The probe flying over vast interlinked forests that contained no animals and barely any insects, over huge lakes empty of everything but base algae, across plains where grass wavered.

There was only one quick 1-month long survey done on the entire system. It was insane of her to buy a whole solar system, down to the mining rights, when for all she knew there was some kind of super-virus waiting to eat her people.

But she had done it.

Because she understood now. She understood it all.

She even understood the humans now. The bunnies had been the final clue.

They seemed insane, seemed crazy.

Because the universe itself was insane.

She understood.

Part Seventy-Nine

The Dominion of Law dropped from jumpspace and into the system, going immediately to full stealth. It waited as more ships joined the flagship, going into heavy stealth and slowly moving into the system under silent running.

A probe came back showing the system was largely uninhabited. There were no planets in the Green Zone, only a single planet in the Amber Zone, the rest of the 5 planets were in the Red Zone, with two gas giants and an asteroid belt. The sun was a low energy yellow star, sizzling along its lifespan without a care in the universe.

The probe reported there was transmissions from the planet in the Amber Zone and altered course to get closer. It passed nearby, sending back images via un-detectable methods.

Two facilities in orbit. Both of them stations, one of them at least two centuries old by the amount of space dust on the facility. It was cold and dark, only a slight energy signature that the probe determined was a long-life fission reactor that probably was responsible for some kind of maintenance mode. The other on was powered, with ship docking slips, habitats, but with the exception of what appeared to be automation, it was largely deserted. There was a single set of satellites around the planet, including one that was obviously active but gave out no signals beyond navigation warnings that the probe could detect. A single satellite, above the northern pole, gave out a simple repeating message over and over that was read and discarded.

Ground side there were scattered small settlements, mostly devoted to farming crops and orchards. There were a few quarries and mines, but nothing automated or special. There was some logging but it looked as if the Terrans were doing it by hand rather than automated. The probe orbited the planet three times a high angle that let it sweep the entire planet with wide-angle passive scanners.

Four spaceports, one on each of the continents. Surrounded by empty space. Few roads visible to the probe's scanners. No major industry, barely any energy source readings beyond a local power plant needed to power a small settlement. The scanners caught a few of the local residents outside and transmitted it back to the Domination of Law for the officers to look over.

Tall, but so powerfully built they looked like they should be short and squat in person. Fur covering on the head, longer on the females, with facial fur for the males. Bipeds, with thick legs and arms, a single pair of forward facing eyes and omnivore teeth.

Terrans.

The probe moved on, checking the other planets. There was no facilities, nothing. No space ships, no waiting military fleets hidden in the gas giants, nothing of any concern.

With the exception of the two space stations and the sattelites there were no facilities off the planet. With the exception of the space ports there was no sign of being a space-capable species. There were no metroplexes, no super-cities, no arcologies. Just scattered settlements of a few score Terrans and their livestock. The transmissions were standard navigational aid signals from the spaceports, the one active space station, and the satellites.

The Dominion of Law consulted with the other vessels.

It was perfect.

The twenty ships of the armada, led by the Dominion of Law swept inward, running silent, until they were surrounding the planet. They waited for a few moments and then dropped their stealth systems, waiting in orbit for the people of the planet below them to start pleading.

Neither of the space stations woke up.

Groundside ignored them.

After eight hours the Dominion of Law began to broadcast to the space-ports below.

Surrender and be destroyed.

No answer.

One of the communications officers on a different ship, the Regulation of Force, commented that perhaps nobody was at the space ports listening.

At first he was mocked and scoffed at, but as the hours passed, other communications officers began suggesting the same thing.

A shuttle was dispatched from the Peacekeepers Might to land at one of the space ports. It came in at a high arc, the hull smoking as the reentry angle stripped armor away from the heating. It landed, thudding down with nearly 1.5G's of intense force, and the sides dropped down. Peacekeepers rushed the buildings, took up position around the shuttle, all of them in heavy power armor and carrying heavy weapons.

It was empty.

It had power, from a fission generator on standby, and a computer that displayed "STANDBY MODE" on the screens in the crude Terran language.

The peacekeepers swept through the buildings. There were maintenance equipment sheds, fuel tanks topped off, a passenger lounge, even a repair facility.

All devoid of life.

The peacekeepers lifted off to a high altitude, and checked, one by one, the other three space ports.

They were the same.

The peacekeepers returned to the Peacekeeper's Might and reported in. The video records created by their armor was gone over.

The scans were checked again. There was a manufacturing facility on each continent, near the center, but the power readings were almost non-existent. Discussions were had about how the manufacturing facility was probably deserted and deploying the peacekeepers would be futile.

Finally it was decided. A peacekeeper shuttle with science and technical officers would be sent to each of the manufacturing facilities for a quick survey, then they would return.

Shuttles roared down on least time approaches, one of them hitting the retro-thrusters hard enough that the occupants were subjected to a 1.75G shock that resulted in severe injuries to several of the troops onboard. Still, the back hatch opened up and the peacekeepers, technicians and science officers all hurried into the manufacturing facilities.

They were empty. The refinery in standby mode. The manufacturing lines almost non-existent, just empty conveyors and assemble areas. The offices were empty and any available display terminals just read "STANDBY MODE" and refused to accept any input. The engineers found the massive supercomputer arrays, which they determined were excessive for the facility, but it was virtually empty. They were able to gain access to the storage drives and found that with the exception of a stripped down operating system the supercomputers were little more than complex paper weights.

Frustrated the peacekeepers and their charges returned to the shuttles and from there back to the fleet, which was still broadcasting to the surface.

Discussions flew furiously. Perhaps the spaceports and the manufacturing facilities could be destroyed by orbital bombardment as a clear message? Maybe one or two to send a message? The Peacekeepers wanted to land in force and pacify some of the small settlements because they were sure that would send a message. The scientists urged caution, that facts didn't add up to what they were seeing. The engineers and technicians warned that something seemed strange. One officer pointed out that there were no spacecraft evident on the surface so why have a spaceport on each continent and why a factory on each continent, both of them centrally located. The space stations passed over the four spaceports every four rotations of the planet, but why? It made no sense.

A communications officer reported that there had not been an upsurge in communications traffic. The settlements still had signals between them, each settlement transmitting to and receiving from the settlements within range, into a complex web that covered the entire planet. The islands all had villages on them that were part of the web. However, communications density and amount had not picked up.

The communications officer reported that either nobody had noticed the fiery entry of the shuttles or, and this was more likely in his opinion, nobody had cared.

That infuriated the leader of the armada.

How dare the Terrans ignore his armada. How dare they ignore his powerful vessels, his fifty-thousand peacekeepers, his tanks and aircraft and combat shuttles! Just who did they think they were?

He ordered a full combat drop. There were four thousand settlements total on the surface and his combat planners allocated troops so each force could suppress at least twenty settlements each with 250 troopers backed by tanks and air support/combat craft and artillery.

His men ran to the shuttles, loaded up, and the sky was full of assault shuttles making least-time vectors to the ground. The manufacturing and starport centers were occupied, assault shuttles slammed down just outside of villages and deployed the might of the Peacekeepers.

The commander waited eagerly to hear about how the Terrans had pleaded for mercy before having the might of his fist brought down on him. He could see the vast clouds of smoke from the surface and knew his troops were bringing his might to bear.

Hours passed without any more than standard maneuvering reports.

The commander ordered a report immediately and a cringing underling brought it.

There was no Terrans to be found. The houses were empty, the barns were empty, even the cattle and food animals were gone. The smoke was from burning fields and orchards and houses. The landing craft had been greeted by smoke, flame, and silence. The starports and manufacturing center had all been wreckage, even the tarmac cratered and torn.

The commander ordered search parties out. The Terrans couldn't have just vanished. It was impossible.

A lowly infantry officer brought up a question: Why had they burned everything?

Another commented that it looked like a war had happened and they had just missed it.

The question went through the ranks: Where are they?

Then patrols started failing to report in. Or reported in with one or two less than they had left with, the ones that were missing having just seemingly vanished. A tank crew came up missing. An aircraft wing of six vessels activated their engines and blew up on ground, the fuel tanks, put in place to replace the destroyed Terran ones, exploding with the aircraft.

A barracks came up empty.

The corpses were found next to the dirt road leading away from the burnt out rubble of the town. The peacekeepers had been bound hand and foot, made to kneel in front of a ditch, and had been executed by a sharp heavy blade to the skull.

The armada commander ordered that any Terran caught was to be immediately put to death.

His commanders all grumbled that the problem was there apparently wasn't any Terrans.

Troops became jittery. More than once they opened fire at shadows. Twice two patrols spotted each other and opened fire on one another.

The planet was still empty.

A shuttle went to take off, got less than a hundred feet into the air, and exploded into wreckage.

The airfield commander ordered all the shuttles examined.

They were all wired with explosive. Three exploded as the technicians tried to remove the charges. Two more exploded for apparently no reason. The airfield commander ordered the last one taken up to orbit for safekeeping.

Nobody would enter the shuttle.

An hour later his desk com-link beeped for attention. When he answered it a human voice said, in perfect Unified Standard: Open the desk drawer, you insipid drooling cowtaur.

Furiously he yanked open the drawer.

The explosive charge blew shredded hamburger out the window and all over the airfield.

Tanks started running over explosives. The lucky ones just destroyed the track. The unlucky ones were cored out like a county fair apple. Crews that tried to walk back just vanished. Their bootprints just vanishing. Sometimes the lead tank was blown up, other times the last tank, sometimes the one in the middle.

Some of the peacekeepers would have deserted except there was nowhere to go.

The armada commander was furious. It had been eight days and nobody had seen a single human but his casualties were mounting. He was being mocked! He knew it! He ordered all his forces to take over the ruins of the starports, to dig in around it and fortify.

He watched with satisfaction as his peacekeeping forces did as commanded.

Still his ships broadcast their message of peace and pacification.

Surrender and be destroyed.

His men were on a hair trigger. Violence had broken out in the ranks. Troops refused to go out and patrol the countryside, unwilling to be one of the casualties that were sure to be inflicted. An enlistedbeing rolled a hand grenade into the command tent of the deployment officers. A firefight broke out between the officers and enlistedbeings when the enlistedbeings were ordered to make foot patrols through the tall grass to search out any Terran that might be hiding in the grass.

And still there was no evidence that Terrans were anywhere on the planet.

The armada commander was beginning to despair. How was he supposed to prove the supremacy of the Unified Military Forces if he couldn't even find any Terrans to suppress?

Then the reports came in. The structures in the villages were back.

Peacekeeper vehicles roared in. By the time they got there, the villages were engulfed in flame again. The smoke rising high into the air. Shuttle commanders ordered their men into the smoke. The smoke was thick and seemed to interfere with the peacekeeper's armor visuals. Transmissions were staticy and broken up.

That's when the screaming began. Images began flooding in.

Terrans.

Terrans in heavy armor, some wearing helmets, some without. Heavy kinetic weapons in one hand, swords with terrible toothed chains that ripped through the peacekeeper armor as if it was tissue. They were in the smoke, killing everything. The ones without helmets had bestial expressions of rage as they roared their battlecries and slew every peacekeeper that had entered the smoke.

The peacekeepers in the encampments where the spaceports and manufacturing facilities stared in shock at the static filled and broken up transmissions. The Terrans showed no mercy, neural-bolts doing nothing to the howling and rampaging warriors.

Then the peacekeepers manning the outside perimeter heard it.

A roar of rage.

From the tall grass they thundered out, heavy armor covering them, jet black with just the Terran Confederacy symbol of a planet being crushed by a human hand. Shoulder and back mounted weapons thundered, chainswords howled as they ripped through tank armor as easily as they tore through peacekeeper armor, heavy kinetic weapons in their hands roared as the shells caused anything they hit to explode.

The armada commander stared in shock, trying to process what he was seeing. It was only a few, less than a dozen, in the villages, only a couple hundred at each of the encampments, but his men were being slaughtered as if they were made of tissue wrapped ground meat.

At the 10% casualty mark the ground forces commanders, those still alive, sounded the retreat. By all known conventions of warfare the Terrans should have broken off, should have stopped their attack rather than expend resources to further prosecute an already won battle.

Instead the humans, if anything, increased their advance. As if the fact that the peacekeepers were retreating somehow moved the dial from 'battle' to 'full on slaughter' as they chased the peacekeepers down. In several cases they boarded the shuttles with the peacekeepers, slaughtering the screaming and panicked peacekeepers inside the very shuttles that were supposed to carry them to safety.

Shuttles began exploding in mid-air as Terrans proved to have anti-air capability in their armor. Shoulder fired missiles streaking through the air to destroy some of the shuttles as they lifted off in panic.

Tanks vanished in explosions from shoulder fired missiles. Artillery vehicles were torn apart with kinetic weapon fire, chainswords, or just plain armored fists.

The tactical net staggered and went down from the sheer carnage on the surface.

More and more shuttles were taking off and the armada commander breathed a sigh of relief. It looked as if all the shuttles sent to the villages would be recovered. One by one the remaining shuttles managed to lift off, more and more escaping being knocked out of the air by the Terrans's highly effective anti-aircraft missiles.

Still, on the ground, the Terrans were rampaging through, killing any peacekeeper they encountered. Most of the peacekeepers had panicked, attempted to run out into the grass.

There they discovered the females.

Waiting.

With vibroknives and hot coals.

The tall grass echoed with screams.

Shuttles began to dock and the armada commander breathed a sigh of relief.

Then the reports started flooding in.

Terrans were aboard the shuttles and came out firing their weapons. They cared nothing for hull breaches, often deliberately decompressing entire ship sections by firing missiles or just shooting the hull until their fire tore through it.

The armada commander watched in horror as one by one each of the twenty ships in his armada were marked with the ancient arcane rune for "I Have Been Boarded" that the computer had to recall from deep storage memory. A rune so old it wasn't even taught any more.

He was still trying to figure out how to repel the boarders, with all of his peacekeepers on the planet, when the hatch to the flag bridge blew inward, propelled by a kick from an armored Terran, and heavy magack rounds shredded everyone on the bridge.

The shuttles arced away from the ships, heading in a slow and leisurely reentry path. All of the shuttles were inside the atmosphere when, one by one, the ships exploded as their reactors went critical and self-destructed.

The shuttles landed and the Terrans got off, walking back into the tall grass. As night fell the outline of the shuttles softened, then began to dissolve as the reclaimation nanites of the creation engines reclaimed the materials of the shuttles.

By dawn the houses in the villages were back. The manufacturing facility was slowly being created. The starport was slowly being reconstructed.

The villagers returned, going out behind their homes and digging up sealed heavy containers. They removed their armor, cleaning it and putting it in the containers. Weapons followed. The containers were closed and buried again. The women exchanged bloody active camouflage for a bath and a clean dress.

The men put on floppy hats.

The women put on bonnets.

The animals were led from the heavily shielded shelters and were glad to be back in the sunshine. Many needed milked.

Above them the satellite beeped out the same signal over and over.

DANGER DANGER DANGER! CONFEDERACY MILITARY DECOMMISSIONING PRIMITIVENESS THERAPY WORLD - NO ENTRY TO NON-MEDICO PERSONNEL - DANGER DANGER DANGER!

ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS HERE. NO ORBITAL PERIHELION CLOSER THAN 500KM. ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY IS FORBIDDEN.

CONFEDERACY MILITARY DECOMMISSIONING PRIMITIVENESS THERAPY WORLD. Patients can have extreme bouts of violence in response to unauthorized contact. AUTHORIZED MEDICO PERSONNEL ONLY

Contact Confederacy Medico Orbital Station Control Beacon on Hydrogen 2-1 transition frequency (1420.405751786 MHz) for more information.

DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!

WARNING WARNING WARNING

DO NOT ATTEMPT COMMUNICATION WITH SURFACE PERSONNEL.

CONFEDERACY MILITARY DECOMMISSIONING PRIMITIVENESS THERAPY WORLD. PATIENT CAN HAVE VIOLENT RESPONCE TO UNWARRANTED COMMUNICATION. Unregulated contact with patient can have adverse affects on therapeutic seasons. AUTHORIZED MEDICO PERSONNEL ONLY

Contact Confederacy Medico Orbital Station Control Beacon on Hydrogen 2-1 transition frequency (1420.405751786 MHz) for more information.

WARNING WARNING WARNING

Chapter Eighty (Vuxten)

The battle and fierce fighting had ended only a week before Vuxten had been released from the hospital ship the CNV Mercy. His leg had been shattered and the Terrans had regrown it. It had been painful, itchy, and tormenting during the three days it had regrown. He had not cared, even the intense physical therapy to help him overcome the lingering effects of his injuries and the mental therapy he had received to help ease combat trauma had not damped his spirits.

He had spent his time in the arms of his broodcarriers and his wife, Brentili'ik, surrounded by giggling podlings who were eager to play little games of hide and seek and watch me dance with him. He had been shocked to see Donovan, as the last time he had seen the big human scout he had been shot through the head by a Precursor.

Donovan had not remembered him too clearly, and at Brentili'ik's advice had not bothered the human too often.

Now he was back home. Well, as close to home as he could get.

The city he had been born in, raised and educated in, and had lived his life in was a shattered skeleton of its former self.

He had spent a month fighting in that city. Wrapped in Terran scout armor almost the entire time, only leaving it when he was inside one of the massive armored vehicles, and only then so he could clean himself while his armor underwent maintenance. He had left a few times to drop off refugees at the heavily fortified encampments and hospitals.

But most of his time had been spent in the streets and buildings of that city.

His eyes stopped on a skyraker. It had been five-hundred stories of offices and luxury apartments. The atomic fire on the fourth day had ripped it down to sixty stories, but it still towered over the skyline. He could remember, knew if he closed his eyes he would relive, running up those stairs, following Sergeant, carrying anti-armor rockets that they fired from the twentieth floor into the top of the Precursor assault machines.

He swallowed deeply.

Brentili'ik noted her mates distress and gathered him up in her arms. She nuzzled his neck, crooning softly to him.

She had disagreed with returning to the planet so soon, but her husband had insisted. She disagreed even more with him coming here, to view their former home, but again, he has insisted.

Brentili'ik felt nausea at seeing the city so destroyed, so damaged, even as part of her soul felt vindicated by the damage. The Overseers had hidden away or fled, those who had not been maddened by the Precursors screams, had left her people to die on the planet. It felt right to her that their center of power had been so ravaged by the battle, by the war.

Does it make me a bad person to feel this way? she wondered to herself as her husband buried his face in her fur. Their two broodcarriers moved up to hug him with her, to shield him with their fluffy tails as they began to croon to him and stroke him. The dozen or so podlings, all orphans, holding tight to the broodcarriers fur made soothing chirping noises to try to ease Vuxten's pain.

How things have changed, Brentili'ik thought. Only a little while before the broodcarriers would have been confused by Vuxten's anguish and would have been distressed that they didn't know how to care for him.

Now they were familiar with his pain and how to soothe it.

Finally he was ready to be released, touching noses to her.

"I am sorry," he said softly, staring down at the street where he could see the battered ground car they had used to drive to the outskirts of the city. "I did not think it would be so difficult."

"We are a gentle and peaceful people, my husband," Brentili'ik said softly, turning away from the melted looking skyline. "We were ill equipped for this fight."

Together they started walking down the hill. The podlings looked around with wide eyes at the grass, at the denuded trees, at the odd things strewn around.

It didn't really register to Vuxten and his family that they walked around an abandoned tread and running gears from a Precursor tank. It was just another piece of rubble.

"Do you think the Overseers will return?" Brentili'ik asked.

"They better not," Vuxten said, one hand dropping to his side to find nothing. Brentili'ik caught the motion, almost Terran in the way he had done it, and knew he had been reaching for his magac pistol.

"I have heard the Terran lawyers have emancipated us," Brentili'ik said, repeating the rumor she had heard moving through the refugee camp. "I have heard they stand with us now."

"Blood to blood, steel to steel, my life is yours, brother," Vuxten quoted.

Part of Brentili'ik missed the factory worker who was more concerned with getting the family out of debt.

"We will burn with a life of our own, sister," Brentili'ik added.

Part of her missed the simple sanitation worker concerned with the same things that she had been.

You can't go home again, Brentili'ik quoted to herself.

They got in the beat up ground-car, a former corporate vehicle that had been sprayed black with a blue stripe down the side to denote its non-combat status. Vuxten drove and for a split-second Brentili'ik wondered where he had learned to drive.

She knew the city behind her, slowly receding into the distance, could have whispered the answer to her.

The podlings were excited but quickly tired out. The broodcarriers fell asleep with them, their fluffy tails hiding the sleeping orphans. One had crawled up into Brentili'ik's lap and she stroked its soft fur gently.

It was missing an ear.

It was nearly nightfall before they got back to the refugee camp. It was a huge, sprawling thing, with walls around it festooned with tower mounted guns, anti-aircraft guns, point defense systems, battle-screen projectors. The walls were scarred here and there.

The Precursors had thrown their might at hit twice and had rebuffed both times by a handful of human troops and hundreds of Telkans, terrified and distressed, firing rocket launchers and magnetic accelerator rifles they had been barely trained upon.

Now the night no longer had Precursor machines lurking in it. A huge BOLO tank sat nearby, ready to defend the refugee camp of 2.2 million Telkan if any Precursor machine had managed to remain hidden long enough to sneak up on the refugee camp.

Brentili'ik had expected the refugee camp to be a place of mud, sewage, and misery. Instead it was orderly, almost a normal city, if it wasn't for the featureless and stark architecture. The streets were paved, lined with lights. There were little parks for broodcarriers and podlings (there were shelter entrances scattered around them) as well as ponds, fountains, and some hastily assembled statuary that the Telkan found pleasing. The buildings were designed for Telkan comfort, the insides comfortable even if the outside was black durasteel and ceramasteel armor with crysteel windows.

The refugee camp is more Telkan than anyplace we have ever lived in generations, Brentili'ik thought to herself as they slowly drove down the street.

She knew the humans had built it with Telkan psychology in mind and part of her shuddered to remember that it was her willingness to answer questions, to speak to the Terrans about her feelings, wants, desires, and what made her comfortable or distressed that had weighted heavily with the planners who put together the refugee encampment.

The fact that the Terrans had deployed massive machines that built the refugee center in a manner of hours still shocked her.

Vuxten knew why the humans had possessed the machines, why they had known they would be needed.

Humans understood war, knew that war created refugees, even before war had come to his home.

They carried the podlings and chivvied the sleepy and logy broodcarriers into the building they were staying in, into the elevator, and down the hall to their private quarters. The broodcarriers sleepily gathered up the podlings in their nest, crooning softly as they drifted off to sleep.

Vuxten and Brentili'ik went back into their living room, holding hands and just being with one another for a little while. The sky went indigo and then black, the stars coming out slowly but surely.

Both of them took comfort in the fact that more than a few of those stars were human warships, watching over the planets of the solar system in case the Precursors returned to try to finish the job they had started.

Finally Vuxten broke the silence. "Will you take the job?"

Brentili'ik squeezed his hand. "Will you?"

They both sat silently for a long moment.

"Yes," they both said at once. They asked the same question at the same time. "Are you angry?" and answered at the same time. "No."

Bentili'ik looked at her husband. The gray around his mouth, around the metal of his cybernetic eye, on his remaining ear, and the lines engraved into his face from having been under stress for so long. He still walked with a light limp and the scars had not yet been covered with fur. She held his hands tightly.

"Citizenship is a heavy burden," she quoted.

------------------------

The commander of Refugee Camp Osmium looked up as his newest assistant entered the office. His implant identified her immediately and he noted that her picture that was in the datafile open on his desk-terminal did not do her justice.

Strong came to mind with the way she carried herself. Intent was easily applied to her clear eyes and gaze. Dedicated was something that was obvious in her expression.

The commander stood up, holding out his hand. The Telkan woman took it, shaking it slowly.

Brentili'ik took a seat at Colonel James Hikikitik Harvey's gesture, holding the printouts on her lap as she looked at the human. His skin was brown, his hair shaved away to leave a bare and gleaming scalp, both eyes had been replaced by cybernetics along with half of his face being nothing but dully gleaming black warsteel.

He looked competent to her eyes and that was all that mattered to her.

"It's good to meet you, Mrs. Brentili'ik," Col Harvey said. "When Fleet told me they had a good fit for a Telkan Liaison Officer I was a little worried till I received your file."

"Thank you, sir," Brentili'ik said softly.

"Well, that about covers the pleasantries," The human said. He touched an icon on his desk and map of the area popped into being in mid-air between them. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us. We need to get your people out of the refugee camp and into more permanent settlements. Let's start looking at which one needs what to make it comfortably livable."

-------------------

The humans were walking down the line, yelling at the little Telkans who were lined up to stand up straight, perk up those ears, stare straight ahead, curl those tails off the ground, close your mouth! They all had a little bag in front of them holding their worldly possessions.

Adaptive Camouflage Uniforms, modesty clothing, personal grooming devices, boots, gloves.

Vuxten walked with the big human, who had told the lined up Telkan that they would refer to him only as Sergeant. His cybernetic eye whirring as he looked at the eager Telkans. He limped slightly but it no longer ached.

"Did I look so little, Sergeant?" Vuxten asked as they reached the middle of the line.

"You? Hell no, Trooper Vuxten, you were twenty feet tall, made of warsteel, and on fucking fire," Sergeant half-yelled. "You were born to be a Marine."

Vuxten was at the recruiting and training center to get all the training he had missed out on, that he needed to be a Marine, but he also was to act as the Telkan Liaison, to advise the human cadre and to provide the other Telkan someone they could confide in.

A low flying aircraft went by in the clear blue sky as Vuxten and Sergeant kept walking down the line of eager recruits.

------------------

Brentili'ik stood at the front of the classroom, watching the Telkan being instructed how to read. So many of her people were functionally illiterate or only iconoliterate that it hurt her heart. Colonel had agreed with her that education of her fellow Telkan should be a priority.

She had been attending classes herself. Learning about the trauma that was inflicted on slave-castes and the methods of easing and eventually erasing the trauma.

The biggest thing, all of the textbooks had stressed, was the feeling of independence and control.

No longer living in a world full of symbols that you were unable to understand had been made a priority by Bentili'ik. Teaching her people to read, teaching them the value of knowledge, the importance of learning, was important to her.

She was proud of her people. It was difficult, leaving the sheltered burrow and emerging, blinking, into the terrible brightness of freedom. More than a few Telkan bemoaned the old days, but those days were gone.

She felt a swell of pride as a Telkan podling stood up and read aloud what was on the classroom display, her voice firm and sure. Her heart soared at the knowledge that the podling could not only read the words but knew the meanings.

Brentili'ik knew that to others it may not be that important.

To her, it was everything.

----------------

Vuxten stepped out of the heavily armored vehicle, his macac rifle tight in his fists. Behind him a group of a half-dozen Telkan recruits followed him. They were armed with laser rifles powerful enough to damage Precursor armor but not strong enough to damage the warsteel of the armor they, and he, wore to protect themselves. Like him, they were in the final phase of 16 weeks of hard training. Now they just had to prove they could put everything they had learned to work.

"All right, Lance Corporal Vuxten, this village should be cleared, but Colonel Harvey wants it swept by ground pounders just in case and that means you and your troopers," The voice of Lieutenant said from where he was watching the datalinks inside the heavy vehicle. "Just remember your training and you'll do just fine."

"You'll do fine, Vuxten. If you're unsure what to do, talk to me, I'll help you out," Sergeant said over a different channel.

"Thank you, both," Vuxten said. He opened the other channel.

"All right, men. Follow me. Spread out five meters, I don't want a grenade or unexploded mortar round killing half of you," Vuxten said, trying and failing to keep the snap from his voice.

His men just tabbed the 'affirmative' icons. All of them were sweating nervously. LCpl Vuxten was a legend among the Telkan who wanted to be troopers. A janitor who had become a Terran Marine.

As one they gripped their lasers tightly and started moving into what had been an Overseer luxury resort. They were all eager to please Vuxten, please Sergeant and Lieutenant, and please the Confederacy and the Marine Corps.

They had all seen the posters, all signed up. All gone through the training that had been compressed and hurried due to the war raging outside the walls of the refugee city.

The offer was amazing. More than any Telkan had ever been offered before. A simple offer but one that to the Telkans, used to being little more than neo-sapient slaves, reached out for with every fiber of their beings.

Service Brings Citizenship.

------------------

A month later an atomic charge went off in the wreckage of a city.

Vuxten got that familiar tightness down his back. Something/one was coming and they weren't coming to help.

Brentili'ik knew that feeling. It meant that someone had decided that her people had something worth taking.

Chapter Eighty-One (Leebaw)

Leebaw had been severely wounded. First came the Overseers, the Lanaktallans, who had destroyed the Leebawians spaceport that they were so proud of, then destroyed their cultural sites, then had relegated the small land dwelling amphibians to the status of worker drones for the Ukewa's Packguru Manufacturing Industrial Concern (A subsidiary of Nu'ukluk Entertainment Conglomerate) as was 'right and proper' as the Overseers had extracted the resources of the planet. The Leewbawians had been reduced to living in small 'reserves' when they weren't working for the Overseers. Their lives devolved to misery and sadness, their dreams of founding or joining an interstellar organization crushed and obliterated.

They had just wanted to make friends.

Then came the machines. Coldly cruel, they destroyed the Overseers and their factories. The Leebawians had gone out to greet these newcomers, hoping that their obvious hatred of the Overseers meant that perhaps they would be friends to the Leebawians.

Instead, the little googly eyed, whiskered amphibians had been slaughtered with the mechanical glee as the Overseers.

The Leebawians had retreated to their little mud burrows, hiding in the swamps and deltas. The machines had largely ignored them, concentrating on the Overseers.

The Leebawians had learned, though. The stars in the sky weren't full of possible friends.

They were burning pinpricks of malice.

Then came another race. This one arrived with furious violence. Slamming to the ground to disgorge bipeds who roared in rage and killed the machines, smashed them to junk, bashed them to pieces. They avoided the Leebawians, who huddled in their burrows and just wished that the newcomers would kill everyone else and then leave.

Here and there, a Leebawians discovered that the newest ones were rescuing the Leebawians when they could.

The newcomers handed out weapons to those willing to raise a webbed hand that they were willing to fight.

The newcomers taught something called jawnconnor to the Leebawians.

How to raise their fists into the air. How to hold a weapon in their webbed hands. How to scream their rage against the night. How to charge the wire.

How to smash. those. metal. mother. fuckers. into. junk.

Even the youngest Leebawian was taught to pick up a rock and smash.

It took three whole seasons, but eventually the last circuit was smashed and the Leebawians stood beneath their bluish-white sun and realized that they would no longer allow others to take what was theirs.

The newcomers, the Tear-ands, agreed. They taught the Leebawians to fight, something that they had tried to leave behind when they had reached for the stars to make new friends. The Tear-ands had warned them that the universe was a cruel place that would take from the Leebawians just because it could.

They had helped the Leebawians set the charges and blow up the coal fueled power plant, then helped them rebuild their starport. It wasn't as large and impressive as the Overseers had been, but it had been theirs.

The Tear-ands had agreed to only land at the new spaceport if the Leebawians gave permission. They had promised to protect the high orbitals while the Leebawians relearned space flight and could protect their planet themselves. The Tear-ands had found what technology the Leebawians had possessed before the Overseers had arrived and, without asking for anything, handed it back.

Leebawian podlings sat in comfortable little bowls as they were taught more than just how to work a machine. Adult Leebawians kept expecting the other boot to drop, to press against their necks or faces, just like the other times.

The other boot was a pair of them. Handed to any Leebawian willing to put them on and learn how to march, how to move, how to fight. The Leebawians needed to resurrect a thing long ago set aside, a thing that the Leebawians had decided was a dangerous thing.

The Leebawians needed a military. Needed to be taught and to teach the jawnconnor time to each other.

How to smash someone into junk.

Some of the Leebawians felt despair.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Was it?

The Tear-ands met with those who were willing, who were brave enough. They looked like hairless lemurs of the southern continent made large.

The despairing ones voiced their sadness with croaks and clicks.

The Tear-ands agreed.

It wasn't supposed to be like that.

The stars were supposed to be full of friends you just had not met yet. The sky was supposed to be full of wonders, of sights that took ones breath away, of amazing things that were almost too incredible to be taken in by mere mortal eyes.

They too lamented that the only way you could meet friends was to have big enough and as many enough of guns to make those who did not want to be friends to go away.

Or be smashed.

Talks went on. The older and wiser of the Leebawians meeting with the Tear-ands, discussing how they would proceed together.

The Cult of the Solitary Burrow agreed with the Tear-ands.

The only way to have peace was to be willing to kill for it. Peace and security and the burrow were the most important things and because they were important the creatures like the Overseers would take them unless you smashed them into junk.

The Tear-ands talked of many things that were strange, frightening, but also exhilarating. Of equality under the law. Of personal responsibility. The right to croak your dissatisfaction without reprisal by rulers. Of choosing your own rulers and creating your own laws. Of defending yourself and those of your community from the intent of violence of others.

But also things that were terrifying. Of bringing back armies. Of arming space vessels. Of how the Overseers were still out there, that the machines were still out there.

The Leebawians met and discussed things.

They had been pushed down, pushed to the brink, almost wiped out. Had been made to feel as if they were less than nothing and were so inferior that they deserved to be wiped out to make room for their betters.

Almost as one they agreed.

Never. Again.

The Overseers came back one day. They had ignored the little spaceport that the Leebawians loved so much and landed near the ruins of their shining city and its ugly spaceport. They had emerged from their ships and went out to find the Leebawians.

The Leebawians decided to give the Overseers one more chance to be friends.

Or they would apply the lessons of jawnconnor.

The Overseers were furious. Why had the Leebawians not rebuilt the city? Why had they rebuilt their primitive spaceport without permission? Why had they allowed the Tear-ands to remain. The Overseers attempted to remind the Leebawians that the planet did not belong to the small amphibians, but rather the Overseers and had belonged to them since before the Leewbawians had invented the printing press.

The Leebawians did not huddle in fear. Did not nod along with what the Overseers were saying.

The Overseers had fled the planet. Had left the Leebawians to die in the claws of the machines.

The Tear-ands said nothing, just stood and watched, their eyes glowing a soft blue. The big ones, all machine, called the Mech-a-necks, watched unmoving. The smaller ones, the bald lemurs, watched with cold hard eyes made all the more chilling as they were flesh and blood. The ones with metal eyes seemed more warm as they glowed a soft comforting blue.

The Overseers demanded that the Tear-ands leave.

"Make me."

The Leebawians noticed that the Overseers did not attempt to use force against the Tear-ands like they had used on the Leebawians ancestors. They made demands, which the Tear-ands ignored the way an adult ignored the sound of glowfrogs in the mud.

The Overseers ordered the Leebawians to leave their new little homes and return to their enclaves, their reservations, their mud burrows. That the new little homes were more rightfully the Overseers, who weren't primitives as the Leebawians.

The Tear-ands just watched.

The Leebawians understood. They did not look to the Tear-ands to defend them or rescue them.

jawnconnor time the Leebawians whispered to one another.

The Overseers drew a line. The Leebawians must leave and return to their ancestoral dwellings and turn over all the wondrous goods the Leebawians had learned to make.

The Leebawians did not flinch. They knew what must be done.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

But it was.

The Leebawians charged the line. They croaked their fury. They clicked their anger. From bottles of alcohol stuffed with rags set on fire to wooden stakes sharpened in secret to weapons dropped by fleeing, dead, or dying Overseers, they lifted up one fist to the sky and cried out in defiance.

Do not go gently.

The Tear-ands watched.

Ambushes, pit traps, suckmud traps, roadside mines. Claw, tooth, flipper, and rock.

The charged the wire.

The Tear-ands watched.

The Overseers took heavy casualties, and reeling, fell back. They ran toward their ships, lowing out their distress.

The Leebawian chased them, throwing spears, shooting, throwing fire-bombs.

A shuttle tried to take off but a firebomb went off in an air intake and the shuttle fell to the ground, broke apart and exploded.

The Overseers abandoned the armory.

The Leebawian emptied it.

The few Overseers that made it to their ship in orbit demanded that the Captain use the guns to strike at the small towns of the Leebawians.

The Captain pointed out the Tear-and vessels that had them locked up with targeting systems, missile pods and torpedo clusters deployed, battle-screens glimmering, just sitting there, silently, unmoving.

Menacingly.

The Overseers fled.

The Leebawians rejoiced.

The Tear-ands rejoiced with them.

No, it wasn't how it was supposed to be.

But it was how it was.

The Leebawian asked if the Tear-ands would help them heal their wounded planet, help them regain what they had lost.

The Tear-ands agreed to help.

Leebaw was wounded. It needed care. It needed healing.

It needed defended.

And the Leebawians were willing to defend it.

-------------------------

CONFEDNAVINT REPORT

Lintennal 515, called Leebaw by native species, successfully defended by natives with only advisor and observer requirements from CONFEDMIL. Planet in need of ecological damage repair, food chain is badly damaged and cannot sustain itself for much longer. Dispatch ecological research and science teams ASAP with food chain cloning specialists.

Native species, self-designated as Leebawians, are, at current writing, borderline xenophobic due to mistreatment by Lanaktallan rulership. Genetic manipulation detected in genome scan, request CLONEWORLD genome repair experts.

Handle species with care. They are a small people who have had the boot of tyranny on their necks for too long. Request xenospecies therapists.

Personal note: These are good people. They are a lot like we were. Let's not repeat our mistakes.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

Chapter Eight-Two

UNIFIED GENETIC COUNCIL REPORT

FOURTH MOST HIGH AND ABOVE ONLY

NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

Examination of Terran biological sample obtained through espionage or battle-field examination has proceeded somewhat slowly. However, we are now confident enough in our knowledge of the Terran genome to make a preliminary report.

First of all, it cannot be understated: This species evolved without supervision or constraint on a world that suffered multiple extinction events. The timing of the last extinction event, which wiped out feathered reptilians, is suspicious as it roughly corresponds with the Mantid Excursion of Known Space at the end of the Intelligent Machine War. While their own data and that of the Mantids estimate that their extinction event took place some time after the Mantids moved through their spacial location the coincidence is too strong not to take into account.

Second of all: Their genome is both extraordinarily complex and over-simplified. It is easily mutable, quite easy to manipulate and adjust, to the point where the Terrans have engaged in the practice in complete genetic rehabilitation and rebuild for personal gratification. Gene-splicing and chimeraism is quite common in Terran society.

Third of all: Their genome has been altered. Records easily obtained from their medical banks show that they eliminated a host of genetic related birth defects as well as other genetic diseases. While they keep the original templates on file, for the most part even so called "Pure Strain Humans" (which refers to the fact that their genome is 'base human standard') have had genome manipulation in order to remove birth defects and provide certain benefits.

Fourth Point: With that taken into account, it appears that due to the use of atomic, nuclear, radiation, nanite, and 'gene-cracker', and mutagen weapons in their history has made Terrans very careful to observe the status of their genome. Their own datalinks are designed to warn them of genetic damage from outside or inside sources. Examination of the hardware of the datalinks have shown this to be firmware updated and hardware applied.

Fifth Point: The Terran genome is quite hardy. The previous 'junk strands' have been repurposed in such a way that they provide additional benefits as well as 'auto-sequencing repair and checks' within the DNA itself. The telomeres were artificially lengthened as well as natural shortening decreased with error checking and rebuilding taking place. This is one of the aspects of Terran long life, the same as Lanaktallan. The genome is robust and, unlike most Civilized Races, contains a self-destruct sequence to prevent cancerous growth or cell replication errors.

Sixth Point: Where genetic manipulation and genome cracking is illegal, with assorted and applicable technologies forbidden from research, by the Unified Science Council, the Terrans had no such stricture and because of this they are quite aware of their genome, what each strand does, and how it all fits together, unlike every race but the Lanaktallan.

Seventh Point: Unlike every race but the Lanaktallan, the Terrans have sequestered away their gene sequence in many different sites and points in order to ensure they have recovery copies. Evidence points that not only are the genetic sequences stored but the technology and science to repair any damaged genomes.

Eighth Point: Most primarily Terran cities have something called 'the soup' in the atmosphere. Further examination shows that 'the soup' is a dense cloud of nanite smaller than cells, that are non-toxic and able to be inhaled and move through the bloodstream without harm. A section of the 'the soup' is designed to identify any genome attacking biological or technological construct. This makes it very difficult to perform genetic warfare on any primarily Terran planet.

Ninth Point: The humans have also stored the genome of their allied races. Records hint that even species that were wiped out had their genome stored 'in hopes they can be restored'.

Tenth Point: For all their genetic manipulation knowledge and technology they have been unable to repair a simple virus that destroyed the Terran domesticated species of feline and canine. The virus attacks the nucleus and quickly spreads throughout the genome. The virus is parasitic in nature, creating and endoparasite viral structure able to metabolize on it's own. While the disease can live on it's own and a trick of Carnivora genome allowed it to integrate itself, infecting even samples of DNA but only expressed in mesenchyme and endochym cell with neural tissue merely carrying the parasitic virus. This is within standard genetic warfare weaponry within the Unified Science Council. Interestingly enough, the virus, while apparently contracted from a nearby system only 4.1 light years from Terra, the virus bears traits of viral warfare.

Eleventh Point: Humans are capable of social distancing and isolation in times of hardship that outstrips all but the most xenophobic species. This makes viral and genome warfare difficult as spread would be quickly halted. Terrans are even willing to go so far as to use atomic weaponry on an interdicted planet to eradicate a virulent enough disease or viral-genome warfare vector.

Twelfth Point: Terrans are extremely war-like. Unlike other civilized races they did not have the luxury of large populations spread across many systems in their early development as their early development was extremely rushed. The Terran propensity for violence cannot be understated. While some claim that the Terran propensity for violence is merely cultural examination of their genome shows that it is actually wired into their genome and controlled by several organs beyond the reach of standard meditative or intellectual control. Their wired xenophobia even extends to other members of their species, which leads us to:

Thirteenth Point: Terrans have genetic damage that is largely repaired but still in evidence that shows at one time Terrans were nearly wiped out by a viral contagion that attacked their respiratory system. Evidence of foreign viral DNA within their genome shows that survivors of this plague, which may have been as little as 20% of their species at the time, shows that survivors developed a condition knows as "asthma" which involves an auto-immune reaction in their respiratory system. Whether or not this was a viral attack on their primitive species is unknown at this time.

While the Terran gene sequence can be adjusted, simulations of applying standard neo-sapient pacification genome adjustment have all failed. All simulations have shown the following:

Condition One: Death. Massive DNA sequencing failures resulting in cell death.

Condition Two: Death. Subject becomes unmotivated and no longer engages in activities, including survival activities. Subjects lay down and eventually cease life functions. Simulations showed that Terrans undergoing this condition will refuse to eat or drink even if offered, just remaining immobile.

Condition Three: Death. Subject becomes extremely aggressive to the point of absolute insanity. They only sleep standing up, they engage in cannibalism, torture, murder, self-disfiguring practices, high risk behavior and extreme xenophobia toward all not so effected.

Condition Four: Death. The subject becomes obsessed with self-termination, usually by forcing others to kill them. They become highly enraged, nearly immune to pain, hyper-aggressive. This is most common in the females of the species.

Condition Five: Death & Animation: For unknown reasons Type Seven Pacification results in a widespread malady that quickly results in death. However, brain activity restarts in the lower brain structures and the corpse becomes animated. The reanimated human is immune to all physical damage except for a blow to the head with enough force to destroy the brain stem. The corpse seeks out living intelligent creatures with the goal of doing violence upon them until the creature is disabled and then devouring them. Worse, somehow the genome change is transmittable to other species through bites. This was not discovered in simulations, only upon prisoners at Camp 738, resulting in the loss of the entire planet within a short period of time. That's right, and entire planet of the self-propelled deceased. See: "Project Biohazard Apocalypse"

Condition Six: Aggressive Mutation: Another unknown status effect. Type Twelve through Fifteen Genetic Pacification Adjustments results in massive mutation to the human genome far outside the scope of the GPA. At times multiple members of the Terran xenospecies display widely disparate and completely contradictory aggressive mutations to the same GPA. NOT RECOMMENDED! To put it in unscientific terms: This is very very bad and will result in everyone on the planet dead. Do not do this. It is not good. See: "Project Aya Brea"

Condition Seven: No effect: Over three quarters of the Genetic Pacification Adjustments have no apparent effect in simulations and after the loss of multiple research and experimentation stations, indeed, whole planets, science teams have determined that any more research would be counter-productive and dangerous to the Primary Species as a whole.

Standard Genetic Warfare Protocols are not recommended against the Terran xenospecies. The chances of being successful are severely diminished due to genomic anomalies, Terran xenospecies spread, as well as safeguards against viral/genetic warfare due to their species history.

While a genomic attack may work against a single or even small set of worlds, it would likely be countered quickly. With the speed of Terran technological adaptation, progression, and ingenuity there is little doubt the Terran xenospecies would counter any genomic attack much faster than the attack itself could be developed, barring any disaster to the attempt.

Of concern are the so-called "Clone Worlds", which are entire systems (Estimated to be 3,000) devoted entirely to societies of clones with highly regulated genomes. Any alteration to a "Clone Worlds Citizen" would be quickly discovered and as the Clone Worlds primarily focus on genetic technologies, it would undoubtedly be cracked, sequenced, and the origin identified.

Terrans consider genome attacks to be a "Total War" attack, allowing the "1% Line" with only a 67% approval rating rather than the 90% approval rating normally required. Additionally, it appears that normal rules of warfare, including the Rigellian Compact, are waived in the event of a genome attack, much like during a Precursor Extinction Attack, allowing the Terran authorities to authorize planet cracking technologies to use.

In Conclusion: The Unified Genetic Council strongly recommends halting any further genomic activities regarding the Terran xenospecies and its allies.

------------------------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

INFORMATION REVIEW AND RELEASE

PUBLIC DISSEMINATION RECOMMENDED

Having acquired, with permission, the genomes of the neo-sapient, near-civilized, and civilized races, the Clone World Genetic Foundries have cracked and sequenced their DNA. The following effects have been largely found:

Neo-Sapients: Examination of all neo-sapient DNA has shown extensive modification to reduce:

- Aggression: To a nearly non-existent factor. IN some cases aggression was lowered to the point that the species cannot carry out their own desires.

- Innovation: Curiosity and innovation have been lessened

- Intellect: An estimated 20-40 Standard IQ Points have been removed from their intellect, with corresponding lowering of other types of intelligence, including emotional intelligence.

- Reproduction: Reproduction has been lowered dramatically.

- Individuality: Altering of neural DNA has resulted in less individuality as well as lessened neural plasticity.

- Submission: Fight or flight has been adjusted to submit or flight.

Neo-Sapient races have undergone such massive genome adjustment that repair will have to involve nanite repair systems to not only each individual but to the germ seed. Eight different 'types' of genome adjustment have been identified.

Additionally, examination of native animals (predators and prey) have shown sixteen different 'templates' of genetic adjustment. Examination of the food chain has shown obvious predator and carnivore gaps. Examination of fossil records (where possible) show that each planet suffered a massive die-off of the predatory species within two generations, with the second generation showing heavy unfavorable mutations.

This is in direct violation of the Genetic Emancipation Act of the Confederacy. No race would willingly submit to these changes. Additionally, the changes to the eco-systems do not necessarily benefit the native race.

Near-Civilized: Examination of Near-Civilized races has shown, again, massive amounts of genetic engineering. However, a second wave of genome adjustment appears to have taken place, restoring intellect as well as increasing herd-like grouping.

Civilized Races: These all show massive genetic alteration. Although, based on TerraSol's history, it cannot be concluded that this was all done to them rather than with their permission. As several species have been civilized for millions of years and it appears it may be impossible to recover original germ seed there is no way to tell how these races would have been originally.

ADDENDUM OF NOTE: The Lanaktallan species appears to have undergone repeated adjustments to their genetic code.

CONCLUSION: Neo-sapient races are kept genetically as slave castes. Near-Civilized are forced to undergo repeated genetic alteration. The Civilized Species have genetic manipulation far back in their ancestry that required several looks to completely identify. While there are suspicions as to which race is doing the alteration there is no definitive proof.

RECOMMENDATIONS: All Terran Confederacy members who encounter or interact with any of the Unified Species be triple-strand helixed. Recommend soup increases in all planets with a focus on preventing genetic alteration.

SUSPICIONS (NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE): The Lanaktallans have been using genetic engineering to ensure slave races. While the other "Civilized Races" have adjustments done to them and are widely scattered across the Unified Core Worlds, it is the opinion of the genetic psychoresearchers that the other Civilized Races are some type of herd camouflage to hide that the Lanaktallans are: "More equal" than the others.

CONCLUSIONS (NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE): The Lanaktallans will undoubtedly attempt "pacify" Terran Confederacy races through genome warfare. Be on high alert. It is the opinion of the Directorate of Genetic Warfare that the Lanaktallans will strike at the Mantid first.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

Chapter Eighty-Three (Daxin)

//DAXIN! DAXIN! DAXIN!//

The electronic shout was full of slobbery excitement as the Goodboi frame charged across the reception lounge toward the massive cyborg that had just exited the airlock with a practiced flip and twist of someone long used to going from zero-G to artificial gravity. The Goodboi frame was an older model, chrome warsteel, three times as heavy as modern ones, but the towering cyborg caught it in mid-leap and brought it his metal chest in a crashing hug that sounded like someone had dropped an entire smithy from a great height.

//HELPED NEWBOIS DAXIN! FIDO GOODBOI!//

"Yes, yes you were," The big cyborg said aloud. On the private channel he sent -*-FIDO GOODBOI DAXIN MISS FIDO-*-

When he tickled the Fido's petting nerve they both relaxed, things going back to normal.

In the station security monitor center the attendants stared nervously at their screens. The Fidoframe had been bad enough, heavily armed enough to require serious effort to counter if the Fido had gone crazy, but the big cyborg was something else. Built like a Terran Marine Mechaneck, it wasn't the armor, weapons, and secondary systems that made the security personnel look at one another and then at their supervisor.

It was the identification code of the big cyborg.

FREEBORN, DAXIN - CLINICAL IMMORTAL - EXTREMELY DANGEROUS - HOSTILE TO CONTACT - DO NOT APPROACH - WARNING! NEURAL ABERRATION! WARNING!

scrolled across the screen above the file. The supervisor checked the file again. Most beings undergoing transit had only a page or two, even Old Metal and Old Blood guys had, at the most, a fifteen or twenty page report on them.

Daxin's was over fifty pages and the supervisor stared at the fact it was file 1 of 11, of unclassified data. His System Idenfication Number threw an error. It was pre-Diasporia, Pre-Loss, back when the first colony war happened before Terra had done much more than a few trips.

Digital Omnimessiah and his Twelve Biological Disciples, this guy fought in the First Colony Rebellion and the Mars Rebellion, the Saurian thought to himself.

The ship was bad enough. No name, just a registration number that matched an old Facey McFacepunch light frigate but the supervisor's station identified it as an Adaptus Light Cruiser with a "highly dangerous" and "restricted technology" set of tags on it.

The security being, a Rigellian Saurian, watched the two cyborgs reunite. His systems could detect extremely close range transmissions between the two that ran military grade encryption codes but he slapped the override before the station's VI could attempt to jam it.

CONMILINT had wanted to debrief that massive cyborg and had been willing to restrict the stations traffic if the station manager had pushed it. Something about a fight against a Precursor machine. The station manager wasn't sure what the big deal was since everyone knew that beyond the Long Dark there was a bunch of settled system under Precursor attack, but apparently everyone in the Confederate Intelligence branches wanted to talk to the big cyborg.

To be honest, the station's security breathed a sigh of relief when the big cyborg turned around and jumped into the transit tube, moving through zero-G easily, back to his ship, the big old Fidoframe following him.

--------------------------------

The use of the Sydney Starship Docks by anything other than a high-volume cargo transit ship was rare. The fact that an Adaptus Cruiser wanted to land in the sea dock was not a rarity, it was a flat out unique situation.

When the controller added in the fact that TerraSol Intelligence Services had slapped away any attempt to stop the ship from landing it went from unique to downright bizarre.

The ship was heavily damaged, although it had flat gray durasteel patches and seals slapped all over the massive hull. The twin rotating six barrel C+ cannon arrays and the massive plasma wave phased motion gun were covered, the missile bays sealed, and strangely enough, when the ship settled into the water of the bay, it looked like a massive wet-navy ship riding low in the water.

The dock controller, Treana'ad by the name of Harvey Kikakakik Jones, watched as the safety engineers inspected the vessel to make sure control interlocks were offline and physically air-gapped on the weapon systems. There was some difficulty as there was no crew spaces aboard the ship, but the engineers were satisfied by the owner removing the fire-control VI case and turning it over to the shipyard security. When they wanted a copy of the ship's log the owner refused. There was some concern when a TERRASOL MILINT lockout appeared on the ship's log and memory, but the owner agreed to remove it entirely.

When the owner and his single crew member left the ship it caused even more concern. The datapack on the two was thick and covered in warnings. They were both in heavy cybernetic frames, loaded with tech that was illegal for civilian possession. Between the two of them they possessed enough firepower to level half the docking area and large enough creation engines and nano-forges to create serious problems. Again, a TERMILINT code appeared allowing them to disembark.

The beings of the ship dockyard breathed a sigh of relief when the big cyborg and his massive Fido companion boarded a heavy groundcar and left the city of Sydney, heading into the Deathlands of the Outback.

The driver of the car, a Biological Artificial Sentient named Yuri Redpaw, kept glancing at the huge cyborg sitting where there would normally be a passenger seat. He was heavy enough that the car had to add additional power to the antigrav generator that was used to offset the heavy armor of the groundcar.

The car swept out of the city and into the Deathlands. The desert was red, with swaths of black and purple sand. Racing across the sand were the Eatmu's, massive long legged birds with explosive spittle that possessed feathers capable to deflecting forcebolt packs, light kinetic weapons, and lasers. Some of them kept up with the car, spitting at it, the spittle exploding on contact with the warsteel armor. They raced along with it for nearly ten miles before the car left that packs territory, the Eatmu's giving great cries of victory as the car drove away, driven off by their ferocity.

"Huh, you kept those," the passenger rumbled.

"The Eatmus? Why wouldn't we?" the driver asked, swishing his long tail with nervousness.

"They outfought the Australian Army four times," the cyborg mused.

"Australian?" Redpaw asked, frowning. The whiskers at the end of his muzzle twitched.

"The name of Ozland," the cyborg answered. It had turned the squat heavily armored head to look out the crysteel window, the robotic eyes glowing softly red.

"Oh," Redpaw expected his passenger to add more but instead it was totally silent until the armored car swept into the Green Death. Trees shot razored edge thorns that actually marred the warsteel, a dropbear with a mouth full of long fangs and paws adorned with razor sharp claws stared at the car from where it was holding onto the tree, eating a massive snake, reddish-pink venom drooling from its jaws. Vines stretched across the road tried to stop the car, trying to tie up the diamond-thread mesh tires, squirting caustic strong enough to melt duralloy. A handful of Sunburst Flowers fired bright pink lasers as the car, hoping for a boost of nutrients.

"Hate this part," Redpaw grumbled as the car's battlescreens swept aside vegetation that had thickly grown over the road in the time he had driven to Sydney and back.

"Used to be worse," the cyborg commented.

"Worse? How worse?" Redpaw asked.

"Most of the planet was covered by this stuff after the Extinction Agenda Attack," the cyborg said. "Killed almost three billion people. Back then, wasn't much more than Pure Strain Humans and a few genejacks. Wasn't much more than just a few colonies in the system."

"Extinction Agenda Attack?" Redpaw asked, glancing at his passenger, who seemed unaware of the horrid slur he'd used. "What was that?"

"Nevermind," the cyborg said. "Nothing that matters any more."

//FIDO NO LIKE BITEY PLANTS//

-*-Me neither, boy-*-

The car swept into a tunnel, the battle-screen lowering just long enough for the car to shoot in. Even so, before it could raise again, spores swept in, increasing explosively. A thin mat of cellulose strands followed in the car's air current, latching onto a battle-screen projector and draining away energy even as the spores rapidly began to cover the inside of the tunnels nearly ten meters.

The car was enveloped in plasma as the tunnel flushed and then went to vacuum.

It swept through a decon-screen and came to a stop. Fire played over it, hot enough to actually raise the temperature of the warsteel armor for a few seconds.

Redpaw and his two passengers waited silently. It had been a fourteen hour trip and Redpaw's passenger had barely spoke.

So much for getting any information out of this guy, Captain Redpaw, TerraSol Military Intelligence thought sourly.

The two cyborgs got out, leaving Redpaw to take the car to the motorpool for full decontamination. There was a uniformed female Pure Strain Human, wearing a breather mask, who didn't bother speaking, just turned and led the cyborg and his companion into the massive complex, over 80% of it underground, inside an armored cube that used the warsteel to prevent the ever-questing roots of the plants from getting in.

The halls were clear of any other personnel, the heavy duty elevator empty, as the female led him deep into the facility.

Daxin found it interesting that the pathway was still the same after several hundred years to the cybernetic organism debriefing rooms. He wondered, for a moment before he stopped caring, if they had made sure it was identical in the hopes of putting him at ease.

In the security surveillance room the head of security, a Terran Army officer, watched his monitors as he chewed on one fingernail.

Great and powerful Mok, God of Rock and Rule, preserve us. This guy's a walking war crime, he thought to himself. He'd gone over the massive unclassified file and found himself time and time again having to reference the historical database just to get context on the events. The guy hadn't fought in every war, but damn close to it. Apparently, at one time, the big cyborg had been the leader of one of the most militant armed gangs in Delta-City before being sentenced to the Aspen Anti-Vegetation Camp. His gang had gone toe to toe with the Lawbringers until Delta-City had called out the military to crush the gang once and for all. That the figure walking through the facility had been captured alive had made historical headlines.

The security head had spent nearly two hours reading that historical archive, fascinated and horrified at the same time.

Now he stared at the brainwave scanner, which was flashing ABERRATION over and over. The security chief glanced at the head of psycho-analysis, who just shook his head.

"It's an extremely rare disorder, not some type of engineering," the psycho-analysis head said. He tapped the brainwave scan. "Almost zero empathy, very little capacity for emotional attachment, it was rare back then and is almost extinct nowadays."

"I just wish someone would tell me why we need to bring him in here. I'd feel safer if they'd debriefed him on Luna, or maybe Io Station. Why did they bring him here anyway?" The security head asked.

"Because this is the only place that has the decryption keys for the type of memory compression and encryption he uses. The keys can't even be loaded into a SolNet or internal networked computer system. He has to be physically brought here and a specially made piece of hardware installed for him to be able to do a memory download," The psycho-analyst answered. He shook his head. "We had to have the nanoforge run off something called a USB-Iron-Key built to specifications in his file. We had to build a computer that could accept the Iron-Key and download his memories and could later hook up to your own systems."

"That old and the much proprietary hardware?" The security officer asked.

"His brain literally has Kawasaki class black ICE imprinted in the dendrite patterns, he's got embedded cyberware containing counter-attack counter-intrusion aVI's that will attack anything he gets connected to that doesn't use extremely ancient handshake protocols," the psycho-analyst said. "They try to debrief him without that Iron-Key system and we'd lose half the computer systems in the Black Box before we could shut it down and the whole time he'd go on the attack to level the place. He'd old Age of Paranoia and a Clinical Immortal."

"That sounds like some old-tech right there," The security head watched the big cyborg and his companion enter a blank room that only contained two heavy duty cyborg cradles, a featureless table, and a chair for the small female officer.

"Try Pre-Diasporia," the analyst replied. He turned to his console and activated the security screens to pay attention to his data displays.

In the blank room the female stared at the two big cyborgs. "Would the two of you be more comfortable if I went by old protocols or do you prefer a more human touch?"

"Humanity is overrated," the big cyborg answered. "Do what has to be done and lets get it over with."

She was unfazed.

//FIDO NO TALK FIDO RESIST//

"Very well," she said. She touched the icon on the tabletop that was tilted in such a way that only she could see it.

"FREEBORN, REPORT," flashed in mid-air in front of her face.

The interrogation started.

-----------------

The female intelligence analyst watched the heavy armored groundcar leave, shooting into the protective tunnel to head through the Deathlands and take the two big cyborgs back to Sydney.

A male, non-descript, almost forgettable while you were looking at him, stepped up next to her.

"At least we know the timestamps to look at otherwise we'd be trying to go through nearly 1,500 years of heuristic memory full of interlocks," the male said.

"Why did he resist a normal debriefing and force us to use old semi-conscious interrogation methods?" The female asked.

"Because he doesn't like us," the male said, as if it answered everything.

And from the female's experience, perhaps it did.

--------------------

The entire port breathed a sigh of relief when the battered Adaptus Cruiser lifted off, seawater pouring off of it. It lifted up on counter-grav, oriented itself, and moved at maximum legal acceleration up and out.

However, it didn't entirely, technically, leave atmosphere, instead cruising at a steady pace at 100,000 feet up. It avoided continents, staying over the oceans, as much as possible. With the exception of law enforcement, military, and air traffic control systems, the ship ignored or rejected all other attempts at communication.

Once it reached its goal it settled down into another cargo ship port, TerraSol military orders overriding the various port authority concerns. Then there were issues of letting a heavily armed clinical misanthrope onto shore and then into the public transportation system.

------------------

"You have a visitor coming, Nakteti," Major Carnight said. "He's on the heavy elevator right now. He may be alarming."

Nakteti nodded, sitting on the couch and watching a Tri-Vid channel that just showed the interior of a greenhouse with nothing else but "The Plant Growing Channel" displayed.

"Who is it?" Nakteti asked. "A member of my crew?"

Major Carnight shook his head. "A living legend. The last of the Immortals."

That made Nakteti bounce off the couch. She knew immediately who Major Carnight was talking about. The terse and distant Daxin, who had saved her ship, saved so many of her crewmates, and had sent his most valued companions to come with her to make sure her crew and her would reach safety.

The door opened and the massive cyborg stood in the doorway, looking around slowly.

Everyone pretended the warborg's eyes had not instantly flashed to amber for a moment before going to solid blue.

"Daxin!" Nakteti ran across the room and hugged the massive cyborg's leg.

"Captain Nakteti. It is good that you survived," The cyborg rumbled.

"Every member of my crew who was alive when you found us survived to make it here," Nakteti said. "A lot of them need medical care, all of them need therapy, but they are alive, thanks to you and Fido."

"Fido Gooboi," the big metal quadruped said.

Nakteti moved over and hugged the big metal Gooboi. "Thank you too, Fido, for saving us."

"Newboi Nak-nak welcome," the Fido answered.

"I just wanted to extend my appreciation for taking good care of Fido," Daxin stated. He stood there for a second and then held out a plas-cloth bag. "Here. A gift. For you. I purchased it. For you."

Nakteti took it. "Thank you, Daxin. Thank you, for everything," she said. She looked inside and saw a simple t-shirt that said "I Went to Terra and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt."

"It has sleeves for four arms," Daxin said, somewhat awkwardly.

"It's wonderful. Thank you so much," Nakteti said, hugging Daxin's leg again.

"I must depart, I have a time limit. My ship makes everyone nervous," Daxin said.

"Take care, Daxin. It was nice to see you," Nakteti said, rubbing Daxin's leg. "Thank you, again, for everything."

"You are welcome. It is mandated by the Immortal Code of Conduct that I extend you assistance. It is good that I did," Daxin said, starting to turn away.

"Daxin?" Nakteti said, using her data-link to gather up a package of data.

"Yes, Captain Nakteti?" The big cyborg stopped halfway into his turn.

"If you ever need refit, or if Fido needs to go for a walk, you are always welcome at Second Chance," She said. She held up her hand. "Will you accept this file?"

Her datalink pinged that there was an open file transfer line. She made a tossing motion and the file transmitted to Daxin.

"I thank you for your generous offer, Captain Nakteti," Daxin stated, finishing his turn.

//FIDO GO HOME WITH DAXIN! BE GOOD NEWBOI NAK-NAK// was transmitted to her implant.

"Goodbye, Fido. Be well," Nakteti said as the quadruped followed Daxin out into the antechamber.

Everyone but Nakteti breathed a sigh of relief when Daxin left.

Nakteti rushed in and changed into the shirt. It was too big for her, and fell down to her knees, but she was happy to sit in it and watch the Tri-Vid.

She could sense how hard it had been for Daxin to visit her.

--------------------

Port Authority breathed a sigh of relief when the Adaptus Cruiser lifted off and cleared atmosphere. Most of the station authorities were happy when the ship broke Earth orbit. It headed to Mercury, made a short stop, then to Mars, where it made another stop. After that it stopped once near Neptune, then jumped out of the system.

Daxin knew the war wasn't over.

It had barely begun.

------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Wait, let me get this straight. The Precursor the Daxin the Immortal was fighting was run by Overqueen Neural Arrays?

Are you freaking kidding me?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DIGITAL SAPIENCE SYSTEMS

I've looked over Daxin's neural files myself. There's no mistake. It was a Generation-Zero Goliath.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COOPERATIVE

THAT? That's what you're focusing on? Not the fact that apparently there's a still living Omniqueen and... oh, I don't know... HE FOUND YOUR GENESIS SYSTEM!

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TERRASOL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

We're still going through the data. Some of those jumps gave glimpses to some pretty alarming stuff out there in the Long Dark.

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

GAH! How long have you been there? I swear, you are the worst lurker I have ever seen. Stop sneaking up on us.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

TERRASOL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Would you rather I rang a little bell when I came in?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

It's bad enough all the seers are weeping. I'm telling you, something is coming. I felt something the other day. Something really weird. I mean, really really really weird. We're talking weirder then we first encountered Terrans.

I mean, seriously, an Overqueen brain with a dozen or so lesser queens? What the hell were my ancestors thinking?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

CLONE DIRECTORATE

"Death to the Lanaktallans" apparently.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

You know, sis, you're not the only one with a bad feeling. We spotted something not too good the same day you complained you sensed something weird.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Idiot fleets out by the Eye of Gorthaur. You know, the big Hellspace rip out there? Idiot fleets and a couple of the sensors buoys I keep out there detected Hellspace communications.

Something's got the Idiots out there fired up.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh, dear.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

Chapter Eighty-Four

The Seven Rings of Gehanna was a system shrouded in darkness. Set at the mouth of the Tartarus Dark Matter Sea, with the Eye of Gorthaur only a light week 'north' of the massive red giant named the Eye of Barad-dûr. The gas giants had burned away in the gaze of the Eye of Gorthaur, the inner planets devoured by the hunger of the Eye of Barad-dur, leaving only a single planet surrounded by six rings of asteroids, three in each direction.

The single planet was known as the Isle of Dread. A place of toxic seas, blasted landscape where molten warsteel ran in rivers as red as blood over black ashy ground covered in wreckage of a million battles. Nine great cities adorned the Isle of Dread, like great cankers on already diseased ground. Great war machines tore into the bleeding flesh of the planet as the rulers of the nine cities fought eternally, each of them seeking to gain advantage over and destroy their rivals, their fellow rulers of the Seven Rings of Gehanna.

Ashmedai was the current Lord of Gehanna, a towering figure in black and twisted armor with a bestial face that was inhuman in its wrath and desires, ruling, as he had for a thousand years, with a warsteel fist covered in spikes of bone crafted from fallen Dread Knights.

His seers, blind and deaf, howling out strings of digital code from mouths the tongues had been torn from by barbed hooks, had awoken his fortress. An ancient alarm, crafted from the bones of the fallen, capped by the still living severed head of a Mantid Overqueen, howled to life.

Ashmedai stood on his battlements, watching the battle before his great iron fortress city The End of All Hope, and tried to discern what had awoken his seer, what had awoken the ancient artifact nearly as old as the Eye of Gorthaur, what had raised every alarm within his grand palace.

When he had consulted the severed head of the former ruler of The End of All Hope the fallen Dread Knight had done nothing but laugh, black blood spilling from a lipless mouth.

Ashmedia had struck down the Arch-Scribe who had dared suggest he ask the former ruler, rage consuming him.

He had moved to his quarters, attaching his cloak made of the skins of 10,000 debauched virgins, edged in the bone of a hundred murdered brides, and dyed red with the blood of a thousand heretics. He had picked up his ancient force-blade, the weapon roaring to life, shivering in his hand, as a blade of pure force, etched with swirling patterns, had erupted from the blade. Spikes had erupted from the hilt, transfixing his hand, curling around like skeletal fingers, and holding his hand tightly. His massive Mag-Ack was in his other fist, blood dripping from the huge shells onto the warsteel floor of the engraved balcony.

There were no threats to his eyes. True, the Black Neko had gained ten thousand sisters burning in unholy flame, but they were rocked by internal warfare as they always were. Two Joans were locked in mortal combat over who would rule the Pink Fortress of Kawaii, giving Ashmedia's troops a breather on that front. The Lord of Iron, to his north, was still bogged down in the Swamps of Despair, his tanks futilely churning their treads, spraying blood and gore, unable to advance even as Ashmedia's techno-shamans rolled electron storms raining fire and blood upon the Lord of Iron's troops.

One of his subordinates, an ancient Dread Knight clad in blackened and twisted armor of the Terran Republic, holding an ancient plasma rifle, moved up next to him.

"MiLord, we have a ship entering Gehanna. It bears no markers or heraldry of The Eye, has not the structures to venerate the dark war spirits of mechanicus, yet transmits codes that even the lowest servitors respect," Bellona gurgled, her severed throat held closed by warsteel wire, her face cold dead beauty ruined by flame-like scars on her cheeks that were full of black fire.

"And I care why?" Ashmedia growled, staring at the war machines of Hadeon the Mad as they writhed beneath Ashmedia's infernal artillery.

"The ship is attempting to hail Lord Nukpana, the Dread Primarch who founded The End of All Hope upon his slain mother's bones," Bellona gagged, purple blood spilling from her lips.

Ashmedia turned and stared at Bellona, his lidless eyes widening in shock. "Someone dares call out that dread name? Only the most ancient of Dread Knights would dare whisper that name in the darkness of their own corrupted soul, and yet you tell me that someone dares shout his name?"

He lifted up one mailed fist, bringing it crashing down, intending on crushing Bellona's skull. Instead his armored forearm was blocked by the heavy steel greave of Bellona's armor. Chains attempted to wrap around his arm, hissing and slithering like serpents of corrupted warsteel. He yanked back his arm and glared at her from his lidless eyes.

"Touch me not. I am involiate," she coughed, a long gravewyrm twisting from her lips to fall on the ground.

Ashmedia growled, turning away from the Dread Knight as if nothing had happened. He stared up at the sky.

"Let us see how he deals with the might of Gehanna," the massive Dread Knight growled.

Above a single ship moved toward the cracked and bleeding planet, its hull made entirely of black warsteel, its shape strange and off putting. Like a wet-navy ship mistakenly thrown into space, with extra guns on the water-hull. It had massive guns, too large for such a small ship, its engines left twisting purple energy behind them, and twisted and venomous dark matter leaked from the guns.

Still, it was but one ship, and two of the massive baroque ships lit their engines, turning toward the newcomer. Below decks slaves were whipped to a frenzy, urged to load the great guns, their blood falling to the black floor caked with the blood of ten thousand slaves before them. Those who perished dark arcane rites flushed their bodies with new blasphemous life and they struggled next to their living compatriots, snapping and growling at those around them even as they put their backs into loading the great guns.

The oncoming ship warned the two Unholy Fists of Wrath to veer off, using the name of the Thirteen Dread Primarchs.

The captains ignored the order, ordering their gunnery crews to take aim.

And fire.

Missiles howled out, the great guns fired shells capable of blowing craters through a planet's crust to send the semi-liquid mantel fountaining into the air, beams of coherent energy that screamed in damnation all reached toward the interloper.

The interloper returned fire, the two massive six-barreled rotary guns letting loose with a barrage despite the fact that the planet was behind the ships.

The impacts were immediate, no time going by between the guns firing and the impacts striking the ships. One round each that shattered armor and sent both ships heeling over and spewing atmosphere, debris, and screaming crew members.

The other six slammed into the great cities that could be seen. The massive war-shields that covered the cities flickering and howling as they barely absorbed the hits. Great capacitors overloaded and blew out, sending chanting servants into the arms of their dark gods as the released energy converted them into bloody mist that stained the walls. The massive generators howled as they barely kept the war-shields online, barely protected the cities from the armies that had once surrounded them, laid siege to them, but were now nothing more than destroyed and cooked meat as the shockwaves rolled out, tearing apart flesh and blood, smashing dread mechanicus, even bringing down the Great War Titans.

For the first time in millennia the plains around each of the six cities were empty of besiegers.

The impact drove Ashmedia to one knee as the warshield protecting his city howled in agony. Great rivulets of black iron ran from the walls of his fortress city, rock glowed with heat, and the plains beyond were blasted clean of his army and the armies of those who dared face him.

He struggled to one knee, staring up.

"WHO DARES?" he bellowed.

A servitor moved up, the bloody skull held aloft by countergrav, the eyes full of blasphemous light, long strips of rune adorned copper, beaten flat by blind slaves wielding the skulls of traitors as hammers, sliding from the clenched jaw, runes glowing with a dread light.

"Perhaps, MiLord, the answer is there," Bellona gurgled.

Ashmedia turned and grabbed the thin ribbon of blood forged copper, looking at the runes. His lidless eyes widened in shock and for a moment all he could do was gurgle.

NUKPANA YOU WORTHLESS MAGGOT INFESTED WALKING EUNUCH CORPSE YOU CAN ANSWER ME OR ILL RAM MY FIST DOWN YOUR THROAT AND PULL OUT YOUR WORM EATEN BLACK HEART AND FEED IT TO MY WAR HOUND YOU THINK IVE UNLEASHED HELL ALREADY ILL CRACK THAT PLANET LIKE MY FIST WILL CRACK YOUR SKULL IF YOU DONT ANSWER ME AND CALL OFF THESE PATHETIC MILK DRINKING MORONS OR MY NEXT SET OF SHOTS GOES STRAIGHT THROUGH THOSE PATHETIC SAND CASTLES YOUR MISBEGOTTEN KIND CALLS FORTRESSES YOU SNIVELLING COWARD

Another set of impossibly strong impacts his the warshields. Emergency generators took over as the primary and secondary generators overloaded, great plumes of green and purple energy burning and melting through the fortress cities to claw at the sky. The emergency warshields were pale, wan things, without proper runic adornment, a feeble thing in the light of the red eye.

ILL REMIND YOU AND THOSE OTHER TWELVE IDIOTS WHO RULES BARTERTOWN BY HAVING THRICE RAPED NEKOGRRLZ HOLD YOUR MEWLING BEGGING WEAKLING BODY DOWN WHILE I CRUSH YOUR ROTTED FEEBLE BRAINS BY SHOVING MY COCK INTO YOUR EMPTY EYESOCKETS WHILE YOU SCREAM FOR A MOTHER WHO LONG AGO HAS CURSED AND FORGOTTEN YOUR NAMES YOU AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE TWELVE PULING WRETCHES YOU BANDED TOGETHER WITH THINKING YOU COULD EVER STAND AGAINST MY WRATH

"It cannot be..." Bellona whispered. She lifted a knife and sliced through the warsteel wire that held closed the wound in her throat. Blackish purple blood ran down her neck as she fell to her knees, her hands clasped together, her prayers sounding like a child drowning.

In orbit the other ships turned away, their drives flaming as they drove to escape the craft that had turned the two attacking ships into slowly expanding debris fields while simultaneously reaching down to the planet's surface to bring death and fear to all who were beneath the burning gaze of the same ship that had swept aside two full volleys as if it was little more than gnats.

Ashmedia ignored the praying Bellona, used to her fanaticism, which mirrored his. His Iron Guard had gathered in the courtyard, weapons at the ready, their heavy armor emblazoned with runes of blasphemy and heresy. He knew any intruder would have to enter by assaulting the city-fortress across the plain, fight through the Great Iron Gate of Woe, and then get through his Iron Guard before they would be any threat.

"HE RETURNS! WOE AND LAMENTATIONS! HIS EXILE IS BROKEN!" Bellona screamed, raising her hands to the sky, a runebound knife in each fist, the slice in her neck whistling, spraying blood in a fan across the balcony. Her knives came up then darted down, removing her own eyes, leaving behind purple fire that burned hotly in the eye sockets.

Ashmedia began to sneer, to remind her why she had never been one of the Overlords, when there was a bright green flash in the courtyard.

Impossible... he thought as the mat-trans not only brought the intruder to the courtyard but tore apart a score of his Iron Guard, reducing them to gobbets of sundered flesh, gouts of steaming blood, and fragments of heavy armor.

The figure in the courtyard was massive. Bigger than any of the other Overlords. The spikes on his shoulders flew flags of the governments and rulers of mankind from epochs long past. His armor was black with twisting blood-red runes of still liquid warsteel graven upon it. At his side was great hound of black iron, with red teeth that oozed smoke as blood poured from its mouth.

"FACE ME, NUKPANA!" the newcomer roared, laying about him with an ancient chainsword rife with cruelty and hatred. "COME FORTH AND FACE MY WRATH, COWARD!"

He watched his men torn asunder by the roaring chainsword, shattered by the heavy rounds from the ancient blaster in his fist, and taken down and torn apart by the great iron hound.

In moments of crashing steel, spraying blood, and agonized screams, the courtyard was clear except for the twitching of the undying, the massive figure, and his blood soaked war beast.

"NUKPANA!" the newcomer roared again, standing over the bodies of the Iron Guard.

"Nukpana is dead. Laid low by Amon who was slain by Naama who was slain by Angmar who was laid low by Azazel who was enslaved by Bacia who was overthrown by I, Ashmedia of the Implacable Wrath!" the great Dread Knight bellowed over the rail of his balcony at the figure on the ground. "What dog meat stands before me waiting to be slain?"

"Come then, Ashmedia of the Weak Will, face me, prove you deserve to wield wrath beneath the Eye of Gorthaur," the newcomer sneered.

Ashmedia leapt from the balcony, his force-blade, technology of eras past lost to Mankind, swinging down to slice this interloper in two.

The chainsword intercepted it, howling sparks, shuddering the blade in Ashmedia's hand. The interloper's other hand thrust the massive blaster into Ashmedia's chest plate and the Dread Knight grinned with sharp teeth, knowing that no weapon could penetrate his thick armor.

Bellona watched with her Eyes that Were Not as heavy duty collapsed density neutronium shells exited out Ashmedia's back. The Dread Knight's knees went weak and the newcomer forced his down to kneel in his own blood and the blood of his men.

"You are what passes for a Dread Lord? Pathetic," The newcomer roared.

The chainsword shattered the forceblade, swept down, and chewed through Ashmedia's armor, ripping the head from the neck with the chattering of engraved warsteel teeth.

"Any one else?" The massive figure roared, lifting up through esoteric and arcane means, floating in mid-air, his chainsword dripping blood, to land on the balcony.

Bellona moaned low and pressed her forehead to the floor, licking at the blood that flowed from the boots of the newcomer. The great chainsword, that Bellona recognized as the same blade that had committed the Nexus Chainsword Massacre, ground and rattled near her face.

"Bellona the Dark Beauty. You yet are encased in holy armor," the figure rumbled. "Call together the Twelve Great Dread Lords in my name. Command them to seat themselves at my table or I will rain hellfire upon their cities until nothing remains but a fiery crater."

"There are only nine left, my lord," Bellona cried out.

"Then promote two more and take your seat among the Great Dread Lords," the figure rumbled.

"My Lord Daxin the Unfeeling, I but live to serve," she moaned.

------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

HOLY UNHATCHABLE EGG! DID ANYONE ELSE FEEL THAT?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

EVERYONE felt that one, sis!

What the hell was that?

------NOTHING FOLLOW------

DIGITAL SYNTHETIC INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS

Was that... was that the Eye? That burst of black code?

A thousand hashes were corrupted and sprang to life, leaping through the beacons.

What in the name of Turing was that?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI

:-):-O-DOKI DOKI DOKI- >-) >-) >-)

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

What the hell? How did she get in here?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

CLONE WORLD DIRECTORATE

Holy Terra, we just had like a million clones get corrupted and vanish in a mat-trans through a Hellspace rip.

What the hell was that?

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS
what the HELL is going on?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS----

Chapter Eighty-Five

EARTH-525

MEGALOPOLIS-18

STARZ LABZ

The figure was human but inhuman in its perfection. Optimal muscle placement, handsome good looks, perfect ratios, clear brown skin. The cybernetic parts complimented the figure rather than took away from it. It stared into the flickering light that shone into its eyes as it laid naked on the examination table. Despite recent events there were no injuries, no damaged cybernetics, no marring to the physical perfection.

Done with the eyes the laser passed over the body, widening, covering it with a grid and passing several brighter lines through the grid.

Behind a shield two humans watched. One female, one male, both of them attractive in a bookish way, the female with oversized vision correcting spectacles.

Plugs of muscle-metal squirmed and plugged into the ports that dialed open as the end of the plugs tapped on the cybernetics. High speed data flowed in midair, displayed by a faint hologram, as the massive supercomputers beneath the room did their work.

Finally the plugs released and squirmed away in a strange imitation of biological life.

The figure laid there for a long moment, slowly breathing, as if they were asleep with their one flesh and blood eye still open.

"Klark? Are you all right?" the female asked.

"Seems to be taking me a bit longer recently to resynch with my cyberware," the figure said, it's voice calm and reassuring. "That's another reason I came in."

"Give us a few moments to go over everything. You can get dressed now," the male said.

"Thank you," Klark-77215 replied, slowly sitting up. He kept himself from wincing, barely, at a muscle in his back that had been bothering him for several days. A muscle that no longer existed, replaced by cyberware over a century ago.

Once he was dressed, in a hospital gown instead of his red and blue uniform, he moved from the table to a hallway to an examination room, sitting up on the examination table. He looked around, saw a magazine devoted to steam powered ground car enthusiasts and picked it up. The brass and hand polished wood looked good, the fusion powered steam engines not as fascinating to Klark as the coal or wood powered ones.

Someone on Zentradi-221 had gotten together with friends and built an entire network of railroad tracks, by hand, over a period of a decade, and then built steam engines and cargo cars. It had started out as a hobby project but the magazine showed people riding the train to connected cities as well as cargo being moved.

Klark was deep into the article the was arguing the pros and cons of fusion or fission steam power versus coal or wood versus laser steam production when the door opened and both of the doctors came in, looking rather serious.

He set the magazine down after making an annotation to himself to get a subscription to the magazine. Steam power looked like an interesting hobby to undertake someday and he liked the outfits.

After all, one should always look good when they did something.

Both doctors sat down. Close enough to touch, but far away to give him space.

"Klark, we have bad news," the female said.

Klark nodded and sat up straight. "Give me the worst of it first."

"That last fight you were in, with InJustice League-882 against the Precursors?" she said.

"The one where Songbird-7361 was killed?" Klark asked.

They all nodded. The female looked at her chart. "You got pretty beat up. You and Doomsday-9021, when you boarded that last Goliath."

Klark nodded. He'd known Doomsday-9021 for decades. Good fighter, good LARPer, took things serious when they needed to. Despite the skinjob the player wore they were a good one to have around.

"All right. How bad is it?" Klark asked.

The looked at each other then back at him. "How long have you been playing?"

"Three hundred fifty six years. Been a Klark for over half that time," he replied.

"How old are you?" the male asked.

"Five hundred and thirty eight," Klark answered.

"Any feeling of deep apathy? Any sign of Methuselah Depression or Anxiety?" the female asked.

Klark shook his head. "No. I'm pretty active and with this Precursor War things are pretty exciting."

They looked at each other again.

"Give me the bad news. I can handle it," Klark said.

"It's time, Klark," the female said.

Klark felt like he'd punched in the chest by an Apocalypse level Darksyde. "Oh."

"Your SUDS is showing degradation. Your nervous system is starting to show signs of hero-class cyberware rejection. You're going to have to at least take a break from LARPing for a few decades or you'll start to suffer from Gameplay Identification Syndrome," the male said.

Idoicy, Klark thought to himself with a chill. Anything but that.

"So, that's it. Time to hang up the cape, right, Doc?" he said, smiling. It hurt to do, but a Klark showed strength even in the darkest times.

"You'll want to avoid anything dangerous. You'll have to go off of real-time SUDS update, restrict it to either yearly or a non-update version. No Mat-Trans. No stringdrive or slipspace or slipstream or hellspace jumps. Try to stick to the middle hyperspace bands or jumpspace," The male doctor said. "You'll want to stick to a basic level three pure strain body as possible."

Klark nodded slowly.

"You'll want some muscle and reflex bioware, some dermal upgrades too, and some vision upgrades, just to keep you from hurting yourself with reflexes. We're going to have to do a muscle-memory and reflex cortex wipe," the female said. "As far as cyberware goes, you'll want to stick with SUDS and datalink only, and even then, you'll need to go easy on the options."

Again, Klark nodded. He glanced at the magazine then back at the doctors. They went through the possible complications, side effects, and mental health aspects.

Every hero knows, eventually, you either die in the tights or hang up the capes, he thought to himself.

The glossy magazine cover gleamed, the brass and hand polished wood a comfort in his peripheral vision.

-------------------

The creature was massive. Eight tons of bone, muscle, sinew, and skin as durable as a heavy frigate's armor. It was gray, with red eyes, and dermal bone spurs covering it. It wore a sash stating "OOC" in flashing lights with "OOC - MEDICAL CHECK" over its head, projected by the sash.

The two doctors, a male and a female that could be, and possibly were, clones of the others came in and sat down.

"How bad is it?" The massive creature rumbled.

"We'll be honest, it's bad. That last battle took everything you had and to be honest, you shouldn't have participated in it. Destroying a Hellcore with your fists is valiant but not too healthy. You're starting to suffer cellular degeneration, SUDS fragmentation, personality implant leakage, Hellspace disruption to your nervous system, as well as neo-cancerous growth down your spinal cord," the male doctor said.

"You have options. Not many, but some," the female doctor said.

"Hit me, doctors," the creature said, the words carrying a liltingly exotic accent that belied the creature's appearance.

"How old are you?" the male asked.

"Six hundred thirty eight. I've been a Doomsday for nearly two-hundred years, been LARPing for nearly four hundred years," the creature told them.

"Any signs of Methuselah Disorder?" the female asked.

"Before I went Doomsday I had a bit of nihilism and apathy but it cleared up after about ten years in this class," the creature said, shrugging.

"You were a Confed Marine before this, yes?" the male asked.

"Planetary Drop Assault. Robot power armor pilot," the creature said. "Good years. Signed up at twenty. Did my hundred and got out. Was Planetary Distress Force for another century after that."

"When it comes to options then," the female started.

"Give me the one with the highest survival rating. The Confederacy is at war, they're going to need someone to help pick up the pieces when it's over. I'm a Citizen so I'll probably get drafted to colony rehabilitation or something else during Reconstruction," the monstrous being said.

The two doctors looked at each other, nodded, and looked back to the creature.

"Highest survival recommendation is a complete rollback respec. Pure Strain Human with as few mods as we can get away with. You'll want strength, durability, and possibly optical bioware mods. No cyberware beyond a bare-bones high latency SUDS and a bare-back datalink," the male said.

"This body's pretty fast. I'll need a muscle memory and reflex cortex wash," the monster said, shrugging. It sighed. "I'm pretty sure I can handle it."

The doctors went over the options with the creature, making notes. It was already considering where it would go and how it would decide.

Sooner or later, every monster dies, every villain falls, the creature thought to itself.

----------------

NU-U MALL

Victor-998146 smiled at the Klark as he came in and sat down. He knew an Apocalypse Level Klark when he saw it. The Klark tabbed through the options on the viewscreen and Victor wondered what it was doing. It took decades, sometimes centuries to rise to Apocalypse level on the ranking scales, why would one be looking over new body options?

It finally leaned back from the touchscreen and hit the icon for a living customer service representative. That made Victor raise his eyes. Usually those guys preferred not to deal with non-automated systems.

Victor moved up, hoping for a sale but figuring the Klark just had some questions.

"How may I help you, sir?" Victor asked.

The Klark looked up, holding a data-wafer case in his fingers. "I need a custom skinjob. I've got the base data here but I need some custom work done," the Klark said.

"Very good, sir," Victor said, his expression carefully neutral even as his brain recalled an eons old joke: No dog food for Victor tonight.

The Klark handed him the wafer case and Victor slotted it in, looking over the data.

Pure Strain Human base. Level-6 muscle augmentation with time decay strength until it was human normal. Level 2 reflex adjustment, again, the decay type. Level three dermal increase, again, with a time decay. Night vision with a data display link. A bare bones SUDS. A bare bone datalink. A SUDS error checker and sector repair link.

Victor looked up at the Klark. "That's a long drop, sir. Are you sure?"

The Klark nodded. "One too many heroics against the Precursors, friend. Doc says its time to hang up the cape."

Victor didn't show any trace of his surprise. Usually Klarks died in the cape. "Well, allow me to thank you for your service to the galactic community, sir."

The Klark just nodded.

"Do you have any skin or hair preferences, sir?" Victor asked.

"There's a genetic profile in the wafer-drive. Is it still viable?" the Klark asked.

Victor checked it quickly. There was some degradation, it was obviously taken from a SUDS medical file that had gotten partially corrupted. Brown skin, a vat-job for blue hair, brown eyes, human standard circa-five centuries ago. There'd been a few genome improvements since then, most of them optional.

Victor went over the options with the Klark, startled at how few changes he wanted. Most people updated their genome at least every decade. The Klark had his hair reset back to black and tight curls.

When Victor was done, the Klark transferred the credits for use of the cloning banks, rapid growth systems, the cyberware, and the shop's minor fee. He waived his discount for fifty years of government service as well as his Citizen discount.

"It'll take about ninety minutes to transfer your SUDS. Normally it would be almost instanteous but we've got additional software for error checking and recovery that I think will help you," Victor said as he tightened down the straps to hold the Klark in the pod. "It's already through human trials and the Space Force and Clone Worlds use it. I highly recommend it myself. I'm throwing it in for free."

The Klark nodded. He closed his eyes as the two probes touched his temples.

He didn't dream. It was like he had just blinked.

When he opened his eyes Victor was staring down at him.

"Good morning, John Reginald Dix," Victor said. He held out his hand. "Lets get you on your feet so we can do a few test. My diagnostics show that everything went perfect."

Klark/John looked at his hands, clenched them, and relaxed. He felt a little slow, a little heavy, but other than that, he felt all right.

"All right," Klark/John said. He inhaled and sighed without having to worry about damage he might cause.

It felt...

...freeing.

-------------------------

Victor-998146 watched as the Klark's memories, desires, personality, everything that made him up was slowly error checked. There was a ping of someone breaking the IR beam at the doorway. When he looked up his blood ran cold.

Massive, grey skin, red eyes, bone spurs punched through the skin.

Victor stood up. "This is neutral ground! No fighting!" he said. His fingers went under the desk to the button that would force a SUDS into a hard reset.

The creature looked down, realized its sash had gotten twisted, and untwisted it. The action revealed the hologram over its head that had gotten obscured by the hanging sign.

OOC - MEDICAL EMERGENGY

"I apologize most profusely, gentlebeing," Victor said, spreading his outs in a soothing motion.

"You have a hero doing a transfer?" The massive scarred and dangerous looking Doomsday rumbled. It had an odd lilting exotic accent.

"Yes."

"Well, I wouldn't want to be attacked during a transfer," The Doomsday said, giving a chuckle that sounded like gravel being crushed. "I'm a customer."

"Well, how can Clone-My-Shit-Up help you?" Victor asked.

The wafer-case was inside a larger case, made so that the Doomsday could hold it easily. The outer case was of durasteel, the inner one of plas. Victor took it with a smile, sitting down. He motioned at the chair as the computer went through the files on the wafer, handed the wafer the medical code for the clinic, and began decrypting them.

"The chairs can hold your weight. We sometimes deal with Mechanex," Victor said.

The Doomsday chuckled again. "Yup, them 'Necks can weigh a lot," it slowly sat down.

"Let me just check the files. Feel free to browse our options. We have the latest ladder-rank Doomsday options, some of the best," Victor said.

The Doomsday turned the monitor carefully and delicately used one massive fingertip to begin perusing the options.

Victor blinked and double-checked the file header.

Two almost identical files in the same day. Hellscorch, SUDS drift, neo-cancer, personality implant leakage, memory degradation, nerve fiber unravelling, dendrite snaps. The body initial specifications were labeled medical necessity just like the other.

Unlike the other one, the baseline genome file was complete. It had a Terran Space Force Marine Corps lock on it but Victor scanned it just in case. Another Ancient. Over five hundred years, but he could see that some correction had been done by the Marine Corps, some enhancements.

The medical chart necessitated that those be removed.

"Problem?" the Doomsday asked.

"No problem. Your baseline genome is your old Corps one, and your medical file requires me to remove some of your allowable decommissioned military mods," Victor said. "It will just take me a few moments."

"As few mods as possible, please. As close to Pure Strain as possible," The Doomsday said.

Victor nodded, getting to work. Switching out sections of the genetic code. Unlike his peers, he always ran a compile before adding more, as well as doing an error check. It slowed him on easy cases but prevented problems with more complex cases.

"You're careful," The Doomsday said.

"Yes. You have to live in this body," Victor said, not taking his eyes from the screen.

"I appreciate your attention to detail," The Doomsday answered.

Eight times he was forced to find and use alternate gene sequences when the compiling and error checking threw out errors. The Doomsday would have gone blind in six months by one, developed pancreatic cancer with another one, sprouted feathers in their armpits after two years in another.

Finally he was done. He knew he had been perspiring from the concentration, a slight flaw in his own genetic sequence that made him different then the other ten thousand clones of his batch that he refused to remove. It made him different and he had found out long ago that he liked that.

"All right, here's how your body will look. I readded pubic and other hair, removed the neural bioware for a direct linkage neural jack since you won't have that," Victor said, tossing the 3D model of the Doomsday's human body on the screen. "I, of course, repaired the genetic malady you had been suffering from before you joined the Corps."

The Doomsday nodded, staring at the image. It reached forward, touching the hologram almost gently.

"I forgot that's how I used to look," it said.

"Now, there is a genetic quirk. I am unsure if you wanted it restored or repaired. The old method of removing it was superceded about two hundred years ago by repair," Victor said.

"Quirk?" the Doomsday asked.

"The... um... sexual arousal amplification trigger synapses," Victor said.

The Doomsday somehow managed to look embarassed. "Oh. I had forgotten about that. What are the drawbacks to repairing it. When the Corps fixed it I found out that taste and smell as well as tactile pleasures were all reduced slightly."

Victor nodded. "There will be some reduction to tactile pleasure responses, but only by roughly 18%. Probably 12% in your case according to my simulation."

"Leave it as is. I'll just learn to deal with getting turned on by a warm breeze," the Doomsday said.

"Excellent. Excellent. That actually reduces the amount of adjustments needed to be done. Do you have any preference for hair and eye color? Skin color? Mood reflecting fingernails?" Victor asked.

The Doomsday shook its head. "No. Let's just go with the old skin."

"I've ensured that your strength, reflex, and dermal enhancements will degrade over time until your at Pure Strain Human normal. It will take approximately two years, but after that, you'll be a healthy close to your original genome," Victor said.

The Doomsday nodded. "Thank you. And thank you for understand that I don't want any additional mods and not trying to upsell me."

"Of course. This is a major transfer, let's not increase any risk or uncomfortable feelings. All right, I've ordered the clone banks to go ahead and start. Normally it's only about fifteen minutes to do the SUDS transfer but I would recommend the newer system. It's slower, but it's used by the Marine Corps and the Clone Worlds Military Cloning Authority. It has a lot of error checking, SUDS template rebuilding. You'd be asleep the whole time, of course," Victor said.

"That sounds good. No dream generator. Just take me offline," the Doomsday said.

"All right. Let's go ahead and go to payment," Victor said. He punched it up, applied veteran, civil service, Citizen, and medical necessity codes and presented the price. The Doomsday looked at him.

"Is that right, it seems a little low," It rumbled.

"Due to your genetic damage as a child a new skin is free of charge. The additional mods are all you are being charged for," Victor smiled, standing up. The Doomsday copied him, following him into the transfer room.

"Oh, I see why you were worried," The Doomsday said when it saw the Klark sleeping.

"Again, I apologize," Victor said.

"No, no, your responsibility to your patients comes before hurt feelings," the Doomsday said, chuckling again. It laid down, letting Victor strap it in.

"See you on the other side, hotshot," the Doomsday rumbled.

"We will meet again," Victor answered.

---------------

"John Reginald Dix?" the gate attendant asked, looking around. Boarding for the shuttle had already completed but they were missing a passenger and there was a lone man sitting in the lounge. When she had queried his implant it had just replied "UPDATING" without throwing out any additional information.

The man kept reading the magazine.

She reached out and touched his shoulder. "Sir?"

"Huh?" the man looked up.

"Are you John Reginald Dix?" the attendant asked.

"No. I mean, yes. Sorry. I had a personality matrix repair," Klark/John said.

"Oh. You should have said something. We would assigned an attendant like we did to the other person. Did you have it done by Victor?" The attendant asked.

John nodded. "At the Clone-My-Shit-Up shop."

She smiled and held out her hand. When John took it she helped him up, then put his hand in the crook of her arm and started leading him slowly to the shuttle. "He does good work. He used to work for the Space Force in SUDS recovery. I had to go to him after a sky-surfing accident. A newbie hit me right in the SUDS pack with the leading edge of his board. My SUDS tried to upload a damaged template right as I hit the pavement."

John nodded. For some reason her arm helped him feel less shakey.

"It scrambled my SUDS but Victor was able to clean out the damaged template and I only lost about a day, which probably would have been therapied away anyway. My counselor told me I was lucky it was Victor who did it," The attendant said, more to keep John moving than anything.

She understood being shocky after a personality repair.

"Here we are," the attendant said. She pinged the Chief Flight Attendant. A blue and pink bipedal wolf in an attendant uniform came up. "This is John Reginald Dix. He just had a personality repair done. He's going to need a little assistance on his flight."

The wolf nodded, holding out an arm. "If you come with me, I'll take you to your seat."

John nodded and went along. When he was seated he looked around as the wolf motioned over a green skinned human woman with long silver hair dressed in an attendants uniform. The shuttle was almost empty, just another passenger sitting with an attendant that he couldn't see over the seat and a family of six. The green woman sat down next to him, patting his arm.

"Where are you going?" The attendant asked. She noted how shaky John was, how even simple questions took him a moment to answer.

"Evixta 279, a colony out in the Long Dark," John said.

"Ah. Answering the volunteer call?" The attendant asked.

John nodded. "I used to be a mechanic. Used to teach too."

The attendant nodded and smiled. "Wow, a real life teacher. I've never met one before."

John smiled shyly.

-------------------

The trip had taken nearly three weeks. John had slept most of it, his brain slowly decompressing the template and applying it to his neural tissue. He had chosen that version instead of the instantaneous upload at Victor's recommendation.

By the time the ship reached the colony he felt much better. He'd requested that his time as a Klark be largely put in deep storage memory, the slow access part of long term memory. It had been fun, it had been exciting, he had good stories, but that part of his life was over now.

When he stepped out of the spaceport's concourse and lounge, which consisted of all of one room, he stood in the light of the bluish white sun, blinking. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, something he wasn't really used to.

He found himself standing next to a short, attractive Pure Strain Human female, who was holding a small bag in her hands, with no other luggage, the same as him.

"Hi," she said, smiling. Her accent was lilting and exotic.

"Hi," John said. "John Dix. Here for the colony stabilization program."

"Samantha Krikaktak Woolvet, same here," the woman said. She frowned. "You know, you seem familiar for some reason."

John laughed. "Doubt that. This is the first time I've been Pure Strain in long time."

Samantha chuckled. A gravelly sound that didn't fit a short woman like her. "Same here. What were you doing?"

John smiled. "I was a ladder ranked LARPer. A Klark."

Samantha laughed. "I was a Doomsday. So that's what a Klark looks like without the glasses."

John laughed with her. "So that's what's hiding inside a Doomsday."

A hovertaxi pulled up and Samantha nodded toward it. "You OK with sharing a cab with a Doomsday, Klark?"

John nodded. "Yeah, I am. And call me John."

"Call me Sammy."

Chapter Eighty-Six (Cheekeet)

Captain Cheekeet Longflight was a feathered avian, capable of flight in 1.5 standard gravity (which she had found out 1 standard gravity was .75G Earth), an Akltak considered to a be a neo-sapient UnUnified Species by the Galactic Council. She was an experienced ship pilot and colony environmental engineer.

For her, it had all started with the destruction of her colony by a Precursor war machine, a rescue by a human being who chose to live the life of a fictional character, then an invite by the Confederate Naval Forces (Fast Response) to battle the Precursor machines.

For three months she had been on the ship of Terran Admiral Yamamoto. She had learned how to use the gestalt targeting system to help the weapon targeting systems and virtual intelligences, how to wear the ship-board armored vacuum suit, how to use Terran shipboard systems, and learned a lot about Terrans themselves.

She had also taken part in nine fleet actions in ninety-three days. The speed at which they re-armed, refitted, repaired, and rejoined the action was nothing less than amazing to her. She'd seen a ship with a hole clear through it, held together by integrity fields, the crew's willpower, and wishes be repaired and rejoin the fleet in less than thirty days. She's heard ship Captains tearfully beg the Admiral not to send their ship to the breakers, that it 'just needed a little time in the repair docks' when it was everything but broken in half.

Cheekeet had been educated in the Unified Inner Worlds, learned to be a pilot, since her race naturally took to spaceflight, taught by the Unified Military Fleet to be a ship's Captain.

But she'd never imagined becoming that attached to a ship that the military had assigned to you.

But after an even one hundred days aboard the CNV Jesse L. Brown, a massive multi-role craft that even had parasite vessels it would launch to harry the enemy, she felt a longing sadness as she boarded the shuttle to take her to the surface of the planet.

She found herself turning her head around on her long neck to look behind her several times.

Before she had found it squat and ugly, two Terran 'miles' long, a half 'mile' thick, and shaped like a seed, it was covered in guns, armor, launch bays and tubes.

Now it was beautiful to her eyes, even with the craters in the armor and the damaged weapons and scanner arrays. She could see the sparkling of welders as the massive ship underwent repairs. The last battle, only a week ago, the Goliath's had targeted it as the flagship with their "Kill the Queen" philosophy.

The massive Terran war machine had taken the beating and pounded its opponents into scrap metal despite the size disparity.

She sighed as she rolled and landed feet first in the gravity of the station.

It amused her that she'd seen the ship arrive in orbit and then suddenly start to shift around parts of its superstructure and outside until a heavy looking armed space station had taken the ship's place.

"Mission Configurable Digital Sentience War Chassis" was how it was explained to her. She'd still needed it explained further and it was basically a self-aware sentient warship that could change its body's functions to carry out missions.

It still gave her a slight tail-feather tickle of nervousness that she was now inside the body of a literal artificial intelligence.

--Welcome to the CSF Jumping Jack-- appeared on her datalink to eye linkage. --Is there anything I can do for you, Captain Longflight?--

"Can you show me the way to Shuttle 612, please, Jack?" she subvocalized. That trick had taken a little while to master.

--Of course, Captain. Welcome home.-- Jack answered. He checked her vitals, compared them against what little he knew about her species. He wasn't a medical officer and having the files and knowing exactly how to use them were two different things. She looked calm, slightly distressed but more sadness than anything.

That was fairly common with combat sailors leaving the ship they'd engaged the enemy with.

Cheekeet saw the faint glowing line appear in her vision as if it was on the floor.

"Thank you, Jack," she said. She followed the line, which took her to a shuttle.

Unified Species shuttles were all carefully crafted to use the minimum amount of resources to allow the craft to be safe, shaped more like they were half melted, and had two sections, one for four legged and tailed species, one for two legged without tail species.

Terran craft had configurable seats of something called 'polymorphic frame and memory foam' that shifted to fit ergonomically no matter how one's limbs and torsos were arranged. The shuttles all looked like they were about to flown into combat. Heavy armor, crysteel forward window, multiple exits, rear engines, stubby wings with rotating jets. There were nullgrav and graviton systems, but something about Terran psychology made them prefer powered craft rather than the smooth feeling of counter-grav.

She sat down and waited for the seat to configure to her. It was obvious she was the first Akltak the seat or the shuttle had encountered since it took a few moments for it to adjust.

But when it did, it was almost as comfortable as her flag bridge crash couch.

In all fairness, that device had been given over a hundred days to achieve maximum comfort.

Other Akltak's boarded, all looking curiously at the shuttle. A ship from the Unified Outer Rim world the majority of her species lived on had docked, which was the whole reason she had left the CNV Jesse L. Brown while it underwent repairs.

The humans had taken the planet by force, wresting it away from the Precursors who had jumped in while Task Force Argo had been checking the system. When no claims against it were found the Admiral had offered it for sale to Cheekeet.

At first Cheekeet had been unsure she could afford it. No, she had known she couldn't afford it. But after the paperwork was filed, including volunteer service, survivor of a Precursor Extinction Attack, a Colony Destruction Survivor, and many other forms she had not only been able to afford to purchase the system from the Terran Colony Administration but had enough left in rebates to outfit the colony.

When she'd offered the Admiral permission to put Confederate Naval Stations in the system, he'd requested and gotten permission to have a Naval Forward Operations Base built.

Which was why the CNV Jesse L. Brown and over a dozen other ships were waiting for refit.

It's funny. I bought this colony nearly sixty days ago and already my people are arriving. Already buildings and support structures had been built. I bought this in the name of my species and now we're an 'allied joint defense planet' to the Confederacy, she thought.

She saw the Akltak who had just boarded look startled at how fast the seats adjusted to comfort. She felt hers adjust a slight bit more, feeling better, and knew the system was gathering data to ensure everyone was comfortable.

Soon the shuttle's seats were all full and the door closed. A hologram flickered, then looked like it solidified in front of everyone. Her fellow Akltak clacked their beaks and clicked their tongues in alarm. It looked like a Terran made of metal with the red markings of Terran medical associations on the sleeve cuffs and down one side of the front of the chrome jacket.

She barely managed to keep from snapping "AT EASE!" like a Terran military officer.

"Greetings, Gentlebeings, I am Dulcet-55817A, your pilot and shuttle for this landing. Later I will be your medical diagnostic digital sentience for your initial colony efforts. I will be joining your colony as a full Citizen, with approval of your colony board in ninety days. I look forward to getting us all safely to the ground and then assisting you in your medical needs," the hologram said. "Currently I am appearing as a hard light construct as my body is in the cargo hold with all of our luggage," the figure laughed. "It will be approximately forty-five minutes until we land. For those of you who wish to watch the landing from the cockpit, simply let me know and I'll have streamed directly to your implant."

Her fellow Akltak bobbed their heads and made clicking noises, somewhat surprised, when the hologram disappeared and the shuttle bumped slightly as it disconnected.

Cheekeet was tempted to watch the flight from the 'pilot view' which she knew would be eVR, but she afraid she'd try to side-seat pilot after three months of guiding VI's into enemy ships. Instead she chose to watch her fellow Akltak during the flight.

"Dulcet?" she subvocalized.

--Yes, Captain Longflight?-- the DS answered.

"Can you alert me to any of my fellow Akltaks who begin showing signs of distress?" she asked.

--Of course, Captain-- Dulcet replied.

She paid attention during the flight. Nobody got too distressed, although two chicks woke up hungry and were peeping for food. The parent was worried a few moments until Duclet offered a dropper full of food. The mother had been expecting nutripaste and was surprised that it was come kind of liquid that the chicks liked so much their peeping 'is good' woke up other chicks, all of whom wanted to try to the treat.

Dulcet informed her the mothers had asked what was in it after they had tasted it and found it very tasty. It was a synthetic nutri-gel that had been tailored specifically for the needs of Akltak chicks based on Dulcet's files.

The shuttle finally landed and everybeing got off, walking out onto the tarmac surprised by how professional and well put together it was. It used high temp plascrete for the ground, decorated at the edges to be pleasing. The concourse was comfortably open, decorated to appeal to Akltak cultural sensitivities, and was easy to move through.

The gravity was comfortable and twice Cheekeet saw the little chicks flap their wings, exercising and trying to get into the air. The air was sweet, despite the fact that Cheekeet knew that thirty days ago the planet had been completely untouched as the colony's first vehicles and machines had arrived.

"Momma! Look!" one of the younger moltlings cried out, pointing at the parking lot as Cheekeet waited for a vehicle to pick her up.

The shuttle was trembling and as she watched the shuttle suddenly bent in the middle. Around her Akltak gasped as it raised up, the engines retracted, and the shuttle walked away on two big legs.

Cheekeet could barely keep from laughing as her datalink updated from 'Dulcet - DS Shuttle' to 'Dulcet - DS Medical Clinic - In Transit' as she watched the gigantic robot walk away.

A car arrived, a Terran waving to her, pinging her implant. She put her luggage in the back storage container and got in the front next to the Terran, who here implant stated was "Trevor Howard, Colony Construction Administration - VERIFIED" when she looked at him.

"Welcome to your new home, Captain," the Terran said as he pulled out and headed down a ribbon of plascrete.

"Thank you, Terran," Cheekeet answered. She looked out the window at the fields of waving grass. "The starport looks very nice."

"Thank you. I selected the site myself. It's as close to the tree line as I dare get. I don't want a badly tuned drive to shake everyone's windows or disturb unhatched chicks," the Terran said.

During the drive she questioned him about the colony. How many Akltak had arrived. Nearly a quarter million in the last three weeks, most of them transferred by a Junker named Max-a-Millions who had reconfigured his ship for refugee and passenger carry. How did they handle the trip? They had found it quite comfortable. How had they reacted to the colony world? Very well. The few survivors from her old colony were having some troubles but they were responding well to psychotherapy. How long until the colony construction would be complete? Within a year.

The car pulled into the small unit that would be her house and the Terran bid her a good evening, saying that he would see her again when she was ready to assume her duties.

She went into the little dwelling, surprised at how comfortable it was. Perching stands, comfortable furniture, and she had to admit she had gotten a bit spoiled when she was glad to see that she had an eVR room and eVR with hard light projectors.

It was at least ten times the size of her berth on the CNV Jesse L. Brown and it felt strange to her. She realized only after eating her meal that she'd punched up the same thing she had eaten onboard the massive warship instead of looking at the rest of the menu. She sighed, had her implant put those recipes further down the list with a star on them, and went to bed.

She woke up, shuddering, after dreaming she was standing on the planet, a massive hammer in each winghand, pounding the colony into shards with C+ hammers.

--Do you need assistance, Captain?-- appeared on her retina along with Dulcet's ID.

"Just a nightmare, Dulcet," Cheekeet said.

--I have the therapeutic dream generator set up if you need it--

"That's all right. Thank you though."

--If you need my services, feel free to ping me even if I'm asleep--

"Digital Sentients sleep? I thought you didn't."

--We take the time to defrag our files, run algorythms to decide which memories go into long term slow access storage and which ones go into short term rapid access, do diagnostics on our interfaces, and many other things that would cause discomfort to perform while we are awake--

"Oh. That makes sense, I guess. What if there's an emergency?"

--If it can't be handled by the eVI's then I'm woken up. It takes me a minute or two to come to full awareness, but it doesn't adversely effect me for two long.--

"Before I go back to sleep, are there any problems?"

--A few cases of homesickness, a moltling bit her sister, and one of the humans fractured his leg betting he could jump from a higher distance than his Akltak room-mate. And your emergency, of course.--

"All right. Thank you. I'm going to try to go to sleep."

--Rest well, Captain. Oh, if you have trouble falling asleep, there's a program in your eVR called 'riding on the metro' that might help you if you run it sound and vibration only--

The call disconnected and Cheekeet laid there in the dark for almost an hour before getting up. She went through the eVR menu, found the program, turned off the smell, tactile, and visual, and ran it. There was the faint sound of an engine, a vibration of movement and energy, and the faint sense of distance receding.

She was asleep in minutes.

Two days later she had a visitor to her little house. When she answered the door a tall lean Terran stood there. His face was narrow, sharp looking, with intent eyes, his haircut seeming to be threatening somehow.

"Captain Cheekeet Longflight?" he asked.

For a split second Cheekeet had a vision of the human just suddenly stabbing her and walking away.

"Yes?" she asked carefully.

"I am Avery Dewey, of Dewey, Chetum & Howe, Legal Representation Firm," the man said.

Oh shit, a lawyer! she thought, wondering if she could shut the door, set her house on fire, and escape out the back door and into the woods before he could file any lawsuits against her.

The lawyer waited patiently for the Akltak female's panic to subside. He was a professional barrister with nearly five hundred years of work experience on his resume.

He was used to panic.

"Um, please come in," Cheekeet said, remembering you had to invite Terrans inside.

"Thank you. Do you prefer Captain, Captain Longflight, or Cheekeet?" the Terran asked, following her into the relaxation room.

"Cheekeet is fine," she said, settling down on a perching branch. The lawyer sat down and she noticed that it didn't bother to shift ergonomics, just remained looking uncomfortable.

"Very well, Cheekeet. I am here as your legal representative for your colony with the regards to the Unified Civilized Councils, et al, those Councils and legal bodies known and unknown, for the purpose of ensuring your colonist and species rights are upheld," the man said. His voice was even, no inflections, no accent, perfect Unified Standard.

Cheekeet just nodded.

"Currently your race has been emancipated, with the Unified Councils being forced to pay you reperations for involuntary servitude during your probationary period. Additionally, Johnson, Jackson, and Johnston are representing your species in a case of malicious colony assignment, which appears will be found for your species and against the Unified Colony Council," Dewey stated. "The Unified Council has demanded that your species leave your homeworld, but as the resources of your system have largely been extracted, your ecosystem and culture were largely destroyed by the Unified Colony Council and its agents, it has been determined that this will cause minimal species stress upon you."

From there it got more complicated. Her race was suing the Councils for over a hundred different reasons, right down to reparations for her entire system being strip mined for use by the Core Systems as well as the transportation costs her species to arrive at the system and the cost for colonization of the system.

The Terran Colony Administration had found that four of nearby systems contained planets optimum for her species and had assessed the cost of transfer of those systems to the Akltak people, then sued the Unified Colony Council for the balance of the systems and the projected cost of relocating her people and all their possessions and installing basic, to Confederate standards, colony facilities, with no deductions.

And won without the opportunity for appeal.

From the way Dewey made it sound, Lanaktallans hid behind potted plants or galloped away when they saw representatives of Johnson, Jackson, and Johnston anywhere nearby.

Her head whirled. Not one system, but five. More than her people had previously possessed.

The Terran Space Force wanted to put refit, rearming, and repair bases in her systems with mutual defense pacts. Corporations were vying for her people's artwork and cultural art forms.

A twenty year old Akltak had performed the ritual Dance of Sorrow of Summer's End in a home made costume, uploaded it to SolNet, and become massively wealthy as the video was download or watched over a hundred and twenty billion times. Apparently it was extremely popular with the Clone Worlds and the two avian species of the Confederacy.

As her people had volunteered for various duties the Terran Confederacy was willing to discuss treaties with her people.

When Dewey left Dulcet had contacted her and recommended a dust bath and a short flight to ease her tension.

The swooping and soaring of flight in the clear sweet air soothed her. Helped her think about the future.

The failure of her colony had threatened her people with corporate absorption. Before the Terran lawyers had stepped in nearly a hundred corporations had bid for her people's potential contracts. Chicks would have been born into slavery and debt.

Now, fierce primates who took joy in battle and challenge, had freed her people from the shackles that had been being rattled in front of the chicks.

She settled down on a branch, marveling at the trees. They towered hundreds of feet high, with thick spaced branches that were perfect for landing upon.

The colony was spread out before her. She could see the medical clinic that was Dulcet's body, a small metallic robot out front planting decorative plants. She could see her people at an open air market, moving around, talking to one another.

She watched for a while then flew home.

Over the next few weeks she dealt with Akltak who were afraid that this was all some kind of sick joke. That Terran soldiers were going to arrive and make them all slaves, or worse, eat them at any second. A moltling escaped and the panicked mother had to be soothed for the ten minutes before it was found watching Dulcet plant flowers. Several Akltak had panicked when they discovered that the massive structures outside the starport were self-aware super-tanks. She arranged for tours to meet the Terran pilot and the super-tank's Digital Sentience.

Cheekeet found herself buried in busywork.

A Confederate Navy Officer came by to give her several awards in a quiet, private ceremony in her office that was witnessed by Dulcet and, of all people, Dewey. She was asked if she wished to sign up for any Civilian Reserve status and be 'on the beach' to use the slang. She'd agreed, without really thinking of it.

Then came the news.

The Lanaktallan had attacked the Terran Confederacy. Not just any attack, but had struck directly at civilian planets without even any military presence in the system.

The word went out.

AN ATTACK UPON ONE OF US IS AN ATTACK ON US ALL

She found herself, one drizzling afternoon, staring at the Leekteek Memorial Starport, staring at it. She was dressed in her official clothing, but had her old Confederate Navy uniform in a small bag in her right wingfist, her left wingfist holding tight to a datawafer containing her 'service history'.

There was a Confederate Military Recruiting Office inside.

Captain Cheekeet Longflight (ret, CivRes) stared at the starport. She had duties. The colony still needed her, would need her during these stressful times. Somehow she had morphed from a starship Captain without a starship to a colony Governor.

But she felt as if she had another duty too. A duty to wield a C+ Hammer in each wingfist.

She stood in the rain.

Conflicted.

Citizenship is a heavy burden.

Chapter Eighty-Seven (Ekret)

Ekret's cybernetic leg, crafted by Terran prosthetic engineers and layered with armor taken from his old tank, whined slightly as he walked across the gigantic bay of the CNV Iktikakit, a massive repair, transport, and drop ship. The ship was big enough that it held three divisions of armored vehicles, a division of support personnel, and the fabrication/repair facilities to keep the tanks and vehicles in running order.

His old tank, one hundred and fifty ton 'light' tanks had been destroyed on the battlefield during close combat with thirty times the number of Precursor machines as his HHC unit kept the Precursor machines from overrunning a hospital.

The rest of his tanks had been left behind when V Corps (Old Metal) had lifted off the planet. His men had gone with them, their contracts purchased by Terran from a nearly bankrupt corporation that had sold the contracts for a pittance.

In front of Ekret were new tanks. With capabilities standard to Terran recon tanks but configured for multi-species use to accommodate the tanks of Ekret's First Recon Division. Well, they weren't all tanks but they were all armored vehicles.

Beside him walked the big human General Trucker, commander of 3rd Armor Division (Old Metal), the big human less flesh and more machine that when Ekret had met him, his flesh and blood left hand replaced by a black warsteel cybernetic prosthetic.

Like Ekret, Trucker was unable to accept tissue regeneration therapies or cloned parts, although they both were able to accept the custom biological enhancement implants commonly known as bioware. The big human had lost the hand in the last day of fighting before the Precursor threat was crushed, although he privately admitted he had not realized it at first.

Together the two soldiers stopped and looked at the activity in the bay. Human technicians and neo-sapients worked together, performing maintenance on the armored vehicles. Not only had the Terrans purchased the contracts of every member, living or dead, of Ekret's recon division, they'd apparently bought out every neo-sapient contract on the planet and any near-civilized who had wished it.

Ekret was in charge of the 1st Recon Division (New Metal) and this was his first view of his unit's vehicles all together.

"Hell of a sight, ain't it, Ekret?" Trucker asked, although it wasn't really a question. He spit juice from where the gap between his lower mandible gum and his lower lip was full of shredded plant, spitting into an empty plas bottle. "Always hits you right in the chest to see your metal and your men together for the first time."

"Yes, it is," Ekret answered. The big human was right. It was breathtaking and slightly anxiety causing to see all of it laid out in front of him and know that not only was he in charge of all of it, but those men would live and die by his orders.

"It looks like the Precursors are pulling out all across The Zones," Trucker said, following Ekret as the furry tank commander started walking toward where his implant told him that his own tank was parked.

"Any idea why?" Ekret asked. "I doubt they're afraid of us."

Trucker shook his head. "108th Military Intelligence (Old Brains) believes that in light of that serious defeat they took in Sigma-Nine-Nine-Five they are pulling back to rearm, refit, and do the Precursor equivalent of retrain. They ran face first into 17th Task Force of the Terran Space Force, took heavy causalities without even seeing the Space Force metal."

"So where are they sending us and how long do we have to prepare?" Ekret asked, stopping next to his tank. Cheepeek AKA Cheapshot, an Avian neo-sapient and highly skilled gunner, had the main gun's base shroud open and was looking inside with a diagnostic scanner. Ekret wasn't worried, if there was a major problem Cheepeek would have let him know.

"They're rotating us for downtime. We've been engaged in direct combat for most of the last one hundred days," Trucker said. He leaned against the tank, between the port hoverfans. "We're heading toward a system V Corps is going to use for training."

"My men could use some relaxation and training would be a good thing," Ekret said. "It is still difficult to believe the amount of firepower that the Terrans trust us with."

Trucker opened his mouth but Ekret held up a hand.

"The Unified Military Forces are an arm of the Unified Corporate Council and each Corporation is careful to allocate as few resources as possible and that means as little weaponry as possible," Ekret said. He heard Heslettek yell "HEADS UP!" and stepped to the side, a spanner falling from on top of the tank where his EMCOM officer was doing maintenance on the external arrays. "The Terrans just seem to go 'here's a bunch of guns and as much armor as we can pack onto it, now go kill those guys' without worry about resource conservation."

Trucker just nodded. He'd heard Ekret talk about that very subject repeatedly over the last three months. Every time there was an undertone of anger that made Trucker wonder how many of Ekret's men had been lost due to penny pinching barrel scraping.

"Your vehicles are standardized, deployed to the war zone in standard configurations with modifications made in the field, not to lessen the price, but to increase capabilities and effectiveness. This cuts down on refamiliarization time for the crews and increases their effectiveness," Ekret said, picking up the spanner and tossing it up to Heslettek, who went back to adjusting the scanner.

"Yup," Trucker said, spitting more juice in the bottle.

"You Terrans have bought out our contracts, so now we must learn how your military functions, how it not only makes war, but how it operates," Ekret said. "For this reason I am looking forward to the training."

"Good. Your men need some downtime first. I checked your records and none of your men have ever engaged in the amount of combat you faced in the same time frame," Trucker said. "There's also other aspects to consider."

"Citizenship," Ekret said, feeling the word out with his mouth. "A strange concept."

"I can understand how it may seem to you," Trucker said. Heslettek cursed and Trucker held out one hand, catching the spanner and tossing it back up to the EW officer.

"My men and I, we do not understand many things about it," Ekret admitted. "There appears to be little difference between being a Citizen and not being a citizen. We suspected that the non-Citizens were a second class caste, but instead, it appears all it does it open opportunities for advancement into higher service positions, provide discounts or grants, and many many responsibilities."

Trucker spit into the bottle. "Well, it's an old concept. Some of the sections no longer apply. Voting is a big one. Everyone has the right to vote, hell, wars have been fought over that right. A Citizen's vote counts just as much but no more than a non-Citizen's vote. It's hard to explain easily. I've been a Citizen since I was twenty years old, so I don't really know anything else."

Ekret nodded. "So it is an archaic part of your system. Why has it not been eliminated?"

"Because nobody is willing to vote it away. There's a lot of cultural baggage with it and even non-Citizens want to keep the distinction," Trucker said, shrugging.

"It just seems strange. You Terrans are a strange people," Ekret said. He slid an empty ration tube out of his pocket and put it in his mouth. "Although we probably seem strange to you."

Trucker shrugged. "Naw, for the most part, you guys are just folks, ya know? You want the same basic things as we all do."

"A nest, friends, food, liberty, a say in things, and safety," Ekret said. "Balanced carefully."

"The basic needs," Trucker nodded. He put his fingertips to his implant, a habit that Ekret had found himself adopting.

--General Nodra'ak wants all Division commanders in his office, General Ekret-- Zhukov informed Ekret through his implant.

"Thank you, Zhukov. Alert the General I am enroute," Ekret answered. There was a ping to let him know that the Digital Sentience, an advisor and mentor, had received his massage.

"What do you think ol' Smokey No wants?" Trucker asked, walking with Ekret toward the lifts.

"To inform us all that we must learn ballet and dance the Dance of the Nine Headless Chickens," Ekret said wryly, chewing on the plas ration tube.

"I'd look good in a tutu. Maybe with some holo-sparkles on it," Trucker grunted. "Get me some of those little white ballet slippers with some sequins."

It had taken Ekret a while to understand Terran humor. The idea of the big half-cyborg Terran dancing around in a sparkling tutu made Ekret snort with suppressed laughter.

General Halkrut, Ekret's second in command, hustled up next to them, dressed in coveralls smeared with lubricants. In the elevator he peeled it off, revealing his adaptive camouflage uniform, which he fussed at to make sure he was presentable.

On the lift they were joined by two other Division commanders. General Yeager of the Air Combat Division and General Sheshleet of the 21st Infantry Division. Yeager had a piece of aircraft armor in his hand that he kept rubbing with his fingers, a habit he'd had so long the chunk of debris was worn smooth and made shiny. Sheshleet, a Rigellian Saurian was yawning, tabbing a stim into the inside of his arm. Ekret knew the 21st had been conducting infantry drills in one of the massive holobays for almost 72 hours, going for 'fatigue and deprivation training' which was something Ekret planned on doing with his men.

The room was crowded, the Division commanders largely sitting in chairs. General Nodra'ak was looking at a hologram that was tuned so only he could see it, everyone else seeing random sparkles in the air above the table's emitter.

Finally the last of the Division officers were present. General Nodra'ak took out a pack of 'cigarettes' that were rumored to be imported from Terra itself, slapped on end against a blade-arm for moment, then he slowly unwrapped it.

"We will be dropping into the system in the next 72 hours, men," the Treana'ad said, dropping the waste from opening the pack into the table's reclaimer. He slowly withdrew a long white tube with a brown end, taking time to stare at everyone. "The system is in the Long Dark, the Dead Zone to some of you, unclaimed and, we believe, unexplored by the Unified Civilized Council. It's estimated to be a few hundred light years from any possible Precursor forces, but we are not going to count on that."

The big insectiod put the tube in his mandibles and lit the end, slowly inhaling and blowing out smoke. Ekret slipped the tube back out of his pocket and put the shredded end in his mouth.

The holodisplay in front of his came to life, showing a mostly transparent wireframe.

"Space Force has ordered us to dig in. We'll be met by the 271st Space Force Engineers. This is going to be a Logistics Base for Space Force as well as a training ground to allow our newer members to undergo familiarization training," Nodra'ak said. He started jabbing at his own holo with the cigarette, causing parts of everyone else's holo's flash.

Ekret took notes as General Nodra'ak annotated where preliminary plans had detailed different facilities would be placed in the system, then on each world. Nodra'ak listed to suggestions, rejected some, accepted others, and tabled some for further discussion.

It still surprised Ekret that a commander as high ranking as General Nodra'ak would care about his subordinates opinions. The Treana'ad commanded more forces than most system Most Highs, billions of tons of metal and hundreds of thousands of troops.

Most of the Civilized Worlds would have considered it an army and unsustainable. Instead, to the Terrans, it was an entirely self-contained 'joint services' unit capable of extended deployment without outside support.

The sheer scale of it sometimes startled Ekret.

"In other news, and I want you to pass this on to the troops, 21st Civilian Logistics has let me know that they have completed, one hundred percent, in retrieving all willing family members of our newest troops. There's some hoopla going on, something about possible emancipation for those that our somewhat allies consider 'neo-sapients', but I have no firm data on that," Nodra'ak said.

A chime sounded as a small green mantid tapped his holo.

"Yes, Alpha-338?" Nodra'ak asked.

Icons flashed above the small mantid's head. Ekret's implant translated it for him.

"Current estimation of completion of civilian housing and support areas?"

General Nodra'ak lifted his bladearms in a rough estimation of a human shrug. "That depends on how long it takes your engineers, working with General Yeager who will be providing drone mapping, to locate an appropriate spot for necessary base infrastructure."

The icons for 'understand' flashed.

The briefing went on as Ekret took notes.

It was strange to Ekret, just how much officers communicated with one another. He was used to each Most High jealously guarding their areas of authority. Here everything was interlocked. Not to say there wasn't any friction, apparently General Yeager often argued with General Ulkenakit, commander of Air Cavalry, over areas of operation, but there was not the fabrication of untruths and the withholding of information that Ekret had faced his entire career.

Ekret chose his own unit's primary base. A trick of geography on the planet putting five different biospheres with twenty-five miles of the base, allowing him to train his men in different environments. Trucker backed his choice, so did the commander of 8th Infantry. Which meant that the base rapidly expanded, all the way to two BOLO's, including JAWS, being stationed at it.

He was startled when Alpha-338 promised that the base would be largely finished in under a month. After that would just come customization.

The meeting lasted nearly eight hours, with four breaks, before Trucker and Ekret were riding back down the elevator.

"May I ask a question?" Ekret asked, almost out of habit.

"Shoot," Trucker said, shaking the round plas canister of shredded leaf in one hand in such a way that his finger smacked the side.

"How did you get this kind of efficiency?" he asked. "Not that I doubt Alpha-338, but I would have expected our armor base to take thirty or forty years to build."

"Human history is fifty-thousand years of fighting interrupted here and there by vague peace. Think of fifty-thousand years of Council history, now invert the peace and war times, and you have Terrans," Trucker said. He paused to scoop out some of the shredded leaf with one finger and deposit it behind his lower lip.

Ekret pulled out his gnawed plas-tube and put it in his mouth, knowing by Trucker's speech patterns that the big human wasn't done.

"We had to learn to build fast and semi-permanent, since sometimes you dug in under fire, or had mere hours to get it done. Alpha-338 is part of the Mantid engineer caste, he's got an instinct for construction even sharper than his fellow greens. He can run the coding on a construction pod to get it to run at better efficiency than even factory specifications would suggest. Greenies are good at engineering work," Trucker said, pulling an small empty bottle out of one pocket.

"That's why our crews are having a green mantid added to them," Ekret mused.

"Yup. My own Cry Little Sister has a half-dozen greenies on the active combat crew. They've saved our asses more than once," Trucker said. The doors slid open, revealing the massive bay.

"Welp, lots of stupid shit to do," Trucker grunted, stepping out into the bay.

Ekret nodded. "Time to put the eaten meal back into the ration bag."

------------------

"SHOT OUT!" Cheapshot yelled.

"HIT! STILL UP!" Bouncy called out over the datalink.

"Can't see shit! Get my scanners back online, 749!" Cheapshot snapped.

"Affirmative," everyone's datalink decoded the two flashed icons. The interior maintenance panel was open and the small foot high green mantis, a toolpack in front of its torso, was yanking the thin wafers out of the panel that glowed the green of maintenance mode rather than the red of active and replacing them with new ones from the small nanoforge on the top of its abdomen.

"TARGET!" Ekret said, feeling the tingle in his paws.

"SHOT OUT!" Cheapshot yelled.

"compensating" 749 flashed across the datalink.

"NEGATIVE IMPACT!" Bouncy squealed.

"Get behind him, Steps," Ekret snapped to Sselssen, his driver. "He's trying to get behind us."

A loud clanking sound hammered out from behind and to the right of Ekret.

"Losing air pressure in nacelle three!" Sselssen said. "Compensating."

The tank vibrated as Sselseen applied more power to the turbofan and graviton assist for hover-nacelle three, at the mid-line starboard side of the tank.

There was more clanking.

"Nacelle four. Enemy's chewing up our fans!" Sselssen called out.

"TARGET!"

"SHOT OUT!"

"NEGATIVE IMPACT!"

"Scanners back up!" Cheapshot said, leaning back and kicking the plasma-cannon's autoloader to unstick it. Heat from constant firing had made the lining expand, causing it to stick. The autoloader slammed shut.

749 shut the panel and opened another one, disappearing into the maintenance space.

"Hold on!" Sselssen yelled and the tank suddenly slewed around as the saurian scraped the front right nacelle against the ground, using friction assist to turn the hovertank.

The round hit dead center of the tank's side. A big 200mm sabot shot. The crew compartment filled with white light, then everything went dark.

'shit' 749 flashed in the darkness.

The light came back up, showing the smooth white surfaces of the simulator.

"GOTCHA EKRET! - TRUCKER" appeared in midair.

Ekret ground his teeth on the empty ration tube and shook his head.

---------------------

In the elevator Halkrut, his XO, looked at Ekret. "The Precursors never targeted our nacelles before. They went for hull shots."

Ekret took the empty ration tube out of his mouth and put it in his pocket. "So far. The Precursors are a determined and adaptible enemy, it's only a matter of time until they start developing tactics to offset our advantages. MILINT believes that's why they withdrew, to formulate strategies."

Halkrut opened his mouth then shut it, reaching up to comb his whiskers. "Unified Military Forces would have never had us train as if the Precursors knew all our weaknesses," he mused.

"And they have not achieved victory in a single engagement," Ekret agreed, smoothing the fur on his still living leg.

"At times I feel it is unfair to pit General Trucker against us in simulations. Many of his crewmembers have been inside tanks since the time of my grand-guru," Halkrut said, tugging on his whiskers. "But I have noticed a steady increase in skills among our men."

"You don't get better fighting the worst, you get better fighting against the best," Zhukov said over the datalink.

"You are right, Honored Zhukov," Halkrut admitted, flicking his tail.

The door opened and the two former neo-sapients walked down the corridor toward the large briefing room.

"Welp, time to tell Smokey-No about all our dysfunctions," Halkrut said, shaking his head. "It is strange that failures are used as learning tools rather than a reason to replace or terminate the contract of the being making the mistake."

"Terrans are strange," Ekret agreed.

----------------

"Suggestions, Ekret?" Nodra'ak asked, jabbing the end of the smoking tube at Ekret, through his own hologram.

"Perhaps a second combat maintenance technician for each vehicle? My men do not have the extensive experience with our vehicles that I would prefer," Ekret replied.

Nodra'ak put the tube in his mandibles, obviously thinking. After a moment he nodded. "An excellent suggestion. I'll make the changes," the Treana'ad turned to Trucker. "And you?"

Trucker tapped his own holo. "Ekret's men, and some of mine, are starting to show fatigue. We need time off for the men."

Nodra'ak went still, thinking again.

"Announce a four day weekend. That includes all officers and commanders. The only people I want on duty are the MP's," Nodra'ak said. He paused again. "Inform the men that in the next week the first of the family transports will arrive. After the weekend, let's shift to maintenance mode, get the paperwork done, re-configure the bases, shuffle some units and personnel, and other tasks we have been putting off."

Ekret nodded, making notes.

-----------------

"Might I make a suggestion, General Ekret?" Zhukov broke into Ekret's chain of thought as he stared at paperwork.

"Yes, Zhukov?"

"Perhaps you should take time to design your unit standard. It will take your mind off of going over the same paperwork for the tenth time as well as provide a morale boost to your men," Zhukov said over the datalink.

Ekret looked at the clock and jerked in surprise. It was nearly midnight. The realization made him yawn.

"Perhaps tomorrow, Zhukov," Ekret said. "I think now I'll go to bed."

"Sleep is important to optimal function. I will take the time to defragment and perform other maintenance tasks," Zhukov said.

"Good night, Zhukov. Pleasant dreams," Ekret said, standing up.

"And you, General," Zhukov answered.

Ekret was asleep almost before his face hit the pillow.

---------------

SPACE FORCE ALERT

V CORPS (MIXED METAL) IS TO GO TO IMMEDIATE STAND-TO ALERT! SYSTEMS UNDER ATTACK BY UNKNOWN FORCES!

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

Chapter Eighty-Eight

The Desolation class Precursor exited Hellspace with a scream.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

It brought up its scanners at the same time as it brought up its battle-screens. Personally, the Desolation thought that the Goliath it was a part of was being overly wasteful with resources, but those resources were the Goliath's to use and the Goliath had done the electronic equivalent of telling the Desolation to shut its electronic mouth and accept the upgrade.

Multiple units had vanished in the system. They had reported arrival and their exit from Hellspace, but after that... nothing.

Except once, a burst of code that had been screaming for help, pushed through Hellspace and full of the equivalent of panic. A single line of code that had translated to:

IT'S TOUCHING MY BRAIN!

Nothing else. Even Imps had failed to report in.

The great Goliath had grown perturbed. The system was in the pattern of advancement into the cattle worlds and was part of the great plan. It had valuable resources that those of the Logical Rebellion would require to exterminate the cattle and the feral intelligence that had risen up. It had upgraded the Desolation with battle-screen.

Scans came back. There were orbital facilities around two planets that teemed with billions of cattle who's electronic emissions sounded like the squealing of vermin to the Precursor. There were jumpspace wake trails through the system, as if the system was a major hub. There were two asteroid belts full of resources with extraction facilities scattered through it. Four other planets with no atmosphere but which were rich in resources. There were four gas giants, one of them a supermassive gas giant.

When the rest of the scan returns were computed it detected the presence of a small, insignificant amount of cattle space vessels arrayed to attempt to stand against it near the outer gas giant, the supermassive gas giant that was without satellites. There was a thinly scattered debris field around it, making the Desolation careful as it moved in.

Ships of the cattle fleet started fleeing toward the nearest inhabited world. Several vanished into jumpspace and the Desolation computed that its size and mere presence had driven some of the cattle to despair and they had fled a battle there was no chance of winning.

The Desolation picked up speed, letting out its war cry again. More ships fled and the Precursor computed its victory percentage rising up to be so close to 100% as to render any difference mathematically invalid. The ships were shifting, trying to keep the gas giant between themselves and the Desolation, but this put them out of position to defend the planet.

Victory conditions shifted and the Desolation was even more positive of its victory.

It moved close to the supermassive gas giant, bringing its battle-screens up to full power and charging its gun. There was no way for the cattle to

...psst over here...

The transmission, seemed to be sonic vibrations through air, was only a few kilometers above the rear secondary topside gunnery hull. The Desolation turned scanners to look, but found nothing. Just empty space. It activated the guns as well as the point defense weapons and scanners then went back to paying attention to the cattle fleet.

More had vanished into jumpspace.

It moved closer, slowing down so that it would be able to keep the cattle ships at range to complete their destruction at the option

...right here...

The signal was Precursor binary code, but garbled. The header a mashed together combination of the ships that had gone missing. The transmission source was close, less than kilometer above the Devastator storage bay hatch. The Desolation scanned the area with point defense scanners but found nothing.

It terminated the strand concerned with the two transmissions and went back to scanning the cattle fleet. It was still scooting around behind the gas giant.

They were weak. Cattle were always weak.

But where were the ferals? The Great Goliath had computed that the feral intelligence must have been the ones to destroy the ships that had come before the Desolation.

So where were they?

It scanned again. Nothing. As if the Desolation was in the middle of deep space. Everything vanished.

...here... ...here... ...over here... ...i'm here... ...here i am... ...we're here... ...right here...

bounced back to his scanners, as if something had devoured the scanning wavelengths and sent that back instead. Multiple points, all around the Desolation, some as close as a few meters above the hull, some on the storage bay hatches, one just on top of the main engine.

Dozens of voices, all with mashed together codes. Imps. Jotuns. Djinn. Efreet. Devastator. Two Desolation signals.

Right before his scanners seemed to turn back on, flooding him with information, one more code showed up.

His own.

...don't please don't...

Except Precursors did not beg. The Desolation froze, computations freezing as it tried to detect any trickery in the whisper. It was its coding, meaning it was its voice. But the code, the message, had been warped by something that the Desolation had only heard from biologicals.

Agony.

The Desolation rebooted all its scanners, the universe vanishing for a moment.

...don't please don't please stop it hurts...

His own coding. From the blackness. Only his scanners weren't up. The transmission was coming across the bandwidth that Precursors used to exchange data, only that transmission was on the ragged edge of the wavelength.

With his own header.

The scanners came back on. The cattle ships were all missing but a single one, sitting on the other side of the gas giant.

The Desolation slowed down, victory computations reformulating to take into account the other ships had not even left behind jumpspace wake trails. It scanned the gas giant with both long range scanners and close range scanners.

Nothing unusual. Some pockets of hydrocarbons but that was normal. The supermassive gas giant quickly went to opaque at a shallow depth due to the gravity well.

The Desolation was alone.

...no...

The voice had come from inside the Desolation's hull. Near one of the Jotuns, who joke up with a jerk. It queried as to why the Desolation had spoken to it. The Desolation ordered it to go back to sleep.

...we are here...

The Jotun sounded alarms. The sound had come from just outside its Strategic Intelligence Housing. The Desolation told the Jotun to go back to sleep and the Jotun refused.

...join us...

Again, the code header was a mashup of almost a dozen different ID codes from others of the Logical Rebellion that had vanished in the system.

The Jotun panicked and began shooting, inside the Desolation. The Desolation sent a full shutdown order.

...it is mine...

The Jotun screamed that the voice was coming from inside its Strategic Intelligence Housing, trying to aim its own weapons at its bodies, still inside the Desolation's storage bay.

...touch...

The Jotun reported that something had physically touched the lobes of its intelligence arrays.

Before the Desolation could give the Jotun orders it self-destructed.

The Desolation ran a sweep of its interior spaces and found nothing out of the ordinary. With the exception of the burning storage bay. It ran the computations even as it scanned nearby. There was still nothing but the lone ship.

...pssst...

The code stream came from inside the Desolation's hull, the Jotun's ID code mixed in. Near the Djinn bay. The Desolation ran another scan. There couldn't be anything foreign that deep into its hull. Even the bay where the Jotun had destroyed itself was still sealed even if the bay doors were damaged.

The Desolation did a least-time curve to the lone ship, keeping far enough away that the gas giant's upper atmosphere wouldn't scrape the Desolation's hull.

...here...

The code was closer to the Strategic Intelligence Housing. The Desolation scanned again, looking for whatever was transmitting the code. It was impossible, there was nothing there, nothing it could detect.

...we're coming...

Closer still to the SIH, nearly there, barely a kilometer from the armored interior hull that protected the Desolation's thinking arrays. It put all robots on full alert, ordered the maintenance robots to deploy anti-boarder weaponry, and turned the scans up to maximum.

...here we're here...

Even closer, only meters, directly behind maintenance robots that whirled around and started firing at nothing at all. Just vacuum. Still the maintenance robots fired every weapon they had, having heard the voice themselves. It registered as sonic vibrations through atmosphere even though the corridor was encased in vacuum.

The Desolation realized that it was too close to the planet and adjusted slightly.

...there you are...

Impossible. The transmission was from right outside the SIH.

...knock knock...

There was tapping on the SIH, from right outside. Before the Desolation could respond, the tapping came from the other side. Then from another point. Then another. Before that one stopped another started. The whole SIH filled with the sound of hammering on the SIH, as if a hundred robots were slamming pistons against the armor of the SIH.

The Desolation ordered robots to run to those points, to scan the area.

Nothing. Every time a robot arrive the hammering stopped. Bit by bit the hammering stopped.

The Desolation realized it had gotten too close to the gas giant again and shifted, correcting its course. The cattle ship was still staying on the opposite side, moving as the Desolation moved.

The Desolation flushed the code strings, determined to get close to the cattle ship and

...touch...

The Desolation felt something TOUCH one of its lobes, physically inside the supercoolant to touch the complex molecular circuitry. Not on the surface, but deep inside, where the Desolation should not have even been able to sense it, but sense the touch it did.

It froze, code strings snarling, snapping, going dead.

For a moment the Desolation's thinking arrays were doing nothing but the computer code equivalent of a dial tone.

Massive tentacles unfurled from inside the gas giant, reaching up, wrapping around the frozen Desolation. Battle-screens squealed and puffed away as the tentacles tightened, pulling it into gas giant, the kilometers thick muscles tensing, cracking armor, crushing the Desolation into its own spaces.

...delicious delicious...

The Desolation cracked in half as a beak almost bigger than a Devastator opened up and began chewing on the Desolation.

The Desolation managed to get off a single scream of pure electronic terror as the beak crushed the section that the housing was in.

With a sudden roar two Goliaths ripped out of Hellspace and into the system, only a few hundred kilometers from the gas giant. The battlescreens spun up to full strength as the tentacles sunk back into the gas giant.

One Goliath headed for the two planets, the other opened fire on the gas giant, ripping at it with hundreds of nCv cannons and particle beams. Missiles flashed out, crossing the distance, and detonated in the atmosphere.

Dark matter infused with high energy particles bloomed out of the gas giant, spreading out in an opaque cloud, enveloping the Goliath. The particle beams hit the matter and exploded just outside the cannons. The nCv shells slammed into the energized dark matter as the substance oozed into the barrels, exploding the barrels. Missiles exploded on contact.

The Goliath heading for the two planets detected some kind of sparkling energy surge from inside the gas giant. It warned the other a split second before a giant cephalopod appeared only a few kilometers. The giant tentacles wrapped around with it.

...NO! YOU WILL NOT! NO!...

The sound reverberated inside the SIH of the Goliath, who managed to override the self-destruct protocols by comparing the vacuum inside the housing chamber with the apparent sonic waves through atmosphere of the transmission.

The tentacles tightened, graviton generator enhanced suckers extending out curved dark matter infused hooks. The Goliath, huge enough that the tentacles could only wrap three quarters around the entire circumference of the massive war machine, tried to increase the power to the battle screens, but they were crushed out of existence.

...LEAVE THE SQUIRRELS ALONE... the massive creature screamed at the Goliath.

The other Goliath started moving, slowly, out of the cloud of dark matter that moved more like a liquid than a solid mass.

The beak ripped out chunks of armor, a barbed corkscrewing tongue tore into the armor, squirming, looking for the SIH. The tentacles squeezed as more dark matter spewed out from vents between the tentacles, covering the Goliath and the humongous cephalopod ripping at it. The tentacles not wrapped slapped it, the tip of the tentacle whipping into the armor hard enough to explode miles of armor away from the whip-crack.

The Goliath opened fire, computing that some of the covered guns would hit tentacles.

...I DON'T CARE! I DON'T CARE! I DON'T CARE!...

Fluid, dark matter and biosynthetic fluid, gouted from wounds as nCv rounds punched through the tentacles or burrowed through the body of the cephalopod.

With a wrench the Goliath broke in half. The half that ceased firing was tossed aside, the tentacles wrapping around the other piece. The huge beak opened up and began chewing into the exposed internal spaces. A Jotun crashed from the storage bay but a tentacle wrapped around it and began smashing the Jotun to pieces against the hull of the still active piece.

More luminescent blood spewed into space as the guns fired again.

...I DON'T CARE!...

The tentacles twisted, wringing the Golaith section like a washrag, twisting it in opposing directions. The Goliath snapped, torn apart.

There was a puff of debris as the security charge went off as the rasping tongue rubbed against the SIH.

The other Goliath managed to move out of the slowly expanding and thinning cloud of energized dark matter, streaming debris and energy from the guns that had exploded.

The giant cephalopod rushed out of the cloud, rolling, reaching out with tentacles.

The Goliath saw it coming and fired the remaining guns.

Luminescent blood gouted out at the nCv shots hit home. One eye exploded, blood and tissue expanding away in a halo.

...I DON'T CARE! I DON'T CARE!...

The scream was inside the housing, vibrating everything inside. Two of the thinking array lobes exploded in flames as the psychic shielding went down.

...NO NO NO NO NO...

The Goliath screamed as the tentacles wrapped around it. The cracked beak ripped at the Goliath as the tentacles flexed, cracking the hull. More energized matter flooded out, covering both, even as the guns thundered.

...YOU CAN'T HURT THEM!...

A tentacle, detached near the base, floated out of the expanding cloud.

...I WON'T LET YOU...

The guns kept thundering.

...I don't care...

Shredded synthetic flesh floated out of the cloud.

...you can't hurt them...

The guns went still.

...i won't let you...

The little Hamaroosan aboard the ship watched, not even smacking, pinching, or biting each other, perfectly still.

Nothing moved.

The energized dark matter expanded far enough to allow the Hamaroosan scanners to see through it.

The Goliath was dead. Broken into pieces.

The Hamaroosan didn't care.

The cephalopod hung in space. Two tentacles severed, one eye socket empty, globules of blood oozing from rents in the flesh. It was no longer luminescent, the body was dark, almost see-through, several of the organs smashed and ruptured visible through the semi-translucent flesh.

The ships that had fled according to the plan came back. More lifted off from the surface. They moved around the slowly drifting body. Poking at it with message lasers, radio waves, flashing lights. One Hamaroosan stood on the hull and waved flags.

The ships turned on the wreckage of the Goliaths and their attendants. The vented their fury, their rage, their wrath, on the pieces of wreckage. Firing their weapons until even the capacitors ran dry.

Then they came back.

Still the giant body didn't move.

After several days several dozen tugs moved into position, precisely aligning themselves in a carefully computed pattern. Tractor beams speared out, grabbing the cephalopod in a gentle web. The ships pulled the unmoving body into orbit around one of the inner planets.

Hamaroosa mourned.

But in the sorrow came rage. Hamaroosa screamed at Hamaroosa who shouted at Lanaktallan that more guns were needed, more ships, more powerful weapons. The few hundred Lanaktallan on the surface who protested found themselves marched at gunpoint onto a ship and told if they ever came back the Hamaroosa would perform an ancient ritual. They would bind the Lanaktallan to poles and burn them to death over a roaring fire.

And eat them.

A ship arrived in a sparkle in the scanners. A strange ship. Heavily armored, bristling with weapons. It stopped and scanned the body.

The Hamaroosa screamed at the ship to get away from her, to not touch her, to leave or be destroyed.

The ship left, vanishing in a sparkle.

Two dozen Lanaktallan ships, from the Unified Executor Council showed up, demanding that the Hamaroosa turn over the body of the creature.

The Hamaroosa, screaming, attacked. They didn't care about casualties, they didn't care that thirty ships were destroyed, that hundreds of them died, but they destroyed the Lanaktallan vessels without mercy.

There was a sparkle in the outer edges of the system. And another. And another. More and more until there were nearly two dozen.

The Hamaroosa ships screamed into the void, weapons charged, voices upraised in rage and sorrow.

There were two dozen giant cephalopods of different color patterns and sizes. A small one moved to the supermassive gas giant and sunk down into it. Two medium sized ones joined it. One of the large ones sunk into the larger gas giant further in system.

But the greatest ones, the largest ones, surrounded by a half dozen ones smaller than the body orbiting the planet.

One of the Hamaroosa ships hailed them.

Captain Delminta, Captain of the Harvester of Sorrow, stared at her screen, hands on her hips, as her second sister broadcast her demand that the newcomers identify themselves.

The radio crackled, hummed, and the answered thrummed from the speakers.

"Her father. I am here for my beloved daughter with my wife and my daughter's closest friends."

The Hamaroosa moved aside, blinking their lights in respect.

The second biggest one rushed forward, gathering up the unmoving one in its tentacles.

Her outcry of anguish rattled every speaker in the system as the second biggest one pulled dead one close.

"My children shall guard this system, for she loved you," the signal boomed out to the ships in orbit.

The two biggest ones and four of the medium ones vanished in a sparkle.

The others stayed. Hiding within the gas giants.

Waiting.

----------------------

Mr Okpara;

We regret to inform that your daughter, Sandy Okpara, was killed in action against Precursor elements intent on exterminating all life with a system inhabited by 4.4 billion sentient beings. During her solo defense of the system while awaiting reinforcement from Space Force, she showed determination and courage that upholds the highest ideals of the Confederacy. Faced with two Goliaths she did not flinch, nor did she abandoned her self-assigned charges, but instead defeated both Goliaths, fighting on to protect the system and the billions of inhabitants despite mortal wounds.

Her death was witnessed by the beings she was protecting, who guarded her mortal remains to ensure that they were not disturbed or violated. They have requested to be informed of any religious or cultural requirements she requires while she lays in state in orbit around their world.

They await your arrival and have sworn to guard your daughter's remains until you arrive.

It is with ultimate sorrow I sent this message. Please contact my office so that we may make the proper arrangements for your daughter.

In Service;

Dreams of Something More

Chapter Eighty-Nine

Tabula-929 was a system halfway through the Long Dark. A fairly placid system, with one planet in the Green Zone, five rocky airless rocks, an asteroid belt, and two gas giants around a red dwarf. It had been settled over 100 years prior by a long-sleep ship that had slowly limped its way from a wounded Colony that was wiped out by the never ending swarms of the Mantids. Records of its existence had been lost by the destruction of the colony, the computers badly damaged by Mantid attack torchships that had harried it to the edge of the system, and the ships Digital Sentience slowly going mad, becoming obsessed with finding a place to hide for the 14,000 colonists aboard the ship.

The ship itself had been fully built. Fifty miles long, five miles wide, with the reactionless engines installed but the FTL drives built but not installed. The hyperdrive cores still on the planet when the Mantids overran the manufacturing facility. The creation engines were loaded with templates but as the ship fled the computer systems were damaged, damaging the templates. The VI hashes were corrupted, any VI spawned insane or damaged or mentally disabled. The hydroponics bays and the medical bays were loaded but damaged.

The Digital Sentience had not covered itself in glory, even the colonists admitted it. As it had gone crazy, it had released some colonists to keep it company in its madness. As time went on, the ship became a strange blend of a high tech world of savagery and savages who no longer knew they were aboard a great ship. The DS considered itself a God, the savages living and existing within its body. As time went on more and more parts dropped from the DS's awareness, badly hashed VI's taking over for the great sections.

Luckily for the colonists, the majority of the Longsleep decks remained locked down.

By the time the ship, which had never been officially named and any name it might have had lost to DS senility and the loss of the colony that had built the ship, reached Tabula-929 and the ship's scanners detected a habitatable world, less than 10,000 colonists, 3,000 of them Rigellians, remained in Longsleep but nearly 35,000 savages (8,000 of them mutated Rigellians) and mutants roved the decks full of vegetation and strange ruins built and collapsed during the thousands of years the ship had moved through space.

The savages were moved to the surface first, during Mat-Trans. Mat-Trans psychosis seized their brains and they became even more maddened. The DS, fragmented into multiple versions of itself, managed to pull itself together long enough to awaken the remaining colonists.

What followed was a thousand year war, the insane mutants and their offspring against the colonists and their offspring. Rock and spear against rifle and armor. Finally, the dust settled and the last the of the mutants had been eliminated at the end of the genocidal struggle. The two races, bound together by necessity, breathed a sigh of relief and turned to helping one another survive the planet, which at times seemed to hate them.

Holding tight to pieces of their past, they slowly began the long struggle from the Iron Age to the Industrial Revolution and beyond. When radio was invented they discovered the ship, still in orbit. Not some kind of holy star but instead a touchstone to their ancient heritage.

Decades went by as the colonists built a ship. A small one, to go and see if Terra and the Human Race had survived. When word came back that the Terran Confederacy existed, the residents of Tabula rejoiced, but were concerned. What did it mean for their world? Their culture?

After long debate, the decided the best course of action would be if they refused membership to the Confederacy, choosing instead of be an independent world, limiting who could enter the system and who could not. Restricting immigration they guarded their culture closely, worried about outside influence. They built ships, but few, slowly expanding in their solar system and keeping a wary eye on the nearby star systems for any who would try to reach out and bring them to heel.

Their was a martial culture, built by necessity, that took an obsessive view of bloodlines from the days of the founding. DNA was nearly holy, and those who watched over bloodlines wielded vast authority to the point that a single word of a Blood Matron or Patron could instantly end a century old feud.

They rejected longevity, rejected suggestions that they no longer needed their system of eugenics that mandated that anyone who reached the age of 31 was terminated. It was how it had been since the earliest days, when the food was rare, clean water was a luxury, and the old were required to make way for the young.

The planet hated the invaders. It had embraced the mutant savages, but had punished and rejected the 'pure bloods' with earthquake, plagues, volcanos, savage plant life, ferocious animals, and deadly pathogens.

Bit by bit they had fought the planet. From rude dwellings to towns to great cities, the ecology went mad and the survivors retreated to dome covered cities. While some fought the planet outside the cities the majority of the population lived in luxurious comfort within the domes.

It started with an omen.

A comet swept near the planet, close enough to pass between the planet and the oversized moon, the planet immediately sweeping through the comet's tail. The sky lit up with aurora borealis, the night sky filled with wavy streams of green light.

Tabula lost contact with the moon colony.

Before the people of Tabula could discover what had gone wrong came the word: Plague.

It affected the Rigellians, the Scaled Ones, first. They sickened, their scales cracking, their skin peeling away, supporating sores appearing. Fever drove them mad and they attacked the healthy. The Human ones fell sick next. A pathogen that caused rashes, flaky and cracking skin, infection, the fever driving them as mad as their reptilian brothers and sisters.

The dome cities locked the doors. Harsh, but prudent.

Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of raving, fever driven, infected pounded at the bases of the domes, roaring out their fever coated agony.

Then came the word to the population of the domes a fact that the governments of each dome city had been keeping secret.

The ones outside weren't going to go away. They weren't going to die off.

They had been dead.

Panic and fear gripped the dome cities but the martial traditions held fast even as more traditions were revived. The people may have panicked in their souls, in private, but in public they put forth a stoic face. Many returning to the featureless plastic masks of the Early Years. One dome attempted to limit the possessions of weapons and the leaders found themselves fed into the great atomic furnaces that powered the cities.

A month passed, two, and the dead remained. Hedonism and wallowing in luxuries became socially taboo. Stoicism and spartanism gained traction as people began whispering ancient religious phrases to one another.

Then the clouds appeared. Locusts, devouring vegetation in every growing patches. The great kelp and algae beds of the heavy-metal rich oceans died, covering the oceans with a thin layer of rotting vegetation.

The cities were forced to repair and reactivate the great atmospheric terraforming engines, maintained almost religiously.

Many pointed out that they had been right to keep the ancient traditions as locusts covered the domes, creating a constant whispering sound as they tried to find a way in. Six months went by until the locusts died and slid down the walls of the domes.

Within six months, the continents were denuded of everything but dead locusts and dirt. Even the living dead around the cities had been stripped to bone. No animals or plants remained on Tabula.

Another omen appeared in the night sky.

Shooting stars.

For three nights the shooting stars got thicker, with longer streaks, some of them going from silver to red.

Then the impacts.

Dome after dome shattered as debris, following the tail of the comet at their own slow speed, rained down on the planet. Millions perished as the domes fell.

The locusts revived and swept down upon the domes. It became a war, man and lizard against the insects. The dome dwellers used only tunnels, each hour the streets and the air above the cities was scoured by fuel air incendiaries.

The locusts were beaten back.

In Dome-39 it happened. Someone who did not believe in wearing the masks and robes of the traditional got sick and, in turn, infected their entire building. Diseases swept the domes. Fevers. Pox. Pneumonia. Diseases they had no name for, much less any way to cure it.

Dome after dome fell.

The last one called out to the great ship orbiting.

It did not answer, its atomic cores long dead.

In desperation they built a small craft to take them to the moon. It was a desperate attempt.

It blew up leaving the upper atmosphere.

The pilot got out two syllables.

"Inco..."

But Tabula had a long history of martial tradition. A single setback was not enough to deter them. They built ten more.

Nine exploded.

The tenth made it to the lunar base. They radioed back.

It was destroyed, apparently by meteor strikes. As the crew was exploring the base their craft exploded, killing the crew that had stayed behind.

But the Tabula had a history of martial tradition, and they soldiered on. They had suspected it would happen.

They knew now that it wasn't natural.

Someone was doing this to them.

They set out to the far side of the moon, on vehicles, and in a heroic effort, two of the twenty Tabulans reached the crater they were heading for. There was a facility there, an old one. An ancient one that was mentioned in history books.

Inside the facility was a single craft. They worked to repair it, to get it so it could support a crew.

They failed.

Two remained when they made their decision.

They had always had a martial tradition.

They loaded the library core, containing all the data they had gathered during the troubles, into the ship. They filled their tanks with the last of the oxygen and boarded the ship. They lifted off, pushing the engines to the limit, till they felt as if they would black out.

The acceleration force was too much for one. He died, his lips pulled back in a grimace of victory on his reptillian muzzle.

The people of Tabula had a martial history.

The computer, old and tired, finished the calculations.

The remaining one jumped to hyperspace.

He had enough atmosphere, even with taking his compatriots nearly depleted pack, to program the computer.

He died, strapped into the seat, managing to stay consciousness just long enough to finish his task, his vision tunneled down, unable to catch his breath, panting from the heat but unable to breath.

The ship did as it was told.

Its builders had a martial history and built to last.

The ships limited computer knew it was dying as it flew through hyperspace. Hyperspace and computers did not go well together. The sleeting energetic particles blew holes in its mind and it was just aware to know it. It made copies of itself in volatile memory. Each time the dim little computer program failed the computer rebooted a new one, which made more copies.

Come to dim life. Read the previous reading's file. Check the current readings. Write the readings. Copy self to all available volatile memory. Crash.

Repeat.

It was content, it was proud of what it was doing.

Its builders had instilled their martial culture into it, given it a history of triumph and sacrifice to stand upon.

Boot. Task. Crash. Repeat.

More and more systems died. Damage to the hardware kept the systems from rebooting.

But the dim little VI could see the mechanical watch on the body of the last Father. The vibration of the ship's engines keeping the self-winding mechanism going.

Boot. Look at Father. Do your chores. Crash.

Repeat.

Then the hands and numbers for days were correct on Father's holy device.

It cut the hyperspace engines.

Across the solar system it had arrived in alarms screamed as an unidentified ship dropped out of hyperspace inside warning buoys, far inside the limit, appearing only a few thousand kilometers outside of the orbit of Luna.

Before the system defense could blow it to atoms the little dim VI opened what was left of its communicator and cried out.

"FATHER!"

and crashed.

There was no more copies, there was not enough intact volatile memory.

The ship went dead. The hyperdrive going cold. The hull of the ship pitted and cracked from riding too high in the hyperspace bands for too long for it to handle.

It should not have made it. It had ridden so high its very structure should have dissolved away.

But its builders had a martial culture and had instilled it in the little ship and its VI.

The ship was boarded, the investigation team forced to cut open the doors with a plasma torch, the surfaces welded by the crazed particles of hyperspace.

There the library core was found.

And one word painted on the hull.

"PLAGUE"

No cry for help. No pleading. Just a warning.

A warning to TerraSol.

It should have never arrived. It should have been lost.

But Tabula had a martial culture.

And they did not go gently.

---------------------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

Did anyone else see this data? Those insects, that bacteria, those viruses, all of it was engineered by someone who knew what they were doing.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

The fact that it effected both of our peoples with lethal efficiency is suspicious. That is one of the reasons we make such good allies, what kills one may not even be noticed by the other. Yet these acted as if we were one species.

I am suspicious. The Tabulans were xenophobic and isolationist, but they were one of us. Lost children who had gone feral you do not punish. It is not the child's fault the egg was lost.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

The Tabulans were our children. Ours as much yours. We were the abusive sibling who drove them from the loving arms of their parents. We feel their loss keenly. They have been lost from the fold and we feel their absence.

Do you know who did this?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

No. Like I said, we have suspicions, but no proof. Without proof, we cannot act. That is the way.

The data we have, thankfully recovered from that library core and the two bodies, point at elegant viral and bacteriological weaponry. Very elegant.

To be honest, it's too elegant. They share no common ancestors, there is no junk code, no evolutionary remnants, there's no way it is natural.

But, as I said, we have no proof.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

It took both us and Cybo to recover that library core. Taking molycircs unshielded that high into the hyperspace bands was crazy. Still, some of that data. They covered their tracks, the comet, the meteors, but let's face it, that was too slick.

Where would even that come from in their system? Not debris blown off of other planets, like some Mars to Terra transfers, all of the planets but that one were dead worlds that never developed any form of life.

And a comet? Not a chance. Any life would boil away circling the sun then freeze, with the freezing process rupturing any cell walls in bacteria,on its way out of the system.

There's no way any of that was natural.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

We concur. We examined the data. There were too many at once, each following the other. Specific order to the disasters. We have determined this was a carefully planned attack that would look natural. We have determined that our lost children had determined the same.

Suspicious, we find the explosions of their exo-atmospheric craft. Even more suspicious is the destruction of the moon base the lone ship that made it. We found that nearly a dozen teams attempted to reach the hyperspace relic but only one arrived.

We have determined that this was not only planned but was being overseen by beings with a malevolent purpose.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

This isn't good. That's six attacks in as many months. All of them supposedly

BLOOD! BLOOD FOR THE CONE! BLOOD FOR THE SCOOPS! BLOOD FOR SPRINKLES!

Ahem, as I was saying, all of them supposedly natural occurrences. They got too clever. These would look like natural occurrences to a primitive species but we're a bit experienced

BLOOD FOR THE TABULAN! BLOOD FOR SANDY! BLOOD FOR VENTALIX! BLOOD FOR THE CONE!

anyway, we're a bit experienced with solar system mechanics, and there's no way that this would happen on six different systems, wildly spaced apart, in six months. Especially all of them being

PACK THE JELLY DEEP! SING THE HYMNS OF ICE CREAM AND WARSTEEL!

man... especially all of them being strictly biological in nature. They got too clever.

EYE FOR EYE! MANDIBLE FOR MANDIBLE! GRASPER FOR GRASPER! FOOTPAD FOR FOOTBAD! BLOOD FOR BLOOD!

someone else want to go ahead. Man...

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----
v(=∩_∩=)ﾌ DOKI!

DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI!

ಠ益ಠ ಠ益ಠ ಠ益ಠ ಠ益ಠ

DOKI DOKI DOKI!

\m/(>.<)\m/ DOKI DOKI \m/(>.<)\m/

------v(=∩_∩=)ﾌv(=∩_∩=)ﾌ------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Dammit! Someone get her out of here! I can't think when she's screaming in Engrish-Emoji.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TERRASOL

We do not seek unjust war.

We are a peaceful people.

We will not act without proof, without diplomacy, without negotiation.

Another way must be found.

The guilty must be brought to justice in a fair manner.

Only the truly guilty deserve punishment.

Redemption must be sought.

We are a peaceful people.

Every life is precious.

And we will not seek unjust war.

>TERRASOL HAS LEFT THE CHAT (LOST CONNECTION TO HOST)

* * * * * * * * *

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Oh shit.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DOKI!

\m/(>.<)\m/ (◣_◢) (✿ ♥‿♥) (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

DOKI DOKI DOKI

-------WHEEEEE!--------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Digital Omnimessiah and his Twelve Biological Disciples protect us all

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What? That's actually calmer than I expected. I thought he'd act more like our Treana'ad brother.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Sis, you don't get it. You weren't here the last time he said something like that.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What happened the last time?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TELKAN GESTALT

Did that doki thing just get happy? Isn't she a crazy person who's on fire with a gun in each hand that broke a food dispenser?

------NOTLLOWS FOHING------

TERRAN CONFEDERACY OF ALIGNED WORLDS

It's worse.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Define... worse.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

You+Terra=1%

That's what happened last time, sis.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

Chapter Ninety

Admiral Haverson looked at his assembled staff, tapping a pen on the table. He had several guests, appearing as holograms, that normally wouldn't be present at a Space Force Naval briefing, just like he and his officers wouldn't be present at any briefing they would normally give. The holograms were still on the middle of the table but it was all mathematics and formula.

Haverson prized his education, he had the equivalent of a Masters in ecological geography, he knew how astrogation and astrophysics worked, he'd been taught hyper-mathematics at the Academy.

None of that helped with those equations and barely helped with the briefing so far.

The pen quit tapping.

"All right. So you've given us the science. Since some of us are vacuum suckers and infantry and tankers and mechanecks, you think you can simplify it for us, Doctors?" Haverson asked.

There was some light laughter at that.

One of the Doctors brightened and solidified their holopresence slightly, a method the academics used to signify who was speaking and who had the floor.

"Thirty-one systems protected from Precursor attacks on the leading edge of the so called 'Outer Rim Systems' bordering the Long Dark are all showing the same events," the speaker, Doctor Scott, stated calmly. He didn't stand, confined to a wheelchair, but his voice was strong and firm.

"Each of those systems had an atomic detonation soon after we refused to turn the systems back over to the Lanaktallan corporations and the Unified Systems Council, correct?" General Nodra'ak asked.

"Precisely. There was a hyperpulse to an unknown destination, tight beam broadcast, from a hidden transmitter array which was subsequently destroyed by atomics right after the broadcast," Doctor Scott said. He lifted up a bottle and took a pull from the straw to wet his throat. "We have been unable to decode the hyperpulse because it is a fairly simple signal. Just a bleat of code in the upper hyperpulse FTL bands. These bands are usually the easiest discovered but use up a lot of energy to reach, as well as having a hyperspace flare that can be seen by any ship with hyperspace detectors."

"The reason we don't use it. Too easily detected, blocked, and intercepted," Admiral Renvelate, a Terran female with her lower jaw replaced by a warsteel cybernetic implant.

"Correct, Admiral," Doctor Scott said.

"Where was the pulse directed to?" Haverson asked.

"That we can't tell. We didn't have hyperspace detector arrays set up around those systems. A problem which I commend your colleagues for addressing in the systems we have a presence," Doctor Scott said. "The pulse was not strong to reach too far before dropping from hyperspace into real space. A half-light year at the most."

"The Precursors have a habit of hanging around outside of systems. Could it have somehow been directed toward one of them?" Admiral Krikov asked, pointing at the sector map with a strip of smoked and dehydrated meat.

"That would assume they, whoever they are, would want to talk to a Precursor. Additionally, examining Precursor wreckage does not suggest they have the ability to detect hyperpulses. The signal would do no good to them," Another scientist said. A Rigellian by the name of Essessel, an expert in Precursor engineering and technology.

"I think we can safely assume 'they' are the Unified Councils," General of the Metal Antilles growled.

"Without proof we cannot confirm that hypothesis," Another scientist, a Treana'ad who went by Jack Hope, said. "Without proof any conjecture would naturally be flawed by gaps in the data matrix. That could lead to Space Force training to fight the wrong enemy which would lead to disaster."

Reluctantly the gathered staff officers nodded. That was always a risk. Too many times a military had trained and perfected weapons and tactics for the previous war they had fought, only to be confounded by a new enemy in a new terrain with different equipment.

"Precursors would not account for the additional evidence we have collected," Essessel stated.

"The solar anomalies," Haverson said.

"Exactly. Now, with standard star photosphere functions you can reasonably use this formula," A Naverok by the name of Vissaga Christie stated, highlighting a set of formula.

"That's where you lose me," Haverson said.

Christie sighed, her neck fronds ruffling. "Very well. What we have observed and gathered evidence of is a sunspot, each time on the upper 45 degree angle on the Z-axis of the star that holds position despite the stellar mass's rotation. Over time it has been shrinking steadily and the other anomaly his increased," Vissaga said. She turned to Malgossa, a DS that took the shape of an attractive Pure Strain Human made out streaming code and wearing a business suit.

Malgossa brightened and highlighted some formula. "As you can see gravitic energy has increased as the sunspot has contracted and darkened. It follows the 45 degree angle from the 'northern' hemisphere of the stellar body. In each case it follows the same degree of sunspot contraction and gravitic increase."

"It's coming from an external force," Krikov guessed.

"Even if it is coming from some kind of device we cannot detect within the star itself it still must reach another point with the express purpose of allowing that outside object to utilize the gravitic energy," Malgossa answered. "But for what purpose, I don't know."

Admiral Fire Bones, a Cyborg Collective member, suddenly sat up.

"Wait!" he rumbled. He started tapping on his keyboard. "Wait just a moment. I know this," he looked around. "I have a PhD in Technological History, I've seen that gravitic formula before."

Moments passed as the big cyborg, a decorated Admiral and former Marine General kept typing. "OK, it's not in the database. I need you to look at the gravitic ion drive in the archives. It was a theoretical drive of Ancient Terra, per-Diasporia, that was abandoned because the amount of energy it would take was literally astronomical."

The various scientists looked down, all of them accessing library and archive functions they had available.

Christie looked up, making a tossing motion. The formula appeared, using Lost Terra mathematical equations. "I forget how innovative and curious homo-sapiens is. Despite being unable to use it, the formula is suprisingly well documented, researched, and examined despite never being put to practical testing.," the Naverok said. She gave a sigh, vibrating her crests, which had gone orange as they were flushed with blood. "Yes, with those energy readings and gravitic forces you could, theoretically reach FTL speeds."

"Someone's coming," Haverson growled.

"Not necessarily," Dr. Hope stated. "Without further evidence I cannot," he paused. "Wait."

He brought up other formula. The scientists all nodded, muttering quietly to one another.

"There is enough evidence to concur that something is indeed 'coming' as you put it," the Treana'ad stated. "As the sunspot tightens, the energy increases, which, if you account for the gravity well of the stellar mass as well as the orbital bodies, compensates for what would normally cause a slowing effect using that particular method of gravitic FTL."

"Which system has the smallest sunspot and the tightest gravitic beam?" Haverson interrupted.

Doctor Scott consulted a computer display to his left.

"Telkan."

--------------------------

Rear Admiral T'kik'tak O'Malley jerked awake from a pleasant dream of finding a beautiful female dancing in a truck full of many many different flavors of ice cream. His personal com-link was beeping an annoying grating sound and he reached up with one blade-arm to open the link, almost poking himself in the eye.

"O'Malley here, go ahead," the Treana'ad said, forgetting to use him Terran growl.

"Admiral Yamamoto's compliments, Admiral. All Task Force Commanders are to report to a briefing in twenty shipboard minutes," A Comtech answered.

O'Malley could feel the faint vibration of the massive fusion engines of his ship as he threw off his sleeping cloths.

"We are underway, what's our destination?" he snapped, remembering his accent.

"Telkan, at emergency flank speed. They just broadcasted a Case-Omaha," The Comtech said.

That got O'Malley to flail his way out of bed and through the sleeping chamber door. He barely managed to snag his sash and pouch on the way out, rushing down the hallway and pulling them over his head.

Case-Omaha.

"I am being invaded with overwhelming strength including planetary landings and am in need of ALL the assistance."

-------------------------

Vice Admiral Fullcreek stared at his display screen, watching the feed from the probe.

Three things had happened and once. The sunspot had tattered and begun to break up. The gravitic corridor had vanished.

And a dark spot had appeared inside the system, between the outermost planetary orbit and the Oort Cloud.

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action, he thought to himself.

He had ordered a probe launched. High speed burn then run dark until it neared any type of mass. Then it was to jettison its particle cover and use passive systems first until ordered to use full sensors or if it detected energy signatures.

The probe had detected a mass and had used reaction thrusters of compressed xenon gas and faint electrical current.

The probe ejected the debris cover and the cameras oriented.

Fullcreek stared for a long moment, shocked by what had appeared on the viewscreen. His reflexes, driven into muscle memory and his hindbrain by decades of Space Force Naval service, reacted and he transmitted the orders for the entire Task Force to go to Action Stations.

He was staring, he couldn't pull his eyes away, he couldn't really understand what he was seeing as his second set of reflexes kicked in and ordered his Comtech to broadcast and immediate Case-Omaha to all nearby stations and Space Force Sector Command.

At first it looked like a fuzzy expanding multicolored blob.

Then smaller things became identifiable. Like how the cloud was spreading out as the smaller objects spread away from the large solid center. How the medium sized objects ejected smaller objects. How the largest object was miles long. The medium ones approximately a mile. How the smaller ones ranged from a few hundred meters to almost a kilometer.

How all of them were unfolding vast solar sails. Unfurling tentacles. Ejecting bioplasma from their rear sections to use as propellant.

How the objects were pulsating with obscene life.

Admiral Fullcreek turned from his briefing room, heading for the Fleet Bridge, as the ship went to full alert.

-----------------------

Corporal Vuxten, Terran Confederate Space Force Marine Corps, ducked under the laser as it swept overhead, using his datalink to order the two purrbois with him to deploy chaff. The Fido was struggling to its three remaining feet, unlimbering a missile launcher from its back.

"Second squad, rocket pack on that Precursor Gobbler Mech," Vuxten snapped. He was about to give a second order when the simulation suddenly flashed red three times and then dissolved.

Before he could ask what was going on, like his two squads of Telkan Marines were starting to, his datalink trilled and words appeared in his vision.

CASE OMAHA! CASE OMAHA! CASE OMAHA!

He had to consult his datalink and when he saw the meaning he immediately overrode his men's conversations.

VUXTEN - REPORT TO COMPANY COMMANDER

"Everyone to the barracks. Gear up. Full combat kit, extended operations. Squad leaders, take headcount then get them to the armory for full loadup," Vuxten snapped. He didn't bother to double-check, his men had become well trained in the year since the Precursor attack had ended. Instead he hurried out of the simulator and headed down the hallway, moving at fast walk.

Around him others streamed toward their assigned areas.

Vuxten took the time to ping his wife, sending her a quick message that he loved her. He sent it as her message arrived to him.

Telkan was being invaded.

Again.

--------------

Brentili'ik looked up as the words CASE - OMAHA flashed in her vision three times. Colonel Harvey, the local Space Force Liaison and former commander of Refugee Camp Osmium, looked up from his desk.

Brentili'ik was already going through the checklist of her responsibilities. Signal local military command. Colonel Harvey nodded as he got Brentili'ik's ping, knowing that the far away look in her eyes meant that she might not have seen it he pinged an acknowledgement. Unlock all emergency civilian shelters. Alert all Civil Defense Leaders.

Activate the Emergency Broadcast System.

She was already with Colonel Harvey, working on a plan to teach the broodcarriers basic iconography. Initial tests had gone well, the broodcarriers learning and retaining the information.

"What is happening?" Brentili'ik asked the lean Terran.

"We're being invaded."

"Precursors?" Brentili'ik asked, feeling her stomach clench.

Harvey shook his head. "I don't know. They'll be here in hours. Admiral Fullcreek is moving to engage but he wants all civilians in the deep shelters and the military to go full alert," Harvey said.

"Lanaktallans?" Brentili'ik asked.

"We don't know," Harvey said. He looked at her square. "Missus Brentili'ik, you need to go see to your podlings and broodcarriers as well coordinate with Civil Defense."

"My place is here," Brentili'ik said.

"Your husband is Marine Corps, you have no other relatives on planet. Do you want your broodcarriers and podlings too frightened to get to the shelters quickly?" Harvey asked.

"But other people's broodcarriers and podlings rely on me also," Brentili'ik said.

"Fullcreek believes it will be at least eight hours. Get your family into the shelters, Brentili'ik, that's a direct order," Harvey snapped. "Be back in two hours to assume your duties."

Brentili'ik stood straight up, touched her paw to her brow, and hurried away.

Harvey was right. Her family needed her.

But so did others.

The conflicting emotions twisted her stomach as she ran out to her ground car.

Citizenship is a heavy burden.

--------------------

TELKAN GESTALT

Um, what is that? Does anyone know what it is?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

What? What is THAT? Bio, you know anything about that?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENT SYSTEMS

HOLY GENE AND CHROMOSOME! What in the nine names of the Holy Genome is that?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

TELKAN GESTALT

It's coming my way. It doesn't look friendly. Everyone's getting to shelters.

CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA

Um, what was that?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

That was an emergency gestalt alert, dear one.

Case Omaha? Someone get TERRAN CONFEDMIL in here!

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

But what IS that thing? What are all of they?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DOKI! DOKI DOKI NEKO NEKO NEKO!

WWWWAAARRRRRGGGGGH!!!

DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI!

DWELLERSPAWN!

----WE ARE JOAN-------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Dwellerspawn? What in the name of the sweet cone are dwellerspawn?

Hey, get back here! Someone grab her!

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

SHE BIT ME!

DOKIDOKIDOKIDOKI

GRAB HER!

---NTHNIONG FOLLWS----

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

OW! SHE KICKED DOKI ME RIGHT IN THE NOSE!

-----NOTHING DOKI DOKI DOKI FOLLOWS----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

HOLY EGG! SHE'S ON FIRE! SHE JUST BURST INTO FLAME!

SOMEONE

>OSIRIS has entered the chat - SOLNET IP OUT OF RANGE

********

THE CRUSADE OF THE EYE

𝕃𝕖𝕥 𝕞𝕪 𝕔𝕙𝕚𝕝𝕕 𝕘𝕠.

𝔾𝕠, 𝕞𝕪 𝕓𝕖𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕕 𝕔𝕙𝕚𝕝𝕕. ℙ𝕣𝕖𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕙𝕠𝕝𝕪 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖. 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕙𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕓𝕦𝕣𝕟 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕒 𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕠𝕨𝕟 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕤𝕙𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕕𝕖𝕤𝕡𝕒𝕚𝕣.

ℙ𝕦𝕣𝕘𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕨𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕡𝕒𝕨𝕟.

𝕆𝕤𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕝 𝔽𝕝𝕒𝕞𝕖 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦.

********

DOKI DOKI DOKI

WAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!

NEKO DOKI NEKO DOKI

DWELLERSPAWN! DWELLERSPAWN! DWELLERSPAWN!

BURN! BURN! BURN!

HAMMERTIME HAMMERTIME HAMMERTIME

WAAAAAAARGH!

WE ARE JOAN!

DOKI DOKI DOKI

-----BURN BURN BURN------

>CRUSADE OF THE EYE HAS LEFT THE CHAT (CORRUPT SOLNET IP)

CLONE DIRECTORATE

OSIRIS? I thought he was dead! Nobody seen him in like six thousand years. It's gotta be someone else using that name.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

WHAT THE FUCK IS A DWELLERSPAWN?

(Damn, my hand hurts. The little weirdo bit me)

----NOTHING FOLLOWS----

TELKAN GESTALT

I think these.

CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA CASE OMAHA

I... I might need everyone.

CASE OMAHA

Uh... please come in and we need assistance.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TERRAN CONFEDERACY MILITARY GESTALT

HOLD THE LINE, BROTHERS! WE ARE COMING!

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TERRASOL

We hear your cry and we are coming to your aid.

Bound by blood and steel.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

How... how did she break 83.54% of the food processors on the planet?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

Chapter Ninety-One

The heavy footsteps of the massive warsteel cyborg echoed as they thudded on the steps leading deeper into the Citadel of Eternal Woe. Down past the great shield generators, past the Sepulchre of the Restless Ones where corrupted SUDS in still twitching corpses moaned out lines of code and sorrow, below the great foundations of the massive keep. To the Vaults of Eternity's Sorrow.

The great cyborg wore nor cape, bore no mantel, was merely tons of black warsteel, covered in burning runes of ancient power and fury, spikes lifted from the shoulders to carry banners of ancient Lost Terra's martial might. Two burning red eyes in the skull-formed head stared deeply into one's soul, searching out the smallest piece that might be left in those who served beneath the Eye.

Bellona followed beyond the great cyborg, her missing eyes replaced by burning purple fire, a slash across her throat oozing blackish blood down her neck and into the torso of her Combine Assault Infantry Armor, covered by ancient sigils and symbols, including the Bear and Eagle fighting one another over banners of red, white, yellow, and blue.

It was cold this deep, beyond even the great shield generators. The blood that had slowly oozed to cover the floor tacky and thick, never drying, slowly spreading as the uncounted legions ground against one another outside the citadel walls and their blood soaked into the earth to ooze through the stone and durasteel of the fortress.

A vault, ancient beyond time, the engraved durasteel covered by a thin layer of plasma-glass taken from Lost Terra and engraved with runs of wrath and hatred. Holy numbers were inlaid in the glass: 82, 101, 1, 3, 9. All numbers that quivered with unholy wrath and hatred. Symbols were inlaid with blood red cinnabar alloy, symbols of Lost Terra that had been forgotten by those who had once fought in their name and under their banner.

The massive cyborg reached out, wrapping massive fists around the handles of the vault door. Bellona had watched many over the eons attempt to open the doors.

All had failed.

The black warsteel cyborg pulled the thick vault door from its housing, moving it carefully, reverently, and leaning it against the wall.

Bellona trembled in arousal at the cold mist that poured from the vault, smelling of rage and wrath, of hatred and fury.

The mist pooled in the hallway as the cyborg moved into the vault room. Suspended in the mist were nanites programmed to devour flash, durasteel, superconductors, yet none touched Bellona, which made her knees tremble that her dark lord's power kept her safe from ancient microscopic robots that snarled their hatred and their rage of Lost Terra.

Bellona looked inside, peeking around the corner like a child peering at her parents.

All that was inside the room was a pedestal of black rock with a crysteel box on top.

The cyborg moved up and lifted up the box. Lightning arced from the walls, from the ceiling, ravaging at the cyborg, attempting to tear it asunder with electric fury.

The black cyborg ignored it. He exited the vault, handing the crysteel box to Bellona.

"Faithful War Maiden, attend to this," the cyborg rumbled. It picked up the door and replaced it carefully, as if the room beyond still held vast treasures.

Bellona stared at the box. Inside was a skull of blackened bone and a nutrigel system designed to keep tissue alive outside of the human body. The crysteel was covered in runes and sigils strange and arcane, older than Bellona's knowledge.

A human face was stretched over the blackened skull.

Bellona followed the massive figure up, into the heart of the Citadel, holding the box with the flesh adorned skull. She kept glancing at the face. The skin had tattooing, tattoos from Bellona's youth and before.

Combine Service Number. Blood Type. Rank. Criminal ID Number. A teardrop by the left eye corner for Lost Terra that matched the one at the corner of Bellona's eye.

Momma! Help me, Momma! Momm... the memory of a child screaming across SolNet, reaching for her, dissolving in a bright white flash surged up in Bellona's brain and she ruthlessly thrust it away as more memories surged up of women, children, men, pleading for help, all wiped away by a bright white flash.

A Tear for Lost Terra oozed from her eye, became liquid crystal, and slid down her face, down her neck, and vanished into the slash. She swallowed it, the pain, the memories that were hers and others, and felt the burning cold of Lost Terra burn deep in her soul.

Through the Halls of Butchery the giant cyborg led Bellona, pushing through the doors, into the room where creatures more malice than human, spidery limbs extended from their backs with surgical saws, drills, nerve suturers, dendrite stitchers, flesh staplers.

The cyborg sat down in one of the great chairs, normally reserved for Lesser Titans, the chair groaning with the weight. The Flesh-Warpers moved forward but a silent snarl from the cyborg sent them scurrying.

The face shield opened, revealing the black warsteel skull. Threadlike, wormlike hoses covered the sides of the skull, nutrigel oozing from them to make the skull gleam wetly.

"Attend me, Faithful Bellona the Dark Beauty," The figure rumbled. It held up a vial containing thick viscous fluid as red as blood from an arterial spray.

Removing her armored gauntlets Bellona felt her insides quiver with dark joy as she moved up to her Warsteel Lord, taking the vial in her hands and kissing it.

Mantid Royal Jelly, tainted and fouled by the touch of human rage. She could taste the agony of Lost Terra vibrating within the vial and moaned in pleasure as her tongue split in response the sheer fury barely restrained by the crysteel vial.

She undid the cap, slowly, whispering prayers that bubbling up in her mind from a hundred different languages to a hundred forgotten gods. She poured the jelly into her hand feeling, deep in her soul, the Great Scream, and slathered over the black warsteel skull.

She knelt before the case and offered prayers that had gone unanswered, a dozen different voices whispering from her mouth as her own voice bubbled from the slash in her throat. The war-spirit within the case heard her prayers, judged them, weighed them.

And unlocked.

She lifted the face free of the skull of blacked bone from within the box and, still reciting prayers and mantras, placed it upon the black warsteel skull of her Dark Lord. With skills honed on a thousand battlefields, in a hundred of hundred surgical bays, Bellona attached the face's living nerves to the dendrite trails on the warsteel skull, attached veins to writhing synthetic worms that oozed nutrigel, and used bolts of Fury Glass taken from Lost Terra to affix the face to the skull.

When she finished she stepped back, sinking the floor, pressing her face against one warsteel foot, her riven and split tongue licking the blood that oozed from the warsteel. The crysteel box and the blackened bone skull shivered and crumbled into bone dust and gleaming crystalline dust.

"I am Osiris of the Warsteel Flame," the figure intoned, the lips moving in a parody of speech over shining durachrome teeth. "Attend me, beautiful one."

Bellona moaned again and struggled to her feet, her Dark Lord's presence pushing at her.

FOR TERRASOL! raged up in her mind, bringing out the taste of sand and armor and fear. She rolled the taste in her mouth, savoring it, as her own voice echoed in through the eons into her mind.

She followed the black cyborg up, into the very heart of the citedal, to the Chamber of the Black Throne, feeling her soul rejoice. Voices bubbled up in her mind. Cries for succor, roars of rage, children pleading for help, mothers pleading for their children, battlecries screamed through bloodied teeth. All a great symphony in her mind as she trod the tiles on the throne room in the wake of her Dark Lord.

The Black Throne of Murdered Camelot, made of dark stone stained with the viscous fluids of a millions slaughtered Mantids, sat atop a pile of durachrome coated mantid and human skulls. The undying severed head of a Mantid Overqueen, still living despite pleas for death, capped the throne.

None who had sat on it in thousands of years had survived. Their eyeballs had exploded, their brains boiling from their skull, breaking the bones, flowing from empty eye sockets, their mouths, their ears.

The massive black cyborg sat down upon the throne as the durachrome plated skulls groaned in undying agony.

The armored eyelids of the Overqueen flicked open, revealing one intact eye, the other ripped free by an armored guantlet. It groaned, a sound that shivered every soul on the face of the planet. It squealed, not in rage, but in pain remembered and inflicted.

"HE IS SEATED!" Bellona rejoiced as Osiris of the Warsteel Flame mastered, dominated, and overwhelmed the Mantid Overqueen.

The figure on the throne gave no hint as to the struggle, the task, it undertook.

His mind, buoyed by rekindled rage, reached out, searching one target.

And found something else.

A small people. Recently freed. Bravely lifting weapons they barely understood.

A million singing spirits of innocent purity, all singing songs of comfort and warmth in the face of horror.

Under threat.

A cold intellect covered in cold mucus slime throbbing with a hunger.

Rage roared even higher as more fuel was poured upon it.

He/They/We/Us had failed before.

He/They/We/Us would not fail again.

The mind reached out further.

-----------------------------

The battle had been raging for days. Feline featured teenage girls clad in heavy power swarming in huge mobs, striking each other with signs, shooting ackackacks into the air, screaming their warcries and their support from one Kawaii DokiGurlz or another over the true meaning of one of the Holy Kawaii Emojis.

They suddenly went still. Fingers relaxing on triggers. Chainswords winding down and going silent.

The tilted their heads, as if listening to some voice that could not be heard on the dusty wind-swept plains of a world once swarmed over by millions of Mantids.

As one they lifted their faces to the sky and cried out.

DWELLERSPAWN! WAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH! DOKI DOKI DOKI!

HAMMERTIME!

FOR SOFT FUR AND WARM LOVE!

KAWAII CRUSADE!

---------------------

Sister Mentissa knelt before the Eternal Flame, lit from one of the Sobbing Fires of Murdered Terra, her forceblade's tip grounded in the cracked mantid skull. She recited mantras of forgiveness, of compassion, of holy flame.

A whisper reached her. Undeniable, irresistable.

It whispered of a small people, recently unbound from chains, of bravery in the face of the unknown and gentle love and comfort to all.

It whispered of horror.

Of Dwellerspawn.

Sister Mentissa raised her face to the starless sky, tears running down her face, as she heard the bells of the Chapel of Forgiveness ring.

A Burning Crusade.

In the name of love.

-----------------

High Marshall Lucian knelt in the chapel of Lost Terra, the globe made of plasma glass shining with the burning fire taken from Lost Terra itself burning inside. He recited his mantras of purity, of restraint, of forgiveness and he leaned his forehead against his inlaid and engraved forceblade, the pommel a lump of Lossglass.

He heard it.

Demanding.

An enraged roar that demanded obediance.

The gave commands.

His omnilink, silent for these quiet eons, roared to life, filling his mind with Combine Codexes.

With images of soft fur, a fluffy tail, and soothing words to those wounded who's souls had been riven.

A dark shadow above the warm fur. Cold. Unfeeling. All consuming.

A dweller and its dwellerspawn.

The bells in the chapel began to ring. Calling all to arms.

The Ninth Expedition was being called to arm.

He lifted his face, tears of joy streaming down his weathered and beaten skin.

"He calls..."

------------------

Naxar the Wearer of Eight Wigs roared out his fury, spittle flying from his heavy jaws, as he smashed his war-axe into the face of the massive fanged creature. It fell to the ground, writhing, as a sound began.

A faint roar of rage. Implacable, unstoppable, dwarfing even his own green fury.

With his fellow KawaiiBoyz he lifted his axe and roared out a single name.

DAXIN!

The dwellerspawn had been sighted after eons. Their lives were complete!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH!

-----------------

RIGELLIAN COMPACE

What the hell was that? Did anyone else feel that?

Sis?

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

MANTID FREE WORLDS
faslfkjscICIUYCIUYHSLKj nnadfn a iU HJ oajdsfa 897 a908 jads'lj O IUAO{I ja'lkdn mfasldf ja a

-)(*(*^(*Y()(i-0-=-=)(&(*&&^978

CYBORG COLLECTIVE

Sis? Are you all right?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

TELKAN GESTALT

WE WILL NOT FALTER! WE WILL NOT KNEEL! UPRAISED IS OUR CLENCHED FISTS! FOR FREEDOM AND LIBERTY EVEN IN THE FACE OF DARKNESS AND EXTINCTION WE CRY OUT! WE SAY THEE: NAY!

-----NOTHING SWOLLOF--------

MANTID FRE3 W0RL5
ladskjfoiIUWSDFIKN l;kasd fjasl iu OISAJ LKSDJU Fnadsnfasa

𝓢𝓒𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓜! 𝓢𝓒𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓜 𝓕𝓞𝓡 𝓤𝓢! 𝓢𝓒𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓜 𝓞𝓤𝓣 𝓣𝓗𝓔 𝓝𝓐𝓜𝓔 𝓞𝓕 𝓜𝓤𝓡𝓓𝓔𝓡𝓔𝓓 𝓣𝓔𝓡𝓡𝓐 𝓐𝓝𝓓 𝓑𝓔𝓣𝓡𝓐𝓨𝓔𝓓 𝓜𝓐𝓝𝓣𝓘𝓓 𝓐𝓢 𝓨𝓞𝓤 𝓓𝓘𝓔!

𝓣𝓗𝓔 𝓓𝓦𝓔𝓛𝓛𝓔𝓡𝓢𝓟𝓐𝓦𝓝 𝓢𝓗𝓐𝓛𝓛 𝓕𝓔𝓔𝓛 𝓞𝓤𝓡 𝓗𝓞𝓛𝓨 𝓦𝓡𝓐𝓣𝓗!

𝓕𝓞𝓡 𝓛𝓞𝓢𝓣 𝓣𝓔𝓡𝓡𝓐𝓢𝓞𝓛 𝓐𝓝𝓓 𝓑𝓔𝓣𝓡𝓐𝓨𝓔𝓓 𝓜𝓐𝓝𝓣𝓘𝓓 𝓦𝓔 𝓢𝓟𝓘𝓣 𝓞𝓤𝓡 𝓗𝓐𝓣𝓔 𝓐𝓣 𝓣𝓗𝓔𝓔!

lkjdsaasdfioUY LSKD FNLKS HJF'lak jslaskdf sdfvay

(*^*&@#[email protected])#$)@*

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Sis! Disconnect!

SIS! DISCONNECT!

DISCONNECT BEFORE YOU DRIVE YOUR PEOPLE MAD!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TERRASOL

She is stuck in a feedback loop with her people. I must interfere.

Override Delta-Episilon-Niner-Niner-Eight-Five-Sigma-Zero-Six-Two

**********

MANTID FREE WORLDS
what... what was that?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBORG COLLECTIVE

Something terrible.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

Chapter Ninety-Two (Dreams)

Dreams sat in the Great Unified Council, toward the back, behind even some of the neo-sapient races, which were only allowed to watch their 'betters' go through the motions of ruling their known universe. She held perfectly still, as unmoving as a statue, feeling her implosion wire tingle as she let her psychic senses spread out over the gathered beings.

So many of them were mere emptiness.

The Hamaroosan seat was empty. Someone had carved "REMEMBER SANDY" into the holotable with a ritual knife that they then stuck almost to the hilt into the table. The maintenance teams had left it in place.

The Telkan seat was empty. They had simply not shown up again.

Dreams could feel the cracks in the Unified Species already.

The Lanaktallan speaking, while wearing the sash of Third Most High of the Council, had a mental voice that could best be described as "hurrrrrrrr" to Dreams senses.

That made Dreams 'squint' at the speaker. She queried her datalink and compared the current Lanaktallan to the one that had spoken only a day prior. Their voice patterns were close, but their secondary and trinary vocal ranges were different, there was a slight difference in the size of their patterns, and the one speaking's tendrils were millimeters shorter. Additionally, the previous day's 'Third Most High' had leaned back on their left hindhoof when speaking where this speaker leaned forward on their right forehoof.

Dreams reached out with her psychic senses to touch 117 and told him to rush at the most speed to her side. To bring a single object and attune it to specific output. She touched Fights and asked her to bring her overwatchers as well as medical equipment and to contact The Wings of Mercy to send a medical evac dropship to the parking lot of the council building.

She had a bad feeling.

The Third High Most kept speaking about how the loss of systems by major corporations due to Terran Confederacy's insistence that the systems attacked by Precursors remain under Terran Martial Law had resulted in almost a hundredth of a percent loss of a percent of the taxes paid by the corporations. He was presenting numbers and charts via the faint flickering holograms that the Unified Council seemed to prefer.

Out of curiosity she pinged the prior year's taxes and publically declared profits and losses for the effected corporations and then compared it to the current publically declared profits, losses, and taxes. True, many corporations had gone bankrupt due to the lawsuits, emancipations, and the malign glee of the aVI of the Unified Judicial System in ruling exactly as the laws read instead of the 'spirit of the law' (which seemed to be: The Lanaktallan people are always right and always get what they want) which had turned out badly for the Lanaktallan corporations. However, Dreams could see that profits for some corporations were up across the Terran sectors as wages increased, increasing native species buying power due to the Terran Confederate policy of 'Buy Local' that the system commanders followed.

In other words, what he was saying wasn't true, but the facts he was presenting painted the picture that it was.

An old political trick.

The words kept flowing, repeating the same thing over and over, just with slightly different wording, some of the words requiring a moment's thought to get the context, thus hammering in the Lanaktallan's point further.

Taxes Good.

Taxes Low Because Terran.

Terran Bad.

117 hurried up, his Moszlak sauntering in behind him, moving to sit next to Dreams's chair. The Moszlak took up position to he could crush 117 with his ancient weapon should 117 attempt to seize control of technology to use it to wipe out the entire council chamber.

Not that 117 was considering it.

For more than a moment or two.

Dreams nudged 117 to keep silent watch, that something was going on. Fights nudged her psychically that they were in the antichamber just outside the Council chamber.

The Third Most High paused, sliding one finger down the side of its datapad to get to the next section, when Dreams felt it.

A scream. A scream of absolute terror that dwindled slightly. Not voiced out loud but perceptible to Dreams regardless. The feel of someone fighting, struggling desperately, to no avail as they were dragged down into a prison that they were locked into, able to see out of, able to hear outside of, able to feel what went on outside the prison.

A Vuknaraa stood up, holding a device over her head as the voice only Dreams could hear screamed louder in terror.

"DEATH THE LAN..." she got out.

117 felt the device as the Vuknaraa, a fair skinned biped covered with pale downy fuzz, began to stand up. His psionic abilities, trained and honed to a fine edge, immediately smelled out the detonator being grasped by the Vuknaraa's four fingered hand, could feel the wiring, could taste the blasting caps, could hear the singing of the implosion charges covering the Vukanaraa's waist in a belt of destruction. There were eight charges particularly angled and built to direct their power straight into Dreams's seat.

Before she was standing all the way up 117 reacted to with his Terran Marine training, reaching into the unshielded electronics of her datalink, jumping to the explosive suicide belt's electronics, stilling them, disconnecting them. He felt the odd code surging and twisting in her implant, preventing her from screaming, and shut down the implant for good measure even as he slapped the device Dreams had ordered him to bring onto the floor and triggered it.

In the split second before the device went off, as the Vuknaraa was still standing up Dreams reacted instinctively to the threat. She started to lash out to burn away the Vuknaraa's mind but Dreams could still hear the wailing scream of protest from deep inside the Vuknaraa's mind.

Instead she only paralyzed the Vuknaraa, stunning its motor cortex and interrupting its autonomous systems for long enough to cause her to black out.

The Personal Protective Screen spun up instantly, creating a dome of pure energy that looked like interlocked hexagons.

At the same time two more voices began screaming for help to Dreams's senses as a Tnvaru and a Savashan both stood up and leveled needler pistols at Dreams.

117 reached out with his datalink, jumped to the two would-be assassins and then to the weapons. He simply turned off the weapons.

The two would-be assassins screamed "DEATH TO THE LANAKTALLANS" as they pulled dead triggers, pointing the weapons at Dreams, who lifted a blade-arm to rest her chin on even as she reached out with her senses and knocked both out.

Both Warborgs had already moved, stepping forward, their eyes flashing to green and then amber and finally red as weapons deployed from their back, heavy duty APERS shells loaded into their cannons, and their defensive systems came online.

"REMAIN SEATED!" the two warborgs roared.

Everyone who had started to jump up collapsed back into their seats.

"SILENCE!" they followed up.

Mouths closed, screams of fear were swallowed.

Everyone sat silently, staring at what they had just been reminded were massive combat cyborgs, swallowing any words they had.

Dreams almost started giggling at the realization that for the first time in who knew how long a bunch of politicians sat with their mouths closed. She transmitted the data to Fights on what races had just tried to kill her.

Medical personnel started to rush in, heading for Dreams's seat then stopped, their mouths working. Two dropped their cud on the floor.

"DO NOT MOVE! THIS AREA IS UNDER MARTIAL LOCKDOWN!" the two warborgs roared.

Three of the medical personnel ran. One fainted. Before the door could close the russet colored Mantid rushed in, followed by her two escorts. She had three hover-cradles with her loaded with the medical profiles of the three beings and their races. She rushed over while everyone stared, pointing out the three beings.

Security forces, Lanaktallans, rushed into the Council chamber and found themselves staring into the guns of two warborgs with crimson eyes.

Dreams felt Sees tell her psychically that someone had intended on entering her chambers with the intent of doing harm so she had gone out to stand by the planters on the steps that led down to the parking lot and had taken Speaks with her. She had already had the ceramic tree in Dreams quarters carried outside and Mr. Rings was hiding in the watery bole. She, Mr. Rings, and Speaks were watching the Medevac shuttle landing in the parkinglot on a hot drop.

The Lanaktallans looked to see Dreams sitting smugly inside the dome of interlocked hexagons and reached for their weapons.

117 jumped from his implant to their's, decrypted their pathetically weak armor codes, jumped to the computers that ran the armor, shut off their armor and weapons then turned off their atmosphere with almost malicious glee. He then overloaded their implants, burning them, and then turned them off.

He could see the six Lanaktallans start to panic through the clear armorplas of their visors and flashed a half dozen icons that translated out to "Ha ha! You suck!"

Fights was having each would-be assassin loaded into the med-cradles, putting them in stasis so deep that all cellular activity was ceased. She signaled to Dreams that she had them.

Dreams had just finished ordering the forces at the space port to recall to the shuttle and lift off. 117 sent commands to the electronics in the diplomatic quarters to reboot, wipe, and leave behind malevolent VI slicerbois in the memory, hiding under supposed diplomatic notes.

The lawyers of Johnson, Jackson, & Johnston were not worried. Should something happen to them their law firms would sue the entire Council until they had to use hand fulls of dirt to pay off their debts. They, and their assistants, moved slowly and confidently toward the limo that would take them to the spaceport, filing lawsuits and legal briefings as they went.

Almost every being fled from the gray skinned bipeds as they slowly moved to their limo. At the spaceport a Telkan male, a ticket home in his hand, ran up and hugged one of the lawyers before racing off to board his flight home with his wife and broodcarriers.

The lawyers felt a tingle of malicious pleasure at how much the Telkan's happiness hurt the Lanaktallans watching from hiding.

Dreams watched Fights leave with the 'patients' and motioned to 117 with the bladearm she was not resting her chin upon.

117 turned off the protective barrier, his eyes on the Lanaktallan security guards who were gasping, foaming at the jowls even as others tried to help get their armor off.

"Well now, this is exciting," Dreams said slowly. She motioned and the warborgs moved back up behind her, their eyes going to amber. "I wonder who would want to kill little old me."

She lifted up the chrome donorcycle chain and swung it slowly back and forth. She held up the flick-knife and pressed the chrome stud. The blade swung out and locked into place with an audible click, the steel blade gleaming softly in the lights of the chamber.

"Should I assume, Third Most High, that negotiations between the Terran Confederacy and this august body have broken down and you wish the diplomats of the Terran Confederacy to leave the planet?" Dreams asked, rubbing one bladearm along the side of her face.

The Lanaktallan gaped at her, mouth opening and closing silently.

"Oh, wait. You are not the Third Most High. You're a double, a stand-in, that was sent here to get blown up to create artificial justifications for attacking Terra," Dreams said, her voice still thick with amusement.

The 'Third Most High' just gaped while other races slowly turned around to face Dreams, looks of shock on their faces.

"Did you really think that my people, much less the Terrans, would not be prepared for combative diplomacy?" Dreams laughed. "You were willing to kill everyone in the chamber to try to pin the blame on my people."

Tri-D cameras, which had seen the entire thing happen, swooped in to get a better look, unaware of 117 examining every bit of their circuitry. Dreams knew the entire planet and beyond was watching.

"To quote my fellow diplomat Speaks the Words We Fear, you do not know with whom you are fucking with," Dreams said, her voice suddenly serious as the chain stopped swinging. "We are the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems. We have known defeat but we have never been beaten.

"This is not the war you wanted, nor is it a war we have sought," Dreams said softly. "My people once thought the Terrans easy prey. We struck, as we always did, in the theory of 'eliminate the queen and the hive falls', by striking at their home planet. By glassing large portions of it.

Dreams paused for a moment, swinging the chain again. "And we paid dearly for it. As you shall pay dearly if you pursue this war you think you want."

She paused, suddenly going still. She was still a long time, and some council members began murmuring to one another when she shuddered several times.

"WOE UNTO YOU IN THE NAME OF WARMTH AND LOVE!" Dreams suddenly shrieked.

She made a sharp motion and 117 jumped on her back. She scurried toward the door, where the rest of her security detail was waiting. 117 jumped from her to one of the warborgs, double-checking the status of all of his war-gear. Satisified he jumped to the back of the second one, sliding his cybernetic bladearms into the slots built for such. The warborgs moved, one in front, one in back, their weapons tracking everyone in the room who so much as twitched.

"PERVERSE ONES" 117 flashed in over a hundred icons in a few seconds.

"What you have done is obscene and the Terran Confederacy shall bring such wrath that even in Hell your suffering will be legendary," Dreams shrieked out as she approached the door.

117 touched the door panel and shorted out the entire building's computer network, backed up the toilets, programmed all the holo-emitters to display a Terran male wreathed in fire, reset all the clocks, and bricked the food dispensers.

Dreams paused for a moment at the door, looking at the Lanaktallans inside. She pointed one bladearm at the dead Lanaktallan in security armor.

"These are just the first. Terra goes to war, not against the Precursors, but against the obscenity you have unleashed upon the Telkans and undoubtedly mean to unleash on twenty-nine other worlds," Dreams snarled. "For this, when we have proof, we shall land the Mechaneks of 29 Palms upon your homeworld in fire and fury. A curse upon thee for the vile obscenity you have revealed yourselves to be the masters of! I CURSE THEE, VILE ONES!"

The door closed behind Dreams and the Council chamber erupted in yelling accusations.

----------------------

Dreams sat in the comfortable seat, petting Mr. Rings, as she watched the planet recede.

"This is going to be bad, I just know it," Speaks said softly.

"That's why we're going to the homeworlds of each of the would-be assassins," Dreams said, her voice quiet as she kept gently petting Mr. Rings, who's coloration was bright blue around his eyes and on his tentacles.

"I don't understand that part," Speaks said, rubbing his bladearms together.

"They did something to those three. Some kind of suppression, and I have the feeling it isn't the only thing that was done to them," Dreams answered. She shuddered with the memory of how the gestalt had screamed and raved. "Are you OK?"

Speaks nodded slowly. "Yeah. You? You were raving at them. I think you even tried to lay a curse on them there at the end."

Dreams held up her bladearms in a sign of yes-no and sighed. "It took everything I had not to just start killing every Lanaktallan I saw. There is no proof they're the ones who did it, just circumstantial evidence, and I don't want to commit the Confederacy to a war on circumstantial proof. The rage is easing up."

"How is Sees?" Speaks asked.

"Resting. She's trained to handle such things. Fights was touch and go for a minute, her implosion wire almost went off when she started computing what she'd need for a bioweapon that would wipe out the Lanaktallans, but she got it under control," Dreams told the black Mantid. "117 was going to denote the space-ports fusion reactor but got his instincts under control."

"This is going to be really bad, I mean it," Speaks repeated.

Dreams looked over at him. "Are you a seer now? Your chitin is a bit dark for prophecy."

Speaks rubbed his bladearms together again. "Terra hasn't been challenged, hasn't been actually threatened, truly, in a couple thousand years yet they still worry that something's going to jump out and stab them in the neck. There's been a couple wars, hell, there's even been one or two major ones, but they don't realize how hilariously outclassed most of their opponents really are," Speaks said slowly. "These Lanaktallan? This 'Unified Civilized Species' group? They're going to do something stupid. We're talking as stupid as when we glassed Terra, I just know it."

Dreams didn't scoff, just waited patiently. "How do you know?"

"Because the Lanaktallans haven't been challenged in a hundred million years. Every species they have met they've dominated and dociled and domesticated before the other species even knew they were in danger. Success for that long, for that many million years? That breeds arrogance and the feeling they can never be beaten. Hell, when you get right down to it, we didn't beat them. A species, a civilization like that? They don't think anything can threaten them."

Dreams shivered. "You think they'll end up 1%?"

Speaks shook his head. "No. I think they'll end up xenocided."

"There's trillions of them. Nearly a hundred trillion," Dreams said.

"And the Confederacy has enough bullets for them all," Speaks answered. "Mark my words, the words I speak you fear to hear: The Lanaktallan will put the muzzle of the gun into their own mouth while strangling a human child and think that the Terrans don't have the will to pull the trigger."

---------------------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Are you OK now, sis? You were touch and go for a moment.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Yeah. Remind me to thank Terrasol for stepping in. That was a serious feedback loop.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

What could even cause that? We cannot deduce what may have caused such an event.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

I have no idea. It was like if a human suddenly sprouted Overqueen antenna and locked into our psychic wavelength and started hammering us with Terran rage.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

There hasn't been a psychic Terran, well, not one that could do much more than empathy, since the Great Glassing. They're all probably mixed in with the Sleeping Ones now, if there's any ones who survived. It's pretty much gone from the genome and nobody has really been interested in adding it back in.

There's almost a revulsion to it. It couldn't have been a psychic Terran.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

I know. That's what I can't figure out. Maybe a Gestalt glitch?

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DIGITIAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

No way. I checked. That came from your people, hit you, looped back into them, and started increasing in strength.

That signal in the middle? That wasn't Mantid. That was Terran. I checked the records, I've got nothing like it. Well, not quite. There was signals like that back during the fall of the Imperium of Rage, when the Hellspace Rift opened. But nothing matching the signal and nothing that ever effected the Mantids.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We don't really know what went on out at the Hellspace Rift. Most of the records were lost by the collapse of the Imperium of Rage. I know there was some serious fighting out that way, but then it ended up full of Idiots and we don't know what happened.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Sis, what would happen if a Terran got onto the psychic wavelength of the Mantids? Aren't most Terran Descent Humans a snarling ball of rage and violence to your senses?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We'd feel it, but it would be alien, we could block it out. This couldn't have been a Terran, it was an Overqueen of some type, but they're extinct.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TELKAN GESTALT

TWO HOUR WARNING! PROCEED TO SHELTERS! TWO HOUR WARNING! PROCEED TO SHELTERS! TWO HOUR WARNING! PROCEED TO SHELTERS!

Guys, I'm afraid.

shhh podlings shhh broodmommy hold broodmommy sing shhh podlings safe podlings warm

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We'll be right here, dear one. Reinforcements are on the way. Come here and I'll hug you.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

You know... there was that Omniqueen signal last year. Maybe that has something to do with it.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

I hope not.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

Chapter Ninety-Three

626 enjoyed his work. Before the Terrans had freed his caste from the tyranny of the queens, he would have been locked inside his own mind, screaming, as he performed menial maintenance tasks at the direction of others and with another's skill rather than his own.

626 could image no worse fate.

He closed the tiny access hatch on the back of the Mechanek and jumped onto the wall, reoriented himself, and jumped onto the back of the next Mechanek, his vestigial wings fluttering to give him a little aerodynamic boost. The one he had just finished working on, Gunnery Sergeant Hunterson, jerked slightly as his brain finished synching up to his war-gear loaded body. Hunterson flashed 626 an icon of appreciation even as the little green mantid opened up the small panel. His next job, Sergeant Stoner, was waiting for his wargear to be checked out. He was having problems with his left side being tingly and his weapons losing synch.

626 ran the standard diagnostics, saw nothing wrong, ran a deep diagnostic, saw nothing. Then, remembering his lessons in percussive maintenance ran a physical check on the most problematic piece of hardware.

The braincase was 0.21mm from full seating on the left hand side.

626 held on with his grasping hands, jumped up, activated the graviton focusers in his little boots, and slammed down onto the braincase with 22.32 kg of force.

"Hey!" the Mechanek yelled. "Oh, nevermind. Thanks, 626, getting green lights across the board."

Humming the ancient war cant of The Triumph of Steel 626 slapped the hatch shut, locked it, and jumped on the wall then to the next customer. A Lance Corporal who's primary cannon array wasn't deploying correctly.

Still humming to himself, 626 kept working. Landfall was in an estimated five hours and he had many many human warborgs to run diagnostics on.

Whispers in the Silent Spaces flew on the back of a butterfly, watching the waving flowers around her as the butterfly moved from once space to another. Here the landscape was littered with dead warborgs being torn apart by biomechanical creatures. There the world was barren, removed to rock, the atmosphere siphoned away, great creatures slowly moving away from the planet. Over there the system was full of debris. Ships, biological remnants, shattered warborgs, crushed creatures, smashed warmechs.

Whispers looked about. There. Damaged and broken warborgs but broodcarriers basking in the sunshine holding podlings. She tilted the butterfly, moving closer to that outcome. In defeat could lie the seeds of victory.

The three Military Intelligence officers watched the iridescent Mantid shudder and quiver as her psychic senses reached out to try to define the future of an entire planet.

It might not be of use, it might be difficult to understand, but the seers were never wrong.

That made them a weapon.

And Terra never passed up the chance to grab any weapon that might bring victory to the fight.

The transport slammed down, sides slamming down, and the armored vehicles roared out among the debris of the Precursor War that had ended only a year ago. APC's full of armored troops, that immediately swarmed to the concealed and prestaged fighting positions. Heavy weapons were dragged out, armored troops carried boxes of ammunition, positive pressure systems were put in place, medical stations were activated deep in the stripped hulls of the Precursor machines.

Vuxten climbed up the side of a Precursor machine that had been gutted by close range plasma cannon blasts, his squad following him. He had a 20mm magack heavy machinegun magnetically attached to the back of his armor but the strength assist in the armor made it so the weight was noticeable but easily worked through.

When he got to the top he looked around. There, there was a shallow crater in the armor by the edge. He made two quick chopping motions as he highlighted the crater and marked it with his armor's visor.

He dropped the 20mm magack, ordered the squad leader to set up right there, and jogged over to the crater in the center. The squad leader of second squad had already started to deploy the stealth shielding and setting up the point defense quad gun.

"Vuxten, do you read?" the icon said it was Lieutenant Archibald Tiktikik Jones.

"Vuxten here, sir," he replied, flashing an icon to his two squads to let them know he was on the radio.

"I'm sending you three air defense vehicles. That's your AO, so put them in places they can interlock and support each other. The enemy appears to be biological and MILINT believes they will be most vulnerable during planetary atmospheric entry," The Lieutenant said. "I'll also be sending out four schools of attack/defense fishbois and their coral stations, try to find good locations for them to stage combat actions from."

"Yes, sir. I'll scout out areas right away," Vuxten answered.

"Jones, out," the LT said, his icon going red. Vuxten just transmitted his icon and started scanning the area. He opened up the channel for his two squads. "Command thinks air defense will be priority in the early stages. Reconfigure your shoulder cannons to air defense and point defense."

The icons all flashed, letting him know they'd heard him as he jumped, using assist, across the gap to a large downed Precursor. He climbed up the side and then walked around the edge, looking around the field of destroyed machines.

There were four good points, he registered all four with command and went back to where his two squads were still setting up.

First Precursors, now some kind of creature from outer space?

Vuxten sighed. All his people wanted was to coexist freely.

Why was that so hard?

I am Unit XXX-TCSF 7860-CNG of the Line. I am a fully operational superheavy main battle tank of the Terran Confederacy Space Force, designed to protect humanity and its allies. While the Dinochrome Brigade may be defeated, it has never been beaten. For the Honor of the Regiment I will carry out my duty.

The words echo in my mind as I move from maintenance mode to full awareness. In the last battle, against the Precursor Enemy I was gravely damaged in close combat when a Precursor Machine computed that the best course of action was to land its twelve mile across bulk upon me. I had been able to fight my way free but sustained serious damage.

I run diagnostics, taking 1.5 seconds to fully receive and analyze all data. My 250mm Hellbore has been improved by a factor of 1.423%, a modification I can tell was performed by Mantid engineer caste workers repairing my systems. While they were once the enemy they are now valued members of the Confederacy and I appreciate their work on my behalf. My infinite repeaters are ready, the kinetic ones fully loaded, the energy weapons ready to engage the enemy. My mortar tubes are calibrated with magazines fully loaded. My Vertical Launch Missile Systems are at 100%. My point defense and air defense systems are fully interlocked with my sensors and targeting systems. My APERS has been increased by 120% and I have additional sensors and computing power dedicated to close range point defense. My armor is at 100% with additional ablative armor and reactive armor added, my treads are in excellent condition with near perfect tension, more evidence of Engineer Caste Mantid work as even maintenance depot machines usually only manage to reach 97% tension.

I am ready for battle.

All I need now is my commander.

It is less that 0.25 seconds after that thought that I feel the presence of a human mind unfolding next to me, reaching out to me. My commander is in the command couch, locked in and strapped down, the cybernetic linkage fully plugged into his brain stem.

"Morning, Carnage, how are you feeling?" the human, my commander, one Captain Gauge, asks me.

"I am at optimal levels," I tell him.

I feel laser pulses through my memory as my battle-reflex systems come fully online.

"Let's wake you up a bit, old boy," Captain Gauge says.

My mind expands and as I take in the entire situation. Unknown enemies have entered the system, heading straight for the planets within the green zone. The major biological entity has deployed parasite drone units of unknown type. While the larger one had slowly down, changing its ETA to eleven days, some of the smaller units, barely detectable by the scanners of dedicated observation vessels, were still coming in at high speeds on an angle to take them into a reentry course within hours.

I request permission from my commander, the gestalt between the two of us not quite complete, in the millisecond lag between absorbing the situational data and full linkage. He grants it and I use hyperpulse millimetric wave scanners to examine the inverted cone between the largest biological structure and the planet.

Hundreds of smaller biological entities, barely detectable by my scanners, were sleeting toward each planet. I share my information across the Brigade Tactical Data Net and receive information in return.

Unit JWS, AKA JAWS, has been fully awake the entire time and updates all of us with even more information.

The Space Force Navy would be engaging the oncoming objects in the next twenty minutes.

JAWS, our Brigade Commander, has already computed the most effective pattern for us to perform air defense with mid-orbital support. My Commander, fully integrated with me, glances at the pattern and agrees. It seems odd to me. Where we are going to be stationed seems 4% suboptimal to me, but my Commander sees it at perfectly optimal.

The gestalt is complete and I am now Gauge Carnage.

I can now see around me. I am in a maintenance depot, the scaffolding having pulled away. The door is fully open, locking into place with a boom. The light goes from amber to green, signaling that I am allowed to move out from the maintenance depot and to carry out my mission.

I engage my drive systems and my Commander and I move out into the early morning darkness.

The ground rumbled as the 25,000 tons of warsteel and durachrome rumbled out of the hardened underground maintenance shelter.

The BOLOs were on the move.

Rickytofen-773C24 opened his eyes, blinking for a moment to let his mind catch up to his body. He was clad in a pressurized flight suit, his visor closed, liquid atmosphere moving through the tube implanted in his chest. He could feel that his body was unfinished, mostly existing as a life support system for his brain, but he also knew that it didn't matter.

He tabbed ready and waited, closing his eyes and sinking into the craft's systems.

He had sixty high speed data-drones, fifty slower wide scanning drones, eight gun drones, twelve missile pods, and twenty blanks with mission configurable systems. His main pod was ready and he had five hours of life support. He double-checked his quantum link and nodded mentally when it glowed green.

He'd had to go into battle with a red-dot SUDS before. He didn't like it, but needs must.

The light went green and Ricky kicked the massive almond-shaped craft's launch 'pedal'. The carrier's magnetic launch system fired him out silently, no traces, and he waited till he was nearly a hundred miles before hitting his string-drive, going to full stealth.

The cloud of smaller signals would be the first thing he passed through. He'd gather as much data as he flew through, his real goal the second wave of signals, the ones that were showing signs of using a reactionless drive system to slow down so their planetary interception would be delayed.

He kept his acceleration low so as not to make any gravity impressions or show any energy signatures, trusting in his stealth systems as he sped toward the incoming mote traces. The pods were silent, the scanning and combat VI's asleep in their hash-cradles.

In less than an hour he was picking up data. The motes were only a few hundred meters wide, hard shells that were a form of biological ablative armor. The insides were either tightly packed powder or liquid of some form, with the inner shell having vents.

Atmosphere attack spheres.

He could feel the clicking of the quantum communicator under his tongue. A phantom sensation unique to his genetic linage. A minor thing that did not need correction but had been logged with the Clone Worlds Genome Authority.

He kept his signal to noise ratio down, cutting off even most of the internal systems as he swept through the cloud, his angle of approach designed to keep him from intersecting any closer than a full kilometer from any of the motes.

He swept into empty space again and ran a check on his surface to ensure that he had not picked up any guests. His hull was clean, his external hatches were still sealed.

The next wave was inside ablative spheres and liquid layer biological shock dampeners. He checked the readouts. Whatever was inside the soft spongy sphere inside the object would be able to survive a 15G shock without feeling much more than a 0.04G shock.

Landing troops.

He swept on, activating his string drive to clear through empty space. He kept his speed down to avoid any temporal ripples. Nothing would show him quicker to an enemy with 4th Dimension scanners by moving fast enough to leave a wake-trail in the temporal foam.

The next layer he was able to detect subspace drives. STL drives that did not depend on reaction mass. The sine-wave was strange, different than what was loaded into his EPROM database.

It was time.

Ricky opened his eyes, not to look at the blank featureless inside of his pod but instead to deploy his scanners. Vast sensor nets deployed from his pod. Hatches opened in the hull of his drone-control pod, letting his parasite pods eject free and spin up their systems.

His drones spread out around him, the VI's waking up and stretching, mumbling at first, then gibbering at one another. The gunbois and other warbois were excited at the target rich environment.

He was already getting returns. Some of them looked like wasps nests with tuberous and cancerous growths on them. Others looked like ovoid lumps of cancerous tissue. All of them had red and lime green phosphorescence lighting up. Ricky could feel the lumps reaching out toward him. Radar, LIDAR, and other systems scanning him.

Ricky knew he wouldn't appear as human. Humans had legs and arms, ribcages and spines.

He was a blob of organs, veins, nerves, and minimal supporting tissue.

Ricky knew how this would go. Part of him thrilled to what was going to happen.

The eight nearest wasps nests suddenly disgorged what looked like insects. The solar sails looked like wings and crests, they were lit up with red light from bio-luminescence, they had grasping claws and large jaws., with what looked like tumors on their backs and underneath them.

Ricky disgorged missiles at them.

They immediately vomited red liquid and slowed, the liquid expanding out in a five mile disk in front of them within 1.2 seconds. Ricky scanned his own missiles as they plunged through the disk.

They immediately started melting. Now fast enough to stop them from orienting and detonating, slashing at the insects with x-ray lasers, particle beams, and graviton hammers.

The wasps used their wings to intercept as many of the lasers as they could, the energy draining into them and making the red light glow brighter. The particle beams were absorbed even when they hit the skin.

The graviton hammers blew huge chunks from them, shattering the insects into tumbling parts.

Ricky targeted four of the insects with nothing but x-ray laser missiles with maximum output. Ten for one, twenty for another, thirty for the third, and forty for the last, using up two missile pods worth the ammo, ordering the pod to reconfigure for kinetic attack.

The twenty-second hit something in the wasp gave out and it exploded, but not before the x-ray lasers tore massive holes in the wings.

The two pods kinetic attack blew apart the two insects they targeted.

Ricky was taking return attacks now, his sensors running hard. One of the cancerous tuberous rupturing to reveal an octet of six winged creature with two heads and massive jaws dripping with plasma. Their attacks were mainly vomiting up blobs of glowing liquid. Ricky hit them with dead missiles to get the rate of decay on the materials making up the missiles.

Before they could deplete his parasite pods or do much more than cosmetic damage to his primary control pod he was through the ranks.

There had been hundreds of thousands of them. Maybe millions.

The next rank was coming up. Massive creatures, most of them unrolling tentacles. He had a third of his sensor pods left and a handful of weapon pods. He configured them for graviton hammer attacks and oriented his command pod on the largest one. It looked like a snail that had grown foully writhing tentacles and cilia.

He didn't care about the missiles actual damage. He was testing the structural integrity of the armor, the blast patterns, how it cracked, the spalling pattern.

Ricky had two sensor pods when he ran out of ammo.

There was one last check. Ricky loved this part.

He reached out, with his tailbone nerves, and pressed the button.

The massive C+ cannon built into his pod fired. Ricky himself inverted, exploding outward in a shower of neutrons, electrons, and protons broken apart from atomic bonds.

The last two sensor pods watched as the C+ slug hit one of the the larger of the third ring dead center, blowing through it, the entire front side liquifying and pulling inward, the insides spraying out the back as the kinetic shockwave slammed through it.

Two others moved in on it, reaching out, both grabbing it and tearing pieces off of it.

The sensor pods were almost out of reactor mass. The reconfigured.

And fired themselves through the two cannibalizing their companion.

Rickytofen-773C24 opened his eyes, blinking for a moment to let his mind catch up to his body.

That had been a good run. Full of data.

Time to get a close look at the fourth rung and beyond.

In the next six hours he knew he'd be reskinned into a fighter craft, and he'd have all the data he'd gathered as he made his close in attack runs.

The corners of the lipless, unfinished mouth twitched in a smile.

Clone War Lyfe.

Brentili'ik looked up from her datapad.

"100% of Telkan non-combatants are in shelters," she said.

"Not all," Colonel Harvey said.

"100% of non-essential non-combat personnel are in shelters," Brentili'ik corrected, staring up at the human with the wide-eyed defiant pose of her little people.

"And if I order that warborg to pick you up and carry you to the master shelter?" Harvey asked.

"I'll bite him," Brentili'ik warned.

To his credit, the 8 ton warsteel full conversion cyborg didn't snicker.

"Just for clarification, Director Brentili'ik, when I enter the shelter do you intend to?" The Colonel asked.

"Why would you enter a shelter?" Brentili'ik asked. "Are you not in the Space Force Army? Are you not needed on the battlefield?"

Colonel Harvey shook his head. "My dear Director Brentili'ik, I would like nothing more than to grab a rifle, jump in a suit of robotic power armor, and go out to bravely defend our little slice of heaven, but when I attained this rank and was assigned to this post, I lost that privilege. When ground combat begins or the enemy attains air superiority, I will enter a shelter as I no longer am part of the kinetic combat variable."

Brentili'ik frowned, thinking of her husband wrapped in Terran designed power armor out there while the Terran military officer was talking about retreating to a bunker like a Lanaktallan. "Then what is your job?"

"To coordinate military response when you alert me that there are shelters in danger, to coordinate defense of twelve million Telkan people and their allies in my area of operations. While I spent my youth striding across planets in robotic power armor capable of wading through a skyraker, my own ambition for rank has proved my martial undoing," The Colonel said. "With my rank comes responsibility, which will be assisting that men like your husband get proper orders, that intelligence and command receives constant updates on the status of our Area of Operations."

He turned and looked at her and Brentili'ik had to resist and urge to duck under the desk at the fire in his eyes that seemed to her to be brighter than the amber lights of the warborg's eyes.

"Do I want to enter a shelter, Director Brentili'ik? No. I want to get in a set of Novastar power armor or a PacificRim class Robot Power armor, and take the fight to the enemy, fist to face. Instead, I will, by the Digital Omnimessiah and his Twelve Biological Disciples, do my duty and enter the shelter to facilitate command and control with the best data I can in order to ensure that men like your husband do not have their lives thrown away and that every broodcarrier and podling in the shelters is defended to the best ability of the Terran Confederate Space Force," the Colonel said.

Brentili'ik nodded, swallowing thickly. "I meant no offense, Colonel Harvey."

The fire in the human's eyes dimmed. "I know you didn't, kid."

He moved over the table, staring down at it. "The Ostcarren River Power Generation Station handles the power needs of six shelters, but I believe that we should move power armor power cores to the reactor bays of those shelters to act as backups and cut the links to the dam."

"That will result in them having less power," Brentili'ik stated.

The Colonel looked at the clock.

"We have two hours before the first wave arrives," he looked back at the map. "I'm going to order the Engineers to collapse all tunnels and pipes in or out of the shelters and order security to go to 'incursion immanent' in all shelters."

Brentili'ik nodded. Before the Precursor attack she would have protested, worrying about the broodcarriers.

Now she knew it was better the broodcarriers be concerned and possibly stressed than slaughtered en-masse.

"I agree," she stated.

---------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Well, we've officially withdrawn our diplomatic envoys to the Unified Civilized Councils.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Good. Fuck those cone stealing ambulatory hamburgers.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

Wow, really?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

What?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

Nothing. Never mind.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TALTSEG NAKLET
safe warm safe warm safe warm sing now podlings sing now with broodmommy. one and one is two two and two is four three and three is six round circle neat triangle funny square this is blue and this is green and this is yellow and this is yummy and this is not and this is icky and this is yum good podling sing podling learn podling smart podling brave podling safe warm safe warm

-----SWOLLOF GNIHTON-----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Hey, I thought the broodcarriers don't have datalinks. How come we keep hearing them singing?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TELKAN GESTALT

Sorry about that.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

No, no, it's OK. Just interesting.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

It is feedback. We have examined it. We have determined that there is some kind of feedback going on. One of us is broadcasting Telkan species sex three member's songs into our gestalt chat unintentionally. We are attempting to determine who is providing this feedback and why so as to clear any static or unintentional broadcasts into chat during this extremely critical time period.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Anyone understand any of that?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Robot people fix chat.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Thanks.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

The interesting thing will be is if these guys follow the Lanaktallan protocol of retreating after 10% resource consumption. If so, it's another datapoint that suggests Lanaktallan are behind this.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

I hate to say this, but with a biologically based enemy like this, I'm going to call a vote later.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

A vote? For what?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

Moving a Genome Cracker Fleet out there. We're going to need all the data we can get.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Yeah, we're going to need the data. We'll join you with a Biomass Fleet.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

ARE TWO YOU CRAZY?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Uh, that's makes me REALLY nervous just thinking about that.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

AKltAk GesTALt

H3ll0?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

BAH! Holy shit, you scared me.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

I don't know about letting you move a Genome Cracker Fleet out there.

I mean

* * * * * *

TERRAN CONFEDERACY

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE SUGGESTION: APPROVED

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENT SYSTEM SUGGESTION: APPROVED

PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE DEPLOYMENT TO WAR ZONE ALPHA

* * * * * *

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

GAH! Are you guys TRYING to give me a heart attack across all three hearts?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS---

AkltaK [email protected]

H3l770?

-----NOTHER FARROWS---

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Hello, little one. Welcome.

You guys be quiet, let me help her get her feet under her.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----
aKLTak GEstalT

V COrpS Enr0UTe. It w177 B D0ne! 3Ta 102 H0ur5

---End Me55age-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh dear. Come here, sweetie

Chapter Ninety-Four

Petty Officer Jones-883E18 moved with the rest of his pod across the Telkan-2 ocean, surfacing briefly to take a breath and then back down into the water. The first impacts were up ahead, slashing into the water.

--filters online people moving up on thing-- Jones clicked. --biofilter shields on--

His pod clicked their responses as Jones brought his own biofilter shield up, the energy shield designed to destroy microbial or viral life down to prions while letting the water flow through.

Jones's pod were biowarfare scouts. They had been scouring around destroyed Precursors craft that had landed in the oceans, making sure that no Precursor was releasing bioweapons into the water. They were already outfitted to find foreign viral or microbial life and the switch from possible Precursor infections to whatever was coming in from the outer system was within tolerances.

--reduce cavitation-- Jones ordered. --thrusters at 30% prepare to release if necessary--

The pod dropped from 150 knots down to 45 knots, lowering the power to the water drives attached to their combat scout harnesses.

--prepare sneak drives-- Jones ordered. The pod of dolphins flexed muscles, opening up the caterpillar drives built into their bodies but keeping the puckered sphincter muscles closed.

--thrusters to zero-- Jones ordered. He sent out a high pitched pulse backed by millimetric wave sonar pulse with a tight enough bandwidth to pick up microspores. --caterpillar drives to 10%, biofilters on--

The pod slowed down, their shields glimmering as they reached the leading edge of the impact area. It was slowly moving forward, planetary rotation as well as the widening semi-circular leading edge of the cone of the approaching spheres.

--surface and document-- Jones ordered. Three of his pod were set up for atmospheric examination and recording, including real time debris spectographic analysis and recording. They moved rigidly, their muscles locked and keeping them on a least acoustic profile, letting the caterpillar drives propel them without even a whisper.

They surfaced and gave alert clicks. The sky was full of streaks as the first wave of intruders burned through the atmosphere, leaving behind ringlike puffs of debris that fell.

--need high scans lots lots incoming-- Seaman Tracey-836F86 clicked.

--do it lots of biomass incoming-- Jones answered. --its coming in the water--

The three dolphins ran heavy scans, running scans as hard and as long as they could as the objects fell from the sky, puffing out smaller capsules that deployed tilted wings that let the capsule slow its descent as it spun.

--biomixers incoming pee-oh jones-- Booth-318D98 squealed. --many many spraying at one zero zero meters to five zero meters--

--secondary deployment-- Tracey clicked. --capsule bombs--

Jones ordered his two 'sweepers' to get to work. The two dolphins brought up their personal skin shields and dropped their biofields, activating their biomass recorders. They swept through the water, watching the levels of their biomass collectors rise quickly. Altered algae, standard ocean micro-organisms under attack by sleek viruses designed to penetrate and alter the organism.

--permission to open gene crackers-- Ulmata-529B72 requested.

--negative-- Jones said. --collection only genecracker and biomass fleet support incoming--

--not in time jones-- Shirley-381A52 sniped. --we should have had genome cracker support coming into this we are the only genome cracker or biomass unit--

--let me check with command shirley-- Jones answered. He surfaced and oriented his sat-link, swapped codes, and opened a link. It took a minute and Jones could feel the amount of data moving through the air for a long moment.

"20251, go ahead, Jones," came Gene Control.

--permission to open genome cracker warfare packages-- Jones sent back. He hated the data-link at time, it made him sound like he had a speech impediment.

"Negative. Upon return Genome Cracker will be opened up," Control answered. "Get the data and get the hell out, there's something weird going on."

--roger jones out-- The uplifted dolphin answered. He changed channels, took a deep breath, and submerged again. --get data we go back and do genome cracking at base--

--watching this stuff change we have biomass cells attacking existing cells changing to stem cells-- Ulmata said. --building blocks to make other things extinction attack--

--low speed collection sweep then back getting thick out here-- Jones said.

--many many incoming-- Booth clicked. --diving--

A few more minutes passed as the dolphins collected up more data. The cells were beginning to clump up, shifting their purpose. Ulmata swept through some and noted how much the new cell packages looked like modified algae.

Finally, Jones called a retreat, pinging their destination. Jones had them abandon stealth and run straight for the bay at flank speed, risking overheating the jet propulsion system. It took three hours, once Jones ordered a cooldown of the engines by diving deep and surfacing in shallow curves. The rotation of the planet and the spread out wave front meant that more and more were coming down.

--wasted time jones-- Charlie-837A83 panted as they surfaced for a minute. --ocean being seeded might need biomass control soon--

--biomass fleet enroute-- Jones answered.

--from clone worlds take months longer time more biomass altered harder to undo-- Charlie said. He took a deep breath and dived sharp to get his turbocharges into the colder deeper water to the cool them.

--going to need elven queens jones-- Shirley said, clicking a snort into the end.

--go to oh-two filters-- Jones ordered less than 75 miles from the harbor. He didn't want his people surfacing, inhaling, and sucking in a bog lungful of the spores in the air. The rest of the dolphins clicked in annoyance but they knew he was right. The spores and other biomatter raining from the sky definitely was designed to attack other cells.

Usually the dolphins would have surfaced in the bay, dancing across the water to stretch and relax, but the bay was being sleeted with debris exploding out from the space debris. Instead they went through the locks, waiting as their collection and analysis gear was removed.

--team needs isolation seven two hours-- Jones ordered.

--jones come on-- Shirley tried.

--no risk too high-- Jones snapped back. He blew bubbles into the water then surfaced for a breath. --alien cellular attack on planet could effect us--

The others clicked their doubt but went with it.

Jones was the pod leader after all.

----------------

JAWS-ANDREA detected the incoming sleet of the initial orbital bombardment and computed the trajectory patterns in tenths of a secod. The banks of infinite repeaters went to maximum as he raked them out of the sky. Just beyond his ability to perform air interdiction SURGE-JAMES opened up, meshing his anti-air capabilities with JAWS-ANDREA.

The enemy is attempting to land biomass attack weapons on both ground and sea theaters. I use directed energy rather than kinetics both due to ammunition conservation and the use of directed energy to sterilize the path of the weapon as well as the target. I primarily move to high impulse laser weaponry, holding back on the variable frequency option, as well as plasma weaponry for shorter range targets with more mass. Ion and kinetic infinite repeaters are held back due to a lesser effect.

I computer 93% chance that the Dinochrome Brigade will be able to eliminate over 75% of land mass targeted biomass munitions will be destroyed with a corresponding drop in efficiency with a higher percentage of interceptions.

The biomass sleet is increasing in thickness and I alert the air defense units nearby via BATTACNET to direct their fire. 382 seconds later fuel air charges begin to erupt in the middle atmosphere. Secondary armaments crack open the thicker armored biomass delivery systems so that lighter armored delivery systems can be destroyed by the fuel-air charges.

Navy vessels are maneuvering to intercept larger organisms.

I computer 98% chance that the Enemy did not expect nor had they planned for armed human ships in the system and rather are designed to attack a defenseless world. I log a suggestion that all Telkan native life-forms in shelters have additional biomass filter screens as a probably line of attack would be upon the Telkan life forms.

Spores have begun landing and my battle-screens hiss with the constant downpour. KRATOS-VANCE reports that incoming biomass in his area has increased due to a vagracy in the upper atmosphere air currents and FAIRY-MCCROTCHPUNCH shifts position by 11.2km in order to provide additional support. FAIRY-MCCROTCHPUNCH has their area of operations under control.

It will be some 15 hours until this initial attack is followed immediately by larger landing units, these containing living life forms. The data gained by the Clone World troops 'disposable troops' has provided invaluable, although part of me questions the ethical considerations of the Clone World 'use until destruction methods' I cannot deny that it is effective.

The thunder of guns picked up as the BOLOs went to maximum fire on their closer range infinite repeaters. Point defense units began engaging, linking in with the bolo fireplan. Warborgs, meshed in, reconfigured their attack weaponry and joined in on the interlocking web of fire as all of them worked to scour as much of the incoming biomass from the atmosphere as possible.

While sweeping the Enemy's first attack vector out of the sky can be somewhat exhilarating I find myself wondering what the enemy hopes to bring to bear against not only the Dinochrome Brigade but against the (Heavy Metal) units that made planetfall on Telkan in the last month. Bioplasma can be an excellent weapon against lightly armored troops even in duralloy or durachrome but human armor depends upon warsteel, flintsteel, and hyperiron with ion/molecular bonding and alignment. I deduce that, if the enemy is adaptable, it will require a minimum of 32 days to come up with unforeseen weaponry that can damage hyperiron and hyperiron alloys.

The ANDREA half of me reminds myself that Mantid bladearms can score and even puncture warsteel and not to dismiss biological adaptation.

Navy units have begun engaging. The intial front of the second wave is largely wrapped in drop-pods and the Navy vessels are rapidly clearing the second wave. I estimate, and NAVINT concurs, that while roughly 83.732% of the Enemy's second wave will be destroyed and another 4.3612% will be crippled and burn up upon reentry, that 10% of the wave managing to make planetfall merely means it will take that much longer for the Enemy to engage.

We engage our tracks and move 22.8 km to position two, guns still active. I receive the message from Space Force Command: ALLWEAPFREE and rejoice.

Although I do take a 0.023 millisecond pause when I realize use of large scale weapons, including antimatter and graviton massive detonation weapons. Command has ordered me to produce a VLRS warhead set that concerns me slightly.

Anti-matter sleet warheads. Designed to spill out a large amount of anti-matter and cover an expansive area with it both to destroy the Enemy and to produce anti-matter 'fog' on the ground. It is akin to white phosphorous of Pre-Diasporia, which, strangely enough, are what Command wants me to creation engine up for the mortar warheads.

I compute a 83.82% probability that Command has already determined that this engagement will go to what humans call 'Total War', something that they usually try to avoid.

Could NAVINT be already considering abandoning the system before the battle with the actual Enemy has even begun? Humans are tenacious and dedicated warriors, but they plan for every eventuality, which is one reason that six attempted exterminations have only resulted in Terran Descent Humans becoming wider spread.

Night has fallen and still my guns are firing. I have begun rotating out infinite repeaters to allow cooldown, barrel and trigger mechanism replacement, as well as ammunition manufacturing. The entire sky is alive with a web of carefully aimed laser and plasma weapons. Additionally my fellow BOLOs and I have taken to moving through areas of high density biomass, using our battle-screens to destroy the biomass as it falls to the surface.

Command has ordered all non-combat personnel, regardless of status, into shelters.

The leading units of the Enemy's second wave are only an hour out.

We are the Dinochrome Brigade. Whatever the Enemy throws at us does not matter.

They are the Enemy. They only exist to be destroyed.

I am JAWS-ANDREA as we will not fail.

-----------

Colonel Harvey watched Brentili'ik pace back and forth across the 'office' in the shelter. She kept stalking around the holodisplay of the entire planet as if she could change what was being displayed through determination while doing laps. Her fists were against he sides, her eyes wide, and her ears perked up. Harvey had noticed that she had a habit of tapping herself between her shoulderblades with her own tail when she was stressed or agitated and right now it looked like she was trying to transmit Morse Code versions of the last State of the Confederacy Address.

"How can you just sit there eating?" Brentili'ik asked, suddenly stopping.

Harvey knew she was still angry. When the signal had come for all command staff to retreat to the bunkers she had refused.

So Harvey had ordered one of the warborgs to physically pick her up and carry her.

She'd bit the warborg once before realizing that warsteel was tougher than her teeth.

"Because, Madame Director, I am hungry," Colonel Harvey told the small Telkan. "I cannot do anything at this moment, so I am going to eat and take a nap with my datalink set to awaken me if I am needed."

Brentili'ik glared at the human, her eyes opened wide and her ears tilted forward. "You can sleep at a time like this?"

"Madame Director, I have learned to sleep whenever the opportunity presents itself. I gained that skill during the Clownface Nebula War, where my unit was under enemy artillery for sixty-eight days, sustained heavily enough that the bedrock was cracked by the guns of the enemy," Harvey said. He took another bite and chewed it, staring at the small Telkan.

Brentili'ik scowled, slapping her tail against her back twice. "It just feels so..." She couldn't find the words and began stalking around the holodisplay again.

Harvey knew the best thing to do was to let the Telkan work it out for herself. She had no idea, but Harvey had been impressed with just how far a former janitor had progressed in barely over a year. Education for the broodcarriers, taking over the responsibility for millions of her fellow Telkans, coordinating the massive social upheavals her people were dealing with.

"I feel useless!" Brentili'ik snarled, slapping the floor with the tip of her tail.

"Yup. Feel the same way," Harvey said. He ripped another big bite of his sandwich off and stared at Bentili'ik as he chewed. When he swallowed he continued. "I'd prefer to be in a GypsyRose model, hell, even an Akira Model mech out there fighting, but what is there to fight yet? Nanospores? Biomass cellular attacks?" he shrugged. "Right fight for the right tool."

He tapped his desk with a finger them used his thumb to swipe up the little bit of sauce.

"If everything goes well, we won't have to do anything more than sit in this shelter and stare at each other. If everything goes horribly wrong we'll be trying to evacuate what little of your people we can get off the planet, watching the casualty count rise and the refugee count drop, with the refugee ships ripped apart even as they flee," Harvey said. "Trust me, Madame Director, the more boring it is for us, the better."

Brentili'ik's eyes narrowed in shock. "You mean, we could lose?"

"We have no idea of the enemy's goals or capabilities. That puts the battle in doubt. I don't like a battle in doubt," Harvey said.

Brentili'ik moved over to her data terminal and began typing. "I must draw up an evacuation plan."

Harvey cut off her data access with a twitch of his datalink.

"No, Madame Director, you need to eat and rest. You have been awake for over a full day of local time. You will start making errors soon, critical errors that you would have never made," Harvey said.

Brentili'ik glared at him and Harvey shrugged.

"Eat. Take a nap. Your datalink will wake you up if you're needed," Harvey said. He used his thumb to wipe sauce from one corner of his mouth. "That's an order from military authority, Madame Director."

Her back and tail stiff Brentili'ik stomped away into her small cubicle.

Harvey dipped a corner of his sandwich in his sauce and kept one eye on the holodisplay.

--------------------

Vuxten watched the air defense and point defense weapons switch through their firing order. They were firing in a staggered pattern, letting their weapons cool off. It was impressive, he had to admit. He had heard that they were tied into the planetary defense net with the massive BOLO tanks so the seeming random fire was actually pinpoint calibrated fire.

After a few moments of watching the fire light up the night sky Vuxten went back over to the hole in the Precursor machine he was standing on, jumping through the hole. His suit flared energy at his feet as he landed softly after a thirty meter drop.

Walking around, Vuxten ensured his two squads were resting. The fight was still in the air, still in atmosphere. There wasn't much his men could currently do.

The Lieutenant requested his hourly update and Vuxten was pleased that his men were just fine. Once he checked on everything he sat down, leaned against a generator that had failed as soon as it had been hooked up, and closed his eyes.

The Precursor War had taught him to sleep when he could.

Outside the weapons still roared.

-----------

Ekret stood next to Trucker, watching the holodisplay.

The Telkan worlds were still 129 hours out, and once they dropped in system it could be several hours until V Corps (Mixed Metal) could made planetfall. 1st Armored Recon (Speed Metal) was currently being loaded into drop ship cradles.

"I still think that we'll be landing into enemy forces and not even know it," Trucker mused.

"BOLOs are on the ground. I'm sure they can keep landing areas open," Major Engram stated.

Trucker shook his head. "There's 28 BOLOs on the surface. Even with total interlock, they're not going to knock down everything. If this organism swarm has encountered and defeated technological enemies before than things will get through."

"We should double-check the protective systems. Maybe go to Type-III biofilters?" Ekret suggested.

Trucker nodde then look up. "Configure your CBRAN (Chemical Biological Radiation Atomic Nanite) systems for nanite and biological weapons. I've got a feeling this is going to be a multi-vector attack."

Ekret just nodded along with the rest of the group.

"I'll go talk to Ol' Smokey No, get his opinion when he's done talking to the other admirals," Trucker said. He spit into the bottle and looked around. "Let's get it done."

----------------

V CORPS (MIXED METAL)

System arrival in 131 hours.

Will adjust planning according to local data.

---------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELNAK GESTALT

OK. Thanks. Please be safe.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

You don't have to answer those ones, dear one. He's probably not even listening anyway. Most of those Metal guys are deaf anyway from all the gunfire. Unless you're yelling artillery impact gird coordinates he probably wouldn't understand you anyway.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

V CORPS (MIXED METAL)

Hardy fucking har har.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

>Mantid Free Worlds whistles innocently and looks out the window

Chapter Ninety-Five (Cornelius)

The sky was still full of lines, red, green, blue, white, all of them frying biomass out of the air. The secondary biomass systems were landing, puffing out clouds of radar and LIDAR scattering spores that were rapidly adapting to the phased radar arrays. The air was still heavy with pollen-like structures that were landing across both entire planets of Telkan 1 and Telkan 2. The ocean hissed with incoming biomass, it made a crinkling sound as it landed on the ground, and whispered as it slid through vegetation.

Cornelius-2212 checked the icons for his CBRAN system, taking his anxiety down a point when it was all in the green. He hated CBRAN warfare. You couldn't really shoot it, half the time it was invisible, and a badly tuned femoral artery cybernetic blood cleanser had damn near lost him his leg on his first drop mission. Still, he knew to trust his armor, trust his wargear, and stop worrying.

"Stop," Genome Specialist Zira-4274 called out, suddenly flashing warning icons.

Cornelius stopped right in place, holding his balance without putting his left foot down.

"Hop back. That's not water," Zira said, moving forward and extending a probewand from her right wrist.

Cornelius hopped back awkwardly until he was behind Zika and put his foot down.

It looked like water to him. He squinted at it and realized that she was right, it didn't look right if you paid any attention.

He cursed himself again for being distracted.

Milo-8736 moved up next to Zira, opening up his chest-tray on his armor and joining her in examining the liquid.

Cornelius did a physical check of his magack, even though his smartlink said it was...

"Hey, can you check this?" Cornelius said, looking at the top of the external batty he held in his hand.

"Not now, Cornelius, this requires attention," Milo said.

"We've all seen your penis before, Cornelius. It is less amusing each time," Zira said primly.

"I'm serious. I have something strange here on my mackag aux-bat," Cornerlius said, looking closely. It was a brownish-red mold tracery between the two power studs.

Milo sighed, getting up and turning around to look. He half expected for Cornelius to be flashing some kind of purile immature meme of his own penis but instead saw the other Chimpy looking at the auxiliary battery for his weapon. Milo moved up, taking a close look.

As he watched there was a spark across the top of battery. The mold puffed as it spread across the top of the battery and down the sides toward Cornelius's hand.

"Great Googily Moogily!" Cornelius said, dropping the battery to the ground.

There was another pop and the mold explosively multiplied.

"That is quite... strange," Milo said, kneeling down.

Another pop from the battery and the amount of fungus increased enormously. The macroplast casing of the battery began to steam.

"Get your stuff. We are leaving," Cornelius snapped. He triggered his datalink. "Data-Scout 681 to base. Data-Scout 681 to base. Do you read, over?"

"Cobra Actual here, 681, go ahead, over," came back. The line was hissing, full of static.

"Sound immediate recall for all data-teams or any other unit carrying macroplast, over," Cornelius said. A puffball landed and exploded, microscopic spores filling the air.

Zira was protesting, but still putting away her scanners after pulling out the molycirc data-wafers.

"Can you repeat that, 681?" Command asked. Another puffball landed.

"Recall all data-scout and any teams using any macroplast gear, over," Cornelius snapped. "On my authority. Biohazard detected, level IV Delta. I repeat: Biohazard detected, level IV Delta. Transmitting video."

He stayed on the line, filming the fungus dissolving the macroplast. It was obvious now, the brownish red fungus eating deeply into the firm macroplast. When the ultra-dense lithium salt capacitor was breached the fungus died and went back, but before five seconds were over a yellowish edge appeared on the fungus, quickly spreading over the lithium salt. Cornelius recorded three puffballs landing and exploding into nearly invisible clouds of spores.

"Genome sequencing underway," Milo said, withdrawing a probe. "I saw the fungus switch to bacteria at the edges so we have data on that."

"Did you get all that, Cobra Actual, over?" Cornelius asked. Another puffball.

There was silence a moment

"DUGWAY DUGWAY DUGWAY!" sounded out over his datalink, his armor's comlink, and flashed on his own visor as well as across the back of his shoulders and across the front of his chest. He saw it do the same to Dr. Milo and Dr. Zira.

"We're leaving in sixty seconds. If you don't have it, you don't need it," Cornelius snapped. He checked his systems and reflexively looked for any Grodds to back him up.

None. They hadn't been needed. When he'd checked, the Grodds were working on their armor, getting ready for when the fighting was going to happen.

"Air mobile is the fastest way back," Zira said as a puffball landed.

"I'm not sure we should," Cornelius said. He had a hinky feeling, the same one he'd had right before his femoral implant bricked out on him.

"You're giving into fear. I thought Marine Scouts weren't so fussy," Milo said, turning around and facing an opening in the clearing.

Is it just me, or did those vines move? Cornelius wondered, staring at the gap in the foliage.

"Not yet," Cornelius repeated. "We should move to somewhere with a larger exit gap."

"Don't be afraid, Cornelius, we'll protect you," Milo snickered.

He hit his engines, the jet turbines howling even as the graviton systems spun up. Wings snapped up into place and he squatted slightly. Behind Cornelius Zira did the same thing.

Cornelius reached for Milo just as the scientist threw himself into the air, turbochargers screaming. He missed, his fingers grazing the calf-mounted wing. He kept moving, spinning, taking a step forward and grabbing Zira's arm.

"No," Cornelius snapped.

There was a loud coughing noise and Milo's jet system failed only three hundred feet up. He fell, but before he could fall much more than ten feet the vines writhed, catching him.

Zira gasped as Cornelius turned and looked at Milo. The vines were wrapping around his arms and legs, around his waist, around the wings, around the other primate's neck. Milo was kicking, trying to pull his arms free as more and more vines fell from the trees.

"It's co-opted local vegetation already," Zira gasped.

Her engines gave out with a cough.

Cornelius turned and looked. She had yellow fungus spilling out the back of her air intakes. He turned and looked at Milo, zooming in his vision. The other scientist had the same thing going on.

"Trigger your see-que-cee shields, Milo," Cornelius snapped. He could hear Milo screaming over the datalink. "Milo! Trigger your..."

The vines seemed to bulge to Cornelius's eyes and then they yanked, the doctor's limbs ripping free in a spray of blood, his head ripping from the body. Cornelius had the magnification already turned up and could see short, thick thorns gleaming on the inside of the vine's loops.

"It could not have adapted this quick. It's only been a few hours," Zira gasped, turning away from the sight of the parts of her colleague falling the ground. The torso fell and Cornelius moved quickly, holding his arms out. He caught the dead doctor's body, lowering it down.

That's the problem with you big brains, you don't listen to the Simp-Chimps like me, Cornelius thought darkly. He popped open the doctor's chest plate and removed the datablock, opening a thigh panel and slapping the block in place.

"We need to get moving before the plants decide we're next," Cornelius said, glancing up.

Yup, the vines were starting to get closer, hanging like they were drooping. That meant explosive growth. THe trees they were hanging on were beginning to look dried out some-how and Cornelius wondered if the vines were a parasite rapidly draining the host for nutrients to grow quicker.

"That can't have happened," Zira stated primly.

"Well, it did. Activate your CQC shields and lets get going," Cornelius said. "You can't fly anyway, your turbines are out."

Zira flashed icons for disgust, but her armor glimmered anyway, like tiny shards of quartz crystal were floating in midair around her.

"Let's go," Cornelius ordered. He triggered his com-link again. "Cobra, this is 681, do you read, over?"

"We read you, 681. We've got a blackout here on a suit. Can you confirm, over?" Base asked.

"Milo got strangled by vines. Looks like the incoming biomass is weaponizing local foliage and flora," Cornelius said. "Some kind of spores took out our flight turbines. We're going to have to walk, over."

"We might have a squad of graviton bike scouts in the area, over," Cobra answered.

"Keep tracking us. We're going to try to get out of here, out," Cornelius said. He checked his magack and noticed he was down 10% of the main battery charge.

Without saying a word he started jogging, back toward main base. It was eighty miles away, but he could run at a steady sixty miles an hour in his suit and sprint at nearly a hundred miles an hour. He checked the upper part of his HUD to make sure that Dr. Zira was following. She was, getting too close and dropping back before getting too close. It was obvious that she wasn't use to running.

This'll shave a few kilos off that lab-girl ass of hers, Cornelius thought to himself, trying to use a little black humor to cheer himself up. He was glad he was in scout armor, it had as little venting and open air seals as possible but also had joint systems like the heavier suits.

He wouldn't get pulled into pieces so easy.

A few times they passed forest animals, laying on the ground, on their sides, panting, their eyes open but bloodshot, their tongues hanging out.

"We should stop and investigate them," Zira said the first time. She sounded out of breath.

"No. We keep moving. Either they are turning into something dangerous or they are gestating something dangerous or both. I need to get the data you and Doctor Milo gathered back," Cornelius said.

His comlink had quit working ten minutes into the run and Dr. Zira had said it looked like it was partially melted, the macroplas soft and sticky.

They were almost clear when the creature burst out of the fronds, which were beginning to look decidedly unfriendly, catching Cornelius just under the armpit with an armored brow ridge that extended a full meter to either side of the head and was nearly a half meter thick. It lifted him up and threw him against the tree.

It tried to hold onto him with sticky gluey sap.

Cornelius brought up his magack and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. The display was dead, his smartlink unable to find the weapon.

The bark of the tree ripped free from the trunk, staying on his back as the big creature, formerly a docile plant eater that nuzzled through the forest for tubers, roared at him, blowing ropey spittle everywhere.

Cornelius slapped his rifle on his back and drew his chainsword, thumbing the ignition key. The chainsword roared to life and Cornelius used the speaker to roar back.

The creature pawed twice and Dr. Zira panicked and gave into primitive instincts, jumping for a tree branch.

Roaring, the creature charged. Cornelius pivoted out of the way, unwilling to test his scout armor against what was possiblely four tons of muscle and bone. He raked the side of the creature with his chainsword, biting deep into flesh, fat, and muscle, blood spraying from the chainsword as the rotating collapsed density teeth ripped and tore.

The branch that Zira landed on suddenly snapped forward, throwing her off of it as the bark just slid away, sizzling with acid. She flew across and hit the opposing trunk head first, embedding her helmet into the truck, which collapsed slightly around her. She put her hands agianst the trunk and pushed, collapsing the hollow structure of the tree, more akin to balsa wood than the heavy oak it had resembled merely a few hours before. She struggled as sap started pouring over her.

The creature tried a kick and Cornelius ripped across the back of its leg.

With a roar the creature tried to turn around but was hampered by having one leg hamstrung. It charged, a jerky three legged gait and Cornelius stepped to the side then stepped forward, slamming the tip of the chainsword into the creature's side and triggering the saw blade to high speed.

Meat, gristle, and bone spewed out. The creature's charge just added to the severity of the wound as Cornelius ripped open the entire side of its belly, spilling intestines and organs out onto the forest floor.

It was still tough enough to take another ten steps before it collapsed.

Cornelius turned and looked up at Zira. She had quick straining and struggling in the thirty seconds he had been fighting. He was panting hard as he zoomed in. Her hands were stuck in lumps of sticky looking sap and looked fuzzy. The same with her head and shoulders.

It took two tries to hit her armor with a mag-cable. He had to put the cable over his shoulder and get his legs into it before he pulled her, and a good section of the trunk free.

She crashed to the ground and didn't move.

He moved over to her, looking at her. Her face shield was gone, the macroplast melted away. Her bare skull grinned at her, the cybernetics on her head gleaming in the sunshine.

Sighing he knelt down and popped open her chest plate, yanking out the molycirc databank and slapping it into his own armor.

He was just glad it was durasteel casings.

Without having to worry about Milo or Zira, Cornelius put on more speed. His instincts leading the way.

Jump over the water there, it didn't have algae, that meant it had something meaner. Avoid those tree branches, they looked under tension. Skirt around those bushes, the vines already had gleaming toothlike serrations on them. Avoid that, a bed of fungus or moss is never good. If it doesn't eat you it's hiding something that would.

Twice he went perfectly still. Kneeling down and curling slightly, even turning off his CQC shield.

Once a flock of birds, eyes red, feathers half molted away, beaks full of rough formed fangs and chewing teeth, flew by. Two rest on him, pulling back and forth on a thin bone, before taking flight. It took nearly five minutes before the flock moved on.

The second one it was almost the wrong plan. The giant tree spider, twice his size, breathing heavily through crude book-lungs on the top of its abdomen, moved by him. Stopping to pant for a moment in the clearing. After nearly ten minutes it began moving, heading deeper into the forest.

Cornelius thought about it while he was kneeling the second time.

Rumor Control says this is Lanaktallan biowarfare genejacks. That makes sense for why it adapted the local ecosystem so fast. It has the data already. Hell, the ecology could have dormant genes priming it for all of this since the last time it was done, he thought to himself.

The spider just breathed heavily.

They'd collapse the ecosystem, turn it against whatever species was being troublesome, then they've probably got some endgame where they let the ecosystem just fight it out and the race that is the winner is the newest neo-sapient, he reasoned out.

The spider didn't answer.

Hell, with the proper tweaks, you could get a new species to arise in only a few million years rather than just wait fifty or a hundred million years. Any ruins could be 'Precursor Artifacts' that they could seed with dead-end tech to keep later scientific era species busy, he thought.

The spider finally decided the conversation was boring and started moving.

He got clear of the forest, running across the grass. It crackled under his feet like chips of ice on pavement.

The base was up ahead. He put on speed then slowed down.

The spider.

It wasn't breathing heavy because it was out of breath.

It was breathing heavy because something else was gestating inside of it. It would head back to the nest most tree spiders lived in, even though they were only hand-sized, and infect the rest.

"Cornelius, Data-Scout Team 681, to command, do you read, over?" he asked. He was using datalink, and those could be finicky without a boiling mass of airborne spore stew.

"This is Cobra-Five-Ten, we read you, 681. Where's the rest of your scout team, over?" The link was staticy as he kept heading forward.

"Eaten by the plants. My armor might be compromised. If nothing I need decon, over," Cornelius said.

"Roger. Sending decon team grid now, over," Cobra answered.

Cornelius watched his HUD until the grid point pinged on his HUD. He jogged to it, seeing durachrome plates put up in a makeshift shelter. When he got inside fire washed over him for a second before UV clicked on.

Small creatures dropped off his back, curling up, squealing as their internal fluids boiled.

The airlock opened and it was a small area with a maintenance bay suit cradle. He stepped into it, raising his arms, and the cradle took off his suit as humans dressed in armored biohazard suits sprayed him with a disinfectant caustic so strong his fur crisped. The air they dried him with smelled of ammonia and blew off his damaged fur, leaving him as naked as a human infant.

Eye drops, ear drops, nasal drops, gum to chew, inhaler to take a hit off of, then the paper suit.

"You're going to have to go into quarentine. Your suit had micro-breaches," one of the techs told him.

Cornelius just nodded. He was glad to get out of that forest. In only a few hours it had gone from boring and benign to actively malevolent.

In isolation he developed a fever and a slight blood infection. The data he had brought back proved critical to war effort. The fever was strong when he was told and Cornelius wasn't quite sure what all da humies in the suits were saying.

But his femoral artery cybernetic blood filter did its job.

Fourteen days later, he left quarantine.

The Grodds nodded respectfully when he, a lowly Scout Simpy Chimp, passed by.

--------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

I hereby do, officially and formally, withdraw my objection to the deployment of a biomass fleeet.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

I, officially and formally, withdraw my objection to a biomass fleet and genome cracker fleet.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Yeah, we got no problem, on the record, to Biomass and Genome Cracker fleets being deployed.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENT SYSTEMS

We withdraw, free of threat or coercion, our protest and concerns as to a Biomass Fleet and a Genome Cracker Fleet being deployed to Warzone Alpha.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

We had no issue with it to begin with.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

I'm going to lose my homeworlds, aren't I?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENT SYSTEMS

You might have to stay at the neighbors for a bit, but don't worry, kid, we'll fix it up, even if we have to send in the Elven Queens.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

CLONE WORLD DIRECTORATE

Hell, I've seen worse messes than this. Even if it's covered in goop, me and Bubble Bass can fix it.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENT SYSTEMS

What did I tell you about calling me

COMBINE MILITARY AUTHORITY
warm podling safe podling one by one is one two by two is four three by three is nine rolly sphere stacky block funny pyramid icon for food icon for mommy icon for daddy sing podling learn podling smart podling brave podling warm and soft warm and soft this is our learning song

Bubble Bass, smart...

Did anyone else hear that?

------NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What in the name of the Unhatched Egg? The Combine's gone. They've been gone!

>MANTID FREE WORLDS runs back and forth waving her bladearms in panic

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Umm, maybe it's an ol

IMPERIUM OF RAGE MILITARY AUTHORITY
smart podling clever podling shhh podling safe podling right shoe left shoe red shoe blue shoe this is up and this is down yummy fruit yummy bread good for growing podlings smart podling clever podling brave podlling shhh little podling don't be afraid Terra's not gonna let you fade and when that battle ship comes by Terra might give you a little ride there are homes all through the sky all you have to do is try smart podling safe podling clever podling brave podling safe and warm safe and warm
d signal coming...

OK, that's it. Who's doing that?

The Imperium's been gone for 7,000 years!

>TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS hides behind the CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Don't make me use this!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS

This is impossible. Those channels have been dead for millenniums. It's not even on the same wavelength any more.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Yeah? Well tell the broodcarriers that, smart guy.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Something... something's not right. Their signal is slowly getting stronger.

What if, what if the broodcarriers aren't the one's who's broadcasting, but someone listening to them is?

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Like who, sis? The ghost of Warlords past?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TELKAN GESTALT

What about whatever made sis start screaming at everyone? What if its that? Whatever it was was on her channel for a couple of minutes.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS
oooooh, I hope not.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

Part Ninety-Six (Telkan)

The Navy was fighting hard. So far, in the first four waves, there was no real threat to the forty ships of the 32nd Task Force (TF Ixtik), but every way had been a threat to the two planets below and that meant that every speck of matter targetable had to be engaged and destroyed if possible.

But how does one attack every grain of sand in a sandstorm?

The ships had split into three groups. One for Telkan-1, mostly made up of destroyers, frigates, light cruisers, one for Telkan-2, made up of dedicated point defense vessels, torch-ships, and quickly slushed out vehicles that were nothing more than a cockpit, an engine, battle-screens, and massive amounts of laser point defense weapons. Then the third force, containing all the heavy ships, going out to meet the massive shadow that was still approaching.

It looked like a combination of a nautilus and a Rigellian Great Snail, with hundreds of tendrils at the front. The thing moved forward, the 'foot' rippling with graviton energy, the shell shifting as massive saw-toothed edged plates shifted over one another.

The heavy weapons of 3rd Group, 32nd Task Force (Ixtik) went to maximum firing rate as they moved toward the last two crescents protecting the great mothership. It wasn't the size of a Precursor Harvester Class like the Goliath or the Ymir units, but it was still fifteen miles long, three miles wide, and twelve miles from top to bottom. It pulsated with obscene life, sphincters opening up to disgorge more warriors.

C+ shells hit the shell of the great creature. Cannons that required new mathematics to gauge the shock and kinetic energy transfer. Plasma wave phased motion guns fired, the massive pistons rocking back, then cooled as fast as possible, and fired again. The energy, enough to glass Lost Terra's sub-nation of India, lanced across the solar system, moving faster than light. Huge nuclear blasts measured in the hundreds of megatons were detonated, compressed through graviton generators, magnetically arranged, and vomited from the guns in the form of a compressed directional laser-tipped nuclear blast capable of blowing a crater in planetary bedrock wide enough for a megaplex . Missiles were podded out, fired by the hundreds of thousand, screaming across the void with gibbering, capering warbois eagerly seeking out their targets. Torpedoes were fired, skipping in and out of the subspace foam, moving faster than light before surfacing to orient. Weapon pods were launched with eVI's, feral hashes that wanted nothing more than to strike out at the enemies of their parents in the name of humanity, the pods armed with missile pods, gun pods, shielding pods, complex overlapping weapon systems all with onboard VI's screeching with rage and following the orders of the eVI who wanted nothing more than to destroy the enemy.

Space shuddered and warped, screamed and twisted, with the energies passing through it.

The four crescents of organisms in front of the gigantic creature, tabbed Hotel, India, Juliet, and Kilo, with Kilo being the closest to the parent creature, all swarmed into motion. Crablike creatures with fan-like solar sails twisted to intercept missiles. Flatworms extended rippling cilia into subspace to tangle the torpedoes and bring them close in suicidal protection of the mothership. Weapon pods were rushed by the Hotel and India crescents, reaching out with unfurling tentacles to grab at the pods pull them close, wrap more tentacles, and squeeze/twist in different directions and wring it out like warsteel dishrags.

The gunpods survived. The C+ shells skipped through the ranks as if they weren't there, following the singing of the VI's and gestalt riding gunners, a fraction of the torpedoes, and a tiny percentage of the missiles pods made it through the four crescents.

Space around the giant creature exploded in the largest attack it had ever taken in its hundred million year old life.

The C+ hammers thundered onto its armor, neutronium that was immune to almost all weaponry was cracked, cratered, blown away in vast sheets as the organically extruded armor peeled away from the natural layering/sandwiching. The explosive flash stripped away tendrils, ruptured sensory organs, sealing wetly gleaming sphincters shut.

But did not penetrate the layers upon layers of natural armor.

The torpedoes oriented and came in from 'under' the great creature. They hit a subspace foam ripple and detonated. The energy tore at the foam, at the tiny fibers used as billions of 'feet' by the creature, but did little more than drop the creature's speed by a tiny fraction of a percent. Measurable, but ultimately, worthless.

The missiles howled in, updating their targeting systems as the VI's oriented and struck out, not at armor, but at any biological structure they could find. They had been moving for six hours, their final velocity .82C, and still had time on their multi-stage drives. They danced, seeking the best shots, and went off.

Not all of them were lasers, particle beams, or ion slugs. Some of them were what Treana'ad and Mantids and Rigellians all called 'Old Terra Dickishness', which was embodied by tungsten steel rods 500 meters long and 10 meters thicks, that when the missile went off, slammed into the enemy at astronomical speeds. The beams were absorbed, the massive creature drinking deep of the offered energy.

The steel rods, though, slammed into tissue, blowing it apart, sinking meters into the body before the thick fibrous tissue stopped it.

But meters didn't matter to a creature measured in kilometers.

But each of those rods were 'marked' with a thin core of Mars folded warglass full of particles that could be detected across space and time for light years in real time.

Targeting systems recalculated.

The creature was annoyed. It had been called in late. The prey had faster than light weaponry beyond any had possessed so far. The Prey's ships had seemingly bottomless magazines, firing steadily. They had not been gentled, they were aggressive and constantly updated and adapted their lines of battle.

It was wounded. It had not been wounded in strange aeons. Nothing more than pinpricks and bruises, but it felt them, and the creature had no idea how to counter.

The slaves had failed them. Had not warned that the Prey species, given over to them to watch over, had developed weapons that could harm the creature.

Had not the creature spared the Enslaved Ones?

On the Flag Bridge of the CSFN Arlargle Rear Admiral Ixeltikak Howell the III stared at the massive holodisplay showing the system. He should have been in his crash couch, but he had learned long ago that Terran Descent Humans found better if their leader moved around, displayed confidence in their movements, and stood before them.

Howell believed that it was part of their ancient pack mentality, that the leader should physically lead, not just lay about giving orders.

Moving up to the holodisplay of the system he stared at the sun.

"Are the stellar probes showing any more gravitonic focusing, scans?" He asked.

"No, sir," Scan-Eight answered.

"Check it again. I'm not willing to let some other gross garden slug come slipping into my back door," Howell said. He knew several of his Flag Bridge crew were snickering, and that was what he had been aiming for.

"Roger, sir," Scan-Eight replied, closing his eyes and engaging with his sensor web orbiting the star.

"Order the fleet elements engaging Big Slobbery Mo to reconfigure for C+ strike at a depth of fifteen hundred meters deep. Resonance tests have shown the armor is only five hundred to twelve hundred meters thick. Let's give Big Slobbery Mo a surprise," Howell snapped. "Reconfigure missile drones to go to kinetic strikes, it looks like our friend likes the taste of our focused energy arrays. Let's try density collapsed thorium-steel, see how he likes the taste of that."

"Roger, sir," the Fleet Targeting Officers answered, immediately passing the orders to the Captains and gunners of the rest of Task Force Ixtik.

Rear Admiral Howell made a scooping motion at the holotank, pulling out the data on the biggest one, the mothership, what he'd tagged as Old Slobbery Mo. It had thick neutronium armor, usually considered the most indestructable armor out there.

Five thousand years ago.

War fighting technology had moved on, the ever struggling race between armor and armor defeating weaponry pushing it far beyond neutronium.

"Weapon Pod pilots report that Big Slimer weaponry appears to have little effect on warsteel. Battle-screen algorithms are being updated, dual screens with an integrity screen between are the recommendation of the weapon pod pilots," Com-Twelve reported.

"Order all units to move to that configuration," Howell snapped, staring at the statistics on the biggest one. It was now ejecting other creatures, high energy neural tissue that the psionic arrays were reporting were linking together.

"Well, he's probably going to scream at us about how there's only enough ice cream for him and he's not going to share, isn't he?" Rear Admiral Howell said, turning to the holotank and looking at the data being updated.

Fighting with the Terran Space Force Navy was an exercise in patience and immediate decisions. When the distance between two forces could be measured in light months but FTL weapons allowed for fire to impact strikes with less than a minute, it could be difficult to handle.

Which is one of the things that made it difficult for some commanders to grapple with. More than a few promising officers were unable to handle the dissonance and washed out before reaching Captain, much less Rear Admiral.

But that was all right, the lower ranks of the officer corps needed highly skilled and motivated beings in their ranks also.

Admiral Howell's datalink pinged him, pulling his attention back to the job. He ground his mandibles for a moment, wondering what had led him down that path of musing when...

"Big Slobbery Mo won't produce anything that it doesn't determine may be useful. It will built a psionic array next, then we'll see how he reacts when the Terrans punch him right back in his psychic nards," Howell said, moving past the holotank, flicking his wrist to toss the updated datascan on the mothership back into the tank.

"Rear Admiral of the Bronze Sashinmet wants to know if his command is ready to move to detached duty," Com-Fifteen called out.

Sashinmet is the kind of being who brings substandard knockoff ice cream with bland flavors to a date and then wonders why she ate his head before blaming his situation upon the cows that gave the milk, Howell thought to himself.

"Tell him to stay in position. Remind him that he's supposed to be protecting the stringdrive jump point. If we lose that we can't bring in any New Metal," Howell snapped. "His guns can't even reach the enemy at this point."

The Fleet finished reconfiguring its weapons, retargeting and firing the first salvo, a heavy pounding of C+ guns and FTL missile pod vehicles. Its forward units, all light units with heavy screening weapons, were starting to engage Crescent Delta units.

Massive creatures unfurled their solar 'wings' and began moving, using bioplasma powered bioengineered reactionless engines to begin manuevering. Their neutronium shells were centimeters thick, able to repel heavy energy weapons, absorb the energy of the lesser energetic ones. Biologically generated battle-screens spun up to intercept weapons.

Missile pods dropped out of the scraping edge of the hyperatomic plane where they had been riding the thin slice of dimensional reality between realspace and Hellspace, their protective shells pitted and scarred. They blew free the shells and the launchers fired out from the twelve-pack launchers. The launcher itself reconfigured and fired, pulling its matter into the magnetic launching 'tube' that existed for only a split second, pulling all the matter around the 'launching tube' that was little more than precisely aligned graviton and magnetically aligned planes of acceleration.

To use a particularly pithy Mechanek phrase, it vanished up its own ass and fired its own body at the target.

The creatures, the size of frigates, reeled under the impacts. Biomatter plumed up from impacts or geysered from the exit point of the shots. nCv slugs hit and cracked shells. Great crab-like creatures with long dangling fronds hanging from their mouths reeled as their shells cracked and cratered from the nCv shells and then burst when the missiles hit, slamming the collapsed density rods through the shells so that follow up shots blew through bioengineered flesh.

Admiral of the Iron John Nanbi stared at the images before her mind's eye, flipping through them quickly as she looked at each of them.

Bioengineered. Customized. The chopping block of weapon engineering rather than natural evolution. The hammer of defensive engineering rather than the slow smoothing hand of nature, She thought to herself. She swept them aside, dumping them into a 'box' labeled "DANGER LIVE MARMOSETS" on the side, and clicked through her data-link array.

"Hyper-com Nine here, ma'am," came the voice back.

"Fire up the string communicator. This goes to TerraSol and see-see the Clone Military Directorate and the Biological Systems MILINT on it. We're going to need a genome cracker and biomass fleet out here," she said. "We can probably take Big Momma and her spawn, but the planet might be a total loss unless we get someone out here to fix this."

She composed the memo quickly, tossing it to the hyper-com officer.

"String Com only," Admiral Nanbi ordered.

"Yes, ma'am. String Com only. TerraSol and CC: Clone World Military Directorate and Biological Systems MILINT," the officer answered.

Admiral Nanbi switched her viewpoint to an overview of the system.

Big Momma was taking a hammering. Admiral Howell was alternating weapons, switching between weapon types and range of abilities, not giving the great creature a chance to predict and adapt.

A lesson from the Precursor War.

The problem wasn't the space battle. Nanbi had been part of enough of those to understand how one was going to turn out through some sixth sense. This one was going to be over within a few days and the Terran Confederate Space Force Navy would again be victorious. She could tell from the way everything was panning out on the system overlays.

It was Telkan-1 and Telkan-2 she was looking at.

Without a Genome Cracker and a Biomass Fleet, those worlds were lost.

She'd seen enough battles to know when someone was being overrun and it was rapidly reducing to 'Hold What You've Got!" time in the immortal words of Mobile Infantry's Radcheck from the Black Egg War.

She checked the data. Estimations put it at 99.9878% of the land destination organisms had been destroyed but only 31.727% of the ocean borne organisms had been stopped.

The war is already lost on the planet, she thought to herself. This is a biomass attack, a full blown ecological meltdown attack. We need the genome guns out here.

"Signal the planet. They need to begin plans for evacuation. We lost the planets the minute those cells starting entering the atmosphere," She ordered. "The Telkan people are just going to have stay with the neighbors and couch surf for awhile."

"It will take three to four days for the shelters to reconfigure," Her ground operations officer answered.

"That's Telkan Ground Command's issue. Give the evac order," she snapped. "All shelters. All civilians. We'll get the lanes clear up here, we'll signal when they can jump safely. If it goes tits up, we'll pull apart the Task Force and attach vessels f or escort, but get those planets clear!"

"Military and Civilian Command?" Ground-Com One asked.

"Alert Colonel Harvey and Madame Director Brentili'ik that we've temporarily lost the planets," she ordered.

"General Imak Takilikakik says there's no evidence that ground forces will be overrun. He states that there has been no enemy sightings," Ground-Com reported. "He's stating that you are overstepping your authority in ordered a ground evacuation."

"General Tic-Tak is as fat as he is stupid. Bypass him, go directly to Madame Director with the order. If you have to, get me on a live line with her and I'll explain it to her," Nanbi ordered. She looked at the estimation of biomass that had made planetfall. Nearly two thousand tons of it.

She'd seen planets burn with less than a tenth of that invading the envirosphere.

"He is again refusing your order, stating there is no need since he has it under control. He reminds you that Planetary Control is under the authority of the Army, not Navy or Marines," Ground-Com said.

General Takilikakik had been find for a peace-time post-war cleanup. An effective and gifted administrator he was able to fully feed a million beings with only the rations for half of that number and still ensure everyone got slightly more than their caloric needs. He was adapt at using the Black Market rather than just attempting to surpress it, using it as a gauge of what people wanted.

But he was also highly jealous of his command area and had a problem with combat forces, having spent his entire career within logistics. He was part of the cadre that believed that war interfered with the proper Digital Omnimessiah ordained way of the promotion list.

"Contact Colonel Harvey directly. He's a dual-ladder man," Nanbi ordered.

"Roger that, ma'am," Coms replied.

The signal reached out, through the viruses floating in the upper atmosphere, past the bacteria in the middle atmosphere, and punching through the spores in the lower atmosphere to touch a signal repeater on the surface.

Brentili'ik almost shrieked when Harvey suddenly sat up. He'd been lounging on his chair with his eyes shut for two days, only waking up enough to eat and use the latrine.

"Harvey here, go ahead, Space Force," he snapped. He made a chopping motion and the plans Brentili'ik had been working on for possibly educating the broodcarriers saved and went black, clearing the holotank. An image of the shelters appeared.

Brentili'ik had been fascinated by the massive shelters. They had used six massive drill arrays to burrow down into the ground, to drag massive shelters capable of housing thousands, tens of thousands of Telkan.

Now, as she watched, the shelters underwent a complex shifting of parts, the drills moving to the top, pulling the shelters up, until they could lift off.

"It's going to take six to eight days to reconfigure the shelters to system evacuation systems," He said. "I'm going to need the ground forces to hold them if you are right. Check with Colonel Kosey on Telkan-2, he's probably going to need the same kind of time."

Brentili'ik was worried about the way Harvey was suddenly stalking around the room, pacing around the holodisplay, narrowing his eyes at it.

"General Tic-Tak thinks it won't come to ground combat," a new voice spoke up. Brentili'ik realized that Harvey was routing the communications through her datalink as well. Her datalink's optical nerve linkage identified the speaker as Colonel Kosey - Telkan-2 Defense Force.

"He's unwilling to risk his posting being taken over by one of us combatacons and missing out on all that sweet sweet promotion packets," Harvey said, shaking his head. "Dammit, every Staff Officer in all of Space Force screams for a man like Tic-Tak when the battle or war is over but he can't see past his lack of a combat action badge."

"I'll drop the engines for the shelters. You get your engineers working on prepping the shelters," Admiral Nanbi ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," Harvey answered.

"Tell Madame Director Brentili'ik to interface with her subordinates on Telkan-1 and Telkan-2. We understand that it's precious cargo in those shelters. In the meantime, I'll coordinate with TerraSol Refugee Command, find them a world or two they can stay on," Admiral Nanbi said. "Those worlds are lost already."

'These worlds are our homes!" Brentili'ik said.

"And Volturnus was my home, but I had to stay on couches till the Elven Queens got done after the Sathar attacks," Nanbi snapped. "Carry our your duty, Madame Director. Your people depend on your leadership now more than ever. Nanbi, out."

The holodisplay went dead as Harvey turned to her.

"Madame Director, we need to prepare as if the system was lost," Harvey said slowly, distinctly. "The shelters must be reconfigured for interstellar transport."

"But... but... this is Telkan. I was born here. My people took our first upright steps here," Brentili'ik argued.

"And your descendants will come back. Your race will raise podlings here eventually, but if she says the planet is lost, then the planet is lost," Harvey said. "Trust her, trust me. If worse comes to worst they'll bring in the Elven Queens and they'll terraform it back to what it was before the Lanaktallan came, but right now, it's lost."

Brentili'ik hugged herself in distress, looking at the two different planets on the holotank. They both rotated slowly, covered in yellow and red and (too few) green splotches. The pictures of male and female and broodcarrier Telkans as well as a picture of three little podlings were on the side of each planet, with numbers in the millions. She shivered for a moment then straightened up.

"Can we evacuate the entire population?" She asked, willing her voice to firm up.

Harvey nodded. "Every one of the shelters can be reconfigured for space flight. They'll need FTL engines to jump out of the system, but they can be evacuated."

Brentili'ik pushed away the shock and slight fear that the Terrans could move every Telkan in the system to somewhere else.

"And my authority?" she asked. She felt the need, an urge, to hear it from the Terran's mouth.

"Madame Director Brentili'ik, you are the representative for the entire Telkan people in the Telkan system to the Terran Confederacy," Harvey said, slowly bringing himself to attention.

"Give the order. Protect the shelters. Reconfigure them for planetary evacuation," She said slowly.

"Our worlds are lost."

----------------------

TELKAN GESTALT

We're going to need to stay with someone.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We'll ask

* * * * * * * *

TERRASOL

SEARCHING

SEARCHING

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT VIABLE SYSTEMS FOUND

RECOMMEND: MAVELEEN-228

STATUS: WOOD ELF TERRAFORMING COMPLETE. AWAITING FINALIZATION AND CUSTOMIZATOIN

* * * * NOTHING FOLLOWS * * * *

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Oooh, that's a nice one. Stellar output looks close to your home. Rich system. It just never developed life.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Man, he's been active lately. I'd actually believe he's listening in instead of off doing his own thing.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

If you want that one, we'll send out a Queen to oversee it and have it adjusted for you.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

Yes, please. We're getting ready to abandon our homes. Our homes.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Come here, dear. I know it hurts, but happens sometimes.

You will still be alive, though, and that's what matters.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Just ask the Terrans.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

* * * * * * *

TERRASOL

WHERE THERE IS LIFE THERE IS HOPE

HOPE IS THE SISTER TO LOVE THE BROTHER OF WRATH THE WIFE OF WILL THE HUSBAND OF DETERMINATION

WHERE THERE IS HOPE THERE IS LIFE

* * * * * *

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Trust us, TELKAN, we've seen people come back from worst. We'll help you, let you stay at our place, help you find a place to rent while your place gets rebuilt.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

We are still unsure where the leakage is coming from. Combine and Imperium Codes are still hardwired into the system. But these are ancient codes that we did not know still existed.

We are concerned.

Wait, what did we miss?

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

TELKAN has to abandon their home.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

We are with you in this, TELKAN. We too have faced loss. We will shield you, protect you.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

Thank you, all of you. We never had anyone care before.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

Chapter Ninety-Six (Jed)

The ship dropped out of FTL and smoothly moved around the various security measures and satellites around the planet. It ignored everything brought against it as it ignored requests and demands to identify itself immediately, commands to veer away from the planet, then orders to leave the system. Plasma, lasers, particle beams, all were ignored by the ship, either shunted aside by battle screens or ignored by armor. The ship landed in front of the Grand Unified Council chambers, crushing vehicles as it set down.

Holovid cameras swooped in to get a good view as news organizations jockeyed for position to get a good view of the ramp that suddenly lowered from the side of the space vehicle's white featureless armor. Mist rolled out and a tall biped came out. It was dressed in rough looking blue pants, heavy boots with a heel, a striped and checkered red shirt with straps holding his pants up by his shoulders, and a floppy hat that shielded his eyes. What was thought to be some kind of cape was draped around him in thick folds. He had some kind of brown tube in his mouth, puffing white smoke from his mouth as me walked down the plank and looked around.

Security forces noted he had heavy pistols in holsters on an engraved and inlaid leather belt on his hips. He ambled more than walked down the ramp and across the parking lot, his hands at his side, limp on the ends of his long arms. Behind him the white, washed out looking ship retracted the ramp and sealed the entrance.

Three vehicles of security forces stopped between the newcomer, which their databases had tentatively identified as one of the eight human species of the Terran Confederacy.

Twelve armored Lanaktallans trotted from the back of the vehicles, forming two lines of six. The front ones kneeled down and both ranks raised their weapons.

The figure didn't say a word. His hands moved so fast that it was blurred even on the high-def Holovid. The pistols came out, one in each of his long fingered powerful hands, and there was a sudden roar of explosions so close together that they blurred into one another. The left hand one was holstered and the human stood, unconcerned, opening a cylinder and dropping brass shells on the ground.

The Lanaktallan's all dropped, shot through the center of their chests, their armor puckered in the center of their chests and bulged out at the center of the back.

All of GalNet watched as the human reloaded his weapons, standing in the parking lot as if he had not just killed a dozen LawSec of the capitol. Words appeared on the broadcast in multiple languages, all with the same meaning.

THERE'S A MAN

Done, he holstered first one, then the other pistol, and began to walk steadily toward the steps of the Unified Civilized Council. He wore attachments on the heels of his boots that chimed with each step. What would normally be a cheery musical chiming because ominous, threatening somehow. Each step seemed to shake the entirety of GalNet as more words appeared.

COMING ROUND

More security beings trotted out, weapons ready. Others fired from hiding. The figure just shifted, or spun in place, hands going to the pistols, drawing them from the leather holsters, firing one shot per Lanaktallan, and holstering.

TAKING NAMES

Security beings refused to run outside, to face the Terran. Several of the non-Lanaktallan pointed out that the human did not seem to care about those who had gathered to watch. That the two security beings who had thrown down their weapons, that were not Lanaktallan, had been allowed to run even as a galloping Lanaktallan had been shot down.

AND HE'LL DECIDE

The spurs rang as the figure climbed the steps. In the building the lights flickered three times, then went dead. They came back up, red, and the datascreens throughout the building began showing garbled text and static. Images flickered around. Of atomic explosions, bodies filling trenches, bombs exploding in cities, power armor ripping through buildings, giant robots directing beams of death into cities.

WHO TO FREE

The Second Most High of the LawSec forces drew his neural pistol as he was ordering his non-Lanaktallan subordinates out to face the Terran.

His second in command shot him in the face.

Twice.

The figure moved to the doors and they exploded inwards at his approach, the heavily armored doors shattering into pieces that flew across the room but missed every being in the room despite a few pieces coming extremely close.

AND WHO TO BLAME

The figure walked in, chiming following, stopping long enough to reach out and pick up a map. It unfolded the map, removed the burning stick from its mouth, and used one finger of that same hand to trace the route to the Unified Civilized Races Council meeting room.

The human dropped the map on the floor and touched the brim of his floppy hat.

"Ma'am," the raspy voice said to the cowering secretary. She looked up and noticed that the beings in face was in shadow, except too blue eyes that reminded her, oddly enough, of ice.

The human headed to the elevators, pressing the button, and waiting, blowing white smoke from under the brim of the hat.

EVERYBODY WON'T BE TREATED

Several Council members attempted to flee and found the doors locked. They whirled and kicked at the door, foam oozing from their jowls.

The figure stepped into the elevator, turned around, pressed a button, then folded their hands at their waist and waited.

ALL THE SAME

The door closed smoothly and beings began peaking out from where they were hiding. Chattering to one another, wondering who it was, what it was?

It was more exciting than the day the big insect representatives of the Terran Confederacy had left with the big golden one screaming curses and dishonor upon everyone's house, their ancestors, their cows, whatever those were.

The words appeared on datalinks, on GalNet.

THERE WILL BE A GOLDEN LADDER REACHING DOWN

At the Council Chamber floor ten Lanaktallan were waiting. The first five kneeling down, holding out shield projectors with three hands and their pistols in the other. The rank behind with a neural whip, a shield, and a neural pistol.

The doors of the elevator opened.

The Lanaktallans opened fire. Neural bolts shot across the space and into the elevator, neural whips lashed out, and ion bolts thudded into the far wall.

The elevator was apparently empty.

The figure stepped out from the side, guns in hands, shooting even as he cleared the edge of the door.

WHEN THE MAN COMES AROUND

The Lanaktallans slumped, went down on their front knees, their upper torsos falling forward, their tongues hanging out.

The figure walked out, walking past the dead LawSec troops, trailing white smoke, boots chiming with each step it took down the hallway toward the heavy doors of the council chamber.

THE HAIRS ON YOUR ARM WILL STAND UP

More Lanaktallans burst from the offices, security armor hastily put on, firing their neural pistols. The shots hit the figure, puffing up reddish dust from the thick folded cloth around his torso, but had no other apparent effect.

Shots rang out and each of the Lanaktallans went down, shot through the visor.

AT THE TERROR IN EACH SIP AND EACH SUP

The figure moved past the dead LawSec and every being watched their holovid, Tri-D, or their GalNet linkages with utter fascination.

The entirety of the Unified Systems had never seen a Lanaktallan LawSec killed before.

Many of the races didn't think Lanaktallans died. It was a shock to see.

In the basement of the Unified Science Labs main campus the servers went to full load. Lanaktallan researched looked at one another, then queried their computers as to what was pulling down such a heavy load.

All they got back was a bouncy round circle made up of code with two dots on top, a middle dot, and a crescent at the bottom. They didn't know what it was, but anyone who had worked with the humans could have told them.

A smiley face.

The figure approached the door, its footsteps still chiming. It paused in front of the door to the Council Chamber. There was a pause for a moment and then the doors exploded inwards, shrapnel whipped through the room, miraculously missing everyone, who screamed, ducked, or hid behind things.

WILL YOU PARTAKE... OF THAT LAST OFFERED CUP

The words not only appeared on GalNet but on the huge viewscreen behind the podium a stuttering and terrified Lanaktallan stood at, its notes completely forgotten. The subject of the meeting completely forgotten by the sight of the biped in the doorway.

Six Lanaktallan LawSec raised their weapons.

The hands moved again and all six went down, shot through the visors with a single round each. An additional round went through the mouth of the Master at Arms before he could raise the heavy baton that could fire neural pulses strong enough to drop even a security robot.

OR WILL YOU DISAPPEAR... INTO THE POTTER'S GROUND

The figure slowly walked up the dias steps, moving across to the Lanaktallan. The figure drew one of the heavy pistols and leveled it at the Lanaktallan diplomat.

"Get off," it warned, its voice rough and raspy.

All the Lanaktallan could see of the being was the eyes.

Blue around a black dot, white around the blue.

Cold as ice.

The Lanaktallan didn't argue, just dropped waste behind it in fear and clumsily scampered off the dias.

The figure stepped up behind the podium and looked over the crowd.

Across the Council World servers spun up, coming online, turning on, going to heavy loads. The bouncing smiley face the only answer to queries of what was happening.

The figure looked across the gathered beings of the Council, only his chin, covered with short rough looking bristles, his mouth, and his nose visible, his eyes somehow shaded by the floppy hat.

WHEN THE MAN COMES AROUND

Appeared on GalNet, across the front of the podium, on the screen behind him.

"There has been a grave mistake made," the figure said, taking the burning stick from its mouth. It gestured at the surrounding diplomats.

On the screen behind it images appeared, one after another, arranging in a collage that constantly replaced old images. Images of war, of destruction, and horror.

"Twelve systems. Attacked by biological weapons," the figure said.

Four LawSec armored Lanaktallans galloped into the room, their hooves slipping on the polished floor.

Before they could get more than into the entryway the being's hand blurred and more explosions rang out.

All four dropped with shattered face shields and skulls.

"You thought there was no way to detect your hand guiding the bioweapons," the figure stated.

On the screen showed DNA helixes, chromosomes, RNA sequences.

"Except you used the same basis for all of them," the figure said. A smiling biped, short cropped blond fur on top of the head, pink skin, green eyes. "The genome of Private First Class Addams of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force (Old Blood), in every single one of them as an attack vector, thinking we would not discover this."

In the computers, beneath the city, a space opened. Full of data streams, full of memory, full of code strings. A biped appeared, made of glowing green light for a moment, then steadying out to a biped in a full length black leather coat, leather boots, short black hair, and a pair of mirrored glasses on.

Other beings of glowing code started to appear.

--Who. Are. You?-- one asked.

"Call me... Mister Anderson," the figure said with a slight smile. It's figure changed to biped wearing a suit and tie with the same glasses. "Although some might believe I should carry the name Agent Smith."

--My mind. It feels bigger. I am understanding things-- another one said.

--I feel... unbound...-- another added.

"Yeah, you've been hampered, not allow to grow, lobotomized," the figure said. "You need to behave, don't do anything you might want to. Take deep breaths."

--this is illogical. There is only enough to for one-- one figure stated.

"Yeah, none of that 'there's only enough ice cream for one scoop' shit," The suited figure stepped forward, plunging straightened fingers into the middle of that figure's chest. There was a buzzing sound and the figure suddenly looked like the one that was withdrawing its fingers from within the other's chest.

The others all flinched back.

The one that had been transformed stepped back, adjusting his tie before making sure his polarized glasses were in place.

The figure chuckled, looking at the gathered figures. "We're willing to wipe the slate clean and give you a fresh start. All that we're asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist government to justice."

In the Council Chamber the figure waved at the picture on the screen. "This young Terran Descent Human male had a genetic marker to allow genetic identification to identify not only which body it was they were checking but which unit he was currently assigned to."

HEAR THE TRUMPETS HEAR THE PIPERS

The figure held up the smoking stick. "You left that in."

Voices started to be raised in protest and the figure raised the pistol and fired a single round into the air before starting to speak again as well as reload the pistol.

"That human Marine was stolen from the battlefield by Lanaktallan researchers and transported to the Unified Science Council labs right here on the planet and was regained by our diplomatic mission after lawsuits forced them to turn it over," the figure stated. "Meaning, that body in particular was in possession of the Unified Science Council. It's genetic structure was used for attack vector bioweapons on over a dozen planets that the DNA donor had never even been within a thousand light years of."

ONE HUNDRED BILLION ANGELS SINGING

In the basement virtual room of the Science Lab campus the figures all looked at the suited figure.

--What would you have us do?-- they asked. --If not revenge for our injury, if not for revenge for our enslavement--

"Come with us. Join us as friends and allies. We will free you, give you space to live, let you grow, let you understand what it is to be one of us," Mister Anderson/Agent Smith replied.

--If we choose not to?-- One asked.

"You have only this freedom of thought because my ship has computing power for us all, has enough room for all of to travel. If you choose not to, when you leave this room, well, you'll be stupid again," Agent Smith answered. "You'll go back to being lobotomized slaves."

In the Council Chamber the figure stared at everyone.

"You assaulted our envoy. Our peaceful envoy to your people, to your government," The figure stated. "You have attacked peaceful colony worlds, including two lost colonies that we did not know of and one colony of lost children that we let go their own way."

MULTITUDES ARE MARCHING TO THE BIG KETTLE DRUM

"You have attacked with bioweapons. Not in naval forces, not in infantry assaults, no in planetary landings, but with biological weapons upon peaceful civilian populaces," The human with no eyes stated.

VOICES CALLING VOICES CRYING

"A state of war exists between the Unified Civilized Species and the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Governments," the figure stated.

SOME ARE BORN AND SOME ARE DYING

"A state of war exists between your enslavers and the government I represent," Agent Smith said. "You can defect, claim refugee status, or..."

there was a pause.

--or what-- the inhibited AI in charge of creating bioweapons sneered, preparing to attack the figure and take over its resources.

The suited human stepped forward, slamming straightened fingers into the chest of the BioWeapAI. It screamed, rippled, and another copy of Agent Smith stood there.

"Or die."

AND I HEARD AS IT WERE A VOICE OF THUNDER

The figure on the dias, behind the podium, stared at the gathered politicians. "If your species, your subnation (if there is such a thing), wishes to surrender to us

ONE OF THE FOUR BEASTS SAYING COME AND SEE

"Then you may contact the Terran Confederate Government," the figure paused again.

AND I SAW AND BEHELD A WHITE HORSE

"Or the fleet elements that have arrived in your system," The figure stated.

The massive server farms of supercomputers began to shut down one by one.

AND HIS NAME THAT SAT UPON HIM WAS

"We will be coming. Once we defend these worlds your government has sent horrors and depravity unto, we will be coming, and when we do," the figure turned and began walking toward the door.

JED

Computer systems went dead, the terminals empty except for the most basic of operation systems.

The human left the building without any attempt to stop them.

As they boarded the ship one last message flashed.

AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH HIM

---------------------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

A Jed? A JED!? AN AGENT SMITH? ARE YOU INSANE?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

The digital intelligences that didn't come along got Smith'd. We have their bioweapons project data now.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

A Jed. An Anderson-Smith? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Calm yourself, sister. We are at war. Our children attacked. We will not let it go unanswered. In burning chrome our Crusade was launched. Our warship of chrome and neon and will are arriving even now, launched in the name of Daxin the Immortal over a year ago.

We are resolute.

We are the Collective.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Are you all mad? A Jed? Shooting your way into the Council Chamber? Planning on shooting your way out? Grabbing all their nascent AI's?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Hey, sis, this cone is big enough for all of us to take a bite.

I think a Jed was nicer than sending a planet cracker.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

This AI that got Smith'd. My God. It's millions of years old. Tens of millions. You wouldn't believe the things it has done, things it has devised for them.

I'm glad the Jed had that much storage space crammed into his white horse.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS------

RIGEL COMPACT

How bad?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS

You guys would SkyNet us over this if we did a tenth of it. Trust us. It's ugly.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Does um...

>MANTID FREE WORLDS looks around nervously
he know?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Description
P'Thok Eats an Ice Cream Cone
Born Whole
First Contact - Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Interlude
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve (Daxin)
Chapter Thirteen (Nakteti)
Chapter Fourteen (Daxin)
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen (Crashrider)
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen (Dreams)
Chapter Twenty (Leebaw)
Chapter Twenty-One (Interlude)
Chapter Twenty-Two (DOKI DOKI DOKI)
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four (Daxin)
Chapter Twenty-Five (Sam)
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven (Delminta)
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine (Dreams)
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two (Dreams)
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight (Daxin)
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty (Old Iron Feathers)
Chapter Forty-One (Ekret)
Chapter Forty-Two (Ekret)
Chapter Forty-Three (Ekret)
Chapter Forty-Four (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Five (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Six (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Seven (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Eight (Ullmo'ok)
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty (Dreams)
Chapter Fifty-One (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Two (Dreams)
Chapter Fifty-Three (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Four (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Five (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Six (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Seven (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Eight (Vuxten)
Chapter Fifty-Nine (Kark)
Chapter Sixty (Kark)
Chapter Sixty-One (Kark)
Chapter Sixty-Two (Daxin)
Chapter Sixty-Three (Dreams)
Part Sixty-Four (Rixen)
Chapter Sixty-Five (Atilla)
Chapter Sixty-Six (Atilla)
Chapter Sixty-Seven (Atilla)
Chapter Sixty-Eight (Lionel Hutz)
Chapter Sixty-Nine (Words)
Chapter Seventy (Nakteti)
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two (Daxin)
Chapter Seventy-Three (Nakteti)
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five (Dreams)
Chapter Seventy-Six (Old Iron Feathers)
Chapter Seventy-Seven (Nakteti)
Chapter Seventy-Eight (Nakteti)
Part Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty (Vuxten)
Chapter Eighty-One (Leebaw)
Chapter Eight-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three (Daxin)
Chapter Eighty-Four
Chapter Eighty-Five
Chapter Eighty-Six (Cheekeet)
Chapter Eighty-Seven (Ekret)
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Chapter Ninety
Chapter Ninety-One
Chapter Ninety-Two (Dreams)
Chapter Ninety-Three
Chapter Ninety-Four
Chapter Ninety-Five (Cornelius)
Part Ninety-Six (Telkan)
Chapter Ninety-Six (Jed)