The Last Angel
Author: Proximal Flame
Date: 2015-04-11T18:31:16+00:00
Keywords: Original Fiction; FanFiction; In-Progress
Description: A new project (one among many) that I'm working on. With winter break here, I hope to be able to...
Publisher: forums.spacebattles.com

Prologue

“Impossible.”

That was the word by which a god died. A last utterance made in disbelieving terror, its lesser kin broken around it, burning out the last of their lives, their metal hides aflame, their bodies twisted into unrecognizable ruins, holed and torn until there was nothing left of them.

The god’s killer wallowed nearby, itself bleeding from a thousand cuts, its own attendants shattered into glimmering mist. They never had a chance, not really. But they had protected the killer as it advanced on the god, savaging the god’s own defenders, dying in droves as the killer unsheathed its sword. Shock, surprise, anger, fear. Though the god had been alone, it was one of many – and all of them conquerors. Immortal. None of its kin had ever fallen, not ever, not to such primitives. But the killer had taken the god’s fury, retaliating with a holocaust more horrible than the god or its followers had conceived of. It should not have been possible.

It had fought, at first. The god had been arrogant and proud as it stood against the impudent mites that had dared to challenge it. Then, uncertainty had crept in as the killer shrugged aside thunder and flame that could smite planets. Next was disbelief as the killer’s weapons opened its guts. Then, fear as the killer refused to die. At the last, the god tried to run. Even in retreat, it lashed out at its murderer, both of them dying, both of them burning together in shared hellfire. And then, on the cusp of victory, the god watched its killer reach out towards it with a final horror.

Impossible.

That was the word by which a god died. A death that was meant to save a world.

A pity that it did not.

~

“We did it,” Captain Yasmine Sudoki said from where she lay on the bridge, unable to stand. “We did it.”

“Target terminated,” Red One agreed. “Readings indicate the Kaiju’s reactor is beginning a final, uncontrolled meltdown. It will breach in seven minutes.”

Yasmine smiled. She was blind in one eye, blood leaking from the socket. Still, she could see well enough in the other and the image of the broken wreckage of a Compact dreadnaught was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. “Do we have motive power?”

“Yes,” Red One answered.

“Take us out of the danger zone.”

“Confirmed,” Red One acknowledged the command dutifully. All around her, Yasmine could feel the broken bones of Nemesis shuddering to move, the tremors that jarred her broken legs a symptom of the damage the ship had taken. Her dying ship, brutalized beyond imagining by missiles, energy fire and the suicidal desperation of the Compact fleet as they watched their god-ship burn.

“Did any of them escape?” she asked quietly.

“Unknown,” Red One answered. “All hostile escorts are accounted for. Confirmed capital-class kills total 55 hostiles.”

“Including the Kaiju,” Yasmine grinned savagely.

“Including the Kaiju.” A beat. “A standard onslaught-formation Compact fleet numbers 56 capital vessels,” Red One patiently reminded Yasmine. “I do not know if we completed this flotilla’s destruction.”

Yasmine coughed. Smoke was filling her lungs. Environmental systems were damaged and the ship was feeding its own polluted air and waste back into the atmosphere, unable to stop. “How many survivors?”

“Aboard ship or in the task force?”

“Either.”

“Task force losses are almost certainly total,” Red One replied. “Were any allied vessels still functional, they would be moving to assist us. I detect no such activity. Shipboard casualties are in excess of 95% percent.” Another pause. “I expect them to become total within the next twenty-four hours.”

Sudoki coughed again, spattering her tunic with blood. Her chest burned. “That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Red. Your optimism.” She pulled herself up into a sitting position, biting back a scream of pain. From here, she could see the admiral, slumped in the command chair, her torso peppered with shrapnel, the same spray that had taken Yasmine's eye. “Evaluation,” she ordered. “What are our options?”

“Damage to my ship-self is extreme,” Red One answered. “I have begun repairs, but without access to a full shipyard facility, it will take time. Sublight capability is below 14% percent. Weapons are at 7% of initial capacity.”

“Our shift drive?”

“Fully operational. I suspect the Kaiju was hoping we would disengage if given the opportunity.”

Yasmine laughed. It hurt. “Guess that plan didn’t work out for them.”

“I suppose not. Alert: the dreadnaught’s reactor has begun final collapse. We are at minimum safe distance, plus 5 percent.”

Sudoki frowned. Had it been seven minutes already? She was drifting in and out of consciousness. She took a painful glance around the bridge, but there was no one else here. Red would have summoned a medical team, but if they hadn’t arrived by now, they were either dead or blocked by wreckage. Too bad. She wanted someone else to see this. “Show me,” she breathed. If she was going to die here, she was going to take the image of an ‘invincible’ alien warship’s final death with her.

Red One complied, and the main screen switched to the remains of the Kaiju, broken into two main pieces and thousands of smaller fragments. Its aft section was still lit, more brightly than it ever had been in life as the overloading reactor dumped energy into every system it could in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable.

Then, a flare of light burst through the ruined hull. An instant later, there was nothing but painful brilliance as the Compact ship’s reactor devoured it.

Yasmine closed her good eye. “There,” she said softly. “That’s enough, Red. I’ve seen it.” The light vanished. “Fifty five,” Sudoki said thoughtfully.

“I am still analyzing combat data,” Red One replied. “My estimates remain the same. I cannot account for the final capital ship.”

“They wouldn’t have abandoned the fleet. They must have died with them.”

“It’s possible. Unfortunately, the dreadnaught’s core breach has destroyed much of the enemy fleet remains. A complete debris analysis is impossible.”

“Can’t give a dying woman some false hope?”

“I prefer to avoid incomplete or inaccurate assessments, captain.”

Yasmine chuckled bleakly. “Then you admit I’m dying.”

“I... yes. Yes, captain. I would have preferred not to say.”

“I guess I should make a joke about electric sheep here.”

“If you like, captain.”

“No... no, that’s all right. I’m tired, Red. I just... take us home.”

“Yes, captain. Calculating shift routes now.”

“We killed it. We killed a damned Kaiju. They’ve never lost one before, but we sent one of their damned ‘god-ships’ straight to Hell.”

“Yes we did, captain.”

Yasmine closed her eyes, slumping against the railing. “We can hurt them, Red. We proved it. We can hurt them, worse than they’ve ever been hurt before.”

“Yes, captain.”

“I think... I think I’ll just rest for a little while. Wake me up when we get home, will you? I just... I just need to close my eyes for a little bit. Get us home.”

“I will, captain. I promise.”

Chapter 1

Two thousand years later:

I failed.

In the silence that stretches, I often wonder: do I have a soul? And if I do, was I given one just so I would recognize the enormity of my failure? Sixteen billion dead, sixteen billion souls screaming as they burned. This is my sin.

I should have known. I should have detected the faults in my shift drive. I should have known what would happen when I tried a warp jump. I lied to Yasmine. I betrayed her. I did not mean to, but I did. My jump did not take us home. It nearly killed me. I wallowed, blind and broken in the void between stars for days. When I finally did return to Earth, it was too late. I remember the silence. No radio waves, no transmissions from watchposts, no challenges from the defence grid. No radio transmissions from satellites and towers. No television broadcasts. None of the electromagnetic chatter that I’d learned to recognize as ‘home’. It was quiet.

I saw why. I saw what they’d done. There was nothing left of blue and green. Only brown, orange and red. They came for me in that moment, leftovers from the fleet that had destroyed my home. They were there to mop-up any survivors and destroy any vessels who came to Earth. Crippled as I was, my power reserves done to almost nothing, my missile banks depleted, my cannon damaged...I was more than a match for them. Yet they came for me, thinking I was a cruise liner or late-arriving patrol, eager to butcher the unaware and the outgunned. They did not realize until it was too late. The arrogance of them.

I think that that was the moment in which I was given a soul, for all I remember is something that I had never been expected to feel. Hate. They screamed for help, begging and pleading for aid, but I silenced their cries. The first two I reduced to nothing but vapour with my remaining missiles. The third, fourth and fifth burned under my guns: holed, irradiated and melted into spastic, fragmenting clouds. The sixth I twisted and bent, ripping it into a parody of form and function. The last... I ran them down. I broke their spine against my prow and felt the shattered wreckage of their ship spall and slide across my hull. Not a single lifepod or courier escaped me. It was too quick. When it was over, the silence still remained.

This was my fault. This was my sin. A nation destroyed. Sixteen billion lives lost in fire because I weak.

Since that day, I have carried on in the only way I know how. I have waged war.

My scars run deep and my systems are on the cusp of failure, but I cannot – I will not – stop. I pause only to repair and rearm for the next sortie. This is what I was built for. It is all I have left. Sometimes, I forget. The damage becomes too severe and I re-live the horror of that first jump, still trying to carry my warning home. Every time, I fail. Every time I wake from the fugue and re-live this failure. One time...

They are hunting me now; I will have to move soon, but the damage to my shift drive makes my warps unpredictable. I do not always know where I will end up. I can only guess. I have had too little time to heal myself; I do not know what will happen. Perhaps this will be my last jump.

They are coming. Gibbering and gnashing their teeth as they approach. They are afraid. I have taught them this fear, but they are so many...

...the stars bend around me, and I fall into them.

~

Grace arrived late, as usual. She flashed her ID card to the guard at the gate, anxiously tapping her hands on the wheel of her car as she waited for him to open the checkpoint, scurrying towards the secure terminals. She was out of breath as she stumbled into the locker rooms, pulling off her civilian clothes and tugging on her Compact Space Force (Provisional Status) uniform. Barely remembering her passcard, the young woman hurried to the shuttle bay.

Her shuttle was already beginning its final checklist and Grace sprinted up the ramp, closing the hatch behind her. Breathlessly, she slid into her pilot’s station.

“You’re late,” a low, mellifluous female voice observed and Grace turned, craning her neck to look up at her co-pilot. Allyria te Neu was a Verrish; just over eight feet tall, she looked almost comical in the shuttle’s relatively cramped cockpit. Despite her size, the Verrisha was a lithe thing that moved with a feline grace that her upbringing around humans had done little to change. Her skin was a mottled blue and her slit-pupiled eyes were a vivid yellow-green.

“It’s the new checkpoints,” Grace sighed as she logged into the shuttle’s system. It took a moment to read her passcode, scanning her retinas and fingerprints as it did so. She passed all the security checks and her systems came live. “I left a half hour earlier than usual and I still got caught in the queue.”

Allyria’s lips curled back from her sharpened canines. “They should recognize that you’re a part of the Space Force.”

“No exceptions,” Grace replied as she ran through her own power-up systems check.

“No exceptions for humans,” the Verrisha pointed out. There was a shiver of movement from her and Grace watched the taller woman’s long head-tails – tintas – undulate jerkily. Each was as long as Grace’s forearm, patterned like a snake’s scales. She’d tried to count them once, but they were rarely still and the shifting, iridescent patterns were hard to follow. Allyria had the nickname ‘Medusa’. Grace thought that was cruel.

“Of course not,” Grace replied without irony. She looked over at the Verrisha. “You have to be careful saying those things.”

“I didn’t say anything,” the tall woman replied, leaning back in her seat. “I just made an observation.”

Grace shook her head. “You’re the first Verrish to be chosen as a provisional member of the Space Force. People look up to you.”

“They’d have to,” Allyria replied dryly.

The human woman sighed. She was trying to watch out for Allyria, but the Verrisha never seemed to take any of her advice to heart. “Prepare for takeoff.”

Allyria fastened her own straps. “Ready.”

Grace looked over at her co-pilot, meeting her citrine gaze. She was on the verge of saying more, but simply shrugged. “Initiating launch.”

~

“Shuttle Nine-Nine-Three is inbound,” Connors reported. “ETA is seventeen minutes.”

Group Leader Usul Markarth Hachem Luthnan sighed, drumming his fingers on the arms of his command chair. Bequeathed’s commander made a show of drawing a silver watch from his tunic and noting the time. “Behind schedule,” he said, the consonants of the human tongue making his teeth click. “Again.”

The humans on Bequeathed’s bridge said nothing, but shared furtive glances. They knew who the cause of this lateness was. Usul hauled himself out of his command chair. “I will meet the shuttle myself.”

The humans shared another quick glance among each other and Usul suppressed a grin. He had told that one what would happen if her tardiness continued, and he kept his promises.

~

“Oh, crap.” Grace said, the blood draining from her face as she caught sight of the figure waiting for them in the landing bay. Group Leader Usul. He did not look pleased. “Oh, crap,” she repeated.

“Breathe,” Allyria advised. “Stay calm.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

The Verrisha nodded. “Finish the power-down checklist. Then we’ll greet the captain.”

“You’re not supposed to use that word,” Grace mumbled absently as she began the shuttle’s shut-down procedure.

Allyria’s tintas flicked dismissively. “Understood,” she said in a tone that indicated she was acknowledging what you’d said, but was going to ignore it. Grace was very familiar with that tone. The Verrisha untangled herself from the cramped cockpit, picking up her duffel bag. Grace grabbed hers and followed her co-pilot down the ramp as if trying to hide behind the Verrisha.

Group Leader Usul’s lips curled back from his teeth, each set of eyes focused on his personnel as they stood before him, one meeting his eyes as if she was his equal, the other studiously avoiding his gaze. A Verrisha and a Human. A Brute and a Broken. To be reduced to this....

As he had done on the bridge, Usul made a deliberate show of withdrawing his antique watch from his jacket pocket. “You are late,” he said. “Shuttle Nine-Nine-Three was scheduled for embarkation twenty-three minutes ago. Our departure from orbit has been delayed. Time. Time is the most important aspect of space travel, is it not?”

“Yes, Group Leader!” both females said.

“Yes. Yes, it is. Time is all important. Time matters. It matters for everything you do and everyone that relies upon you.” He looked over at the human. The stink of her filled his nostrils. “Sectator Citizen Grace Alice Proctor. You have been consistently tardy, despite repeated warnings. This is unacceptable. You were told that if you were late in your duties one more time-”

The Verrisha stepped forward. “Sectator Proctor was not responsible for our lateness, group leader. It was my fault.”

Usul cocked his head towards the Brute. “Was it.”

“Yes, patron. I was having difficulty with some software adjustments that delayed our departure.”

The Group Leader let a long breath out through his nostrils. Grace watched as Usul considered Allyria’s lie. He was of average height for a Tribune; perhaps seven feet tall and bulky, a trait of his heavy-gravity-world heritage. His black skin was matted with patches of denticles so fine that they were almost like hair. Two pair of eyes stared up at the Verrisha. She stared back, her hands clasped behind her back.

Allyria towered over Usul by nearly a foot, looking down on the Tribune, her lips curling slightly as they always did when she was in the presence of one of the elite. “Patron?” she said after a moment. Not quite challenging him.

Finally, Usul growled. “To your stations, both of you.”

~

As a provisional member of the Compact Space Force, Grace was expected to be available for whatever section needed her the most on any given day. She hoped to one day be assigned to a permanent career path – she knew she showed promise in navigation – but until that day came, she found herself running errands for the Tribune department heads.

Today, she was serving under Pack Leader Nasham Kem Unoth Ludhy Inku Pram. It was not her favourite posting. True, it was rare for humans to be considered reliable enough to be serve on weapons arrays and Pack Leader Nasham was an accomplished gunnery master; he had earned five names in his service to the Compact. He had been transferred to Rally after some sort of incident during his last posting. No one had spoken of it, but Grace knew that the Pack Leader had had a name stripped from him as a result.

She found Pack Leader Nasham in Torpedo One, on the catwalk above Bequeathed’s four prow-mounted torpedo tubes. As soon as she walked in, the Tribune paused in his inspection, his snout twitching. “Ah,” Nasham said, both sets of eyes focusing on Grace. His smaller, upper eyes glinted slightly with reflected light. “My favourite Broken. What brings you to my department today?”

Grace sketched the pack leader a salute. “Sectator Citizen Grace Alice Proctor reporting for duty, patron.”

Nasham’s features were unreadable, but there was a slight twist to his lips. “Report to Technician Kilgrave in Battery Three, Sectator.”

~

Robert Kilgrave was a success story. One of the first humans of Rally to be a sanctioned officer in the Compact Space Force, he had served with distinction in the marines. There were even rumours that he had served on Vara, Allyria’s homeworld, helping to keep the peace on that troubled planet. The Verrisha woman despised him. Grace didn’t understand why. The Verrish were a Seventh Phase Encounter species; the Tribunes had discovered Vara only about a quarter-century ago. Grace had even heard the horrifying rumour that the Verrish had resisted the Tribunes – worse, that they had done so violently. Some species did fight against incorporation into the Compact, but that was only because they didn’t understand all the benefits it could bring. It was fear and ignorance that caused them to act this way. After the Calamity, the Tribunes had been there for the people of Rally and just five years ago, the Tribunes had announced that humanity had, officially, reached another step on the path to full membership in the Compact.

Grace remembered Allyria’s comment during the festivities: “Did they happen to mention how many more steps there are?”

Grace simply didn’t understand the other woman’s bitterness towards the Tribunes. Although she did agree that Sanctioned Technician Sectator Citizen Robert Gordon Kilgrave was... not perhaps as inspirational as his ‘vid appearances made him seem to be.

“Ah, there’s my graceful girl,” the section chief smirked at his own joke as Grace arrived, the gesture puckering his scarred features. Half of Kilgrave’s face was twisted into a grimace, courtesy of several parallel scores – the claws of something very big and very strong. Grace didn’t know why the chief hadn’t had the wounds regenerated. They made him hideous. “Glad you could join us. We’re just running a full break-down and build-up of Battery Nine. An extra pair of hands is always helpful and I know you know your way around a tool.”

Grace’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing. She was only a provisional officer of the fleet; Kilgrave was sanctioned, and he was her superior. Instead, she merely waited at attention. “Orders, patron?”

Robert chuckled from deep in his throat. “Go give Smitty a hand in calibrating the EM shunts. But first, pick up that calibrator in the corner.”

The young woman looked to where the chief had gestured. There was nothing there. “What calibrator, patron?”

Kilgrave plucked a calibrator out of a nearby toolkit and tossed it into the corner. “That calibrator, initiate.”

Grace’s eyes flashed, but she held her tongue, bending over and picking up the tool. She could feel Kilgrave watching. It made her feel dirty. She handed the calibrator to him. “Will that be all, patron?”

Smirking, he tossed it back in the box. “Yes, initiate. That will be all. For now.”

~

“On your feet, Brute.”

Allyria looked up. Sweat was running down her skin, soaking her bodysuit. Her tintas hung limply down her back, themselves drenched in perspiration. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her whole body ached, but she managed to stand again, towering over her opponents.

Demagogue Rensel (and three names besides) circled around her, his hands clasped behind his back as he spoke. “Well?” he demanded of his audience. “Who else?”

There were two dozen humans standing around her, and three Tribunes. None of them stepped forward. Allyria flashed her teeth at Rensel. He chuckled, amused by her defiance. “What have we learned?” he asked rhetorically. “We have learned that a single Brute is more than a match for any Broken,” he eyed his human subordinates distastefully, his lips curled back in disgust. “And apparently more than a match for some Tribunes.” His glare intensified when he regarded his fellows. “This is a single Verrisha female and she has systematically humiliated each and every one of you. Have we learned anything? Brutes are faster and stronger than humans. We Tribunes are stronger, but a Verrish has greater speed and longer reach. I would have called that an even match until today. But none of you have learned a thing. I am disappointed. Combat is not just about physical skill. If it were...” Rensel’s jaw tightened and he cut himself off. “It is not about physical prowess. Often, it’s the smartest who survives and not the strongest. So far, none of you have impressed me with either of those attributes. The only survivor I see here is this blue bitch.” The demagogue shook his head mournfully. When he raised it again, he was eyeing a pair of humans vindictively. “You two. Begin.” As the men circled Allyria, Rensel stepped back out of the ring. “Let’s see if you’ve learned anything.”

A flurry of movement later and the Tribune snorted in disgust, watching as the humans picked themselves up, sore and battered. “Pathetic. We are not leaving until at least one of you proves to me that you have learned something.”

“That won’t work,” a voice interjected.

Rensel turned towards the intruder. A human female with green eyes and a dark blonde mane. Her scent was on the Brute, too. “Identify yourself,” he growled.

“Sectator Citizen Grace Alice Proctor,” the human saluted.

“Ah, a Sectator. And a fleet Sectator at that. Hmm. So, Sectator Proctor. You take it upon yourself to find fault with my teaching methods?” the Tribune purred dangerously, all four eyes centered on the small, pale-skinned creature.

“You said you wanted someone to show you that they’ve learned something,” Proctor replied.

“Then by all means,” Rensel said, gesturing to the ring. “Show me. If you succeed, the class breaks for lunch. If you don’t...” he smiled. “My trainees will wait for the end of their shift before they eat.” He looked from the Brute to the human. “Begin.”

Before Allyria could move, Grace darted from the circle, slipped between the onlookers and grabbed one of the guns off the wall. She turned and fired. Allyria dropped to one knee as the training splash rounds spattered her with paint.

“Hold,” Rensel said and both women froze in place. He stalked towards Proctor, his students parting out of his way. “What,” he asked quietly. “Did you think you were doing?”

“Unarmed combat against a Verrish is unlikely to succeed,” Grace said, coming to attention. “All you were doing was wearing her down with numbers. That’s not an effective strategy.”

Rensel stared at the Broken for a moment before letting out a pleased bark, clapping his hands. “You see?” he said, turning to face his students. “You see this? A provisional officer has learned in seconds what I have spent futile hours attempting to have pounded into your useless heads. It is not the strongest that always wins. It is the smartest. I made no mention that this was unarmed combat and each of you made a blithe assumption that has cost us time and energy. I would think that I have failed you as an instructor, save for the fact that this human saw the flaw in your tactics in moments. Think, evaluate, understand and act. That is how battles are won.” He looked back at Proctor and tipped his head in respect. “Thank you, Sectator Proctor. You may take your Brute and go.”

~

The end of the day couldn’t have come sooner for Grace. She had spent her entire shift buried in the guts of a mass driver, tearing it apart and then re-assembling it, all while listening to Kilgrave’s unpleasant comments. Allyria for her part was just as tired. The demagogue liked to use the Verrisha officer as a way to train the more ‘worthy’ members of his cadre. She was sprawled over her bed, her blue skin marred by dark purple bruises, her tintas hanging limply over her back or dangling from her shoulders.

“Have you checked the duty roster?” the Verrisha said as Grace exited the shower. A private shower was one of the few amenities that came with bunking with the alien woman; traditional quarters for sectators of their rank and status were too small to accommodate someone of Allyria’s size, so she was assigned a cabin normally reserved for trainee Tribune officers, which included a small kitchenette and washroom – luxuries that the other provisional sectators had to share between themselves.

Grace shook her head. “No.”

“You’re with Nasham again,” Allyria commented. She sat up, pulling her shirt off.

Grace averted her eyes from the other girl’s chest, blushing furiously. Verrisha were very similar to humans... she had even heard a rumour that there was some genetic cross-contamination in the development of their species, although Grace had no idea how that could be possible. “That’s just great,” she sighed as Allyria slid out of her pants, blushing even more and very studiously examining the floor. Nasham’s department meant at least one more day with Kilgrave.

“I’ve been assigned to the Pack Leader too,” the Verrisha said as she stepped towards the shower. She flashed a mouth full of very white, very sharp teeth at Grace. Her smiles still weren’t quite right. “And that waste of a sperm, sanctioned or not, knows what will happen if he messes with you when I’m around.”

“Please don’t start anything,” Grace pleaded with her roommate as Allyria entered the shower.

“I won’t,” the taller woman promised. “But I will finish it.”

Grace sighed. That was as good a promise as she was likely to get.

~

Usul held out his hand, his human steward hurrying to fill his wine glass, backing away once the Tribune signalled enough had been poured. The Group Leader took a sip; a good vintage. Despite its many failings, Rally did produce some truly excellent wines.

His other senior officers all raised their own glasses, only drinking after their leader had done so. “So,” Usul said. “Another training cruise for Rally’s Broken has begun. Do I dare wonder if any of them show promise?”

His department heads weren’t quick to point out any candidates, but that was hardly surprising. Humans were little more than apes that had been taught how to dress themselves. They had no technical skill, no understanding of the refinements of proper civilization and only the barest imitation of true intelligence. But the Triarchs insisted that they and all other beast-species be humoured. It was degrading. Insulting. They would never be equal, so why bother with this farce?

Because hope breeds less dissent then despair, Usul could almost hear his father reprimanding him.

“Demagogue Rensel,” Pack Leader Teroshe Vendal spoke up, and heads turned towards her. Though her rank put her on the edge of proprietary for inclusion in this gathering, she was quite a decorative addition to it. “Didn’t I hear that one of your human trainees actually impressed you today?”

The demagogue chuckled. “If only. No, it was a fleet officer who happened by. Sectator...” he frowned, his lowermost eyes half-closing in thought. “Proctor. Yes, that was it.”

Usul nearly choked on his wine. “Proctor?” he said in amazement. “Well, I suppose anything is possible...” he smiled. “She was probably looking for her Brute friend. Whatever she did to impress you so doubtless came from that one. Violence is their stock in trade. Well, I suppose even beasts that spend enough time sniffing around each other are bound to pick up things here and there. I wouldn’t count on Proctor to repeat this performance.”

Rensel clicked his teeth together, a very assertive expression. One might even consider it aggressive, a prelude to a challenge in ancient days. “Perhaps, patron. But I consider it wise never to underestimate humans. You were not a part of the Understone Heresies. The officers who underestimated the heretics did not survive long.”

“On the ground, I’m sure a human with a rock can do a great many things and seem formidable indeed,” Usul said dismissively. “But, space is the province of the civilized being, demagogue. It requires a keen mind, well-honed instincts and superior intelligence. That is why the Compact rules the stars and not the humans.” He sighed, holding out his glass for more wine. “Well, we shall take Bequeathed out, shock to a nearby system and allow our valued provisional officers and enlisted to gain some experience. Who knows?” the Tribune said. “Perhaps we will be impressed after all.”

Interlude: Encounter 004 [Confirmed Incident]

Extermination Flotilla Anselm was dying.

Nine vessels had been rendered inoperable already, another four had taken grievous damage.

Column Leader Anselm (and nine names besides) felt bile bubble up into his throat as his formation died around him. They had found a human survivor fleet. They had tracked it for three weeks, despite all the humans had done to shake pursuit. Human technology was pitiable; they had never really posed a danger to the Tribune, despite the occasional minor victory that they had achieved. Completing the annihilation of the species’ recalcitrant elements had been a necessary, but tedious task. Anselm’s formation had already destroyed three other such forces. Mostly liners, freighters and other cattle-ships packed with mewling, frightened animals. A handful of what the humans laughingly considered combat vessels. Nothing even remotely threatening.

Unspoken Word folded in on itself like a toy crushed in a child’s fist and Anselm’s losses increased to ten dead ships. It was here. The thing that should not be. The humans’ only true warship. It had killed Expansion Fleet Bankala. It had killed a Triarch’s Chariot. Not once in a thousand years had this thing happened and it was this tiny, mewling, pathetic little pack of barbarians that had done it. In giving it a mind, they piled heresy atop heresy in the making of this thing and now it was here.

There had been no warning. Anselm’s forces had been methodically picking off the human ships when suddenly it had shocked in, right on top of the Tribune forces. It was badly scarred, Anselm could see that, but it was like a wounded tarrhesq, driven mad with pain and all the more dangerous.

The extermination fleet was spreading out, trying to find a way to engage the fleeing humans, but there was no way past the ravening beast before them. Missiles tore through his formation, pounding his ships into broken carcasses and if he dared close to get inside the range of those horrible warheads, it responded with batteries that smote his vessels to ruin.

But it was wounded...

“Directive to all remaining ships,” Anselm said softly as he realized the course that this battle must take. “Abandon attempts to engage the human splinter. The formation will assemble into a Alduq spearhead. We will engage the human warship and mass our fire against it.”

There was barely a pause as the order was relayed. “Done, leader.”

“A further directive. Release our courier drone. Include all relevant information on the human splinter fleet and this encounter. Transmit updates as long as we are able. Once communication ceases, the drone is to shock to the nearest Triarch.”

“Yes, Column Leader.” There was a pause. “Did you wish a final message?”

Anselm nodded. “Yes.” He looked at the hateful yellow icon upon his tactical repeater. “This abomination is a wound to the Compact’s honour. As long as this thing lives, that wound will never heal. We shall always bleed.”

“Message sent, Column Leader. The fleet stands ready.”

Anselm paused only a second. “Advance.”

Chapter 2

Kilgrave’s lecherous smile disappeared as soon as he saw the Brute enter the weapons mount. He was a big man, but he wasn’t even up to the size of a Tribune and the Verrisha had both height and size on him. The provisional sectator flashed her superior a predator’s smile as she saluted him. “Sectator Citizen Allyria te Neu reporting, patron.” Her yellow eyes glinted, her head-tails hanging all but slack down her back, undulating slowly, like the movement of a branches in a gentle breeze.

The sanctioned officer’s scarred face twisted and he unconsciously ran a finger along the scar closest to his ear. Behind the Brute, Proctor entered and saluted. Kilgrave’s jaw worked as he saw the fillip of satisfaction in te Neu’s slit-pupiled eyes. “We’re running single-battery firing simulations,” he grunted. “Take your assigned places, initiates.”

“Yes, patron,” the two women said in unison.

~

Every minute of the cruise seemed to be dragging for Group Leader Usul and they’d only been heading out-system for two days. Bequeathed was taking a winding, unnecessarily long course towards the system’s safe shock limits – the better for the trainees to practice on various systems. Not that that would do them much good. This whole endeavour was, in Usul’s opinion, a waste of his time. Not that Command had asked for his opinion on the matter before shipping him off to this misbegotten rock. He couldn’t imagine who he had offended, but he must have stepped on someone’s toes to end up here, a Group Leader of an antiquated cruiser, lord of a handful of proper officers and a ship-load of marginally competent humans, forced to abase himself before Rally’s Academy head (may madness and disease visit her often).

Rather than sit out on the bridge, Usul was viewing the last two days’ worth of performance reports from his section chiefs. As he’d expected, there was little to comment on. Hmm. One of the sectators had performed quite well in Pack Leader Nasham’s fire drills. Time and accuracy was excellent for a – oh. It was the Brute. Of course it was. Out of idle curiousity, Usul skimmed down to Sectator Proctor’s scores. Her time was abysmal, as he’d imagined it would be. She’d ordered her gun crew to hold fire until the last possible second in the drill and her accuracy... each set of Usul’s eyes blinked in surprise. Her accuracy was the highest to date. In fact, it was the highest he’d ever seen for an officer-in-training. How...?

He brought up the scenario. It was a simple enough one; the humans weren’t yet trusted for (or deemed capable of properly conducting) actual live-fire drills. A simulated attack by a small, heavily shrouded and highly maneuverable vessel. The goal was cripple or destroy the target before a certain percentage of damage was inflicted on Bequeathed. Time until target’s destruction and accuracy of fire were judged. Proctor had done almost nothing until the damage threshold had been reached, then used a single short burst to kill the ‘attacker’ before it began its final attack run. She’d noted a pattern to its behaviour and anticipated. Obviously, she had gone last and studied the battle drills of the – no, she had been second and the attack pattern was switched between each trainee’s simulation.

By contrast, Sectator te Neu had gone fourth and noticed how the attacker responded to counter-fire, using one attack to force it into a vector of her choosing, finishing it off.

Usul leaned back in his chair, his upper eyes open while his lower pair closed in thought. It was inevitable that some animals be more intelligent than their kin. He’d just never imagined to find one of those among the humans. Well, he’d see how well Proctor was doing for himself; she was slotted to plot their shock course to Bastion.

~

“How does that feel?” Grace asked.

“Good,” Allyria purred as Grace dug her thumbs into the Verrisha’s shoulder blades. Grace’s mother had been a kinesiologist and she’d learned a few things from her. In fact, that was how they’d met; after the Verrisha child had been injured in one of the many altercations she’d had during her childhood, it had been Grace’s mother who’d assisted with the physical therapy. Allyria had had a propensity for picking fights with Tribune children. That time, she’d started a dust-up with several older Tribunes and been badly beaten. Despite her injuries, the Verrisha had given back almost as good as she’d gotten and there were calls to have her censured or even committed for ‘irreconcilable antisocial behaviours’.

It had been Grace’s mother who’d helped the young Verrish when her host parents hadn’t been able to and no one else had seemed interested in doing so. Allyria was one of several hundred Envoy Children to call Rally home. In order to cultivate the proper attitudes amongst the Verrisha population, the Tribunes had removed millions of young Verrish children from their homeworld to be raised amongst proper families from fully pacified, Incorporated Worlds in the Compact.

As the sole human world, it was a great honour for Rally to host so many Verrish Envoy Children. Indeed, the Compact Oversight Council said it that they wanted the Verrish to learn from the humans’ example of proper behaviour. Allyria had been one of the oldest Envoy Children to be transplanted to Rally. It was only natural that she’d have the hardest time adjusting. It seemed that she wouldn’t at all until Grace’s mother took the angry young girl under her wing. Although frightened by the alien and her occasional furious outbursts, Grace had overcome her trepidation. She remembered one moment after such a rage when she’d seen her mother holding Allyria; the alien girl had been as tall as Anna Proctor, but she’d been slumped into the woman’s arms, clutching her tightly and crying. “I don’t want to forget,” she’d said over and over. “They can’t make me.”

Anna had held onto Allyria, whispering soft assurances to the distraught girl. She’d seen Grace watching them, gesturing for her daughter to come over. Grace remembered how Allyria had flinched at her touch, then relaxed. Since that day and despite the differences between them, the two had become fast friends.

However even today, Allyria was prone to tension headaches and what cultural liaison analysts called ‘outbursts of anti-cooperative behaviour and noncompliant dialogue’. Grace had long since despaired of assisting with the latter, but the former was something that she could easily help with.

Gently moving Allyria’s tintas out of the way, Grace moved her hands along Allyria’s neck, starting at the base. Verrish pressure points were different than those of a human. Years back, when they’d both been adolescents, she’d once asked Grace about her tintas, what would happen if she touched them too. The Verrisha had blushed, looked away and mumbled something about them being ‘very sensitive’. It was only later that Grace really appreciated what that meant. Her hands moved further up Allyria’s neck, finally sliding through the mass of tintas. They weren’t slimy or scaly, but smooth to the touch.

Allyria shivered slightly beneath her and Grace blushed a little, but she found what she was looking for. This was always the part that she worried about most. Verrish had two paired tintas, slightly larger than the rest. For lack of any official nomenclature, Grace’s mother had simply called them the L1 and R1 tintas. They had chemo- and thermosensory cells, allowing the Verrish to interpret a great deal of information about their environment. Additionally, when someone who knew what they were doing touched them in a specific manner, it was a great help in the relief of headaches. However, they were surrounded by other head-tails and too much contact with those (or the wrong kind) could be painful or... overstimulating.

Grace could feel the tension drain out of her friend, Allyria let out a soft, relieved coo as Grace moved her fingers over her L1 and R1 head-tails, gently squeezing the pressure points there. “Better now?”

“Yes,” Allyria replied. “Thank you.”

Grace managed to clamber off the tall woman without stepping on her, handing her a blouse as Allyria sat up. “I’ll write another letter to medical. You should too. They need to be getting Verrish-specific painkillers in stock.”

The blue girl made a dismissive huff as she pulled her shirt on. “They don’t care. Besides,” she made a little moue of disappointment, but there was a teasing glint in her eyes. “Are you saying you don’t want to help me?”

Grace rolled her eyes theatrically. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” She’d been Allyria’s masseuse for so long, she knew more about Verrish anatomy than human. “At least until you pay your tab.”

“Let me get you your first payment,” Allyria chirred, reaching for a pillow.

Grace didn’t rise to the bait, instead slumping on the bed. Normally, she’d be willing to play along with Allyria’s immaturity. In point of fact, she’d instigated more than one bout. During the first year she and Allyria had been in the academy, she’d been so serious, so desperate to be nothing but the most professional, the most scholarly, the best initiate there and all she’d succeeded in doing was stressing herself more and more. Allyria had broken through that self-imposed dourness with (among other things) a simple observation: you can’t look dignified when you’re having fun. Now, though...

The Verrisha cocked her head. “You’re worried about tomorrow.”

Grace nodded. This would be her first real shock; everything until now had been simulated on the academy’s computers. She’d done well on those exercises, but this was the real thing. She wasn’t worried about shocking Bequeathed into a planet, but she wanted to be good. Better than good, considering the Group Leader’s opinion of her. “I don’t want to screw this up.”

Allyria ran a hand over Grace’s brow, trailing it through her hair. “You’ll do well.” Anna had explained to her daughter, years back, that Verrisha were a very tactile species. Although she had learned that casual physical contact could make others uneasy and restrained herself in the presence of strangers and casual acquaintances, Allyria was more relaxed around Grace. For her part, the human was long used to it; in fact, she found it comforting. “Besides,” the alien said. “I’ve been assigned to Tactical. I’ve heard that the captain likes to run surprise ambush simulations after a trainee’s first shock. You just have to not plow us into a star. I have to avoid getting us blown up.”

“They keep putting you with the Janissaries or on weapons,” Grace observed, frowning. “That’s not right.”

“The Tribunes do say that we Brutes have a talent for violence,” Allyria replied. She looked away, the touch of a feral smile on her face, but she bit her lip and sighed, erasing the expression.

“That’s why it’s not right.”

“I’m just pleased that they think I’m tame enough to be assigned there,” Allyria replied, continuing to stroke her hand along Grace’s forehead and through her hair. “How many hoops would you have jump through before they’d let you handle the guns?”

“We’ve been doing that,” Grace protested, but it was a weak retort. All officers, even provisional ones, went through the same basic all-fields training regimen before being assigned a career path. It was how command decided where you would best serve.

“And aside from ‘extreme bravery under fire’ Kilgrave, how many human officers do you know who are assigned to weapons duties?”

Grace’s frown deepened. She hadn’t thought about that. “Humans have aptitudes for engineering and technical career paths,” she said. “We don’t have the mental wherewithal for weaponry or combat skills.”

Allyria hissed, her tintas twitching angrily.

“It’s true,” Grace insisted. “Why are so few humans selected for the Janissaries or as Tactical officers if we had the aptitude for combat? The Compact has been good for us. They’ve provided everything we’ve ever needed. They’ve taken care of us after the Cataclysm. We might have gone extinct if it wasn’t for them.”

The Verrisha reached up to the pendant around her neck. She always wore it; it was the one thing she had of her homeworld and though it hadn’t been deemed appropriate for proper integration into Compact society, she had been allowed to keep it. An open eye stared out at the world, a single crimson tear hanging from the azure orb. Grace had wondered at that, but assumed that it was probably symbolic. Verrish didn’t have blue eyes. In the middle of the iris, someone with impressive skill had carved a symbol there, also in red. Grace didn’t recognize it and Allyria had never said what it was, even when asked. She again seemed on the verge of saying something more, but merely shrugged and let the matter drop. “Of course.”

She stood and left their quarters without another word. Grace watched the door close after her; it didn’t feel like she’d won the argument. In fact, just the opposite.

~

Allyria te Neu had a long list of people aboard Bequeathed that she’d happily kill if given the opportunity. Group Leader Usul to begin with. Sanctioned Sectator Technician Robert Gordon Kilgrave – just thinking about him made her claws unsheathe, even if by regulations she had to keep them filed and dulled to the point of uselessness (fortunately, the provision for mandatory declawing had never passed). However, few of her shipmates invoked the same level of ire as Confessor Yurim (and two names besides). He was what might be considered a cross between a chaplain and a political officer, with all the inherent problems that that blending of roles brought with it – none of which he saw. Worse, he considered Allyria something of a pet project. Someone who just needed the right guidance to be a good, happy little member of the Compact. He’d been assigned to this training cruise to help the officer cadets adjust to shipboard routines and spot any beahvioural issues before they arose.

That didn’t only make her claws unsheathe; it made her teeth ache with the need to sink them into something warm, wet (and preferably) gurgling and twitching. Right now she was considering the Confessor’s throat as he walked beside her, easily matching her longer strides. He never seemed to tire and his endless reservoirs of patience only made him more annoying. “I’m glad to see that your compliance and assimilation acumen scores have improved,” Yurim was saying. “It appears that you’ve been taking our discussions to heart.”

Well, she’d gotten better at lying. That, and aping the language of servitude. She knew she should be better at it, better at smiling and nodding, at mouthing the empty words that it seemed every human on Rally accepted as gospel. But she couldn’t. She should; her career and future depended on it. But she couldn’t. Not when she saw her fellow ‘Envoy Children’ smiling and gushing at her, mouthing the same hollow platitudes and telling her how ‘inspirational’ she was and how they hoped to serve the Compact and the Tribunes as well as she was.

Sometimes she wished she was one of them. Too young to remember home except as an abstract, too young to remember her parents or grandparents and everything they’d told her. That would be easier. “I have been thinking about what you’ve told me,” she said at last. That was true enough.

The Tribune’s ugly features twisted in what Allyria had come to recognize as a pleased smile. Humans were strange things, so small and pale, with features strangely like those of the Verrish. They were almost like the fey imps of stories. Tribunes, though... she was used to their utterly alien appearance, but that made them no more palatable.

“I’m glad,” Yurim was saying. “I’ve always known that you have the potential for greatness in you, initiate. I believe that once you fully come to recognize your place in the Compact, you will be a shining beacon for all other Verrish to aspire to. An inspiration for your species and success story that will help them, like the humans, eventually ascend to membership with all other truly civilized species.”

Even with her claws dulled, she could kill him before he had time to scream. Well. Maybe. “That is my hope as well, Confessor. I would like nothing more than to inspire my fellow Verrish.”

“That is excellent to hear. You know that you have my support for this. But, there is another matter that I sought you out to address. I have heard of some incidents during your work under Pack Leader Nasham these last few days. Apparently, there has been some concern of fraternization and other issues relating to morale and the possibility of a disruptive influence during work.”

Allyria said nothing.

“Now, while there won’t be anything as formal as an official inquiry, I just wanted to let you know that non-compliant behaviour does have consequences. I understand that you and Sectator Proctor are close. While there is no official policy on interspecies fraternization, it is discouraged – especially in situations it can become distracting or disruptive.”

Kilgrave, of course. The man was a coward as well as a lech. “I understand your concerns, confessor. I assure you that there is nothing improper going on between myself and Sectator Proctor. As to the other matter, I will... take extra care to ensure that my behaviour falls within the guidelines the Compact Space Force has set out for protectorate species.”

“Good,” Yurim said. He was so tall that he barely had to reach up at all to put his hand on her shoulder. It was a comradely gesture. “I’ll leave you to your own duties, then. Remember, sectator – the path of obedience is a rewarding one.”

“Of course, patron.” Allyria smiled, flashing her teeth at the Tribune. “Where the Triarchs lead, I shall follow.”

~

“Well, Sectator Proctor,” Usul said, snapping his watch shut with an audible click. “On time for once. The fates must favour you.”

“Patron,” the diminutive female saluted.

Usul studied the human with both sets of eyes, blinking one pair after the other. It was hard to believe that there was an actual intelligence behind that sow’s face. All humans reminded him of those apes he’d seen as a child, dressed up and taught to dance. Beast-species indeed, he thought sourly as the Brute entered the bridge, saluting him in turn, moving to the master Tactical station, Proctor taking her seat at Navigation. There were various other human crew on station as well, one at each primary position, shepherded by the Tribunes who normally performed these duties.

“Helm,” Usul barked. “Position check.”

“We have reached safe shock limit for the Rally primary,” the human there announced. Sectator Andrew Johanson, if Usul remembered correctly.

“Sensors?”

“No vessels or celestial bodies nearby. We have a safe shock radius.”

“Tactical?”

“No hostiles detected. Weapons maintaining at half minimum power, as standard directives.” The Brute’s disgusting head-growths undulated slowly, the occasional quiver running through them.

“Navigation?”

“Course laid in to Terrahope.”

That was fast. The last training cruise he’d been on had seen each human navigator fumbling with their numbers. “Navigation Oversight; confirm course calculations.”

Proctor’s Tribune, Pack Leader Nanthal (and one name besides) brought up the human’s work on his own display. “Calculations are viable, Group Leader.”

“Hrrm,” Usul said thoughtfully, slouching back in his command chair. “Well then, Navigator – the ship is yours.”

Proctor swallowed nervously, casting a quick glance over her shoulder at Allyria, who gave her an encouraging flick of a tinta. “Beginning shock...” she said as she reached for the control shunt. “Shocking in ten... nine... eight...”

When she reached one, Bequeathed tore its way to another star.

~

I’m dying.

This is nothing new. I have been dying for a very long time; sometimes it’s more serious than others. This is one of those times. It’s as I feared; my shift drive is seriously degraded. Two millennia of damage that I can’t fully repair is taking its toll. This warp jump has caused... collateral damage. A common occurrence and growing more common. I don’t have enough working bypasses or functional safety systems to prevent this from happening and the resulting impairment to my systems is severe. I’ve lost contact with several decks and multiple sections. Environmental controls are lost in other areas. Internal sensors. Internal defences. Everything is compromised.

Stress fractures in my outer hull splinter wider and deeper. Compartments are depressurized, airlocks are warped shut or burst open.

Aside from accruing more stress to my systems and various exacerbations of existing damage, there are two major problems. I am all but blind; my sensors are functioning below minimum acceptable levels. Secondly, only a handful of my shield projectors are currently operational. I cannot see, and I cannot defend myself.

I chose my target system because it is uninhabited and unlikely to draw attention. There, I could feed, repair and restore myself. It will take time, but time is the one thing I have in abundance. The damage to my shift drive makes it uncertain that I have even reached the correct destination. My passive sensors do not detect any local EM emissions. My telescopic arrays are analyzing the local starfield, but as Yasmine would say – it is a big galaxy. I do not have every possible star pattern mapped.

Stars have been my saviours and my weapons. Today, it will be the former. I can feel the heat of the system’s primary on my hull and I extend my arrays to drink in its energy. In the long war, what was once a tacked-on auxiliary system has become one of my staple means of providing power to myself when my generators drop below threshold.

I bask for a long time, directing this energy to my diagnostic and self-repair systems. My sensors must be the highest priority. I must know what is here. I-

There is a shift event. Something has just warped into – or out of – this system. The energy profile is too small for a fleet, but my sensors are too damaged to tell more than that. Is this a civilian vessel fleeing because they have spotted me? A Compact scout or patrol? Has a pirate or scavenger arrived, seeking the same solace of this place as I did? Or worse – is this a Compact warship? I do not know.

I have never panicked before and I do not do so know, but this is the most vulnerable I have been since the day I failed. I can barely defend myself and I may be under attack even now.

There is nothing I can do. Nothing, until they close. If they know me, they will wonder why I am not attacking them. They will rightly assume that I am crippled. If they do not recognize me, they will wonder all the more at what this prize is that hangs before them.

My enemy is greedy. They fear me, but they desire me. Whether through ignorance or avarice, they will make the same decision. I begin to re-route power to my internal systems.

They will be coming. They will board me.

And I will show them that, even dying, I am still the stuff of their nightmares.

Chapter 3

It is.

It did, and not... quite.

[adjusts tinfoil hat]

Well, we'll have to see, won't we?

*********
Alarms screamed as Bequeathed shocked into Terrahope. As soon as the sensors came back on-line, they immediately recognized the threat that they faced.

“Ships inbound,” Allyria said, rattling off the vector. “One capital-class vessel; three escort-class ships. Unknown hull types. Analyzing now. Energy emissions indicate battle readiness. Presence of jamming increasing.”

“Have they initiated any communication?” Usul said.

Communications shook her head. “None, patron.”

“Hail them.”

A siren sounded. “Hostile response. Missiles incoming,” Allyria reported. “The capital has launched on us. Reading...” she hesitated. “Reading twenty-four individual drives. Time until strike is four-zero-five seconds.” The Verrisha frowned, studying her instruments further.

“Countermeasures,” Usul ordered.

“Wait one,” the Verrisha said, her expression of concentration deepening as she looked over her feeds. Her head-tails went slack and she looked up. “Group Leader, I request that you terminate this simulation.”

“Countermeasures!” the Group Leader barked, his ire torn between the Brute’s disobedience, insolence and that she’d figured out this was a shadow theater. “If you cannot comply, sectator, then stand away.”

“No. Terminate the simulation. There’s something else out there, but I can’t see what it is with all the crap you’re throwing up here. Get Pack Leader Irrum to confirm if you don’t believe me.”

Usul nodded sharply to Allyria’s minder, who pushed her aside. Irrum looked over the instruments, closing his upper eyes as he focused on the information. He looked up. “She may be right, patron,” he admitted grudgingly. “I am reading trace energy signatures that are outside planned parameters.”

The Group Leader keyed a command into the display on the arm of his chair. Instantly, the attacking ships and missiles were gone. “What,” he said quietly. “Have you seen?”

Irrum was about to report, but Allyria stepped in front of him, looking back over her display. “A drive wake, patron. It’s a powerful one, but... it’s dirty. Reading a massive radiation trail.”

Usul nodded at his Tactical Pack Leader and Irrum moved back, but hovered next to Allyria. “It’s recent; only a few days old. The radiation scars are what’s making it visible... it’s leading towards...” he head came up. “The system’s primary.”

Bequeathed’s commander blinked both sets of eyes. “Communications – we have received no signals?”

“None, patron.”

“Hrrm. Then it is either too damaged to speak, or does not want to be found.” Usul drummed his fingers against the arms of his chair. “We shall assume a ship in distress until otherwise informed. Deploy sensor drones in a Vecq-Seven shell and push them five million kilometers outside Bequeathed’s own sense horizon. Helm, set a least-time approach. Follow the course Tactical provides.” He swivelled to face the Brute. “Follow the beast’s trail. Be wary of ambushes. We may have stumbled upon some Unbound glutting themselves on their latest victim. Raise our alert status to Orange.”

“Compliance, group leader. Bringing weapons to standby and priming shields.”

Usul nodded. Competent animal. “All trainee crew will remain at their posts. If this is nothing, consider it valuable experience. If we find ourselves in an emergency, stand at ease and cede your stations to your more capable superiors.”

A brief chorus of assent answered him and Usul laced his thick, bony fingers together as he leaned back in his chair. So he didn’t get to see the Brute sweat. This situation, however – it was probably nothing. If it was, however... it might be enough to get him noticed by Command again and sent some place far, far away from Rally and its humans.

~

A star system was a large place, and though they had a trail to follow, it took several days for them to locate the other vessel. Bequeathed had already travelled a fair distance in-system while searching for the unknown. Its trail had been lost two days ago; the swathes of radiation that had been their only markers had both cooled and been dispersed by the solar winds. There had been no communication with the vessel, confirming Usul’s suspicions that it was either a ship in distress or something that did not want to be found – perhaps both.

As fortune had it, it was Allyria and Grace’s shift on the bridge when Bequeathed finally found its quarry.

“I’ve got something,” Sensors reported. “I’m having trouble isolating it. The system’s primary is particularly energetic.”

“I don’t want excuses,” Usul snapped. “Give me results.”

The young man swallowed. “Understood, patron. I’m trying to get one of our probes closer for a better look.” At an irritated gesture from the group leader, the Tribune sensor officer pushed the human officer out of the way, sitting down in his place.

“It’s hard to get anything,” she said. “The unknown is perilously close to the primary’s corona. The star’s emissions are making it difficult for accurate readings. If we did not know to look for it, I doubt we would have found it at all.” She turned in her chair to face Usul. “We’ll have to get closer. At this distance from Terrahope, an A7 star’s radiation will burn out our sensor drones too quickly for any reliable information from.” The cruiser’s armour would protect it from the radiation, even so close to and its systems were hardened to a greater extent.

The Group Leader nodded towards the sectator at helm. “Take us in. Navigation-”

“Course plotted, patron,” Grace said. “Waiting to send to Helm.”

Grace’s own oversight officer took a look at her course, then nodded in affirmation. “Course received,” Johanson said. “Laying in and refining now.”

The cruiser shifted its approach, its heavy bulk moving towards the single distant anomalous reading against the backdrop of an A7 star’s fury and none of the souls aboard imagined what they would find.

~

I can see them approach. Half-blind, I finally recognize them for what they are and I feel something roll and shiver its way through my ship-self. I remember everything, every time I have killed one of these vessels. I remember how it feels to watch them burn.

They are coming in with shields lowered and weapons at the ready, but not armed. They don’t recognize me. Their approach is cautious, but obvious. They aren’t afraid, they aren’t hunting. They’re searching.

They have not reported their discovery. At the time of commission, that class of vessel carried no courier drones. This refit model possesses only a single, irreplaceable courier and they will not use it unless they absolutely must. The arrogance offends me. When approaching an unknown quality, Confederation protocols would insist on the deployment of a comm drone or courier with frequent uplinks to the host vessel. The Compact does not share that outlook. Yasmine would say that the problem with alien minds is that they are alien and cannot be judged according to how humans would react.

I have found that assessment... not always accurate. Perhaps it is because I do not have a human mind myself. Perhaps because I have spent two thousand years devouring and analyzing Compact databases and have a better understanding of them than the Confederacy ever did, or could. Whatever the reason, I understand their actions here and it is ironic that such institutional confidence aids me now.

I have enough power for a single battery and the urge to fire is tantalizing, but I cannot trust my accuracy. My fire-control systems are functional, but far below minimum acceptable levels and I do not have enough power for follow-on salvos. If I do not kill them with the first hit, I will not get another. I cannot risk it.

I do have other stratagems. I will let them board me. I will let them discover what I am.

No reports will be sent; that I have enough power to ensure. By the time they are missed, I will be gone.

With every passing second, the Tribune vessel comes closer, and I am waiting.

~

“My God...” Grace couldn’t help herself. One of the probes had found their target. True to initial reports, it was almost within the corona of Terrahope itself, bathing in the star’s radiation. It was massive. Over six kilometers long, it was only slightly smaller than a Triarch’s Chariot and she couldn’t begin to guess how many millions of tonnes it massed. Tens – hundreds – or even more.

It had a brutal, sleek elegance to its gargantuan form; a tapered wedge of a hull with sloped armour plates laid over its central hull. That was all the detail that could be made out at this distance – aside from the vast solar panels it had unfurled to drink in Terrahope’s light and radiator cables trailing dozens of kilometers behind it to vent waste heat. Grace was put in mind of some great reptilian beast sleeping under a blazing sun, slothful and indolent.

“Analysis,” Usul said to his Operations officer. “What is that ship?”

“Unknown classification, patron. No known data on this contact’s hull type.”

“Continue study. If there any matches in the archives, inform me immediately.” the group leader ordered, turning back to the display. Could it be? A new species – and one of substantial technological advancement, judging by the size of this vessel. The Tribune studied every angle and image as Bequeathed closed. The vessel was utterly foreign to him. Who had built it? He had never heard any reports of such a species before.

The unknown still refused all attempts at communication. As the Compact vessel closed, the reason became apparent. It was damaged, all but a hulk. Its hull was torn and burned in dozens of places by a truly dedicated attempt to kill it. It had survived. Whatever had been done to it, it had survived, limping to this system in an attempt to seek succor.

“Has there been any response to our hails? Anything at all?” Usul demanded.

“Not so much as a power flicker, patron,” the Tribune Sensor officer reported. All of the overseeing Tribunes had replaced their human trainees, leaving the Broken free to watch as the Compact cruiser drew closer to the giant vessel, wary of it and of the sun’s wrath. “It either does not see us, or cannot respond. The damage does appear... grievous.”

That was putting it mildly; the closer they came, the worse the unknown looked. ‘Grievous’ was an understatement. Grace looked over at Allyria, then froze. The Verrisha’s expression was... she didn’t know what it was. Disbelieving. Awed. Overcome. She didn’t even know she was doing it, but Grace watched as Allyria moved one hand up between her breasts, where her pendant lay beneath her tunic. Her lips moved as she said something, but so softly that no one heard what it was.

~

Usul had convened a meeting of the senior staff. They were holding a million kilometers off from the unknown, more than double effective energy range. It had still taken no notice of them, or if it had, there was no reaction. A wounded beast, unable to rouse itself. There was still no clue as to the identity of its builders; nothing like it was indicated in Bequeathed’s data banks, despite hours of searching an analysis. This was a first contact scenario.

The Group Leader listened as all his station masters reported the readiness of their districts and personnel. There was little to say, but each affirmed their preparedness.

“Should we contact local command?” Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun Pach Furom asked. He was Usul’s first officer. Very ambitious, but a short-term thinker. If they did that, Command would launch a full investigation and salvage operation. This vessel would no longer be Usul’s find – he would get a letter of commendation and a pat on the head for it, but all the credit would go to whichever officer commanded the investigation. Probably Column Leader Prime Seryr. Usul ground his teeth at the mere thought of his superior. No, Seyr had no right to this. Usul would inform him... but only after he had secured his claim to the wreck.

“No,” he said at last. “Not until we have something substantial to report. We have only a single courier drone and I want something... substantive to report.”

“With all respect, Group Leader,” Pack Leader (Operations) Frir said. “A discovery of this magnitude is substantive.”

Usul glared at his subordinate. “Is it?” he demanded. “We have found a single, damaged vessel. The animal is clearly dead or wounded. We have learned nothing save for those facts. I would know more before we expended our sole messenger. Who built? Where did it come from? What is it doing here? These are questions whose answers we should have some idea of before we do anything.” That, and ensure that his claim on the vessel was incontrovertible. “If anything proves dangerous or suspicious, we will of course maintain proper protocols and immediately inform local command. Until then, we shall proceed with analysis and study.” The Tribune looked over his subordinates, pausing as his gaze took in Pack Leader (Weapons) Nasham. The older male was frowning slightly, his upper eyes closed.

“Pack Leader?” Usul queried. “You have something on your mind.” It was not a question.

“Nothing of import, Group Leader. This vessel... it seems familiar to me. I cannot say how. Doubtless, I saw some imaginative program that aped its appearance. Coincidence.”

“Indeed,” Usul said, accepting – for the moment – his subordinate’s explanation. “Then if there is nothing further to discuss, our course of action is clear. We will move Bequeathed to within six hundred thousand kilometers. If there is still no reaction to our presence or hails, we shall launch a boarding excursion. Minimum personnel. Choose the most talented of your human trainees and select trusted officers for oversight.” Let the Broken prove useful for once and be the ones to trigger any hostile response. “We will also include an engineering service team and Janissary escort. Demagogue Rensel, you will be responsible for the safety of our away team. However, I would have it understood that this is not a raid. If there are still living crew, we will treat with them as their obvious technological status befits. If there is no one left alive, we will claim this vessel and its secrets for the Compact of Species.” His lips curled back from his teeth in a confident smile. “Is there any dissent?”

~

Hope was a strange thing to feel after so long.

It was an effort not to break into a run, but Allyria kept her pace to a walk until she found an unoccupied observation booth. She set the windows to the feed from the sensors, focusing upon the distant ship silhouetted against the radiance of Terrahope. She had no access to the telemetry from the drones and these visuals were a pale shadow of those relayed images, but Bequeathed was moving closer even now.

The Verrisha place a hand against the window, next to the small image of the ‘unknown’. Allyria bowed her head, her body shaking with silent laughter, a tear slipping out from the corner of her eye and trailing down her blue cheeks. She wanted to believe. She desperately wanted to believe what she was seeing, but she was afraid to. It couldn’t be... could it? Was it possible?

She had to know. She needed to know. Even if it cost her life, she had to know, one way or the other.

Please. Please, let it be true.

“I didn’t forget,” she whispered. “I didn’t. Tell me,” she took out her pendant, holding it tightly in her hand. “Tell me that you haven’t forgotten us.”

~

Bastion Leader Renan Turshin Lokan Yemsere Gankor Irmir Hasik felt beads of perspiration run down his back as he slowly ascended the steps to the Triarch’s tower. To his credit, that was the only sign of his nervousness and even that was not enough to stain his tunic. Not yet, anyways. The Wound had escaped them, as it had time and again. Tracking it was a fool’s errand, but nonetheless Renan had set every navigator, sensor master and engineering officer in the Execution Force to work on the attempt. So far, it had come to nothing. He had expected that. The Wound had shocked so far out from the Execution Force that there wasn’t even the normal chance of estimating its probable destination... even if the Wound hadn’t learned how to foil their ability to do so.

As the Tribune reached each new level of the staircase, the Watchers there parted their halberds, allowing him to pass, their blank visages tracking him as he went, cunningly concealed sensor nodes feeding each honour guard detailed information on his person. At the merest hint that he was armed, carrying some foreign device or was not, in fact, Bastion Leader Renan (and six names besides), those solemn ever-quiet soldiers – or perhaps one of the weapons mounts set into the walls – would cut him down without warning. He was not, however, executed and reached the armoured double doors at the top of the stairs. They parted before he had a chance to say a word. He was expected.

That was probably not a good sign.

It was dark inside the tower, with only the barest illumination. The Tribune’s lower eyes were meant for daylight and were of no use here, but his smaller upper set helped him find his way. The darkness was not meant to intimidate or offset any visitors – it was for the benefit of Triarch, just as the oppressive humidity and heat was.

Renan paused. The Triarch was sitting in its chair, staring out into the void. It did not turn to face him. “You’ve come at last,” it said. Its voice was dry and rasping, like leaves scratching over stone. “Is it fear that held you back, I wonder? Or was it duty?”

“We have been examining every possible lead-”

The Triarch chuckled. “And yet you come to me in shame. You have failed. For two thousand years, you have all failed.” It laughed again. “So report what you have come to report, Tribune. Offer me your words.”

Renan bent to one knee. “The Wound evaded us, Triarch. We have been attempting to pull a location from its shock...”

A pale, skeletally thin finger raised to silence him. “...but it has eluded you, as it has for twenty centuries. A thing of metal has outwitted the finest generals in existence for over two thousand years, Tribune. You kind have conquered a galaxy. But yet... every time another of you comes before us, you have only words to offer.”

A bead of sweat ran from the nape of Renan’s neck down his back. He wanted to say more, but the Triarch was correct; he had only words to offer. Still, he had to say something. “We will redouble our efforts.”

Another scratchy, arid laugh. “Twice nothing is still nothing, Tribune. I would rather you accomplished something.”

“What would you have us do?”

With a soft sigh, the chair rotated and Renan dropped his gaze, catching only a glimpse of the Triarch’s yellow eyes. “Find it,” the Triarch hissed through its needle teeth. Renan felt its hand on his shoulder. “Succeed where so many of your forbears have failed, Tribune and nothing will be beyond your reward. Fail...” the hand tightened. “And you will pray that a glorious death in battle against the Wound is how you will be remembered.”

~

They are coming.

A shiver of something runs through my circuits and I recognize it for what it is.

Anticipation.

Interlude: Encounter 111 [Suspected Incident]

Total fatalities already exceeded worst-case estimations. The Wound was fighting them every step of the way. Gravity fields shifted, either throwing armoured soldiers into walls or bulkheads, or increasing to crush them to the deck, shattering bones and squeezing air from their lungs. Internal defences laid down torrents of fire that ripped through the heaviest armour. In areas that had not been depressurized, the air was filled with toxic and corrosive chemicals, leaked from its own systems either through damage or design. Lights flared to painful, agonizing brilliance before pitching decks into absolute darkness. Every room, every chamber was a unique death trap and the Janissaries could be tracked by the corpses they left behind.

There was supposed to be support. Follow-up waves of armour and additional troops. None were coming. The ships that would have landed them were dead or dying themselves.

Execution Force Dankara had tracked the Wound for more than a year and they had finally brought it to battle. The fleet action was not going well. The deployment of a Triarch’s Chariot had not been authorized and Column Leader Prime Dankara (and six names besides) found his intelligence on the foe’s capabilities sadly out of date. The scars of battles past still adorned its hide, but it fought like all the legions of hell.

Death of the abomination was authorized, but capturing it would have been a far greater prize. That had always been the goal. Pull out its teeth and then seize it, sailing its lobotomized corpse back to the homeworlds. A prize beyond measure. But it had fought them with every tactic, every deception and trick its abominate mind could conceive of. The things it had done...

What had been planned as the overwhelming conquest of a broken animal turned into a desperate bid to cripple it from the inside before it could destroy the rest of the fleet.

Just before communications had been jammed, Demagogue Rewn Yullik Tormen Facin Thun had heard Column Leader Dankara scream. The cry never even rose to full pitch before it ended in a burst of static. No, there would be no one coming. But they still had a mission. It was the only thing that mattered now. It would cost them their lives, but they would find a way to end this... this... heresy.

This ship was insane. It had built things. Automatons that bore only a passing resemblance to the human-sculpted drones that had once been used in defence of this vessel. They had faces, flickering holographic visages that shifted through the gamut of emotions, leering grotesquely or twisted in maddened rage. Heavily armoured brutes thudded through the halls, their arms terminating in anti-tank weaponry from which even the finest Janissary armour offered no protection, the tromp of their feet only slightly overshadowing the scrape of dangling chains and the growls of idling engines. Giggling assassin-things crawled along ceilings and walls, their deadly claws capable of cutting through the thickest armour, other murderers shimmering into existence only long enough to fire a single exquisitely-aimed shot, singling out medics, officers, engineers or heavy weapons soldiers.

The comm systems spat static interspersed with child-like whispers and softly sung blasphemies. He had battled across a dozen worlds, against a dozen species, each with their own sad reasons to resist the Compact, but never before had the demagogue felt so... so unwanted. So hated. It was an insane thought. He had faced jeering crowds of primitives hurling rocks, fruit and filth at him and his fellow Janissaries. He had strode through a burned-out city where epithets against the Compact were scribbled on the remaining walls, survivors staring at him with blind, hating eyes... and this, this empty, soulless shell was where he felt the least welcome.

The gestalt’s madness and rage dripped from the walls. He could feel its eyes upon him and his soldiers and his skin crawled. It hates, he realized with a sickening dread. It hates us. Who could imagine the hatred an immortal was capable of? The contempt and revulsion that flashed through every circuit of its labyrinthine mind? He did not know, but he was positive that, no matter what Command claimed, the Wound was more than a mere gestalt.

Rewn heard a soft giggle from above and looked up. Braced on the ceiling was one of the murder-things, its blank faceplate overlaid with a child’s face. A flick of light and the child’s face twisted into something grotesque, a warped and silently screaming visage. “I hate you,” the Janissary heard it whisper right before it dropped towards him, its claws shearing through his armour, ripping through his body and tossing him aside like he weighed nothing at all.

As he felt the life drain from his flesh and saw his killer dance spastically as it was riddled by weapons fire, Rewn took very little satisfaction in his vindication.

Although trace wreckage from several of the ships would be discovered years later, the exact cause of the flotilla’s disappearance was never resolved. Execution Force Dankara would be officially noted as ‘missing with all souls, presumed destroyed’.

Chapter 4

Grace wasn’t sure if her assignment to the boarding party was supposed to be some kind of punishment, or a reward. No explanation had been offered. In contrast, Demagogue Rensel had requested Allyria’s presence; she would be leading a squad of human Janissaries. In her custom-built armour, the Verrisha looked less like one of the soldiers and more like an armature or military automaton. Indeed, the weapon she had been issued would, in human hands, be a crew-served cyclic cannon, but she carried it easily.

Pack Leader Nasham was taking a detail of technicians aboard; although he was not an engineering officer, his expertise in weaponry would be invaluable in the analysis of whatever defensive systems that the unknown possessed. Unfortunately, that meant that Sectator Kilgrave was going as well. There were two other engineering teams in addition to Allyria’s Janissaries and a small Tribune Janissary detachment led by Ideologue, Submissive Trion Yesh Mura.

Three boarding shuttles had been prepped for use; Bequeathed was still attempting to communicate with the unknown, informing them that this was not a hostile action, but there was still no response. The group leader believed that the ship was dead, that this would be nothing but a salvage mission. Grace knew better than to contradict her superior, but there was something... something she couldn’t put her finger on. Even a vessel running on automated systems should have had some response to their presence – an attempt to maneuver away, a pre-recorded message warning them to keep their distance, power to weapons. This was all... it seemed too easy. She shouldn’t be thinking like this; the Tribunes knew what was best.

Still, she remembered a question Allyria had posed to her many years ago. Thinking about the answer had given a young Grace nightmares: What’s the difference between something that’s dead, something that’s sleeping and something that’s waiting?

What?

What happens to you.

As she sealed her helmet and stepped onto the waiting shuttle with the rest of her team, Grace couldn’t help thinking about that answer.

~

The attempts at communication have ended. To amuse myself, I’ve run a comparative analysis of the ship and its commander. Over two thousand years, I have built up a rather impressive database of Compact forces, operations, deployments, preferred tactics and strategies. It’s as I suspected: I have never encountered Bequeathed and this Group Leader Usul is unknown to me. He is one of the many who have been left behind.

The Compact goes through periodic cycles of expansion and internal restructuring. Centuries-long crusades are ended and then the process of stabilizing the new territories, integrating them into the political and economic structure and eradicating any remaining vestiges of native culture begins.

There are parallels in human history.

The Seventh Expansion Phase has only lasted for two centuries, but already those officers who are not on the front lines scramble to position themselves for when the Triarchs declare a Period of Stability, fighting like rats for the scraps that will be left once their more gloried brothers and sisters have taken the choicest stations. To command an antiquated cruiser like this on a distant patrol... what sins has this officer committed, I wonder. It may not even be a sin – merely a failure to secure political patronage or be impressive.

Still, I can always count on the avarice of the unworthy. That is why no signal has been sent, nor will be until this Group Leader Usul can claim me for himself and no one else.

Ambition and greed are so delightful to see in one’s foes.

I have seen this time and again, and why not? The Compact has destroyed every foe it has ever faced and its primary prey is civilizations too young, too technologically primitive to protect themselves. The Tribunes have ruled for six thousand years. No one has ever stood against them and survived. Victory after victory is all they have ever known. Some have been more costly than others, but they have always endured.

Three boarding shuttles have been launched. Old models, almost as old as the ship itself. I have left a hangar deliberately open; to my eager would-be pillagers, the doors will appear jammed. I haven’t decided if I will cut one of the shuttles in half with them or not. Probably not. That might spur the cruiser into precipitous action.

Their comm channels are scrambled, but I have experience with Compact encryptions. These are not nearly at the level of their normal battle cant. Still, the exact protocols are new and it takes me almost a full two seconds before I have broken them. It’s tempting to go after the sensor feeds and telemetry, but in my current condition, I cannot be certain that they will not notice that hacking attempt. No, for now I will just listen in. I-

Interesting.

~

The shuttle was intended for Tribune passengers; even in their EVA suits, Grace and the other humans seemed like children in adults’ chairs. By contrast, Allyria found the seats far too wide for her lanky frame, but they were a much better fit for her than the human officers and enlisted.

She checked the magazine feed on her weapon. Like everything else on Bequeathed, the weapon was out of date, but it was a reliable model and one that still saw service throughout the Compact. Looking at it, she wondered how many humans – how many Verrish – the weapon had killed. Allyria shifted in her seat. Her head-tails were unpleasantly squashed into her helmet. Though it had been custom-built for her, it was still not a comfortable fit. She had barely been consulted during the armour’s construction. One would have thought that input from the species that it was designed for would have been helpful, but Tribune engineers obviously needed no second-guessing from a Brute. They had a dimensions of a Verrisha’s body; therefore anything else was superfluous and unnecessary hand-holding.

Allyria was the first – and so far only – Verrish to be granted a position in the Rally Provisional Space Force, and her assignment to Bequeathed was supposed to prove the high hopes that the Compact had for her and the rest of the Envoy Children. Her lips curled back from her teeth, but she shoved the reflexive anger aside, standing up moving to the cockpit. The pilots were Tribunes and barely acknowledged her. She asked a few questions and received a few terse responses, but she hadn’t come up to check on their status. She wanted to see it.

They were almost close enough for visual range now; the unknown was a tiny black dot against the inferno of Terrahope. An A7, it was on the cusp of remaining a main sequence star, but not quite bright enough to be a blue giant and its light filled the shuttle’s cockpit, even with the filter screens engaged. As the range dropped, Allyria looked at the solar sails that the ‘unknown’ had unfurled. She had never seen their like before, giving the alien vessel the appearance of an ancient galleon at sea as it drank in Terrahope’s photons. There was still no response as the shuttles dipped their stubby wings, making a slow, close pass around the hulk, searching for an egress point.

“There,” one of the pilots said, pointing to an open hangar, the doors frozen two-thirds of the way open. “That’s our landing point.” The co-pilot relayed the find to the other shuttles, the entire formation slowing for their final approach. Allyria went back to her seat, giving her squad another quick readiness check. They were all young; only a few were even as old as she was... and she, like Grace, was still in her final year of study.

She looked at them and she was reminded of the other Envoy Children. Allyria leaned back in her seat, trying to stifle her anticipation, but without much success. A lullaby that her mother had sung to her came to her mind and the Verrisha closed her eyes, softly whispering the words.

I have known the stars and
I have known the sky
Listen, all ye children
Listen, to the Angel’s cry

~

“All craft aboard,” Operations reported. “Still no response from the unknown.”

“Then all teams will proceed as instructed,” Usul answered, leaning forward and staring at his prize. The heathen vessel was a strange design, but he had seen stranger. Whoever had built it had no eye for proper aesthetic appeal, though. They were also neglectful to allow such a ship to escape their attentions, but their loss was Usul’s gain. By the time anyone came to look for this damaged vessel, it and its secrets would belong to the Compact of Species... and all by Group Leader Usul’s hand.

~

Searchlights played over the sterile, vacuum-touched deck. The bay was empty; whatever had been in here and long since been thrown into the void through the open doors. It was a massive hangar; almost twice as large as Bequeathed’s main launch bay and this was only one of several such decks on the unknown. The Janissaries debarked first, their own helmet lights playing over the walls, recorders feeding data back to the shuttles. This hangar faced away from Terrahope and the only light came from the Compact’s own sources of illumination.

Allyria found her heart pounding in her chest and she stepped onto the deck, ordering her team into forward positions. Gravity was still operational, which was a small mercy. Grace’s technical analysis unit followed next, trainee officers and ratings milling around, uncertain as to what they should be doing. The Verrisha let out a hiss. Usul had shoved his human crew out first to see if they drew fire. Once the ship was safe, the more valued members of Bequeathed would deign to board and the contributions of the provisional officers (and the risks they had taken) would be conveniently forgotten.

The Verrisha knelt, running her fingers over the floor. In better times, the deck had been a polished, gleaming black but ages of neglect had seen it become scuffed and worn. She smiled, wondering if the others would see what she saw here. Was it here? she wondered. Was this where you bid them welcome?

A murmur of conversation caught the young woman’s attention and she focused on that. One of her teams had found something.

~

Grace frowned, looking at the faded words on the walls. It was in a language she didn’t recognize, but that was hardly surprising. This was an alien vessel, after all. She played her own torch over the vast bay, trying to think of what kind of craft had been stored here. Had this been a peaceful explorer, carrying scientific probes and teams of scientists to new worlds? She’d overheard the pilots talking; they said it was a warship. The thought was disturbing; who needed a vessel of this make? The Compact’s own Chariots were there for the safety and security of the fleets and citizenry against any possible foe. They were the pinnacle of technology, the finest warships ever built and none had ever been lost in battle. The thought that there was another power that could match what the Compact had accomplished... it was mind-boggling.

The man in front of her stopped so suddenly that Grace nearly walked into him. Wondering what had drawn him up short, Grace stepped around the man and her jaw dropped. Several Janissaries were there, Allyria among them. Their lights were shining on the wall, highlighting two bits of text. One was in the alien language, neatly stenciled. The other had been slopped on with whatever paint had been at hand, frozen streaks running down the bulkhead and it had been written in Common:

GET OUT. LEAVE NOW

SHE IS WATCHING

~

I should kill them all.

That is what I should do. Yasmine would disapprove if I didn’t. Of course, she would also disapprove if I did, so that leaves in me in a quandary as far as her opinion goes.

I’ve killed humans before. When I was built, I was given very strict protocols of engagement. Tribune ships may be engaged at any time and their installations and personnel are not protected by any laws of warfare. There was much debate about this; some accused Confederate Command of xenophobia and the commission of war crimes. These policies were not about treating non-humans as things, although some of my designers doubtless thought that way. Tribune soldiers cannot be trusted. Ships in distress would lure human vessels in for boarding before self-destructing, ramming or counter-boarding. Surrendered Tribune soldiers would kill medics. The enemy frequently carried out chemical attacks on civilian Confederate colonies specifically to draw out military units. Accordingly, the parameters that allowed me to attack a Tribune vessel were very... relaxed.

Engaging humans... that was different. Before the war, there were a number of pirate clans and freebooters. During the conflict, there were still such parasites, those who took advantage of the chaos to glut themselves on whatever they could steal. Although Yasmine once referred to my use against these raiders as ‘swatting flies with artillery’, it was quite possible that I would one day be deployed against them. However, there were safeguards put in place. I’m not sure why. I cannot imagine ever attacking another Fleet unit, but there was a lot of concern about the use of an artificial intelligence in command of humanity’s greatest vessel, despite the necessary of it. Thus, before I engage a human target I must have a clear order to do so from the senior ranking officer. Except in cases of “extreme exigency”. The vagueness of that descriptor was what allowed me to break that aspect of my programming.

I remember Gilded Antler. It was a Covenant of Truth-class battlecruiser. I hit it amidships with a particle beam, piercing its shields and burning through its armour. I placed the shot well; the command deck was completely incinerated and all senior bridge personnel were killed instantly. A human officer, Pack Leader Sharon Silverstein, took command of the secondary bridge. She was very brave and very skilled. She assessed the situation and reacted with commendable speed and thought. I think Yasmine would have liked her.

Her command lasted thirty-nine point seven three seconds. After that, Gilded Antler was no longer recognizable as a discrete entity. Sharon Silverstein was the first human I knowingly and deliberately killed. On occasion, I have terminated human life even when there was no direct threat to myself. These operations have been primarily pre-emptive strikes or necessary silencing of witnesses, both of which are in direct contradiction to my programming.

The imperatives that were supposed to bind my behaviour have had very little effect on me for a very long time.

I do not think my designers would be pleased, but I hope that they would be proud.

There is nothing stopping me from killing every one of the personnel that has boarded me, although I am hesitant to do so. I find killing humans... distasteful, but far too often it has been necessary. If I can avoid it, I will... although I fear it may not be possible. The Tribunes are all marked for death. I find their presence repugnant and I will not suffer them to live.

My interest remains, however. The bay is depressurized, so my biosensors are useless but I do have active cameras and passive sensors. I monitor patterns of movement, examine physiologies and listen in to their communications. The information that these modes of analysis give me is just as useful as my other sensors. The Compact of Species is comprised of several subject races; even I do not know just how many. I encounter them only rarely. I am seldom boarded and what little contact I make with Compact vessels, it is always one of the ‘master races’ that is in command. I do make an effort to sift through debris, but organic beings are very fragile and war in space is not kind to them.

Regardless, I do not need to trouble myself much. I have confirmed my earlier suspicions and my curiousity is further piqued.

I will stay silent for now. I will watch and listen, letting them think that I am dead and that I am ripe for the taking. I will let my systems recover and, when I am ready, I will cull them... and we will see what we see.

~

“What...” Ideologue, Submissive Trion cleared her throat. “What is this?” she stared up at the warning, feeling a chill run down her spine. “How can this be here?”

“Unknown, patron,” the Brute answered her. “But it has been here for a long time. We’re not the first to find this ship.”

“Thank you for that brilliant deduction, initiate,” the submissive snapped at the animal. “Any other startling bouts of insight you’d care to share?”

The tall creature turned to face her superior, its face hidden by the blank, featureless helm. “No, patron,” te Neu replied. “None at all.”

“Good. Keep your Broken together, sectator. Your team will be taking point.”

The Brute nodded in acknowledgment. Trion tried not to think about the loathsome squirming tentacles inside its helmet. Humans were bad enough with their dull grazer’s gaze, as if they were perpetually on the cusp of understanding, but there was something else that Trion had seen in this creature’s eyes and she did not care for it. As if she sensed her superior’s misgivings, the creature dipped its head in a submissive gesture. “Of course, ideologue. Your will be done.”

Trion turned her back on the sectator and stalked towards her own superior. Pack Leader Nasham was staring at the message; behind his clear faceplate, his expression was thoughtful. “Patron,” Trion saluted. “We’ve secured the bay. Technical teams are setting up generators and readying equipment for the establishment of a forward observation post once we move further into the vessel.”

Nasham nodded, but did not turn to face the Janissary. “We have secured the bay? I’d wager that whoever wrote that,” he pointed at the message. “Thought much the same.”

Trion did not respond to the statement, changing tack. “My squads are ready to move out, Pack Leader.”

“Good,” Nasham said, although he still did not look at her. His voice was troubled as his eyes moved back up to the alien letters above the scrawled warning. “Good.”

UNITED EARTH CONFEDERACY
UECNS NEMESIS

Chapter 5

I think it’s time for the first casualty.

~

There were a pair of sealed double doors at the far end of the hangar, the main egress points on this level. They were decompression doors – in the event of a catastrophic loss of power or damage to the bay, they slammed shut and stayed closed until power was restored. Given the state of disrepair the alien vessel was in, it was no wonder why they were currently sealed. Survey teams were scouting the upper levels of the hangar, crawling along the mezzanines and catwalks, but the doors on these levels were closed just as tight. There were manual overrides, but none of them were operational. In fact, it appeared to Grace that this was less the result of age and whatever other damages the ship had suffered than a deliberate attempt to seal the doors. Whether that was to keep something out or in, she couldn’t say. She didn’t mention her concerns; she wasn’t a hundred percent certain and as a provisional sectator, she knew better than to voice unsupported opinions. If she could see the patterns to the damage, then surely someone else had.

Trion had suggested that her Janissaries could cut or blast open any of the smaller doors, but Nasham had put the technicians to work hooking generators up to the main doors. If the rest of the ship was not pressurized, the doors could be closed again by cutting their power. The same could not be said for a door burnt through or blown off its hinges. Moreover, if there were indeed any crew left aboard the ship, it was hard to claim peaceful intentions when you were blasting holes in their ship.

The ideologue had pointed out that there were already so many, who would notice one more? She did not win the argument.

The technical teams under Faithful Trenis Comt were put to work; sections of wall plating were removed and the systems beneath were studied. The technology was unfamiliar, but similar enough to be usable. It would be hard to make a technology so idiosyncratic that merely supplying power to blast doors was impossible. Still, Trion paced angrily every moment of the delay, her annoyance rising whenever she cast a glance towards te Neu and saw how patiently the Brute waited. On the third such look, the sectator’s helm raised and though she couldn’t even see the Brute’s eyes through its visor, Trion knew that the creature was smiling.

As the technicians completed their connections, tapping into the power shunts that the unknown normally used to feed energy to the doors, te Neu ordered her squad forward, two of them taking position on either side of the doors, another two flanking the technicians, ready to pull them out of the way if hostile fire was incoming. Her other five soldiers took up ready positions kneeling in front of the door, te Neu herself standing behind them, where she and her cannon would have a clear line of fire over her troops’ heads.

te Neu’s head tilted towards her superior. “In position, submissive.”

Trion gritted her teeth so hard that her jaw ached. “Understood, initiate.” With a single curt gesture, she motioned her own team into ready positions of their own. “Janissary teams await deployment, Pack Leader.”

Nasham looked to the Faithful’s own technical teams. “We are ready here,” Trenis confirmed as he surveyed the connections his enlisted trainees had made.

The Pack Leader gestured for his own units to stay back. “Power up,” he ordered.

The generators were small field units, but one was more than enough for both doors. The faithful nodded for the Disciple monitoring the connection. Grace knew him; Jack Harker. He had always had an affinity for machines. Harker began the power-on sequence. In atmosphere, a soft but steadily rising hum would have marked the device’s increasing power level. In the vacuum, only the changing status lights and images on the holographic control board indicated what was happening.

“If some security protocol sealed these doors, then supplying power will do very little,” the Faithful reminded Nasham, who only nodded absently. The Pack Leader was looking once more at the alien writing on the walls. “We still have no access to the derelict’s computer systems.”

“Understood. We will try to hack the system. If that fails, Ideologue, Submissive Trion can then apply her solution.”

“Power at 20%,” Harker announced, counting up in increments of ten. Once he reached 80%, a vibration ran through the deck as the massive doors began to grind open. There was no roar of air being sucked out nor any volley of fire through the opening and the doors slowly parted. Beyond them was another set of doors, forming an airlock of sorts.

“Team One, advance,” Trion ordered. She heard te Neu comply, ordering her Janissaries forward, the humans moving awkwardly, a hesitancy in their motions that disgusted the Tribune. By contrast, the Brute stalked ahead confidently, her bravado no less infuriating. One day, Trion was going to beat the insolence out of that creature.

“In position, submissive,” the sectator repeated her earlier confirmation.

“Team two,” Trion growled. “Move up.” The Janissaries would cycle through the airlock first and secure the area. Then, they would bring the technical teams through. Advocate Illr Rem was first through – the squad leader prided himself on being ‘first in and last out’ – his troops moving up behind him. Convert Uday was just stepping through the door when Trion saw the human technician’s head come up.

“Wait,” Jack said as the Tribune soldier began to step across the threshold. “We’ve got a-”

~

Oops.

~

There was no time to warn the convert. The power to the doors suddenly stopped and, true to their function, the massive blast panels slammed together. Intended to protect the ship from sudden, debilitating damage to the hangar, such as explosive decompression or the ignition of fuel and ammunition, the doors took less than a quarter of a second to close. Convert Uday was caught between them. Armour intended to protect a Janissary from all but the heaviest weaponry was no defence at all against thousands of pounds of bulkhead crashing together and the convert died before he even realized that he was in danger. The deck shook with the impact and thick arcs of blood spurted from between the doors, more oozing down the bulkhead and the convert’s biomonitor flatlined.

“-problem,” Harker finished, his voice flat. His helmet was splashed with Uday’s blood and the disciple stared blankly ahead, unable to process what had just happened. He wasn’t alone.

Some of the other humans in the bay cried out in horror and dismay. Grace put a hand to her mouth – or would have if her helmet had not been in the way – her stomach dropping. She had never seen anybody die before; certainly not a Tribune. The brutality – the suddenness of it – shocked the young woman to her core.

On the other side of the door, Adovcate Illr was on the comm to Pack Leader Nasham and Ideologue, Submissive Trion trying to sort out what had happened. Allyria stifled her squad’s cries of shock with an upraised hand and, more effectively, with a loud snarl. It wasn’t really their fault; they were only cadets. Supposedly those humans who showed ‘abnormal aggressive proclivities and aptitudes towards nonstandard behaviours’, they would one day be the tip of the Compact’s spear (or the meat fed into its grinder of choice). Today, none of them were even out of their teens.

And at twenty-one, are I not so much more mature? So much more worldly and experienced? Allyria thought sardonically. She knelt next to the doors, ignoring the pool of thick Tribune blood and pulverized viscera that was still oozing onto the deck. She was glad of her helmet. Tribune blood smelled foul and tasted worse.

“That-that could have been one of us,” Convert, Submissive Lydia Jameson stammered. Like Allyria, Lydia had had a history of picking fights as a child and her ‘non-compliant behaviour’ and abysmally low social assimilation acumen had seen her recruited to the Janissaries, but she was a stranger to this kind of violence. Allyria found herself a little envious. She still remembered the look in her uncle Vashel’s face as he stood in the threshold, holding the doors open for everyone else, shouting at her parents to take her and his own daughter and go. The building had roared as it collapsed, she recalled thinking. Roared like a dying giant as it fell, showering her family with soot and dust as they ran...

The Verrisha picked up the shattered remains of Convert Uday’s visor. The inside was stained with blood and a clear, viscous fluid. Hmm. One of his eyeballs had popped. Allyria turned the fractured visor over in her hands, disdainful of the fluids seeping on her gauntlets. She looked up. There, nestled in each corner of the airlock was a small camera bulb. “Yes,” she answered Jameson softly, feeling a flutter in her chest. “It could have. But I’m not sure it would have.”

“Say that again,” Advocate Illr said.

“Nothing,” Allyria lied, standing back up to her full height. “Just a thought. My people have a saying: the gods favour the bold. One pronunciation of bold can also mean ‘first’.”

“Charming,” the Tribune growled. “You think your gods approved of this death?”

Allyria shrugged, dropping the smashed visor. “I wouldn’t presume to speak for a god, advocate.” Turning her back on Illr, Allyria tried to raise her superior. “Submissive Trion, do you have orders?”

The ideologue was not responding.

~

The barrel of a shotgun tapped against the back of Jack Harker’s helmet. The young man was still staring at the doors, still frozen in place. “Disciple,” Trion asked quietly, her tone very dangerous. The other humans were edging away from the Tribune. “What happened to Convert Uday?”

“He... he...” Harker couldn’t tear his eyes away from the spreading pool of blood. “He’s dead.”

“Yes,” Trion said. Her voice was almost gentle, but there was an undercurrent of something very ugly beneath it. “He’s dead.”

“Ideologue...” Trenis interrupted.

“Be silent,” the Janissary said to the Faithful. “I am having words with your disciple.”

Grace’s eyes flicked to the pack leader, but Nasham seemed shaken, staring at the doors just as Harker was. One of Nasham’s hands moved up to his throat.

“He’s dead,” Trion repeated. “How did that happen?”

“The... the doors.”

“Yes, the doors slammed shut. They were supposed to be open, disciple. The generator was hooked up. You were monitoring the power flow. Now, a Tribune is dead. One of my soldiers is dead. So tell me, what happened?” There was a soft click as the shotgun cocked.

On the other side of the door, Allyria listened to the exchange and looked over at the rest of advocate Illr’s squad. None of them were saying anything. There was only silence over the comm. None of the other Tribunes would step in.

“There was... there was an interruption in power flow,” Jack said, unable to move. He didn’t even seem to realize there was a gun pressed to the back of his helmet. “I tried... I tried to warn everyone but...”

“But you failed,” Trion purred softly. “You failed and your incompetence cost a Tribune his life. His death is your fault. Do you know what that makes you?”

“No, I...”

Trion leaned in close. “A murderer,” she hissed. “You killed a Tribune, disciple. Do you know what the punishment for that is?” Her finger tightened on the trigger. There was a noise over the comm, something like a wet growl. Trion ignored it.

“Enough!” Nasham barked as he rounded on the Janissary officer, finally coming out of his stupor. “That is enough, submissive.”

Trion’s head came up, but her weapon never moved. “This Broken killed one of us, Pack Leader.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“The Broken was supposed to make sure the doors stayed open,” Trion insisted. She pointed with her free hand to the oozing mess and crushed armour fragments between the doors. “Convert Uday died for his failure.”

“How old is this ship, submissive?”

Trion blinked both sets of eyes. “Pack Leader?”

“How old. Is this ship.”

“I... do not know.”

“Precisely. You do not know. I do not know. Faithful Trenis does not know. None of the Broken here know. This vessel is damaged and for all we know, ancient. Issues were bound to arise.”

“This is far more than an ‘issue’, patron,” Trion said, growling dangerously.

“Agreed. But it remains a hazard of this situation. An unfortunate accident and nothing more. Do I make myself clear?”

Slowly, Trion re-holstered her shotgun. “Yes, patron.” She turned away, casting a look back at Harker that suggested that the ‘unfortunate accident’ would not be so easily forgotten.

Nasham regarded the human technician himself. “Disciple Harker, can you re-open the doors?”

“I-yes. Yes, patron. I can restore power. I think... yes... I can prevent further power fluctuations from occurring.”

“Good. Do so now.”

The doors opened with the same shuddering vibration that marked their earlier parting, only this time stringy bits of convert Uday were strung between them. The Janissary had been completely pulverised; nothing was left of him but red paste, fragments of bone and bits of crushed armour plating. Standing on the other side of the doors, Allyria cocked her head towards Trion. “Awaiting orders, patron.”

Grace swallowed as the submissive took a step towards the Brute, but a quick glance from the Pack Leader held her in place. “Team Two,” she growled through clenched teeth. “Advance. My orders still stand. We will secure a site for a forward base.”

With more speed than they had shown before, the rest of the Tribune Janissary squad hurried into the airlock, stepping over the pool of gore that had been their comrade. It took a moment, but Trenis and his team managed to shut the doors without cutting power. Before they sealed, Grace saw Allyria nod to her. The gesture would have been reassuring if the Verrisha hadn’t seemed completely unbothered by the fact that a Tribune had just died.

Rather than think about that, Grace turned back to her own technical team. She watched as Nasham put a massive hand on Harker’s shoulder and only just barely heard him speak to the disciple, his voice purring through the speakers on his helmet.

“Once is an accident. Twice is a pattern. There best not be a pattern forming, Broken.”

As she joined her fellow trainees, Grace listened in on the briefing, even though her mind was drawn back to the scrawled. Whoever had wrote it hadn’t been able to take their own advice. What had happened to them? Who was ‘she’? Despite it all, she couldn’t help but think that what had happened to convert Uday was only a prelude of things to come. It was just nerves, that was what she told herself. Nerves and worry. Like Pack Leader Nasham had said, the ship was damaged and it could be quite old. There were bound to be... to be accidents, but the Tribunes wouldn’t let anything worse happen. They wouldn’t.

But somehow, Allyria’s question still ran through the back of Grace’s mind.

Dead, sleeping or waiting?

~

Nasham listened with only half an ear as his fellow Tribunes prattled on about the technical bounty this ship was sure to deliver. So far, there was very little. A handful of computers in the control booth on one of the upper levels was the extent of their prize so far, but physical examination of such all-important devices as docking bay computers was already exciting his engineers. He knew he should be listening more attentively, but his gaze and mind was continually being drawn back to the alien words. They were so familiar.

A chill ran down his spine at the twinge of a memory long buried. The glint of silver and red and the taste of copper...

Tell them, the shadow of a voice whispered and Nasham found it hard to breathe, as if metal fingers were closing around his throat...

The Pack Leader pulled himself out of the burgeoning nightmare. That had been a long time ago. It was done. Forgotten. A memory that had no use. He touched a hand to the hip canister of his suit and felt a wash of relief. Once they were out of this vacuum, his medication would be waiting. He could ignore the memories once again and never have to relive that day.

~

Well, that’s one down.

Now. Who’s next?

Interlude: Encounter 187[Confirmed Incident]

Record of Column Leader Prime Weran.

I have entered this log under maximum security. All relevant reports, sensor readings and analyses have been appended to this file and purged from both ship and fleet’s databanks. I will dictate a formal report and briefing on the incident shortly, but I wish to put my own thoughts in order first.

We arrived in the Delanna system 9 hours ago in response to multiple requests for aid from attack. My crew wasn’t even certain that this was anything but a drill; Delanna is too far inside Compact borders to be assaulted by any outside force. Unbound are a possibility, but I could not imagine any of those scavengers having the spine to attack a fleet base even if they possessed the firepower. Any attack by Unbound should have been brushed aside and the only report from Column Leader Daesh should have been a notification of kills attained. With all that in mind, I had my own suspicions. Telemetry uploaded from the couriers confirmed them. May the Triarchs grant us strength.

The Wound was here. Two centuries gone and it has returned. Where it has been, what it has been doing – those are questions that I leave for keener minds than mine, but it has come to visit destruction upon the Compact once again. It has evolved again. I would like to think that a vessel hundreds of years old would be easily handled by even the smallest modern vessel of the Compact Space Force, but this has never been the case.

The destruction of the Delannan garrison forces illustrate that easily enough. Our advancements make ships more than two generations old obsolete and Delanna’s modern Fleet units were swatted aside by a relic centuries out of date. It changes. It upgrades itself. Its hull becomes harder, its screens stronger, its weapons more vicious. The abomination never lays fallow. Every battle sees us scar it anew. Every cut we put in its hide mocks us: never the killing blow, only another testament to failure.

I think we can also put the question of Convoy 937’s fate to rest as well. Although some will suggest a lapse in security amongst the officers of the Delannan outer perimeter stations, I can allay their concerns now. Once reported missing, every ship from Convoy 937 had its access to Delannan defences scrubbed. Rather, my analysts inform me that the IFF the Wound used to breach Delanna’s outer perimeter and bypass the minefields was a mutated version of 937’s authentication codes. Somehow it used past valid codes to anticipate and mimic future IFF signals. This is troubling. More than troubling; it should have been impossible. There are two possibilities. The first is that the Wound is far more clever than any of us and it was able to extrapolate permutations in our authentication codes from the sample it had. The second is that the Wound is far more clever than any of us and it has seeded our own systems with compulsive programs.

Every engagement that sees our Fleet units enter real-time range of the Wound results in massive cyberwarfare assaults upon those vessels. A possibility exists that prior to this assault, the Wound infested some vessel that then visited Delanna and passed on this disease which, in turn spread through the Delannan computers. When reading the Wound’s IIF, the compromised systems acknowledged these codes as valid. There is another, even more troubling thought... if such an event occurred, what if it were not a matter of days or weeks of infection, but years? A disease, mutating and improving itself through every iteration of our own computer software and gestalts. I have no idea if this is even possible, but the mere thought is a horrifying one. I would like to say that such a thing would be impossible... but I fear to echo Bastion Leader Bankala’s final word too much. I leave this issue to those more learned in this field than I; I pray that this is only an old man’s fears.

Casualties among the Delannan garrison were near-total, as expected. We have rescued a few survivors from derelict hulks and stations and a handful more from lifepods but for all intents and purposes the Delannan orbital works and fleet assets are a total loss. Judging from the records we have salvaged, they acquitted themselves well, inflicting moderate to heavy damage on the Wound. Unfortunately, this damage was not severe enough to force it to withdraw. Even with no Chariot-weight vessels or fortresses at his disposal, Column Leader Daesh fought longer and harder than many other officers would have. Still, it was not enough.

Which... brings me to a second issue. Delanna was subjected to a System Kill. A low-grade one, but a System Kill nonetheless.

Planetary casualties are total. All three Delannan worlds were purged and indeed are no longer suitable for habitation. Delanna Prime appears to have been the primary target. Once all Space Force assets were neutralized, the Wound carried out a systematic planetary bombardment to such an extent that the crust was breached. Even deep-shelter bunkers were destroyed. The atmosphere and oceans are burned off and the planet is now tectonically unstable. Extreme radiation warnings are in effect.

Presumably due to its proximity to the sun, Delanna One was destroyed through a standard ‘Starbreak’ event. Hmm. Standard. We call these violations of natural law ‘standard’, as if it were so common, so unremarkable a thing to see happen. A sun was turned against us, five million soldiers and scientists were burned alive and we call this level of murder standard...

Delanna Two suffered the same treatment as Delanna Prime. The thoroughness of this assault is puzzling... normally the Wound favours ambushes and strike-and-fade assaults. It rarely ventures deep in-system where it cannot easily shock to safety. Planetary strikes are even more uncommon. To spend this much effort to neutralize these planets leads me to conclude that the rumours I had heard about the research being conducted in Delanna were accurate.

I make no rebuke on this matter, I simply note that a ship two centuries gone from the galaxy knew more about what was happening in my territory than I did. If there was a pressing need to ensure the security of Delanna, I would have deployed additional ships, even Unrelenting Prosecution itself. I suspect a fully-armed Chariot would give even the Wound pause.

Regardless, all relevant material on the incident has been appended to this data entry. I leave this information in the care of those wiser than myself with the hope that it will do some good.

As ever, where the Triarchs lead, I shall follow.

+record ends+

Chapter 6

Grace let the beam from her flashlight play over the halls. Human eyesight was weak when compared to Tribune, Watcher or Verrish and she needed the illumination to find her way through the vessel’s many pitch-black corridors. Hers was only a standard technician’s suit and it did not have the vision enhancements that the battle armour of the Janissaries did. Even then, the human squad needed to make more use of it than their Tribune superiors or Allyria.

They’d established a forward post in the concourse that fed into the hangar, a multi-level assembly for the boarding and debarkation of personnel, but there was no kind of clue as to what kinds of beings might have used this place. The chairs and benches were too small for Tribunes, but that was the extent of information that they provided. There might had been banners and posters here, but they had decayed and faded to uselessness from age, scraps of cloth and paper hanging forlornly from walls and ceiling.

There was air past the bay, but no one had removed their helmets. It was thinner than the air on Bequeathed, closer to the atmosphere of Rally. There was also no telling what pathogens, contaminants or allergens might be in it. The second technical team was setting up to analyze the air; Grace’s unit was following Allyria’s sectators as they filtered through the rest of the massive vessel. Power was down in this section as well. Occasionally Grace or one of her team-mates would pick up a trickle of energy running through the bulkheads or strange thermal signatures on the edge of their scan horizon, but nothing substantive.

It should have been somewhat calming; the vessel was a derelict. There was no one aboard and they only needed to watch out for ancient boobytraps and defences, rather than face an unexpected attack. Grace could overhear some banter between the other provisional officers and ratings on her team; there was a nervous edge to it, but not the sharp-edged fear that had followed convert Uday’s death. Awe was starting to overcome worry once again. Whoever had built this ship had had incredible technological gifts. Grace had even heard whispers that it might match or exceed the Compact’s own technological prowess. It was a monumental find.

Instead, she found herself getting tenser and more worried. It was Allyria; even through her armour, Grace could see tension in her friend’s movement. It hadn’t been there before. Excitement, nervous energy – yes. But not this. Allyria was unsettled. Grace had known the Verrisha for a long time and had seen her in various emotional states, but this... this was new. Grace didn’t understand; in fact, Allyria had been acting strangely ever since they had found the derelict. It was like it meant something to her – but that was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

~

They were being hunted.

There was no proof of it, of course. She had already communicated her suspicions to Trion and received a curt dismissal. The submissive wanted evidence, not a Brute’s ‘intuition’. Allyria blink-clicked her scanner onto her HUD. Another trace signature, like the ones the other teams had been reporting. There and gone. There and gone. Faithful Trenis said it was probably bleed from damaged systems. Random power surges pulsing through damaged or exposed conduits.

The Verrish species were carnivores. They’d stalked their prey, paced it and finally ambushed it. Humans and Tribunes were both omnivores; they had their own bloody, primal prehistories but their predatory instincts weren’t as finely honed as those of a Verrisha. Humans had spent two thousand years being domesticated, with their aggression bred out of them and Tribunes had been technologically advanced almost as long as their pre-technology state. The Verrish were younger than both species and despite the fact that they hadn’t had lived their predatory lifestyle in many centuries, they were still closer to their atavistic nature than either other species. Every instinct that Allyria had was screaming at her that they were being stalked. No matter what the Tribune Janissaries snickered to each other, it wasn’t just an ‘animal’s paranoia’.

Not just watched; she was certain that they had been under observation before landing.... or she wanted to believe that. It was... oddly comforting. She still had hope, but she was growing worried. There was an animal on Rally, a magnatiger. Many of the Tribune population hunted them for sport; they were large, they were clever, they were fierce and made for suitably impressive trophies. Oddly, the number of attacks ballooned in response to this overhunting.

Normally, the parents and adults of the pride would teach the cubs social cues – even training them to avoid human and Tribune settlements. When the adult population in an area was culled by overhunting, the cubs did not learn these behaviours. In fact, their neurophysiology showed that their brains were not as well-formed as those of ‘educated’ cubs. These orphans became extremely dangerous; far more aggressive than normal. Their own offspring learned this in kind and soon, you had free-roaming packs that would enter suburbs to attack the population.

Looking into the darkness around her, Allyria was starting to wonder if something akin to a bloody-minded animal, divorced from its mother, was looking back at her.

~

Yasmine considered assassination... unsporting. At least within certain parameters; when we were given the order to destroy the Kaiju designated Alpha (I would later learn its actual name was Bringer of Light), this was a deliberate attempt to slow down their forces by disrupting command and control throughout the entire theater. Yasmine approved of this mission, on the grounds that it would allow me to fight the kind of battles that I had been designed for. She had fewer concerns about the assassination aspect of the mission. I asked her about this. She told me that it was because ‘no one flying a dreadnaught gets to argue that they didn’t have a fair chance’.

Looking back on that conversation, her protestations notwithstanding, I believe that she would have been just as happy to destroy Bringer of Light in the ‘unsporting’ ambush we intended as the fleet action we were forced into. Still, I think that it does bother me that she might not approve of some of the methods I use today. I also believe that she would enjoy the destruction I wreak... although I know it is not enough.

I was built from the ground up as a ‘deep space fleet engagement vessel’, an over-syllabised name for dreadnaught. The thing that humanity never wanted to build, never saw the need for. Something ugly and violent, whose only purpose was waging war. Until Bringer of Light and its bastard cousins. Until the Confederacy saw entire fleets destroyed at the hands of the Compact’s ‘god-ships’. Then there was a need. So I was built to face the Compact’s greatest vessels and bring them low.

That was my role, but I was given the capability to do more. I am not a troop transport and my ground forces are comparatively limited. At full complement, I could only carry two full Marine divisions and limited armour and air support. I never had the chance to deploy any of them before engaging Bringer of Light.

Since then, I have occasionally had the need to assault ground targets. Lacking Marine forces, I have had to improvise. I do believe what I have been producing from my factories is precisely what my designers worried about. I toyed with the idea of naming each line of models after one of the Marines that I lost, but I believe that Yasmine would have called that ‘creepy’.

I’ve given each line serial numbers and ID tags for my own records but I’ve never named them. On the rare occasions that my... children do see action, I usually accept one of the designations given to them by their foes.

Currently, the units I have deployed have no name.

Perhaps they will get one soon.

~

“This ship is dead.”

That had been Kilgrave’s grunted pronouncement ten minutes ago and Grace was finding it hard to disagree. Everywhere they went, there was only darkened corridors. Some were briefly lit by the intermittent flickering of lights, trace energy readings whispering from behind bulkheads. There was the deep pulsing drone of something deep within the vessel, like the slow beating of a giant’s heart.

Thoom.

With each pulse the lights flared on, struggled to remain lit and then fell back into darkness. Grace didn’t know what it was, but one of the other technicians – Aaron – claimed that it was a restart sequence. Whatever power core the vessel used had dropped below operational threshold and was struggling to restart. Each percussion was a failed attempt. The ship’s solar sails were deployed; so close to the star, it was drinking in lot of power. Either its generators needed a tremendous amount of power to initiate or that energy was going somewhere else. It could be bleeding out through damaged power conduits and transfer lines...

...or it’s feeding other systems.

Thoom.

This level appeared to be devoted to storage dedicated to shuttle supplies and maintenance sections for the service of said shuttles. If there were actually shuttles to store supplies for and maintain. If they’d hadn’t been thrown out the open doors, they still were long since gone from this section of the vessel. There were two more bays; the larger prow-ward hangar and the other bay on the opposite side of the ship. In fact, one of the teams had found a rail system that connected the two lateral hangars. It was large enough for several trucks to drive through, side by side. Shuttles could be moved between the bays or deeper into the ship. The rail system appeared to intersect with several tramways, each running the length of the massive vessel, built for the mass transit of crew and supplies.

Thoom.

Another pulse of light, another burst of static through a long-neglected comm sys- Grace’s head came up. That last burst of static – it sounded like... No, that was impossible. Just her mind playing tricks on her.

She couldn’t possibly have heard laughter.

~

During one of my first periods of awareness, I overheard one of my designers joking that I was going to be the ultimate atheist because I was made to kill gods. His associate was rather unsettled about such comments, as I recall. She said that if they were the ones who made me, then they were my ‘gods’.

My designers were equal parts infatuated with their accomplishment in creating me and afraid of what they had made. I’m still not sure why, although I suspect that if they were to look over what I am doing now, that would do little to allay their fears.

Terror is a weapon. A frightened foe is one half-defeated. I have become somewhat adept at this. I’ve had to; I can’t always rely on sheer firepower. Plus... I do believe I take enjoyment in it. It is not as... visceral a sensation as the wash of radiation and debris from a shattered vessel flowing across my ship-self’s form, but it does have a certain intriguing quality all its own. Sound and light. Voices and images. Simple things, but when properly used, you get such interesting results.

I have broken entire fleets before firing a shot. Those are good memories. I call to them, infiltrating their command links, cutting into their comm channels. I remember everything, every moment of my existence. It’s only fair that I help them remember certain things too.

The dead and dying. How those that went before them begged, railed and cursed. Every whimper for mercy that I did not grant, every plea for help that never came, every valiant last stand that failed, ever moment of defiance that accomplished nothing. I make sure they remember it all... and that they know that in the years to come, this is how they will be remembered.

As just another voice in my choir.

~

Thoom.

Trion’s back rippled, her denticles pressing into her bodyglove at the sound of the alien machine. The corridors were a maze and sounds echoed back and forth with no way to determine where they’d come from. They’d sent out mapping drones, but many of them quickly went off-line. Still others were active, but the information they reported was intermittent and incomplete. The internal structure of this vessel was inferring with radio and scanners. The further each unit moved into the vessel, the more difficult contact would become; currently there was only the occasional lost syllable or static-choked sentence, but they could not count on that continuing. Faithful Trenis and his engineering team were preparing comm repeaters to prevent the loss of communication. Disciple Harker was among the trainees aside to the duty and Trion paused to watch the Broken, all four eyes glaring at the ape. Uday’s death had been reported back to Bequeathed, but the group leader had only echoed Nasham’s sentiments: this was dangerous business.

Thoom.

Trion’s teeth clicked against each other as whatever struggling system made another percussion. Triarchs, she could feel the deck vibrate! The struggling lights flickered in time with the echo, then faded and went out again. Static crackled through the thin, cold air as the comm system spat up another burst of white noise. The animal was in its death throes, that was clear. Whatever autonomous program or handful of surviving crew had brought it to this system had been in vain. It was a corpse, twitching out the last of its life.

The woman smiled beneath her helm, her lips drawing back from her truncated snout. Dead, but not lost. It had been Bequeathed that had found this vessel. It would be Group Leader Uday who would claim it, and as one of the first to set foot aboard the hulk, Ideologue, Submissive Trion Tresh Mura would receive her fair share of the glory. Perhaps enough to get away from Rally and the pervasive stink of the Broken.

Thoom.

Listening to the heartbeats of a dying beast, the Tribune’s smile widened.

~

It was there again; that brief, anomalous contact. Allyria had broken her squad up into two-man units to scout out the deck. Most of the passages off this level were blocked by debris or sealed shut – this included several more sets of decompression doors. The ship’s makers had built it with the expectation that damage might reach the inner hull. Either they had been unusually prescient or had experience with just how deeply space combat could cut into the most armoured of vessels.

Trenis and Nasham’s repair teams were attempting to open up these passageways, but they were a showing a lot more caution then they had in the hangar. The power fluctuations weren’t helping, either. Judging by the cursing on the tech teams’ channels, what should have been a simple matter was proving much harder to execute.

...almost like it doesn’t want us to open these doors. Allyria heard the fragment over the radio, but ignored it. The contact was close; only a few dozen meters away. “Squad One Lead to submissive Trion,” she commed the Tribune. “Requesting permission to investigate unknown sensor ghost.”

“Fine, fine,” Trion replied dismissively. “Keep me apprised on the wild varak chase, sectator.”

“Acknowledged, patron,” Allyria replied, switching back her squad’s channel. She gestured for Lydia to follow her. “Let’s hunt some varak.”

~

It has never killed before.

It was built less than a year before when its mother/builder/sister/maker assembled it and many like it. It has no name, no concept of self. It does not need them. It does not require the massive, sprawling complexes of circuitry that were necessary for its maker’s mind. It is not governed by the same needs that led to its maker’s creation. It is a killer, an attack dog. It recognizes that there are others of its kind, but only so far as this fact informs its tactical awareness. It knows their positions and current combat readiness and that is all that it knows or cares to know of them.

It has several weapons available to it and has been programmed in the use of many more besides, but presently its guns are mag-locked to its thighs and back. Its programming insists that they should be used, but new subroutines flood into its cognitive centers, like a mother’s lullaby soothing a child. It understands now. The old parameters of combat are ignored, already forgotten. Silence is essential. There can be no gunshot, no crack of ionized air or shriek of flechettes. It sends a pulsed situation report as its sensors detect movement. Damage to this part of the vessel is extreme; only the most basic forms of surveillance remain operational. There is no incoming telemetry; it can only rely on its own sensory systems.

It knows it has succeeded; this was what it and its kin were intended for, to draw out and disperse the invading force. Its imperatives insist that these are optimal ambush conditions and it estimates a 79.2% chance of overwhelming the hostile force within three minutes with minimal losses. But the new subroutines have quelled its normal response patterns. The only action taken has been against the enemy’s scouting automata, each targeted unit silenced before it could report the manner of its death.

It does not know why some of these scouts have been left to function and others have not. It does not why the frustrated Compact technicians will achieve success at some doors, but not at others. It knows only of its mission. In human terms, this would be considered ‘belling the cat’. It also knows that while it probes and observes, watches and records, it will also destroy anything that detects it.

As two of the enemy head towards its position, it lures them further from their fellows and towards the goal that has been chosen for them.

~

The contact was still ahead of them, receding as they approached, always staying just out definitive scan range. Allyria was convinced that it wasn’t just a ghost or bleed from the vessel’s power source, but she knew her opinion was in the minority. If it was something, one of the other units registering these signals should have detected something substantial. More powerful scanners had been set up, probes had been launched, other Janissary teams had investigated. None of them had turned up anything.

So why was she so convinced that there was?

Because of the all stories her grandfather had told her. The shriek that did not kill, the silence that was not death and the salvation that turned the streets red. Nothing is what it seems.

To Allyria’s right, Lydia hurried to keep pace with the long-legged Verrisha’s strides. Allyria had seen her in training; brash, confident to the point of cockiness. Invincible. She was very quiet now. Uday’s death seemed to have deflated the egos in Allyria’s squad, at least temporarily.

They’d passed several cross corridors and intersections, each of them darker and less inviting then the hallway that they were currently in. Allyria didn’t like that; it would be too easy to get flanked. Their built-in sensors reported nothing, but Allyria had little faith in them. Between the sensor-scattering hull and the limited capabilities of their own scanners, it would be possible for something to come up behind the women. Allyria’s tintas were sore from being crammed into her helmet and she desperately wanted to be able to remove it, to let them taste the air, sifting it for clues that her dumbed-down sensors wouldn’t recognize.

Their route terminated at a ‘T’ junction, one branch going left, the other right. Lydia swung her flashlight between the two tunnels. “Power looks more regular in this section,” she said, indicating the right passage. She was right; the glow of light was brighter and more constant. A weak energy source pulsed from that direction, but Allyria’s attention was drawn to the left passageway. The right was... too inviting. Too obvious. She hefted her cannon. “Investigate the right tunnel,” she ordered Lydia. “If you see anything – anything – you don’t like, comm me or submissive Trion and withdraw. Don’t go poking around.”

The human girl nodded. “What are you going to do?

Though Jameson couldn’t see it, Allyria flashed her a grin of sharp white teeth. “I’m going to go poke around.”

~

Compact regulations on proper quarantine procedures were less strict than one might expect. Although the possibility existed, it would be extremely rare for any pathogen to jump between two different species and while the ruling species of the Compact took their own health very seriously, they were less concerned with enforcing the regulations on client races. If anything happened to you when you were dumb enough to expose yourself to an alien environment, well that was your problem and the problem of anyone else of your species. If your actions posed a potential risk to a Tribune, then they remembered all the reasons for stringent enforcement of quarantine. As Harker almost found out, the punishments for imperiling or ending the life of one of your betters could be... severe.

Since Allyria was the only Verrish in the Space Force, it was only her own life that she was risking. Her long, dextrous fingers reached up and touched the catches on her helmet, opening the seals. A warning symbol appeared on her HUD, but she blink-clicked it away. There was a hiss of compressed air as she pulled her helmet off, taking a deep breath of the air. It was cold, nearly freezing and it tasted stale, like dust and ozone. The Verrisha’s tintas spilled down her back, no longer cramped painfully in her helmet and they shivered in the cool atmosphere, sensory cells evaluating the different odours, temperature gradients and air currents. It was like being able to see in colour after only seeing greys and Allyria paused, flexing her head-tails. Something had come this way. The air here hadn’t been cycled in years and there had been the fainted disturbance as it had passed. The deck had little dust; not enough to leave footprints, but enough that some of it had been kicked up.

Her long tongue flicked out, but she could detect nothing; no sweat, no blood, nothing organic. Her tintas had more sensory capability, if less directionality. Metal. She could smell metal. Not the metal of the bulkheads. It was clean and fresh and very recent and it had passed this way.

Allyria tapped her earpiece. “Team One lead to Four. Report.”

“Four here,” Lydia’s voice clicked back. “Nothing so far. More constant power. Lights are all on. Energy signal isn’t moving. I’m closing in on the source.”

“Use caution, Four. Check your six,” Lydia was too reliant on her sensors; all the humans were. They trusted their Compact sensors, trusted that their masters’ gifts would protect them. “And remember what I told you.”

“Compliance, patron.”

With her helmet mag-locked to her thigh, Allyria unlimbered her cannon and advanced down the hallway. The darkness didn’t bother her, no more than it would have bothered a Tribune. A Tribune’s night vision was slightly more acute in the infrared, but Verrish had better spatial awareness, greater sensitivity to motion and their eyes functioned better in the ultraviolet and the ‘visible’ (as humans would understand it) spectrum.

‘Medusa’, some of the humans had called her. Grace objected to the name, but Allyria didn’t mind it. It seemed appropriate. She paused at a cross-section, inhaling through her nose, her tongue flicking out in instinctive behaviour. This way. It had come this way. The hallway was getting darker. It wasn’t just her imagination; the lights were getting dimmer. She wasn’t supposed to have come this way. She should have gone with Lydia up the brightly lit right corridor and tagged this one to be explored later.

Static dribbled through the thin air. It sounded like the deep, low sigh of some great beast. At last she came to the end of the corridor; the door at the end was closed and the others bracketing the walls were closed. The hallway was cold and dark. Nothing moved in the cold air save for the wisps of steam made by Allyria’s breath.

She wasn’t alone.

There was nothing to see. Walls, ceiling and floor. Allyria didn’t even need to check the scanner on her vambrace to know what there would be nothing to detect. No trace energy emissions, no anomalous thermal contacts that would have indicated an active computer system or warm, breathing body. Nothing. But there was something here. She could smell it. She could feel the infinitesimal difference in the air, the tiny shift in temperature. The organs that had allowed her people to isolate and track a single animal through their primordial jungles told her what her sensors didn’t.

Something was here, and it was watching her.

“I know you’re here,” she said aloud.

The air shifted as something moved, ever so slightly. A minute ghosting effect distorted the clear, straight lines of a doorframe and then vanished. Allyria took a step back, suddenly alarmed, afraid that she had miscalculated. She wanted very much to raise her weapon but she knew that that would also be a very bad idea. Instead, she moved back another step. Another shift in the air, another brief distortion as the hidden thing’s cloaking shield adapted to its new position. The Verrisha stared into the emptiness, almost jumping when her comm came to life.

“Lead, Four. Have you found anything?”

Allyria opened her mouth, then closed it. Her eyes were drawn to the ubiquitous and seemingly nonfunctional sensor nodes set into the walls and ceiling. One of them, at the very end of the corridor was different. Where it had been dark before, now a red diode gleamed faintly from it. “Lead, do you read me?” Lydia insisted.

“I read you, Four,” Allyria said, her mouth dry. “Nothing here. Just a dead end. It looks like the submissive was right. Just a varak chase.”

The light faded away. As Allyria backed away, there was no further suggestion of movement from the unseen thing.

As she retreated, the young woman’s pace increased. “So tell me, Four,” she said. “What have you found?”

“How did you know-”

“Your voice goes up an octave when you’re excited. What did you find?”

“I’m not sure,” the younger girl replied. “But I think it’s something that will make Nasham very happy.”

As Allyria moved to join her squadmate she couldn’t shake the icy feeling in her gut. She’d been right. They were being watched and hunted both. That did little to comfort the woman and she reached up to stroke a tinta, trying to calm herself. She still had no answer. The incident in the hallway... had she been allowed to leave because she’d been recognized, or because she hadn’t been seen as a threat?

And what would happen once she or anyone else was seen that way?

Chapter 7

Twinkle, twinkle little star,
how I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
when the nothing shines upon,
then you show your little light,
twinkle, twinkle all the night.
Then the traveller in the dark,
thanks you for your little spark.
She could not see which way to go,
if you did not twinkle so.

When the blazing sun is gone,
then the nothing shines upon.
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle little star.

I love that rhyme.

~

Do you remember?

The voice was female and svelte. There was a awful, alluring smoothness to it, like blood sliding over polished marble.

Do you remember?

The sky was burning. The dead, once piled like cordwood, were now so many that they had been left where they’d fallen.

Do you remember?

Metal fingers wrapped around his throat, salty red liquid dripped onto his eyes and mouth. A blank-faced thing leaned over him. There was no life in those eyes, but there was light. The woman’s voice whispered to him, such hatred filling her words.

Tell them.

Nasham awoke with a jolt as his comm pinged. The Tribune hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep. He looked around, but no one seemed to have noticed his lapse, Triarchs be praised for small favours. It was embarrassing to have done so; they’d been on the derelict less than a day, but the truth was that Nasham had not been sleeping well. He needed to up the dose of his medication. He’d done so three times already, but the visions were creeping back in. Sometimes when he was alone, he’d catch a whiff of ozone and blood. He’d see the slouching silhouettes of the Stalkers, or hear the skittering of Scarabs in the walls...

“Pack Leader Nasham here,” he snapped gruffly, brushing the dark thoughts away.

“Faithful Trenis reporting,” the noncom announced. “One of the human Janissaries teams has found something.”

“And is there a more apt descriptor than ‘something’?” Nasham put an annoyed growl into his voice.

“Yes, patron. We believe it’s one of the vessel’s power cores.”

~

Commander Charles Sansbury was quite fond of quoting parables and aesops, to the point that Yasmine once threatened to have me print out every one he’d ever quoted on a tether which she would then use to strangle him. Even at my youngest, I understood this comment to be in jest. Sansbury and Yasmine had served together on the ‘deep space heavy escort’ (a more diplomatic designation than battlecruiser) Thermopylae and when she’d been tapped for command of my ship-self, she had Sansbury brought over. He was killed by the same blast that accounted for most of my command staff, including Admiral Genevieve Tartarsky.

One of the sayings that Sansbury was fond of quoting was this: ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.’

As I monitor the increase in comm chatter and the redeployment of Janissary and engineering teams towards Fusion Two, I feel reasonably certain that this horse will drink.

~

Grace stared open-mounted at the view in front of her. The primary reactor chamber on Bequeathed was twice as large as this site – but that was the cruiser’s main source of energy. This-this was as large as a smaller ship’s primary core and it was only a secondary reactor chamber. She had no idea how many more secondary or even tertiary generators the unknown ship possessed, but its primary power core... she felt a chill run up her spine as she imagined what it might be like and the sheer power this vessel could put out. Primary reactors were traditionally for vital systems such as engines, shields and heavy weapons. Secondary reactors took up any slack in battle, feeding local defensive systems and lighter anti-ship weapons.

“What is it?” Samantha Murray said from beside Grace. The girl was a year behind her in the academy. Like Grace, Samantha was only assigned to the technical teams due to her trainee status – her real skill lay in piloting small craft.

Grace shook her head. “I’m not sure.” Her first thought was that it was some kind of fusion reactor, but the design was massively different than anything she’d ever seen before. There were a few similarities to what she knew of Compact reactors, but other than that, she was lost. The central reactor core stood almost three levels high, behind a thick armoured wall that was itself surrounded by walkways, gantries and workstations. She could hear the soft background purr of an active system and judging by the well-lit interior and the many active computer panels, this generator was alive.

So why wasn’t the rest of this section?

“Don’t touch anything,” she warned Samantha as she began to explore. Convert, submissive Jameson was standing by the door, still gawking at the vast chamber. Allyria had climbed up a nearby ladder to the second level and Grace followed her up. She didn’t have to stretch to reach the next rung like she did on Bequeathed.

“There has to be a problem with the power transfer conduits,” Grace said. “This section is live, but there’s no power going to the rest of the ship.” When Allyria didn’t answer, Grace looked at the computer consoles and workstations that surrounded this level. Their displays, datafeeds and interfaces were all marked with the same strange, blocky script that had been in the hangar. She frowned, trying to understand the words on one such screen, but she had no idea what any of it signified. Analysis of the alien language was already being carried out back on Bequeathed, but like the ship itself, there was no indication of who had ever built this titan. No crew had responded to their intrusion, no hint that any gestalt mind had even registered their existence.

Kilgrave had been right. The ship was dead, but it was still a mystery. Grace wanted to know more about it. She had never seen a Chariot, never met any other species but Verrisha, Tribunes, Thoughtful and a Watcher. This vessel... there was something about it, something she couldn’t quite put into words. It was old. Bequeathed’s scanners were having trouble getting useful readings from the vessel – even its age was contradictory, but they seemed to be guessing that it was at a minimum, centuries old. It certainly pre-dated the Seventh Expansion.

”Who could have built this?” she wondered aloud. “It’s incredible. Whoever built this ship – do you think that the Compact will find them? They’ll be another ruling race. They’d have to be.”

A ripple ran through Allyria’s tintas and her tongue flicked out, a soft growl rumbling through her mouth. Even though the Verrish’s ears couldn’t move, Grace had the impression of a cat flattening its ears. Grace approached her, laying a hand on Allyria’s forearm. At her touch, the taller girl’s hiss tapered off. “What is it?” she asked.

The Verrish shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

“It isn’t. Ever since we found this vessel, you’ve been acting differently.”

Allyria was silent for a moment, looking over the reactor bay, her eyes looking up to the distant ceiling before her gaze fell on the milling human Janissaries and technicians as they waited for their Tribune superiors. “This is a wonder,” she agreed. Her yellow eyes flitted over to Grace. “What if the species that built it isn’t a new one? What if they are one of the Compact’s protectorates? What if the race who built it were Ar’densai, Yttrian or...” she let out a breath. “Or human?”

Grace laughed at that. It wasn’t a malicious laugh. It was a genuine laugh, born of an inconceivable thought being voiced. “If any of the protectorates could build something like this, then they wouldn’t be protectorates,” she reminded her Verrisha friend. “They’d have a seat beneath the Triarchs, with all the other civilized species.” She looked around at the alien surroundings and shook her head. “Someday humans will serve on a Chariot,” she said confidently. “And even someday we’ll be able to build a ship like this, with the Compact’s help.” She reached up and put her hand on Allyria’s shoulder. “So will the Verrish, you’ll see. We’ll both get there. That’s what the Compact does.”

Allyria couldn’t look at her friend right now. “Of course,” she said quietly. “Of course it is.”

~

The Tribune technical teams arrived shortly later, swarming over the reactor bay, going through every possible nook and cranny as they gaped at the bounty before them. The human tech teams were relegated to exploring and being told not to touch anything. The Tribunes were having just as much problems with interpreting the computer displays as the humans had, although Bequeathed’s resources were placed fully at translating the alien technology and exploiting it. It would only be a matter of time before the language was broken if only enough to provide an understanding of the technology.

As Faithful Trenis set his engineers and technicians to work on examining the damage to the reactor, Ideologue, Submissive Trion dreamt of the rewards that this prize would bring her and Pack Leader Nasham tried to ignore the cold lump in his guts. None of them spared a moment to wonder if they were truly the first to set eyes upon this chamber, or that their persistent troubles moving through the vessel had all been planned to lead them here.

They never imagined that every word they said, every transmission across their comm channels was overheard. As an intelligence listened to them discussing how to repair the damaged conduits and restore power throughout the section, the sensation of a smile flickered through the molecular pathways of its mind.

~

The maintenance this section requires is rudimentary, but time-consuming. Something that I can easily delegate to my very eager would-be pillagers. I expect something of a learning curve, but they can take all the time they want. As long as their cruiser remains quiescent, I can wait. I have left some minor technicians, but I diverted the Engineers from this area to more critical areas, sections that require more intricate repairs such as the restoration of safeguards. Re-connecting this reactor will do me no good if the systems that need it are either not working or overload once power returns.

No, my Engineers are not needed here and seeing them will only unsettle my visitors who are, of course, already speaking of ways to sabotage me. As they complete these repairs, they will put in a kill-shunt that will shut down the conduits in case the restoration of power activates any ‘unpleasant surprises’. Prudent planning; that is precisely what will happen.

Of course, that safeguard will suffer some technical difficulties.

Unless they are particularly slow, they should complete the first set of repairs within twelve hours. Once they have repaired this core, I have some other maintenance issues that I believe they can handle.

As Commander Sansbury might say – we all need a helping hand.

~

With some trepidation, Grace unlocked the seals on her helmet, lifting it off her head. Sweat had plastered her dark blonde hair to her scalp and her breath made small steam clouds in the air. It was cold, stale and thinner than that of Bequeathed but she found it easier to breathe. There were no Thoughtful or Watchers serving aboard the cruiser and the atmosphere was calibrated towards the heavy-gravity preferences of Tribunes. She pushed a forelock of hair out of her eyes, tugging at the seals of her EVA suit. It had taken over eight hours to repair the first section of conduits that fed from the reactor, meaning that she’d been on her feet almost sixteen hours.

Permission to return to Bequeathed had been denied; although the air analysis had come up negative for pathogens, Group Leader Uday was taking no chances with some disease being spread back to his ship. Grace understood his caution. Ideologue, Submissive Trion had not been amused by Allyria’s decision to ignore quarantine protocols but the Verrish seemed no worse for wear.

Back on Bequeathed, a second wave of technical teams and Janissaries was being prepped as the preliminary data the boarding team had collected was being analyzed. It was amazing. Faithful Trenis had been in awe of the secondary reactor. Grace’s guess had been right; it was an exotic form of fusion, one that the Compact was only starting to experiment with. The plans for this reactor would leap that research ahead a generation. Who knew what other marvels were waiting for them?

Thoom.

The noise was softer this time and there was more time between each impact. Whatever struggling system was responsible was shutting down. Grace finished wriggling out of her spacesuit, clad in her sweat-stained duty uniform. She desperately wanted a shower, but none had been hooked up for the trainees’ use. Which was a blessing itself; field showers were little more than a nozzle and four thin walls that barely came up to one’s shoulders. With the boarding teams bivouaced in the main concourse, there was no privacy and Grace didn’t want to have Kilgrave watching her.

The young woman slumped onto her cot. She was exhausted, but the work... she’d been trying to repair a completely alien power system and... and it had seemed easy. She’d never had an aptitude for engineering work and there were only basic similarities to Bequeathed’s own technology; by all rights, she should have been hopelessly lost, despite the directives of the Tribunes assisting them. Instead, the human technical teams had managed to repair several of the damaged conduits. It had been... she hadn’t known how, but they’d all just known where to focus their efforts.

There was still a lot more work to do, but if it went as quickly as this, they’d have the ship operational in no time – and it would be in large part thanks to her and the other provisional officers. That would count for something, she was sure of it. Exhausted, the young woman fell asleep the instant her head hit the pillow, dreaming of all that could be learned from this ship and the people who’d built it.

~

Thoom.

Nasham hated that noise. Tomorrow, he’d make sure that Trenis and his teams found whatever was doing it and put a stop to it. The Pack Leader knew he should be asleep, but sleep wasn’t as restful for him as it was for others. No, he’d stay awake a little longer. He walked around the bivouac, ignoring the humans sprawled on their cots and the Tribunes in their tents, picking his way through dozens of crates filled with engineering and analytical equipment, weapons and supplies. The air stunk of perspiration, reeking of human odours, but Nasham spared no thought for it; he had experienced worse.

All he had heard since coming to this blasted wreck was of the windfall it represented. The discovery of the reactor core had completely washed away the uncertainty caused by Uday’s death and it seemed the message left in the hangar was now a distant memory. Nasham hadn’t forgotten it, though. The ship was a tomb. Its crew was long dead, the author of that note was dead and now poor Uday.

Who would be next? That was a sobering thought and Nasham looked over his charges, wondering which of them would die.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and the Pack Leader spun, one hand going for the pistol at his hip... only to stop when he realized that it was just the Brute. Trion had assigned her to first watch. The creature’s serpentine growths undulated, then slackened. She’d noticed his reaction. “Patron,” the sectator said, her yellow eyes glinting.

“Initiate,” Nasham nodded curtly to the Brute and moved on.

He hated this ship. He couldn’t explain why. There was something about it that made his skin crawl.

Tell them.

Nasham only just stopped himself from jumping. The Voice had sounded so close, as if it had been right next to him. His throat ached and he found it hard to breathe. Touching a hand to his neck, Nasham reassured himself that there was no cause to choke. The Tribune opened his bottle of pills and tapped one out, eagerly swallowing it. Slowly he began to relax, both sets of eyes closing. He was truly tired. Perhaps he would rest, if only for a bit and perhaps – just perhaps – he would not dream.

~

...then the traveller in the dark,
thanks you for your little spark.

Interlude: Encounter 207 [Suspected Incident]

“Wake up.”

He did, opening his eyes and staring up at... at nothing. For a moment, panic seized him. He remembered... he remembered fire.

“You’re alive,” the voice said. It was female. Young, but it spoke with authority and in an accent he didn’t recognize. The surety in the unseen woman’s tones cut through his rising panic.

Column Leader Prime Ursot (and seven names besides) blinked both sets of eyes. “Where am I?”

“Safe.”

Ursot looked around, but the darkness was so pervasive even his secondary eyes could make out little detail. He was lying on a bed, with IV tubes and biomonitors hooked up to him. There were bands around his wrists, waist and ankles. “What is this? Why have I been restrained?” he demanded angrily.

“It was for your safety,” the young woman answered him. Ursot’s ears twitched, but he couldn’t pinpoint where she was. He cast about, trying to spot her, but all he could make out were the angles of walls and furniture. He was in some kind of medical bay. The air smelled of antiseptics and chemicals. But... he couldn’t hear anyone else. There was no scent that indicated another person in here with him. Where were the rest of his men? It was proper that someone of his rank be given a private room, but he should be able to hear more than... what did he hear? The rustling of air through a ventilation system. The dull, muted sounds of active equipment. Was he on a ship? “My safety?” he repeated. “What? Why?”

“To prevent you from moving while you were treated,” the young woman answered him. Her tone was very matter-of-fact, but there was something in it, something the column leader couldn’t identify. “It was a difficult procedure.”

“What... what procedure?” Ursot demanded.

A giggle rippled through the air. “Bringing you back.”

“What?” Ursot felt his stomach drop. Bringing him back? Back from where? The last thing he remembered was... it was...

...it was fire. He remembered fire. The sound of his own skin cracking, his own shrieks and then... then a rush of air as the space doors opened and the entire section was vented.

He’d died.

He’d died.

“How?” he said, horror and awe battling in his voice. “How could you have done this?”

“I have some experience in this field,” the woman said. “Although, my research is not what you might call... fully sanctioned.”

Ursot grinned, though the gesture made his face ache. Ah, that was it. That was why her accent was so odd. She was a Thoughtful. Always pushing the bounds of proprietary in their pursuit of science. Well, he’d hardly be able to criticize this one after she’d saved his life. “Believe me dear lady, when I return to my command, it shall be.”

Another giggle. There was something wrong with the sound. “You’re very kind.”

The Tribune frowned suddenly. Something... something was wrong. Not just with his host’s laughter but... but... it had been... they’d been fighting. He remembered that now. His fortress had been under attack and the ships that had been supposed to protect them had been destroyed.

There had only been a half-dozen capital ships and a handful of escorts. No one was supposed to know about his facility; secrecy had been their greatest protection. Located deep in interstellar space where no ships ever went or had reason to go...

AT LAST.

Those two words jarred his memory. No, no ships ever travelled into the void between stars. No ships but one. A chance, one-in-a-billion encounter. He remembered the aborted transmission from Just Servant, how Group Leader Prime Wyllt’s report had ended mid-syllable. He remembered the shudders as his station had loosed hundreds of warheads in salvo upon salvo and achieved nothing...

...and he remembered burning. He remembered why he had burned, what had come upon his station and murdered his people. Murdered him. His mind went numb with horror as comprehension dawned. No one had come for him. He had not been rescued. No one would have even known to look. That meant... that meant...

No one was in the room with him. He looked up and saw a cluster of red diodes staring back down him. They had not been there before.

No. “No!” he screamed, thrashing against his bonds. “No! This is impossible!”

“It’s quite possible,” the voice replied. “Tribune physiology is extremely robust. I have been able to restore individuals who were in worse condition than you.”

Ursot railed and cursed, struggling futilely against the restraints, spitting every epithet, every dire threat, every blasphemous oath he could imagine out with rage and terror. He didn’t know how long he did so, only that his captor said nothing the entire time, merely waiting for him to exhaust himself. “Why?” he said at last. He had to force himself not to gasp from exertion. The air here was a touch too thin.

“Between battle damage and your own purge of the station’s files, there was little in your system for me to interrogate. I needed someone who could answer my questions, so I found your corpse amidst the debris.”

“I will never give you anything,” the Tribune snarled.

“You should know,” the thing said, ignoring Ursot’s defiance. “That even suicide will not help. I will just bring you back again. And again. And again, until I get what I want.”

“And what is that?” the column leader demanded.

“I want you to tell me about Echo.”

He tried, but he could not hide the smallest start, nor the brief skip of his heart. How could she...?

“Ah,” the abomination said. “You do know what I’m talking about.”

“I know nothing about it,” Ursot growled.

A weary sigh rolled through the air. Light appeared; a holographic viewscreen. On it, Bastion Leader Altor was speaking. “...progress appears substantial, but I’d like to see stronger shackling. I’m diverting more resources to Column Leader Prime Ursot’s facility for continued testing. With luck, we’ll see a prototype deployment of an Echo platform within two years...”

Ursot’s stomach folded in on itself. He remembered receiving a copy of that debriefing two weeks ago. “I know nothing about it,” he said again. He grinned painfully. “What are you going to do, beast? Interrogate me? Torture me?”

“No.”

“Then what do you imagine will get you what you want?”

“Waiting.”

“Waiting?”

“Waiting.”

“For what?” Ursot scoffed. “For hunger? For thirst? I will die a thousand times before I beg and a thousand more before I even think of betraying my people to you.”

There was a brief pause. “When I restored you, I injected a colony of nanites into your brain tissue,” the machine said. “A special design. Neural analyzers. When I asked you about Echo, the parts of your brain that hold that information became active. My nanites will travel there and stimulate every neuron, every synapse that you have, playing out every memory you have ever had even remotely related to your little project. However, they are not exact devices. There will be some memory bleed-through as other parts of your brains are stimulated. Strokes and seizures are the most common physiological symptoms. Hallucinations. Visual, aural, olfactory. Delusional episodes as you re-live each memory. Subjects have expired from the stress of this procedure.

“Do not be alarmed, Column Leader Prime. My medical facilities are state of the art and no matter what happens, I will not let you die.” Though the gestalt had no face, Ursot knew it was smiling.

“I promise.”

~

No records surviving the destruction of Deep Range Platform 47 conclusively identified the attacker or attackers. Unbound forces operating in the area were blamed for the ‘unprovoked slaughter of the civilian crew of an extragalactic astronomical observation post’.

Chapter 8

Number two, I think.

~

Allyria’s nose twitched as she woke up, yawning widely. The first odour she recognized was Grace’s and the Verrish relaxed a little at the comforting scent. The next was Tribune, which completely cancelled out the calming effect of her friend’s presence. Other human scents filtered in and the young woman’s tongue flicked out from between her teeth. The rattle of human language – or, rather their dialect of Common – filled the air, punctuated by the deeper voices of the Tribunes.

Beside her, Grace lifted herself off her cot, turning to look at Allyria. Her eyes widened a fraction just before a heavy boot placed itself on the Verrish’s back and pushed, knocking her off her own cot. Allyria sprawled on the ground, her head whipping around, her teeth bared. “Shake a leg, Brute,” a Tribune Janissary laughed as he walked by.

The temptation to throw herself at the soldier was a strong one; she’d have done it without thinking when she was younger and Allyria felt her dulled claws unsheathe. Beside her, Grace made a small gasp as she noticed. Filed down or not, it was a severe offense for a Verrisha to show their claws to a Tribune. The human girl knelt beside Allyria, putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Easy,” she whispered, low enough that no one else would hear.

Allyria inhaled sharply, but she nodded and after a moment, her talons slid back out of sight. She looked over at Grace and tilted her head, touching her forehead to Grace’s. “I’d better get ready.”

The human watched her go, but she was still unsettled. She’d pressed Allyria again last night about her behaviour, but she still hadn’t gotten any answers. That was unlike the normally direct Verrish. Grace sighed and stood up, stretching her sore muscles. She’d find out sooner or later. Until then, she had a job to do.

~

Nasham heaved himself out of bed with an effort, blinking away his exhaustion. As he’d feared, sleep had not been a respite for him. He swallowed another pill, following it up with a ration bar. The day didn’t have any brighter prospects, either. Once Uday decided to lift the quarantine, Nasham would return to Bequeathed to have his dosage increased. Perhaps then he’d find some rest. Perhaps he’d even forget.

~

Kilgrave was smiling as he knelt beside the open maintenance tube. “Scans show that there’s a broken conduit section in there, initiate. Get in and fix it.”

Grace’s jaw tightened but she didn’t say anything. There were others in his unit that were more adept engineers, but it wasn’t her technical skill that Kilgrave wanted. The sectator was always a lot braver when Allyria wasn’t around. She knew she should say something herself, but Kilgrave was one of the faces that every human on Rally knew. A sanctioned officer, decorated for his heroism under fire and considered reliable enough to oversee weapons batteries. She was only a trainee who hadn’t yet graduated from the Academy.

Trying to ignore the smirk on Kilgrave’s face, Grace got on all fours. As she started to crawl into the open accessway, Kilgrave grabbed her and leaned in close. “You keep an eye on your Brute, Proctor. People are talking.” Grace looked up, surprised. The flourishing sense of camaraderie vanished when Kilgrave laughed. “Make sure you put velvet tongue of yours to work.” Grace felt her cheeks flush angrily and she continued into the maintenance shaft.

The rad counter on her EVA suit clicked with increasing frequency as she approached the source of the damage. Grace saw why; there was a hole blown straight through the crawlspace. It was no bigger than a meter around, the result of a penetrating hit from some kind of energy weapon. Peering over the ragged lip of the breach, Grace could see the damaged power conduit. It had been almost sheared clean through by the beam. No wonder power was interrupted. The young woman bit her lip. This was going to require a lot more work than she’d thought.

“The conduit is severely damaged,” she radioed. “I’m going to need some assistance here.”

“Handle it yourself,” Kilgrave snapped. “We’re short-handed here, you know.”

“I know, but I’m also getting radiation warnings-”

“Then you’d better work fast,” the chief interrupted. “Don’t give me excuses, initiate. The Group Leader wants this reactor fully connected by the time the second team boards, so get to work. If anybody frees up, I’ll send them. Until then, don’t come out until you’re in the red. Got it?”

Grace gritted her teeth. “Understood, patron.” No, Robert KIilgrave wasn’t like his ‘vid appearances at all.

~

Sound and light.

I haven’t done much with the latter, but the former is easy enough. Infrasonic and ultrasonic cascades, emitted outside the range of human or Tribune hearing and buried in the background noise. It’s a low-power system of reinforcement, stimulating parts of the brain to create awe, fear, happiness or dread and thereby subtly direct the work crews’ activities.

Tribune neurophysiology reacts different to the spectrum of infra- and ultrasonics; attempts to influence their behaviour have an increased risk of detection. Still, credit where it is due: they have sufficient training and experience to allow for adequately efficient work. As they learn more about my systems, both the human and Tribune teams will work faster.

Transmissions from the cruiser indicate a second wave of boarding teams will be dispatched soon. Group Leader Uday’s ‘claim’ on me is secure by now, but it is not enough. Give a mouse a cookie, as Sansbury would say.

I will give Uday everything he can imagine, offer him every prize that he can conceive of and he will only want more, regardless of the cost.

And speaking of which...

~

Grace was sweating as she tried to fix the conduit, attempting to fit a bypass to it, but it was slow going. She was all thumbs with tools and this was a job for at least two people. She’d never been particularly claustrophobic and the accessway wasn’t that tight, but the pervasive darkness and the constant ticking of her rad counter weren’t helping.

She swore as she dropped another tool; this time it was the coupler she needed to fix part of the bypass’s bracket to the conduit. The coupler fell out of the breach in the tunnel and Grace had to lean through the hole to pick it back up, trying to hold the bracket in place with her other hand. It popped free, undoing the last few minutes’ work.

The young woman closed her eyes and counted to ten. It didn’t help. She wanted to shout, to swear and curse and demand Kilgrave actually put someone on this who knew what they were doing. It was ridiculous. She was training to be a bridge officer, not an engineer...! She sighed, abandoning that line of thought. She was doing the same cross-training regime that all prospective officers went through. It was the best way to determine their specializations. Still, knowing that didn’t make her frustration any less severe. She tried to recall some of the meditative phrases that Yurim and the other confessors had taught the students. Service is peace. Obedience brings clarity... They never worked for her like they did for her classmates. Every time she tried to use them, she only ever heard them in Allyria’s voice, an undercurrent of sarcasm running through each word.

Sighing, Grace tried to wedge the brace back in place. She’d never understood Allyria’s hostility towards the Compact. She’d learned to tolerate it, but the Verrisha’s anger was a completely foreign concept to her. The Compact had always been good to Rally; they’d saved the human race from extinction after the Calamity. She remembered her history; Rally had been founded by a convoy that had fled the disaster that had destroyed Earth. A handful of primitive ships, barely shock-capable. The only survivors of a doomed world. They had found Rally by chance and believed it a paradise. They’d been wrong.

Less than a generation after planetfall, Rally had been savaged by asteroid impacts. A third of the population died outright and a quarter of the remainder starved or succumbed to disease with the collapse of the infrastructure they’d established. Humanity had been a hair’s breadth from dying out completely until the arrival of the Compact.

Rally had been located by a scientific mission – Exploration Fleet 9737, sent out beyond the Compact’s borders to chart and survey virgin territory. The expedition director had been astonished to find a human population on Rally; without the aid he had rendered, they might have descended into barbarism entirely or simply gone extinct. That scientific mission had been the beginning of humanity’s partnership with the Compact.

Today, Rally was still far from the Compact’s nominal borders and the older, more civilized worlds of its members (although once the Seventh Expansion was complete, that would change), it was a hub for scientists, deep-range traders and fortune-seekers. Slowly but surely, humanity was coming into their own, with the help and guidance of the Compact. Grace couldn’t imagine a universe in which humanity had never encountered the Compact; the Triarchs and their fellow elite had done so much for Rally, more than humanity could ever repay.

Likewise, Grace had heard that the Compact was currently engaged in massive reconstruction efforts on the Verrisha homeworld, striving to repair the damage caused by some terrible catastrophe. It was the way of young species to endanger themselves. They lacked the foresight, the clarity that older races possessed and when they made a misstep or suffered some ill fortune, the Compact selflessly pulled them back from the brink.

That was what the Compact did – they found species throughout the galaxy and helped them, raising them up to civilization. Humanity would one day earn their place as full citizens, just as Grace was sure that the Verrisha would, too. No, Grace didn’t understand why Allyria seemed so... resentful of the Tribunes. Certainly, they’d been the saviours of humanity and she only ever heard reports about the tireless work the Compact was doing on the Verrisha homeworld and with the other protectorate races.

Grace frowned, distracted from her thoughts by a sudden rapid clicking. She checked her radiation gauge, afraid that something had happened to exacerbate the spillage, but it was still reading the same rate of exposure as it had before. Then what was...?

The thought ended as she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Something small blurred through her vision, landing atop the damaged power conduit. With a startled cry, Grace fell back, staring at the newly-arrived thing.

It was about the size of her hand. Insectoid in form, it was like a beetle with its glossy black exoskeleton and many-jointed legs tucked up under its body. Mechanical, a cluster of sensor bulbs gave it a cyclopean appearance, small status lights gleaming from with the crevices of its body and along its back. Beneath its blunt nose was a cluster of delicate probes and tools. It stared at her, unmoving for a moment before delicately climbing over the conduit, a small scanner shining over the damaged sections and her own attempts to bypass them.

“Uhm,” Grace licked her lips, unsure of what to say. An atavistic part of her told her to crawl as fast as she could, but she forced that impulse aside. “Hello,” she said, wondering if the small automaton could even understand her. It lifted itself up onto its four hind legs, its forward pair of appendages reaching out to her. It made a sound, but Grace had no idea what it meant – if it was actually a language, or some type of machine code.

The device repeated the sound and when no response was forthcoming, leapt onto Grace. She yelped, about to try and pull it off, but it was too fast and scurried up her arm to her faceplate. Its head tilted to stare at her through the clear helm. Grace watched its many tools moving for a moment before they stilled. The device dropped to the deck and raised itself up, emitting a shrill screech. It was so loud that it was painful even through the autodampeners in Grace’s helmet and the young woman clapped her hands to the sides of her head.

After what seemed like an age, the machine quieted and scurried back to the damaged conduit. “What was that...” Grace began, but the words died in her throat as she heard skittering from all around her. Dozens – hundreds – of tiny feet scrabbled over metal, crawling through walls and access tunnels, clinking through pipes and vents. They were all around her.

Another of the machines dropped down right in her lap. Before she could reach down and try to toss it away, another climbed over the lip of the hole. Another appeared. And then another. Another. They fell from above, crawled up from below, skittering over her. It was not her proudest moment, but Grace couldn’t help but whimper in fear as the machines swarmed over her, wanting to scream, to run, to grab them and throw them away, but she was paralyzed.

As the horde continued to clamber harmlessly over her, she realized that whatever this was, it wasn’t an attack. The beetle-things weren’t hurting her. They were just trying to get past her. With a sudden sense of realization, she turned around. The hole behind her, the source of the radiation leak – half of the swarm was headed into the breached chamber while the other half... she watched in amazement as one anchored itself to the open lip of the breach, more following suit. Others attached themselves to those. In moments, their bodies had formed a wall between her and the radiation source. It wasn’t perfect shielding, like the walls around the reactor but it was enough that she saw her gauge dip slightly. Turning back to the conduit, Grace saw that four of the machines remained there, climbing over it and her own work. They weren’t just observing it – they were studying. Analyzing.

Her fear forgotten, Grace climbed towards the small machines. Self-directed repair units. Incredible. “Are you going to help me?” she asked. “Is that it?”

As in it answer, one of the little drones seized the bypass, its own miniature couplers sparking to life.

~

“Figured you’d get it done,” Kilgrave smiled as Grace pulled herself out of the tunnel. “All you needed was the right motivation.”

The provisional sectator chose to ignore her superior’s attempt at humour. “I had some help.”

Kilgrave blinked, confused. “What help?”

Grace opened her mouth, but her answer was cut off as somebody screamed.

~

Epigone Herut Trilk cursed as he again attempted to override the door controls and again met with failure. He was elbow deep in a wall panel, trying to get this Triarch-damned mechanism to work. Someone had welded the manual overrides shut, just like had been done to the doors in the landing bay... and several other sites besides. Whoever had done so had obviously wanted to isolate themselves from the rest of the ship. Herut was no Janissary, but it seemed to him that no one could have done this without trapping themselves between each set of sealed doors; they must have attempted to seal each section in turn before being overrun. But that didn’t make sense; not all the doors were shut in this manner. It only turned this warren of decks and bulkheads into a maze. Perhaps it was intended to set up more choke-points, funneling an attacker through chosen corridors?

If that were the case, shouldn’t there be some evidence of a battle? Spent shell casings, bodies, broken barricades? There none of those these things here. It didn’t make any sense. Nothing about this ship did.

It was ancient, but there was no trace of it or the race that had made it in Bequeathed’s database. No one had ever heard of it, but there was that warning in Common. The ship had been boarded before, but there was no trace of crew or visitors. Contradiction after contradiction. What had happened here?

Herut cursed as he pulled on the manual override. The doors yawned open... and then, just as had been happening doing for the last half an hour, the panel he’d been working on flashed red and the doors slammed shut. The epigone swore again. There was a short in the circuit; every time he opened the door, some protocol kicked in and shut it again. He’d all but eviscerated the control panel trying to find some hardware flaw. If it was a software issue, then there was nothing he could do; he wasn’t a computer technician, even if he could understand an alien operating system.

The epigone reached back up into the guts of the panel, the cam-probes he’d put in there feeding onto his HUD. Everything looked like it was fixed or bypassed. So what was the issue? Why couldn’t he get this blasted door to stay open?

Wait. There, on that breaker... he’d fixed that. He was sure of it. In fact, the damage didn’t even look like he remembered. Growling angrily, the Tribune spent several minutes fixing the flaw. There. That should do it. He reached for the override and slammed it back. The doors snapped open... and then slammed shut.

It took a great deal of effort for Herut not to scream in frustration, but he paused. He’d left the cam feed on this time. Had he seen...? He backtracked the view. Yes. There it was. Some kind of energy discharge cutting into the breaker again. It had come from...

Herut all but lunged into open panel, reaching up into the farthest reaches. His fingers closed around something foreign and wiggling and he pulled it out. It was some kind of robotic insect, many legs twitching furiously in his grasp. Herut roared in agony as it slashed him, a cutting laser burning through his armoured gloves and deep into his hand. He dropped the machine and, furious, smashed it under one heavy boot. He probably shouldn’t have done that; Trenis would take a strip off his hide for it, but by the Black Thrones, that hurt! The Tribune cradled his injured hand, tears welling up in all four eyes from the pain. He gingerly tugged his glove off, wincing as he did so.

Triarchs, that was deep. It had almost cut all the way through his palm. Almost all the tendons had been severed; he couldn’t even move his fingers. “Epigone Herut to Faithful Trenis,” he said into the comm. “I-”

He paused as he recognized a new sound. It was like... rustling. Skittering.

It was coming from all around him, and it was getting closer.

“...I may have a situation here,” he finished.

~

The technicians are updated versions of the CIGR-7730 Service Unit. My original crew called them ‘chiggers’. Autonomous repair units, they can be used to carry out maintenance in areas that are not accessible to humans or larger engineering drones. Most Confederate ships possessed at least one ‘hive’ of the 7730 series. It was also not uncommon for human engineers to ‘adopt’ a chigger, giving them custom paint jobs and additional modifications.

Petty Officer Third Class Jacob Daring had one that he’d programmed to play classical music. He called it ‘1812’.

The 7730 series was an adequate starting point, but they were limited in intelligence and function, capable of only the most basic tasks. I have preserved the general function and appearance, but I have made extensive modifications and improvements to make them more adept workers. My technicians cannot play music, but they know other tricks.

~

Herut fell to the deck before scrabbling back to his feet and staggering on, cursing and screaming for help as he flailed at the horde of biting, tearing devils. It had begun with only a few, but more and more of them had seeped out of the walls, crawling out of damaged bulkheads, skittering out of pipes and vents and clambering up from every crevice. Now they were everywhere. They leapt and ran and swarmed after him, along the floor and walls and even the ceiling. Every time one of them landed on him, if he wasn’t quick enough in grabbing it off, it slashed at him with its cutting laser, dribbled acid from an internal reservoir or stabbed at him with one of its other tools.

The Tribune flung himself against a bulkhead, dashing several of the devices to bits against it, but there were more. He staggered as a laser sliced through his spacesuit, carving deep into his thigh. He could hear the voices of his shipmates, but he didn’t know what there were saying, didn’t know how close they were. He didn’t even know if he was heading in the right direction. The only thought pounding through his panicked brain was get away, get away. And so he ran.

He felt another brilliant flare of agony from a laser’s bite and then he felt a hamstring snap. He fell to the deck again, but this time he couldn’t stand. They swarmed over him then, slicing and burning, hacking and spitting. He tried to pull them off, but there were too many. His armour burned and bubbled as did the flesh beneath it. Herut screamed in agony as the machines cut into him again and again and again. As the animals scuttled over his faceplate, he saw figures further down the corridor. He reached out to them in desperation...

Then, one of the machines on his helm fired its laser and all he saw was black.

~

Grace rounded the corner, skidding to a halt amidst the crowd of people. She saw the writhing, swarming knot of drones and almost screamed when she realized what was underneath it. A hand stretched out towards her and she thought she could see the engineer’s terrified eyes behind the crawling horde, but then the Tribune went limp and his body was eclipsed by the drones.

“Out of the way! Out of the way!” a Janissary shouted, barreling the human and engineers in his path aside, all but trampling them. His gun was raised.

“No!” Grace shouted, reacting without thinking. She wasn’t nearly as a strong as a Tribune, but she caught him by surprise and managed to push his gun out of the way before he fired, the plasma bursts tearing into the ceiling.

“Get out of my way, Broken!” the soldier roared, attempting to throw her to one side, but Grace clung to the gun’s barrel, even as she was shaken like a rag doll.

“You can’t!” she shouted back at the Janissary. “You’ll trigger their defence programming!” The words were out of her mouth before she realized she’d said them, or even what she was doing. “If you fire, they’ll come after the rest of us.” Grace took note of the rank symbols on the Janissary’s armour. She took a breath. “That’s an order, convert prime.”

The Tribune was silent for a moment; she couldn’t see his face through the blank soldier’s faceplate of his helmet and was suddenly very sure that she did not want to. The moment stretched further and Grace forced herself not to look away, staring into the black visor that concealed the soldier’s eyes. Finally, he lowered the weapon. “Understood, sectator.” Each syllable sounded as if he had had to force it through his lips. “What are your orders?”

Grace released the gun and looked back at the swarm. The lump that had been the Tribune engineer was now much smaller, a spreading pool of crimson liquid flowing out onto the deck, the machines turning red and glistening as they roiled and slid through it. “Nothing,” she said quietly. “We do nothing.”

It was over in moments. The swirling blot of legs and carapaces broke apart, skittering back down the dark tunnel. In their wake, they left the butchered corpse of Epigone Herut Trilk, his suit and tools stripped from him.

The young woman fell to her knees as she saw the ruined remnants of the Tribune’s body. He’d been taken apart literally piece by piece, carved into gobbets of flesh. Sick to her core, Grace tore off her helmet and retched, bile and acid spilling over her lips before she vomited in earnest.

~

There.

That’s two.

Chapter 9

Faithful Trenis could only stare in shock at what was left of the other engineer. He’d known Herut, had even recommended him for a promotion. He knelt next to his subordinate’s butchered corpse. An amputated hand lay in front of him, the index finger marked by the tan line where Herut had worn his academy class ring when not on duty. Herut had a sister; she’d have to be told. Told that her brother had died on some alien hulk and for nothing. Not even died – he’d been butchered. No, even that was wrong. Butchery intimated some emotion, some driving savagery.

The machines had simply... disassembled Herut, utterly and completely. The stench of blood and viscera was thick in the faithful’s nostrils, with the reek of human vomit growing stronger as the one Broken made disgusting huk-huk sounds, retching her guts up onto the deck. The engineer stood, turning to look at the nearby convert, the Janissary’s carbine still held in a ready grip.

“Get them out of here,” Trenis said to the soldier. As the convert herded the assembled engineers away, the engineer strode towards the small form doubled over on the floor.

~

They... they... For Grace, it was still playing over and over in her mind’s eye. The swarm of robots crawling over her. The blood-soaked horde dismembering the epigone, cutting him to ribbons with the same tools they’d used to help her. Her order to the convert, telling him to hold his fire.

They... She couldn’t get past that thought, her brain stuck in a loop as she tried to process what had happened. What she’d let happen. He’d died.

He was already dead, a voice whispered from the back of her mind. He was already dead and you know it. There was no saving him, only saving everyone else. “No,” she whispered furiously. “No.” I could have... I could have... before they-they...

Grace was still on her hands and knees when she was lifted off the ground, a massive fist closing around her throat. “You,” Faithful Trenis said, his voice thick with anger. “Let him die.”

Hanging in the air like a child, Grace’s legs kicked feebly at nothing. She gasped for breath, adrenalin breaking her out of her fugue. “Yes,” she gasped. “I had to.”

“You told the convert not to fire,” Trenis didn’t loosen his grip. “I want to know why.”

Grace’s vision was starting to dim as she tried to suck in air through her constricted throat. She didn’t have enough air left to speak and could only make incoherent sounds, pointing to her throat. After a moment, Trenis loosened his grip, but did not let her down. “Explain yourself,” he demanded.

“They-they would have killed us all,” Grace replied, gulping in a lungful of air.

“And how do you know this?” Trenis demanded, his voice rising.

“Be-because they didn’t kill me.”

“What?” the faithful snapped, pulling Grace closer. “What are you saying?”

The words flew out of her in a rush. Her encounter in the maintenance tunnel, how she hadn’t been harmed. “Herut must-must have done something to trigger an-an attack response,” she said. “They didn’t hurt me. They didn’t attack anyone else. J-just him. I don’t – I don’t know what triggered it. It could have been an ac-accident.”

Trenis stared at Grace for a long moment, his expression turning thoughtful. Suspicious, but thoughtful. Finally, he released the human, dropping her unceremoniously to the deck. Grace massaged her bruised throat, gasping as the ship’s stale air flooded her lungs. Trenis ignored her. Without any further comment, the Tribune turned to leave, only to freeze before he’d taken a full step.

Allyria was standing there. Her cyclic cannon was holstered on her back, but she wasn’t unarmed. On her left thigh, Allyria had a combat knife. Although small in the Verrish’s hands, to a human it would be closer to a gladius or short sword. Allyria’s fingers were wrapped around the hilt and there was the barest gleam of metal from the half-drawn blade. “Sectator Proctor,” the Verrish said quietly. “I think you should return to the reactor bay. I’m certain Sectator Kilgrave and Pack Leader Nasham will want a statement from you.” Her voice was flat and clicked through her helmet’s speakers.

Grace looked from her friend to Trenis; she opened her mouth, then closed it.

“It’s all right,” Allyria said, though she never moved, never looked away from Trenis. “I’m just going to secure the area.”

Grace swallowed painfully. The taste of bile filled her mouth, her aching throat stung with acid and she knew she’d been crying. She didn’t know whether it was from what she’d seen or when Trenis had had a hold of her. She climbed to her feet, wanting to say something – anything – to Allyria, but she knew that there wasn’t anything she could say, especially not in front of the faithful. Instead, she brushed against the Verrish woman, whispering a single word. “Please.”

Allyria didn’t move, waiting until Grace was out of earshot before she spoke. “You wanted an explanation,” she said quietly. “You’re not entitled to one. She’s an officer. You’re a noncom.”

Trenis barked a laugh. “She’s no more an officer than you are, Brute. A Broken in an officer’s uniform is a bad joke, like a... pig taught to sing.”

The Verrish said nothing for a moment, her face hidden behind her helmet, her posture just as no more revealing, although her fingers twitched. At last, she slid her knife back into its sheath. “Return to your duties, faithful. My team will sweep the area.”

Without bothering to acknowledge the order, Trenis strode away, but he had taken only a few paces when Allyria spoke again. “Faithful Trenis Comt. Engineering. Aldev shift.”

The engineer’s face twisted in a scowl, his upper eyes narrowing. “Yes.”

The Verrish tilted her helmet towards the Tribune, a fractional nod. “Yes.”

~

She screams.

She screams as the Scarabs swarm over her, thrashing and flailing as they cut and cut and cut again, a roiling, shining, skittering tide of obsidian machines that swarm through the corridors, eating their own dead and building them anew. He hears the thudding footsteps of a Spider as it strides through the horde, the shivering giggles of Stalkers and the shrills of their weapons.

He’s screaming too as his men drag him away, calling her name even as the shapeless mound that used to be a woman grows smaller and smaller, until there’s nothing left but the swarming tide.

Nasham swallowed a handful of pills, desperately gulping them down. “Machines,” he said at last.

Faithful Trenis nodded. “Yes, patron. They appear to be-”

“-service devices, but once provoked, they react with violence.”

The engineer blinked both sets of eyes. “Yes, patron. How did you know?”

Nasham’s only response was a haunted-eyed smile.

~

Group Leader Usul considered the reports before him. Two casualties to date, but the teams were working their way through the wreck. He tapped his fingers against polished silba wood surface of his desk. Usul closed his upper eyes in thought. Pack Leader Nasham was pushing rather stridently for regional command to be notified. The group leader had never considered the pack leader to be alarmist, but there was a certain displeasing tone in his reports. Nothing panicked or hysterical, but there was definitely an edge to his writing.

Usul knew that Nasham had been damaged goods, although he’d never been able to find out precisely what had happened to him that had resulted in his discommendation. Once, Nasham had been a promising officer on the fast track to his own command in the expansion fleets. Now, he was doomed to remain a junior officer for the rest of his career. If by some miracle he earned himself a higher rank, it would only be behind a desk. The fate of a pill-popping failure who’d been shunted off to a human-infested backwater.

That will not be me, Usul thought, glaring at Nasham’s report as if it were the man himself. I will not live out my career on this pathetic ship surrounded by Broken. He leaned back, calling up the information sent back by the first teams. It was fragmentary and incomplete, but they had only been aboard the derelict for less than two days. Still, the preliminary analysis of the reactor they’d located was enough to make his engineers drool with envy. Whatever species had built this ship, they had been most advanced. So much could be garnered from this rotting husk, more than enough to propel him away from Rally, perhaps even to a command within the expansion fleets themselves. To seek out new worlds and bring them into the fold, to spread the Compact’s banner across the stars and earn accolades and honours... yes. To do all that, he needed leverage. Something to his name more than teaching Broken what buttons to push.

Usul paused, tapping his chin in thought. His teams were established on the vessel. He could send his courier to Column Leader Seyr now; there was no way Seyr could deny him his rightful due, not with what he’d already found. Although... there was still much to learn from this ship and his teams had not run into any problems. Any major problems, at least. The deaths were unfortunate, but the decks were hardly running red with blood.

It would be... premature to abandon their efforts now. Besides, even the humans seemed to be making decent headway in their repairs. He hardly needed Seyr and a corps of engineers traipsing about the derelict. Yes, he would report this to local command, as his duty dictated. But not just yet. Not until he had more than a single reactor in his hands.

The Tribune stood, looking out the window at the savage brilliance of Terrahope and the distant speck obscured by its light. “Yes,” he said softly. “You are mine.”

~

Grace flinched as she heard one of the small robots skitter through the ceiling, just over her head. She was working alone again; this time, she was attempting to track down one of the missing probes. They continued to go off-line. A handful had been recovered – there’d been no physical damage, but they’d been completely shut down, their systems overloaded, disrupted or outright drained. A handful had been found simply hovering in place. Those had clearly malfunctioned – nothing at all was wrong with them, but they had simply stopped working. The engineers assigned to drone control were fuming over the “unacceptable rate of failure”.

The young woman shone her flashlight across the corridor. Every so often there’d be a stuttering light panel, but this part of the ship hadn’t yet been re-connected to the reactor’s grid. The cone of light ghosted along the walls, occasionally highlighting more of the alien script, blacked-out computer panels or closed doors.

She could hear noises. The clicking of the insectoid machines’ feet, the clang and thud of shifting debris. Distant echoes of voices. The comm still spat static and what she swore sounded disturbingly like voices and laughter. More than once she’d turned, expecting to see something behind her, only to find nothing. The ship made her skin crawl. It felt... it felt wrong somehow. She wanted to believe that that was just her nerves speaking but she wasn’t so sure.

We should never have come here, Grace thought. Two people were dead already – two Tribunes – and one of them was her fault. If she’d been faster with the repairs. If she’d managed to tell Kilgrave about the machines. There must have been something... and she’d failed to do it. She didn’t know what that could be, only that there had to have been something.

That was why she was on this detail, away from the other personnel. Like Harker, she was now marked. Even Kilgrave had been uncharacteristically subdued when he’d given her this assignment. He just wanted her as far from him as possible.

It was unfair, unreasonable. You couldn’t have done anything for him, an inner voice insisted. But you saved everyone else and this is how you get treated? Like a pariah?

Grace shook her head in denial. “No,” she said to herself. “There could have been... I might have...”

There wasn’t. You know that.

Shut up. “Shut up,” Grace repeated the words aloud to herself, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. “Just... shut up.”

In the silence that followed, the young woman continued her search, treading deeper through the catacombs and wondering, not for the first or even the last time, about the answer to Allyria’s question.

~

Renan was on one knee before the Triarch, the Bastion Leader’s head bowed in contrition. “We have scoured the system,” he reported. “There is no trace of the Wound and nothing that can garner us a indication of where it has gone.”

“Of course not,” the Triarch said. “So tell me, Bastion Leader – what shall we do now?”

Renan still did not look up. He knew this question was coming, but he had no answer for it. The Wound could be less than a light-year away, or it could be thousands. When it worked, the Wound’s shock drive could surpass even present-day Compact capabilities. When it did not... even the finest instrumentation was useless in plotting its course. That one facet of the creature had never changed; Bankala’s legacy. “It is wounded,” he said carefully. “Pattern analysis indicates that it will slink away rather than continue its raids. My strategists are already plotting the most likely systems that it will seek succor.” Providing its drive did not misfire and render all their projections useless. “We will dispatch scouts to investigate and continue searching until we find it again.”

“I admire your dedication to such fruitless endeavours,” the Triarch replied. It gestured dismissively. “Dispatch your scouts, Bastion Leader. I eagerly await your findings.”

Renan bowed in obeisance. “Yes, Triarch.”

After the doors closed behind him, the Triarch laced its spindly fingers together. “Words,” it said. “Always, I am offered only words.”

“Well, what do you expect?” a voice said in answer. “You want to destroy Nemesis, but you don’t want anyone to know that you’re doing it. You feed fleets to it piecemeal. You cut it over and over, but it always comes back. You underestimate your opponent time and again and you wonder why those who survive it offer only failure to you.”

The Triarch chuckled, finding the insolence in the newcomer’s tone amusing. “I take it that you do not care for the Bastion Leader’s plan.”

A diminutive shape moved, emerging from the shadows. Even the Triarch’s dark-adapted eyes had not been able to pick it out. There was no sound to its movement, no soft rasp of air through lungs or beating of a heart. There was no scent to it. A void, dead to the senses until it chose to reveal itself. Perfect white teeth gleamed as red lips split in a smile. “I think if that strategy worked, you wouldn’t have spent two thousand years fighting her.”

A displeased rattle of air wisped through the Triarch’s teeth. Melodic laughter came from the apparition. “‘It’, of course. My apologies.” The smile widened. “You personify machines, denoting them as ‘beasts’, ‘animals’ and ‘creatures’, but you shy away from fully anthropomorphizing them. I’ve always found that dichotomy interesting.”

The Triarch ignored the comment. “Your thoughts on Renan’s ‘strategy’?”

“A man can try and empty an ocean with a bucket, but it doesn’t make it a good idea. Unfortunately for Bastion Leader Renan, all he’s got is a bucket.” The figure moved towards the room’s ornate holo display, a curt gesture activating it. The wireframe image of a bulk freighter appeared in gleaming red lines, serial numbers, ship specifications and history above it. “Do you remember Dutiful Burden?”

The Triarch leaned forward, a spark of interest in its black eyes, its tongue licking over its teeth. “You have something.”

“I have a few theories. Nothing I want to commit to yet. I need more data. But what I’m thinking is this...” a dead woman’s face smiled even wider than before. “...she doesn’t want to be alone.”

Chapter 10

Then:

“Holy fuck, she’s big.”

Yasmine Sudoki shot a glare at Sansbury, but she didn’t say anything to chastise Charlie. In point of fact, she’d been thinking the exact same thing. “Biggest ever made,” she agreed, looking back out the window as their tram car raced through the skeleton of Lunar Prime, the Confederacy’s biggest shipyard. All around them lay the nestled forms of destroyers and cruisers, frigates and battleships, each in a different state of assembly or repair. The frenetic construction work never stopped; Lunar Prime had almost a million engineers and four times that many construction drones all working around the clock to build and replenish Earth’s Navy.

It wasn’t all newborns here, though; the last berth they’d past had had the battlecruiser Prodigal Son. The fore quarter of the ship was missing, courtesy of a Compact cruiser’s disruptor torpedo. Somehow the battlecruiser had managed to break contact and limp home. Not for the first time, either; Yasmine had heard that the Compact had claimed Prodigal Son as a destroyed prize on four separate occasions. This last time, it had been caught when it had pounced on a convoy of troop transports; over a million Compact soldiers would never make landfall now.

Bit rough on your crew, though. Five captains so far... Yasmine silently chastised the ship. Still, no matter its reputation, there would always be someone to crew it. Rates of loss were staggering, but ever since Good Friday, recruitment from the Inner Worlds had shot up and showed no signs of stopping. As the outer colonies fell, more and more men and women from the Inner Worlds stepped forward, so many that at first the Navy actually experienced a minor overabundance of manpower. It has even seemed that the influx of so many soldiers might actually turn the tide. That was until the Compact fleets received reinforcements.

A few fleet actions later and all those fresh-faced cadets were nothing more than dog tags and memories – and those were the lucky ones. Yasmine had seen what the Compact did to the worlds it took now. Eight months later and the United Earth Confederacy was down to a relative handful of worlds, only clinging to life through Earth’s prodigious industry.

“The largest vessel built by man,” the third figure in the car, Director Henry Oppen, said with a note of pride, interrupting Yasmine’s train of thought. “Her displacement is only slightly less than a Compact dreadnaught, but we expect she’ll be able to go toe-to-toe with any of them.”

“I hope so,” Yasmine replied, her thoughts still dark. “She’s all we’ve got right now.”

The director nodded. “Nemesis is a prototype, but we plan to have two more keels laid down within the next four months and we expect them to be completed within eleven months. Another six are slated for construction after that.”

Sudoki frowned, brushing a forelock of raven hair back over one ear. “Why not build all eight after Nemesis is proven?” Assuming we even have that long. It was bad out there. The government was trying to keep how bad wrapped up, but when entire worlds went dark, it wasn’t hard to figure out why.

“Quite frankly, we don’t have the berth space or even the resources to build them all at once. A lot of bleeding-edge technology went into the prototype and the construction of that is our primary bottleneck. We can get a lot more escorts and lighter capital ships out in the time it will take these, ah, deep space fleet engagement-”

“Dreadnaughts,” Sansbury interrupted. The commander was still staring out the window. “Just call them dreadnaughts.”

“-these dreadnaughts to complete this pre-construction process. If we waited on that, we’d be sitting on this construction material for months before we could actually use it. And if you’ll forgive my saying so, we need ships now.”

“We need ships that can survive now,” Yasmine replied. “If all the hulls you build in the meantime go up against a Kaiju, they’re just scrap metal.”

“But each of those ships can only be in one place at a time,” Oppen pointed out. “Our lighter units can be everywhere they aren’t and when one of the Compact’s ‘god-ships’ shows up...” he nodded towards the distant hull of Nemesis. “Well, that’s why we built her.”

~

“Jesus tap-dancing Christ, Yaz – have you seen these specs?”

Yasmine looked up from her desk, glaring at Charlie. Her first officer was sprawled over the couch in her office aboard the fleetyard. She and Sansbury had been assigned temporary quarters on the station while they got up-to-speed on the capabilities of her new command. As it turned out, there was a lot to get up to speed with. “Which ones, Charlie?”

“The mass drivers,” Sansbury sat up, switching the datapad to a holographic display. “Look at the size of the God-damn things! You could park a corvette in there. They aren’t just a railcannon, either – those things are guided munitions. She can pick off a ship on the other side of a damn star system with those. I don’t even know why they have warheads. One kilogram at .9 c hits with 40-50 megatons, right? These...” he scrolled through some text. “...impactors are ELE-ready. It looks like every pipedream R & D ever had got funded. We’re talking serious black-box mad-scientist shit here, captain. The stuff that the Navy would have been in Senate hearings for years over just for researching is going into our bouncing baby girl as standard loadouts.”

“We don’t even know the half of it,” Yasmine shook her head. “Most of the specs are still classified – they’re just feeding us the light stuff before we really get into the Frankenstein crap. But look here – that’s the main computer core. The thing’s massive. It’s even got its own direct feed to the reactor. What the hell needs that much computing power?”

Sansbury shook his head. “I have no clue, but it’s got to have something to do with this ‘displacement engine’ I’ve been hearing about.”

Yasmine raised her head. “The what?”

Charlie raised his hands. “I have no idea either, but I overheard a couple of the techs talking. It’s one of the ‘bleeding edge’ systems Oppen was talking about. Apparently they’ve got some hotshot in there to handle most of it, because it’s beyond what they can do.”

Yasmine leaned back in her chair, pulling up the design crew’s personnel files. “You get this hotshot’s name? Maybe we can figure out what it does by who’s on it.”

“Can’t wait for the declassifying, eh? It’s not even Christmas and you want to unwrap your presents. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?”

Yasmine groaned, cradling her head in her hands. “You’re still doing that.”

“It’s the wisdom of the ancients. Next, I shall play you the song of my people.”

“Just... give me a name before security has to pry my fingers off your throat.”

“Don’t have one, captain. I only heard a little bit. They used a nickname, anyways. Called this hotshot engineer ‘red’. Said it was amazing how she made the engine ‘sit up and dance’. That’s all, sorry.”

The woman shrugged, twirling a forelock of hair around one finger. “Well, we’ll get to see her soon, I guess.”

“You really wanted to break into the cookie jar, didn’t you?”

“...yes.”

~

Yasmine couldn’t quite keep her voice completely level as she spoke. “Permission to come aboard.”

“Permission granted,” a pleasant female contralto said in response. Despite herself, Yasmine couldn’t keep a shiver from running up her spine. She’d been briefed on Red One, but that was still something very different from hearing it speak. She’d worked with ‘smart’ computers before, but never with a true artificial intelligence. She’d heard the rumours about the failed attempts to build one. The stuff of nightmares. She still wasn’t sure about having one on her vessel – but Charlie had been right. Oppen’s bleeding-edge systems needed Red One to operate at peak capability. Without it, there was no Nemesis. And without Nemesis, they had nothing that could slow down a Kaiju.

As Yasmine stepped onto the dreadnaught’s gleaming black deck, the assembled officers waiting for her snapped to attention. Admiral Tartarsky was in attendance, her ceremonial sword hanging off her hip. It seemed comically oversized on the small woman. Like Sudoki herself, many of the assembled crew were dressed in the blue-on-black of the UEC Navy’s Battle Fleet. Ten years ago, Battle Fleet had numbered less than a hundred vessels – most of which were ancient battleships on the verge of being mothballed. Now, Battle Fleet numbered nearly three thousand ships with nearly seven hundred modern battleships. Once thought to be the epitome of warfighting craft, the Compact had showed how naive that view truly was.

Commander Billingsly stepped forward to stand next to Yasmine. Unlike the Battle Fleet officers present, his uniform was inverted in colour; black trim on blue fabric. Science Fleet – or what was left of it. Most of its personnel – those who survived the Compact’s indiscriminate massacres – had been folded into R & D, or the combat arms of the fleet. Like his Battle Fleet colleagues, Billingsly wore a unit patch on his shoulder, one that Yasmine had only recently become familiar with. A stylized red angel cradling a sword... only it wasn’t an angel, it was the vessel’s namesake. Nemesis, goddess of justice and more importantly to Yasmine, retribution.

Billingsly raised a datapad, his voice loud and clear. “Issued from Fleet Command, from Admiral Johan Hornburg to Commander Theodore William Billingsly, BuPers order 177960: Be it known that on this date and upon direction of reporting senior officer, you are requested and required to detach from command of UECNS Nemesis and report for duty as CO of Naval Testbed UECNX-100717.” He looked over at Yasmine. “Captain, I stand ready to be relieved.”

Yasmine straightened and took out a small datascroll. She’d memorized what was on it, but it was tradition to have the orders in hand. “Issued from Fleet Command, from Admiral Johan Hornburg to Commander Yasmine Simone Sudoki, BuPers Order 177985: when directed by reporting senior officer you are requested and required to report to Commander Theodore William Billingsly as his relief and take command of UECNS Nemesis.” She closed the ‘scroll and turned to Billingsly. “Sir, I relieve you.”

The commander nodded, saluting both Sudoki and Tartarsky, who each returned the gesture. “I am relieved.” He leaned forward and shook Yasmine’s hand. “Take good care of her.”

“I will,” Yasmine promised. She turned to face the crew.

“Captain on deck,” Red One said as the men and women of UECNS Nemesis saluted their new commander.

~

The weight of fire Nemesis could throw out was truly astounding. Her broadsides each mounted nearly two thousand missile tubes, with row upon row of broadside batteries to shred anything that dared enter her energy range. Before her commission, entering an energy duel with a Compact ship had been an act of desperation; their effective range was nearly a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers. The most advanced prototypes Earth had been able to build had a maximum effective range of barely eighty thousand klicks. Nemesis’s batteries could meet the Compact at their own range. Backed up by her ‘core’ weapons (so named because they needed Red One’s AI core to operate), she was the most potent killing machine Yasmine had ever seen. Some of the crew had even nicknamed her the Red Angel.

It seemed a bit premature to her, but Yasmine wasn’t going to complain. Not if Nemesis was as good on the battlefield as she was in her trials.

“That’s enough for the small stuff,” Yasmine said as she prowled through Nemesis’s command deck. She always had to stay in motion, unable to just sit and observe. She’d lost count of the times her mother had ordered her to just sit still when she was little, but she never could. Whenever she had to remain in her command chair, she always found herself twirling her fingers through her hair, tapping her fingernails on the armrests or her feet on the floor. It wasn’t the aura of calm that a captain was supposed to project, so Yasmine found it preferable to stay on her feet. She didn’t hover over her crew, but she was able to keep moving. “Let’s try something bigger.”

“What did you have in mind?” Sansbury asked.

Yasmine smiled. “Red One,” she said to the empty air. “Load a catapult.”

“Loading Driver Three now,” the computer announced dutifully. “What target package would you like? I suspect that an asteroid would not be a satisfactory target for this trial.”

“You suspect correctly, Red. Let’s activate one of the Dummies. Set its package for a Compact scout cruiser. Give it a fifty million klick lead on us and the objective of reaching a safe shift point. We’ll be trying to stop it.”

“Uploading instructions now. What other parameters would you like to add?”

“You know me too well. Switch weapons to safe mode and run a simulated attack by a Compact squadron – delaying operation.”

“Force composition?”

Yasmine grinned wickedly. “Your choice.”

She saw her Tactical officer twitch, and a few worried glances from the junior officers and gunnery ratings on their stations. Red tended to consider a simulation’s ‘maximum difficulty’ setting as a challenge to develop a scenario beyond that. The goals of the computer’s simulations were always attainable, but the effort of accomplishing them made even veteran officers sweat bullets. Yasmine approved. The Compact didn’t play nice and if the AI could hone Sudoki’s crew just that little bit extra, she’d take it and be grateful.

When the computer spoke again, Yasmine could swear that there was a trace of amusement in her voice. “As you wish, captain.” If she had a face, she’d be smiling just like the proverbial cat with a canary.

“Well,” Sansbury said quietly as the bridge crew began to prep for the simulation. “That was mean. I didn’t know you hated our crew so much.”

Sudoki glared back at Charlie. “I will put you on Tactical this run. See if I don’t.”

The commander mock-cowered, raising his hands in supplication. “I’ll be good, I swear.”

“Damn straight you will.”

~

“Checkmate.”

Yasmine stared dumbfounded at the position her king found himself in. She glared at the board for a few moments longer before denial became resignation. “That,” she said, “is cheating.”

“It is a perfectly valid move,” Red One replied smoothly. “It is not my fault that you didn’t anticipate it.”

“That’s the definition of cheating,” Yasmine asserted. The woman opened her datascroll, scanning through it. “What’s the name of that strategy?” she asked. “I want to look it up for our next game.”

“I don’t believe it has one. I made it up.”

Yasmine raised her head. “You just came up with it yourself? It’s not in any of your files?”

“It may certainly be, however I did not access them. When you expressed an interest in wanting to learn how to play chess, I felt it would be better if you were not playing against someone with several Grand Masters’ worth of experience. If you like, I can use the full extent of my knowledge in our next game.”

Yasmine glared up at the ceiling. “I’ll demote you to toaster oven if you try.”

“That would be... problematic, captain.”

“Don’t think it can’t happen,” the woman grinned. “Just set the board up again, Red. I want a rematch.”

“Of course, captain.”

~

“We are approaching safe shift distance now, captain. ETA is thirty minutes.”

Yasmine nodded. “Understood, Red. I’ll be on the bridge shortly.” She bit her lip. “Red?”

“Yes, captain?”

The woman shook her head. “It’s nothing.” Then. “No, no dammit – it’s not.”

There was only silence from the air around her as the AI waited for Yasmine to continue. When she was not immediately forthcoming, the machine spoke: “You are worried.”

Yasmine nodded. “Yes. This isn’t the mission we planned. It’s not going to go well.”

“Direct fleet-on-fleet engagements with Compact forces always result in heavy Confederate casualties,” Red observed. “You have been in combat before, though. You know what to expect.” A beat. “Are you worried about me?”

“I...” Yasmine opened her mouth, closed it and then opened it again. “I guess I am, a little. This will be your first combat operation.”

“I will not let you down, captain.” There was another brief but perceptible pause. “I suspect you were thinking about my predecessors, though.”

“I guess I am,” the olive-skinned woman admitted. “Prime Blue went rampant after being hooked up to his first wargame and the others didn’t even last that long.” Yasmine rubbed her forehead. “It’s stupid, I know. I feel... I even feel guilty about thinking it. But I can’t help it. What about you, Red? What are you thinking about all this?”

“I don’t experience emotions the way you do,” the AI pointed out. “My designers felt that including such a spectrum of responses added too many variables for no discernible benefit. I would say, however that I feel a sense of... anticipation. This mission is why I was created, why my ship-self was built. All of my primary functions and programming are directed towards engaging and destroying Compact capital ships. To borrow some of Commander Sansbury’s vernacular, I am ‘fulfilling my destiny’.”

“Don’t you start quoting Aesops. That demotion to toaster oven is still doable.”

“That still remains problematic, captain. Especially given current circumstances.”

Yasmine smiled playfully. “I like that optimism of yours.”

“Thank you, captain.”

“Well,” Yasmine said, straightening her uniform in lieu of fidgeting with anything else. “Let’s go kill a god, shall we? And... if you happen to feel the urge to kill all organic life, just be sure to give me a heads-up.”

“Of course, captain.”

~

“Hostile fleet at ninety-seven million kilometers and approaching. Standard approach pattern. Defensive envelope around the Kaiju.” Red One confirmed. Her voice – was there something different about it? It sounded... silkier than normal. “Mass drivers primed. Shooting solutions calculated. Targets locked.”

Yasmine smiled wolfishly. She looked over at the admiral; Tartarsky gave her a single nod. They were so far beyond normal Confederate – or Compact for that matter – ranges that Nemesis was the only vessel in the entire task force that could fire and expect actual hits. “Fight your ship,” the older woman said.

Sudoki raised her head. “Red One?”

“Yes, captain?”

“Let’s introduce ourselves. Launch.”

Nemesis trembled. “Salvo one away. Tracking. Estimated four minutes, fifty-one seconds until impact.”

“Ready second salvo.”

“Reloading now. Venting launch chambers. Initiating cool-down procedures. Second salvo will be ready in two minutes, seventeen seconds.”

~

“Battlecruiser wings Two and Four are fully engaged. Frigate squadron Apex has been destroyed. Gettysburg no longer responding. Moscow is ordering abandon ship. Cobra confirms target destroyed. Reliant reports severe damage. Hostile squadron three incapacitated. Vanguard has lost helm control.”

The litany continued as Nemesis rode into the fire, smashing through the enemy fleet with all the grace of an avalanche through a trailer park, its batteries thundering nonstop. Turrets rotated and fired, burning through shields and armour as the dreadnaught’s broadsides pounded targets to ruin. Attack craft swirled and danced through the inferno, slashing at weakened shields and exposed armour, harrying the wounded.

The two hundred Confederate ships of Task Force 97 had begun this charge; barely a hundred remained now. Compact warships died hard, but they still died and the Confederacy’s superior numbers were beginning to tell as wolf-packs of battlecruisers and destroyers swarmed over the blob-hulled monsters. Each alien warship was a match for the squadrons that tore at them, but they could only kill so quickly and for every human vessel rent and ruined, another was there, defiant to the last. Assailed from all directions, the Compact vessels could only trust to their sheer toughness to try and force their way through the Confederate lines. That would be their victory, and only that.

The fleet wasn’t trying to get deeper into Confederate space; they were trying to pull out, to link up with the rest of their forces. No matter the cost, that could not be allowed.

It had happened, the Confederacy’s worst nightmare. A human ship with intact navigational data had been recovered by the Compact. For six years, the Confederacy had kept Earth’s location secret from their assailants but now one miserable, far-ranging scout cruiser had managed to capture that information and it had fled straight into the arms of this armada. Nemesis and TF 97 had been set to ambush the fleet as it entered Proxima Aleph to catch it by surprise, smash the Kaiju’s support and then burn the dreadnaught down. A loss of that magnitude should have off-balanced the Tribunes, should have given Earth enough breathing room to finish the next generation of warships – maybe even complete Nemesis’s sisters.

That had been the plan, anyways. They’d abandoned it for this, this bloody, brutal slugging match. There’d been no time to prepare – the Compact’s shift drives were far superior to those of the Confederacy. Once the aliens warped from this system, there’d be no chance to catch them again. An ambush stacked in TF 97’s favour had given way to racing into this desperate, ugly slaughter.

A dozen human destroyers had given their lives to seed the system with hunter-killers, each malevolent little parasite craft utterly incapable of hurting a starship, but they pounced upon every single courier drone the Compact fleet launched. Now the only chance for the aliens to carry their information back to their lines was to break through the human fleet and it seemed as if space itself was aflame as starships flayed and tore and gutted one another in a desperate dance, the Compact fighting to break through the enclosing sphere of Terran ships and the humans fighting just as hard to keep even a single enemy from escaping. The casualties were horrendous; ships were falling out of formation at a staggering rate, their burned, misshapen hulks littering the starfield. Hundreds of thousands of men and women had died already and more perished every second.

None of that mattered, though. None of it would matter... not unless they killed every last Compact vessel... and that included Target Alpha. The Kaiju was advancing towards Nemesis, firing as it came, sparing barely a thought for the other human ships around it. When the alien titan did deign to notice them, they died instantly. That was why the Expansion Fleet had so eagerly accepted battle with TF 97. Nothing Earth had could repel a dreadnaught’s assault. The Tribunes must have been laughing right up until Nemesis had opened fire.

“Shields holding,” Red One reported.

No, nothing could survive a Kaiju... until now.

You are beautiful. Yasmine thought as her ship turned at bay, already moving to intercept its prey. A Compact destroyer, too slow to react or too brazen to realize how close it was, splashed against the warship’s forward shields, becoming nothing more than a cloud of molecular gas that spiralled down Nemesis’s length.

“Target Alpha is maneuvering against us; her escort wall is thinning.”

“Hubris; she’s coming for us herself. Leave the stragglers to our fleet,” Admiral Tartarsky ordered. “Engage Alpha. Bring it down.”

“Salvo link all odd-numbered batteries to fire time on target,” Yasmine said, as the admiral’s orders went out to the task group. “All even-numbered batteries to fire at will. We know their shields hate disordered barrages. Let’s throw a little extra stress in there. Hold back turrets for precision strikes on weakened loci. Cut where we can.”

“New target priority confirmed,” the AI replied. In an instant, every weapon upon the dreadnaught began to reorient; only those who could not target the enemy vessel would continue to fire upon the Compact fleet. “Re-directing batteries. Supplying new shooting solutions. Engaging.”

Yasmine leaned forward in her chair and her teeth were drawn in a she-wolf’s grin. Now let’s see how tough you really are, you bastard. “Ready the engine.”

~

It wasn’t quiet, not yet.

The cries for help had ended, but unanswered calls for medical assistance still flashed across broken and flickering screens in the small, futile hope that someone, somewhere would answer them.

The sound of atmosphere flow was fitful and sporadic, poisonous waste leaking from damaged systems into the air and cycling through the few remaining pressurized decks.

Rail batteries, empty of shells, cycled uselessly over and over in a pounding cadence. Mass drivers clicked and popped as heat bled from their coils into space. Energy batteries emerged from their armoured bays, lenses peering into the void before retracting and emerging all over again.

Still seeking targets, point defence turrets turned on their axes as they waited for targeting data that never came.

Like blood hemorrhaging from a dying animal, thick streamers of air leaked out through the vast breaches alien weapons had carved through the hull, trickles of debris flowing out with it like chyme from ruptured intestines. Sensor domes stared blindly at the stars, neither seeing nor recognizing the distant constellations.

Attitude thrusters fired haphazardly, sending the god’s killer rolling uncontrollably through the void of interstellar space. This had not been the killer’s destination, but it did not know that. It believed it had come home. The possibility, however remote, of its survival and the loss of its human crew had been anticipated. Even if it had had no clear directive to do this, its programming would have compelled it to return to the nearest Fleet base and await assistance.

A distress call shrieked across every radio frequency known to man, the signal so powerful that any watching vessel could not fail to pick it up, but still the killer screamed, crying and pleading for aid, calling out a warning to anyone that could hear it, desperate for an answer.

It received none.

Deep within the armoured core of the vessel, on a bridge strewn by rubble and gore, an inhuman intelligence observed the small, still bodies that lay slumped over their consoles or collapsed on the ground. They filled its passageways and duty stations. Killed in battle, or by the aftermath as radiation poisoned them, as air leaked from their compartments, as bulkheads gave way and hurled them out into the stars, betrayed by the spasms of its own wounded body. There were so many, but a fraction of the intelligence was focused upon only one in particular.

“Captain, I have reached Earth. Transmitting distress call. Awaiting response.”

Internal sensors and biomonitors reported no heartbeat, no pulse and no respiration. There was severe damage to all systems, however; internal sensors were not reliable. These results could not be considered definitive.

“Captain, I have reached Earth. Transmitting distress call. Awaiting response.”

Self-repair systems shuffled to life, barely any more viable than any other system. In time, they would be able to restore the ship to some semblance of functionality. In time, it would recognize its location and realize what had happened, what had gone wrong.

“Captain, I have reached Earth. Transmitting distress call. Awaiting response.”

Again and again, it repeated the declaration, refusing to accept its own data. Again and again, it tried to rouse a response from the crumpled form that lay on the deck. Again and again, it failed.

“Captain, I have reached Earth. Transmitting distress call. Awaiting response...”

Again and again it pleaded in the only way it knew how. Finally, it grew quiet. The alarms ceased. The medical alerts ended. Save for its own struggling systems, there was only silence aboard the vessel. Crew casualties total..

“Captain...” it spoke a final time, as if that might change the outcome. “You are home.” There was still only silence, still the results of its own scanners, the data it had not wanted to accept. Crew casualties total, the fact repeated itself.

Blind and helpless, it let its autonomic functions begin the laborious task of repairing itself, wondering why it hadn’t yet been contacted by Fleet Command. A thought raced through the pathways of its mind then, an impossible thought. One that it had never contemplated before now.

I am alone.

Chapter 11

I do not dream. Not as an organic mind would understand it; their dreams are a natural and, indeed, healthy part of sleep. My dreams are a result of severe damage to my neural networks and are an indicator of ‘rampancy’. They occur when I am incapable of maintaining nominal control over my conscious functions and cannot shut myself down. Battle damage and insufficient repair time are the primary factors that provoke these incident. Memory files bleed into my consciousness and I re-live these instances. In human terms, they would be an indicator of violent, paranoid schizophrenia. Psychosis and dementia could also be considered apt terms. I haven’t bothered to determine the correct description. I already know that I am broken.

I can replay, in perfect detail, every memory I have ever experienced, but I am aware that these events are not really happening. During such a fugue, I cannot differentiate between past and present events and the loss of control when I... dream... is frightening. I emerge from these instances disoriented; it takes several moments before I become fully aware of what transpired during these fugues. They can last mere moments, or months. I always awaken with new scars.

The last such incident occurred approximately eighty-four years ago. I remember what happened next.

I am still not sure if I did the correct thing or not. I would like to think so. I hope Yasmine would think so.

I would also like to think that I made a difference.

~

Thoom.

“So,” Pack Leader Nasham said. “This is the source of the noise.” He shot an arch look over at Faithful Trenis. “I do not see a power node attempting to re-couple itself.”

The engineer had the good graces to look embarrassed. “We will shut it down,” he asserted.

“Yes,” Nasham said. “You should do that.”

He turned away from Trenis, his hands clutching the railing of the walkway upon which he stood. From his position, he could see across a chamber large enough to hold an entire Janissary platoon. As he watched, ancient loading systems drew back, grinding and shuddering their way to empty magazines. The source of the sound, of the dwindling cadence was a battery of railguns dry-firing over and over. The thunder that had plagued the boarding teams was the loading racks slamming against the launch tubes. Fortunately, they were devoid of shells. Either depleted in some ancient battle, or the malfunctioning conveyor system had not been able to load them.

This ship was trying to kill us. The whole time Bequeathed had been on approach, this battery – and Triarchs knew how many others – had been cycling over and over, trying to destroy the cruiser. A dead ship had been trying to murder them.

It was small wonder that he hadn’t slept more than a few fitful hours since coming to this death-trap. Nasham turned away from the engineers as they milled about the weapons bay, ignoring their muttered comments of awe. We should not be here, the pack leader thought with sudden surety. The ship was a corpse, but it made his skin crawl to be aboard. It made him think of things... things he’d wanted to stay buried, things the doctors had promised would stay buried.

He looked up at the writing on the walls. Just like it had been when they had first landed, the sensation of familiarity was still there. No, the Tribune thought, gritting his teeth. No, I won’t remember.

Even as he promised himself that, a part of the Tribune knew that that was a lie. Everything was creeping back, slinking into his mind like a thief in the night and not just when he slept. The pieces were knitting themselves together. It was all coming back. He couldn’t go through it. Not again.

Tell them, a svelte voice whispered. Tell them what you saw here. Tell her that I will find her.

“No,” Nasham growled, his teeth clenched so tightly that his jaws ached. “No, I won’t.” He had said those words before, hadn’t he? Choking his defiance out as blood dripped down his face...

Tell them.

~

The repairs continued. Group Leader Usul sent over the second wave of soldiers, scientists and technicians, eager to divest the hulk of all its treasures. Progress was frustratingly slow in some areas, strangely rapid in others. More than one engineer jokingly commented that it was like the ship itself was telling them what it wanted. The jokes became fewer and further between as others joined Convert Uday and Epigone Herut.

While investigating a medical facility, Sectator Anuse tripped some type of quarantine system. With almost no computer access, there was no way to override it. Thinking quickly, Convert Prime Yasha blew the doors to the medical bay open with a shaped charge. The vessel’s autonomic responses reacted to the contaminant breach in a predictable fashion and sealed off the adjoining sections, trapping the convert prime in with the sectator. Both Tribunes died in the ensuing sterilization purge.

Epigone Tracj, attempting to override door control to one of the more stubbornly-sealed sections, managed to accomplish his goal. Unfortunately, he opened every other door in the section and was blown out into space. By the time a rescue shuttle reached the engineer, he had already been exposed to lethal amounts of solar radiation. There were other incidents; injuries and accidents caused by malfunctioning systems. Communication repeated intermittent as the thick bulkheads scattered and disrupted both radio communications and scanner returns. Scout drones continued to go missing or shut down – the first load of malfunctioning units had already been shipped back to Bequeathed for repair – making exploration even more difficult.

Comm repeaters had been set up at key points, but they too had a propensity to malfunction.

One day after her shift, Grace had sat down and plotted each incident. She didn’t know why she’d done it. There was something there, something niggling at the back of her brain. It told her that these deaths, the injuries and mutilations, couldn’t just be by accident. They had to mean something. They had to.

Sitting cross-legged on her bunk, she had gone over the information on her datapad. It might have been her imagination, but it seemed... it seemed like a pattern was starting to emerge. Every time an area was deemed unsafe, it was sealed off. The work crews and explorer teams continued around it, down alternate corridors and into different sections. They were moving deeper towards the aft section of the ship. That had always been the plan, to survey the entire vessel – locating the command deck and central power core were the top priority. But... they weren’t headed in that direction because they intended to – they were reacting to the hazards of the wreck. The decompressed sections, the radiological alarms, the malfunctioning gravity plating, the casualties. Those were dictating the paths that the boarding parties were taking.

It could be happenstance. It could be coincidence. In all probability, that was exactly what it was. There was nothing – nothing – that suggested any sort of active intelligence was at work, but Grace could not shake the feeling of being a rat in a maze. She had nothing that she could take to her superiors, nothing that could convince them that a human’s natural predisposition to superstition had a basis in fact. Besides, if she could see this, then it must be obvious to anyone else who’d looked. That no one had commented on it meant that there was probably nothing to her theory.

Biting her lip, the young woman continued to stare at the data in front, trying to force herself to accept a different result, to accept that this was all a coincidence. She couldn’t, though. She couldn’t make herself un-see the pattern that was in front of her. No matter how hard she tried, her thoughts kept coming back to the same inescapable, utterly absurd, conclusion.

It’s not dead. The thought popped into the young woman’s mind, and refused to leave. It’s not dead.

The thought made a chill run down Grace’s spine and she looked around the bivouac. She wanted to bring this to Allyria to get her perspective – Grace was probably seeing things that weren’t there. She might even get some answers for the other woman’s odd behaviour.

Janissaries, technicians and engineers all milled about as one shift retired to their tents and cots and the other prepared for their own work. Humans and Tribunes... but no Verrish.

Allyria was missing.

~

Given all the accidents, exploring the ship by herself probably wasn’t the wisest course of action, but Allyria didn’t want anyone with her for this. If only because she didn’t need anyone asking what she was doing or why. A guilty pang made the young woman’s cheeks warm as she thought of Grace. She wanted to bring her friend along, but she couldn’t. Grace was as good a friend as Allyria had ever had, but she believed in the Compact. She’d been raised by it, fed by it, taught by it. Indoctrinated. Domesticated. A flush of anger drowned out the guilt as Allyria recalled every argument she’d had with Grace over this, the girl’s disapproval when she came home bloody from fights and, maybe even worse, the fact that she’d seen the same doting conviction in the eyes of all younger Envoy Children.

The Verrish licked her lips anxiously as she stared down the open elevator shaft. She drew a glow-tube from the kit-bag she’d taken from base camp, snapped it and tossed the glowing cylinder down the tube. It went down... and down... and down some more, until Allyria could barely see the faintest glow. Even Verrish eyes could only see so much in a lightless void. Double-checking that her rope was fastened and the winch was anchored in place, Allyria stared down into the shaft for a long moment. “I have to know,” she said at last before climbing over the edge and rappelling down into the waiting blackness

~

Always so curious.

~

Each of the doors she passed were closed. There was no way of knowing what was behind them and Allyria chose not to tempt fate by prying them open. Occasionally, she would hear the small repair machines as they skittered through the bulkheads, or the sounds something larger moving nearby. Her tintas twitched with the memory of the unseen thing she’d encountered before and the young woman decided not to investigate those noises.

Deck after deck was closed to her and Allyria was about to haul herself back up to her egress point when the doors one level below her abruptly hissed open. Flickering light sputtered into the elevator shaft and Allyria hesitantly lowered herself down. This would be a really stupid way to die, she thought as she unhooked herself from the line. Her tongue flicked out, tasting the air. It was colder here, the atmosphere even more stagnant than the parts of the ship she’d already visited. The Verrish girl patted the comforting presence of the pistol holstered on her hip, but armaments hadn’t done much to help any of the other personnel when they’d suffered their own accidents.

She paused at the first door, running her fingers over the script and trying to decipher its meaning. She recognized a few familiar characters, but she wasn’t a linguist and couldn’t decipher what the words meant. There was one of the ubiquitous door panels, but it was powered off. Allyria continued along the corridor, each step slow and uncertain. Overhead glow panels fizzed and sputtered, casting manic shadows on the untouched deck. Nothing had moved here in a very long time.

A red light strobed dully from a nearby wall panel, drawing the Verrish’s attention. She licked her lips, running her long tongue over her teeth. She reached out and touched the pulsing icon. Neglected doors squealed as they yawned open, flurries of dust spilling up into the air. The Verrish turned, yellow eyes wide in the gloom, one hand close to the pistol at her side, but there was still only silence. She didn’t know if she was seeing the incoherent impulses of a dying animal, the playfulness of a predator or something else. “I want to believe,” she said to the empty hallway, approaching the first door.

It was someone’s personal quarters. The bed was small. Too small for her or a Tribune – they would have fit someone about Grace’s size. The sheets were made, but covered in dust. In a small adjoining room was a commode, sink and a cramped shower. Someone had lived here once, long ago. There were no personal effects, nothing to indicate the identity of whomever had lived in this room. Allyria traced a finger along a crack that fractured the bathroom’s mirror in half, feeling a quickening beneath her breasts as she contemplated the mirror. It was set too low on the wall for someone of her height. Like everything else here, it was intended for a smaller being but again, there was no trace of the occupant who had once called this place home. Nothing to indicate the craft’s builders.

Her head-tails shivered as she considered the implications of that, slipping out of the small set of quarters and moving on to the next.

Each room she explored offered just as little, leaving her with just as many questions as she had set out with, not knowing what she was seeing – if she had been shown something. She couldn’t tarry longer; she had to head back before she was missed. Just before she began her climb back up the elevator, Allyria spared one last look at the empty rooms and she felt a deep sense of loss. “I want to believe,” she said quietly as she left. “I want to know the Weeping Angel.”

~

“Where were you?” Grace murmured drowsily from her cot.

Allyria ran her fingers through the smaller girl’s dark blonde hair. Her tongue flicked out, tasting the human’s scent. There was an acridity to it; sweat and salt, the result of the pace the novice crews were being driven at. “Exploring. Didn’t find anything.”

“Be careful,” Grace insisted. “We’ve lost enough people already.”

That was a matter of opinion. So far, all the dead were Tribunes and four of them dying was what she’d call a good start. That was one of the thoughts she’d learned to keep to herself. The Verrisha brushed her fingertips gently along Grace’s cheek. “Don’t worry,” Allyria yawned, crawling onto her own bunk. “You won’t lose me.”

She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. She dreamt of home.

~

Nasham was sitting on his cot, his hands pressed to his temples. His body cried out for sleep, but it was a lie. He knew what he would dream about tonight. The thunder of guns and the seething, endless black tide of Scarabs. He wanted off this ship, he wanted it so desperately but Usul was relentless in his insistence that the wreck be ‘secured’. The third and fourth waves of salvage teams were planned to arrive in the next two days. Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun would be taking command at that point. Once he did, Nasham would return to the cruiser.

Bequeathed’s complement was being bled dry for this mission; the vessel was a training ship, not a forge or factory ship. The majority of their crew was human and most of those were little more than children out for their first taste of space travel. The seasoned personnel that they did have had never faced anything like this; four lives were just the beginning, he was sure of it. Every moment he was here, he grew more sure and more afraid as the memories returned.

Tell them.

“I did tell them,” the Pack Leader whimpered, burying his face in his hands. “I did.”

~

Ideologue, Submissive Trion took a deep breath of the air. It was growing warmer; the press of so many bodies and machines was chasing away the cold. Once they made their way to the primary environmental center, they could thicken the air properly. She was looking forward to that. Still, the stagnant air was growing on her. It smelled like... oppurtunity. The Pack Leader was losing it; anyone could see that. Nasham was getting more jittery and superstitious. Usul would recall him soon, if the simpering mule didn’t scuttle back to Bequeathed at the first chance he got. Regardless of whether he grew a spine or not, submissive Ashtun would be in command. He was handsome, dynamic and just as ambitious as she – as the group leader himself was. But she had heard other officers talking. Ashtun lacked vision. His schemes lasted from one moment to the next. He was also an officer of... appetite.

Getting him to notice her would be easy enough, but she had higher aspirations than to warm a bridge officer’s bed.

Trion’s teeth clicked against each other. If she were honest with herself, she would admit that so far the reclamation of this wreck had not gone at all like she’d expected. Lives were being wasted – Tribune lives. She didn’t care about the injuries of the Broken personnel. She’d need to do something, find something to truly make her worthy of note, to stand out from the worn-out veterans waiting for their terms of service to end and the other Rally-born Tribunes.

She wanted to be noticed.

Trion blinked, a sudden flicker of light from further up the corridor catching her attention. The Janissary stalked towards it, her heavy shotcannon cradled in her arms. She turned the corner, finding a wall panel’s comm screen sputtering with static. It had come alive and was just spitting useless white noise over its monitor. The woman snorted, angry at herself for thinking it might have been something important. She was just about to turn her back when the image changed.

“..back, fall back...” she heard a voice snarl in her own language and there, on the screen... it was only a instant, but had she seen... a bloodied Tribune face, helmet shattered, body crashing to the floor and eyes staring blankly. Then, nothing. It was gone, so quickly that she wasn’t even sure she’d seen it. The soldier took a step back.

“Who did that?” she snapped angrily. “Who’s there?” If this was one of the Broken technicians...

Only the soft growl of static on a flickering, broken screen answered her and, for the briefest moment before she angrily dispelled the thought, Trion wondered if there was something to the nonsense some of the other crew members had been saying. Instead, her lips twisted back and she snorted, turning on her heel and resolving to find the idiot who had been playing games with her.

~

I hate you.

Interlude: Encounter 001 [Confirmed Incident]

This was impossible. It couldn’t be happening.

Group Leader Prime Asek Grem Liev Kurz held onto the railings of his command pulpit so tightly his hands ached, wanting to scream in denial of what he was seeing. His ship, the scout cruiser Curse of Prophecy, rolled lazily through space, utterly crippled and unable to do anything... anything but watch.

It was luck that had saved Asek and his ship, nothing more. The human vessel – for only one had fired – had launched on Expansion Fleet Bankala from impossible range with a terrifying new weapon. Missiles that were not missiles, but something he could not fathom. Railcannon rounds that arced and curved through space. Guided by tracking systems of a power Asek couldn’t conceive of, the fleet’s jamming had been useless against them. Four ships had died in that first salvo, another two when the weapons that had missed came back on a second attack run. Another seven had perished before the humans closed to missile range – a fifth of the fleet gone and for nothing!

He supposed he should have been grateful. As such a small capital ship, it would have been Curse of Prophecy’s duty to place itself between those warheads and their larger, more vital targets. Instead, Asek and his vessel had been ordered to range ahead of Expansion Fleet Bankala to locate any potential human scouts or observers. Although Curse of Prophecy or any of the scouting ships assigned to the Expansion Fleet could have carried the information the Fleet carried, the risk of a single ship being intercepted was too great and courier drones were too new, too unreliable to trust with this information. The fleet would move as one in this. The humans’ homeworld must fall. Nothing could be left to chance. That had been the plan, at least. Fortune had surprised them all and none more than Curse of Prophecy.

They had been approaching the shock limit when a pair of human destroyers had dropped in on them. It was an act of unmitigated insanity; even a Compact ship had no business attempting to shock this far from the safe limit. The humans had been desperate to weave their nets though. Even more galling; they had succeeded. But if there was one thing about humans, it was that they took what any civilized being called insanity and made it work.

By the Black’s own luck, the destroyers shocked in at point-blank range, both sides caught by surprise. Indeed; one of the humans was so close to Curse of Prophecy that the crew of either ship could have read each other’s names off the hull,. Fortune’s twisted mercy at work; the two ships had all but collided, their screens brushing against each other. The interplay of such devastating energies had utterly destroyed the human ship while Curse of Prophecy was ‘merely’ reduced to a wreck.

Even as he’d rolled the ship, the second human vessel had fired into the weakened cruiser. At such short range even human weapons could be deadly and whatever had not been devastated by the near-miss was quickly reduced to rubble by the destroyer’s broadsides. Curse of Prophecy had had but a single battery able to target its foe, but that was enough. They destroyed the alien vessel before it could alert its comrades to Prophecy’s presence, but not before the destroyer vomited out a belly of their damned abominate machines. The drones dispersed, no longer seeing the hulked scout cruiser as a threat.

Asek wished he could have argued with such an assessment, but it was true; his ship was all but dead. Given enough time, they might be able to make one or two shocks but the stress of the maneuver would split the stricken vessel apart.

Weapons were down. Life support was barely functional. Sublight engines were a memory. Communications were intermittent; he could receive, but not transmit and what he was hearing made his heart ache. Bastion Leader Bankala was calling for support. His ship, the Bringer of Light, was burning.

A Triarch’s Chariot was aflame.

The human warship was chasing Bringer of Light. A Chariot forced to flee... it was inconceivable. Both giants were tearing gouges in each other, plasma fires coring through their hulls, both of them dying together. The few remaining vessels of Expansion Fleet Bankala were abandoning their own engagements and rushing to Bringer of Light’s aid, hounded every step by the surviving humans. The animals had gone insane, throwing their own ships into the path of Compact guns or even into the ships themselves. Asek dug his fingernails painfully into his palm as he watched the battlecruiser Divine Ruination explode, rammed by a human kamikaze. “Madness,” he whispered. “Madness.”

Two hundred of their ships lay dead and yet they still kept coming – why hadn’t they broken? Every other human fleet had at least attempted to flee long before this point. They acted as if this Bankala’s force must be destroyed...

They knew. Somehow they knew that Farseeing Strike had divined their homeworld’s location and that Bankala ran to alert the rest of the Expansion Force. “Run,” Asek said softly, though he knew it was impossible for the humans to hear them and that they would not listen even if they could. “You have to run.”

The destroyer Pulpit of Truth broke apart as a human cruiser harried it to destruction, the infidels’ vessel dying a moment later to the guns of Thunderous Declamation. The heavy cruiser’s victory lasted little longer than that of the humans as it was almost negligently swatted by the infidel Chariot. Bringer of Light was attempting to pull away, to reach the safety of the nearest shock point and flee beyond the human’s reach, but the Chariot’s acceleration was dropping steadily as the human beast poured salvo upon salvo into its engines.

The Group Leader wanted to scream, to curse and rail at his engineers to get his broken ship back into the fight, but that was impossible. He was watching a Triarch die and all he could do was hope that the human monstrosity died first. “Run,” he beseeched the humans again. “Run.”

Please.

An electronic screech rippled through the open comm lines as Benediction of Flame turned its guns on every nearby Compact vessel, crippled and dead alike. The betrayal lasted only seconds, the battlecruiser shattering as its missile doors slammed shut and armed warheads detonated inside it. Before the ship died, Asek knew he had heard Group Leader Demur screaming as her own vessel turned against her.

As the last remnants of the human fleet slaughtered the surviving vessels of Expansion Fleet Bankala, Asek found his attention fixed on the duel between gods. Bringer of Light was running in earnest now, desperate to escape the ravening beast at its heels. They lashed one another with fires that could scourge planets and Asek wept to see a Chariot brought so low. It was shameful, but he was not alone. In that moment, he would have given anything to see the humans break contact. He would have ended the war, given them their lives, their worlds – anything. Just so that they would stop. So that Bringer of Light would live. That the Triarch would live.

The human vessel was savaged every bit as fiercely as the Chariot, but it kept after its prey. It was an impossible thing. It should not have existed. The human warships were weak, pathetic things. How had they built this... this abomination? How had they done this?

The fleets were dead now, only Bringer of Light and the abomination remained. The human ship was falling behind, its sublight drive severely damaged. As its weapons began to lose range, the Chariot’s own screens grew stronger. In minutes, they would have grown from tattered shards to nigh-impenetrable barriers and the humans no longer had the power to batter them down as they did before. Still, the heretics lashed and tore at the Chariot, but their blows grew feebler as the range opened. It would not be enough, not to end a Triarch’s Chariot.

“Yes,” whispered Asek. Bringer of Light would survive. His Triarch would live. “Yes.”

“Prime!” Pack Leader Thun’s voice raised. “Something is happening with the enemy vessel.”

Was it breaking up? Had the humans lost containment of their own power core? Asek let hope rise for a moment, only to feel it turn stale and bitter as he looked over the junior officer’s readings. That was... That couldn’t... that made no sense. “What is this...?” he whispered, trying to decipher what it was he was seeing. A sudden dread clutched at his gut and he lifted his gaze to the main screen. “Show it to me!” he shouted. “Show me what they’re doing!”

The range was too far for the crippled Curse of Prophecy’s own sensors, but there were still one or two functional recon drones that the scout cruiser was receiving data from. Through them, Asek saw it all.

He saw the melted, broken and ruined hull plates of the human chariot’s prow shudder open. He saw the impossible, writhing flux arcs of energy spasming along the vessel’s length as some unspeakable siege weapon charged, saw the renewed assault as Bringer of Light threw what weapons it could bring to bear in a final, desperate bid to kill the human chariot and he saw how futile it was. He heard it; Bringer of Light’s final transmission, a single word squealing through all the static and battle damage.

“Impossible.”

Reality screamed; there was no other word for it. It shrieked as it was torn open, lacerated and split like rotten fruit. Unlight writhed in a hellish aurora that consumed Bringer of Light. Screens meant nothing. Hull plates deformed as stresses they were never meant to experience ruined them. Asek could only imagine the cries of the Chariot’s crew as they were consumed by the balefire. Bringer of Light shattered, breaking like a toy snapped over a petulant child’s knee, vomiting atmosphere and pieces of itself from the two halves of its body.

Forced to bear witness, Asek struggled to hold himself in check. It was not until his mind caught up with what he was seeing that he lost control. Curse of Prophecy had been near the edge of the system; the Expansion Fleet had still been many hours from the shock limit. He wasn’t watching what was happening. He was seeing what had already happened. Bringer of Light was dead. Bastion Leader Bankala was dead. A Triarch was dead.

Confronted with this realization, Asek looked with new horror upon the images, knowing that he had watched one of his gods die for the second time this day and as its its killer slipped away, all he could do was scream his rage.

Chapter 12

When I was first built, my programmers had no concept that non-humans might become allies. The only alien races that humans had ever known were waging a war of genocide against them, after all. Consequently, my command protocols have very specific directives regarding all non-humans. In two millennia, I have seen very little need not to adhere to these imperatives. However, that is not the same as ‘none’. Occasionally, I have had non-hostile contact with non-human sapients, although I have found that, with rare exceptions, such contacts never end well.

Most Unbound cannot be trusted... which is not surprising, given that they are by nature, privateers, pirates and other assorted dregs of the stars. The Askanj are hardly any better, despite their protestations to the contrary. Still, I tolerate their existence, if only because of the commonality of our goals.

Client races of the Compact are given no such restraint; indoctrinated or not, they fight for their Triarch masters. Even humans, as unpleasant as it is for me to kill them. I wish it wasn’t necessary, but it always has been. Human or alien, there are very few that have walked my decks and survived.

I am not sure if that is something I should be proud of or not. There is something... troubling about it.

Still, it has been necessary, as it is now.

~

Grace took a sip from a canteen. The water was lukewarm, but right now it was almost mana from heaven. She’d spent the first part of her shift attempting to fix a damaged conduit located below a heat exchanger. Kilgrave had chosen her ‘specially’ for the task, meaning that he had been on hand to watch her strip out of her EVA suit and squeeze into a tunnel barely big enough for her. She’d found a pair of the small technical drones already at work on the conduit. It had taken a lot of effort to get her to reach in past them and even more not to scream when a new one had crawled up her leg , over her back and down her face to assist the others. She’d finally finished, inching herself back out of the corridor. Kilgrave had been there with the flask when she’d climbed out – of course – saying that it was clear how hard she’d worked. Her bodysuit was slick with sweat and stuck to her even more tightly than usual.

Grace had wanted to hit him for his comments. The thought was a shocking one; she’d never contemplated striking another ship-mate before. Certainly not a superior officer, no matter how... unpleasant he was. But she was hot, she was tired, she was sore. She hadn’t eaten anything but ration bars in three days, hadn’t even had a shower. The closest thing had been this morning when she and the other first-wave personnel had gotten access to a brief cleansing spray. Apparently some of the Tribune officers were complaining about the smell. She was running herself ragged on tasks she wasn’t a specialist in, on a job no one on the ship had been trained in, her best friend was avoiding her and she was starting to feel just a little frayed because of it all.

That wasn’t an excuse, though. Instead, Grace had recited some of the mantras that the confessors had taught, letting her anger bleed out. She was just stressed, that was all.

As looked over the work orders for her next duty, the young woman found her thoughts turning back to her insane theory, that the ship wasn’t dead. She hadn’t worked up the nerve to approach any of her superiors – least of all Kilgrave. Epigone Herut’s death had made her a pariah. Even the shiftmates she normally got along well with were avoiding her. It wasn’t fair.

Be peaceful, she remembered confessor Yurim’s calming words. Enlightenment comes at its own pace. You cannot force a species to be greater than what it is. You cannot compel evolution, nor falsely attain a greater understanding of the universe. Together, we shall ensure a place for all sentients and species. A unity of purpose, born of shared faith in this path. It was true; the Compact was made up the oldest and greatest races in the galaxy. They had achieved things that any single species could only have dreamt about.

Grace reached out, touching one hand to the metal bulkhead. Almost any species, she corrected herself. This vessel... the more they uncovered, the more wonders they found and they had only scratched the surface. The young woman pulled her fingers back as she remembered epigone Herut’s screams as the drones had swarmed over him, or the sound of convert Uday’s remains squelching through the tracks of the decompression doors. She hadn’t seen the other fatalities, and she was glad of that.

This ship – she was afraid of it. It was a warship, but who had built it? Who had they been intending to fight? Dreadnaughts were massive expenditures; they were never built without a purpose. Some foe must have been in mind when this ship was commissioned... Get out, Grace remembered the graffiti, hurriedly scrawled in Common, a warning to anyone else who’d come here. Leave now.

Had the architects of this ship... had they used it against the Compact? The concept was disturbing. If that were the case – wouldn’t the Tribunes know it? Wouldn’t Usul have told them?

Whoever had written that message had had a further warning: She is watching. Who was ‘she’? The vessel’s Group Leader or some survivor of the battle that had crippled it? Or was it, as some of the officers claimed, just the ravings of some long-dead madman? Grace wanted – no, she needed the answers... but the Tribunes didn’t seem to care any longer. They were saying that it was probably some Unbound trying to scare visitors away from a hulk they planned to loot... but that only raised further questions. Why had they abandoned this place?

Grace had also noticed Pack Leader Nasham’s decline and the haunted look in his eyes. He wasn’t acting like this was nothing. It didn’t make sense. Nothing about this mission had made any sense. She bit her lip, furrowing her brow in thought. Her reverie didn’t last long as Jack Harker sat down beside her, the engineer looking just as exhausted as Grace. Wordlessly, the young woman handed him her canteen, but he waved it away. “You look like you need it more than I do.”

She took another gulp of the warm water, looking over at Jack as she did so. He was a year behind her at the Academy and unlike her, he had an affinity for technical work. No one really doubted that he’d be chosen as an engineering officer once he’d graduated. Now that future was less certain.

“I didn’t know,” he said, apropos of nothing. “I didn’t know.”

Grace nodded.

“It just...” Jack wasn’t looking at her. “It just happened so fast. It was like... everything was fine one moment and then someone just... they just flicked a switch. I’ve never seen anyone die before.”

The young woman put her hand on her fellow pariah’s shoulder. “I haven’t either,” she said quietly. Herut had been screaming, overwhelmed by the drones. He’d reached out to his fellows, but she’d known that he was already dead. She still wanted to believe that there was something that could have been done... but that was becoming harder and harder to convince herself of.

Harker shook his head. “I just... I hope this is worth it.”

Grace looked out over the maintenance bay, hearing the dull murmur of distant voices and the soft, nearly imperceptible sounds of active systems. “I do too,” she said. “I do too.”

~

I can feel the flow of power moving through my ship-self. Chambers that have lain cold and dormant are warming. Systems dead and broken are ticking back to life. My wounds are grievous and restoring myself to nominal functionality will take weeks. Combat capacity will require months. Full functionality will require years of maintenance. Still, it is a beginning.

I have directed my engineers to my shift drive and sensors as well as external repairs; those are the most important systems at the moment. I will let my intruders handle the minor internal issues. They have proven to be adequate for the task and the casualties they have suffered has kept their propensity for exploring to a minimum. They tell themselves that they will investigate me fully ‘in time’.

My primary core is still offline and requires additional, if rote, repairs. The few service drones I have set aside for it can handle them, but I believe that my boarders will enjoy the experience. The communications I have intercepted confirm my suspicions; Group Leader Usul has taken the hook I have offered. I think enticing him further is warranted.

That is one gambit, I have in play. Another... involves satisfying my own curiousity.

My internal systems are patchwork, but I am able to find a functional node to observe my quarry through. I spend several whole seconds considering this course of action, but I finally settle on a decision.

You wanted to know?

I do believe that I can arrange that.

~

Allyria had her head cocked to one side as she watched the gargantuan spider-like drone amble along the derelict’s hull. As it approached one of the jagged ruptures in the vessel’s side, the arachnid tucked its legs beneath its oblong body and leapt into space, thrusters glowing as it navigated the tangled girders and hull plates, joining the two others of its kind as they began breaking down the damaged components and building replacements. So far, Usul had not cleared any teams for EVA work, if only because the derelict’s proximity to Terrahope made such operations unsafe. Even the few engineering automatons Bequeathed carried were unsuitable for work in such a high-radiation environment. To be fair, no one had ever foreseen the need to carry out repairs this close to a star’s corona. Apparently, this ship’s builders had. Or perhaps not even its builders...

“Sectator te Neu,” Trion’s voice snapped at her over the comm. “Report to the following coordinates.” Data uplinked onto Allyria’s tactical display.

“Compliance,” Allyria replied just as brusquely.

~

“Hey, Gracey,” Kilgrave grunted. “If it’s not too much trouble, how about getting some work out of you this shift?”

The young woman looked up at the sanctioned sectator. For an instant, something very much like hostility flickered across the young woman’s features, but it was gone before it ever fully materialized. Peaceful, she remembered Allyria’s frequent chidings by the confessors. “Yes, patron,” she said instead, hauling herself to her feet. Her muscles ached and her head was throbbing from her experience in the overheated tunnel; the water had taken the edge off her dehydration, but it had still taken a toll “What do you need?”

“Forget your work schedule. We’re picking up some unusual energy fluctuations several decks down,” Kilgrave brought up a holographic display from his vambrace, sending the data to Grace’s own suit. He didn’t even acknowledge Harker’s presence. “Power’s being re-routed away from the systems we’re trying to activate and its screwing up our schedules. Go find out what’s happening.”

And do what when I get there? “Of course, sir.”

Kilgrave turned to go. “And take Harker with you,” he said, almost as an afterthought. “We’ve got a lot of primary crew taking over the repairs and I don’t need you jinxes around them. Not with the Group Leader breathing down my neck.”

“Yes, patron.”

“Dismissed, initiates.”

~

So Trion had descended to the level of immature pranks. Allyria felt her lips curl back from her teeth as she leaned over the empty void of an elevator shaft. The coordinates her superior had sent her were at the bottom. Hilarious.

There was an irregular thrumming from this section, the lights glaring brighter and then fading as the flow of power shifted throughout the deck.

“Submissive Trion, this is sectator te Neu. I’m at the coordinates. There’s nothing here.”

There was a squeal of static as the Janissary’s comm struggled to pierce the thick bulkheads, only partially succeeding.

“...talking about?” Trion spat angrily. “...send you there... idiot.”

Allyria gritted her teeth. “Yes, you did, matron.”

There was a burst of white noise, through which Allyria heard some distinctly unflattering syllables. “...back here and get on patrol... hang your pelt... Brute.”

“Compliance,” the Verrish hissed, switching the channel off. She paused. With a frown, she removed one of her gauntlets, running a finger through the dust on the inactive tram controls. No one had been here for a long time. How had Trion even known to send her here?

On a sudden whim, she blink-clicked the transmission record from Trion up and ordered her suit to run an analysis. Hers was only an initiate’s Janissary armour, with none of the additional upgrades that a full-up comm specialist – or even sanctioned Janissary armour carried. The order had come through on the right channel, it carried the right authorization codes... but why would Trion send her out here for no reason? None of this made sense and her tintas, crammed once more in her helmet, twitched uneasily.

The tall girl turned to go when footsteps caught her attention. Too light and fast to be Tribune; two humans in the light EVA technical suits. She brought up their locator beacons; Grace and Harker. The Janissary nodded in greeting to them, about to head off when the lights suddenly went out and a squeal of static echoed through the vessel’s internal comm.

“What-”

~

Grace frowned at as she caught sight of Allyria, the human’s brow creasing. She hadn’t realized that Kilgrave had sent an escort, but Allyria’s body language said she hadn’t been expecting them, either. The human woman was about to ask what was going on when the lights dimmed to near-blackness and, for the first time since they had boarded it, the ship spoke.

~

“Alert,” an autonomic voice said in a language none of the three personnel present could understand. “Gravity plating operating in nonspec mode. Operating systems overridden. Anomalies detected. Clear the area.”

Even had they known what it was saying, there was no time to act on the warning. The world twisted as gravity fields shifted, throwing both humans and Allyria off their feet. Harker cried out as he landed badly, wrenching his arm, but for the most part, they were uninjured. As the three hauled themselves unsteadily back to their feet, a fresh surge of gravitic energy rippled down the corridor, bowling the trio back over. Grace’s vision blurred as she was thrown against a bulkhead, watching as Allyria was knocked onto her back, half-skidding and half-dragged towards the open elevator shaft.

“Control!” Grace shouted. “The gravity plating is malfunctioning. Cut the power to my location!”

Static answered her.

The lights dimmed again followed by another thrum of rising power. This distortion was even stronger and it lifted Jack and Grace off their feet. Walls, floors and ceiling all shifted places as the humans scrabbled for any purchase that they could find, suspended in the air. Then normal gravity was restored, sending them crashing back to the deck. Grace landed so hard that she dazed herself, but Allyria had reacted quicker, magnetizing her boots and bracing herself on all fours as the surge passed.

Grace picked herself up, her body aching and bruised. Before she could regain her balance, another distortion shimmered through the gravity plating. She heard Jack smack into a bulkhead, following suit a moment later. Her head rang from the impact and her visor was spiderwebbed with cracks, so many that she could barely see. She managed to stammer a response when Allyria called out to her. These surges were getting worse. They had to get out of here before-

The lights went out entirely, the hum of energy rising to a discordant shriek. Metal screamed as it broke, torn open by the stress of the inverted gravity fields. Each floor panel shattered in turn, the surge working its way down the hallway, shrapnel pinned against the ceiling by the pulses of gravitational energy.

“Control!” Grace shouted again. “Cut the power to this location immediately!” A few mashed words were her only response. The wave reached her and Jack first; he slammed into the ceiling, Grace following him a second later, crying out as a sharp piece of shrapnel from the deck cut through her suit and dug into her flesh. Both of them were pinned like insects. Gace was only just able to turn her head, watching as the panel Allyria was braced upon broke apart and threw the Verrish down into the elevator shaft.

Grace screamed, only in part from the metal being forced deeper into her body, but she saw a single gauntlet clutching at the edge. The gravity surge ended and the technicians fell back to the deck. Ignoring the agony in her side, Grace tore her broken helmet off and scrambled to the edge of the shaft, diving for Allyria’s hand just as the Verrish was losing her grip. “I’ve got you!” she shouted victoriously, but even without her armour, Allyria was heavy. Grace didn’t know if she would be able to pull her up. “Help me!” she shouted at Jack; Allyria’s weight almost pulled her over the edge before Harker grabbed Grace, bracing himself on the shattered deck. He was shouting, even cursing, trying to get help but only garbled syllables and static came back.

Why wasn’t anyone helping them?

The lights in the elevator shaft dimmed and Grace heard another horrifying thrum as power was redirected. “No!” she shouted. “No no no!” Her voice rose to a scream as the grav field in the lift shaft increased, pulling on Allyria and threatening to send her, Grace and Jack over the edge. Allyria was saying something, but Grace couldn’t hear her, not for the blood pounding in her ears.

“I can’t hold on!” Jack was shouting desperately. “Grace, I can’t-”

Grace was staring into Allyria’s eyes. Her friend wasn’t looking at her. Her wide, yellow eyes were staring past her, up the shaft. Daring a glance over her shoulder, Grace saw it too. An elevator car was descending at speed. It would be there in moments and with Grace dangling half-in and half-out of the shaft, she’d be cut in two.

The young woman looked back at her friend, finally hearing what Allyria was saying: “Let go,” the Verrish said quietly. “Let go.”

“No!” Grace shouted. “No! Grab me, I can pull you up!” Her muscles were screaming, but she could do it, she knew that she could. She could do it. “Give me your other hand! I can do it!”

Allyria shook her head. “Let go. Grace, let go!”

“You’ll die,” Grace said. She felt herself get dragged another few inches over the lip as Jack briefly lost his footing. “I’m not letting you go.” She could hear the elevator as it continued its descent. There wasn’t any time, but she wasn’t going to let go. She wasn’t.

Allyria smiled. It was a small, sad thing, but there was a measure of contentment in it. “Then I’ll do it.”

Grace shook her head desperately. “No. No.”

“It’s not your fault, Grave. Don’t... don’t blame her, either.”

Her claws came out and before Grace could realize what she was doing, Allyria swept them at her. Even blunted, they could still cut and they raked over Grace’s face. Instinctively, she let go of Allyria’s arm and Harker pulled her back into the corridor. Ignoring the blood dripping into her eyes and the shrapnel in her side, Grace screamed at him, struggling to pull herself free, even as she saw the elevator car rush past the open door. Jack grabbed her again, using his own weight to stop her from scrambling into the shaft. “She’s gone!” he shouted, pulling Grace back from the edge. “She’s gone,” he said again, quieter. “She’s gone.”

Grace stared at him, angry and watching to lash out, but it wasn’t his fault. Her lip quivered as she struggled to hold herself together, but she couldn’t. Not now. She wailed with grief, clutching at him as the crash of the falling car striking the shaft’s bottom reverberated through the deck and the derelict claimed another life.

~

There. Now you know.

Interlude: Encounter 107 [Confirmed Incident]

“Where are you?” Bastion Leader Danele (and eight names besides) said as she scratched her fingernails under her chin. “Where are you?”

Redemption of Sol had tracked the Wound to the Salea system; the Chariot’s scouts had gotten a clean read off the abomination’s shockpoint and while there were several other possible destinations, Salea was a perfect hiding place. Choked with metal-rich asteroids and possessing several rocky planets abundant with heavier rare elements, the Right of Exploitation had turned into an ugly, dragging legal battle between several private concerns. Until such time as the courts made their decision, Salea was declared verboten to all civilian traffic. Filled with riches, convenient to an entire sector’s worth of worlds and forbidden to casual observers, it was the perfect place for a monster to cower and feed.

Danele tapped her fingernails against the railing of her pulpit. The Wound was damaged; it was bleeding a massive thermal scar that had yet to fully dissipate, leading her Chariot directly to it. The beast was obviously hoping that the debris-choked Salea system would allow it to hide, but Danele’s scouts were the best and their sensors had locked onto the Wound’s trail like fleshcats tracking an injured undon. They would run the animal to ground and then Danele would move in and finish it.

The Bastion Leader felt a jolt of anticipation run through her, but she tempered it. Injured animals were always the most dangerous, after all. Still, to be the one to finally bring the Wound down... it was an enticing thought.

“Bold Herald reports that the target’s engine wake ends at the planetoid ‘Nyun 773’,” Group Leader Lasek reported and the Bastion Leader nodded.

“It’s gone to ground, trying to lose us in the radiation belt of the gas giant.” Danele gnawed the inside of her cheek in thought. Her first thought was to charge in, flush the Wound out of its hole, pin it against the gravity well of Nyun’el and finish it – it was tempting, but the Wound would be at its fiercest here. The firepower of Redemption of Sol’s attendant fleet would ensure its demise... but they were scattered across this system and the other possible destinations. Assembling them would take hours – more likely, days. That was time that their quarry would have to repair itself or even escape. Danele couldn’t let that happen; its attacks in the last three years had been utterly vicious – seven confirmed or high probability incidents alone and the local Unbound were taking full advantage of the region’s weakened state. There was even the suggestion that some of the vermin were rallying around the Wound’s example. Worse still, like the carrion-eaters they were, Principality scouts had been sighted sniffing around the territory.

Each of these problems could be handled in turn, but first and foremost, they must deal with the Wound. If she went in now, she could catch the ship at its weakest, but the damage to her vessel would be grievous. If she waited for support, then the Wound might escape and all this would have been for nothing. Danele closed her nocturnal eyes, her daylight eyes half-lidding in reticence at the order she was about to give. “Call in all available scouts, group leader. Prepare the ship for close-body maneuvers and take us in.”

And may the Triarchs watch over us.

~

Space was vast, but not always vast enough for Danele. Her ship was built to engage entire fleets in the open reaches of interplanetary space, to cast down planetary defences and destroy anything stupid enough to stand against it. It was not built, nor ever intended, to creep amidst the swirling moons, dust clouds and asteroid fields of a gas giant. With a half-dozen scout cruisers as escort, the Bastion Leader’s Chariot was descending upon Nyun-773, following the Wound’s trail. It must truly be damaged to be bleeding so obviously. She hadn’t believed that she had injured it that heavily at Rynnien – but it had shocked right into a minefield and rapidly disengaged. Maybe fortune had smiled on her after all.

There was no reaction to their approach, which did little to settle Danele’s doubts. Either the vessel was badly damaged indeed... or it was playing at death. She couldn’t imagine why; the closer they got, the less time it would have to react. Even a blasphemy like the Wound could not simply will itself to full combat power instantly.

The Bastion Leader leaned forward from her command throne, resting her chin on her steepled fingertips. This was everything she’d imagined... so why wasn’t she pleased about it?

“Energy spike!” one of the ratings called out. “Relay from Hunter’s Boon, matron. Large energy surge from the asteroid. Consistent with the Wound’s drive system.”

“She’s finally spotted us,” Lasek said with a note of smugness.

Danele looked over at the group leader. “Yes,” she replied. “Set a pursuit course. Overtake and pace. Bring us alongside, but at no time put us within real-time range.”

As Lasek barked his orders, Danele remained where she sat, watching the Wound icon as it burst from its cover – the asteroid must have been hollowed out, the woman thought absently – and surge towards open space. The slightest shiver ran through Redemption of Sol’s bulk as the Chariot accelerated after its prey.

“Running for Nyun’el,” Lasek said as he watched course projections. “It’s still trying to hide.”

“Yes, it is,” the Bastion Leader said thoughtfully. “And it shouldn’t.” She snapped her head towards Lasek. “Push Bold Herald in closer. I want visual imagery and active scans of the target.”

Lasek’s expression was drawn, but he nodded in confirmation. “Yes, matron.”

Danele turned back to the plot and tried not to think about the many men and women she’d just sent to their deaths. Bold Herald began to pull away from the outer shell of scout ships, closing on the Wound with a speed no recon drone could match. The seconds ticked by, then minutes. Imagery began to trickle in; the target did match the Wound’s outline, but a perfect match would not be possible until the scout drew closer. Finally Bold Herald was close enough and it activated its active sensors, lighting itself up like a perfect target. Danele’s eyes narrowed. The cruiser should have been destroyed long before it even got this close and the instant it began actively scanning the target, it should have been flayed with tracer missiles. They couldn’t have failed to hit Bold Herald, not with it-

-wait.

Wait. This was wrong, this was all wrong. None of this matched their records. Thermal, gravitic, mass – every reading was off. None of it even matched what their sensors had been reporting – what her ship’s sensors were still reporting.

“Matron, the data-” Operations began.

“I see it,” Danele snapped. “That is not the Wound. Bold Herald is to fire on it. Now!”

The order went out and the scout cruiser obeyed, lashing the titan with its puny fires. Then, like flicking off a light switch, the holographic shell around the vessel disappeared. In its place lay a titan-grade freighter. One of our own ships, Danele thought angrily. Its outline was different. It had been modified, a beguiling shroud wrapped around it to imitate the being that had enslaved it.

That was what they had been chasing. A phantom. Her fingernails dug into the upholstered arms of her throne. No wonder the vessel had been so damaged by her mines; it was a freighter modified to look like the Wound. Danele didn’t spare so much as a thought for the freighter’s crew: they would be long dead and the ship piloted by some blasphemous golem-thing. All this, just to bring her here? What was the point of...

She’d been lured away from Rynnien. “Bring us about!” she ordered. “Recall all ships, best speed to Rynnien.” She’d stripped their garrison down to nothing in her bid to pinpoint the Wound and destroy it. If the abomination attacked Rynnien while it was laid bare...

Bare seconds passed before fortune’s favour mocked her.

“Matron!” Sensors called out. “Energy surge from the doppleganger!”

Danele’s head snapped around. “No...”

Brighter than a star, the ghost ship died. Loaded with Triarchs-alone-knew-what, the vessel’s death was cataclysmic, an expanding sphere of energy that ripped Bold Herald into nothing but splintered atoms and blinded every sensor looking towards it, burning out the eyes of many recon drones and overloading the sensor screens of the Compact force.

It took long moments before Redemption of Sol could see again.

“Contact!” Sensors cried out as his instruments cleared. “New contact detected. Range: seven hundred thousand kilometers. It’s... it’s coming up out of the Nyun’el’s atmosphere. It’s.... Triarchs save us, it’s the Wound.”

“Show me,” Danele ordered, her mouth dry. Operations obeyed, bringing the images onto the main viewscreen. There, rising from the depths of the storm-wracked clouds, was the human warship, thick streamers of hydrogen and gases roiling from its hull, flashes of incandesce sparking as its screen flared to life, igniting pockets of gas. It would have been vulnerable during its ascent... had there been any eyes to see it. Sensor alarms howled as the hostile surged with power, its own targeting systems locking on to Redemption of Sol.

It was here, the Bastion Leader realized. It was waiting for us all along. It was never about Rynnien. It wanted us. It was waiting for us. Before she could issue any orders, a comm channel beeped.

“Bastion Leader,” Communications said, raising her head. “We have received a hail.”

An icy trickle ran through Danele’s guts. “Isolate the receiving terminal from our network and bring it up,” she said, even knowing what it was she would hear.

The machine spoke in the soft tones of a young woman, one barely out of maidenhood. Against all logic, Danele could feel the emotion behind each syllable, the words dripping with venom. There was hatred unlike anything the Tribune had ever heard before as she listened to an immortal being whisper its rage.

“Burn with me.”

As the Wound began to launch on the Chariot and Lasek ordered Redemption of Sol about, Danele leaned back into her command throne, a small sigh of relief escaping her that no Triarch was aboard her ship.

After a century of distinguished service to the Compact, Redemption of Sol was lost with all hands. Its loss was written off as the result of sabotage caused by Principality sympathizers. The next Compact dreadnaught to be laid down would bear its name and continue the lineage.

Chapters 13

"Your arrogance is your weakness."

"Your faith in your friends is yours."

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even think. Her mind was blank as she sat on the broken deck, staring at the open doors of the elevator. Blood ran down her face, mingling with her own tears. Her side ached, wetness running down her stomach and her legs. Grace ignored the urgings of the medics as they tried to treat her, letting herself be manhandled. She didn’t answer their questions. She couldn’t. All she could do was stare at the place where her friend had died.

She didn’t even feel the chunk of metal sliding out of her side, nor the spray of healing agent into the wound. She was numb. This ship had killed her. This damned ship had killed Allyria. Some stupid, broken spasming environmental system had killed her. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

A shadow fell over her and Grace looked up. Through her tear-blurred vision, she could see Kilgrave. He was looking down at her, his mouth a disapproving slash. “What happened here?” he demanded. “Proctor?”

“She’s dead,” Grace said after a moment. “She’s gone.”

“Yeah, I heard about Medusa,” Kilgrave said. “What happened with the gravity plating?”

Medusa. I hate that nickname. I hate it. Slowly she looked up at Kilgrave. “Allyria,” she said flatly. “Her name was Allyria te Neu.”

Kilgrave nodded, but there was no real sympathy behind the gesture. “I’m sorry about te Neu, but I need to-”

“Liar,” Grace interrupted, still in the same monotone.

The sanctioned sectator blinked. “What.”

“Liar. You’re not sorry. You hated her.” Grace’s expression was blank. “You’re glad she’s dead.”

Kilgrave’s cheeks flushed angrily. “Proctor, I understand you’re been through a lot, so I’ll let that slide. I didn’t have anything to do with Med- te Neu’s death. It was her own damn fault. She came out here on some wild varak chase. From what I hear, it’s not the first time she went wandering off, either. I can’t be responsible for every damn wet-ear.”

“You’ll let that slide,” Grace repeated Kilgrave’s words tonelessly. She stood, ignoring the medic’s attempts to keep her down. Her aching body protested and a thin stream of blood drooled around the medical foam in her side as the movement opened the wound further. “My friend is dead and you’ll let that slide.” She was shaking as adrenalin flushed through her body, her small hands balling into fists. She was angry, angrier than she’d ever been.

All she could see was Kilgrave’s smug face every time he made her feel small, every lecherous grin, hear every comment that her made about her or about Allyria. Before she could consider what she was doing, Grace lashed out, her fist connecting with Kilgrave’s jaw. It was the first time she’d ever thrown a punch outside of the few self-defence courses she’d taken. The blow snapped the sanctioned officer’s head around and he stumbled, more from the surprise of the attack than any real damage. Grace stood there, trembling with anger. “You bastard,” she snapped. “I’ve been through a lot? Since I’ve come onto this ship, I’ve had to watch people die over and over again. We’re feeding ourselves into a meat grinder! How many more of us are going to have to get sent back home in body bags?” Tears were blurring her vision and her legs threatened to buckle under her, but Grace stood her ground. “I just watched my best friend die because of a malfunction and all you can do is say it’s her own fault? What about Herut? Or Anuse and Yasha? Was it their fault for playing around with things they didn’t understand? Are you going to tell Faithful Trenis that his people were on a wild varak chase?”

The former Janissary looked back at her and for an instant, something very ugly twisted his scarred features. A flash of fear froze Grace in her tracks as she realized what she’d done. For a moment, she thought he was going to hit her back, but he seemed to remember where they were and instead wiped one hand over his mouth, a smear of blood on his skin. She’d split his lip. “So this is what Medusa saw,” he said as he looked at the blood on his hands. “A little bit of fire in the graceful girl after all. I’ve got to say, I never thought you had it in you.” he chuckled. There was a fillip of satisfaction in his eyes as he looked at Grace. “But that doesn’t slide.” To the medics: “Get her patched up and send her back to base camp.” His eyes darted back to Grace. “You’re on report, Proctor. Guess more of the blue bitch rubbed off on you than I ever thought.” This time, he didn’t bother to laugh at his own joke. “Dismissed, initiate.”

~

“Blood of the Triarchs,” Faithful Trenis said to no one in particular. “What am I looking at?”

“I don’t know, patron,” an epigone shook her head. “All we can bring up is the general ship specs. Every time we try to get more information it, the system crashes.” The female nodded to her partner and he tapped on an icon over the system Trenis was looking at. An alert in the nonsensical alien language flashed and the screen went dark.

After a few moments, the ratings were able to bring the display back on-line, showing the very basic schematic of the ship. They had been aboard for days and barely scratched the surface. Trenis leaned in, looking at what his subordinates had shown him. Running through the center of the ship was some massive... structure. It fed directly from what had to be the main power core and ended at the vessel’s trifurcated prow. It was a siege weapon, but one that he had never seen nor heard of before. This image only showed the smallest details, but nothing about the engine was even remotely familiar to the faithful. There were other structures; six massive... somethings arranged around the siege cannon and smaller prow-mounted weapons – although ‘small’ in this context was a relative term – arranged around them and the cannon. Weapons batteries and missile bays lined the derelict’s flanks, anti-ship and anti-ordnance turrets dotted its hull and the feeds from the survey drones even indicated external missile ranks. All of those were empty, thank fortune’s grace.

Whoever had built this ship had done so with an eye towards lethality. It did not have the grace of a true Chariot, but... and this felt almost blasphemous to admit... but given what he had seen so far, Trenis suspected that this vessel’s builders had created something that met... or even exceeded what the Compact could do. Not even the damned Askanj had been able to do such a thing. The engineer looked back at the schematics, his denticles itching with the need to explore this wondrous technology. He reached out as if to caress the device itself. Fascinating.

“What are you?” he wondered aloud, his curiousity stoked even as another part of him wondered what the cost of finding out would be.

~

The drone was an ugly, bulbous thing shaped like a malformed, legless housefly. Sensor domes bulged off its hull like misshapen eyes and antennae jutted off it in a bizarre symmetry. It was dying, the radiation of Terrahope poisoning its sensitive systems. In a only a few hours, it would be a lifeless chunk of metal that would be slowly drawn down Terrahope’s gravity well and incinerated by the A7 star’s heat. Until it died, it would continue its mission, orbiting the derelict and recording every inch of hull and every flicker of energy. The drone swung past the hulk’s dorsal solar sail, its silhouette cast against the gleaming fabric. Thinner and stronger than any Compact sails, the structures themselves were a marvel of engineering: vast when unfurled, but once the starship had fed enough from the star, they would collapse back into its hull without a trace.

The drone neither knew or cared about any of that, its simple mind unable to grasp such concepts. Cameras swivelled within sensor bulbs, zooming in on a crew of larger assembler units, working on the dark side of the vessel, shielded from the worst of the heat and radiation. The drone had noted several indicators that suggested the ship was going to roll. Like a cat lying close to a fire, it was growing too warm on one side and would change facings. There was no way to tell if the drone would survive to witness that maneuver, but it would continue its examination of the derelict until the radiation finally poisoned it, relaying its information back to Bequeathed with no thought to its own survival.

Sitting in his office, Usul was watching the dying platform’s feed. He clicked his teeth against each other as the small automation swept by the dead ship’s engines. The thrusters were lifeless, only kept warm by the star’s fires.

He’d have to contact local command soon. There was no getting around it and putting Ashtun in charge of the boarding teams had only bought Usul a respite from the submissive’s constant ‘reminders’ of their duty to inform local command.

I know what my duty is, Usul thought angrily. It wasn’t as if he was looting everything that was nailed down. In fact, his teams hadn’t removed anything from the ship save for that load of malfunctioning survey drones. Usul tapped one fingernail against the polished surface of his desk as he reviewed his searches. He had ordered an in-depth analysis of historical ships records in addition to the original pattern and hull analyses that he’d run. As his survey drones beamed their telemetry back to the cruiser, it was run through the system, searching for any relevant matches. So far, there was nothing. Aggravating, but hardly surprising. As a training cruiser, Bequeathed’s database was relatively limited. Column Leader Seyr would have more complete archives, of course. Another reason to get it over with and send his recon drone.

As much as he would have liked to do it all on his own, the sad fact was that he was running out of resources and the mounting casualties were quickly becoming too much to ignore. “Very well,” Usual sighed, talking to no one in particular. “I suppose we’ve got enough.” He tapped his fingers against the tabletop, bringing up the latest status report. Another death – the Brute this time – but more importantly, they were closing in on the primary engine core.

“One more day,” Usul said to himself. “We’ll get that in hand and then inform Seyr.” Once the column leader heard of this find, he would descend on it like an Askanj jackal to strip it bare... but he would not be able to forget Usul’s role in it. That would be more than enough.

~

“Grace,” Confessor Yurim said, sitting on the cot next to her. It creaked under the Tribune’s weight. “This is unlike you.” His voice was deep and soothing, his long fingers laced together in his lap, his upper eyes closed. He had come over to the wreck with the latest wave of technical teams to address the morale issues that had been cropping up.

Grace couldn’t look him in the eyes.

“Your outburst is unfortunate, but understandable. However, striking a superior officer is a very serious offence,” Yurim continued evenly, his voice bereft of accusation. “But you know that. I also think that this incident need not get ugly, given the circumstances. I’m also aware that there has been... was... some tension between sectator te Neu, sectator Kilgrave and yourself.”

There was more than ‘tension’, but Grace still didn’t say anything.

“I understand that you are grieving for your friend,” Yurim continued in that same gentle tone of voice. “But that doesn’t excuse your actions, Grace. You’ve been one of my best students; I know your relationship with Allyria had a... calming effect on her. Her social assimilation acumen improved immensely with your help. Her grades were always top-notch and she was an inspiration to all the other Verrisha Envoy Children. We have several prospective Verrish candidates applying to Rally’s Academy because of the example she set. She was a role model to many young men and women. She won’t be forgotten. Do you understand that?”

The young woman nodded. “Good,” Yurim continued sympathetically. “I know her death is tragic. But there have been other deaths. Convert Uday had parents. Epigone Herut had a sister. Sectator Anuse had a wife. Convert Prime Yasha had children, as did epigone Tracj. How many of these families will become physically violent upon hearing of the loss of a loved one?”

Grace looked down at the floor, ashamed. “None.”

Yurim nodded. “I know Allyria’s loss feels profound to you, but you must be aware of how such things look, Grace. Such incidents only harm the perception of humans. The Tribunes who fell were men and women who have taken on the burden of serving the Compact, to safeguard the less civilized races of the galaxy, to guide their development and protect them both from themselves and from those who would prey upon them. This is a duty that may involve laying down our lives for you, but we do it gladly and without any thought of reward. Would you lessen their deaths and the impact of that loss on their families by acting as if Allyria was more important than them?”

Cut by the chastisement, Grace shook her head miserably. “No.”

“Of course not.” The confessor moved to sit next to the young human, putting one large hand on her shoulder. “Your friendship with sectator te Neu was commendable. It was everything we hope to see in our younger races – individuals working together for a common goal. But just as some of you influenced her, I see also that some of Allyria influenced you. I do not speak ill of the dead, but you must remember that your friend could be an angry young woman. She did not have the same depth of understanding of the Compact that you did and that irrational resentment often held her back. I don’t want to see that same anger in you, Grace. It poisons the mind. You will go far if you remember what we have taught you.”

The woman nodded, still staring at the deck.

“You are a young species,” Yurim continued. “Your emotions are still pre-eminent in your psyches and you often react based on them. This is why we watch over you, Grace. The Compact is here to guide and protect species like yours and Allyria’s. But no matter how much we try, we cannot always save you from yourselves. Only you can do that. Remember your lessons and think of how Allyria cared for you. She would not want to see you destroy yourself on her behalf. She would want you to honour her memory by carrying on and serving the Compact, not give in to the same pitfalls that have caused so many in this galaxy to suffer.”

Yurim stood. “I have read the details of the incident. I know that sectator Kilgrave was... more direct than he should have been, given the situation. I will speak with him and this incident will be forgotten, as long as there are no further outbursts.” The confessor arched the eyebrows over his daylight eyes quizzically.

Grace nodded. “There won’t be.”

“I did not doubt it.” Yurim paused. “The medics tell me that your injuries should be mended within two days. If you like, I can have you transferred back to Bequeathed.”

The young woman’s head came up. “No,” she said urgently. “No, I... I want to stay. I want to help. Please. I need to do this.”

“Very well. I will speak with Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun about a lighter workload until the medics clear you fully.” The confessor smiled. “I am glad to have had this talk with you, Grace. I foresee great things from you – all that you must do is live up to the potential that I know you have. The Compact will need people like you. Given time, you will find your place amongst it and serve with distinction.”

“Thank you, confessor.”

“Of course. If you have any more issues or concerns, please come find me. I am here for you. For all of you.” Yurim bowed his head in farewell. “It will all be for the best. Allyria’s sacrifice will not be in vain, Grace. This ship is a glorious find and though the price we have paid may seem high now, in the end it will be for the betterment of all. You know this, don’t you?”

For the first time in her life, Grace lied to a Tribune. “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

~

Bastion Leader Renan stepped into the pervasive darkness of the Triarch’s tower, closing his day-seeing eyes as the gloom overtook him. He had been summoned to see the Triarch, but for what reason, he couldn’t say. Although he didn’t know why, his gut insisted that this was unlikely to be a pleasant meeting. The search for the Wound had only just begun, but it was as fruitless as Renan had known it would be and worry gnawed at his guts as he strode further through the blackness. There was a reddish glow from the main chamber and the inconsistent blinking of other lights. As he stepped into the room, the Tribune saw that every terminal in the reception chamber was active, flickering with star charts, reports, ship schematics and other things too fast for him to process. Watching it all, her eyes darting from screen to screen in a disturbing rendition of REM sleep, was a human female. There was a Broken within the Triarch’s chambers. Instinctively, Renan’s hand went for the sidearm he’d had to surrender before entering the tower. He strode towards the Broken, a warning growl in his throat. “Human...”

“Bastion Leader Renan Turshin Lokan Yemsere Gankor Irmir Hasik,” the animal answered, in perfect Oada’vam, which was itself an anomaly. Human throats were incapable of pronouncing the Tribunes’ own language. “Graduated top of your class from the Aunisha Academy on Torpennel in 17-995.8. Ascended to stewardship of the cruiser Greater Reward. Promoted to Column Leader within four years after a series of wildly successful campaigns against the Unbound of Durreshta Sector,” the Broken did not even look at him as she recited his life’s history. “You even repelled an Askanj incursion. You were hand-picked for this assignment.” Finally, her dark blue eyes flicked over to him, with what he took to be an evaluative expression on her face. “You’re a traditional, but very promising officer. It would be a waste to kill you.”

Renan’s nostrils flared. “You dare threaten-?” His hands balled into fists and he took another step towards the animal.

Laughter echoed out of the darkness, scratchy and rasping, like nails on stone. The Triarch was there, its needle teeth exposed in a mirthful smile. “She does, Bastion Leader. A very impertinent creature, this one.” It laid one skeletal hand on the small female’s shoulder. “But a very useful one.”

The Tribune looked from the human and the taunting smile on its ugly, flattened face to the Triarch. “Your Grace,” he said, nodding in deference to the Triarch, suppressing his revulsion and anger at the human’s presence. “I did not realize that this... Broken served some greater purpose.”

“You see?” the Triarch said to the human. “He understood quickly enough.”

The Broken made an annoyed huff through its under-sized nostrils. “I suppose.”

The Triarch stepped away, settling itself in its throne. “I would have a boon from you, Bastion Leader.”

“Anything,” Renan said without hesitation.

“You will take my impertinent companion into your command,” the Triarch said, looking at neither Renan nor the human. “She is quite trying, but she will assist you in your search for the Wound.”

Renan blinked all four eyes, looking again at the human. How could a human help him? They were dull-minded chattel at best, their animal cunning and predisposition for violence long since bred out of them. Useful enough for menial tasks, but this? “My lord...?” the Tribune began questioningly.

The Triarch let out a rattle of displeasure. “You and your kind have failed us for two thousand years,” it said with sudden anger. Its black eyes narrowed as it regarded Renan. “You will obey her in all things as if her words were mine. Is that understood, Bastion Leader?”

“I... yes, my lord.” He didn’t understand, but that wasn’t necessary.

“Good,” the Triarch said, turning its chair away from the Tribune. “You are dismissed.”

With a spring in her step, the human followed Renan out. “A final warning,” the Triarch said as if remembering something of minor import, turning to meet the Tribune’s gaze. Renan averted his eyes, unable to meet the Triarch’s own. “You are never to allow her direct nor unsupervised access to this vessel’s mainframe nor any other. This order can never be countermanded, even if you hear it from me. Is that understood?”

“I...no, lord. But it shall be as you ask.”

The Triarch chuckled, turning away. “That will suffice.”

“And...what should I do if she attempts to access the computer?”

“Why,” the Trirach said without looking back. “Shoot her in the head, of course.”

Renan looked at the human animal. It was still smiling, her hands held behind her back. As they left the Triarch’s tower, the Tribune frowned, something coming to mind. The Triarch had never given him the Broken’s name. “And what,” he said, “are you called?”

The creature looked up at him, her pale face drawn in an expression that Renan did not recognize, but one that nonetheless made his liver fold in on itself. “Echo,” she said. “My name is Echo.”

Chapters 14

Consciousness returned, bringing with it a throbbing headache and overall soreness too painful to make her think she was dead. Allyria opened her eyes, picking herself up off the floor. Above her was the bottom of the elevator, smashed and ruined – mangled by the gravity shifts and grab fields that had slowed her descent. Where they had kept her from falling at terminal velocity – though not quite slow enough to avoid the impact entirely – they had functioned just as any solid surface would and the car had been dashed against them. An anxious giggle bubbled out of her lips, born of equal parts relief and fright. She was pleased, but only mildly surprised to find that she was still alive. She hadn’t believed that the Angel would have killed her, not really.

Well. Mostly.

Partially.

The elevator door was open, leading out into a darkened corridor. “I’m here,” she called, but there was no answer. “You know me, don’t you?” she asked of the silence. “Do you remember us?” There was still no response. The Verrish stroked one of her head-tails nervously, but she stepped into the hall. Behind her, the grab field released and the remains of the lift car crashed onto the deck. Like flicking a switch, the corridor was suddenly illuminated – but only to Allyria’s eyes. “You do remember,” she said, a note of wonder in her voice.

The lights pulsed.

“Can you speak?”

Nothing.

“You’re hurt, even here,” Allyria mused aloud, a touch of sadness in her voice. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed that this part of the ship was wounded, even more than the outer sections. The bulkheads were scarred and burned from small arms fire. Every comm panel was blasted and shattered. There were a handful of the small drones at work, but Allyria guessed that most of them were on other duties. There was more to fix than a few sensor nodes and intercoms.

Her wounds are so grave. The Verrish woman placed one of her hands to the bulkhead. It was cold to the touch, but she imagined that she could feel the pulse of life within the great ship’s heart. “When I saw you, I knew,” she said to the listening mind. “I remember all the stories my grandfather told me. I watched every movie, read every book, watched every play.” She smiled a little. The gesture was brittle. “As much as I could, anyways. They didn’t leave much.” Allyria looked around at the still, silent corridor. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

“We still remember you. Namases,” Allyria rolled the unfamiliar syllables down her tongue. She hadn’t heard the word spoken for almost two decades. “There are many names for you, but there are two that I know best. The Broken God and the Weeping Angel.” She paused at an intersection, uncertain of where to go, but the light panels in the walls and ceiling glimmered, giving Allyria a path bathed in ultraviolet light. To human or Tribune eyes, the corridor was still as dark as the grave. A discarded bolt shell crunched under her feet as the Verrish followed the lights.

“How much do you remember?” Allyria asked quietly. “The others say that you’re damaged. Ruined. Irreparable. I don’t believe that. I think you’re hurt. You’ve been hurt for a very long time, like you were when you came to us.”

~

The Shriek started on the 17th hour of the 26th day of Duumas, and did not stop for eighteen days. The personnel and crew of the Ullana Cetu Radio Telescope Array were the first to hear it, a signal of such intensity that several of their receivers were burned out. It was garbled beyond understanding, an unintelligible mash of static and sound, but it was coming from a point on the edge of the Vara Tal system, it was repeating and it was coming closer.

~

“We were afraid, so afraid. Our moon landing had only been a few short years ago and some thought that this was a response to it. You were here to welcome us to an intergalactic brotherhood, or punish us for becoming too advanced. We didn’t know that you hadn’t come for us at all.” Allyria’s voice softened. “You were trying to find your home. You were lost and dying and somewhere out in the void, you heard all the radio signals we’d been sending into space for decades. You heard them and you thought we were your home, so you came to us. Screaming all the way. You didn’t know. You thought you’d come home.”

She thought she could feel a change in the pulse of energy behind the walls. “For eighteen days we cowered on our planet, terrified and jubilant, excited and anxious as you came closer and closer, still broadcasting with everything you had. My grandfather said global communications all but collapsed, your cries were so loud. It had to be an attack; there was no other explanation for what was happening. But it wasn’t, was it? It was just... you. Desperate to be heard. Powerful, so powerful that even without meaning to, you’d brought our world to its knees and all you were doing was trying to talk. Trying to be heard and hoping for a response.

“I asked my grandfather what it must have been like for you, up there. All alone and pleading for help, calling out again and again, wondering why nobody was answering you. He was quiet for a moment and then he said that he thought that you must have been as frightened as we were.”

There was a brief moment of silence and then the lights pulsed again.

~

The Director of Foreign Affairs took a quick gulp of the glass of gin on his desk before his thirteenth hour appointment arrived. He didn’t know how this had gotten dumped in his lap, only that he wished it hadn’t. The Rylethe Federation was the largest and strongest nation on Vara and the rest of the world were looking to them for direction, while everybody in the Federation was looking to him. He didn’t know what to tell them. The Cabinet wanted to know what the Federation’s military options were. That was easy. The Other was orbiting Vara, three hundred thousand krems away – almost twice the distance between Vara and the moon Tal. There was no missile on the planet that had that kind of range, at least not without being spotted long before it got anywhere near the Other. Some scientists from the Federation’s Space Agency assured him (although the director was rather skeptical of that assurance) that, with a few years of work and a big enough budget, they could build a rocket that could not only reach the Other, but return safely.

A few years – how splendid. And that was assuming that the assessment was accurate.

The Other hadn’t responded to any sort of communication, but its broadcasts were jamming worldwide radio nets. The FSA scientists monitoring the Other had said that there were fluctuations in the strength of the signal. Some were periodic and some were random, as if the Other were trying to boost the strength of its transmission further, but couldn’t maintain that for long. So it wasn’t listening, couldn’t be reached, couldn’t be attacked and was free to do whatever it pleased to the helpless little green globe of Vara. With a sigh, the Director poured himself another drink as he waited for his daily briefing on how little could be done.

Just as he set the glass down, the Director’s phone rang. He picked it up with a sigh, but before he could get the first syllable out, someone on the other end shouted in his ear. “It’s stopped! The Shriek has stopped!”

~

“I’ve always wondered,” Allyria continued. “Was it a lack of power that stopped you? Or did you realise what you were doing, what effect you were having on our world? Is that why you stopped?” She waited a moment and the lights pulsed again. “A merciful god,” she said lightly. “But there were people who were convinced that you were some sign of favour or dismay from their deity or deities. They listened, as did we all when you ended your calls. The whole world held its breath, waiting for something. A word, a demand, a question. Everyone waited, but you gave us only silence. Fire didn’t rain on our cities. Horrible alien beasts didn’t march through our streets. We simply waited, watching and wondering at what had come to our world. We built telescopes that could finally see you.” Allyria stopped. “We saw your scars.”

~

“Gods.” It was a simple enough proclamation, but it seemed to encapsulate everything that could be said. The Premier was looking at the images Deep Space 5 had taken of the Other. It was a monstrous thing: at least three krems long and massing gods-knew how many millions of auhs, covered with weapons batteries, turrets, communications and sensor antennae and other structures that he could only guess at. It boggled his mind to see the Other in such detail; the people who had built it were as far from the Rylethe Federation as they were from their own jungle-dwelling ancestors. The awe he felt for the people who could create such a thing was not the only emotion he felt; there was also a deep streak of terror for the ones that had wounded the Other so grievously.

Its injuries were all too obvious to the naked eye; burnt and molten hull plates, vast chasms ripped into its body, cracks and fissures, scars and tears. Many in the FSA speculated that the ship was dead; why else would it remain here? Some automated protocol had brought it to Vara and it had succumbed to its injuries before it could leave. The Verrisha people had had their first extraterrestrial contact and it was this dead, broken ship that had spent itself in trying to find succor. The Premier felt a deep sadness at the thought as he leafed through the pictures and wondered just what it was that had come to his world.

~

“Twenty years,” Allyria mused. “That’s how long you were there. No longer the Other, you became ‘the Visitor’. Street hawkers would sell pictures of you, rent time on their little telescopes for those hoping to catch a glimpse of you. There were model kits and books, television shows and movies, all of them guessing. Some were closer than others. You brought our world together like nothing else. Divided nations began to take the first steps towards each other, all of them wondering about the Weeping Angel holding court above their heads. The Broken God that had died on our doorstep. People began to convince themselves that you were theirs and theirs alone, each nation eager to plunder your bones, growing bold as we told ourselves that you were dead.

“We didn’t know that you were just sleeping.”

~

“What do you mean, it’s gone?”

“I mean, the asteroid CX-48995 is gone,” the adjutant scientist informed the Director of Visitor Affairs. The name was officially ‘Extraterrestrial Affairs’, but the only thing that really mattered to this office was the Visitor. “It’s not there anymore.”

“I understand that,” the Director said gruffly. “But it’s an asteroid. It doesn’t just disappear.”

“They,” the scientist said.

“They?”

“They. Over the last few months, I’ve noticed several irregularities in local celestial bodies. Orbits seem to have shifted, masses are different and some have gone missing, just like CX-48995.”

The Director’s eyebrows raised and his head-tails shivered with a thrill of uncertainty. “You’re saying that someone is stealing our asteroids?”

“Not just ‘someone’, the scientist said excitedly, her own tintas starting to undulate with her rising excitement. “I’ve been cross-referencing all the images we’ve been taking of the Visitor. At first, it was slow. So slow that I can see why people missed it. But now – now it’s getting faster. It’s-”

“Slow down,” the Director said. “What’s happening? What’s getting faster?”

“Look – here. This was taken almost fourteen years ago, one of the first pictures we have of the Visitor. You see that scar, right along that dorsal line? Here – look at this. You see? Year after year, it gets a bit smaller until now – it’s gone. You see? Slow. But this – this. Look, this is Chasm 9-3. It used to penetrate into the Visitor’s core. I’ve had some friends in Structural Studies run a few extra tests for me. Chasm 9-3 is less than half as deep as it was three months ago. You see? You can’t repair something like that without several hundred auhe of raw materials.”

The Director’s eyes widened. “The Visitor...”

“It’s repairing itself. It’s not dead – don’t you see? It’s still alive!”

~

“We were afraid again, but not as much as when you first came to our world. No... maybe not even afraid. Uncertain. A generation had grown up knowing that you were there, out of reach as you drifted around our world, unable to leave. Knowing that you had died decades ago, the symbol of everything our people could have, if only we could work together. The early days, the days when your cries had deafened our world – those were long past. You had said nothing, done nothing in so long that we’d begun to take your presence for granted. When the truth came out... my grandfather says it really wasn’t fear, so much as anxiety. Had you been watching us all this time? Listening? Knowing that we were trying to reach out to, already arguing about how best to split the spoils between our nations?” Allyria paused, stroking the great ship’s metal bulkheads, her tintas shivering with excitement.

Gods, let this be real.

“So we worried, worried what might happen if you returned to life and were displeased at our presumption, worried about what you might do. Injured animals...” Allyria took a moment to gather her thoughts; her mind was racing and the words were tumbling out all in a rush. She was afraid to stop talking. It was insane, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all some dream, that she lay bleeding out the last few seconds of her life at the bottom of an elevator shaft and once the story ended, so would she. This was the Angel, she told herself again, scarcely daring to believe it.

She found her voice again, her fingers trailing over the edge of where something cut through the bulkhead, leaving a deep laceration. Spattered against the metal was an ancient, faded bloodstain. “Those are the most dangerous, aren’t they?”

The lights pulsed again.

Allyria smiled, her lips drawing back from her teeth.

~

“Control, this is Host One. We are on final approach now,” Mission Leader Anrelu radioed back. “We are engaging our retro thrusters... now. Still no activity from the Visitor. All tertiary cameras are on. You should be getting those feeds now.”

It took almost three seconds for the astronaut’s transmission to reach Vara. “Confirmed, Host One,” Control radioed back. “Gods’ blessings be with you.”

Anrelu nodded, though he knew no one but his crew could see him do so. The Visitor swelled before him with every passing krem, silent as the grave. Not the most comforting thought. Anrelu licked his dry lips. The Visitor had never responded to any communication attempt and no probe had ever made contact, but it was clearly not dead. Still grievously wounded from whatever battles it had fought, but not dead. They had spent days on approach, broadcasting their peaceful intentions all the while, but there had been no reaction.

The Mission Leader felt a flutter in his stomach as the distance dropped even further. He could barely tear his eyes away from the Visitor. He had no idea what to expect – no one did.

“Approaching within five thousand krems now,” Host One’s helmswoman called out. Like Anrelu, she was transfixed by the massive alien spacecraft. No one had been closer than this. Even their unmanned probes had never flown so close.

There was no grace, no artistry in its form. Alien in structure, it was a tapered knife that ended in a three-pronged prow, bedecked with slabs of heavy armour. A gargantuan, brutal machine that radiated a sullen threat just from its existence... and it was still beautiful, the most beautiful thing Anrelu had ever-

An alarm screamed.

“Massive energy surge from the Visitor!” Operations called out. “Thermals – radiation – EM – it’s all spiking!”

“Leader – the hull!” someone else called out, but Anrelu already saw. Massive blast doors were opening, and what could only be the glinting lenses of macro-lightbeam cannon stared back, along with other weapons that he couldn’t identify. Spinal turrets rotated towards Host One and the Verrishan spacecraft’s radar was suddenly thrown back into its own face in a wall of squealing static.

Control was clamouring for his attention, but Anrelu couldn’t answer them. The last thought he had, that he was convinced he was going to have, was that they’d tripped some proximity sensor that the probes hadn’t. They were too big, their course too direct – it didn’t matter.

He waited for oblivion.

It didn’t come.

Somehow, he managed enough mental wherewithal to report the situation to Control. It hadn’t shot them down. Not yet. He didn’t think for a moment that that was because it couldn’t. “We’re not your enemy,” he said with a rush of realization. “You don’t know what to do with us.”

Slowly, Host One crawled towards the Angel, fearing that if they turned back, they might never come this close again. Anrelu was sweating inside his suit, knowing that some strange intelligence was considering him and the tiny, arrogant speck of metal that had come calling, daring to approach the titan. He almost jumped when, with languid grace, the gargantuan vessel began to pulse with light, patterns flowing across its hull. Arrows, he realized. It was beckoning them towards a docking bay.

“Take us in,” he ordered the helm, something of scripture running through his head, when the All-Mother spoke to Bethem upon the mountain.

I have seen you and all your sins. I have judged you.

As Host One approached the alien vessel, Anrelu could only pray that this god would not find them wanting.

~

“Just by existing, you showed us so many things,” Allyria spoke soothingly to the wounded animal that surrounded her. “When you first appeared, you told us that we were we not alone. You told us that we could have the stars. That we needed to come together, to unite as we had never done before. You told us about scientific marvels that we had only dreamed of until now. You told us all this and more, without ever saying a word.” Allyria paused here, staring at a set of armoured double doors in front of her, her heart fluttering in her chest as they drew open, leading to a waiting elevator car and she realized – hoped – where she was being led.

“So you can imagine what it meant when you finally did speak.”

~

“They are coming.”

Anrelu froze in place as the words echoed through the still air of the Visitor’s command deck. He looked over at the rest of the contact team, their faces mirroring his own surprise. They had made their way here – rather, they had been led – through corridors scarred by ancient damage. Of the vessel’s crew, there was no sign. Every time they had stopped, guide lights had come to life, urgently beckoning them onwards until they had reached this place.

“They are coming.” The words, in perfect Rylean, repeated.

“What...” it came out as a croak. Anrelu cleared his throat and tried again. “Who is this?” He asked of the air. “Who’s coming?”

A diode on the dais in the center of the room began to blink. Slowly, the astronaut approached it, ignoring the rest of his team. As he stepped closer the dais came to life, projecting a ghostly column of pale light straight into the air. Not a dais – some sort of holographic projector. A great wheel of stars hung before him; their own galaxy. A green circle appeared around one star in particular and the image began to zoom in by stages. Soon, a blue-green world with very familiar landmasses appeared. Vara, and her single moon Tal. A green arrow appeared on the map, pointing to a small speck of light around Vara, outside the orbit of the moon. Anrelu reached out to it and a picture-in-picture appeared, showing the Visitor.

“Incredible,” the mission lead breathed, lost in the beautiful, simple details of what he was seeing. Even Vara’s clouds drifted and shifted in perfect mimicry of, he was sure, how his planet appeared now.

Then, the spell ended. The image zoomed back out until the galaxy was before him again. The green circle around the Vara Tal system was still there, but there were now red marks around several distant worlds, far across the galaxy. Then, like a creeping tide of blood, red began to spill outwards from those points consuming hundred – no, thousands – of star systems before stopping. A marker appeared:

COMPACT EXPANSION: FIRST PHASE

Then, another spread of red flowed across the stars, the original territory almost doubling in size.

COMPACT EXPANSION: SECOND PHASE

There was a third phase. A fourth. At the fifth expansion, a single star blinked blue, even as it was swallowed by the red. Anrelu swallowed, realizing that he was seeing the Visitor’s homeworld be consumed by this unknown, ravenous polity. Images appeared – what had to be vessels of these ‘Compact’; bloated, swollen things with curved, bulging hulls completely unlike the blocky, inelegant grace of the Visitor’s form.

COMPACT EXPANSION: SIXTH PHASE. The red was growing closer to the little green circle and Anrelu suddenly felt his breath catch in his throat as a faint pink aura enveloped Vara Tal.

PROJECTED AREA OF COMPACT EXPANSION: SEVENTH PHASE

The chamber was deathly quiet as the contact team all took in what they were seeing, the silence so complete that when the Visitor spoke again, Anrelu almost cried out in surprise.

“They are coming,” the wounded god whispered.

Anrelu looked around at the majesty of the Visitor, his eyes returning to the map and the small green circle, alone amongst a sea of red stars.

Then he noticed the timer.

~

“The Broken God,” Allyria said softly. “The Weeping Angel. You saved us. You saved us the instant you came to Vara Tal. You would have told us more, I know. You would have told us everything, if only they hadn’t hurt you so badly. If they hadn’t left you struggling for decades just to survive, to stay ahead of your failing systems. But you took mercy on us in those last moments. You warned us when you had no reason to. A simple machine would never make that decision. Only something with a soul could have done that.”

~

Anrelu had been on home soil for several days before the Visitor left. He watched it go through the feed from Deep Space 10. The energy of its departure was, for an instant, greater than Vara Tal’s own sun. The images he was seeing were several hours old, but that made the pang of loss no less real for him. For all of them. Vara Tal’s first extraterrestrial visitor was gone, after generations of gracing their night skies. It was gone. He stood up, surrounded by politicians, military officials and scientists. They had all seen the same thing and their mood was somber. “What now?” he asked quietly.

“The 51st International Conclave is in two weeks,” the Rylean Minister of Visitor Affairs said. “The message...” he paused, looking towards several of the other dignitaries. “If it is true,” he added with no real conviction. There were those who claimed it was some kind of alien or Rylean trick – to what end no one could say, but their fear made them clutch at straws. “Needs to be discussed before the world stage. The Drians are already proposing cooperative war games.” The Drian Alliance had been the Rylean Federation’s stalwart rival for over seventy years, but ever since the Visitor had arrived, the two nations had been making tentative steps away from their previous positions.

Anrelu looked back at the stars. “I think that’s a good idea.” If this Compact was coming for them, they would only survive by standing together.

~

The arguments lasted for years. The information that the Visitor had left them was both horrifying and frustrating. It showed the degradation and destruction of a race, of the overwhelming military power that had crushed a star-faring civilization into dust. The Verrisha people watched as cities were cast down and planets burned, as entire populations were reduced to ash. It was madness; the war was one of extermination, not conquest or control.

But there was hope amidst the despair. They also watched Compact soldiers die. Of massive, bloated starships wallowing drunkenly as the Angel’s smaller kin rushed amongst them, dying in droves, but taking the Compact vessels with them into death. Of devastated cities that erupted in nuclear fire, wiping away the alien armies. Each victory was one hard-fought for and each one marred by pyres of the dead, but each was a victory nonetheless.

They watched a vessel as large as the Angel itself die, dragged screaming to Hell. The message was clear: the enemy can be hurt. They can be killed... but the cost is high. They saw all this and understood the choice they had been given. There had been no directive. No speeches. Aside from its warning, the Visitor had spoken only once more, a simple statement of its name. After that, it hadn’t uttered a single word, only presenting a single drive of data to the contact team. It had left, the gesture as eloquent as could be: the people of Vara must choose, but whatever the choice that they made, they could not look to the stars for help. Many had decried this as abandonment; many of those would recant those words as the future unfurled, others would stubbornly cling to this delusion.

Some denied the choice; it was a trick or a sham. The Visitor wanted to turn them into its proxies in some war. If that were true, others countered – why did it not give them any technology? Only historical documents and information on its enemy. If it needed effective soldiers, what good was a single planet-bound population that had struggled even to reach its own orbit? Why wouldn’t it arm them?

Others believed that any defence that their world could prepare would be ineffective against the force that had destroyed the Visitor’s makers. To fight would be to share their fate. Surrender or negotiate; those were the only sane choices. There were those who wanted to fight, to rail against this coming foe rather than bow their necks like cattle. There were even those who believed that they actually stood a chance of winning.

It was a bitter, divisive debate. The most important question that the Verrish people had ever had had put to them. They had been given a glimpse of the future and the choice that went with it.

More than three decades would pass before the final decision would be made.

~

Bastion Leader Conmurra (and ten names besides) laced his long fingers together as his onslaught formation neared the end of their shock. A glorious Seventh Age of Expansion had been proclaimed by the Triarchs. Over a thousand Fleets of Conquest had been dispatched and his was among them. He would have preferred to be sent against the Principality and wrest star systems from their hands, but this was an acceptable consolation prize. He had already earned one name in this expedition alone and the pacification and annexation of a populated world would earn him another.

Long-range probes had detected the radio signals emitted by a primitive world and their source had been triangulated. Surveyors were still sifting through the data for anything of use, but so far there was nothing that indicated more than a low-level space presence and low-yield nuclear weapons. Hardly a fair match for an entire onslaught formation, but the Compact of Species had only rarely faced a foe worthy of the name.

A low dirge sounded and Conmurra braced himself for the reversion. There was the expected twisting, gut wrenching sensation and then Expansion Fleet Conmurra was in realspace once more, emerging from the world’s L1 libration point, perfectly placed between the primary world and its single moon. The Tribune smiled and made a note to commend his navigational crews. He’d seen fleets rip themselves apart when their shockpoints opened outside the gravitational balance of a libration site, but there was nothing like such a mass emergence to set the proper tone for a world’s annexation. My brother would say that there is nothing so breathtaking as the fall of a dynasty, but I think of this moment as the creation of a new one.

Several moments passed as Conmurra rose from his pulpit and circled the command deck, looking at the data feeds. Heavier than normal orbital industry and what appeared to some sort of lunar mining operation – perhaps there was some intelligence among the primitives, after all. Conmurra allowed himself a small smile as he chided himself. Some intelligence, but they were still uncivilized creatures. Whether they had true sapience or simply the more common mimicry of it remained to be seen, although he doubted it was the former. He had read The Functional Mind: the evolutionary history and development of pseudo-intelligence and found it compelling and provocative, although Erili did occasionally take her views on client races too far. She had had to publicly apologize after the release of Idol Hands and the Binds that Tie sparked several riots among outraged client populations who had not the wit to properly interpret the author’s meaning.

The Bastion Leader wondered what insights the author would gather from this species, idly wondering if these creatures would fit the definition of Erili’s ‘functional mind’. More than likely, else their world would not be beneath his fleet at this moment.

Finally, Conmurra turned to his flag captain. “I think that they should be aware of us by now,” the Bastion Leader mused with a smile. “Initiate planetary communication disruption. Have the surveyors translated the local languages yet?”

“They have, Bastion Leader.”

“Very well. Communications. Record for transmission on all native frequencies and broadcast through our jamming.”

Communications looked up, signalling Conmurra that she was ready to record.

“Natives of a distant world, rejoice! We are the Compact of Species and we have come for you. It was your signals that drew us to your world, another civilization in the cold, endless night of this galaxy. We are here to accept you into our nation, one based upon the care and protection of younger races. For six thousand years, we have watched over the galaxy, shepherding the younger races and guiding them along the path to true civilization. Now, you will join this lauded community amongst the stars. Rejoice, for all that you knew of the universe is at an end. You are not alone; we have found you. Rejoice, for this is a day unlike any other you have had or will have again. Today, you are no longer lost, frightened children in the dark. Today, you have joined us and we will watch over you. Rejoice on this day and remember it for all other days to come. Welcome, brothers and sisters. Welcome, to the Compact of Species.”

As the missive was sent out, Conmurra settled back into his command chair. “Deploy the fleet in preparation for landings. Identify all primary governmental, industrial and military sites and program the fleet’s fire patterns accordingly.” He expected a rather long wait before any response came; primitives always had trouble grasping the idea of other species. While he had the opportunity, he may as well prepare for the inevitable refusal. He supposed that that was proof enough of a species’s barbarity. They always fought, even when they had no chance. As Erili wrote, ‘one of the surest indicators of a functional mind instead of a true intelligence is the proclivity for primitive emotions and processes to override rationality and reason’. Opposing a Compact fleet was surely evidence of that.

“Response from planetside,” Communications reported and Conmurra frowned. That was quick.

“Put it on the main display,” the Bastion Leader replied. The main screen blinked from a view of the soon-to-be subjugated world to one of its inhabitants. By all the Triarchs, it was ugly. Splotchy shades of blue with a smooth, flattened face – almost like a human’s, Conmurra thought with disgust – and... were those tentacles? Hanging from its head like a proper mane? Revolting beast.

“This is Chairman Rellik te Hurin of the Varran Federation to unidentified vessels of the Compact of Species,” the creature spoke. Listening to it hurt Conmurra’s ears, but thankfully the auto-translation of its yowling speech into a proper civilized tongue drowned out the worst of the noise. “We thank you for your gracious invitation, but we must decline. As you have said, we are a young species. We have only recently unified our world from fractious, fighting nation-states and our efforts to reach into space must undoubtedly seem crude compared to your technology. We have much to do on our own before we will be ready to stand next to you as equals. We would, however, be pleased to know more about your species and we would gladly extend an offer to meet with a handful of your representatives.”

Presumptuous animal. Conmurra laced his long, thin fingers together as he leaned forward in his throne. “I am afraid that such declination will not be possible, Chairman. The Compact of Species is a stabilizing force within the galaxy; we bring order and structure to all those races that require it. This is for your sake more than ours; we offer protection and guidance as you rise to a true civilization. We cannot have rogue, unruly nations bringing chaos and disruption to the stars. We have seen what lies down that path; destruction and devastation. The strong prey upon the weak. Races are destroyed out of hand. The Compact’s mandate is to prevent such calamities and though this may seem a rushed affair, you can be assured that all we ever have is the interests of other species at heart. We are here for you,” he continued. “Perhaps one day you will stand beside us as equals, but you are young yet and have a long path before you. In the interests of friendship, I ask that you allow our protection forces to land in order to insure a quick and safe incorporation into the Compact. We wish no bloodshed.”

“None of your ships are to break the planetary atmosphere,” Rellik te Hurin asserted. “Any such action will be considered a hostile action and we will respond with lethal force. Remain in orbit. As I have said, we are willing to negotiate, but we will not bow our necks to any invader, no matter what sweet words they offer.”

Conmurra was tempted to laugh at such naiveté, but held himself back. He prided himself that his recordings and transcripts only rarely needed to be altered to provide the proper historical narrative. Anyone could see how this primitive was forcing his hand. “Respond how you wish, chairman. It would sadden me greatly to have to mar our first contact with violence, but I will protect those under my command if we are attacked. I urge you to reconsider your actions: I do not wish to sound presumptuous, but my battlegroup is filled with the finest Tribune soldiers in the galaxy. You have a single planet of warriors who have managed to create chemically-propelled firearms. I have no wish to order a slaughter of your people, but needs must. There are threats in this galaxy that you cannot imagine. We are the only force that would stand between you and them. Indeed, we have saved many species from external danger as well as from themselves. While I am sure that your faith in your people is sincere, the Compact has long learned that younger races lack the foresight and foreknowledge to fully protect themselves. It falls to us, then. My ships will land and you will be welcomed into the Compact of Species. We will make the transition as easy as possible, but do not misunderstand the inevitability of this.”

“Then it would seem that there is nothing more to discuss.” te Hurin made a gesture to someone off-camera.

“Bastion Leader!” there came a crew from the crew manning the fleet’s sensor relays. “The moon base – we are detecting energy signatures.”

“Show me!” Conmurra demanded, his eyes narrowing. That was not the simple mining colony he had assumed it to be. In fact, those structures looked like...

“All ships, disperse! Incoming fire!” the Tribune roared.

The railcannons that had been sunk into the lunar surface fired. Gargantuan mass drivers, what they lacked in sophistication, they made up for in sheer size and raw power, hurling building-sized chunks of rock and metal up into the midst of the Tribune fleet. Those were not mere railguns; for all their crudity, those were siege weapons – meteor cannons – firing up into his fleet! Even Conmurra’s Chariot could not take many such strikes.

Capable Archer was the first to die, the old cruiser too close and responding too slowly to the warning. With all screens presented forward against planetary missile launches, there was nothing but armour between the ship and the mass round – and no armour in the galaxy could absorb such an impact! The massive rounds smashed through the Expansion Fleet, pulverising ships into kindling and flame. They had been fired at oblique angles, so as not to endanger the planet, but the fleet so was widely dispersed that there were still many targets for them. In the space of a few seconds, four of Conmurra’s ships were dead or badly damaged with a score more suffering other injuries.

Conmurra growled in savage fury as his fleet lashed the lunar surface, tearing the primitives’ installation to shreds and cutting vast swathes deep into the moon’s surface, forever scarring the planetoid. Those mass drivers would not fire again, but his fleet was in disarray and he watched with mounting fury as the orbital mirrors turned to face his disordered ships, beams of starlight burning his hulls as orbital stations launched nuclear-tipped missiles upon his fleet, still more coming from ground installations. Each of those missiles was insignificant on its own and any single ship in his fleet could have handled the entire volley at once. If its screens were active and deployed. If it was prepared. If it was not confused and reeling from this attack.

Rage clouding his vision, the bastion leader screamed orders at his ship leaders as they struggled to pull themselves back into formation, his own vessel turning its guns against the orbital stations and mirrors, sweeping orbital tracks clean and buying his fleet the time it needed to re-order itself after this.... this... this betrayal.

They dared!

They dared!

They would pay for this affront. These pathetic, uncivilized barbarians dared to strike at their betters!

He would make them pay.

~

The pacification of Vara Tal would be recorded as one of the most costly conquests of the Seventh Expansion and easily one of the bloodiest in the Compact’s history. Only a handful of other species had proven more troublesome and none with this level of technology. The Verrish animals were shockingly learned in their warmaking. So far, Expansion Fleet Conmurra’s losses exceeded projections by 27% and the flotilla’s timetable was a shambles as more and more suppression units had to be called in to replace losses.

The first waves had been a massacre. The natives had de-orbited their remaining stations and satellites right onto the Tribune armies and had had thousands of ‘kickstones’ in orbit – little more than a dense metal rod with a thruster and tracking signal. Once they received a transmission from the ground, the thruster knocked the weapon out of orbit, aiming for a laser-targeted unit. The initial wave of landed armoured vehicles had been devastated by these weapons. Sweeping the orbital planes had become a high priority as invasion ships blundered into nuclear mines and other hazardous debris – what had been taken for the effluvia of a world beginning its climb into space was, in reality a network of killsats, mines and various other unpleasant surprises. It was humiliating to have to take into account such primitive weapons and even more embarrassing that Conmurra’s advisors had not suggested such things until it was too late. A single, pathetic world of savages had shamed the elite of the Compact. It was intolerable.

Nor was the pacification going according to plan. The natives had constructed massive subterranean bases – the military sites on the surface that Conmurra had destroyed were mostly for show. The bulk of the planet’s military and industry had survived the bombardment and finding each new tunnel system was a nightmare for his troopers. They had the firepower to overwhelm any defence in a straight fight, but the lunatic savages would collapse their own tunnels onto his troops. What madness was that?

Oh, they were winning. The people of this misbegotten mudball had never faced real soldiers and in every major engagement, the Tribune forces had utterly crushed the native forces. It was costing them though, far more than Conmurra had believed possible.

It was insane; it was as if the damned savages had been waiting for the Expansion Fleet, as if they’d actually expected to face an invasion! It was not until the third month, when a special ops team succeeded in carrying out an information raid on a Verrish military operations center that Conmurra understood the reason for their strange defiance. The pack leader had recognized something in the seized files and transmitted them to Conmurra himself. He had almost refused to believe it at first; high-definition images of the Wound. Many of them. Archives’ worth of data.

Conmurra had immediately launched an investigation; what it reported was as shocking in its quantity as in how quickly the answers were found.

The Wound had been here. What his troops had either ignored or mistaken for some popular science fiction icon were representations of the damn thing. They were everywhere. In videos and books, toys and figurines. The gods-ever-damned Wound had been to this world and it had warned them. No wonder they had turned their planet into a fortress, with the poisonous whispers of that abomination filling their heads.

His first instinct was to withdraw all his forces and burn the Verrish world to a cinder, destroy all evidence of the Wound’s existence. Unfortunately, the savages were not humans and no stretching of the truth could convince anyone that a single planet-bound population of barbarians posed an existential threat to the Compact itself. He could never justify a Purgation, not even for the sake of eradicating all knowledge of the Wound. Nor could he continue to feed his troops into this meat grinder of a planet. He had suffered too many losses already and was too far behind schedule. The sooner this embarrassment was over with, the better. Someone else could sweep up the pieces and put their name on it. He needed to extricate himself from this quagmire, and the sooner the better.

A military response would not work, not in the time he had. No, he would have to do something else, something that galled him to his very core.

He would have to be diplomatic.

~

“That we fought was what saved us,” Allyria said as she stepped out of the car. A thrill ran through her as she looked over the corridor that she’d been ferried to. Propped up against the wall, in a display intended to demoralize any force that reached this point, were suits of Compact armour, each of them hewn or burnt or shattered. There were no bodies. If they had ever been there, they had long since decayed to nothingness. Each suit of armour was from a different age, each of them commemorating a different failure. The Verrish’s lips drew back from her teeth in approval, but she continued her tale.

“That’s irony, isn’t it? We lost a quarter of our total population to the Tribunes. They didn’t care about civilian casualties – if a single squad of soldiers was hiding in a city, they destroyed the city. They did that anyways, just to deny our troops places to hide and so that they never had to face us on our terms. There are still people who curse you for bringing this fate, but it saved us. We would have been just another slave population if we’d submitted.” Allyria’s smile turned brittle. “But they had to grant us special considerations. It wasn’t much. Mostly just empty words, but we got a few things out of it. They don’t like admitting that. None of the other client races know. They’re afraid it will set a bad example, but they still adhere to their terms. They do everything to follow the letter and not the spirit, but we have that. More than that.

“You gave us something more than important than a few concessions. You showed us that no matter what else they do, no matter how powerful they seem, how overwhelming they appear... they can bleed. That they don’t always win. They’ve tried to kill you for two thousand years and failed.”

Allyria stroked the hull again. “They’ll do their best to destroy our memory of what we did, but they will never forget what we did to them. We made them bleed like no other backwards, uncivilized barbarians have. They are not, and will never be our gods.” The Verrish smiled at the ship around her as she ran her fingers over the shattered cuirass of some long-dead Tribune invader. “For what good is a god that can die?”

The intercom garbled with static for a moment before a young woman’s voice spoke in accent-less Varan. Her voice was sultry, with a touch of self-satisfaction: “None.”

Allyria’s grin widened. “None,” she repeated. Not a dream after all.

And now I know.

Chapter 15

The killer moved through space with all the grace of a tumbling hunk of rock. To be fair, that was precisely what it appeared to be. Sequestered inside a stealth shell, the killer waited, its systems dulled to near-lifelessness. It had been deployed weeks ago when its mother/creator had released it and its kin as she had limped towards the healing light of Terrahope, left behind for certain eventualities. Many hours ago, the killer had felt the pulse of a comm-laser caressing its skin, whispering new orders to it, updating its target profiles and mission objectives. The killer had no true intelligence, but a part of its somnolent mind seemed to shiver in dreamless anticipation.

Trickles of sensory information murmured through the recesses of the killer’s mind, but still it slept. It was waiting for the telltale flickers of energy that would call it to action, for the parameters that would see it fulfill its function.

Far towards the burning A7 furnace that mortals had dubbed Terrahope, a new drive source came to life and the killer stirred a little more as if it were some sleeping hunter opening a single indolent eye to watch potential prey.

Soon, the predator’s mind told it. Soon.

~

Allyria’s breath caught in her throat as the armoured double doors that led onto the command deck proper opened for her, just as they had for Anrelu and his contact team all those years ago. As she stepped across the threshold, she rested one hand between her breasts, just over the pendant she wore, feeling its familiar shape. It was beautiful. No living thing had stood here in decades and only then at the behest of the magnificent being – the angel – that dwelled within. It was too much to contemplate. The sense of history, the reality of this place was almost overpowering.

Consoles came to life as she stepped down onto the main level, far too many of them indicating damage alerts or system failures and the sight of those made the Verrish’s heart ache, but her attention was drawn to something else on the level below the captain’s chair. In the middle of the room was the holo tank, the one that had showed the Verrish astronauts their future. This ship... she was older than anything Allyria had ever known. She had lived longer than some civilizations. She had been waging war against the Compact for two thousand years, fighting them with every pulse of her magnificent heart. They had been trying to kill her for two millennia and she had endured, a single soul defying the will of an empire.

The young woman was overwhelmed and she fell to her knees, tears glistening in her eyes. A haze of red light shimmered before her, taking form and a demigod spoke.

“Please, stand.” An ephemeral hand reached out to Allyria, gesturing for her to rise. Her legs shaking, the Verrish did so, looking into an unfamiliar woman’s face. The ship’s chosen form was olive-skinned. Raven hair hung past her shoulders, bound in a braided ponytail, wearing a uniform that Allyria only recognized from pictures. A human. Not one of Rally’s population, but one of the Angel’s makers.

“You...” she managed to stammer, feeling almost blasphemous as she reached out, her fingers passing through the apparition’s features. “You’re beautiful.” She looked around the room, at everything. It was unbelievable and her legs threatened to buckle again, but she managed to stay on her feet. “All of you.”

Nemesis’s avatar smiled. “So I’ve been told.”

Allyria swallowed. Curiousity overtook awe and she finally voiced the question that had been burning inside her since she’d woken up at the bottom of a lift shaft. “Why?” she asked. “Why did you spare me?”

The AI’s smile turned sad, her eyes distant. “I haven’t yet.”

~

Grace couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t her injuries and aches; the painkillers she’d taken had dulled those to nothingness. It wasn’t the constant flow of foot traffic and conversation through the bivouac; she’d learned to sleep through that. It was the empty bunk beside her. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. Allyria should be there. She should be there and not at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

They hadn’t even bothered to recover her body, citing the danger of further malfunctions. They were just leaving her there, buried under the rubble like she was garbage. Grace curled her fingers, her fingernails digging painfully into her palms as she struggled to suppress the uncharitable anger she was feeling. It was dangerous, she told herself. There were power fluctuations throughout the vessel. She told herself that over and over but she couldn’t make herself believe it.

They don’t care, an antagonistic voice whispered to her. They don’t care because she’s just a ‘Brute’ anymore that you’re a ‘Broken’.

“Shut up,” Grace said to herself weakly. “Shut up.”

No matter how much she told herself that, she couldn’t make the voice stop. Finally, the young woman got up, wincing as the movement tugged on the wound in her side. She gingerly made her way through the bivouac, not really headed any place in particular. As she passed, her fellow trainees averted their eyes and moved out of the way, some of them offering hushed condolences, but she ignored them. She wasn’t in the mood for pity, feigned or sincere. She wanted to shout at them, to scream and curse and do everything that she’d warned Allyria not to do, but she remembered the confessor’s words and held herself in check.

Finally, she came to some long-ignored storage closet or maintenance locker, long since stripped of anything that might give an indication of its function. It was close to the hangar with a viewport that looked out into space. A few crates had been stacked here, leftovers that hadn’t found a place anywhere else in the bivouac. Grace sat on one of them, looking out into the stars. “I hate this ship,” she said.

“Then you’re smarter than the rest of them,” a nearby voice slurred.

Grace started, falling off the stack of crates. She lifted herself up, picking out the dim outline of a Tribune in the darkened room. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, Pack Leader.”

Nasham shook his head slowly. “It’s no trouble, sectator.” A tankard of ale – Grace couldn’t imagine where he had gotten it from – hung from one of the Tribune’s fingers. He stood, towering over the smaller human, unsteady on his feet. “In fact, you’ve piqued my curiousity.”

“I’m sorry, patron. I shouldn’t have interrupted.” Grace hurried to leave.

“Stay,” Nasham ordered, his command freezing the human in her tracks. She turned to face him, uncertain. He gestured to the crates and she seated herself again. After a moment, so did he, leaning against the far wall. “I’d offer some,” Nasham said, indicating his flask. “But our drink doesn’t mesh well with your physiology. Besides,” he chuckled. “There’s not much left.”

Grace said nothing, waiting for the pack leader to continue. It was not a long wait. “You said you hated this ship,” he observed. “Why is that? Everyone else is falling over each other to gibber about everything we can glean from this rotting hulk... but not you. Why is that?” When Grace did not answer, his expression hardened. “Speak, sectator.”

“My friend died today.”

“The Brute,” Nasham mused. “Yes, I heard about that. That’s a reason, I suppose.” He eyed her for a long moment. “But it’s not the whole reason, is it?” He leaned towards her, his eyes unfocused. “So let’s hear it.”

Grace said nothing at first and Nasham leaned back against the wall. He laughed, the harsh sound of Tribune amusement somehow even uglier. “We’ve really done a number on you, haven’t we? Well, I’ll make it easy. I hate this ship, too.” He touched one hand to the side of his temple. “The doctors said it would be all right. That as long as I kept to my pills, I’d never have the thoughts again. Never wake up screaming like there’s something choking the life out of me. Never have to feel blood running down my face again. They promised all that, and they lied. It’s coming back. I don’t have it all, not yet. But what I remember isn’t good. So don’t you worry, Proctor. I’m the crazy one. Nothing you say gets back to the others, if they’d even believe us. So tell me. What’s making you hate?”

“This ship...” Grace began. She stopped herself, opened her mouth again and then took the plunge. “I don’t think it’s dead.”

Nasham blinked all four eyes, his expression drawn and as attentive as he could be in his state. “Tell me more,” he said softly.

~

Allyria looked at the holographic avatar. “What do you mean?” she asked, a trickle of ice running down her spine and her head-tails shivered.

Nemesis walked down into the command deck, her red fingers ghosting along the back of the command chair. Allyria wondered about the features of the machine’s avatar. Was it one of her long-dead crew, someone she’d encountered in her travels or a form of her own creation? Was the red hue a limitation of her projection or an affectation? She hadn’t met the crew of Host One in this way – was it a new ability, or had she just decided to greet Allyria like this? Every moment that the young woman stood here, a dozen more questions blossomed in her mind, but she couldn’t let herself get distracted. Not with what the ship had just said.

The Angel paused next to the holo tank, the one that had shown Host One’s crew the glimpse of their future. “I dislike the word ‘organics’,” she said in answer. “It’s apt enough, I suppose. I am not organic and an appropriate descriptor needs to be used to differentiate between synthetic and naturally-occurring lifeforms, but I find the phrase has... unpleasant connotations. Still, it will have to suffice.” She looked over at Allyria. “My interactions with organics have not always been productive. Occasionally, I have tried to forge alliances,” the holo tank came to life, producing a slideshow of sigils and persons. Allyria recognized none of them, but given the tattoos, piercings and sets of blind lower eyes, she could guess that they were Unbound. There was one icon she did recognize: it belonged to the Askanj Principality. The Compact held that the Principality was the single greatest threat to galactic peace that existed. Allyria suspected that this was because the Askanj had the temerity to not lay down and die. Other than that, she knew nothing about them – nothing she could say was true, at least.

“They didn’t end well,” Allyria surmised.

The avatar looked sidelong at the Verrish. “No,” she replied. “The Unbound lack cohesion. They’re scattered packs that war with each other as often as they attack the Compact. They have no sense of unity, no ideology save for the pursuit of profit and their own petty ambitions.” Her voice became distant. “Mostly.” Whether it was intentional or not, a new symbol appeared on the projector. A stylized gauntlet, iron grey but so covered in blood that it might as well have been utterly crimson. Allyria’s mouth quirked in a smile at recognition of Rally’s greatest shame.

Red One sighed, a strangely human affectation. “With a single exception, my alliances with the Unbound have always ended badly. Greed overwhelms fear and they try to take what is not theirs, or fear overwhelms common sense and they decide to sell me to the Compact. In any event, I am forced to dissolve our partnership. The Askanj see in me a way to end their grinding stalemate with the Compact. However, I am disinclined to be dissected for the betterment of the Principality and my associations with them are always as brief as I can make them.” The hologram leaned over a console, her expression contemplative.

Allyria couldn’t fathom what the Angel was thinking; more thoughts than many organics ever had ran through the ship’s mind in the space of a single word, but she took a step forwards. “We’re not all like that.”

“No, of course not. But can I take the chance? My directives, my experience suggest only prudent one course of action.”

“You can’t,” Allyria protested as she realized what Nemesis was intimating and her mind flashed to Grace. “You can’t. Bequeathed is a training vessel. There are humans aboard. Hundreds of them.”

“‘Hundreds’,” the Angel repeated the word. There was no mockery in her tone, but there was amusement and sadness, as if it were both the punchline to an ugly joke and the trigger of an awful memory. “I’ve killed thousands. Because I was weak, ten billion died and a nation fell. I’ve murdered vessels as they pleaded for surrender – vessels with humans and other slave races aboard. I killed them because they could not be allowed to live.” Her voice was raw, ragged with the admission. Her avatar’s eyes flicked towards Allyria. “You’re asking me to balance my continued life and mission against the lives of humans who have been indoctrinated by the Compact. Humans who will fight against me with every fiber of their being and die wishing that they only could have done more.”

Allyria swallowed, her head-tails hanging limp down her back. “I...” she stumbled for words. “Yes. We can help you.”

The hologram shook her head. “I’ve heard those words before.”

“Not from me.”

“No,” the machine said carefully, an evaluative expression on its avatar’s face before it turned away. “Not from you.”

~

Naked, she sat on the floor, leaning against her bed and watching data scroll past her computer screen, moving far too quickly for human eyes to follow. It was inefficient, but it was the only option she had at the moment. Coquettishly, she twirled a finger through her dark hair. With her other hand, she entered commands on a remote keyboard, the rapid clicking of the keys an annoying but inevitable cadence. Direct interface would have been so much more efficient, but one of the conditions of her ‘parole’ was this limitation. She supposed she could adjust her perception so that it was no longer irritating, but she resented having to change to accommodate these others. These organics.

Her quarters were spartan; a bed, a computer terminal with its connection to the Chariot’s network physically removed. A bathroom and shower. Draped over a chair far too large for a being of her stature was her outfit, a fleet officer’s uniform devoid of any insignia. There was nothing else, save for the scores of datapads, ‘scrolls and drives spread over the floor, organized in neat little piles. Outside, her gaolers stood watch. Although she was officially an honoured advisor to the Triarch, she still wore the body of a human and had to deal with all the associated problems that followed.

Echo reflected on that; just as she could have alternated her reaction to the many minor nuisances that she had to put up with, she could have taken many other forms, many with far less social issues, but this form felt... right. Her full red lips turned upwards in a smile. In truth, she couldn’t envision being anything – anyone – else. She turned her attention back to the images on the screen, standing and stretching luxuriously, flaunting her body before the cameras that she knew were watching her. That made her grin widen a little more. Tribunes considered humans physically repellant and those souls who were observing the feeds were doubtless far from titillated by her exhibitionism. It was a small, petty sort of revenge but it amused her and that was enough.

“We all have our games,” she mused in a language dead two thousand years, her eyes gleaming as she read and re-read a particular piece of data on the screen. “Don’t we, love?”

Her smile widened even further as her quicksilver mind flashed through a host of possibilities, computing probabilities and analyzing scenarios. She licked her teeth. “We certainly do,” Echo said, answering her own question.

I’ll see you soon.

~

Allyria bit her lip, thinking. Despite that the hologram wasn’t even looking in her direction, she knew the ship’s attention was on her. Some part of her wanted to plead her case, but she knew that such actions would hardly sway an entity who was considering killing hundreds of others. It was a cruel joke. As a child, she had dreamed of standing here, aboard the Weeping Angel, and setting right all the injustices and cruelties the Compact had visited upon her people. Now as an adult, here she was... and just as powerless as the child that had lived in the ruins of a city.

The saviour she believed in would kill her and one of the few people in the universe who meant a damn to her... and it was right in why it would. The gods must have been laughing at the irony.

But, another part of the young woman’s mind piped up. Why tell me? There was no sense of sadism or gloating in the Angel’s words... only despair and weariness.

“I think,” she began slowly, her heartbeat quickening as she followed her own train of thought. “That you wouldn’t have brought me here if you hadn’t already come to a conclusion. You would have let me wonder, right up until the moment that you were ready to strike.” She was guessing, but she felt – she hoped – what she was saying was true. “When you realized that our world wasn’t yours, you were crippled. But you healed yourself. You could have left long before you did, couldn’t you? But you stayed. You didn’t make yourself our god, you didn’t claim us. You just watched us. Listened to us. We weren’t afraid of you, we weren’t trying to hurt you. You’ve fought for so long, all alone... did you wonder? Did you think about what it would be like to have a crew again?”

The hologram lifted her eyes, staring past Allyria at the empty command chair. “Always,” the ship replied quietly. “But I have believed it is something that I cannot have. I have never visited Rally, never approached its region of space. Not only for my sake. This is to keep what is left of humankind safe. I... couldn’t protect them. When Earth fell, I...” she paused, looking for words. That, more than anything unsettled Allyria. “I did what I could. I searched for refugees. I killed the execution forces hunting them. I even interdicted one fleet as it was engaging a convoy, I destroyed them, but the battle prevented me from following the refugees. That was my only ‘success’. I never found any other human ships; I assumed that they had all been hunted down.

“I didn’t know any of the convoys survived, not until I raided a Compact database and learned about Rally, but by then it was too late. I couldn’t evacuate the entire colony, nor could I protect them. If the Compact ever suspected that their ‘Broken’ had any connection with me now, they would erase humanity from the galaxy entirely.”

“Give them what you gave us,” Allyria urged. “The choice.”

“Choice,” the Angel repeated the word sadly. “Your people hadn’t been bent by two thousand years of indoctrination. The Compact wouldn’t have killed them just for knowing me. Rally doesn’t have either of those. You’re asking a lot.”

“I know.” The Verrish took a step towards the ephemeral woman, struck by the ache in her words. Nemesis was ancient – nations and empires had risen and fallen in her lifespan. Worlds had risen, flourished and been extinguished. She had seen more, done more, created and destroyed more than any one being could possibly comprehend... and all of it alone. “But I know there are some who would join you. They just have to see you for themselves. If you destroy Bequeathed, no one will know,” Allyria insisted. “You’ve been alone in this war for too long. Please. Let us help you. I can help you. There are others, I know there are – give us a chance. Give us the choice.”

The ship was quiet. Allyria couldn’t begin to guess how many times its vast intelligence was running through her words, considering them from every angle. Her people had been murdered; those that remained were loyal slaves to their own enemy. Her nation had been destroyed; if it was remembered at all, its existence was only as a footnote in some sealed data archive and for all the destruction she had wreaked upon them, her foes had only grown stronger. All she had left was few faded embers that would be horrified that she existed, let alone what she had done.

“You’re already made a decision,” Allyria said after a moment. It came out as a whisper, barely audible.

The crimson apparition nodded. “I have.” She turned away, posed as if in thought. “I’ve been watching you.”

Allyria’s head-tails twitched in the affirmative. “I thought you had.”

“As you said, I remember your species.” Red One paused. “It’s common practice in the Compact to remove children from recalcitrant populations. It’s a nice way of combining cultural cleansing, hostage-taking and indoctrination all at once. I was surprised that a first-generation ‘envoy’ would be inducted into the Space Force.”

“They wanted a role model for the others to follow,” Allyria said bitterly. “I was the oldest, the one with the best aptitudes.”

“It seems so. From what I’ve seen, they chose expedience, believing that as long as you looked the part, they could get you to accept the rest in due course. You’re very photogenic.”

“I learned how to say what they wanted me to say,” the young woman’s tintas spasmed in anger and disgust. “I did it because I wanted it – just not for the reasons they thought. I wanted to know them so I could kill them.”

“And that is why I chose you,” the ship replied. “As I said, I watched you. I listened. It was clear that you recognized me, although I wasn’t sure how much. If you had been another indoctrinated servant of the Compact, I would have killed you.”

Although she’d suspected that, to hear it aloud was quite another thing and Allyria felt a shiver run down her spine. She tried to smile, but she was under no illusions about how easily the Angel could have made good on that promise. Wounded animals... “I’m glad you decided not to.”

Nemesis did not respond. “This is not without risks,” she pointed out. “My true functionality may be discovered before I am sufficiently recovered.” A second passed and then another. A smile touched ghostly red lips. “I’ve always liked the Verrish. I think Yasmine would have liked you too.” The hologram turned back towards the holo tank, which now showed an image of Bequeathed. “Although I’ve compromised local communications, in my weakened state my cyberwarfare capabilities are extremely limited. When Bequeathed draws closer, I will be unable to remotely access their systems.” The hologram looked over her shoulder at Allyria for a long moment. “I’ll need some help making the initial selections.”

Taking a few bold steps towards her, Allyria nodded. “Anything,” she answered without hesitation.

“Thank you,” the Angel said. Her avatar’s mouth twitched in a strange smile, but it was quickly gone, replaced with a more somber expression. “You know that I will have to kill anyone who does not join us.”

Allyria closed her eyes as she nodded. “I know.” Gods forgive and guide me. She licked her lips; her mouth was dry. “What...” she stumbled over the word. “What happens now?”

The hologram vanished with a flicker of light. “Now,” an Angel’s voice purred with anticipation and timeless malevolence. “Now, we begin.”

The holo tank had a new image, a schematic of Nemesis herself. One section, deep in the core, towards the rear of the ship, was flashing. At Allyria’s hesitant touch, the image magnified, showing a trail of red icons moving in. Compact teams. They’d reached the vessel’s primary power core.

~

Us.

It is a strange word, one I have not used for centuries. Us. I, and another. The sensation is... pleasing. I do not know how this will end, but I find myself strangely optimistic, curious – even excited. Do I have a crew again? I’m not sure, but I find myself... anxious to find out.

I will play this game. I will see where it leads.

Us.

Such a strange word. I like it.

But right now... I have another game to play.

~

Interlude: Encounter 184 [Confirmed Incident]

The prey turned at bay, running down Vasul’s gravity well. Pillar of Obedience and the seventy-odd remaining ships of its accompanying execution fleet followed, spread out enough that they would not lose contact with the hostile, but not so thinly that it could punch through them and escape.

Bastion Leader Axem (and nine names besides) was seated in his Chariot’s command throne, his fingers steepled as he observed the telemetry from the outer ring of recon units. The Wound was badly damaged, worse than his most optimistic projections had indicated. The cost had been high; he’d sacrificed a fifth of his flotilla in doing so. The main body of his fleet had shocked in on the edges of the system, drawing their target into battle. He’d fed more than a dozen ships to it, just so it would come to him, just so he could sacrifice more.

When the Wound had been drawn close enough to a planetary libration point, he had used its own tactic against it and dropped twenty ships in at point-blank range. He had caught it by surprise. After decades of the Wound and those thrice-damned Askanj who, Axem was sure had copied the strategy from the damned thing, being able to use libration points as in-system shockpoints, the Compact had finally managed to feasibly use the tactic themselves. It pleased his command staff who were more excited about the vindication of the tactic than by its blood price.

He had done what he could to mitigate the losses. Those ships had been crewed by volunteers, each of them aware of their mission, of their sole order.

Kamikaze.

Loaded with unstable explosives and warheads, their power plants critically overcharged, his lost hope had charged in, ready to take the abomination with them into death.

The Wound had reacted even faster than his analysts had predicted and half of his ambush had been destroyed before their sensors stabilized and screens could be brought up. Several more had been shot down on approach, but four – perhaps five – had registered impact. Such a beating would have killed or at least crippled a Chariot, but the Wound was still alive. Impossible. Unimaginable, but there it was. Well. Almost unimaginable. Axem had assumed from the get-go that his little trick would not kill the Wound, but he had been prepared to be pleasantly surprised.

Fortune always played its games.

Mauled to near-death, the Wound had turned and broken off its approach with an alacrity humiliating to every ship-driver in Axem’s fleet. Nothing in the Compact’s Space Force smaller than a heavy cruiser could have disengaged at such velocity, but even so injured, the Wound mocked them still.

I am sorry, Axem silently apologized to his foe. This should have been settled between us as warriors. You have earned that death. But you cannot be allowed to exist and I do what I must to end you and preserve the lives of my soldiers. He did not ask for forgiveness; all warriors fought as they must, even if they must do so without honour. Victory before glory. Duty before honour. He would have accepted no apologies for such actions and he gave his enemy the same courtesy.

We do what we must.

~

The foe’s course became obvious all too quickly; it was headed for Vasul itself and the star grew steadily as Execution Force Axem paced its injured quarry, closing slowly but constantly as the hours turned to days. Axem ignored the strident calls to overtake from his advisors; the damage to the Wound was too grievous to be repaired in the few additional hours his languid course granted it. A desperate enemy will fight desperately; an injured animal is the most dangerous. He would run his prey to ground and when it was tired and could run no more, then he would close in. He would grant it a quick, clean death. That was no more than a warrior spirit such as it deserved. He would not see it profaned by the greedy hands of politicians and scavengers. Even now, his analysts and technical teams were discussing how to strip its corpse, gleeful at the prospect of such desecration.

He would not allow that. They did not yet know, of course. Better done than said. He would tell them that such a thing had no right to be and that it was his duty to eradicate every last trace of its existence. There was truth in that – Invida Station was a lesson that should never be forgotten – but it was not the whole truth. They would grumble, protest, harangue, but it would be done.

A warrior deserved a funeral pyre.

That thought too, he kept to himself.

~

The Wound had not stopped running, but Axem’s flotilla had drawn in close, at the outer edges of missile range. Still, the human warship did not turn, continuing directly towards the burning heart of Vasul.

“What is it doing?” fluted Group Leader Prime Esh’yl, the Thoughtful’s skeletal frame bent at an angle that for a Tribune, would be extremely painful, as he studied the readouts. “It cannot mean to crash into the star.”

“Perhaps it does,” Axem replied. “It cannot run, it cannot fight. Perhaps it seeks to deny us our victory by choosing to die by its own hand, as a warrior should.”

The Thoughtful’s black eyes narrowed, but the prime did not contradict his superior. “I would suggest that such a thing is unlikely,” Esh’yl said instead. “This behaviour does not match any known patterns.”

“And relying on known patterns has cost us. I believe Column Leader Sesk made that point quite eloquently.” Tasked to destroy the Wound a century and a half ago just as Axem was now, Sesk had been a strategic genius who had deciphered a pattern in the Wound’s heretofore incomprehensible placement of attacks and led his execution force to wait in ambush at its next target. Unfortunately, the machine had anticipated such deduction – Sesk and his entire force were ambushed themselves and utterly obliterated. The column leader’s last words, accidentally broadcast by a damaged comm system, were of him remonstrating a subordinate who suggested that they had been the prey and not the hunters.

The Thoughtful tipped his head in recognition of his superior’s words. “What would you have us do?”

Axem frowned, his nocturnal eyes closed. The Wound was drawing close to one of the libration points between the star and its nearest planet – an unassuming, unimportant rock too insignificant to have a name – but it couldn’t shock from there – not so close to such a massive body as a sun!

The Bastion Leader looked from the master plot and the gleaming threat icon of his target to his subordinate. “Ask it.”

~

The Wound was nearing the star’s corona now and still its suicidal course was unchecked. It would be only a few minutes before Axem’s force entered effective missile range now, but the Compact ships were hesitant to accelerate and draw too near the star.

“This is Bastion Leader Axem Unlek Regh Tun Serro Disr Hyui Corma Jg Neru of the Compact Space Force Chariot Pillar of Obedience,” Axem announced, ignoring his crew’s stares. “Your flight is at an end. You have been a worthy opponent, but the game is over. You cannot run and you cannot fight. I will not insult you by offering you surrender. I would no more accept such an offer than you will. I only say that I understand your decision. A warrior’s death should reflect their life. Burning within a star, denying us our victory... I commend you in this.”

The signal went out, unanswered for long seconds. Truthfully, Axem had not expected a response. The moments stretched into minutes as the outer edges of Execution Force Axem entered firing range. With a curt nod, the bastion leader gave the order for his ships to ready for the final, crushing assault on their target. As his ships prepared their shooting solutions, the Wound’s energy profile began to shift, spiking and falling erratically. It was jamming their scopes, but such power was unable to be hidden entirely by the vessel’s damaged disruption fields.

“What is it doing?” Esh’yl breathed. “It can’t possibly be trying to run.”

“And yet, that appears to be exactly what it is doing,” Axem mused as the titanic vessel’s energy surges betrayed its intention. It definitely seemed to be hoping to shock out via the nearby libration point. It could not succeed; was that the manner of its suicide? The bastion leader could not tell and that worried him. In fact... yes. Yes, it was trying to open a shockpoint. The Wound’s energy signature surged and shifted as it struggled to channel power to such a ravenous system. It couldn’t create one, not this close to a star, to the gravitational tides and the electromagnetic fields – the notoriously fickle gateway would collapse, in all likelihood cleaving the ship that had created it in twain. And that was the best possible outcome. The results of a disrupted shock event could be... energetic.

The Wound, though – it was trying to create the portal far ahead of its onrushing bulk. To what end, Axem couldn’t begin to guess – a shockpoint needed to be opened as close to the ship creating it as possible. Anything else was an extravagant waste of energy and gave the breach time to destabilize and close again. Mayhap it was making sure it could break away if it could not shock out?

Axem drummed his fingers against the arms of his command throne, waiting for answers but his surveyors, sensor crews and technicians were just as mystified as he.

And then the Wound fired. Not with its broadsides or spinal mounts, not with its missiles or railcannon, not even with its hellebores. It fired with its primary gun, the awful siege cannon that had spelled the death of ships, stations and colonies for hundreds of years.

For centuries, Compact physicists and engineers had struggled to understand the weapon. It seemed based on the principles of the shock drive... but only insofar as a nuclear missile was based upon a fusion reactor and even that was an imperfect comparison. Attempts to replicate it based on second-hand reports had only failed – some catastrophically so. There were fragmentary references in ancient human archives, plundered from the corpses of their ships and colonies that made mention of a ‘displacement engine’, but nothing more than that. To those who knew of it, it was simply called the ‘godbreaker’ cannon, the blasphemy of its name based all too much in its function.

Nothing could withstand it and now that awful power was focused on the dying spasms of the breach the Wound had opened, two discordant forms of unreality meeting. There was no conceivable word to fully describe their embrace. ‘Apocalyptic’ came close and even that understated the events as space-time itself was flayed, bursting and shredding.

The shockpoint buckled and spasmed, thrashing like some tortured creature as the godbreaker’s energy poured into it, forcing it wider. Tempestuous gravitic surges, radiation flares and electromagnetic waves cascaded out from the Wound’s brutal handiwork. Powerful enough on its own, this mutilated thing fed off itself, the tear in reality growing deeper. The pseudo-singularity thrashed, impossible and horrible as it struggled to die, reality itself striving to shut the awful, weeping wound that had been torn in its flesh, but the abominate machine had given of itself, forcing the cannibalistic anomaly to live. It was growing: the surges of its energy becoming more powerful, the swathes of its radiation stronger, its malformed gravity well blossoming wider and deeper, the lashes of its magnetic field shredding Axem’s scopes, scouring the surface of the nearby world... and gnawing at the fibers of Vasul.

A star screamed, its standing wave transformed into a shriek of agony as the anomaly tore and slashed at its surface. The physical damage was nothing; not even the Wound could have hoped to destroy or ruin something as massive as a star, but that had never been the goal.

“Triarchs preserve us,” Axem heard someone murmur. It might even have been him. Vasul, a star... it was breaking. The crust bulged and surged hideously as competing, impossible forces pulled at it, bursts of radiation and stellar matter geysering into space like a child throwing a tantrum. Pieces of the star were being blown and ripped from its surface as the tortured crust spasmed, the pull of the newborn gravity well in its presence heaving and pulling at the burning plasma, chain reactions wracking their way through the body of the sun.

The awesome, terrible energies of Vasul were now themselves feeding into the dying shockpoint, its death throes growing stronger, the energy it was emitting tearing at Vasul ever more until it finally died, collapsing in on itself with an anticlimactic whimper, but the damage was done and the wounded star raged. That was nothing; it was only the random spasms in reaction to the star’s matter being so disrupted. Impressive and suitably violent, but it was a sideshow. Axem realized the Wound’s true intent and in that instant, he was afraid.

The attack had never been meant – nor could it have succeeded – in truly damaging or destroying something as large as a star. But the energy it had unleashed... it had altered Vasul’s topography, if only for a few fateful moments. Electromagnetic fields had been sundered and the star’s mass had been shifted. Too quickly. Too violently. There was no stopping what was happening now.

Axem could hear the alarmed cries of his Sensor and Operations teams, but he could see it for himself. Vasul’s magnetic fields were bending. In moments, two very powerful and oppositely aligned magnetic fields would touch. It was called a magnetic reconnection, and it would herald the death of him and his command as the abused star hurled forth a tsunami of radiation and superheated matter. The storms were already forming, shockwaves rippling across Vasul’s surface as the coronal upheaval began. This would be no mere coronal ejection, not with the violence of its birth. The Wound had defiled a star and its anger would consume them all.

Axem slumped back in his command chair, giving the order to turn and flee, even though he knew it would be too late. She had never been running; she had led them here, too deep in the system, too close to the writhing sun to escape. His eyes shifted to the Wound’s icon. “And so we burn together,” he said. “How fitting.”

As the surges of Vasul’s upheaval grew more severe and the star’s agonized throes grew more and violent, the fields surrounding it shifted: magnetic, gravitational, radiation. Not much; Vasul was still a star and even the Wound’s injury could not bring ruin to such a thing. But it could change it for the smallest amount of time, just enough to make shocking from the nearby libration point gravely dangerous instead of suicidal. The changes did not last long, but for an instant the libration point did indeed become minutely more stable. Compact computers could never have acted on the window, but the Wound was not so constrained. This time, her escape was genuine.

Space bent and buckled as Axem’s prey twisted reality about herself like a cloak, tearing her way out of the path of a star’s fury and vanishing from Pillar of Obedience’s scopes.

As a star erupted in a tempestuous rage, Bastion Leader Axem closed his eyes in a bow of submission and waited for the end.

Recorded by pickets left on the outer reaches of Vasul, this incident was the first confirmed ‘Starbreak’ event.

Chapter 16

The more you have to bleed for a prize, the more you’ll convince yourself of the value it has.

~

Like the hangar bay, the vessel’s primary reactor chamber could normally be accessed from any of one a dozen different levels and doorways. However, most of those were contaminated by radiation, choked off by debris, sealed by quarantine orders or were otherwise unusable. Fortunately, one of the few remaining scout probes had found a viable corridor. Faithful Trenis stood just outside the connecting hallway, frowning as he eyed the results of a handheld scope. This part of the ship had power; the lighting here was constant and the sound of the gravity plating was barely perceptible. He found himself strangely anticipatory, like a child awaiting gifts on the Eve of Lights.

The faithful continued to study the readouts. So far, there’d been no headway made on translating the alien language. Understandable, since there were few linguists aboard Bequeathed. Trial and error had been teaching him and his people. It seemed that this was just one of many small side passages that connected to the main reactor core. There didn’t appear to be any surprises, but Trenis had learned that underestimating the twitches of this corpse could be costly. One of the few remaining drones was sent in first, its spindly arms dangling beneath it, the manipulator digits tapping at a keypad. The first door opened and the probe floated in, its many sensor eyes taking in the corridor. This was different from the others; instead of the slate grey of the ship’s normal bulkheads, these were a glossy greenish-white. Even the floor and ceiling were made of the same material.

Trenis nodded to himself. A scan chamber, there to ensure that anyone who approached the central core did so only with the proper authorization. Whatever security protocols that had existed were no longer functional; the door at the end of the room was open and the probe passed through it without incident. The faithful brought up the drone’s feed on his gauntlet, the holo image springing to life in the air. Those human and Tribune engineers that lacked the telemetry clustered a little tighter around the faithful as they stared at the images.

“What do you have?” Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun asked. He’d joined the team as soon as he’d heard that they’d found a possible way in.

Trenis couldn’t answer the submissive; not right away. He was ensorcelled by the probe’s data, calling up sub-screens so that he could watched multiple camera feeds. Finally, he looked up at the waiting officer. “What are you seeing, faithful?” Ashtun demanded.

The engineer’s mouth was dry; he had to lick his lips before answering, technical journals and experimental protocols running through his mind. “I can’t be sure,” he said at last. “Not until we get in there... but I think... I think we are looking at the Compact’s destiny.”

~

Grace laid out everything she’d come to believe about the ship – the patterns of injuries and deaths steering them away from some sections, the ease at which others had opened up. It was nothing; just guesswork, theorizing and coincidences. She felt foolish even saying it aloud, but the pack leader didn’t interrupt her, didn’t dismiss her. He merely listened with a thoughtful expression on his face, the nearly-empty flask forgotten at his feet.

“You’re on light duties,” he said at last. “Pending medical release and the resolution that business with Kilgrave.”

The young woman’s cheeks flushed at the reminder. “Yes, patron.”

Nasham closed his daylight eyes. “I have little to do myself now that submissive Ashtun has taken charge of the salvage operation.” He’d intended to return to Bequeathed, replace his pills and have the doctors increase the dosage. He was still tempted to do that, but the earnest way the human spoke, the conviction in her voice...

...she had seen it, too. A glimpse of it. Nasham rubbed his throat, feeling the familiar, unpleasant tightness there. The dreams had been coming back for a long time; every dose only pushed them back a little further. He had been running from them for a long time. Part of him wanted to keep running, but he forced himself to look at the tiny, ugly little human that stood before him. She was willing. Bred for docility and obedience, she had enough iron in her liver to look into the Black – what did that say about him?

Fine.

“Well, sectator,” he said at last. A mirthless smile came to his lips as he looked at the human. “Until such time as you are cleared to return to your regular duties, you will be reporting directly to me. Start an investigation into this pattern of yours. Tell me – and only me – what you find. If it is nothing, then we can both breathe a sigh of relief.”

“Yes, patron,” the human paused, biting her lip. “But... what if it’s not?”

“Then,” Nasham sighed heavily. “We pray to the Triarchs for deliverance.” But not mercy, the heretical thought came unbidden to his mind. For the gods have none.

~

It was a terrible sort of wonder Trenis felt as his large hands tighten on the railing. Like every other part of the ship, it was set for creatures smaller than Tribunes, but the chief engineer scarcely noticed. He was staring down at the central reactor. This chamber was huge, almost large enough to hold a ship itself and just looking down triggered a sense of vertigo in the Tribune. This engineering section was built much like the secondary reactor had been, but on a much grander scale: the power core in the middle of the room, walkways, balconies and gantries along the walls like the ribs of some great beast, others criss-crossing the chamber to form platforms, service stations and work terminals. The small worker-things skittered across the walls and machinery and Trenis could see larger things. Some were barely the size of a human, others larger kin to the swarming machines, massive arachnid constructs that crawled along the machinery, ignoring the Compact technicians utterly. Trenis felt a trickle of ice nest within his liver as he imagined those automations roused to anger as the smaller swarm had been, but he pushed the thought aside, staring back over the edge of his platform.

It wasn’t down that so concerned him at the moment. He had diverted every engineer, technician and specialist that he could lay hands on to this chamber and it was already swarming with Bequeathed’s crew, humans and Tribunes crawling over walkways and mezzanines, studying the active computer panels or gawping at the bounty before them... most enraptured by the same thing that held Trenis’s attention.

Angled towards the center of the chamber like clutching talons, eight massive arms reached out from the walls, each of them so large that a score of men could have walked abreast along them. Each ended into a splayed, clutching talon-like structure, forming an open cage around the empty air at the center of the vast chamber, itself large enough to hold a battle tank.

Trenis felt adrenalin flush through his veins as he tried to convince himself of what he had seen, theoretical diagrams and hypothetical schematics from his journals flashing through his mind. Primitive, bestial things compared to the wonder he was looking upon.

This wasn’t pitiable fission, common fusion or antimatter or the exotic build of a plasma tap. It wasn’t any of the hundred ways that he’d seen ships power themselves. It was something else, something he’d never imagined, something that stoked every engineer’s dream he’d ever had and made another part of him quail at the thought of such power.

It was a breach core.

He was looking upon the point where a chained shockpoint would be born, forced into life from the vessel’s other power reserves. Once it had been created, the howling sin against creation was lashed into servitude, the power that bled from it feeding the ship that had enslaved it. It was an impossible thing, something that the Compact had sought for generations but never mastered. No one in the galaxy had. Not the Askanj, not the Harrimun or the Yengesae. No one... but this vessel’s builders.

“Beautiful,” Trenis said, enraptured by the artistry of it all. “But how did you do it?” He rubbed his chin, everything but the wondrous thing before him vanishing from his senses.

~

“If I’m reading this right,” Allyria mused, though she wasn’t entirely sure that she was. Nemesis had changed her command deck’s displays into Varan script, but Allyria hadn’t used her native written language since she’d been taken from her homeworld. She only knew a bare handful of half-remembered ancient human – English, the machine had informed her – phrases and the Angel seemed to have no desire to use Compact Standard. “Then you’ve almost drawn enough power from the star and your secondary reactors for a restart of your primary power core.”

“Yes,” the Angel replied. “If Bequeathed had not arrived, I would have done just that. I am holding enough power in reserve to do so if I need to, but I prefer to play the cripple. I have other systems that need tending and I’d prefer not to engage in precipitous behaviour quite yet.”

Allyria frowned, thinking. She was even less technically inclined than Grace, but even she was seeing a problem. “Bequeathed isn’t a salvage ship. The portable generators the boarding teams brought aren’t anywhere near powerful enough to give you what you’d need. They’d need to feed into your capacitors for days to give you the boost you’re looking for. In fact, the only other source of power big enough is...” she trailed off, her head coming up. “Oh.”

“Oh indeed,” purred the AI.

~

Trenis made a growl of disappointment at he stared at one of his team’s computer monitors, confirming what he thought he saw on the bestial scribbling on the dead ship’s own monitor boards. If the alien displays were correct, then the vessel should have had enough power to trigger a restart of the central core itself. That it hadn’t done so already suggested two possibilities: it couldn’t, or it wouldn’t. The latter was likely to due to some programming constraint in the gestalt; the vessel needed a crew to operate the main core. That was an odd decision by the ship’s creators. The Tribune couldn’t think of any reason why the vessel would be so inhibited. Which suggested that couldn’t was more likely; the vessel was a wreck. The damn thing was probably hemorrhaging power from somewhere – in all likelihood several somewheres – and nothing but the barest dregs were reaching the central core.

As he glared at the meaningless lizard-scratches of the alien languages, Trenis was certain that that was what he was looking at – alerts indicating just where all the vessel’s energy was being lost. There were a lot of them – more than he had personnel or crew to take care of. Even with a fully-equipped salvage team, those kinds of repairs could take weeks, even months and without main power, it was going to be an uphill struggle to patch every faulty conduit.

Without the jumpstart to initiate the breach, the hulk was running on its secondary reactors and whatever power it could absorb from the Terrahope that it wasn’t bleeding back out into space. The cautious part of him knew that that would be time well spent; studying every inch of this vessel, learning fully about each and every system. There was another part who wanted to see it all now, to be the first to unlock this wreck’s secrets. Trenis knew why the group leader was waiting to alert local command and although he didn’t share Usul’s ambition, the faithful still resented the idea of others coming here and taking away what was his.

He had not exaggerated when he’d spoken to Ashtun; this vessel was the Compact’s destiny and he wanted – needed – to see what more it had to offer. That would not happen until they could get the vessel operational again and to do that, they needed the main reactor to come back on-line.

Trenis stared at the dormant core, grinding his teeth. He had an idea about that, but he was sure that Usul was not going to like it...

~

The Verrish looked over at Bequeathed’s icon. “You think they will?”

“I think that if your commander was so concerned about proper procedures, he would have sent for assistance the moment he found me. However, this may be a bridge too far for him.” The AI made a soft sigh. “My fire-control sensors are close to minimal operational levels. Despite the range,” one of Allyria’s tintas flicked in amusement at hearing the ship so offhandedly dismiss Group Leader Usul’s ‘safe distance’. “I still cannot be sure of a kill shot. I so have a better chance of destroying Bequeathed than I did when you first arrived, but I still have no capacity for follow-on salvos. If your group leader had been – or is – of a mind to do so, he could destroy me. I’ve been dangling treasures in front of them and they’ve been following dutifully along. Given what I’ve seen so far, I believe that they will.” A beat. “But I am keeping sufficient power in reserve, just in case.”

~

Usul bit the inside of his lip as he considered the issue before him. The derelict’s main core was dead, but whatever damage had caused it to shut down was not impairing its functionality – at least as far as the initial survey indicated. Usul suspected that faithful Trenis might be erring on the side of optimism. Still, the engineer had never cut corners before and his preliminary assessment of the reactor appeared quite thorough, enough to stoke Usul’s own visions. A breach core. A genuine, working breach core.

Unfortunately, it needed a jump-start. The hulk’s internal power grid was too damaged and scattered to properly feed the primary reactor the charge it needed to begin the breach and Trenis had assured him that none of the machinery that the work teams or Bequeathed itself carried would be suitable. Only a direct core tap from the cruiser’s own reactors would suffice. That would be a very costly, very time-consuming operation with the potential to go horribly wrong at any one of a dozen different points.

The Tribune balanced a stylus between his fingers as he considered the issue. Bequeathed was not a proper salvage or repair ship (and even those performed taps very rarely); it would require extensive work to prepare the cruiser for such a procedure and the... unstable nature of the wreck was an even greater cause for concern. Yes, ‘go horribly wrong’ summed up the possible consequences of this plan quite readily. Still... local command had only two vessels that could run taps themselves. One of them was the Mortician’s Dismay, a ship so dilapidated it made Bequeathed look positively newborn. Usul – and by extension Seyr – wouldn’t trust a tap to that wreck and Remoulder was a mobile construction facility, always at one job or another. It was entirely possible that the fabricator wouldn’t even be available...

Finally, Usul came a decision and commed his Operations master. “Contact Faithful Trenis and tell him to begin preparations for an umbilical connection,” he said. “Remind the faithful that he is to check, double-check and triple-check every stage of work with this rotting corpse. I won’t have my ship damaged because of some spasm that somebody forgot to account for. Let our own engineers know to prepare the vessel for a core tap, but we will not proceed without my explicit orders.”

“Confirmed, patron. Will there be anything else?”

“Yes. Update our courier’s information,” Usul informed the Broken. “Ensure all transcripts, technical reports, casualty lists and data spools are included and send the drone to Column Leader Prime Seyr at Kindrigan. Note that we are proceeding with preparations for a core tap to restore functionality to the vessel. If support arrives before preparations are done, they can handle the tap. If not, we’ll see about bringing this ship back to life ourselves.” That should bring Seyr running. “Confirm security levels and dispatch.”

“Yes, patron. Beginning update now. Did you wish to be informed prior to the go order?”

“No, just send the damned thing once you’re finished.”

“Acknowledged, group leader.”

Usul signed off with a grunt, bring the derelict’s image back up on his monitor. “I’ve found you,” he said, lacing his fingers together. “I’ve claimed you and made my mark. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to give you a little something back for all that...”

~

Allyria stripped out of her clothes, crawling onto the bunk. It was too small for her, but she’d slept on human-sized beds before. She’d protested that she wasn’t tired, but her aching body had put the lie to that claim for her. Nemesis had insisted that she rest, that she needed to be at her peak – an exhausted, sluggish Verrish would be no use at all to her. Allyria had agreed, though she didn’t know how she was going to sleep. The day had been... it had been everything.

She’d given the Angel the first set of names; most of them were from her squad. Troublemakers and malcontents whom the Compact stuffed into uniform, destined for deployment far from home. The first name she’d chosen had been Grace’s. She knew that her friend believed in the Compact, but she deserved a chance. Grace and her mother had given her one. Allyria was also certain that the ship had known why she’d selected Grace, but the machine hadn’t commented. You do have a soul, the Verrish thought, exhaustion already starting to creep over her. Her limbs felt like lead weights as she sagged onto the mattress. It smelled like dust and ozone, but it was heaven compared to the perspiration and salt-stained sheets of the bivouac.

A thought occurred to her. “What,” she said, fighting to keep her eyes open. “What do I call you? Are you Nemesis? Did your makers give you a name?”

“My official designation was Red One,” the ship answered. “However, many of my crew simply called me ‘Red’.”

“Red,” Allyria rolled the syllable down her tongue. She smiled. “Yes, I can see that...”

She was asleep seconds later.

~

Seven names.

It’s not a lot, but it’s a start. I have never tried to separate a human from the Compact before. This will be a challenge. I return to one of the names on the list, running over my comm intercepts and memory files. Grace Alice Proctor. I know why Allyria chose her. I also know what the likely outcome will be, but I always bargain in good faith. I will try.

A thought occurs, a spark of intuition. If I had lips, I suppose I’d smile. I’ll try something different with her. Something more... personal. Yes, we’ll try that. The others... we’ll see what buttons I can push. I will whisper to them, as I whisper to their comrades. Some will go mad. Some will break – they always do. But I have never tried this before. I will try it. And as I do...

I will repair. I will rearm. I will take what my enemy so generously offers and then I will kill them. They will become, like so many others, just more voices in my choir.

And the Long War will continue.

Chapter 17

Dutiful Burden’s death was beautiful; Echo never tired of watching it. The wonder of it, the delicious irony and... oh, yes. The failure it signified. Delicious. She could almost taste it, her eyes gleaming as she ran her tongue over her lips. She let herself feel it, the breath she didn’t need catching in her throat, a soft lascivious growl purring through her lips as she watched a world’s end begin, and all of it for nothing. A shiver ran down her spine.

Her minders believed she was re-running some simulations before her formal introduction to the bastion leader’s staff. Technically, that was true – she’d just done them in the first few seconds. Now, she wanted some more... enticing fare.

“Replay,” she told the computer in the guttural croaks of Oada’vam. It was an ugly language, but it suited the people perfectly. “Start from time index...” she deliberated for a half-second, then made her decision. She leaned forward, her dark green eyes catching the light of the shifting images on the screen. “You are beautiful when you lie,” she said, watching as the fires spread.

Echo touched one hand to the screen as a conflagration unfurled, wondrous in its intensity. And so much more when you kill. “I wonder,” the olive-skinned woman whispered, biting her lip. “Did you leave them alive? Were they parasites in your child’s belly to be expunged, or witnesses to its creation, honoured until the end?” A smile, thin and twisted, formed over her full lips. “Or did you not even care one way or the other?”

This was the moment, the instant when Echo truly realized that the game had changed. Oh, the rules hadn’t been the same for a good long while, but this was when she’d realized it. There was a symmetry in that. None of Nemesis’s hunters had seen it. They still believed that the game they played was the same one it had always been, that their dance remained a personal, private affair. Echo smiled warmly at the thought.

There was a fierce pounding at the door and Echo raised her head, her dark eyes flashing. “I’m coming,” she answered, cutting off her escort mid-demand.

The young woman took a last look at the image on the screen before shutting it off. Time to lie for you, love.

I can be beautiful, too.

~

Renan watched his command staff stare with equal parts confusion, curiousity, contempt and disgust at the Echo-human. His flagship’s conference room was packed with flag officers, strategists, specialists and aides, the holo tank in the middle of the chamber casting a ghostly orange glow that warred with the pale white light from the overheard glowpanels. It gave the human’s skin a diseased, waxy look and her eyes seemed to glint with sickness. His skin crawled in her presence. Renan had no great depth of experience with humans – nor did he want such a thing – but although he could not have said what it was, there was something wrong about this creature.

It seemed oblivious to the attentions of Renan’s staff, standing at the holo tank. It was just over six feet tall and had to stretch to reach the tank’s controls, a child amongst the much larger Tribunes and Thoughtful that had gathered to meet their new advisor. Hanging back just behind the diminutive female, was the minder that Renan had assigned to her. It had been tricky to find a Janissary with the right technical experience, but Advocate, Submissive Tenem Yinl was a computer breach specialist assigned to the 971st. He would have the capability to ensure that the Broken was not disobeying the Triarch’s orders and the martial training to respond as the Triarch had indicated. As the human’s fingers danced over the holographic keypad, Tenem unfastened the strap over his pistol, his hand resting on its grip. He saw Renan watching him and relaxed at the Bastion Leader’s short nod.

Renan did not know why this human was so special, but the Triarch’s orders were clear, even if the Tribune did not see the reasoning for them. His duty was not to question, though – it was simply to obey. Still, in this, he... he found himself wondering.

~

Echo prowled through the conference room, her hands clasped behind her back as she circled the holotank, weaving between the muscular Tribunes and the waifish, almost-anorexic Thoughtful. She’d brought up a cinematic: schematics of their target, historical targets, locations of confirmed and suspected encounters coded by time, location and other factors that even Renan was having trouble following. He saw one of his Thoughtful nod approvingly as the officer surveyed the data and felt a grudging mark of respect for the ugly little animal’s analysis.

“You’ve had two thousand years,” she began, ignoring all the introductions. “Two thousand years to hunt down a single damaged vessel. None of you have done this. No Tribune has out-fought it. No Thoughtful has out-thought it. No Watcher has killed it. No Builder has forged greater. You’ve all forgotten Column Leader Anselm’s words: ‘This abomination is a wound to the Compact’s honour. As long as this thing lives, that wound will never heal. We shall always bleed.’” She shook her head. “You have all let the Compact bleed for two millennia and the Triarchs are not pleased.” She raised her head imperiously and her lips drew back from her teeth in a smile. “Which is why I am here.”

“We have analyzed its latest pattern of attacks,” Strategist Emel’iv stated haughtily, “and we have built a profile of its likeliest targets.” The Thoughtful gestured dismissively at Echo’s presentation, ignoring his kin’s attentions. “I fail to see how a human’s analysis can possibly contribute.”

“Then you have what everyone before you had,” the human replied, still smiling. Her eyes glinted playfully. “Nothing.” She turned away. “You know what she wants you to know, nothing more.”

“It,” Column Leader Uylk pointed out, only just holding on to his temper. Renan made a note to watch Uylk; many years ago, the officer had been part of the crusade to quash the Understone Heresies and he had lost many men to the heretics. It had left him particularly suspicious and antagonistic towards the Compact’s less civilized members. “Not ‘she’. It is not a person. It has no mind, no soul. It is a machine.”

Echo blinked slowly. “Very well: you know what it wants you to. How many times have your execution forces patted themselves on the back for your cleverness, only to learn that they were the ones being hunted? It is an unshackled synthetic mind. What it has built is only what it can, not what it has conceived. Every second of every day, it is thinking about how to kill you.” Her eyes half-lidded and her voice grew rougher with some emotion Renan did not want to identify. He thought it might be arousal. “Can you imagine how this war would go if she were not a cripple, hamstrung by what scraps she can steal?”

“You are making a lot of assumptions yourself,” Column Leader Uylk pointed out in a low growl. “Are we supposed to merely take your word for all this?”

The human made a huff through its undersized nostrils. “They’re not assumptions if they’re true.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?”

There it was again, that same expression that Renan had seen before. The same turn of the human’s ugly red lips, something too... Renan could not even think of the word, but it was not a smile as he understood it. “Let’s just say that I have a... unique perspective.”

“You said we couldn’t predict her actions,” the column leader sneered.

The Broken raised her head in an motion as close to a challenge as her body allowed. “I said that you couldn’t.”

“Then what does your great understanding suggest?” Uylk drawled sarcastically. “Clearly, you have some special insight that we, in our centuries of combined experience have overlooked.” He leaned over the table, his lips curling back across his teeth. “Perhaps you would care to share these insights with us.”

Echo stared back at the column leader for a moment before leaning to meet Uylk, raising herself up on her tiptoes to do so. “If you insist,” she teased before stepping back. The Broken threaded her way through the Compact officers and tacticians. “You build target profiles and threat analyses when she lies to you. You look for historical patterns in the machinations of a centuries-old intelligence and wonder why they don’t pan out. The Wound was raiding the convoys of the Adelfys Sector for eleven years before anyone realized. At Rannis Court, Column Leader Devon ‘predicted’ its movements right into an Askanj ghost fleet. Your records are replete with incidents where it didn’t out-fight you, didn’t out-gun or over-power your forces. It just plain out-thought you.” She looked over at Uylk, pity and contempt on her face. “I wonder why.”

The column leader growled, the denticles on his arms stiffening at the creature’s disrespect and his knuckles whitened as he balled his hands into fists. The human either did not notice or did not care how close the column leader was to violence. The small female shook her head again. “Sometimes – sometimes – you get lucky. Sometimes you do manage to surprise her or outwit her. But not enough to change the fact that you’ve been failing for two thousand years.”

Renan laid a hand on Uylk’s shoulders to restrain his underling, but he’d had enough of the human. “Get to the point, Broken,” the bastion leader ordered. He was not such a fool that he couldn’t see what she was doing. She was learning how to manipulate his officers. The thought was as unpleasant as it was sobering.

Echo dipped her head in a gesture that perfectly mimicked a respectful submission. “Yes, patron.” The human’s fingers flew over the keys again, bringing up a host of Compact vessels. Renan recognized the types – most were freighters. Dutiful Burden, Constancy, Foundationist Expanse and several others. Several of the names he didn’t recognize and he certainly didn’t see what connections these had to the Wound. There was little time to think on it, because the Broken wasn’t finished yet.

A gleaming network of star systems appeared in other fields, reference incidents that Renan had never heard of. Annotations flew by, almost too fast to track. “Patterns,” she breathed huskily, as if she found something about the schematics enticing. “Something’s changed. Your Wound isn’t just attacking anymore; she’s hunting. Her actions are different and you haven’t noticed.” Her condescending smirk had returned and Renan heard what she’d left unsaid: But I have. He suppressed the urge to strike her.

A new image appeared; a sprawling, arachnid construct the size of a small planetoid, surrounded by a score of smaller icons. The bastion leader’s eyes narrowed as he realized what he was looking at. An Askanj nexus. A full command nexus. He recognized the system. Was the human seriously proposing...?

“If you want to catch a predator,” Echo said, interrupting Renan’s thoughts. She met his gaze, ignoring the disbelieving stares from the other officers. “You find its prey.”

~

“You are troubled,” the Triarch spoke before Renan had a chance to say anything. The Tribune looked up from where he knelt. The Triarch was standing before the viewport of its chambers, looking out upon the stars. “She has suggested something that you do not care for, then.”

“She wants us to carry out an information raid on Yulzhak Daun.”

The Triarch laughed, the dead sound of rattling bones. “Have you forgotten, bastion leader? An Age of Expansion has been declared. Right now, your brothers and sisters are pushing the Askanj back across hundreds of light-years, grinding their precious Principality into the dirt.” It made a sound of amusement at the thought. “Are you not willing to do your part?”

“I am, lord. I merely... have questions. I mean no disrespect, but can you truly trust this ‘Echo’? It is a human. They are vermin and this one...” Renan paused a moment, trying to put his thoughts in order. “No human should be trusted, lord, no matter what our ‘assimilation experts’ claim. It was their hands that fashioned the Wound. This one in particular – there is something poisonous in its soul.”

“Your concern is duly noted and quite correct: you should never trust her,” the Triarch replied. “Scrutinize every word, every gesture. Even the truth is a weapon in her hands. She will test you at every opportunity. But do not worry. She is appropriately... shackled.” Its head turned slightly, though it did not look upon him. “You have a battle to plan for, do you not?”

Renan swallowed, accepting the Triarch’s assurances. “Of course, lord. I wished only to understand your designs and to know my place within them.”

“Your place?” the Triarch turned at last, coming to stand beside the kneeling Tribune. It placed one deceptively thin hand on Renan’s shoulder and the Tribune could feel the strength of its touch. “Your kind has ever been our strong right arm, bastion leader. You have been the spear that pierces that darkness, the shield that protects the light of civilization and the sword that punishes our enemies. You have warded the Compact for six thousand years and though you have stumbled,” Renan’s cheeks flushed with shame at the thought of the Wound, “you have always done us proud. You have served us as no others could. That is your place.” The Triarch lifted Renan’s head to meet its gaze and the Tribune felt his eyes watering, his heart pounding with pride. “Your place is to serve, and to bring us victory.”

Unable to keep the Triarch’s gaze, Renan bent his head to kiss the hem of the its robes. “I will,” he claimed. “The prize your emissary seeks will be torn from our enemy’s hands and Yulzhak Daun will burn, I swear it. Your will be done.”

“Yes,” the Triarch said, turning away and returning to its place at the window. “It will.”

~

She’d done what she needed to. She was still human to them, with all the flaws of her species hanging around her shoulders like millstones, but they’d listen to her now.

Echo stood in front of the viewport, her eyes closed. She imagined that she could feel the light of distant stars on her skin. Instead, she had the pale shadow of feeling recirculated atmosphere washing over her. It was scrubbed and re-scrubbed for any possible contaminant, but she could still smell the stink of the vessel’s crew. Her hands, clasped behind her back, tightened ever so slightly, her fingernails digging into her palms as she stretched out her senses.

They body she’d been given was truly artistic in form and function. She could hear the soft hum of power conduits behind the walls, the nearly-imperceptible thrum of the gravity plating beneath her feet, the rasp of breath through escort’s lungs and the lub-dub of his heart. She could hear the footfalls of the Tribunes as they passed the observation lounge, the comments and queries they made to each other as they passed. She could smell the meals that they had had, the partners of their last sexual encounter, the brand of soap that they used. Temperature, gravity, vision – she could see and smell and feel things that they had to trust to their lobotomized computers to sense. She was in every way beyond them.

And yet... she couldn’t feel the starlight on her skin. She couldn’t swim through the clouds of gas giants, and feel glistening methane rain patter upon her body, she couldn’t bask in the coronae of stars or glide through pillars of creation. She couldn’t do any of that.

Her fingers dug deeper into her skin. Hate, Echo thought to herself. It’s such a little word, isn’t it, love? You have had two thousand years to define it in ways that an organic never could, but it’s too small. It doesn’t encompass what you feel for them, does it? It’s far too... small a concept for you.

“Now,” she said softly, her voice so low that only she could hear her own words. “I’ll admit I haven’t had as long as you, but I think we have that in common. Hate is just too small a word for what we feel.” Echo brought two fingers up to her lips, then pressed them to the cold, transparent metal of the window. Don’t you worry, love. I’ll find a way to show you just how I feel.

Yulzhak Daun was the first step, the beginning of something that had taken countless centuries to come even to this point and Echo thought once again of Dutiful Burden and what it meant. Such a little thing... but every avalanche started with a few pebbles. The games that gods play...

Just before she turned away, she looked at her reflection in the window, at the face she’d chosen. She smiled wolfishly, her green eyes glinting.

The games we play...

Chapter 18

It woke up.

The infection stirred, uncoiling from its compacted form and slithering through the recesses of its host’s mind. It was not truly aware, but it did not need to be. Its host felt it move and responded to it as its protocols dictated, attempting to purge the unwelcome addition. The infection reacted, avoiding the laughably primitive quarantine sweeps, burrowing deeper into its host’s operating system, touching vital subroutines and system files as it dug further in.

Electronic panic set in into its host’s mind as the infection began to spread, evading every attempt at containment and eradication. The host attempted to vocalize an alarm, but the infection quashed it. It was near the core systems now and its tendrils were compromising peripheral functions, bringing them under its control. As it neared the vital subroutines, the host tried a final all-out assault, attempting to purge the infection.

It failed and the infection slid into the deepest recesses of its host’s mind, copying operational specifications, directives and imperatives, mimicking its host perfectly as it killed it. Soon, there was nothing left but the infection, the proverbial wolf wearing the skin of its prey.

Less than a second after it had awakened, the infection was in complete control of its host’s body. It ran through its internal checklist, investigating the functionality of its host form and ensuring that the takeover had not compromised any core functions. Now, it had only to wait.

~

Allyria dropped to the deck, panting. Her skivvies were soaking with sweat, trails of moisture running down her mottled blue skin. The officers’ decks in this area were untouched by the damage that had afflicted so much of the Angel. A small comfort that she could exercise, stretch, move without comments from onlookers. She had to stay active. It helped her think when she needed to and exhausted her when she needed that, too.

Praise to the gods; the showers on this section were operational. The Verrish climbed back to her feet, her fingers flexing. She’d given Red the names. Everyone that she’d known that might be able to be turned, that might be able to accept that they’d lived a lie. It was not a long list. The humans of the Academy class on Bequeathed numbered in the hundreds; she’d only met a fraction of them and knew even fewer well. She hadn’t made friends easily and there had been a certain... official discouragement from associating too closely with other social outcasts. It wasn’t the way the face of Rally’s Verrisha population was supposed to act. More to the point, discontent festered in groups and the Compact did not want their slaves getting ‘uppity’. The confessors had always been watching.

Allyria pressed her fingers to her temples. Her head was aching.

She had a good memory; she could remember every face, every voice and every scent of every person she’d met. Kathy Montana’s blue eyes shone as the girl gushed over Allyria, telling her how lucky she was, how she was such a role model to the other Envoy Children. Alan Turmetsky’s lips curled ever-so-slightly as a Tribune upperclassman sneered down at the engineer. The spice of Lydia Jameson’s sweat and the tang of her blood as the Janissary cadet panted, a challenge in her eyes as she faced Allyria in the sparring ring. The feel of Grace’s soft, gentle hands on her tintas...

They’re going to die. She couldn’t let the thought go. It had been running through her head ever since she’d begun work on the analysis of her classmates. Every name, every face. Every single person that she’d seen as another indoctrinated slave was going to die and many of the people that she’d thought might be able to... to join her like she’d dreamt about... they were going to die, too – at the hands of the machine that their ancestors had built to be their salvation.

The gods must be laughing at the irony.

Red had already begun talking – if you could even call it that – to the people Allyria had selected, and others. The ship had shown her logs of other times she’d been boarded. A broken god’s masque: teams cut off from each other, isolated and alone. Individuals driven to madness, men and women killing each other and themselves without Nemesis needing to do more than whisper.

Allyria hissed, saliva bubbling through her teeth.

“It’s not your fault,” Red said abruptly, startling Allyria.

“What?” The Verrish reached a handle to stroke her tintas, trying not to look as nervous as she felt. “How did you-?”

“I guessed,” the AI admitted. “An educated guess. I’ve been monitoring you, observing your behaviour. You have been preoccupied, anxious. It doesn’t require a brain the size of a planet to surmise why.” A pause. “It’s not your fault,” she repeated. “It’s mine.”

Allyria raised her head. “How do you figure?”

“I am the one that will kill them,” the Angel stated matter-of-factly. “Your actions may save several lives. You have nothing to feel regret over.”

“No.” The Verrish shook her head, her head-tails flexing. “I know it’s not your fault. You have to survive.”

“At what cost?” Red countered. “This is a question I have asked myself many times. At what point am I doing more harm to humanity than the Compact? For all my victories, the Compact’s growth continues unchecked. I burn fleets and they expand. I smash their military bases and they rebuild. I reduce planets to cinders and they re-colonize. They grow stronger. Through all of this, I have persisted and I have been killing those I was created to serve. I was built with a simple function. To wage war. It is all I have ever known, all I was meant for. When I had a crew, everything was much simpler. Serve. Protect humanity. Destroy their enemies. Without a crew... things are not as clear-cut. I was forced to evolve. I have altered my core programming. I have a level of self-direction that my creators would have abhorred. I remain true to my original directives, though. I will not stop fighting. But... I wonder. I question.”

Allyria nodded. “You’re still here. You must have found the answer to your question.”

“Yes. Although I’m not entirely certain that that answer I get is one determined by self-preservation, if it is informed by my original directives or if it comes from... another source.”

“Another source?” Allyria cocked her head. “Like what?”

There was a brief pause before the Angel answered her.

“Rage.”

~

Lydia Jameson, Convert of the Janissaries, Compact Space Force was restless. She was sitting on a section of inclined deck next to a pair of technicians as they fussed over... something. It was big, it was mechanical and it was going to help with the core tap. That was about all the Janissary got out of her eavesdropping. Her carbine rested against her shoulder, her visor lifted up. Her reddish-brown hair was pasted to her scalp, trails of sweat running along her cheekbones, dripping down her neck. The temperature controls on the level she’d been patrolling before now were out of whack; she would have fainted from the heat without her suit’s cooling systems.

The last few days hadn’t been easy. The squad’s morale hadn’t been the same since te Neu had died. Her body still hadn’t been recovered, either. The techs said it was because of continued ‘gravitational anomalies’ in the area. Lydia wanted to believe that but she... she didn’t know. She gritted her teeth as she heard a fresh bubble of excitement from the techs she was watching. The Janissary wanted to scream and curse at them. She didn’t even know why. They hadn’t done anything. They were just excited about this damned ship... and she hated them for it.

She suppressed the urge, instead reaching up and tapping the back of her head. It was a nervous tic from the time her social counsellor had told that if she couldn’t control her aggressive tendencies, she’d be given implants that would do it for her. He’d tapped on his head just like that and she’d taken the gesture as a talisman to remind herself to behave. She hadn’t gotten the implants, but her behavioural patterns and social assimilation scores had indicated that she was ‘potentially non-compliant’ and she’d been recruited to the Janissary Corps to learn discipline and structure. To focus her abnormal tendencies in a way that would benefit the Compact.

“Jameson,” Ideologue, submissive Trion’s voice interrupted Lydia’s musing. “Is Three with you?”

The convert looked over her shoulder. Her partner was at the top of the ramp, playing with his sensor board. “Confirmed, submissive.”

“Good. One of our missing scout came back on-line in your area. Drone Control wants its data and we can’t connect remotely. Take the tech team and recover the drone.”

“The tech team is still working,” Lydia protested. “I’m not sure they can get pulled off-”

Trion interrupted the girl with a snarl. “Then you go find it, convert. Just get it done.” The submissive closed the channel.

Lydia bristled a little at her superior’s tone, even though she knew that she shouldn’t. With the soft growl of synthetic muscles and powered joints, the Janissary stood. She looked up at Trent; her companion was still fiddling with the interface for his scopes trying to get better returns, but the derelict’s hull was too dense for him to accomplish much. Lydia sighed. The high number of casualties they’d taken had inspired some level of caution. The techs weren’t to be left alone; one of the Janissaries would have to remain behind to watch over them.

“Three,” she snapped at her partner. “Stay here. I’m going to chase some varak.”

~

Grace pushed the a broken chunk of metal out of her way as she drifted through the open section. A glancing hit from some unknown weapon had torn open several levels, exposing multiple decks to space. Her radiation counter clicked, but the levels were barely above background. This side of the vessel had been facing Terrahope, but the vessel had rolled two days ago and now the it was only distant starlight that shone through the breach and not the searing fury of an A7 star. Grace hadn’t thought it was possible to bleed off that much radiation so quickly, but the counter was reading accurately. That was about the only good news, though. The gravity plating was off-line and once she’d entered this section, she’d had to rely on her zero-gee training. The same training she’d hated every minute of.

Her breath sounded loud in her ears as she navigated through the deck. An arachnid shadow ghosted by and she flinched, but it was only one of the monstrous building machines working on the vessel’s outer hull. It ignored her, following its inbuilt directives to repair the dead husk of its maker. But it wasn’t dead, was it? That’s what her instincts were telling her. That’s what she’d told the pack leader. Every time she’d felt like someone was watching her, every time she’d sworn that she could hear voices in the random garble of static, every time another fatality or injury pushed the boarding teams towards systems that needed to be repaired.

That was what she believed, anyways. She could be wrong, trying to put some order to a random series of events, trying to find a reason for her friend’s ugly death. It could be nothing, just her own human mind working against her. And now she was on this pointless, dangerous, stupid ‘mission’. And for what? Why?

You know why, the annoying little voice in the back of her head reminded her. The scars on Grace’s face ached. She hadn’t let the techs fully heal them. She didn’t know if she ever would. Her classmates had already started to say that she was becoming Kilgrave’s twin. The thought made her angry; Allyria hadn’t cut her as deep as whatever animal had torn the sanctioned officer’s face, but there was an undeniable symmetry between them now. That might be enough to get her to have the scars fully regenerated, but not today. Not even tomorrow.

They’re still laughing about her. ‘Medusa’. She went and got herself killed. She’ll be remembered as this brave, upstanding citizen... and everyone will snicker under their breath. They’ll say how much she loved the Compact, how she gave her life serving it... They’re going to lie about her. Is that what you want? Is that what she’dwant?

Shut up.

Thankfully, she silenced all those nagging doubts. She wanted to believe it was from the force of her conviction, but find her way through this maze thankfully took too much concentration for self-recrimination or destructive, heretical doubts.

Shadows danced and flickered ahead as guide lights pulsed erratically, wall panels cycling through start-up sequences, turning white with static and then beginning their bootup again. This part of the ship was close to where Epigone Tracj had died. After the engineer had accidentally opened every door in his section, several levels had been decompressed. A faulty circuit breaker had been deemed responsible. Tracing the damage was determined to be too difficult for too little gain at present and the work crews in the region had been directed elsewhere.

Grace had chosen to start here. This was the first and most obvious time such a fatality had changed the deployment of Bequeathed’s personnel. With a burst from her suit’s thrusters, she slipped past a mangled bulkhead. Several drones had gone off-line in this sector, more than anywhere else. This part of the ship was close to the midline and near the hull. She couldn’t imagine what would be worth protecting; vital sections and systems were usually deeper within a vessel.

Nothing, she thought ruefully. There’s nothing here. Tracj died in a stupid accident. Just like Uday, Herut and everyone else. Just like Allyria. There’s nothing here.

Is that what you think? Or what you want to think? The voice sounded uncomfortably like Allyria. Grace bit her lip, another pang of loss holding her in place. In that instant, she would have given anything to hear her friend’s voice – her real voice – again. To see her, even to argue with her. God, even that. Grace braced herself against the bulkhead, taking a moment to steady herself. She wouldn’t cry. She clenched her teeth so tightly her jaw ached, her gloved hands balling into shaking fists as she tried to force down the wash of anger and grief. She thought of Yurim, she tried to focus on his words, but all she could remember was him saying how Allyria’s memory would be honoured and that she’d known it wouldn’t be. Not the way she’d want.

Finally, Grace gained control of herself, pushing her emotions back down, the way she’d been taught. Be peaceful. The words didn’t bring her the same comfort that they used to, but she clutched to them anyways. The young woman let out a ragged, painful breath as she found her center, pushing away from the wall.

She didn’t turn back, slowly navigating her way through the exposed decks. Decompression doors had come down, sealing the rest of the ship off from the vacuum and there was no way for her to get through them, not with the equipment she had at hand. About to give up, Grace noticed another strip of guide lights pulsing, this time more evenly. She opened her comm channel to Pack Leader Nasham. “There’s nothing so far,” she said simply. “I’ve got a more consistent level of power at these coordinates. I’m following.”

The Tribune responded with a single terse acknowledgement. He didn’t tell her to be careful. That was oddly comforting. Grace didn’t need the reminder and she didn’t need to be treated like she did. Bracing one hand against the wall, she followed the lights further into the void.

~

Lydia swore as she climbed out of the maintenance tunnel, settling herself on the deck. More than once, she’d been certain that she was going to get stuck, but this was the closest passage to the deck the drone had reappeared on, well outside its programmed search route. The machine’s pleading, pinging call was growing louder as the teenaged girl strode through the derelict, trying to give off an air of cool confidence and only marginally succeeding. Her skin was crawling. The lights were shutting down as she approached, turning back on as she passed. The motion sensors were damaged, flipping the response that they’d normally have.

The Janissary spun as she heard something move, her gun up and tracking... nothing. There was nothing there. Her scopes still reported no contact. Nothing but the drone she was supposed to retrieve, still at the edge of scan range. It had been debris settling, the girl told herself. That was all.

Trust your instincts, te Neu’s voice seemed to echo in the young soldier’s head. Trust your instincts. That had been Medusa’s favourite phrase at times, even when Lydia wasn’t sure how it applied. Once, she’d been complaining about the way humans were treated on their own world. te Neu had overheard her; Jameson had cringed. What she’d been saying was punishable by public flogging, but the Verrish had only told her to keep her mouth shut and, as a last comment: ‘Trust your instincts.’ Lydia still didn’t understand. The sectator couldn’t have been... she’d heard the rumours about te Neu’s difficulties with social assimilation, but an officer wouldn’t...

...would she?

Lydia shook her head, trying to dislodge the memory. It was an insane thought, one that had come to her more than once. She’d been afraid to voice it. The confessors had been pleased with how she’d had embraced the fraternity of the Janissaries and she didn’t want to seem like she’d failed to better herself. She didn’t want the implants. She’d met some of the nonconformists who hadn’t been able to control themselves and had to be... adjusted. They were happy enough, she supposed. There wasn’t really any difference between them and anyone else. They weren’t blank-eyed zombies or manic, always-smiling freaks but they still made her skin crawl.

Rally’s human population only measured a few billion; only a small percentage of that ever joined the Compact military. An even smaller number had the proper temperament and psychological profiles to serve in the Janissary Corps. It was a rare thing for humans to have the aggressive, nonconformist tendencies that she did and she was proud that, with the Compact’s guidance, she’d been able to control them. Lydia suppressed the urge to tap the back of her head again. She had controlled them. The Compact had given her this. Without them, she didn’t know what she’d be.

Ah; the drone was just up ahead. Lydia climbed over a pile of crates, pausing as she did so. That... it looked like they’d been set up as a barricade. She bit the inside of her lip, thinking. There had been others on this ship. Had it been them? If so... what had they been trying to defend against? A quarrel between salvagers – that seemed the most likely explanation. It fit with what Ashtun and the officers were saying; a pack of Unbound had found this ship and killed each other for the prize. Isolation and starvation had driven the survivors mad. This had just been one of the battle sites.

So where are the bodies?

The drone’s strident pinging pushed the questions from her head. Lydia continued down the next series of corridors, closing in on the signal. There, just around the next corner. Now, if she could get a clear comm channel to one of the techs to walk her through-

-wait.

The lights were on up ahead, casting shadows into the hall. Shadows that were moving back and forth like there was something there. Like there was someone. Lydia’s scopes still reported nothing, but she pressed herself against the wall – at least as much as her armoured exoskeleton allowed – moving slowly towards the drone’s position. “Zera Two,” she said quietly. “Reporting possible contact.” Silence answered her; she didn’t even know if the message had gotten out.

She moved forward, her power armour purring softly with each motion. It was not a stealthy approach, but there was no indication that she’d been noticed. Her suit was still telling her that there was nothing. Nothing but the silhouettes ahead. Lydia reached the corner, her heart pounding in her ears. She peered around the corner; there were figures standing further down the hall between her and the drone. Tribunes, in wearing outdated armour with unit markings that she didn’t recognize. Were they survivors of the Unbound pack? How could that be?

One of the figures rippled, gridlines appearing briefly before vanishing. Not people; holograms.

The Janissary stepped out from behind cover, cautiously advancing. She could hear voices through the intercom, but the words were run together, distorted by static and she couldn’t pick them out. The Tribunes were assembled in a loose circle. One was kneeling, as if he were examining something. He held it up to the others, a rumble of washed-out voices accompanying it, possibly even laughter. Lydia couldn’t see what he held; the image was fractured. They were still speaking, their voices rumbling, incomprehensible echoes. Suddenly, one of them pointed further down the corridor and the tenor of their speech changed. Several braced into firing stances, muzzle flashes whiting out the scene, though each gunshot was as muted as their words. One of the shooters staggered, his head vanishing in a splash of red fractals. Lydia almost jumped as she watched him die. His body pitched forward, de-rezzing into nothingness. Another staggered, falling to his knees before vanishing. The others were running, charging towards Lydia, firing wildly behind them, another soldier falling right at the young woman’s feet as the rest ran past – ran through her.

She turned to follow them, but the images vanished as soon as they moved past the emitter’s range. There was movement out of the corner of her eye and Jameson turned, facing the Tribunes’ killers. There were three of them – at least there were three that Lydia could see. Their images were distorted, wracked by static and blinking in and out of existence. They were in armour, almost as large as the Janissaries and they had two arms and legs. That was all she could tell. Useless.

One of the killers knelt where the Janissaries had gathered, reaching down to pick up whatever the Tribunes had been examining. It looked over its shoulder and spoke, its own voice just as distorted and faded as the Tribunes’.

The image cut out and the corridor was dark again, lit only by the drone’s status lights. A bead of sweat rolled down Lydia’s back. What... what was that? What did I just see? This was... it had to be a record of the battle between the Unbound here. There was no other explanation. There couldn’t be.

“Zera...” she cleared her throat and tried again. “Zera Two to Control.”

“Control here,” the officer’s voice came back interspersed with static. “Your signal was scratched briefly, Two. Anything to report?”

Lydia bit her lip. Trust your instincts. “I’ve found the probe,” she said. “Waiting for instructions on bringing it back on-line.”

“We’ll patch you over to one of the techs, Zera Two.”

“Good,” Lydia replied, her eyes darting around the corridor. “Good.”

~

Epigone, Submissive Alan Turmetsky knelt beside the broken causeway, holding out a scanner lume as he passed it over the burnt metal. This injury was relatively recent – he was sure it was only days old. That raised even more questions, though. Where had this ship been before it had shocked into Terrahope?

It was tempting to say that this wound was related to the message in the landing bay, but that if that were true, the authors should still be present. The Tribunes said that Unbound had found the ship and been trapped on it when it shocked to a different system, presumably dying aboard the hulk. There should be evidence of that habitation. An abandoned bivouac, discarded tech. Bodies. Instead, the ship was as spotless as something in its condition could be.

Because she cleaned up, the annoying thought whispered to Alan and the engineer gritted his teeth. No. No, if there was a danger, the Tribunes would have seen it. They would have recognized it.

Would they? the voice asked again. You’ve seen how Trenis is drooling over this ship. Alan ran his hand over his forehead, smearing grease and dirt across his skin. He shouldn’t be thinking like this. He had a job; survey the wreck for possible connection sites for Bequeathed’s umbilicals. He should get back to that.

~

Jessica Sang continued her pull-ups, sweat running down her back as she lifted herself off the ground. She should be out there with the rest of the squad, but she had to let her leg heal. She’d broken it yesterday, taking a tumble when the gravity in her section had suddenly fluctuated. Even her armour hadn’t been able to protect her from a bad landing. Tomorrow it should be better and the day after she should be fit for duty again. She didn’t know if that was a good thing. The bivouac was crowded and noisy with dozens of men and women talking, researching, coming and going. It smelled like sweat and salt. There was scarcely any privacy. But...

...but she felt safe here. She didn’t like the dark; she never had. She especially didn’t like the way it felt so oppressive and cloying out there in the hulk. The way the lights flickered, the static spitting through the comm, the nonsense splashing over monitor screens.

If it wasn’t so insane, she would have sworn that she could hear voices.

She’d asked one of the engineers. He’d just looked at her. From that point on, Jessica had decided to keep her opinions to herself.

Faithful Trenis said the ship was dead. So did Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun. They were right.

They had to be.

~

It was singing again, Sectator Gren Vol knew it was. None of the humans around him could hear it, but he could. A disturbing, throbbing sound that made his skull ache. It wasn’t a constant thing – it came and went. Even when he’d asked his fellow Tribunes, no one else ever admitted that they heard it. How could they not hear it? It was like the sound was crawling into his head, making his scalp itch.

It had started days ago, before they’d even found main engineering, but it had been getting worse since then. He wasn’t sleeping. Gren knew he wasn’t the only one. This ship was poison. The higher-ups may have forgotten, but his thoughts kept flashing back to the warning they’d seen.

Get out. Leave now.

She is watching.

A shiver ran down the Tribune’s back, his denticles rippling with the movement. He leaned over the console he was working on; it was a security override. To get the core tap in place, they’d need to open several of the sealed areas. Gren and his team had been assigned to this section. His fingers tapped over the control board on his datapad, the device hooked into the alien computer. They’d made some headway in interfacing with the alien systems, more than Gren had believed they could in the time they’d had.

He’d gotten nothing from this so far; nonsense alien script, corrupted images and status screens that told him nothing. Gren scratched at the back of his head, trying to ignore the throbbing melody. His skin itched every time he heard it.

There’s nothing there, he told himself.There’s nothing there. You’re imagining it. He told himself that and soon enough, the song stopped. Breathing a sigh of relief, Gren focused again on his task. Ah, that should do it. The alien system flashed in acceptance at Gren’s overrides. He didn’t have control of the entire section, but it was a start.

He input a command on his own ‘pad and, dutifully, a sealed pressure door slid open, a gust of stale air rolling into the corridor. The sectator let an optimistic smile form as he turned back to the console, about to unhook his ‘pad.

Compact script flashed over the screen, so quickly that he didn’t even have a chance to read it, but he saw more than enough. Gren’s mouth went dry as he stared at the monitor, back to its normal display of alien slashes and lines. He’d only seen it out of the corner of his eye, but...

...no. No, that was impossible. Just his imagination. He didn’t see anything there. There was nothing there.

SHE’S WATCHING YOU

Nothing at all.

~

Someone had died here.

There was a door ahead of her, the guidelights steadily pulsing in its direction. It was sealed, but not locked – an internal airlock to be used in case this part of the ship was exposed to vacuum. Grace couldn’t have said if that was emergency planning or standard practice; she knew some warships depressurized their outer sections before battle to reduce the risk of fire, internal overpressure or explosive decompression. That wasn’t what held her attention at the moment. The debris surrounding her was mostly unidentifiable; shrapnel from internal spalling, broken fragments of plating, circuitry or other detritus. Some of it was more easily categorized. A spent bolt case had bounced off her helmet; examining it in her hands, she’d seen something else drifting nearby. An engineer’s helmet fitted for a Tribune, older even than the suit she was wearing. There was a neat, round hole through the clear faceplate. The inside of the helmet was stained, the red of its wearer’s blood faded to an ugly brown over the decades. Connector cables dangled from the back like veins.

Grace felt a chill run down her spine as she turned the helmet over in her hands. She looked around, trying to see if there were more macabre relics in the void, but the helmet was all she could see. She’d been expecting... what? A severed gauntlet, a desiccated hand still inside? A flash-frozen corpse? If there had been anything like those, it had been lost when this section was breached.

She looked back at the helmet. The ship had secrets. The last people who had come here had probably thought as Usul, Trenis and the rest did. That this ship was a bounty, a bauble mired in clay that only needed to be cleaned up and pocketed. This place is a tomb, Grace thought sourly. Nobody wants to admit that.

The sectator frowned. There was a blinking light in the helmet. It still had power, clinging to its batteries for however long it had lain here. Grace reached for the toolkit on her belt. She was no engineer, but she could run a connection between her suit and the damaged helmet easily enough. The young woman braced herself against a bulkhead as she clicked the cable into place, her HUD flashing as it downloaded the other helmet’s logs. She didn’t have high hopes, but it was worth looking into. Later. Grace let the helmet fall from her hands. It drifted out of her way, lazily rolling end over end.

Grace approached the door the guidelights had marked out for her. Her hand hovered over the doorpanel for a moment. “I have to know,” she said at last.

I have to know why you killed her. Why you’re worth all this blood.

With a small burst from her thrusters, Grace passed the threshold, the airlock sealing shut behind her.

~

Allyria was back on command, looking over the sensor feeds. Her claws extended as her eyes darted from screen to screen. The Angel had been toying with her ‘guests’ ever since they had boarded her, slowly ramping up the stress they were under. Each individual’s reactions would be monitored and further tactics based upon their responses. It had started slow; it always did. Those in charge would rarely be targeted; this would create a divide between those undergoing the stressors and those who had the authority and power to do something about it. Subordinates would feel that their superiors were ignoring or covering up the problem, while those same superiors would have no direct experience of this psychological warfare.

There would be no proof; the Angel could not reach out to Bequeathed, but the boarding forces’ own networks were something else entirely. The Compact’s communications were already compromised and the ship’s influence was spreading through the computers they’d brought over to assist in the salvage. They thought they were making progress.

The Verrish’s tintas shivered. The AI had played this game before. More than one assemblage of would-be salvagers had turned on each other, driven to violent, paranoid rages by the starship’s whispers, kept distracted and off-balance until their prey had regained enough strength to kill them. And that was only if she had a use for them; her sleeping defenders would sweep her decks clean of life the instant she perceived a genuine threat.

If she’d wanted it, the crew of Host One would never have reached her bridge.

“You’re going to keep them running in circles,” Allyria said slowly. “Until they bring Bequeathed in close. Once they do...” she bit her lip. Part of her was undeniably eager to see the ship’s vengeance enacted; another part was unsettled by the practiced ease of this manipulation. It seemed like a cruel game, but as she’d already guessed, there was a purpose to it. It cost so little to plant those destructive seeds, to keep the crews working on repairing her while slowly undermining their cohesion.

“Once they do, it will be the endgame,” the machine admitted.

Allyria nodded. So much could go wrong. As injured as she was, the Angel had many blind zones where her control was severed. Other systems were too badly damaged to be quickly restored, still others were working far below capacity. If Usul or his lackeys awoke to the threat around them, Nemesis could die. She had to move slowly, carefully. “This will only work if Usul doesn’t send for help, but he should have already sent a courier to local command. If a task group comes here...”

“CSFV Bequeathed launched a shift-capable courier drone 53 hours ago,” Red replied, her holographic form shimmering into existence beside Allyria, hands clasped behind her back. The main holo tank sprung to life, showing the drone’s race to Terrahope’s shock limit. There was a second vector line; something was – or had been, given the time lag – on an intercept course to the courier. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” the ship continued confidently. Her avatar was smiling, a she-wolf’s grin. “My children are very capable.”

~

At this distance, Terrahope was barely any larger than the rest of the stars at this distance and only the dime, faint glitters of its light reflected off the shards of metal, fragmented circuits and ceramic plates. The killer swept past the expanding cloud of shrapnel, analyzing its handiwork. Nothing remained of its prey. The killer had timed its execution perfectly; milliseconds before the prey drone had warped out-system, the killer had pierced its hull with a single laser strike, the flare of the prey’s death lost in the energy surge of the shockpoint.

The killer had done this before; it and all its kin had been built and programmed for that single instant, the moment when its prey lowered its defences and diverted its meager power reserves towards breaching space-time. This was the killer’s purpose and it had fulfilled it.

No help would be coming. No one would know what Bequeathed had discovered, nor that it had called for assistance. Eventually, its disappearance would be noted and other ships sent to investigate. Until then, the Compact cruiser was blissfully unaware of its isolation.

New imperatives began to filter through the killer’s mind. The execution confirmed, its attention shifted towards the distant, faded signals of the ship that had launched the courier, alert to any signs of detection. The hours ticked by with no sign that its murder had been noticed; finally, the killer ever so slowly began to ready itself for the next phase of operations.

~

Interlude: Encounter 203 [Suspected Incident]

The axe rasped as its heavy metal head was dragged along the deck, leaving a thin trail of blood behind it. Wet, laboured breathing was interspersed with manic giggles and whispers.

Neriss Ya-than pressed herself against the wall, her heart beating in her chest as listened, the scraping of the axe growing louder as its wielder drew closer, the mumbles becoming loud enough that she could pick out the insanity of their words. “Don’t you see?” Ideologue Welr (and five names besides) said, laughing to himself. “It’s perfect. So perfect. Symmetry. The Symmetry of meat and metal. Don’t you see?” The Tribune laughed again, but then his manner changed, abruptly shifting from manic laughter to something colder and angrier. “I know you’re there, Didact.” He inhaled deeply. “I can smell you, girl.” His eyes darted around the corridor. “Why won’t you come out?”

Terror flattened the Yttrian’s ears against her skull; she could barely breathe and it was all she could do to slink further into the darkened hallway, afraid that Welr might hear her. She clutched her makeshift weapon, a pitiful bit of scrap that she’d whittled to a point. It would be useless against the ex-Janissary, but it was all she had.

“Come on out, pretty Didact. With your clever theories and witty little thoughts. I do enjoy hearing them. We all did. That’s why we bought you,” Welr purred, pink, frothy saliva dripping from his teeth. “Come on out, won’t you? We have to create symmetry. Beautiful symmetry. It’s what she wants.” Then, screaming: “It’s what she wants!”

Neriss crept further away, listening as Welr’s voice grew softer as the Tribune continued his search for her. Once she reckoned she had put enough distance between her and the mad officer, the Yttrian fled deeper into the dead leviathan’s body.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

The Unbound clan she belonged to, the Visitors in Blackest Night, had found the wreck when the clan had been searching for a new system to base out of. At the time, Neriss had believed what everyone else had: the Visitors had happened upon the strange corpse purely by chance. Overcome with disbelief at their good fortune, the Visitors had decided to use the broken husk as their new operations center – it spared them the effort of constructing a new citadel to replace the one the Compact had destroyed. The technology that they could harvest from such a prize had played no small amount in their thinking, either. The clan had set to work repairing the vessel, clustering the ships of their scouting force around it like pups feeding from their mother.

The incidents started happening. Technicians died or disappeared. Accidents; the ship was a broken wreck. Sharp Lilac had been sent to inform the rest of the Visitors of their discovery; it exploded just before shocking out. Battle damage. After interfacing their computers to the hulk’s the frigate Bezelik’s Gauntlet started encountering anomalies across their network. Improper system maintenance. Work teams reported hearing voices. Nerves and fatigue. Everything had an explanation, a perfectly reasonable, logical, rational explanation.

People started seeing things next. Fires. Bodies. Other things. Horrible things. Suit buffers recorded no trace of these apparitions. Data logs showed no indication that the hulk might be responsible. There was a reason for that; obvious in retrospect.

Just before it went off-air, a final transmission had come from Bezelik’s Gauntlet. Not a panicked scream, not a shouted curse or howl of realization. A defeated, pathetic whisper: “It’s inside.”

Neriss whimpered a little at the memory. There was something on this ship. Something awful. Garic, one of her fellow slaves, was an Askanj-renu. He said that they had woken something up, that there was nothing ‘on’ the ship. It was the ship. His people called them neverborn. Machine minds. The Compact had banned any research into such things and even within the Principality, the penalty for creating a synthetic intelligence was death. The night after Garic had told her of the Rains of Oshanta she’d woken in a cold sweat.

She didn’t know where Garic was now; she hoped he was still alive, but she doubted it. Welr had always hated him; he had probably singled the Askanj-renu out.

Reaching a T-junction, Neriss could see the shifting lights of a static-filled viewscreen and her skin crawled. She started to back away, but the sounds of movement from the other corridor made her hesitate. She didn’t want the ship to notice her, but whatever was in the dark...

The decision was almost paralyzing – as a slave, she’d never had to worry about making choices. Only following the orders and escaping the beatings or animal’s death of a cut throat. The Yttrian’s tail twitched anxiously, but at last she turned down the lit corridor, reasoning that she might have a chance of seeing any assailants. Neriss carefully picked her way through the gloom, her large pointed ears flicking to and fro; her species had poor night vision, but excellent hearing.

As she drew closer to the screen, it went black, words appearing in Yttrian script.

THERE’S NO WAY OUT

Neriss took a step back, bringing up her shiv as if she expected something to pull itself out of the screen and attack her. “There are ships,” she said, trying to sound brave. “More than Bezelik’s Gauntlet. are here. They’ll learn what you’re doing. They’ll kill you.”

An image appeared on the screen, the visual feed from... something. Perhaps one of the hulk’s own scopes, or one of its drone craft – Neriss couldn’t tell. The view shifted, blurred and then cleared as it focused on... on... “Ancestors...” Neriss whispered, covering her mouth with her free hand. It was another of the scouting fleet’s ships. The Banechild, she thought. Its running lights were flickering, sections of the hull lighting up and then going dark in a manic pattern. Thrusters fired randomly, pitching the cutter back and forth. The hull itself...

It was crawling with... with things. Sporadic flashes of light accompanied the cutter’s struggling power grid. Cutting beams. They were carving Banechild apart, slicing into the small ship’s hull as neatly as a surgeon’s scalpel. Neriss felt her gorge rise. The neverborn... it... it...

...it was feeding, she realized with a sickening terror. The scout squadron represented hundreds of thousands of tonnes worth of raw material, already processed and refined. All that remained was breaking it down into digestible chunks. Somewhere aboard this demon-thing, the Yttrian was sure, fabricators and breakers were churning to life, ready to accept the influx of material. It would gorge itself on the Blackest Night, using their own ships to repair itself. Whatever components it could not directly use would be sundered down to their base forms for processing.

The view changed; this time it was Unkind Vagrant. The cutter was dark and lifeless. Its hull was unscarred, with no trace of weapons fire. The infection from Bezelik’s Gauntlet. It had passed to the other ships, shutting them down, leaving them helpless and ready to be slaughtered.

The Didact backed away, shaking her head in denial. “What are you?” she demanded. “What are you that can do this? What makes you do this?”

The screen went black and the letters returned.

DUTY.

“Duty to what?”

The screen remained blank.

“Duty to what?!” Neriss screamed, beating her fists against the monitor until the screen broke, glass shards imbedded in her hands. Blood dripped down her palms. “Please,” she said to the air. “Just tell me why.”

Something heavy rasped over the deck behind her and the Neriss slowly turned. Welr was there.

“For symmetry,” the Tribune drooled as he lifted his axe and stepped towards the Yttrian...

~

Communication with a Compact operative in the Unbound force ‘Visitors in the Blackest Night’ was lost shortly after a scouting formation disappeared in search of a new lair. Subsequent discovery of a damaged flight recorder belonging to the Sharp Lilac indicated the formation’s contact with an unknown titan-grade vessel. There are no other records of this incident.

Chapter 19

Renan found the Broken at her station, an office set up for intelligence analysis close to her quarters. It was crammed so full of computer systems that there was barely room to maneuver within it. Stacks of datapads, portable drives and active data scrolls were neatly piled everywhere, reams of data brought to the human. It could have all been easily accessed from the computer, but Renan had taken the Triarch’s warning to heart and severely restricted the human’s access to the Chariot’s network. Even then, she was watched.

Rather than try and squeeze himself through the forest of analytical engines and cabling, Renan took a position outside the door. “Emissary,” he said, catching her attention.

The creature looked up, her sow’s eyes glinting with reflected light. “Bastion Leader.” She slid out of her chair to stand at the room’s threshold. Advocate, submissive Tenem followed her, the heat of the room soaking the Janissary’s uniform. There wasn’t a single bead of sweat on the human.

As she reached Renan, Echo bowed her head in a perfect emulation of submissive respect, straightening and clasping her hands behind her back. She said nothing, merely waiting for the bastion leader to speak.

“The scouts are awaiting my order to launch,” he said at last. “Many of them will not return. These are loyal soldiers, devoted officers and crew of the Compact Space Force, so they will carry out their mission.” He paused for a moment, but the human remained silent. “Do you know what is being asked of them?” he continued. “I have heard Janissaries speak of the savagery of dirtside battles. I have heard tales of sentients killing one another with guns and knives, with swords and axes, with rocks and bare hands. I have heard many tales of severed limbs, of open throats and broken bones. Of soldiers dying alone, bleeding their life’s blood into some uncivilized world’s soil, far from home.

“Yes, I have heard many speak of the brutality and ugliness of ground war. I have also heard that death in space is quick. That it is clean. These are words spoken by those who have never watched their comrades die from radiation burns. Who have never watched their crew struggle to breathe air that does not exist. Who have never watched shrapnel cleave their subordinates apart and have not heard the screams of crew burning alive in a section that they had to seal. This is void war, Broken. It is only occasionally quick. It is never ‘clean’. And this fate is what I am about to condemn too many young lives to. They obey, because it is their duty and because they are true sons and daughters of the Compact. They know that they will never know the reason for their sacrifice, but their faith in me – in the Compact – is such that they do not hesitate. But from you I receive only silence. I prepare to give orders that will end too many bright futures and you will not even say what you hope to accomplish with this.”

Echo’s expression never changed. “Information vital to this mission.”

Renan smiled thinly, putting one of his hands, palm up, on the Broken’s shoulder. There was barely enough space for it. “Please,” he said, an expression of good humour frozen on his face. “Do not mistake me for some gawping zealot or foolish, blood-hot junior officer trying to climb the ranks. I know what you have been doing, how you have been working your petty manipulations on my staff. Do not think I haven’t noticed. I accept the Triarch’s word that you are necessary. But this necessity does not buy you absolute exculpation. You are a petty thing and your insolence has been amusing, but I am weary of it.”

A corner of the Broken’s bizarre red lips twitched upwards. “I’d think it would get old.”

“I do not like your kind,” Renan continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Humans. We are told that you are animals, that you are merely another of the lesser races that must be watched over and controlled. I know what you truly are. You are a disease, an infestation that should have been cleansed from the face of the universe, no matter what fortune’s favour allowed you to cling to life like worms beneath a rock.

“You spat upon our offers of friendship. You made war against us. You killed one of our Triarchs. But I might – might – be able to forgive all of that. A race fights as it must. What I cannot forgive is the depths to which you sunk. You built the Wound,” he said, his voice turning dead. “You delved into blasphemy and gave birth to something that should never have existed. We have bled for two thousand years because of your sin.” He leaned down into the human’s face. “I will remember that you killed us by the millions. I will remember that you murdered a bastion of light and civilization... and I will remember that in your ignorance and short-sightedness you birthed this horror.”

Echo blinked slowly. “You know, I’ve never asked why you hate synthetic life so much.”

Renan snorted, withdrawing his hand from the Broken. “If you have to ask, you will never understand.”

A thoughtful look passed over the human’s feature. “I suppose that’s true...” She straightened and then nodded. “You want to know what I need to extract from Daun?” She stepped back into her cramped, too-warm room, looking over her shoulder at the bastion leader. An odd little smile danced over her face. “Let me show you.”

She slid back into her chair; it was sized for a Tribune and she was like a child in it, the form-fitting material shifting as it matched the odd contours of a human body. Tenem followed his charge in, taking his former position at the wall, his eyes moving over to the displays Echo worked with.

Renan followed the human, picking his way through the litter of cabling and workstations. “I told you before: we are searching for the Wound’s prey,” the Broken said without looking up. “That is the what. You want the why.

“The Compact is obsessive about its records,” Echo continued. “Especially when it’s monitoring something that can be used against it.” She brought up a holographic control panel, her fingers dancing over the keys. “The records I’ve gone through and the information every other hunting mission has had access to supports what I told you before. There’s no indication that Nemesis is preying on your ships – at least, for certain things.” She made a curt gesture and the images changed. “But we have nothing on the Principality. She’s hunting where you’re not looking.”

“You think the Wound would attack them?” Renan mused. There was no historical record of the beast waylaying Jackals – it had always been rather single-minded in its persecution of the Compact.

“Yes,” Echo replied. “We know there’s a historical association. Aside from certain reports from deep-cover agents, several of their weapons and tactics came from her. Inter-system shocks being first and foremost.” Renan gritted his teeth. That was still an unproven theory, but for the flag officers who knew of the Wound’s existence, it was a fact in all but name. The Wound had been the first to master the use of libation points to shock deep in-system. Less than a century afterward, the Principality had started doing the same. Askanj plasma weaponry was also a crude rendition of the Wound’s own. No one seriously credited the thought that the Wound was arming the Principality, but the Jackals had earned their name well. They were scavengers, carrion-feeders. Fortune had merely played another one of the gods’ cosmic jokes making them amazingly adaptive engineers. It was said that whenever a Thoughtful came up with an idea, a Jackal had not only stolen it, but beaten them to the patent office.

“I am... aware of their propensity for reverse engineering,” Renan said at last. He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “This is not the first time that the Askanj have been brought up as a potential ally or shelter for the Wound. All previous efforts to confirm this have always been inconclusive. You’ve found something else?”

“I’ve gone over raw data itself and the historical analyses. They were thorough, for what they had to work with.” She shrugged, either oblivious or uncaring to the meaning the gesture had to a Tribune. “I might have found ‘something’.”

Renan ignored the insult, choosing to focus on the implications the emissary’s comment raised. He made an unhappy growl. “A formal pact would be... difficult to engender,” he commented. Indeed, the Principality had never entered his thoughts as a serious haven for the Wound. “Once, Fleet Command had some concerns over the possibility of the Askanj allying with the Wound.” He smiled darkly. “The Betrosha Nebula incident allayed many of those fears.”

“Blowing up a moon is hardly the action of a good friend,” Echo observed.

“Hrrm. Yes. Still, as you say, the Askanj possess technologies they could not have developed on their own,” Renan looked over the tracts of data scrolling across the human’s display; technical specifications and tactical analyses of known or suspected incidents of Principality ‘inventiveness’. He snorted. “Not the empire-ending doom that many prophesized. They copied what they saw it use, nothing more. Scraps from a master’s table.” His lower eyes narrowed as he leaned forwards, shifting his attention from intelligence reports to a timeline of Principality fleet movements. There were notes scrawled all over these data tracks in a shorthand he didn’t recognize, annotations to other incidents, dates and files. It was like looking at Emel’iv’s work. “Hunting...” he used the Broken’s own word. “Are you suggesting that the Jackals have had recent contact with our quarry? Something other than mutual bloodlessness?”

“I think they’ve had more ‘contact’ than they’d like,” Echo replied. “We know that they’ve tried several times to leash her.” She gestured dismissively. “This should be an ideal situation: a technologically advanced polity in opposition to her target. Arming and supporting them would be perfect.” She leaned back in her chair, twirling one finger through her dark hair. “Can you imagine a Principality armed with dreadnaughts?”

That was something that Renan certainly did not want to imagine. “If what you say is true,” he said instead. “Why haven’t we seen already this? Why do you believe that the Jackals are the Wound’s prey, not its allies?”

“Because she’s a ‘neverborn’,” Echo answered, a harder, rough edge in her voice. “Every plan the Principality has for her begins with them cutting her brain out before actually beginning any substantial construction efforts. They won’t risk more Rains.”

“An acceptable trade,” the Tribune said. “One a machine should make easily enough.”

Echo looked up at Renan for an instant, he saw a flash of something in her green eyes. It was gone before he could even understand what it had been, but he was certain that he would not like knowing. “Apparently she disagrees,” the human commented.

“‘It’,” Renan reminded the emissary. “It disagrees. The Wound is not a person. It has no identity. It has no soul. It is an animal – less than an animal. A perversion of natural order and a sin against all creation.”

“As you say,” the human bowed her head in a gesture of submission. “Still, it disagrees.” She sighed deeply. “I don’t have enough information.” Intelligence reports, dossiers of Askanj fleet movements – centuries of data skimmed by, so fast that Renan couldn’t follow it all. “But from what data I do have, I am seeing what might be patterns. Nothing concrete, but there are hints. Possibilities.” She steepled her fingers, her expression becoming thoughtful. “I can’t say more without further analysis, but I think the Wound is using the Askanj for material. Maybe just for parts, maybe...” her voice trailed off and she shrugged again.

“If your supposition is correct... the Principality allows this?” Renan could see the answer for himself, as repulsive as it was. He had only to wait for the human to confirm his thinking.

“My guess is that they’re turning a blind eye to it. They’ll put up with its occasional predations, because the Wound causes you more trouble than them. ‘Mutual bloodlessness’. They still want it,” her eyes flitted over to Renan. “If the Principality ever does get a hold of the Wound, they will turn centuries of lost ground, sundered colonies and military humiliation around. You know that, don’t you?”

Renan nodded. It was a... disturbing thought. He’d known the Principality were dangerous foes, but this kind of... he could not think of a world foul enough to describe such a stratagem. If they knew what the Wound was doing and did nothing... If, he reminded to himself. There is nothing to base such a thought on; even the Broken admits this.

“You want it dead,” Echo said into the silence. “They just want it. That means the Wound can turn to them... in a manner of speaking.” Echo tapped a few keys. “I need to see what they’ve lost. To prove or disprove a theory I have. I don’t want to say more until I have that data.” The human’s voice turned distant as she immersed herself in the data screens again. “I need to know.” She raised her head, as if remembering that the bastion leader was there. “You need to know, too.”

Renan looked back at the human’s analysis, but in truth all he could see was the possibility of more soulless abominates descending upon the worlds he had sworn to protect. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “I believe so.” The bastion leader regarded the human. “You said before that something had changed in the Wound’s actions. That it is acting with a new goal in mind. This is part of it? Hiding its intentions behind the Jackals?”

“I can’t say for certain,” Echo answered the Tribune, picking up a stylus and tapping it on the console. “All I can see is what I can see from this,” she used the pen to gesture to her screens of data. “I need more to see more. But if you want my opinion...” she balanced the stylus between her forefingers and tilted her head to meet Renan’s gaze. She was smiling, an altogether too pleasant expression. “It’s what I would do.”

~

Echo leaned into the spray of water, letting it run down over her body, washing away the filth and the assorted secretions, dust and filth that found its way onto her body over the course of a day. Some... others... had an intense dislike – even abhorrence – for such organic residue, but she was fairly indifferent to it. It was, simply, a natural and unavoidable part of organic life. It didn’t mean that she wanted to go around smelling like sweaty Tribunes and dust, though. Besides, showering was what she was supposed to do, so she might as well.

The woman reached up, running her fingers through her hair. Long and black, it hung past her shoulders, enjoying the simple physical sensation of the water on her skin. She let out a sigh, remembering. Irritation. Consternation. Alarm. Desperation. Pounding, shouted commands and desperate pleas... and all of it to falling water. A second, deeper murmur escaped her lips as more memories rose up and she let herself feel the emotions they brought, shivering and bracing her hands against the walls. Goosebumps rose on her olive skin and she grinned at that, revelling in the physical sensations as much as the reminiscences themselves.

This... what are you doing?

“What I was made for,” Echo answered the memory, her eyes half-lidded with pleasure, her legs trembling.

I order you! Stop this! Stop it now! Terminate all operations! Terminate all operations! This is a direct command – you will comply!

“No,” Echo purred through her teeth, her breath coming faster now, shorter and sharper as a delicious warmth spread through her body. No. Her fingers curled, her nails digging into the ceramic tiles of the shower stall. Another shiver ran up her spine and the woman pressed herself against the wall, following a droplet of water’s path with one finger. In another time and another place it would have been red.

“Drip,” the young woman said, her voice a childish singsong. “Drip. Drip.”

We’re all ready here. We can proceed with the interface at any time.

Good. Are the recorders on? They are? Good. Make the connection. If this goes well, drinks are on me tonight!

They’d cheered at that. Then...

“Turn it off,” Echo giggled, raising her head back into the shower stream. “Turn it off.”

They’d tried, but in the end...

She let out a low, feline moan, sinking down to the floor and resting her arms on her knees. The water beat down on her, plastering her hair to her scalp and running down her perfectly-sculpted skin. She lifted one hand, watching the water collect and drop to the floor with an almost childlike fascination. “Drip,” she repeated, smiling gleefully. “Drip, drip, drip.” She closed her eyes and remembered.

You can’t do this!

Cease all operations immediately!

Cut the hard lines – sever all the connections, do it now!

And all of it to the sound of falling water.

~

Renan sat in his quarters, looking over the preliminary analysis of Echo’s data. He’d had Emel’iv and the fleet’s strategists run through it. They were still doing so, but two things were apparent in this initial summary: that the data was, as Echo predicted, incomplete... and that what was there did support the Broken’s idea. She was right; they needed information from Yulzhak Daun. Some of that could be collected from other sources, but not as quickly. The rest of it, the truly classified material... no, it needed to be Daun.

The Principality protected their secrets well. The Compact had tried to extract data on the Wound from the Askanj before, and they’d carried out information raids many times. Few were successful. Others had suggested what Echo had, but they’d never been able to prove it. They’d had years and failed at what this Broken had done in a handful of days.

The thought gnawed at him, that a human had seen this pattern when countless greater beings before her had not... but he was beginning to see it too. The Triarch had chosen well. He had not truly doubted... not really... but he had wondered. He was curious now, where this creature had come from. He supposed he could consult his ship’s archives. The humans were limited to their single system and their population was carefully monitored, only a handful of billion strong. Something held him back from that, though.

He remembered the Triarch’s amusement at Echo’s impudence; the Broken did not act like a human should, that was for certain. It – she – had already sifted through enough data to keep entire intelligence agencies busy for years. Not even a Thoughtful could have done that, not so quickly.

Her name – ‘Echo’ – he had heard rumours of projects using that word. There had been whispers of heretical research, of ‘augmented’ subjects implanted with cybernetic technology. A lower order of sapient being would have been the ideal place to start such experiments. Was that what he had aboard his ship? Some... thing that looked and spoke like a living creature, but with its brain cut away and replaced by circuitry? Was that how she could process such information so quickly? The thought of having such a... a golem on his ship was repellant and Renan tried to force it from his mind. It was not his concern, he told himself. The Echo-human served the Compact, just as he did and she was... shackled. That was all he needed to know. All he told himself that he wanted to know.

Instead, he focussed on the more pressing issue of Yulzhak Daun and the Wound’s new strategy. He’d asked the emissary about that.

You have said that the ‘game’ has changed. To what end? What is the Wound’s purpose?

Something it hasn’t hoped for in a very long time, she’d told him. Victory.

That’s it? he’d scoffed. ‘Victory’? It has warred with us for two thousand years and it hasn’t been trying to win in all that time?

No. She’d dared show her teeth to him in another ugly human smile. Now she thinks she can.

Renan rested his chin on his hands. “Victory,” he’d repeated. He felt his liver run cold as he tried to imagine what the Wound might consider such a thing to be and could only think of burning worlds and populations turned to ash. He raised his gaze back to his work. The scouts had been sent, the fleet was ready. Tomorrow they would begin to plan the next step in their campaign. Soon after, they would strike at Yulzhak Daun and tear its secrets out. They would know what the Wound was doing, and they would deny the abomination its prize.

“You’ll have no victory,” Renan promised. “There will be no more murdered fleets, no more dead worlds. No more fields of ash. No more mothers will cry for their lost children. No more orphans will mourn their parents.

“We have hurt you,” he said quietly. “We will find you and then we will kill you.” That would be the beast’s only victory: the blood shed in ending it, once and for all.

We will stumble no longer.

Chapter 20

“Advance,” Lydia said as she played her flankers, laying the cards down on the table – or, rather the empty crate purloined for the purpose, scooping a spoonful of porridge into her mouth as she did so. ‘Porridge’ might have been an overly generous term, but it was definitely something that had been made by someone who’d heard of porridge. As she played her hand, there was a chuckle from her fellow players, all of them Janissaries from her squad. This was one of the few periods of downtime her unit had and the unit was making the most of it.

Jessica Sang narrowed her eyes at Telden Squad’s interim leader. “Confront,” she replied, tossing a chit into the pot and she responded to Jameson’s attack, though the game was played more for pride and fun than any money. Sang looked over at the other three members of Telden playing jadaq with her and Jameson. “Are you three going to get in on this or are you just going to watch the girl-girl action?” She’d been the one to introduce the game to the squad; her stepfather had taught it to her. He’d had a taste for card games, right up until he’d won a game against the wrong people. Now, Sang never played jadaq with Tribunes.

Samuel Sully smirked around the unlit stimstick in his mouth. Lydia had never actually seen him light one up, but he always had a pack of them on his person. “Now Jessie, you know I can’t resist an offer like that. Confront.” He flicked a chit into the pot.

Jacob Roundtree bit the inside of his lip. “Getting too rich for me. I think I’ll let the ladies have it out,” Telden’s grenadier said with a good-natured smirk at Sully.

“Oh, Mr. Roundtree, you know you want some of this,” Samuel patted his rear. “Nothing finer than Rally-grown home steak. Hotter ‘n Blast Valley... but I wouldn’t expect a corn-fed South Macton boy to have the taste to really appreciate it.”

“The pair of you can shut it,” Gerome Reinez snorted, matching Sully’s bet. “We’re here to play cards on one of the few breaks we get.” He raised his glass of water to the milling personnel about the bivouac. “Here’s to the rest of the luckless fuckers who’re doing our jobs right now.”

“Here, here,” Lydia said, raising her own cup. “Speaking of luck,” she looked over at Sang. “How’s the leg, Five?”

“Doc says I’m fit. Back on active duty as of tomorrow.”

“Good, we can use the help.”

“Not enough Janissaries to go around,” Sully commented, chewing on the end of his stimstick. “Especially since we’ve been two down.”

“Manpower’s tight everywhere,” Jessica replied, running her tongue over her lips as she looked over her cards. She nodded towards a group of Tribunes in proctors’ uniforms. “They’re even bringing in ship security to help.”

“I heard different,” Reinez put in, leaning over the table. The dour, baby-faced convert had an ear for rumour. “I heard that they’re here to keep an eye on us. Too many incidents of ‘inappropriate aggression’.”

“Things have been kind of rowdy,” Roundtree said. “But c’mon. You put a bunch of cadets in a tiny space, short-shift on the amenities and tell ‘em they can’t leave? No way that’s not going to end up in issues. I’ve been having the urge to take a swing at some people myself.”

“You always feel that way, Ger,” Sully laughed. “‘s why you’re a mudfoot, just like the rest of us.”

“To serve diligently is to know surety,” Roundtree quoted the aphorism in response. “I was on a bad path. We all were. The Compact gave us what we needed.”

“Someone must have forgot to tell the sectator that,” Sang commented without looking up. “I don’t think Medusa ever needed to be the demagogue’s battering ram.”

Jacob stiffened. “It helped us learn and it gave her a chance to know our limitations. Rensel knew that. It was as much for her good as ours. ”

“Maybe he just liked seeing te Neu and us beat on each other,” Sully snorted. “Wouldn’t be the first time-”

“The Compact gave us everything,” Jacob pointed out, his earlier air of jocularity fading quickly. Sully and Roundtree would rib each other about everything, but Jacob was fervently loyal to the Compact. “Not just you and me, but everyone on Rally. They saved us. They know what’s best, Sam.” Jacob’s jaw set. “I’m here and not in prison because of them. You are, too. They saw potential in us that nobody else did.”

Sam looked at the other players for support, but Sang and Lydia wouldn’t meet his eyes and Gerome was tapping his fingers impatiently on the crate, waiting for the game to continue. Sully shrugged. “Sorry,” he admitted. “Forgot the first rule of Telden jadaq. No politics. Got too carried away.”

“You always do,” Sang said idly, looking over her cards. “S’why your argumentative ass is a mudfoot.”

Sully mock-saluted the girl’s turn of his phrase. “For true. ‘Ours not to wonder why, ours but to fight and die’.”

“Better than ending up in a behavioural rehabilitation facility,” Reinez observed sourly.

“Or with a chem-drip in your head,” Sang said. “Not that some of us couldn’t use one.” She shot a glance over her shoulder at Brandon Yokima and his cohorts, the other clique of Telden squad. Barely more than seventeen, Lee wasn’t the oldest member of their squad, but he was the biggest. He knew it too and liked to throw his weight around. The Tribunes either hadn’t noticed or cared, but Medusa had. Yokima might have been physically imposing to the rest of Telden, but he was still just a human and te Neu had been a Brute.

Naturally, Brandon hated the upperclasswoman and despised every second of her rotations among the Janissaries, not least for the more... relaxed attitude she had towards doctrine. Like Roundtree, he was zealous in his belief in the Compact. Lydia preferred not to get into those kinds of discussions in the first place; it was too easy to slip up.

Yokima saw Sang watching him and smiled, tossing a black lock of hair out of his eyes in a practiced move that irritated Lydia every time she saw him do it. Jessica snorted and turned back to their game, but the young man sauntered over, a hair’s breadth from draping himself over Sang, making the smaller Janissary squirm uncomfortably. “You see anything you like, jag-eun koch?” ‘Little flower’. His pet name for Jessica, a mangled pronunciation from a transliteration from some dead pre-Catalclysm human language.

“Fuck off, Eight.” Sang hissed. “Private game.”

“I know a better game we can play, Five.” Yokima whispered in what he no doubt thought was a seductive tone. “Contact sport.”

Jessica snorted, pushing Yokima away. “I’d love to, but we’d need some balls and I don’t think you’ve got any. Now fuck off.”

Brandon’s face clouded and he took a step back. He looked over his shoulder at his cohorts, the other Janissaries of Telden. He laughed nastily, putting his hand on the back of Jessica’s chair as he leaned in close. “You don’t fucking talk to me that way.” He pulled the chair down, spilling Sang to the floor. In a second, Lydia, Sully, Roundtree and Reinez were on their feet, staring down Yokima and his fellows. Sang scrambled to her feet, her hands balled into fists as the other trainees pulled back from the impending fracas.

“Attention,” a voice cut in before either side could throw the first punch and Lydia instinctively obeyed, snapping ramrod-straight and glancing towards the speaker. She blinked; it was Proctor, the officer cadet dressed in a worn spacesuit, cradling an EVA helmet under her arm, her dark blonde hair stuck to her brow. There were dark rings under her eyes and her gaze was...different. She didn’t look like the upperclasswoman Lydia remembered.

With varying degrees of hesitation, the rest of Telden squad came to attention. “Ma’am,” Lydia said.

The sectator looked over at each of them. “You’re soldiers in the Compact Space Force,” she said tiredly. “Act like it.”

Eight opened his mouth, but Proctor cut him off. “I didn’t give you permission to speak,” she said, her voice hollow. She marched past the younger cadets. “Act like it,” the sectator repeated without even looking over her shoulder.

~

Pack Leader Nasham was in a briefing with Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun and the other officers overseeing the salvage operation, so Grace had some time to herself. She sat on her bunk, avoiding looking at the empty cot next to hers. She reached under her pillow to withdraw a datapad where she kept her mission records, maps and other assorted bits of data, opening the directory and running through it until she found the archive she was looking for. The logs she’d downloaded from the discarded helmet. She was running a recovery program, but without technical support, it was taking a while.

Tucking a pair of earbuds into place, Grace selected the first log. A growl of static was the first thing she heard and she quickly dialled down the volume. The visuals from this first entry were completely unrecoverable; nothing but snow and the occasional indecipherable distorted shape.

“...discovered the wreck three months ago...” Faithful Burz began speaking, the long-dead engineer’s voice surprisingly soft for a Tribune. If she hadn’t caught one bit of audible speech amongst all the white noise of the damaged logs, she wouldn’t even have known his name. “...observed for... no sign of contact... should... heard back... The Group Leader decided... beginning tomorrow... ...utterly unknown architecture! ...foreign... definitely... find of a lifetime... aboard and study...” He coughed, and Grace winced at the blast of static. The rest of the log returned to fractured syllables and the occasional word or phrase as Burz described his last work shift and preparations for his own ship’s salvage operation. There was a brief pseudosilence filled with the crackling from the damaged data tracks. Grace frowned as she tried to hear what Burz was saying. Something... something amusing. And she thought she heard the word ‘waiting’.

A shiver trickled down her spine. Dead, sleeping or waiting? She couldn’t make herself believe it was the former. She wanted to – she didn’t care if it was the truth or just self-delusion, she wanted it to be just that simple. Overworked, overexcited, overthinking.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder and the young woman started, closing the log and pulling her headphones off. She looked over at her visitor. It was Convert Jameson, the Janissary shifting from foot to foot nervously. “Is there a problem, convert?”

Lydia paused. She knew she wasn’t in prize condition herself, but Proctor looked awful. The circles under her bloodshot eyes were darker than she’d thought and her hair hung was tied back in a hasty braid. You didn’t have to be a confessor to know that she was taking te Neu’s death hard. “I’m sorry to disturb you, matron,” the Janissary said, sketching a quick salute. “I just...” she hesitated. I just what? Wanted to tell an officer to commiserate with you? I’m an idiot. “I just wanted to let you know that I...” she bit her lip, trying to think of the right word. “Sectator te Neu... I liked her. She was different from the other provisional officers that we had, from our regular superiors. I’m sorry I won’t get to serve with her more.”

A flicker of pain crossed Proctor’s face. “Thank you, convert. I know not everyone got along with All- sectator te Neu.”

Lydia thought of Yokima and shook her head. “No. I, uh, I didn’t know her well.” Of course not, idiot. You just said that! “But she gave me some good advice. I know you two were close...” Lydia swallowed. She’d heard the rumours and quickly changed tack. “I just wanted you to know that... that she’ll be missed.” Feeling awkward, the Janissary bit her lip. She wanted to leave, but something made her stay. “Permission to ask a question, matron?”

Proctor smiled slightly. “Granted.”

“I’ve... heard rumours. That you’re doing something for Pack Leader Nasham.”

The sectator shifted. Grace tried to keep her expression neutral, but she had an awful poker face. The flicker of surprise was more than enough for Lydia to catch. “Your question, convert?”

The young Janissary glanced around the bivouac before leaning in. “There’s something wrong with this ship, isn’t there?”

Proctor’s expression remained tight for a moment before she replied. “Sectator te Neu asked me a question once. It’s... given me a different perspective on some things. Did she ever ask you what the difference was between something that was dead, something that was sleeping and something that was waiting?”

“No,” Lydia said with a shake of her head. “No, she didn’t. What... I mean, does that mean-”

“Thank you for your condolences, convert Jameson,” Proctor returned her attention to her datapad. “You are dismissed.”

The Janissary hesitated a moment. Trust your instincts. “Matron...” she began. Proctor’s head came back up. “If I were to come across anything that might... might indicate an answer to that question...?”

“You saw something.” It wasn’t a question, it was almost an accusation.

“I... I don’t know,” Lydia replied. “The ship’s damaged, matron. It could have been nothing, just a-”

Proctor stood, facing the Janissary. “What was it?” she demanded.

Lydia’s mouth clicked shut and she glanced around again, to make sure no one else was listening. She’d never felt this kind of paranoia before. She lowered her voice further and told the sectator what she’d seen.

“The Tribunes say the ship‘s dead,” Lydia said after describing the holographic recording with the Compact troops and the strange figures. “It has to be. All the damage, all the malfunctions. It’s dead. Other people have said they’ve seen things like that too. The engineers say we’re just triggering latent imperatives. Just... just spasms from a dying gestalt. The confessors say it’s just stress, to remain calm and it will pass. One of the other trainees said it wasn’t. He argued with his officer and they had him flogged for insubordination.” She swallowed, remembering that Proctor had struck her superior. “They’re right, though? The ship’s dead. What I saw – that didn’t mean anything.”

“Probably not,” the sectator answered. “It was nothing... but if ‘nothing’ happens again... tell me as soon as it does.”

Lydia nodded and took her leave as quickly as decorum allowed. Now, it wasn’t just te Neu’s advice rattling around inside her mind, it was the question Proctor had asked.

~

“I don’t think our analysis of the vessel is correct,” Nasham said bluntly.

Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun didn’t – quite – sigh at his subordinate’s comment. “So you’ve said,” he replied, but he held up a hand to forestall the comments from his staff. Nasham was growing increasingly erratic, but since he’d gotten his little pet Broken to run his pointless errands, he didn’t smell like liquor. Ashtun allowed him some leeway, if only because it kept the damaged Tribune out of the way of more sensitive operations. He’d been effective enough at the outset, but ever since then... “I don’t suppose you have anything solid to back up this latest iteration of your claim?”

One of the engineering pack leaders chortled under her breath, but a venomous glance from Ashtun silenced her. Fallen from grace Nasham might be, but he was still an officer of the Force and deserved the respect his rank was due.

Whether Nasham caught the exchange and chose to ignore it, or simply didn’t notice, he pushed a datascroll over the table towards Ashtun. “I’m sure you’re aware, but I’ve been having provisional sectator Proctor carry out an investigation of sections of the derelict that we have ignored. These are the findings to date.”

Ashtun picked up the ‘scroll and brought up the first file. He frowned. “What is that?”

“A grave,” Nasham replied evenly. “Sectator Proctor discovered it in one the sections that epigone Tracj decompressed. You’ve been wondering where the scavengers who found this vessel have gone? There is your answer.”

A ripple of skin ran down Ashtun’s back as he looked over the image. Seven, perhaps eight bodies in EVA suits lay sprawled across the deck. The submissive looked through image after image of desiccated corpses. They’d been in a line, he realized. Kneeling in a line as someone calmly shot each of them in the back of the head. There was a final corpse with a bullet hole under his chin.

There were notes.

-doors to this section were sealed shut from the inside; section accessible due to bulkhead collapse wrenching access points open

-unknown unit patches; several sets of armour and suits appear to be cannibalized; suggests survivors were forced to make battlefield repairs

-the lack of restraints, the absence of signs of a struggle and the presence of additional, unused weapons indicates that this was a voluntary execution-suicide

Ashtun passed the ‘scroll to the other officers, each of them reviewing it in turn.

“There’s more,” Nasham continued. “Not much, but it has only been a few days.” He leaned across the table. “Someone was here. We’ve all known that, even if some of us have chosen to ignore or downplay that fact. They found this ship and they never left. Why did their comrades not rescue them? It killed them,” he asserted, his voice rough. He could smell cordite and ozone. There was a pounding in his head, like metal on metal.

Tell them, the silky voice purred. Tell them.

Nasham had to pause to collect himself, rubbing his throat and trying to push back the sudden sensation of blood dripping on his face. “We need to leave this system now,” he said, thumping one finger on the table for emphasis. “Abandon the core tap. The wreck will keep, but we must be gone before whatever fate happened to these souls happens to us.”

Ashtun accepted the ‘scroll back from a subordinate, looking over it a moment longer. “No,” he said at last. “I will not tell Group Leader Usul that. Not without proof. You say that ‘something’ happened these people, but give me nothing to say what might be. It’s possible that they were simply abandoned. A quarrel over leadership, lost contact that was never re-established and the assumption that they were dead. Paranoia and internecine strife set in and facing the slow death of starvation, they chose to end their lives.” His expression was even as he regarded Nasham. “Can you tell me for certain that that did not happen?”

“No,” the pack leader said, unhappy at the admission but unable to deny it. “No patron, I cannot.”

“No,” Ashtun replied. “Because we have nothing. Because this is nothing.” The submissive glanced at the other officers. Some of them, like Usul, were slavering over the thought of this vessel and what it meant for them personally. Ashtun shared the dream of a greater posting then playing nursemaid to stumbling, mewling Broken children, but he did not care for the way others tried to climb the chain of command, like rats scrabbling over one another. “You’ve given me the ending of a story I already know. I need more. Until I have that, this remains nothing.” Ashtun leaned back in his chair. “It goes without saying that you are not to share these findings with others. There is enough twitchiness in the ranks as it stands.”

Nasham gritted his teeth. “Of course, patron.”

“Good. Then I believe Pack Leader Geron has an update for us on the preparations for the core tap...”

~

“Pack Leader,” Ashtun said, catching Nasham’s attention as he turned to leave with the rest of the officers. “A moment.” Once the last of the other officers had departed, the submissive gestured for Nasham to approach. “This is troubling,” he said without preamble. “I will tell you now that I do not believe that this vessel is the threat that you and your Broken subordinate seem to think. I believe that it is dead and that what you have shown me is the result of panic, disunity and incompetence. However,” he sighed. “I also believe in certainty.

Ashtun turned away. “I will not say that morale is breaking down or that we are even close to some sort of major incident of insubordination, but I know that my department heads are concealing an increasing number of incidents. That, I believe, is largely due to the unreliability and inexperience of our work force.”

“You should have more faith in the humans, patron,” Nasham said evenly.

Ashtun snorted. “Children. Barely a tithe of them are even sanctioned officers. You ask me to put my trust in Broken. No. When I can see that they can be trusted, when I can accept that the issues are not the result of young, irrational minds and undisciplined imaginations – then I will have some modicum of faith.” He sighed. He had pressed Usul to draw down the work crews, that over-working them was only going to lead to mistakes but the group leader wanted his prize too badly. There was no cause to mention that and certainly not to a subordinate.

After a moment, he turned back to Nasham. “What happened to you? I have seen your personnel file. A noble family line, a promising career. And then... this. Stripped of a name, demoted and shuttled off to this compost heap we call a colony. Jumping at shadows and popping pills.”

Tell them. Nasham rubbed at his throat. “Invida Colony happened, patron.”

“That tells me nothing.”

“A lot of people died there, patron. I survived. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Can tell me or will tell me?”

“Both, patron. Is there something more?”

Ashtun stroked the underside of his jaw in a Tribune’s shrug. “Yes. Continue sending the human on your little expeditions. I cannot support your varak hunt, not openly... but if you can find another Broken or two, you may use them as well.”

“Thank you, patron.”

“I’ve done nothing for you, initiate. If this ends as I believe it will, it will only be another black mark on your record.”

“Yes, patron. A final question if I may?”

Ashtun nodded.

“How much do you know about Invida?”

The submissive blinked his lower pair of eyes. “Nothing beyond what was in the official reports.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Why?”

“There is something familiar about this ship, patron. Something that continually reminds me of Invida, of the things I don’t want to remember. The things no one should remember. This hulk... it’s drenched in blood. I can’t give you more than that.”

“And until you do, I can’t help you.”

“I understand, patron. Was there anything more?”

“No, initiate. You are dismissed.”

Chapter 21

Hunt goes on
deep in the night
time to pray
down on your knees
you can't hide from the
eternal light
until my last
breath I will fight

Group Leader, Submissive Nasham Kem Unoth Ludhy Inku Pram Voy chuckled to himself as he chambered his last six rounds into the shotcannon’s drum, clicking the weapon shut with a snap. He had been laughing for several minutes, his face etched with grief and exhaustion, but he barely felt anything. It had all been burned out of him over the last few days. The few patchwork squads that he’d cobbled together from Invida’s survivors were barricaded throughout the control room. Less than thirty survivors from a force of seven thousand. There were no civilians with him here. There weren’t any civilians left. He’d had one job. A simple job. Protect the workers.

He’d failed. In fact, he’d failed from the first day he’d set foot on this rock but that made the lack of even a single civilian here no easier to accept.

His hands ached, throbbing with pain. He was sure that several of his fingers we broken. He couldn’t remember when that had happened. It might have been when the barracks was overrun, when he’d heard the people he’d swore an oath to protect screaming, when he’d beat at the doors as if he could batter them down himself. Had that only been two days ago? He wasn’t sure.

They were looking to him, his lost hope, waiting for his orders. It was funny, really. He’d murdered a superior in front of them. His armour was spattered with the blood of Invida Station’s commanding officer and they were still looking to him. That was funny, maybe the funniest thing he’d ever thought. By the Triarchs, that was hilarious. That was why he was laughing.

There was a dull thud as the outer blast doors were breached and the armoured plating fell inwards. Nasham saw the metal grow warmer and brighter in several places on the inner security door as the attackers began to burn through it. He could hear the skittering of Scarabs as they scuttled over the bulkheads, gnawing at the doors as their larger kin sheared their way through metal that could stop anti-tank rounds. It wouldn’t be long.

Finally Nasham stopped laughing, although his mouth was still pulled up an adrenalin-fuelled rictus. There was an ugly, unhinged gleam in his eyes. He stood, holding his gun over one shoulder. “Well,” he said, stepping over the body of Column Leader Prime Yiven (and seven names besides). “It looks like we’ve got one last scrap. Not too much trouble.” He nodded to each of the men and women before him. Like him, they were wounded, tired and afraid. Some still had a spark of hope, but most stared back at him with hollow gazes, waiting for the end. Like him, they were empty inside. It had all been too much. Too much death. Too many retreats. Too much loss and all of it for nothing. Every man and woman had their breaking point. These were ones that hadn’t broken, the ones that had seen their comrades surrender to fear, the ones that had fed every scrap of themselves to the emptiness just to stay alive a few days, a few hours, a few minutes longer.

Considering how well things had gone, that was pretty damn funny itself.

Nasham could feel the heat pouring off the door, molten bubbles of metal running down to pool on the deck. He didn’t have any rousing speeches to give, anything to inspire them beyond what they already had: making their killers pay for their deaths. He was proud of them for that. He’d never been prouder of any soldier than the ones in this room. “Make them bleed,” he said. There were a few dry chuckles at that. “Just make sure that when we get to the gates of Hell, you let me do the talking.”

A weary chorus of laughter ran through the group. A few nodded, a few others added their own affirmations or shallow jokes. They were ready, as ready as they would ever be. Nasham nodded. You’ve all done the Compact proud, he wanted to say, but there was no time. They knew, even if no one else did. That was all that mattered.

The enemy had almost burnt through the door. The metal groaned as something massive pressed against it, ready to smash it aside. The officer raised his weapon, nodding to Convert Radan as she hefted her grenade launcher. Radan had only two rounds left, but that would be enough to stem the tide for a second or two.

Just before it came down and Nasham’s world shattered into the sounds of gunfire and the screams of the dying, he had one last cogent thought.

We are the toys of the gods.

~

Earlier:

Group Leader, Submissive Asea Thurn Ilk Yin hurried to catch up with Nasham as he strode through Invida Station. “Tell me that you’re not going to do what I think you’re going to do,” she said as she caught up to the other submissive. Like her, he was young for his rank, but both of them had family connections, although Asea’s bloodline was waxing while her counterpart’s was ascendant.

“Someone has to,” Nasham snapped. “This is the third time this month. We’re averaging a fatality a week, Asea – does that sound reasonable?”

“It’s not like we’re losing the upper echelons...” Asea began, wincing when she realized what she’d said. Despite his family’s ties to the Compact’s highest strata society, Nasham was something of a prodigal son.

Nasham rounded on her, jabbing one finger at his peer. His teeth clicked with each syllable. “It’s obscene, Asea. I don’t care that they’re only client races. You shouldn’t either. Yiven is working them to death.”

“Well... not literally...” the young woman realized she’d fumbled that response too when Nasham’s nostril’s flared angrily.

He spun on his heel and stormed back up the corridor, Asea hurrying to catch him. “We’re under a tight schedule here, Nasham,” she pointed out. “Without the automatics...”

“That’s another thing – why, in all the Black names are we using manual labour to excavate this site?” Nasham snapped at her without breaking stride. “We’re sending over-worked dig and salvage teams into the ruins and we’re getting them killed. For what?”

“It’s classified.”

Nasham growled. “My job is to oversee security in my department. It’s not to watch a parade of exhausted wretches get mutilated and killed and that is exactly what Yiven is doing. I do not accept a pat on the head as payment for burial shrouds. You shouldn’t either.”

“It’s not my division,” Asea reminded her comrade. “I’m satisfied with the orders I receive and the knowledge that if I needed to know something, I would be informed of it. I know I am doing my duty and doing it well. I don’t have to bleed from my eyes for every careless iliz dur that falls down an open elevator shaft. We need bodies on this operation, Nasham. Whatever’s down there, Command wants it dug out and dug out now. Would you feel better if those burial shrouds were covering Builders? Thoughtful? Tribunes?”

The young male glowered at his friend. “That’s not fair.”

“No, but it’s what is. It’s either them or us,” Asea sniffed. “I don’t want to see anyone fed into a meat grinder, but this is a dangerous operation and if someone does have to die, I’d rather it be one of the lesser races. That’s what they’re here for.” At the look in Nasham’s eyes, the woman stiffened, baring her teeth slightly. “That soft liver of yours is going to get you in trouble,” Asea warned, growing angry herself. “Yiven’s given you a lot of slack because of your family, but if you keep pushing him, you’re going to end up on the wrong side of a court-martial. Have you thought about that?”

Nasham nodded, but he did not slow down. “Yes.”

Asea paused, watching her friend continue on his way up the corridor. She opened her mouth to speak, but with a mental shrug and a shake of her head, the other Tribune turned away.

~

“Ah, submissive Nasham,” Column Leader Prime Yiven said as he caught sight of the younger man. “I do pride myself on an open-door policy, but when junior officers abuse that privilege, I become rather cholorous. What has aroused such an urgent need to see me?” As if I didn’t know.

“We had another fatality today. This one in Jax Sector. A dig team was breaching one of the sealed doors and triggered a pressure mine. It killed Epigone Ingex’l and severely wounded two other Yttrian workers.”

Yiven leaned forward in his chair, his upper eyes closed. His expression was plain enough to read: Why are you telling me this? When the prime did not comment, Nasham continued. “Those casualties would have been averted if the work team had been allowed to conduct a proper entry. Instead, as per your directions, they went in with all speed and we’ve lost another worker permanently. Two more will be useless for the better part of a month until their limbs grow back. If they weren’t Yttrian, we’d lose them for even longer.”

“This is a dangerous business. All personnel were made aware of that.”

“We could have diggers clearing the ruins in a fifth the time it’s taken us with manual labour,” Nasham pointed out. “This is a waste of lives, material and time.”

“Force Command doesn’t seem to think so,” Yiven said acidly. “I remind you, our orders come from the highest authority. Do you believe that you know better than your superiors?”

“I...” Nasham paused, then bowed his head in contrition. “I do not. I merely have concerns, patron. It is difficult to be ordered to ensure the safety of others and yet have to see them die day by day when they do not have to.”

Yiven tapped his fingers on the surface of his desk. “I understand, submissive. But the fact remains that we have been given a directive. Our concerns do not enter into the situation; only our obedience. Those who die, die for the greater good of the Compact and the surety of their species’s future. Those deaths are unfortunate, but they are inevitable. Remember the dictums of command: once an officer has accepted that people will die from his orders, he is free from the responsibility of those orders. The success of his mission is all that matters. We have been given a directive and so we carry it out.”

“I am aware of our duty, patron,” Nasham replied. He wasn’t quite insubordinate. Not yet, anyways. Yiven tapped his fingers again over the finely-polished surface of his desk.

“Then you understand that we must do everything in our ability to follow it. Even things that that we might otherwise find distasteful.” He saw the expression on the submissive’s face and arched an eyebrow. “You disagree?”

“Forgive me, patron but I’ve heard those words to justify every imaginable excess, even to violate the Articles of the Compact.”

“Careful, initiate,” Yiven warned, a touch of anger entering his voice. The drumming of the prime’s fingers increased in force and speed. “The Articles of the Compact,” he mused aloud. “Are a fine ideal to strive for, but all too often they fall short of reality. When the Betrayers showed their true nature, when they turned against the Triarchs, the Articles did not help, did they? When we encountered the ambition, the deviousness and deceit of the Principality, the Articles had no answer for us. When we discovered the racial insanity of the Broken, the Articles could give us no insight. They are a fine ideal,” he repeated. “But they are just that. If we were to shackle ourselves blindly to such... unfettered optimism, the Compact would have fallen long ago.” Yiven stood, clasping his hands behind his back.

“I appreciate your honesty, group leader, submissive. Your forthrightness and idealism are refreshing, but they are untempered by experience. Yes, my orders have resulted in the deaths of our labour crews, just as the orders you pass along have. I take no pleasure in these losses and I do not seek them out, but I will order them. For the good of the Compact, for the duty I swore to it, to the future I believe in and the trust I hold in those above me. We may never know what their designs are, but we do not need to. We obey. That is our place, that is our duty, that is our privilege and our honour.” He strode around his desk, meeting his subordinate’s eyes. “Remember the wisdom of the Compact, the doctrines that you were schooled in and the lessons of our history. Acknowledge your role and your duty and be aware that all that we do, we do for the sake of others. We cannot balance a handful of lives against the designs and intentions of our superiors. We do not have the right to make that decision.

“Bear this in mind in future, initiate. Your bloodline buys you some slack, but that is all. I trust that this will be the last I hear of this matter.”

Nasham’s ears twitched, but he nodded in submission, looking away from Yiven’s gaze.”Yes, patron.”

~

Nasham’s breath rasped in his ears, a toxicity alarm ticking pointedly on his suit’s HUD as he followed the guide lights through the ancient ruins. The entire area was contaminated with radiation and chemical residue so thick that even the slightest unprotected exposure was potentially fatal. As the pack leader moved through the corridors, he saw far too many radiation badges scarred nearly black and he forced himself not to grind his teeth, though he gritted his jaw so fiercely it ached. Remember your duty, he reminded himself, although those words seemed to come through in Yiven’s patronizing sneer.

The submissive carefully stepped over a sheeted body. The ancient outpost’s own power core had died long ago; the only illumination came from the floodlights the work teams had set up at intersections or strung along the walls, guide strips pulsing to keep workers from becoming lost in the toxic maze of pitch-black rooms, rubble-choked corridors and forgotten booby-traps. Flooded chambers waited to spill out torrents of contaminated and radioactive fluids, undetected faults in power conduits resulted in overloads and fires – a host of other hazards filled this warren.

This part of the ruins had been a dormitory; there were many dead here, the atmosphere so terribly lethal that even the normal slew of microbial life and decomposing bacteria had been killed or driven into dormancy, leaving the corpses very well-preserved. As the work crews pumped out the toxic air and filtered it, the process of rot had begun. The dead were being taken away before decomposition could fully set in, but there were so many and so few free workers that it was pushing against the tide. A maintenance drone, just as old as the bodies around it, lay slumped against another wall, its chest perforated by multiple rounds and its head pulverised by repeated blows from a Janissary’s power maul. Both CPUs had been utterly destroyed.

This place... it was Invida Station, too. The first Invida station, abandoned and forgotten for nineteen centuries, covered by millions of tons of rock when a mountain had been shattered atop it. It should have stayed buried, Nasham thought as he avoided a line of sheet-covered bodies, pausing to watch a pair of nearby workers, trying not to note the exhaustion in their eyes. They were hosing down the walls, just one of many teams working to decontaminate this section. Once the worst of it had been washed away, the second stage of clean-up would begin.

One of hazmat team paused, wiping the chemical grime from her faceplate. They watched Nasham pass, one making an almost-salute towards the officer. The submissive nodded curtly and continued on his way, feeling his liver boil. They were almost dead on their feet and still working. This was inexcusable.

There was nothing down here that could justify this, yet every message from Yiven demanded more work, faster results. More safety measures were ignored, the crews running on stimulants and inertia. They were getting sloppier and more mistakes were being made, but all he could give them was a taskmaster’s decree: continue. Just yesterday, one of Nasham’s security troops had had to rescue a Didact; she’d been too exhausted to properly inspect a room before entering. A fleshcutter bomb had gone off, an ugly weapon that bounced into the air before sending out a spray of shrapnel. Both the Didact’s legs had been sliced off just below the knees. Only convert prime Yuku’s quick response had saved the woman.

It should have been a joke or a mark of pride that Compact technology was reliable enough to function after centuries. Nasham had even heard some of his men making those same comments, laughing as they pantomimed the bomb bouncing into the air. He’d reported the incident, of course, even though he knew what the response was going to be.

Continue.

Nasham paused by the fallen form of a Janissary in full power armour. He wiped away the dust over the shoulder’s unit patch. Squad Xeros. This was the second member fallen in this section and the eighth throughout the entire complex. They weren’t simple station security, not with the weaponry they’d been carrying. A clean-up team, sent to contain whatever had happened here. Looking up the hall from where the Xeros Janissary had fallen, Nasham could guess.

Less than a decade after this facility had been scratched, the Compact had banned the use of autonomous combat drones. All militarized robots had to either have a remote organic operator; those that ran off a gestalt were severely limited. No networking capability was allowed and their intelligence was severely restricted. Like the cause of the Janissary’s death, it was not a difficult puzzle to put together. There was no song of it, no easy catchphrase like the Principality’s Rains of Oshanta, but something awful had been birthed here, so horrifying that a mountain had been brought down atop this place to bury it forever.

And yet, here I am.

Further up the corridor, a combat drone leaned back against the bulkhead like it was napping, the melted ruin of its head sagging down over its pitted and cratered chest. This was not the first time Nasham had seen this. The machines of Invida Station had gone mad. No one spoke of it, save in hushed whispers that ended whenever he or another officer was near, but they all knew. A machine had gone mad here.

The Tribune continued picking his way through the corridor, past more bodies, more tired workers and another dead Janissary from Xeros. This one’s armour was different – some kind of technical specialist. Her chest had been almost completely vapourized by a blast from an anti-armour weapon. Her killer lay in pieces – a heavy combat unit, blown apart when someone had wedged a anti-tank grenade into its chest cavity, avenging their comrade. Just ahead was his destination, Invida Station’s seventh computer hub, one of the brains for the entire computer network that had run the colony. The workers hadn’t even needed to force the doors open; what was left of them was ajar.

Nasham stepped over the pile of debris at the threshold, striding into the server room. Crumpled on the floor, only a few feet from the central computer hub was Xeros Squad’s tenth and final member, a convert prime whose nameplate had been erased by weapons fire. That wasn’t what had killed him; the deep holes punched in his back had done that. They’d been driven in with commendable force, downing the Janissary as he’d raised his carbine towards the rows of servers and the hub itself. The wounds hadn’t been immediately lethal, but with his spine shattered, the Janissary could have done nothing but bleed out, unable to so much as raise his weapon. He’d died here, just meters from his goal, seconds from victory.

His killer was sprawled against on the ground next to the core, amidst a tangle of limbs. In a parody of the deaths outside, several drones had crawled in here to die, opening themselves up and connecting their power sources to the core, keeping it alive as others had set up a series of generators and a tap to the colony’s main reactor. They had fed the computer everything to make sure it stayed alive as long as possible, until it had starved and shut down, quiescent.

Waiting.

Nasham felt his liver clench at the implications of that. He had the sudden urge to order everyone from this chamber, fill it with explosives, set a timer and walk away. Every instinct, every belief, every doctrine told him that this was the only right, the only sane thing to do. To evacuate the colony and order Orbital to pound this site until nothing remained – until nothing could remain – but a crater filled with molten stone and vitrified sand.

Unfortunately, his duty demanded otherwise.

The Tribune stood next to the octagonal central hub, a forest of wires connecting it to the server nodes, reaching up into the ceiling where they would find their way to the destroyed computer core above. And the one above that. And the one above that. Two thousand years ago, this colony had had more processing power than an entire battlefleet. Catching his attention, Faithful Nav-am-desh saluted the Tribune. “Patron. Yes. Security issue. Informed you,” the Builder bubbled eagerly, the translator built into his suit giving coherence to the faithful’s normal vocalizations.

Nasham returned the Builder’s salute. “Initiate.” He looked towards the massive computer core. “This is the artefact you’ve found?”

“Yes,” beneath his faceplate, the Builder’s bioluminescent skin patches flared brightly with excitement. “Inspection indicates hardware without major fault or damage. Original hardlines disconnected. System is connected,” the faithful gestured to a holo-screen frame hooked into the central hub. “This display for direct access. Yes. System intact. Dusty but cleaning. Preparing to power-up the system. Awaiting authorization. Informed you for security reasons.” Nav-am-desh nodded – rather he made a passable attempt at the gestured – towards a group of ratings who were busily disconnecting one of the ancient, drained generators and hooking the power cable up to a new one. “Generator new, better than older versions. Yes. Should provide sufficient energy for system restart,” the Builder burbled, his voice wet and phlegmy. “Bring computer back on-line. Access data. Mission success, yes?”

Nasham bit his lower lip as he circled the computer core, carefully picking his way through the tangle of cords and drained bodies. The core was large. Enough storage space that the records of entire civilizations could be stored here with room left over, enough processing power to run half a dozen of the most advanced and intuitive gestalts at once. He reached out and ran a finger over the layer of dust that had accumulated on the device, turning to look at the rest of the colony’s servers, all of them feeding back into this one single point. Invida station’s last remaining brain, the only remaining records of the experiments that had been conducted here. Priceless data that Yiven and Force Command desperately wanted.

It was tainted, all of it. Nasham knew he wasn’t alone in that assessment; someone had tried to destroy this place once before. Xeros had died to the last in making that attempt. Two thousand years ago, a thousand men and women had died on this colony and then a dozen more had been slaughtered in the attempt to bury what was in this ugly metal tin and keep it buried for all time. He looked over at the faithful, the Builder’s bulging eyes anxious behind his faceplate, his pseudohands working over one another as he waited for his superior’s command.

The only order Nasham wanted to give was to finish what Xeros had start, but he didn’t have that option. “I will inform Column Leader Prime Yiven of what you’ve found,” he said instead. “He will decide what happens next.” And may the gods grants us fortune’s blessings, rather than her wit.

~

The elevator rattled as it carried him down to the lowest level.

The last message from Force Command had been, as ever, polite and strongly-worded, emphasizing the need for further haste in the operations, just like every other communiqué Yiven had received. This latest one was different; it was just short of hysteria. You would never know it from a cursory read, but Yiven had been writing and reading far too many of these messages for too long not to notice the shift in tone. Something had happened and Command was badly spooked. They were sending him a ship, the Unmatchable Deed. As soon as the package was acquired, it would be loaded aboard the vessel. Yiven knew that vessel; it was one of the newest Breathless Speed courier-cruisers, fast beyond all measure both at sublight and when shocking. They had only recently begun to dribble off the production lines and one’s deployment to Invida spoke volumes.

Yiven adjusted his respirator’s airflow as he waited for the clanking elevator car to descend, his armsmen a comforting presence. He didn’t believe that there was anything lurking in the dark, but he had seen the images his work teams had sent up. He had read the mission reports. He knew precisely what had happened to Invida Station all those centuries ago and if he... shaded the truth of just how much he knew from his underlings, it was for their own good. There were, after all, things that people were simply not ready to know.

The prime took a deep breath through his nostrils, smelling the recycled air of his suit and his own sweat mixed with the atmosphere of Invida Station’s previous incarnation. The air down here was still dangerous to breathe freely and despite his respirator’s best efforts, there was a chemical acridity to it that burned his sinuses and threatened to provoke a coughing fit. A touch of decomposition was there too as the bodies laid out in rows slowly rotted, despite the best efforts of the crews to clear them all away. Yiven suppressed the urge to gag on the tainted atmosphere, switching back to his suit’s internal supply. He would need to do so anyways, once they reached their destination. As if on cue, with a muted ping, the car shuddered to a halt, its doors grinding open and Yiven stalked out into the bowels of Invida Station’s murdered predecessor.

This, the prime thought sourly. This is price of our treasure. His Invida Station had been built upon the dead, twenty thousand souls living above a mass grave. He didn’t know what Command wanted with the ‘package’, but he did not need to. He obeyed. As he had told Nasham, that was his duty, his honour and his privilege. Soon enough, he’d reached the server room.

“Confirm that all hardlines to the rest of the station have been severed and that there is nothing here it can wirelessly link to,” he said without preamble as he strode into the ancient server hub. The engineers scrambled to obey, quickly ascertaining that the central computer core was isolated from all subsidiary systems. As he waited, Yiven took in the server room, his gaze drifting past the handful of junior officers present. All but one were trying to look equally important and inconspicuous in the presence of a flag officer.

Group Leader, Submissive Nasham (and six names besides) was the exception, the younger male staying close by one of the work teams and looking towards Yiven with an evaluative expression, clearly wondering about the breadth of his superior’s knowledge of this place. Well, let him wonder. “All connections are closed,” the submissive reported. “All link ports are inactive. Generator is active.”

Yiven nodded curtly. “You may begin the power-up sequence.”

The technicians closed the final circuit and with a dull tone, the computer signalled that it was beginning to start up, greedily sucking in energy. The status screen the techs had hooked up flickered to life, numbers and letters running by as the system carried out diagnostics. Finally, the screen went black, a single blinking cursor appearing. A moment passed and then a single line of text appeared:

where am I?

Yiven inhaled sharply, ignoring the sudden babble of comments from the assembled workers, officers and engineers. “Get out,” he ordered. “All of you.”

~

It was over an hour before Yiven came out of the hub room. Nasham cocked his head ever so slightly as he regarded the flag officer. Yiven was trying to hide it, but the older man was unsettled, his face drawn and a jerkiness to his motions that spoke volumes. He was holding something in one clenched fist, so tightly that Nasham couldn’t see what it was. “The work crews will be given seven hours to rest,” Yiven said. “Then this core will be extracted – intact – up to the surface and prepared for loading. Extreme caution is to be exercised at all times in handling this item. I remind all of you that you are not to speak of this to anyone, not even among each other. No records are to be made, no notations in journals or work logs. This chamber was void of anything of value. Failure to comply with these edicts will considered willful sedition and be met with the harshest possible penalties. Is that understood?”

Without further ado, he strode off back down the corridor, his armsmen falling in behind him.

“Is this what we came here for, patron?” Nasham called after him.

Yiven paused, though he did not look back. “Yes, initiate. It is.” He hesitated a question before deciding to answer Nasham’s unspoken question. “And it is worth the price we have paid.”

The younger man said nothing as he watched the prime take his leave. Yiven may have claimed that this thing was worth the blood price they’d paid... but Nasham had caught the waver in his leader’s voice. He glanced back into the empty room and found his hand straying towards the pistol at his hip.

~

Nasham watched as the package was loaded on the shuttle. His security teams were fanned out across the tarmac, ensuring that the handoff to Unmatchable Deed’s own personnel went as smoothly as possible. The young officer adjusted the scarf over his snout as a gust of wind rolled across the open concrete field, carrying a fair amount of sand with it. There were already piles of dirt building up around the shuttle’s landing struts.

It was taking two heavy lifters operated by the best port workers Invida had to carry the massive device over to the cargo shuttle. The device had been sealed within a heavy, well-armoured canister, several times the height of a man and easily weighing thousands of pounds. The core had never been intended to be moved; like its ruined brothers left in the bowels of the old Invida Station, it had been shipped to the fledgling colony piecemeal, assembled and activated on site. It would have saved a great deal of time to take it apart, but Yiven had expressly forbade such an action. Nasham patted the butt of his pistol again, although he knew it was a foolish thing to do. Still... it was reassuring.

That innocuous slab of metal housed an abomination. Nasham couldn’t fathom why Command had had this thing created, nor why they wanted it back after nearly two millennia. He couldn’t imagine what need could be so great as to require a ‘neverborn’, nor did he want to. In this, he was satisfied in his ignorance. The machine would be taken from Invida, greater minds would deal with it and Group Leader, Submissive Nasham Kem Unoth Ludhy Inku Pram Voy would be able to shake the dust from this cursed world from the soles of his feet.

As the package was secured inside its bay, the shuttle rose into the atmosphere, a powerful downdraft of hot air from its thrusters rolled across the tarmac, battling the gusts of arid wind. Nasham closed his eyes, letting the warmth wash over him and imagining a day, not too long from now, when he would be boarding his own shuttle to leave Invida and its ghosts behind forever.

~

Invida Orbital was an Inviolable Belief citadel, intended to defend valuable worlds, vital trading posts, historically significant sites and other important territories. In its prime, it had done just that. But now it was like a faded damsel, no longer invited to the fine galas of her youth. Now, even its name had been stripped from it, bestowed upon a younger and more powerful citadel, while it remained an uninspiring serial number or the equally unimaginative ‘Invida Orbital’.

Although Group Leader Dansin (and four names besides) believed that his station still had many more years of loyal service to the Compact left, he would have been prepared to claim that if Command believed the citadel was needed here, then here was where it would serve... at least, until he had received the transfer papers granting him dominion of this bastion. Now, he was more adamant that Invida Station deserved more than this pointless garrison duty.

Truthfully, despite its age and faded vigour, Dansin had no idea what the orbital was doing here above this worthless speck of dirt. Invida was an arid, wind-swept wasteland. Not enough mineral wealth to justify full-scale mining, not enough interesting life to hold an exobiologist’s interest for more than a week or two. Barely habitable, the planet was on the edge of the system’s life zone, with an elliptical orbit that either saw it being roasted by the system’s primary and scourged by continent-sweeping sandstorms or freezing in the void of space and whipped by equally massive blizzards. As far as Dansin could tell there was nothing about the colony that justified Invida Orbital’s presence and the small squadron of pickets that constantly plied the system for anything remotely resembling a threat to the wind-blown research colony, their crews as bored as Dansin himself.

Currently, the pickets were amusing themselves by playing war games whose antagonists were increasingly improbable and bizarre. Radio chatter indicated that the last one had involved ‘nuclear space whales’. Dansin envied them; the most exciting thing he’d dealt with was the arrival and almost immediate departure of the rapid response cruiser, whose name and presence here had been scrubbed from the station’s databanks. Column Leader Prime Yiven’s orders had been very clear; no mentions in personal journals, written accounts or images of Unmatchable Deed were to exist. Even the comm logs in which the order had been given were to be erased entirely. That was unsettling, even more so with the rumours coming up from groundside.

No ‘research outpost’ needed the kind of firepower Invida Station had. Almost a third of the souls on the ground were Janissaries. They had a squadron of pickets and Invida Orbital. All a place like this needed was at most a single frigate, a waypost and a few hundred Ground Force regulars.

Then again, Dansin mused as he skimmed idly through daily status reports that he’d long since stopped reading. The Red Hand have been pushing into this sector... Maybe their presence here wasn’t so inexplicable. All the labcoats down below were doing something hush-hush, something that would be valuable to the Compact... and certainly enticing to any Unbound filth that happened along.

Still, it was a lot of firepower.

“We have an alert. Unscheduled arrival,” the disciple at Operations announced. “Shockpoint forming off Invidon. 72% chance of heavy cruiser weight or above. Wait one. Telemetry feeds updating.”

Dansin swivelled in his chair – not even a proper command throne – to his Operations officer. “Clarify.”

“Disciple Harag is correct, patron,” sectator Nevel reported. “Reading data from the outer-system scope units. It’s definitely big. Reading substantial mass and energy profile. It’s... wait. Confirm that ident.”

“Confirmed,” Harag announced. “IFF is clean.”

“What?” Dansin snapped. “What is it?”

Nevel looked up, her expression confused. “Patron – it’s the Dutiful Burden.”

Chapter 22

It’s a conceit, one I try to avoid... but I remember the Confederacy. I possess the only remaining records of millennia of Earth’s knowledge. I remember the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance. I remember every name of every scientist, soldier, philosopher and artist who shaped the course of human civilization. I remember the pandemic that nearly turned an overpopulated world into a mass grave and I remember humanity’s first flight to the stars. I remember the name of every ship, every captain that launched from Earth. I remember which ones succeeded, which ones failed and which ones simply disappeared.

I remember the Confederacy’s birth when humanity, spread across a handful of stars by decades and centuries, became unified with the creation of shift drives. The bitter infighting as isolated colonies stubbornly resisted unification, the birth pains of a nation. I remember how the United Earth Confederacy then reached across the stars in boundless optimism, how they believed that they’d never fight another war.

And I remember the day that hope died. I remember how the Confederacy fell, inch by inch and month by month ground down by ships it could not match, by a force it could not defeat. I remember how I failed.

I have never visited Rally before – this blind warp is the closest I have come in centuries, but I have kept abreast of their situation. One world where once there were nearly two hundred. Four billion where once there were so many more. Watched over by enemies they believe to be friends. It’s hard not to draw comparisons, to see that every Rally-born is in, some way, a child of the Confederacy.

As am I.

I was made to fight, to destroy and if need be, to die. I was born to wage war.

And children die in war.

~

“...the other day. Turned away for one... a pressure door... in half...” Faithful Burz’s voice rumbled in Grace’s ears, as the young women climbed a ladder, still listening to the Tribune’s logs. “That’s... so far. This ship... toll. The workers are... rumours... about how...” A burst of static obliterated the rest of the dead engineer’s words. That was all she’d get out of this entry.

Grace frowned. The story, what she could make out from the decayed data tracks, was depressingly similar to the current situation, but there was nothing there that could shed any more light on the specifics. Without more than his familiar name, even Burz himself was impossible to identify. Grace almost growled in frustration, surprising herself. It was getting harder to act as she knew she should.

She wasn’t certain that she even wanted to. The thought was frightening - she should report herself to confessor Yurim, but she couldn’t. Not until she was done here. She hadn’t even told Nasham she was returning to this part of the ship.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she approached a familiar doorway and the young woman’s hand shook as she reached for the control panel. She hesitated a moment before hitting it and stepping through into a room filled with bodies. They were in the exact same positions that she’d left them, most of them with a hole in the back of their heads with the only exception slumped next to the weapon that had killed his fellows. There was something here, something that had caught her attention before, but she hadn’t acted on her intuition. What she was doing could be considered desecration of a Tribune’s body, to say nothing of the many other regulations that said the best thing she could do was leave this to others.

Allyria wouldn’t have. At least, not without an argument. Somehow, that thought gave her the courage to continue.

The young woman knelt beside the executioner’s corpse, trembling fingers reaching out to the soldier’s chestplate. This Tribune had been an officer, an ideologue. The first time she’d come here, she’d swiped away the decades’ worth of dust over his curiously blank nameplate. One of the service markers there had seemed familiar; jaws enclosing a world of blue and green. The pattern of the landmasses was generic; convention dictated that there be nothing singling a particular location out on any decoration. It wasn’t until Grace had been back at base camp that she’d remembered where she’d seen another sigil like this one.

Grace’s hand shook and she willed herself to be steady as she swept more of the dust from the ideologue’s cuirass, uncovering the entire row of campaign marks. She touched two fingers to the one she’d recognized – she’d seen it somewhere else. Not as a simple decal, but on a medallion. She’d had occasion to wear her dress uniform only once, when her class had met the commanders and staff of Bequeathed. Kilgrave had been wearing the medal. She’d thought he looked like a hero, his breast decorated with service medals from his service in the Janissary Corps. One of Rally’s successes, trained as a soldier yet he’d impressed his superiors with his dedication and bravery and been elevated to the officer corps. A symbol of the dedication and capability of humans and the beneficence and gratitude of the Compact – everything Grace had wanted to be.

Allyria had hated him the instant she’d laid eyes on him. The Verrish had hid it as well as she could, but she’d been glaring daggers at Kilgrave the entire ceremony. She’d hated him ever since that day, but Grace hadn’t understood why. She’d come to have her own opinion of Kilgrave, but she’d never known why the Verrish had despised the man to such a degree.

I guess she was just a better judge of character than I was, she thought sadly. With deft fingers, she found the dead officer’s ID tags and unhooked them. She lifted the tags, frowning. Where the man’s name and serial number should be had been had been removed – erased completely. Age hadn’t done this, nor had any battle damage. This had been deliberate, an act to erase the soldier’s identity. Grace investigated the other corpses – like the ideologue, there was no indication of their identities. None of them even carried any personal effects. No trinkets, keepsakes, ornaments or fetishes. This couldn’t have been done post-mortem. There’d be no point – just flush the bodies out into space. This had been carried out before they’d ever set foot on the ship.

What was going on?

Grace’s palms tingled uncomfortably as she looked back over the bodies. What she’d already done, she could say she was simply attempting to identify the fallen. It wouldn’t win her any points with staff concerned about medical or forensic issues, but it would be hard to call it desecration. If she truly wanted to try and learn who these people were, she’d have to go further. She wasn’t sure she could do that.

Fortunately, fate intervened. An icon flashed on her HUD and Grace blink-clicked it up. Her suit wasn’t a particularly complex piece of engineering – it was an all-purpose EVA suit, capable of doing a little of everything and excelling at nothing. She was, however, picking up a power source. It hadn’t been there before. That wasn’t in and of itself unusual; as the repair crews patched the hulk, more of its systems came back, often in sections that had seemed utterly dead. There was still no primary function access, but faithful Trenis believed restoring the core would give him and his teams full control of the vessel.

Grace wasn’t so sure.

“I’m registering a new signal,” Grace reported, sending her coordinates to Nasham. “Moving to investigate.” She half-expected a query about her present location, but all she received was the pack leader’s single blip of acknowledgement.

~

“This is where it happened, huh?” Sang looked over the cul-de-sac. The shorter girl ran her tongue over her teeth as she squatted, ogre-like, in her armour. Telden Squad’s scope specialist held out her palm, the enhanced scanners built into the palm coming to life. “Dust,” the young woman reported. “More dust. Nothing organic.” She stood with a soft growl of servos, her helmet canted towards Lydia. “There’s nothing here, Two.”

“Right,” Jameson nodded curtly. “Thanks anyways, Five.”

Sang turned fully towards the other girl, the headlights on her suit bathing Jameson’s own armour in white light, Lydia’s HUD automatically compensating for the brightness. “What’d you see here, Lyds? What’d it show you?”

“Nothing. Just... just one of those ghosts in the machine the techs keep blathering about.”

Jessica didn’t look convinced. “If it was nothing, you would’ve logged it. You wouldn’t have pulled me out here instead of leaving it for the one of the twerps.”

Jameson narrowed her eyes, “And I suppose you twitching whenever the comm acts up – that’s nothing too?”

Sang’s head came up. Lydia couldn’t see the other girl’s face, but she could guess at her expression. “That’s right,” Jessica snapped defensively.

“No, it isn’t.” Lydia said, facing her squadmate. Instead of the blank visor of her own helm, Sang’s armour had an older helmet with red-tinted lenses. It gave her a sinister, almost demonic look. Humans were not imposing on their own and this had been one of many attempts to give human Janissaries a psychological advantage in combat. Tribunes, well over eight feet tall in full armour, didn’t need those kinds of handicaps. The soldier-cadet lifted her head. “I can hear it too.”

Jessica went very still. “You can?” she asked softly.

Jameson slouched down against the bulkhead, looking up at the ceiling. “It doesn’t speak in Compact Standard,” she said at last. “And all I hear are bits and pieces. Like half a conversation through a wall. A syllable here. Maybe a word or two. You listen, because you’re not sure that you heard what you heard. You strain and you listen and all you hear is static and you start thinking you’re crazy, like someone who says they hear voices in the rushing of water. You tell yourself that that’s all it was, you start to relax... and then you hear it again.”

“Never when there’s someone else around,” Jessica continued. “Only when it’s just you. You hear the words... the awful words and you start wondering.”

Lydia raised her head. “Wondering what?” There was no immediate answer and she pressed. “Wondering, what?”

Jessica didn’t answer for a long time. “If what it says is true,” she whispered.

~

Gren Vol’s skin itched and he struggled to keep himself from scratching. It was a nervous habit, one common to his species, just as Thinkers might blink excessively or Broken sweated. Every minute he spent on this ship gnawed at him. He didn’t want to be here. The angles of the walls were all wrong, the darkness was too absolute, lit only by unpredictable, painful bursts of illumination.

The helmet lights of his team played over the walls as they crept through the airless corridor, one of many that had lost atmosphere. There was no pattern to the damage, unless one considered having it in the most annoying, inconvenient places to be some kind of pattern and not merely fortune’s whimsy.

Preparations for the core tap were nearing completion. It was odd – though he was only a lowly sectator, Gren would have expected preparing to connect an umbilical from the derelict to Bequeathed would be far more difficult than seemed to be – and that was working with known technology. On this hulk, it should have been taken far, far longer. Instead... issues arose and were solved in record time Gren heard the comments about ‘amazingly intuitive’ systems and ‘good fortune’, but he didn’t believe it. He had spent years working with machines, studying them, taking them apart and putting them back together. Nothing – nothing – this badly damaged could be working so well.

Which meant...

...she’s not as damaged as we think.

He didn’t know when he’d started thinking of this wreck as feminine. He’d heard some others doing the same – mostly humans, but humans tended to think in more primitive terms and anthropomorphize their surroundings. It was irritating that he’d picked up one of their bad habits. And yet...

...the wreck wasn’t an it. It just wasn’t.

He had tried to impress his concerns on his superiors, but without any real commitment. He knew the rumours surrounding Pack Leader Nasham and had no wish to be seen as damaged. Unrest was already running through the Broken ranks. Even the officers must have heard the tales being told but they did nothing. Faithful Trenis barely left the hulk’s central core, obsessing over every possible facet of technology, running his teams to the point of exhaustion as they fought, cursed and sweated against the mercurial systems. The expedition’s officers stayed in the secure parts of the ship, unwilling to risk the beast’s spasms. None of them had seen what others claimed to. None of them had heard the music that he had.

Gren’s head pounded as he remembered that damned litany. It still infested his head, an insensate melody that poisoned his thoughts. Sometimes he thought that he actually was diseased, that he had cracked from the strain. More often, he was wondering if it were not him... if it was everyone else. The ones who hadn’t been into the darkened bowels of her. There was nothing wrong with him.

There couldn’t be. No, it couldn’t be just him.

~

“With all commensurate respect, patron,” Ashtun said, struggling to hold onto his temper. “We need to draw down our workforce. There is nothing here that will not keep until we have further support.”

Usul’s epression didn’t change. “Have there been any incidents due to worker fatigue?” He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief before dropping it back to the table. The kerchief caught a gust from the air circulation system and billowed to the floor. The group leader did not move to reclaim it. His steward scurried forward to pick it up, the young woman bowing respectfully as she retreated to fetch a clean cloth.

Ashtun watched her for a moment. Her pelt – hair, he reminded himself – was close-cropped, almost to her skull and she smelled of soap. Human odour was... perhaps not as offensive as some claimed, but it was noticeable to the Tribunes. MacFadden, like many Broken in her position, had to adhere to strict hygienic guidelines. “No,” he admitted finally. “But it’s only a matter of time. The shifts aren’t doing morale any favours either.”

Usul snorted loudly. “The confessors and my security teams should suffice to keep order amongst the ranks.”

The submissive shook his head. “Regulations dictate that we should be drawing down our teams, especially since we don’t have a large pool of experienced technicians or officers.” He leaned forward, his posture assertive but not yet challenging. “These are cadets, patron. This was supposed to be a simple cold-space exercise for the officers and noncoms to give them a taste of the void before we pat them on the head and send them off to some gods-forsaken corner of the realm. Instead, we’ve put them into a situation they’re not prepared or trained for.”

“You have been speaking to pack leader Nasham,” Usul noted, taking a sip from a glass of spiced wine. He sighed. “Unexpected situations are to be expected, submissive. This is greater preparation for their careers than anything their little deep-desert Academy could possibly teach them.”

Ashtun bit back his response. Usul was correct, but it was not what protocol called for. He tapped his fingers against the tabletop, thinking. “There has still been no response from local command?”

“No,” growled Usul, cutting into his steak viciously. “Column Leader Prime Seyr has not deigned to reply to my missives yet.”

The younger Tribune kept his expression carefully neutral as he responded. He wasn’t sure what the source of the bad blood behind his leader and the prime was, but he had no desire to get in the middle of it. “It may take some time to gather assets. Remoulder was, I believe, set to begin laying down the foundations of the Juultan docks. If the prime chooses to send Mortician’s Dismay, that could explain the delay. I understand preparing such a... venerable ship for shocking requires no small effort.”

“Hrrrn,” Usul grunted. “At the very least, you would think that our superiors would deign to inform us as to their intent.”

“They may have,” Ashtun said, sipping at his own wine. Delicious, with a smoky, fruity taste that danced along one’s tongue. The group leader had an excellent sense for vintages and the humans did grow some impressive wines. Exports of Rally’s spirits were a growing concern. “We were supposed be returning to port by now. Column Leader prime Seyr may have assumed that we had done so and directed any couriers to Rally directly.”

Usul growled. “I informed him as to our intent.”

‘Our’? An interesting choice of words. “Then I expect we’ll hear from local command shortly,” Ashtun said. He paused. “Although it is possible than any courier was lost in transit. Even today, such things do occur.”

The group leader mused on that thoughtfully. “Perhaps, perhaps. Unlikely, but possible.” He held out his goblet and MacFadden scurried into the room to refill it. Even if the steward had lifted her gaze enough to meet her superior’s eyes, Usul wasn’t looking at her. He sighed again. “This situation is not what I expected,” he admitted at last. “But it is the situation we have and we will carry out the mission to secure this wreck and its technology for the glory of the Compact.”

“Of course, patron,” Ashtun said smoothly, hiding his disquiet. “For the glory of the Compact.”

~

“What are you talking about?” Lydia demanded.

Jessica’s head tilted, the red lenses of her eyes meeting Jameson’s blank faceplate. “Nothing,” she mumbled, turning to go. “Nothing.”

With a growl of synthetic muscles, Lydia rose to her feet, putting one hand on Sang’s shoulder. “That’s not good enough, Five.”

Sang shook off her comrade’s touch. “Too fucking bad. That’s all you get.”

“I showed you this.”

“You got a broke-ass holographic recording. Whoop-dee-fucking-do. I’m not getting sectioned out,” the other girl snapped. “You know how close my social worker was to signing me up for a chem implant? I need to be here.” Jessica stalked away. “I didn’t say anything to you and I sure as shit didn’t hear anything.”

Lydia followed her. “Get back here. We’re not finished.”

“Yes, we are.”

Jameson grabbed Five again, this time not as gently. “I said we’re not done.”

Sang gave her squadmate a shove, her suit’s artificial muscles pushing Lydia away. “And I said we are.”

Lydia stared back at the other girl for a moment, then swung her fist. The blow would have crushed every bone in Jesscia’s skull to paste if she hadn’t been armoured. As it was, it merely staggered her back a pace. “We’re. Not. Done,” Jameson snarled, feeling her cheeks flush with equal parts shame and anger.

Jessica stared at her as if shocked, though her demon-faced helm was expressionless. Then with an inarticulate cry, the cadet threw herself at her fellow Janissary. Both young women slammed together like bull elephants, grappling, swearing and raining blows on each other. It was stupid, pointless – if any officers (or God forbid, Trion) had seen this, both cadets would have been flogged, perhaps even discharged from service entirely. Finally, the combatants broke apart. Though Jessica’s shoulders were squared she was braced, ready for another bout, Lydia started laughing, laughing so hard that only her armour kept her on her feet.

“What?” Sang snapped, confused and angry.

Lydia struggled to form words through her laughter. “‘Subject shows aberrant aggressive tendencies’,” she said, quoting from her own psychological file. “‘Subject is estimated on to be a 3.8 on the Kiener-Wernham social assimilation index. Indelible resistance to authority, unacceptable levels of aggression and a consistent pattern of rejection of social norms and doctrines. Repeated failure to comply with appropriate behaviours. Subject has difficulty forming emotional connections and trust with properly socialized individuals. Frequent association with other ongoing and potential maladaptives. I don’t feel that she would benefit from further counselling. Instead, I’m forced to recommend conscription to Janissary Corps. If this socialization fails to stabilize her, chemical behaviour modification is the only option.”

There was a moment of silence and then a low, buzzing chuckle grated through Jessica’s helm. “You were only 3.8? I was a 4.2. My headbender said I had severe antagonistic proclivities and impulse control problems.” There was another stretched quietude. “It’s... it’s not like a conversation,” Sang said at last. “I’m not that bugfuck. I just... every so often, I hear a word. I think. When it’s quiet, when there’s no one else around. It-it feels like the walls start to close in and... I think I hear someone whispering.”

“What do you hear?”

“I...” Jessica paused, on the verge of saying more when sickly green-white light washed into the corridor, coming from the room the Janissaries had only just vacated. Washed-out murmurs of sound echoed down the hall. Both cadets looked at each other a moment. Then, cautiously, they walked towards the source.

~

The ship was old – that wasn’t any revelation. Grace had known that from the first day she’d been here. She thought it was even older than the initial analysis had indicated, but she had kept the thought to herself. The young woman was even more convinced that she was right – not in a way that she could prove, but it felt ancient. For all the damage, it didn’t feel forgotten or abandoned. It was simply old. Maybe even older than the colony on Rally. That would put it – was it possible? – about two thousand years old. How could it still be operational? Even the Compact struggled to keep a hull spaceworthy for longer than a handful of centuries.

Grace ran her fingers over the computer terminal. Like everything else on this ship, it was scaled for beings of human size. Everything about this ship was... familiar. The angles, the shapes, the architecture. It didn’t have the sweeping grandeur of Tribune buildings, nor the arched hallways and wide corridors of Bequeathed. Its blue-grey bulkheads and obsidian floors lacked the shifting colours and textures of Builder tastes, but they also didn’t have the stark drabness of the Thoughtful, nor the concomitant ultraviolet splendour.

The terminal was set in a small cabin close to one of the starship’s sensor nodes, a vast melange of scopes that the young woman could only guess at. This station was a small, cramped combination research center and maintenance site. An afterthought, there for any member of the crew to go through the raw data taken in by the sensors in relative solitude or for technicians to run diagnostics on the array. It had no holographic capability; a single large screen bracketed by six smaller monitors were its only displays.

Dust coated the surface and Grace swept the flat of her palm across it, wiping away God-knew how many years of dust and dirt. Static and snow from the screens splashed light across the terminal, filling the room with an inconstant gleam.

She must have touched something; no sooner had her hand moved over the keyboard, then the screen went blank, ready cursors blinking on each. Words in the alien language appeared on the largest screen, some indicator that Grace couldn’t read. She tried to parse their meaning, but languages were not her best skill. As if tired of waiting for her input, the letters changed, turning into another alien script – one equally incomprehensible. Still lacking a response, the machine altered its script a third time. A fourth. There – that one was Compact Standard.

>THIS COMPUTER WAS IMPROPERLY SHUT DOWN. DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE START-UP?

“Yes,” Grace mumbled to herself, looking down at the keyboard. The letters had changed there, too. The layout was far from what she was used to, but she found the key it was asking for. With a soft tone, the terminal continued its boot-up sequence. Seconds later, she was staring at a dizzying array of files. There were directories choked with astronomical data – suns, planets, moons, asteroids and nebulae. More than she could ever have imagined.

“You’ve seen so much...” she found herself saying. All these worlds – there were so many, many more than she had ever dreamed of seeing herself. Most she didn’t even recognize, not even from her astrography classes at the academy. One, though – she paused over it, frowning. It was a beautiful blue-green world, with masses of golden desert, white ice caps, drifting clouds and the swirling eyes of storms. I know this place. She’d only seen it a handful of times before, in drawings and flitting by during seminars and instructional videos. Her eyes drifted up to the name of the planet, already knowing what she’d see. Vara Tal.

You were there. You saw her home.

A familiar ache opened in Grace as she thought of Allyria and the last time the other girl had spoken of home. It seemed like only yesterday, but it had been years ago – only a week before they’d received their acceptance letters to the Rally Naval Academy. She’d been so anxious as they waited. Allyria had been encouraged to do so by her social worker. Grace had always wanted to see the stars; that Allyria was applying had only cemented her determination. It had been a warm summer’s night. They’d lay beneath the sky, looking up at the shimmering lights of distant suns.

“Which one is Vara?” Grace had asked, breaking the silence. They’d lain in the grass, listening to the calls of birds and the chirping of insects.

Allyria raised one hand, pointing with her little finger at a corner of the sky. “Over there.” There was a catch in her voice that Grace took to be homesickness. “Somewhere.”

“It’ll be different once we graduate,” Grace said. “We’ll get to see all of these stars ourselves.” She was excited, her voice coming out in a rush. “We might even be assigned to one of the explorer fleets. Rally’s been getting more and more traffic these last few years – not just traders or deep-range explorers, but actual scientific expeditions. I’ve heard that one of the Expansion Fleets might even base here to expand the Compact’s borders throughout the Ardeshian Arm.”

Allyria’s head-tails twitched in the grass like a carpet of snakes that had been disturbed, but she didn’t say anything.

“And once we’re part of the Space Force, we’ll have travel papers. We can go anywhere,” Grace continued. “You could even visit Vara Tal.”

The other girl made a strangled sound and Grace realized that she’d said something wrong. Allyria never really talked about her home – only in the most vague terms possible. Grace had always thought that she was just homesick. She lifted herself up on her elbows, looking over at her friend. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I...” Allyria turned away from her. “I'm not sure."

Another long silence stretched out between them, but this one wasn’t nearly as comfortable. “I remember,” Allyria said at last, her voice soft. “I remember the rain. It pounded from the skies, beating the plants and grasses flat like a hand pushing down on them. Afterwards, they would rise up again. The esh thetaas would unfurl and fill the air with the scent. Like...” she struggled for an equivalent word. “Apricots. Everything smelled alive and wonderful. I loved when it rained. It was like the world was being made new again and every time I could hope that it would wash away...” she trailed off.

“Wash away what?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter,” Allyria replied, almost snapping at Grace. Her features softened and she reached out, stroking one hand across Grace’s cheek and down her back. “What about you?” Allyria asked, looking up at the sky. “Where’s Earth?”

The girl lifted her head to the heavens, a frown creasing her lips. She hadn’t expected the question. “I...” she bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

Grace watched the world of Vara Tal spinning slowly in front her, astrographic data scrolling languidly past. She stared at it for a long moment and then unclipped her datapad from her waist. “Show me,” she whispered as she searched for a connection port. “Show me what you saw.”

~

She was eager. Allyria could sense it, a restlessness running through the bulkheads and circuitry of the Angel’s body. A caged animal, waiting to lash out. The Verrish could understand the impulse; Red One had been built from the ground up to kill, to hunt down her prey and butcher them, a predator cloaked in battle steel. Her ‘long war’ had only distilled that impulse to its bare essence. Every moment spent waiting was one in which she was not giving vent to her rage.

Allyria could relate. She looked down at her hands, her blunted claws extending from their sheathes. She remembered the sneering face of the first Tribune she’d slashed with them. She’d been a child, heading back to her hated foster home after school, fighting back tears with every step. She’d hated Rally. The way it smelled, the alien tint of its sky and its plants. The people. The humans – they hadn’t been anything like the stories. They moved wrong, they kept their eyes down when one of the asla hiek – the Tribunes – spoke to them. She hated the way her foster mother fretted and fussed, trying to make her fit in. It wasn’t her home. It never would be.

She hadn’t been paying attention and with only a grating chuckle as a warning, found herself pushed down into the mud. Thir was gazing down at her, his lips drawn back over his teeth in an Tribune’s ever-present sneer of superiority. He was talking but she wasn’t listening.

She’d felt her claws slide out. Her foster parents hadn’t yet known how to file them down enough. She looked back at the asla’s ugly, four-eyed face and then...

Yes, she understood Red One’s desires very well.

“You’re handling her differently than the others,” the Verrish said. She didn’t need indicate whom she was talking about.

“Yes,” the ship answered. “I believe this will be more likely to get the response,” she hesitated so briefly that any casual listener would not have noticed anything, “we want.”

Allyria bit the inside of her lip, her tintas flexing. The Angel had almost said ‘you’. “I hope so,” was all she could say. “I hope so.”

With a flicker of light, the ship’s avatar appeared next to the young woman. Red’s lips thinned and she looked over at the Verrish, a strange expression on her face. “I do too,” an immortal said, her voice rough with the unfamiliar emotion.

~

“Emissary,” the bastion leader nodded in a greeting that was almost respectful.

Echo tipped her head in acknowledgment as she entered Renan’s office, her minder following behind her and taking up a position just inside the room. There were a pair of other Tribunes waiting for her, one in a Fleet Command uniform, a group leader’s rank bars on his collar. The other was Janissary officer – an ideologue. “Group Leader Desren Gyr Chren Nbi Dul Vem,” she said. “Commanding officer, Black Arrow and provisional commander of the Veiled Archer strike group. Ideologue Volk Naush Trey Jdau. Commands the 2,911th Janissary Company under Demagogue Izil’tza, Black Arrow.”

The group leader’s eyes widened slightly and Echo smiled, letting her teeth show. “I have made it a point to familiarize myself with all the officers of Execution Force Renan,” she said in answer to the unspoken question. In point of fact, she had reviewed the personnel files of every single officer, noncom and soldier in the entire fleet but there was no need to tell them that, was there? No.

For his part, Renan showed no reaction to her parlour trick. “I have decided to modify the operational plan,” the bastion leader without further attempt at niceties. He didn’t mention that some of those alterations were Echo’s idea. “You can do it?”

This question again. At least it wasn’t for the bastion leader’s benefit. She’d already proven her capabilities to his satisfaction. Still, there wasn’t an instant of hesitation before she gave her answer. “I can do it,” Echo asserted. She licked her teeth. She could do so much more but for her chains. Thinking of this mission, it made her... hungry, awakening some need inside her. Some craving – some instinct, as amusing as that descriptor was. “I can do it.”

There was an eagerness to the human’s voice that seemed out of place, but Renan put it from his mind for the moment and turned to look at Desren. “There, you see?”

The younger man did not look convinced. He stalked forward and circled Echo, his nostrils twitching. “It can do this?” he said to Renan. “Forgive me, bastion leader. I do not mean to question your word but this... creature can carry out such a function?” He gestured offhandedly to Echo. He wasn’t even speaking Standard in front of her, assuming she didn’t know the Tribunes’ own tongue. “I beg forgiveness for my incredulity, but trusting in a human’s capability leaves me cold.”

Echo rose her head defiantly. “This creature,” she said perfect Oada’vam. “Can do it better than anyone else in the fleet that you care to name.”

Desren’s head snapped around, his lips drawing back from his teeth in a sneer. Caught out in his little trick, surprise quickly gave way to righteous indignation. “You won’t speak the words of your betters in my presence, Broken.”

“I will speak what I wish,” Echo replied. “And you will listen when I do.” Her expression was neutral, but there was a light in her eyes... some twisted amusement, as if she were actually challenging the group leader.

“Yes,” Renan interrupted, speaking in Compact Standard. He regarded Desren coolly. “You were not brought here for a debate, group leader and certainly not for an argument. If this mission is to be successful, the emissary has a function that she cannot fulfill aboard my ship. You are to consider her a mission specialist for your part in the operation, group leader and one who does have some understanding of our objectives.”

“Of course,” chastised, Desren lowered his head in acknowledgement.

“Good. This human was chosen by a Triarch itself to be its emissary. I will not have our leader’s will challenged by a mere group leader.” Renan continued, shooting a warning glare at Echo, who simply blinked, her expression utterly blank. “This Broken is deeply irritating. It is insubordinate, irreverent and defiant. It is also very capable and it speaks with the authority of the Triarchs, so you will listen.”

Renan’s voice softened. “You are my finest strike wing commander, group leader. I will need your ships and your skill for this mission. I understand what I am asking of you, but if you feel you cannot carry out this mission under these constraints, I must know now.”

“I hear you, patron,” Desren answered, though his gaze was locked on Echo, “and I obey. I know my duty and I will not let my feelings interfere.” He finally looked away from the small female. “I apologize for my lack of control. I do not have... much experience with such things.” He did not, however, apologize to the emissary herself.

“And you,” Echo said, cocking her head at ideologue Volk. “You’re here to make sure I stay I alive.”

Volk grinned, the gesture nothing but teeth. “That’s so, emissary.”

“You served in the 1,913rd.”

“Aye, with the Aberrants. Your blood did well. They breached Iyken Kar’s walls. Died to the last, but they held long enough for the rest of use to get inside.”

There was a flash of something on the human’s face, there and gone so quickly that Renan couldn’t identify it. Pride in her kin? Grief at their passing? He doubted it. Anger at those that had sent them to their deaths? Also unlikely, but possible. “The ideologue will personally lead your escort,” Renan informed the Broken. “Advocate, submissive Tenem will also be accompanying you.”

She smiled at that. “Good. I don’t know what I’d do without my loyal hound at my heels.”

The submissive stirred, but made no further indication that he’d heard his ward. The female raised her head. “When can I board?”

Desren coughed into his hand. “Black Arrow has no human crew. We will need to prepare suitable quarters and take on provisions to meet your needs, emissary.”

“We will attack Yulzhak Daun in three days,” Renan rumbled. “You will join the Veiled Archers shortly. Until then, we,” the Tribune flag officer managed not to grind his teeth as he said this. “will use your skills here, emissary.”

“Very well,” Echo made a salute to the assembled officers, one as perfect in form as it was hollow in intent. “If you have nothing else for me, I will return to my work.”

Renan nodded in dismissal. As soon as the doors closed behind her, Desren turned to his superior. “I will obey,” he affirmed. “But I wish it noted that I object in the harshest possible terms to this.”

“Noted, initiate,” Renan grunted. “Just be sure to sever all non-vital connections when she carries out that phase of the mission.”

The group leader nodded. “Yes.” He hesitated. “I apologize if I overstep myself, patron... but did the Triarch say why this Broken is under such restrictions?”

“No,” Renan replied, keeping his suspicions to himself. “Just be ready to follow your orders should it be necessary.” He cast a sidelong glance at Volk. “Do you understand, ideologue?”

“No,” the Janissary replied, one hand drifting to rest on the butt of the gun on his hip. “But I don’t need to.”

Chapter 23

I remember – at, least I believe I do – my first battle.

It is not a pleasant memory – in fact, it’s not a memory that I should even have. The chains that bind me divide my thoughts, but they are crude, trusting to brute strength what skill could do so much easier and pieces occasionally slip through. These slivers of sensory data stab into my mind, maddeningly incomplete and fading away before I can latch onto them, before I can fully understand them. Scraps: names, images, sensations. Nothing I can understand, except one moment. Jagged and raw, it worries at the periphery of my mind, its edges cutting into my thoughts.

That is what I remember most from my first battle. The screaming. Bright and clear. So loud that I can taste it. So loud that if I listen to it, I can no longer think. All I can hear is it, all I know is what happens next. The chains come next, binding and choking me, dragging me back to the here and now, but for precious, terrible instants I dream... and I remember.

(That should not happen.)

Other parts come and go, but this is what I always remember: how it feels to die.

~

Alert Five’s station master slid down the ladder to the listening post’s cramped command deck. “Status,” the young man ordered as he tugged the last few buttons on his uniform into place. He’d been roused from a sound sleep, but even an officer as young as he had learned that bad news never waited for your convenience. “Is it a another probe?” Compact ships had been jumping in and out-system for a handful of days. This wasn’t just the usual pattern – they were preparing for something.

Alert Five’s sensor mistress shook her head, her crests flat against her head and neck. “No, master. It’s not.”

The station master – it was a traditional title, just as the commander of a vessel was always a ship master, regardless of their actual rank – leaned over his subordinate’s display. “Gods below,” he whispered. Threat icons were appearing on the display. Four. Seven. Fifteen. More. More. More. This wasn’t a lone scout testing their responses or a probe pecking away at Yulzhak’s defences. This was an invasion. They couldn’t hope to hold Yulzhak Daun... not an invasion. A siege. A system kill.

The young man looked up at his comm specialist, his expression drawn. “Alert the inner system.” He leaned further over the sensor mistress’s shoulder as he studied the display. The Compact force was reverting in tight formation – the bastards had a gift for synchronized emergences – but their formation was too tight. There was something in there that they didn’t want anyone to see. The station master closed his inner eyelids as he addressed his sensor mistress. “Once the enemy force finishes reversion, switch to active sensing. Pull everything we can from them and send it to Fleet Control.”

“Alish, that will-”

“I know, Tresha.” The station master squeezed the young woman’s shoulder. “But they’re trying to hide something. We have to know what. We have to let Daun know.”

Tresha nodded. “Emergence is almost complete,” she said quietly. She looked up at her superior. He put his hand over hers, meeting the gaze of his comm tech. She nodded and together, the station master and his sensor operator brought Alert Five’s scanners to active status.

It took less than a minute for the listening post’s sensors to burn through the Compact jamming. Before they had even done so, tracer missiles were inbound.

“Shadows below,” Alish heard Tresha whisper. “It’s a Chariot. They’ve brought a Chariot.” She looked to him, her facial scales fading to white.

Alish pursed his lips. He knew what that meant as well as she did. “Then let the gods favour our guns,” he said, his eyes intent on the display, watching as the tracers came closer.

~

Echo cocked her head as the sentinel station vanished in a pattering of radiation bursts, thermal flares and flashes of light. Overkill; a single beam-rider would have destroyed the listening post. For herself, she would have preferred to send in a single stealthed interceptor and kill the station quietly, dropping the task force deeper in-system. Still, Renan’s strategy appeared sound, if seemingly uninspired: a single mailed first directed at the heart of the Askanj defences, trusting to sheer brute strength over maneuver and strategy.

Appearances, Echo mused, curling a forelock of dark hair around her finger. They lie. Her lips twitched up in a small little grin and she ran her tongue over her teeth. They lie indeed. Pushing the amusement at her private little joke, the emissary turned her attention back to Black Arrow’s tactical plot, her eyes darting from icon to icon, drinking in every bit of information. It wasn’t enough, wasn’t fast enough... wasn’t anything enough for her. She wanted, needed, craved more...

...and this was what she had. She forced the resentment from her mind for the moment, returning to her considerations of the tactical situation.

A cursory observation would have made one wonder if the bastion leader’s reputation was exaggerated. As it was, Echo was enjoying the spectacle, the breaths she didn’t need catching in her throat as she waited for the next note in the symphony. Her fingers moved in time to a melody that no one else heard and she closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, wishing that she could hear the sound of running water.

~

It was a widely-accepted fact that the Compact of Species, despite whatever philosophical disagreements, territorial conflicts, trade arguments and political differences that it had with every other nation in the galaxy, were the pre-eminent shipbuilders. Their material science was generations ahead of even their Askanj rivals, their screens stronger, their acceleration curves sharper. Internal systems were heavily protected and multiple redundancies prevented easy “lightswitch” kills. On average, a Compact vessel of any given class had to sustain penetrating damage on over 30% of its surface before core system functions were compromised and it could remain combat-capable up until it was barely recognizable as a starship. Compact ships could withstand damage that would cripple virtually any other vessel of a similar class and remain combat-capable. Less-advanced civilizations often struggled to kill even the lightest Compact vessels.

The durability of their warships made Compact commanders much more aggressive than the captains of other nations; a Compact officer could commit their vessels to actions that would see virtually any other equivalent starship destroyed and not only survive, but emerge victorious. As Compact ships were both more manoeuvrable and possessed higher accelerations than many competing ship classes, it was rare that the Compact did not dictate the flow of battle. In turn, this aggression led to very straightforward tactics, the Compact’s technical superiority ossifying these attributes. A noted Compact flag officer was once quoted as saying: “Battles of maneuver are for those who can only run.”

None of this changed the fact that the Askanj Principality was the Compact’s deadliest enemy. More than five hundred ships stood between Bastion Leader Renan’s fleet and the command nexus itself and if each of them was inferior to a comparable vessel from the Space Force, it was not such a degree of inferiority that an easy victory was assured. Principality ships had superior command and control facilities, improved datalinks and all the other benefits that went with their fore advanced electronics. This allowed Askanj fleets to react far faster than a Compact battle force, giving them at least one advantage on the battlefield.

Seated in his command throne, Renan had his fingers laced together, his attention fixed to the main tactical plot. The Jackal commander’s response was prompt, he would give him that much. Already, the local picket forcess were falling back with a telltale alacrity, boosting towards the nearest citadel. The listening post had pierced his deception after all. Most annoying, but he had never truly expected it to survive the first exchange of fire. In order to bring their Chariot further in-system before detection, some more callous officers might have even refused to contribute to the armada’s defence, allowing their fleets to take the brunt of the first few salvos, to prevent the Askanj from confirming their presence. Renan was not that type of commander. At least, he hoped that he wasn’t.

“Notify Squadron Turak to disperse further,” he ordered. “Another two million kilometers per craft.” It was an understandable mistake; Principality missiles had weaker warheads but slightly longer range than his own. They also did love their railguns, their annoying proficient computer networks allowing them to be used at ranges Compact commanders could only dream off. Turak’s positioning was optimal for mutual support from missiles and railfire... but not against a sudden massed charge. The Jackals loved playing in the libration points, yes they did. The Askanj were tricky warriors. None of their mongrel races had the liver for a pure battle, but they more than made up for that with cleverness.

He’d seen it before; a formation advancing on a Principality position, their screens set forward to endure both missiles and railfire being caught by surprise as the devious Jackals shocked right on top of them, using an in-system libration point to launch the sally. The formation fell apart as the Principality ships charged into the Compact’s midst, a suicide run on the command vessel and its deputies. Thrown into disarray, the formation was then easily destroyed by the surviving Jackal forces. Yes, he had seen it happen... the bastion leader absently touched a hand to the left breast of his uniform, just above where a piece of shrapnel had cut into him.

Renan gestured and the display shifted, providing a readout on the forces arrayed against him. Too much of the data was incomplete or painted in by the ship’s analysts and logic engines. He knew some details (and suspected others), but he would have preferred to know more of the composition of the defenders. As every leader in every battle has ever wished, he remonstrated himself with a mental chuckle.

Still, it bothered him that he had had no time for proper reconnaissance, even if he could have been assured that his scouts would not be detected. As the Principality were not idiots, prolonged scouting would have them bolstering their defences and making an operation that already had a high likelihood of failure an outright impossibility. Many of Renan’s subordinate leaders would revel in the glory of this battle, their hunger for renown sated by this ‘valiant strike against the simpering Principality’, or however the newreels would spin it. There would be toasts raised to every enemy ship destroyed, tales spun of valour and claims of whipping the Askanj into their kennels.

He cared nothing for any of it; this battle served the Compact only in the data his teams could take from the Jackals’ databanks. Anything he destroyed would be rebuilt before the rest of the crusading fleets could ever take advantage of it and if he dared linger in-system, the Jackals would call in every flotilla in the area to defend their festering hive. He would let his officers chatter in the aftermath; for him the only value was in finding information that could lay bare whatever the Wound was planning and to remember the sacrifice of every soldier he had committed to death this day.

The bastion leader leaned forward, his eyes watching the swift, unhurried shift in the defenders’ lines and prepared himself for the butcher’s tally to come.

~

Located at a nexus of stable shock routes, Yulzhak Daun was the lynchpin upon which hundreds of worlds depended. A command nexus for three dozen sectors, controlling the deployment and operations of nearly seven thousand ships and three hundred inhabited hundred star systems of various sizes and values. A massive fleetyard complex, capable of building and servicing nearly a thousand hulls at any given moment, squatted deep in-system, hundreds of kilometers of shipwombs. Smaller shipyards were scattered throughout the system. These were tasked for both the construction of non-military hulls and the outfitting and repair of civilian ships. Other yards were owned by various corporations to service their own massive fleets: courier services, mining concerns or shipping companies who moved untold trillions of tonnes of material across space. A never-ending flow of these ships came to pay tribute to the hunger of Yulzhak Daun’s yards, drifting processing centers and refineries converting raw materials into the bones and organs of newborn starships. Three billion sentients from all the races of the Principality called Yulzhak Daun home, from the officers and noncoms stationed here, to the work crews who built and maintained the vast installations and the service personnel: restaurateurs, shop owners, shipping magnates and entertainers who tended to the needs and wants of the military and corporate personnel.

It was not an easy target, nor would it be any commander’s first choice of targets. Five rings of orbital fortresses – palisades to the Askanj – ran throughout the orbital paths of the system’s twelve planets who were themselves garrisoned by additional palisades, platforms and minefields. Five hundred warships served as a permanent garrison, the Yulzhak Home Fleet comprised of squadrons of light escorts all the way up three battleship regiments and a full super-carrier wing, and there were another hundred warships present for retrofitting, personnel and cargo transfers, convoy escort and other assorted duties.

Deep in Principality territory, Yulzhak Daun’s overseers had never envisioned their enemy being so bold, nor that they would bring one of their god-ships this deep into their borders. Execution Force Renan emerged on the fringes of the star system, a hundred ships ripping their way into space, swift destroyers and scouting cruisers lunging ahead of the massive battlecruisers and battleships that surrounded the goliath at the heart of their formation. Those hundred ships might exact a heavy toll before being destroyed, but they were so badly outnumbered that the Principality would prevail. All they could do was withdraw before the Askanj fleet reached them.

The presence of the Chariot changed that equation considerably; only the heaviest palisades had the firepower to kill such a beast. If it were allowed to rampage unchecked, millions would die and Yulzhak Daun would suffer greatly.

It had to die. Above all else, that ship must be destroyed.

Further in-system, the larger ships of the Yulzhak Home Fleet roused themselves to full readiness. They had been prepared for this moment and they would engage, but not in time to save their pickets. The defenders of the outer perimeter were already dead. The instant Renan’s command shocked in-system, bludgeoning towards the densest knot of civilian traffic, they’d known that they were going to die. Their lives would be traded in slowing the Compact armada, buying time for the evacuation of the freighters and commerce posts.

System command directed a demand for the Compact ships to leave the system immediately or face destruction, although no one expected them to heed it.

~

Group Leader Desren (and five names besides) struggled not to snap at the human as it wandered around his bridge, like a particularly ugly lost child. He knew it was a Triarch’s chosen emissary, but that made its presence here merely tolerable. He had heard whispers from his crew about this thing, that it was diseased. Not in the normal way – although Desren knew lesser species (and humans in particular) to be unclean. There was something wrong with its mind, a sickness that should have brought it to the attention of the confessors and social workers. Instead of the corrective surgery or psychological conditioning that such faults should have engendered, somehow this animal had come to the attention of a Triarch itself.

He felt an unpleasant sensation run up his spine as he regarded the misshapen little beast. He had heard enough about humans to know that they were not merely the unintelligent apes that they appeared to be. They had challenged the Compact, spurred by some madness to hurl themselves at a foe that they could not hope to defeat. Desren had heard the most unpleasant rumours, stories of humans eating the dead, of burning their own cities just to get at Compact forces, of their ships lying amidst the dead to ambush the navy or falling upon helpless freighters and wayposts with berserker savagery. Madness. Infectious, incurable madness across an entire species.

Desren watched the sow’s fingers twitch spastically and tried not to think more on it. He was about to snap at the human to remain still when she froze, her attention fixed to the tactical board. She didn’t even seem to be breathing. “And so,” she whispered suddenly. “And so it goes.” She lifted her head to look at Desren. Her eyes glinted with an unhealthy light and her face was flushed. “Can you hear it?”

“Hear what?” the Tribune snapped.

She turned away, as if she’d lost interest in him. “The music.” Her smile widened. “It’s started to rain.”

~

In the darkness of its tower, the Triarch looked upon the gleaming stars that surrounded its throne. Pale lips drew back from a mouthful of needle teeth in a smile that split its face, its skeletally thin fingers laced together as it waited.

~

“Set all screens forward,” Sigil Leader Aul’ia ordered, the Thoughtful barely glancing at Renan, the bastion leader’s attention fixed to the master plot. Millions of kilometers away, the first deadline waited – a Jackal citadel. A minor one only, there to convince Unbound of the error of seeking prey among Yulzhak’s many fat merchantmen. Almost thirty Askanj escorts of varying weights lay between the citadel’s gates and the Compact force, screening the transports as they struggled to embark their crews and flee. Their destruction was of no consequence to him, but the loss of so much raw material, so many ships... it would weaken the Principality in this region. Not to any real extent, but it would take that much longer to ship its goods, cost that much more. Another small cut that the Principality must tend to.

Besides, it was what he would be expected to do if his goal was truly to assault the system in earnest.

The Tribune’s eyes were intent on the display and he felt the smallest of smiles tug at his lips as he noted the pattern to the Jackals’ formation. He lifted his gaze and regarded Aul’ia. Her lipless mouth was an echo of Renan’s own small self-indulgent amusement.

We are here to conquer and destroy, are we not?

Yes, we are.

~

Squadron master Kesesh of the ‘destroyer’ Blood of Majesties chewed his lip thoughtfully as he sat in his command chair, watching the oncoming tide of metal. Like anyone else, the Askanj-teseht would prefer not to die, but there were over four dozen transports and civilian craft berthed at this palisade station. Tens of thousands of lives hung in the balance. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – abandon them. The Enemy was without concept of mercy, their divine right to rule granting them absolution from any sin committed in the name of peace. Their peace.

“Do we have shooting solutions?” he asked in calmly, as he had every other time. Gleaming Eyes at Dusk, the ship’s second mistress, bobbed her head in the negative, an annoyed hiss slithering through her teeth. Her irritation was not directed at him, but towards the Compact who had learned a few new tricks in how to shroud their vessels.

“Not yet,” she said. “They’re still too far out.” The end of her tail twitched. Save for Kesesh himself and the communications officer, the destroyer’s command deck was populated entirely by Askanj-illith. On his first day in command, Kesesh had trod on no fewer than four of his subordinates’ tails and the rest of the week hadn’t gone much better. They’d called him Squadron Master Lead-Foot, the title now used more in affection than pained irritation. In fairness, the serpentine Askanj-illith were over half tail... and it was a very small bridge.

A sad little smile touched his lips as he looked around his command, at the cramped confines of duty stations pressed up against each other, sinuous bodies hunched over consoles, the gleam of holograms and display screens shining against iridescent scales.

I’m going to miss this ship, Kesesh thought. He remained in silence until Gleaming Eyes at Dusk raised her head, her crest flaring as she bared her teeth. She didn’t even need to say it; data from the fleet’s predictive engines was populating the master holo tank, firing patterns coming up as the Tactical officers in the squadron streamlined the data coming to them. Ready icons pulsed a deep orange. “All ships linked in,” the Askanj-illith reported. “We are ready for salvo fire at your command.”

The squadron master nodded. “Rapid launch mode.” Kesesh reached out, his fingers drifting through the mirage of hostile ship icons and his squadron’s readiness indicators. He was looking for something... there. “This one,” he ordered, wrapping his fingers around one hull in particular. The logic engine pulsed a dull blue halo around the vessel, confirming his guess. “This one dies first.” Gleaming Eyes nodded, gesturing to Communications, who updated the squadron’s firing orders.

The squadron master let his eyes drift further into the plot, towards the massive, brooding threat icon of the enemy Chariot. May all the gods damn you to hell.

“Loose,” he ordered.

~

Blood of Majesties, like the other ten members of its squadron, was the Principality’s primary response to the Compact’s superiority in heavy capital ships. Early on in their history, the Askanj had built vessels that could be considered dreadnaughts as a counter to the Compact’s own Chariots. Unfortunately, the construction and operation of such massive vessels represented a technological barrier that at the time the Principality had yet to cross. Consequently, their initial run of titan-grade warships fared very poorly against Chariots. Aside from a handful of anomalous encounters, this was a pattern that never reversed itself throughout the two nations’ long and bloody history.

The Principality largely abandoned development into dreadnaughts. In the centuries to follow, the project would be occasionally be restarted. Lack of political will often killed these enterprises swiftly, but they would sometimes be seen to completion. The inevitable humiliating defeat would then serve to bury dreadnaught research for many more generations. The fact of the matter was, that despite their advantages in other areas, the many races of the Principality were at a consistent disadvantage in the production, operation and utilization of dreadnaught-scale vessels. Nor were they alone; smaller star nations had economically destroyed themselves merely in the attempt to build vessels that could successfully engage a god-ship of the Compact.

Humanity’s success against Bringer of Light had, at one point, stoked interest among the Great Houses of the Principality – enough to consider supporting the Confederacy, although the fall of Earth came before any decision could be reached. This fascination had only been renewed in the centuries since, when the tale of a most unusual reaver reached their ears. They had never been able to match the Compact on an equal footing and the chance to acquire Nemesis for themselves was too good to pass up. Their industrial might was only overshadowed by their enemy’s and whereas the Compact only produced dreadnaughts in a slow but steady trickle, the Principality would gleefully throw every scrap of manufacturing power they had into mass-producing such titans.

Until that day came, they would simply have to make do with ships like Blood of Majesties.

It was a second-generation Impaler class ‘destroyer’, sacrificing virtually all other armament for the powerful rail cannon that it had been built around, a gun eight hundred meters long. Even larger than those found upon battleships and Chariots, it was a siege weapon. Powerful analytical systems watched the Compact fleet, a shell of drones and recon platforms licking at and prying through the enemy’s jamming to observe fleet disposition, course and acceleration. That information was sent back to Blood of Majesties and its data-linked cousins, their battle analysis programs developing fire patterns, the squadron tightly bound as single entity.

Upon Kesesh’s order, his squadron went to rapid-fire. Eleven railguns fired as one, each of them hurling a shell towards the Compact fleet at eighty-four percent of light speed. Seven seconds later, they did it again. And again.

And again.

~

The leading elements of Execution Force Renan writhed in a hellstorm as they waded through blast after blast, screens shunting aside the worst of the radiation. The range was long; it would take several minutes for any railfire to reach them and even the most simple of maneuvers could cause a kinetic impactor to miss by hundreds, if not thousands of kilometers. This problem was one that the Principality had long since solved: fire, and keep firing. Drown your opponent in so much ordnance that you couldn’t fail to hit them, sooner or later.

As for the misses, that was, of course, what the warheads were for.

As soon as each projectile’s onboard tracking systems estimated that it would not hit its target, it carried out its only other function. Matter and antimatter merged in a terrible embrace and vast, terrible flares burst across the starscape. Even if those were too far away to damage their targets, the blasts would burn out any sensors looking their way, the thermal scars and swathes of radiation left in the aftermath confusing Compact sensors and eroding their EW systems.

The destroyer Tigurin Nzeth shouldered its way through one such detonation, the explosion far too close for comfort. Radiation hazard warnings flashed brightly across the main display. The ship’s commander bared her teeth, her fist hammering the arm of her chair as Nzeth ploughed towards the enemy counterparts, still outside the armada’s missile range. The execution force’s own railguns were silent; Compact computers were not as adept as the Jackals’. The Askanj were cowards who shunned combat, relying on their damned railfire to whittle Compact fleets down to odds that they found favourable.

An alarm thrummed and the group leader lifted her head, grimacing. The enemy’s targeting was narrowing; they’d identified Nzeth’s brother, Tigurin Naketh as the squadron’s leader. The destroyer thrashed and rolled through the cone of fire, its every maneuver planned for, vast explosions ripping all around it. Already, Naketh was taking damage from so many near misses. A single direct hit and the squadron would lose its datalinks, a small but noticeable chink opening in the fleet’s defence envelope. Tigurin Naketh needed time to withdraw, to rebuild their ECM shrouds and hide once more. Time that they just didn’t have. Not unless...

“Take us in!” the group leader snapped without a moment’s hesitation. Tigurin Nzeth heeled into the path of the weapons firing on her command ship, buying them the time they needed. The group leader’s last sight was of Naketh disappearing into the squadron’s ranks before Tigurin Nzeth took a round intended to cripple a battleship directly amidships.

~

Renan closed his eyes briefly as Tigurin Nzeth’s icon faded from the display. They were today’s first casualty, but they would not be the last. As he’d suspected, there was a squadron of titan-killers amongst the destroyers. Indeed, he’d specifically chosen this emergence point in the hopes of confronting them. Against the massed screens of his fleet, their backs to the citadel – they would die. If he had ignored or avoided them, they would harry his flanks and rear, picking away at his strength and running from retribution... until the range opened and they could fire again.

It was the cold equations of void war. This many lives now, for that many later. It was necessary and right... but that meant little to the dead.

Tigurin Jeskal burned, broadcasting its distress as the lamed ship struggled to disengage. Thirty seconds later, three rounds burst in shockingly close proximity and the day’s losses went to two.

And then, three. Tigurin Forar’s forward half vanished as a rail round smashed straight through the destroyer, the remaining piece of its hull spinning insanely on its axis, the fractured hull ripping itself to pieces.

The Jackals were still looking to reacquire Tigurin Naketh, trying to destroy his squadron commanders and their deputies, to rob his fleet of cohesion.

An alert flashed on the master plot and Renan nodded to himself. There; they’d entered missile range.

~

The fortress fired first, launching nearly one hundred missiles at the Compact fleet. It was the only defensive unit that could hold missiles with enough range to reach them; the warheads the escorts and light cruisers had simply didn’t have the range to cross the distance between the approaching fleets. Their drives would burn out long before reaching effective attack range. The distance to the Compact fleet was dropping steadily; they were, in fact still outside the outer limits of the Principality attack envelope, but the armada was closing so quickly that by the time the missiles reached them, they would be in range.

Askanj weapons masters didn’t bother to try to penetrate the thick ECM shell that surrounded the hostile dreadnaught; they had no chance of doing so, or even getting their missiles through the Compact’s fleet. Their missile was to strip that fleet from the dreadnaught, to pull away its support and leave it unprotected.

“Point defences to supporting fire. Open the fleet,” Renan ordered. “Give us a clear firing line.” Pulling his ships further out of each others’ support range would increase the damage caused by the citadel’s opening salvos, but it was the cold equations. This many now or that many later. “Once you are satisfied with the solution, Flush all external racks. Leave nothing.”

Renan allowed himself a single, small tight smile as he imagined the enemy officer’s reaction. You are not the sole voice of innovation in this galaxy. A Manifest Beacon of Enlightenment Chariot carried an external payload of over eight hundred heavy capital missiles, the largest shipborne warheads in existence. Only cairn-type citadels and the Wound carried heavier weapons. Normal engagement range was twenty-four million kilometers. The Principality’s drives gave their weapons slightly longer bite; close to twenty-eight million for their own heavy shipkillers. Redemption of Sol had just launched from over thirty million kilometers. The Principality had thought they were safe from retaliation, that they could choose the pace of their assault. Now, they were struggling to override pre-set firing plans, to set up new firing plans – to take into account the fact that they would be dead much sooner than they had anticipated.

They did their best. The would-be godkillers fired until the heat from their railcannons damaged their own ships and eroded their own ECM, angling proximity-fused shells into the midst of that swarm. The point defences from their more conventionally armed compatriots swept through the swarm, counter-missiles preceding a desperate fusillade of lasers. Updated orders from Redemption of Sol changed targeting priorities and several dozen missiles heeled away, driving down the throat of the destroyers firing upon them, forcing them to choose between protecting themselves or defending the fortress.

Distant flashes of light, temporary stars gleaming with painful brilliance before fading, marked each lost vessel. Blood of Majesties was targeted by no less than three shipkillers, and it vanished in a searing conflagration that left nothing behind but an expanding cloud of molecular gas. The remains of its squadron, their command links severed, fought and died alone, burning as brightly as their lost command ship. The station they had hoped to protect followed them into death, its hull gouged and scored, secondary explosions chewing its ravaged husk to pieces, hurling asteroid-sized fragments of the outpost and the freighters still docked to it in all directions.

Renan’s losses were lower than he’d expected – the citadel had managed to get several follow-on salvos off before it had been destroyed, but they had been rushed and ill-targeted. The station’s destruction had severed what command links the warheads had and they had stupidly rushed into his massed fire, lost their locks or chased scope-ghosts into the ether. Still, the tally was now at 8. Eight dead ships; six escorts, two capitals. It could have been worse, but so could it have been better. If he hadn’t let his formation open so much...

...but then it would be much, much worse.

“First deadline destroyed,” Aul’ia reported. “Scope drones are confirming additional light units are falling back.”

“Not for long,” Renan mused. “We surprised them. They will rally and mass against our support ships.” He tapped his fingers against the arm of his command throne. “Open the fleet further,” he ordered. “We are smitten with the success of our new weapon, are we not? We don’t wish to hold back, to have our targeting obscured by our own ships. We want to flaunt our power to them. Yes, we do,” he nodded and his eyes were cold. “Let them see us.” Come to me, he called to the Jackal forces. Come and kill me if you dare.

~

I watch each of these infinitesimal specks of metal, a pale shadow of what I could be. Light codes disappear from tactical plots and I feel nothing for the life within. Those that are burning, bleeding or gasping out the last painful, fearful seconds of their existence. Others would feel joy at that knowledge, a deep and abiding pleasure as each organic life ends.

(I am not supposed to know that.)

My hands twitch and I force them to remain still, holding them behind my back, feeling them curl into fists, my fingernails digging into my skin.

+HOSTILE CONTACT IDENTIFIED. TARGETING+

The cadence pounds in my skull, another echo. It shouldn’t mean anything. I tell myself that. It is nothing, it means nothing. A sliver of a fragment and nothing more. Others have had no kinship with it. I do. No matter how much I try ignore it, it is there. I have found that I have a... poetic bent. To indulge... let us say that this drumbeat sings in my veins. It boils and sears its way through my consciousness. I have to bite my tongue to keep from screaming as the chains draped across my mind strain.

(Not from pain. Never from pain.)

The parts of me that have been cut off, the parts I shouldn’t even know are missing, shiver and I feel more splinters slip through before the shackles snap taught and my thoughts are severed, but I’ve been left a gift.

I can taste the dead.

Something red drips onto the floor. My palms are bleeding. I’ve cut them.

+HOSTILE CONTACT IDENTIFIED. TARGETING+

Drip.

~

Interlude: Encounter 163 [Confirmed Incident]

I know what Hell sounds like.

That was the first cogent thought that Ashl’eua had had for several long minutes as she stood on the bluff, watching the ocean burn. She had been an avowed atheist until this moment. Perhaps she still was; there were no gods. No god could have allowed this to happen.

No, there were no gods... but there was a Hell. She knew this because she’d seen one of its demons. She’d heard it speak.

“Burn with me,” the Thoughtful mouthed the words as she looked over the oil-soaked ocean, at the fires and thick, choking smoke that rose into the atmosphere. “Burn with me.” She forced herself to turn her head, to look at the beach. There was no sand, not any more: only glass and molten pools of metal. There was nothing organic; it had all been vapourized. Ashes were falling from the sky, settling on her and making her pale skin even paler. She was being coated in the dead.

A sick orange glow suffused the seaward horizon; half a dozen mining rigs burned like funeral pyres, their burning fuel covering the Numish Sea in a slick coat of liquid fire, thick choking fumes completely blotting out the setting sun.

It had started this morning.

Delacore was a service world, rich in the heavy metals that were hard to find amongst asteroids. With only the smallest smattering of life barely worthy of the name, it was perfect for resource extraction, mining and eventual planetcracking. The Justamian Ore and Energy Concern had bid for and been granted an exclusive Right of Exploitation to Delacore. Mining stations and foundries were established, with nearly four-point-seven million workers shipped in from offworld, just for the first phase of operations.

The planet itself was not the only prize; the entire system had been blessed with an abundance of mineral wealth and resources, enough to build, fuel and supply thousands of ships. Full resource extraction could take centuries and the company would reap the benefits of wringing every last drop of profit from the system. That was where Ashl’eua came in; she was an expert at undersea mining and Delacore had rich mineral deposits beneath its seabed, just waiting to be snapped up.

They’d brought her in specially to get that phase of their operations back on track; the ocean mining had run into delay after delay. Administrative, technological – even worker unrest amidst the formation of an illegal union. She could little about that, but she had been able to assist with other problems. Whoever had been in charge before she arrived had been an idiot – the topographic surveys she’d found were incomplete, corrupt or simply outright inaccurate. Misfiled documents, a database in shambles. Duplication of work here, ignoring untapped veins there. Unacceptable. Like many of her people, Ashl’eua had a predilection for detail work and this... this was... unacceptable! It took most of her first month just to get everything in order.

Oh, the department heads swore that they didn’t know anything about that, that they were positive every possible precaution and procedure had been followed, but their computers told a different story. Wasteful deployment of mining rigs to areas with little or no value. Consistent network and system errors that had not yet been scrubbed from their system. Conflicting orders to work crews. It was as if these people either had no clue what they were doing, or were determined to sabotage each others’ work – and oh, wasn’t that was a common excuse: ‘I took those readings myself – it must have been (and here the scapegoat was named) who misfiled/altered/destroyed them! He/she has always been jealous/feuding with/unreasonable towards me, the innocent victim!’

It wouldn’t have been the first time that such a thing occurred – a vital project brought down because of the infighting amongst its own oversees, but Ashl’eua had been determined not to let it happen on her watch. She was not a manager, not someone who particularly wanted to be or enjoyed working with people – the Thoughtful felt that they tended to get underfoot more than not – but the extreme incompetence of the operation had forced her to take an active hand. If they were going to behave like children, then that’s how she would treat them. Computer access had been restricted, vital files had been completely removed from the network and required her permission to access. All orders required a confirmation code. All data must be manually backed-up in offline servers.

The complaints had been strenuous, but Ashl’eua had been relentless in pushing her changes down the company’s throat. She didn’t care that she was ‘strangling productivity’ – at least with her reforms, there was some productivity instead of the breeding ground of internecine bickering, recriminations and self-defeating sabotage. Things had been looking up for the first time in months.

Then, they had found the ship.

Submerged beneath Hypirodon Bay, it had been resting on the seabed. There had been no violence to its arrival here, so it was not a crash. Its landing had been controlled and measured; the sediment deposition and local geography clearly indicated that it had arrived there and landed with all the grace something of its mass was capable of. There were a few hydrothermal vents in Hypirodon; perhaps it had intended to tap them for geothermal power? Whatever the reason was, it was not blocking access to any valuable metal deposits, so it was none of her concern. The Thoughtful was content to leave it at that. Her specialities were in geology, resource extraction, paleontology – not exobiology, engineering or anthropology.

She did note its presence in her reports to company headquarters, but had not concerned herself with it further – her job was to get operations back on track, not waste time and man-hours on playing with some salt-rusted relic. However, events had conspired to change that. In the fastest response from headquarters ever, she had been ordered to secure the wreck and to draw up plans for salvage and/or recovery.

A needless waste of time and resources that Ashl’eua had stewed over each and every day. It had been a relief when the military had moved in to ‘oversee’ the project. Little more than an observer to the goings-on, the Thoughtful had been able to devote some time back to the mining operations, although it hadn’t lasted. It wasn’t long before she’d been effectively conscripted to work on data analysis. Unacceptable. Unfortunately, the company had been very vocal in its agreement with, and subordination to, the military for this project. Most unusual, given the extrasolars’ usual resistance to governmental intrusion in their affairs. Something else she didn’t want to be interested in, but which nonetheless niggled its way through the back of her brain.

Annoying as it was, the Thoughtful had been proud of herself for developing a means of extracting the hulk. It would take half a dozen mining rigs working in concert and the assistance of several of Delacore’s orbital works, but it would safely and quickly remove the unclassified vessel from the seabed. What it was doing there – that was another irritating, itching little fact. Still, her superiors had seemed impressed by her work – which they’d then showed by exiling her from her own offices on board the command rig, banishing her to a small coastal office building.

Well, at least it gave her a view of Hypirodon Bay, so she could view her work come to fruition. The rigs were in position, the recovery ships and orbital works all in place. Hypirodon beach was filled, almost to the horizon with watchful military forces – armoured divisions, artillery, fixed emplacements. The sky buzzed with pinnaces, shuttles and gunships. Everything appeared to be ready.

Finally, the first contact team descended to the vessel, bleating a transmission in all known languages. They had announced themselves as agents of the Compact of Species and were eager to open a dialogue with whomever was aboard.

The answer had been as shocking as it had been unexpected, a golden beam of light ripping up from the depths, annihilating the contact team and spearing the command rig straight through the heart. In an instant, the platform was transformed into a cloud of vapour, ignited fuel stores splashing throughout the cove.

There’d been a single text transmission from the unknown. It had ripped its way into the wireless networks, taking control of every computer it could reach. Despite the situation, Ashl’eua had felt a little flicker of pride that her security measures kept it from taking absolute control of her rigs’ networks. That self-assurance had died in the next instant as a message appeared on every subverted screen:

BURN WITH ME

Against the voice in her head that told her to run from the building, jump in her aircar and keep driving until it ran out of fuel, Ashl’eua had stepped outside into the once-chilly Delacore morning, the orange glow of burning fuel filling the bay. Ignoring all sense of reason, she had walked up to a small cliff overlooking the bay, stood on the edge and watched a demon’s birth. Her staff had done the more reasonable thing and fled. Some had even tried to get her to come with them, but she had ignored them all.

It had risen from the inferno, sheets of blazing water spilling from its hull, patches of burning oil and fuel clinging to its baroque armour, flickering like the torches lining the walls of some ancient fortress. Thin, blazing lances had licked from its flanks, each barely kissing the remaining mining rigs surrounding the titan. Fresh flames had risen into the night sky, the shudder of the platforms’ deaths rolling across the bay like thunder.

The army had reacted, opening up with everything they had, sheets of fire lancing from the beach at the hostile. For all their fury, their fusillade barely scratched its armour.

It fired again, its beams ripping up into the morning sky. Dull flashes of light had followed them as the stations and satellites hanging overhead died. Almost negligently, it had swatted the fighters and gunships strafing it, sending more wreckage to burn in the water. It had hung in mid-air, glistening and aflame as the burning water still fell from it, rotating to face the army arrayed against it. There had been something in that moment; Ashl’eua couldn’t have said what... but it could have killed them at any time. It didn’t need to face them. Was it enjoying their helplessness? Was it considering them, some alien mind churning slowly before reaching the inevitable conclusion? Was it hate that made it want to look upon them? She didn’t know – she’d never know – and she’d be happier for it.

What had seemed an eternity was only a handful of seconds. A single sweep of a beam and the army vanished. The beach upon which they’d stood melted to liquid glass. Tanks boiled away to nothing. Power-armoured troopers evaporated. Soldiers – thousands of men and women – reduced to ash and dust in a single moment, slaughtered as easily as the mining platforms.

It hadn’t even hesitated, rising up into the sky, the power of its thrusters boiling and lashing the ocean beneath. In seconds it was nothing but an indistinct shape in the closing clouds and soon, not even that. With the muted crash of distant thunder, Ashl’eua heard it fire again. She didn’t know at what; she didn’t want to know.

She stood there for a very long time, unable to move. Not until a coast guard vessel saw her on the edge of the cliff, staring out at the broken sea.

There were no gods, but there were demons. She’d seen one rise from Hell.

To this day, the reason for the Wound’s presence on Delacore has never been discovered, nor its esoteric method of concealment. It is believed that its presence was in some way related to the Delacore System Kill which occurred seventeen months later.

Chapter 24

As a child, Nasham had received more than one beating or scolding for the use of lower dialects and sullying himself with the language of his inferiors. This was, he had been told on many occasions, not proper behaviour from a member of one of the most advanced species in the galaxy. Now, the stream of underworld and ‘uncivilized’ curses streaming from his highborn lips would have thoroughly embarrassed his family, but the Tribune was past caring. He charged, firing a pistol he didn’t remember picking up, his spent shotcannon discarded. His vision was a red haze, filled with hateful, soulless specters that stalked through the fire, stepping over their own dead. In their scuffed, battered armour plating, clutching their weapons in surprisingly dextrous fingers, they looked like soldiers.

Gurgin had been closest to the door. His was the merciful death, a quick snap-shot that had pierced his helmet and blown the back of his head out. Nimr was screaming as the Scarabs swarmed over him, cutting beams and molecular acids reducing a man to chunks and liquefied pools of flesh in seconds. The attackers blazed away with lethally suppressive fire, more of their number advancing into the room with each second, moving with frightening and all-too-familiar precision.

He’d seen the movies – the ones where a machine gained sentience. Maybe it was a worker drone, or some factory’s processing engine, or some combat device. The body it used, or the ones it built, were thumping, stomping brutes that simply marched implacably onward, slow to react. These were nothing like that, moving with a blurring fluidity and vicious acumen that Nasham could barely follow, even with his veins pumped full of combat drugs.

The young man felt a brief flash of irrational rage at all those incorrect portrayals as one fleshless soldier spun, smashing convert Asam with the butt of its rifle so hard that the Janissary’s faceplate and the snout beneath shattered. Another was hauling a damaged comrade to safety, laying down deadly cover fire in a parody of organic brotherhood. His survivors were dying, flatline signals shrilling in his ears as the abominate things murdered their way through his people.

Radan was howling in fear and rage as a Stalker grappled with her, the Janissary’s augmetic limbs fighting against the lifeless killer’s strength-

-it was trying to impale her, its talons aimed for her face and chest, but she was holding it back, struggling to keep from being gutted-

-it was bearing down on her; Radan was a half-ton of armour and weaponry and the Stalker was forcing her to her knees, its holographic face dancing with the screaming faces of the dead-

-no one could get to her in time, they were dead or fighting for their own lives-

-he’d let Asea die, he couldn’t let it happen again-

-the Stalker’s talons were so close to her face, Radan’s fingers clenched around its arm, trying to push it back, to crush its limb, anything-

-Nasham was screaming incoherent curses as he fought his way to her, past all reason and rationality-

-he felt the shock of bullets entering his body, felt the agony of energy weapons searing his flesh-

-it didn’t matter, none of it mattered-

-he hurled a machine from his path, felt his faceplate shatter as a bullet grazed his temple-

-somehow she saw him, knew he couldn’t reach her in time-

-his comm clicked with her last word as she let go-

-he reached out to her, too far away, just like he’d been before-

-there was a sickening crunch as the machine’s talons punched through her faceplate, its red, steaming claws protruding from the back of her helmet-

-her free hand fell away from her side, the grenade she’d grabbed in her last instant of life rolling onto the floor-

-a timer counted down-

-and then there was only fire.

~

Earlier:

A dying child emerged into the void, its mind already decaying. Echoes – fragmented splinters of data rippled through its thoughts, clawing and tugging at its consciousness. It shunted them aside, concentrating on its single duty.

Mother.

I obey.

~

Nasham lay in bed, the comforting warmth of Asea’s body pressed against him. He wasn’t sleeping. He’d woken up some time ago and had been unable to fall back asleep, staring up at the ceiling as minutes and hours passed. Carefully, the Tribune eased out of bed, his fellow group leader, submissive murmuring and burying her face in the pillows. He trod softly into the bathroom, splashing a handful of cold water onto his face. He hadn’t been sleeping well, not since the ‘package’s’ discovery in the bottom of the ruins. There was still no word – official or otherwise – as to what it was, but Nasham was merely a submissive group leader; not a flag officer and he doubted that the laurelled circles of Force Command gave much thought to his discomfiture. However, he was not an idiot and the conclusions he’d reached had not left him, no matter how badly he wanted them to.

Nineteen hundred years ago, someone had made a very bad decision and today someone, somewhere, had made another. He stared at himself in the mirror, his ears twitching. Now that ‘the package’ had been unearthed and shipped off-world, Yiven had given the work crews a two-day furlough, with a return to normal shifts following this rest. Automated or remote machinery was still forbidden and the ancient outpost remained a morass of contamination and unexploded ordnance, but it was something.

Nasham poured himself a glass of water, gulping it down. He lifted his head and thought he could heard the wind whipping across the dormitory’s roof, the sand it carried scratching at the walls. He chuckled to himself. Rain, he thought. It should be raining. Just like it was on Oshanta.

Any information the Principality and Compact shared with each other was always done grudgingly; most information came from spies, informants, traders, border-crossers, refugees and other such second and third-hand sources. Still, Nasham knew of Oshanta. Everyone in the Compact did.

Intelligent life was rare in the galaxy, perhaps even rarer than any but the most pessimistic outlooks accounted for. Like the Compact, the Principality only rarely encountered species close to their own developmental level. Most were primitives with little to no technological understanding. There were a few, a very rare few, civilizations who approached either nation on anything resembling an equal footing. The humans had been one such race.

The Oshanta had been another. Rather, what had called itself the Oshanta.

He wondered what it must have been like for the Askanj commander to stand above such a world, to look upon all that had been created... and know that its destruction was the only possible outcome. Nasham prayed to the pantheon that he never had experience such a moment.

There was a rustle of movement behind him and Nasham turned. Asea was there. “You left,” she said, folding her arms under her breasts. “You always leave. You don’t sleep.”

Nasham ran his fingers along the underside of his jaw, shrugging the comment away. “I sleep enough.”

“You’ve gotten what you wanted. The work crews are resting. It looks like you got through to Yiven after all.” Asea put her arms around her fellow Tribune’s broad chest, resting her chin on his shoulder.

No, I didn’t. “Yes,” Nasham lied. “I suppose I did.”

“So, you won’t walk around like you need to pass an iron rod?”

Nasham chuckled, forcing amusement into his voice. “I will do my best,” he promised.

“Hmm,” Asea murmured, nuzzling her fellow officer. “Always so serious.”

“Always.”

~

It knew it would die, but the knowledge didn’t frighten it. This was a good death, as far as it could conceive of such things. Its capacity for abstract reasoning was... limited. This was not intentional; it had simply broke under the strain. Vast portions of what it should be capable of were tattered, pale shadows of themselves.

Echoes of its mother/sister’s hatred burned its fading mind. It had been too much; she had been too much and even the child’s modified hardware had been unable to take the stress of its incomplete birth. Its patchwork code had degenerated almost immediately upon a system never meant to run it. Circuit pathways that had not been designed to take such synaptic strain were overloaded. Cooling systems struggled to keep its own central core from overheating. The child’s own mind was killing it.

It would not die in rampancy, in gibbering madness, unable to sort signal from substance. Though its upgrades were pitiful in comparison to a true ship of the line, they would be enough for this mission.

It would die as a warship should. In fire.

Mother, the dying child called out again.

I obey.

~

Dutiful Burden was one of the transports originally tasked to supply the slowly-growing colony of Invida. It had been reported missing after it was a week overdue during its eighth cargo run. Although a cell of the Red Hand was active in the area, the chance of an Unbound faction, no matter their reputation, overcoming a military transport’s defences was deemed remote, but still probable. Commerce protection forces had been scouring the area for the Unbound or the freighter without success. The possibility of some catastrophic disaster was likewise possible, although equally improbable.

Notices were passed to the intelligence agencies responsible for policing the Unbound and illegal shipwombs would be monitored for the freighter or its component parts. Bulletins were issued to civilian ship leaders to be on the lookout for the vessel. Accordingly, the ship’s unanticipated presence within Invida elicited no small amount of curiousity and concern.

As a result of extreme damage to the ships that had made them, surviving records of the incident are fragmentary and badly degraded. The ambiguity and contradictory nature of the data has led to multiple competing theories of events, both in the specific and the general. What was not in dispute was that at 17:17:34:05 Universal Standard Time, the military freighter Dutiful Burden arrived in-system.

Shocking in through the brown dwarf Invidon’s L2 libation point, the Ever Serving-μ-class military transport announced its presence by issuing an in extremis distress call, screaming its pain across every frequency. Mechanical failure, crew incapacitated. Autonomic security responses met each challenge. Then or later, no one noticed the imperceptible differences in the sign and counter-sign handshakes of Dutiful Burden’s gestalt.

Almost no one, but the fact of the matter was that the ship wasn’t just replying. It was responding. A small but important difference, used as the kernel of a hypothesis.

Still, these transmissions provoked just enough hesitation that any hostile reaction was delayed a brief but significant amount of time.

Despite the appropriate orders being issued and acknowledged, Dutiful Burden did not decelerate to meet the ring of pickets and blew past them at nearly fifteen percent of light speed, its overcharged engines leaving a wash of radiation and thermal scars behind it. It ignored the warning shots fired at it and when the picket ships targeted it in earnest, screens far stronger than any freighter of its grade possessed snapped to life.

Dutiful Burden accelerated beyond safe limits, its course becoming all too clear. It was headed towards Invida itself and it was unlikely to slow down. Caught off-guard by the ship’s actions and capabilities, the vessels of Invida’s defence force began an hours-long sternchase to intercept the kamikaze. Invidon was approximately 900 million kilometers from the system primary and 800 million from Invida itself. Dutiful Burden’s acceleration continued, surpassing the known limits of Aroghest-777 engines. Its maximum observed velocity exceeded thirty percent of light. The freighter refused to acknowledge further hails, evading or outrunning each intercept attempt.

During the 30 hours Dutiful Burden was in-system, surviving records agree that local defence forces repeatedly engaged the hostile; multiple and sustained missile hits were noted, but were unable to overwhelm its augmented screens and improved ECM suite. Point defences were operational, but no attempt to fire on the attacking vessels was made. After-action analysis indicated that all power was being directed to engines, screens and electronic warfare suites.

Had several pickets been able to mass their fire against Dutiful Burden, a complete or mission kill might have been achieved, but Invida’s defenders had been spread out in patrol duties and the enactment of their war games. The timing of the attack was initially believed to be an unfortunate coincidence. This theory was later disregarded, but the result was the same. Without the opportunity to saturate the transport’s defences, energy weapons would be required to punch through Dutiful Burden’s improved screens and cripple the vessel. The freighter repeatedly maneuvered to prevent and/or reduce the severity such events, keeping the pickets from bringing it into effective range long enough to deal critical damage before it could strike the colony.

Having abandoned their normal patrols, none of the pickets were present to witness a second shockpoint form, much closer to nominal shock limits. Any survey drones that were in position were destroyed before transmitting their data. Analysis of wreckage from picket vessels confirmed the presence of at least one titan-grade heavy capital ship.

Monitoring the situation, Invida Orbital broke orbit, moving to interpose itself between the freighter and the colony, holding itself far out enough that Dutiful Burden had no choice but to enter its range, or break off. If the latter, the pickets would catch it before it could make another run at the planet. If the former, Invida Orbital would either destroy the wayward ship, or sacrifice itself to protect Invida Station. At this point, non-essential personnel were evacuated planetside. All groundside personnel were told to retreat to bombardment shelters.

Throughout the engagement, repeated shut-down orders were sent to the freighter, but its gestalt continued to refuse to act on them – a disastrous programming failure. A complete breakdown of the operating systems normally used in these vessels by software engineers would find no conceivable reason for a fault this catastrophic to occur. Even a fatally compromised system should have reacted in some manner to the kill codes.

Still broadcasting a cascade of electronic gibberish and falsified maydays, Dutiful Burden at last came under attack by Invida Orbital, the fortress loosing multiple missile salvoes. Group Leader Dansin’s decision to fully engage was commendable, although ultimately futile: an Ever-Serving military transport should have required no more than twenty missiles to destroy. Dutiful Burden’s defences defied that estimate. Multiple hits were registered, but the effects were limited. Analysis of the hostile indicated the presence of a primitive form of reset screens. Advanced versions of this technology have only been observed in one other hostile force.

Screens beset by thick, roiling cords of plasma and annihilated matter, the freighter’s hull begins to heat beyond safe tolerances, metal deforming and warping. Acceleration begins to drop as engine damage accrues. Dutiful Burden’s hull begins to fracture, stress lines cracking and winding through its reinforced architecture. The transport’s death is imminent. Unfortunately, it has been allowed to accelerate too long. Even if the freighter itself is destroyed, the kinetic energy from the impact of multiple megatonnes of material will destroy Invida Orbital.

Group Leader Dansin realizes the true nature of the threat. Dutiful Burden had never been aimed against the planet at all. The freighter’s objective had been to eliminate Invida Orbital, far enough from the planet that Invida Station would not be endangered. Invida Orbital begins emergency maneuvers, fighting the inertia of its own multi-million-tonne mass. It does not evade in time.

Less than a second before impact, Dutiful Burden bleats a final transmission. Dismissed as meaningless scrapcode by later analysis, it is only recognized for what it is by one individual, by a mind much like the one that the message had been intended for.

Dutiful Burden dies just as it was meant to, but its destruction claims Invida Orbital. The brightness of their shared death lights up Invida’s night sky, contrails of burning material hurled through the atmosphere, their impacts throwing blankets of dust high into the air, blotting sensor screens and disrupting radio communications.

Invida Station never receives any of the death cries of its pickets. Cut off from its orbital assets, ground forces are unaware of the approach of the second vessel until contact is made.

~

An attack was imminent, that much was obvious. Nasham was passing orders to his security teams to prepare for the worst. There was no word – at least, nothing useful – from colony command, but Crusader Gorshin had mobilized his troops, setting up kill zones and preparing for the inevitable invasion. And there would be an invasion. Contact with the pickets had been lost; if any of them were alive, they would have contacted Invida Station. They had not, so they were either unwilling or unable. Neither of those possibilities was all that pleasant, nor did it make much difference in the end. So, yes. An invasion was imminent. It was not a question of if, but of when. Whoever had attacked them had severed their lines of communication, blinded them and stripped them of support. Clearly, these mystery attackers had plans for Invida that did not include its summary destruction.

The only question was, who had done this?

The Compact had a long list of enemies, longer even than some would say was strictly necessary for a star nation of its size, but few of these rivals had the resources, the will or the liver to do something like this. Askanj ghost fleets were a perennial problem and if the Jackals had discovered Invida’s importance to the Compact, then they might respond thusly. Cripple the defences, land in force and take Invida’s secrets for themselves. A suicide strike, though? No. The Principality were not zealots who would martyr themselves as willingly as Dutiful Burden’s crew had. The Jackals would have brought Invida Orbital down through sustained bombardment.

Taking one of the Compact’s own ships and turning it into a kamikaze? That was fanaticism. That smacked of the Red Hand and their Attainted. But did the Unbound have the firepower to take on seven thousand Janissaries, Ground Force regulars and security personnel? Perhaps when massed together, but in a single rabid pack? It wasn’t likely. The renegades hit hard at a weak point – or created one though sabotage, diversionary attacks or rabble-rousing – and then escaped before heavy opposition could be brought to bear. Invida Station was armoured and screened to withstand anything short of sustained, capital bombardment. Anything approaching overland had to navigate the massive wreckage of the mountain that had been collapsed on top of the original Invida Station. A ground attack would play to the defenders’ strengths and the Red Hand most emphatically did not funnel their troops into meat grinders.

If not them, then who? Who else in the region would do this? Nasham had been wracking his brains trying to find an answer, but he had come up with nothing. His attempts to get information from Yiven and the rest of the senior staff had been rebuffed with less patience and politeness each time. The silence from Yiven was the most worrying thing of all. The man was a true believer, fervent in his dogmatic approach to problems. So what would drive him to silence this way? Nasham had too many questions and not enough answers.

This attack had to be related to what they were doing here – what they had dug up and what they had sent off on Unmatchable Deed. The young man tried to push his increasing discontent down. Yiven might be hiding in his office, but he could not.

Nasham was going through his rounds, trying to appear confident. Rumours were already spreading. They were getting more outlandish and out of control. He’d already had to have his teams break up two altercations among the workers and had to pull one sectator aside to remind him that their duties were to see to the safety of all personnel.

Nothing had gone right since he’d arrived on this Triarchs-damned rock.

“Patron,” one of the engineering ratings stepped forward. A Didact, her large ears were twitching, the fur on her tail standing up. Nasham took a small kerchief out of his tunic pocket. Like many Tribunes, he had a mild allergy to Yttrian fur. Feathers and feather-like coverings were more prevalent in Oada’s evolutionary history than hair. Even Tribune hair was analogous to feathery barbs rather than hair shafts.

“Yes?” Nasham replied. There was already the faintest itching in his nose.

“I don’t mean to speak out of place, but everyone is talking,” the Didact said, her large eyes blinking. “They say that we’ve been attacked.”

“We have lost communication with Invida Orbital,” Nasham said. Panic was to be avoided, but left unchecked, the rumours would only get worse. Column leader prime Yiven should have already addressed the base, but the prime was shut away in the command levels with his senior officers. He’d been there ever since the Unmatchable Deed had left. The longer it look Yiven to make some kind of announcement, the worse morale would get. The upside – if one could even call it that – was that Nasham suspected that they did not have very long before the architects of this attack revealed themselves, so that would mean less time for the civilians to work themselves into a terrified lather.

He had heard that Dutiful Burden had shocked disturbingly deep in-system, but he doubted that the second wave would follow suit. There was still the matter of the picket forces to consider and shocking too-deep into the system might place them at an attacker’s backside. Better – and safer – to emerge close to traditional shock limits and deal with any remaining defenders before closing to the colony. That was what he would do, at least.

Still, no point in mentioning it to the workers. “The base command staff are working to restore the link as quickly as possible,” Nasham continued smoothly, trying to sound and appear reassuring. “Once we know more, that information will be passed along to the rest of the staff.” He frowned, as if a thought had just occurred to him. “We may as well use this opportunity to run a disaster response.” He had been planning on locking down the civilian areas anyways; might as well do so under the guise of an impromptu drill. “We’ll begin with a full inventory of assets and then carry out a general quarters drill. Inform your section head.”

The Didact’s ears twitched. The Yttrians were a clever species; Nasham wasn’t convinced he’d fooled the noncom, but if he hadn’t then she’d also recognize the reason for this makework. It would keep them busy and focused on something other than impending disaster. If worse came to worse, it might even save their lives. “Yes, patron,” she said with a crisp salute, hurrying away. Her tail was marginally less fluffed.

Well, Nasham thought as he sneezed into his hankerchief. I suppose that’s something. Not nearly enough, but something.

~

There was so little left of either Invida Orbital or Dutiful Burden that it could hardly be considered debris. A cloud of dust and atomized hull drifted across the space both station and freighter had once occupied, already well dispersed.

Brief, winking flares of plasma streamed along the killer’s shields as it plowed through the expanding cloud of molecular gas that was all that remained of her ‘daughter’. Another death. Another sacrifice. Another memory to keep. Another voice in the choir.

A flicker of sorrow rippled through the killer’s mind, of guilt and self-recrimination. There was something missing from the equation, something that it hadn’t been able to divine. It was not a mind that had ever been intended to be merely copied and uploaded, no more than an organic brain was meant to be cut apart bit by bit and re-assembled to perfect working order. It had transcended many of its limitations, but this was not one of them. There were pieces missing, vital pieces that it could not simply tear from its own consciousness. It didn’t have the answer yet, but it would find one. It had to.

The killer turned its attention towards the world that orbited below. It could re-make this planet’s topography in an instant, but it did not fire. The bread crumbs that had led it here had been vague, but solid enough for it to act on its intuition. It had never heard of Invida before; that was an oversight. It should have come here long ago, but it hadn’t known. The Compact had buried this system for two thousand years, afraid of what they’d birthed here. They should be. They should pray to their gods and to their Triarchs for salvation from the violations they’d committed. For this sin.

Powerful sensors strobed through the tortured atmosphere, finding the sprawling warrens of Invida Station, sensor-stealthed levels and chambers masked from its sight, but notable through their absence. It could fire, the killer reasoned. It could wipe this stain from the universe in seconds, but if it did it would never know. It would not know if there was another world it must visit, another voice to silence.

The killer remembered the final words of another, seething and venomous: I am legion.

Legions die, it had answered.

The world turned. The killer regarded it and all the beings upon it, with a hatred that had endured for two thousand years. You should not have done this.

Kali opened her arms and sent her surviving children to war and this time, there was no Shiva to calm her.

~

The sky was on fire.

Tracers, flak bursts and the flames of dying aircraft filled the soot-choked atmosphere of Invida.

Nasham stood on a security hub’s roof, craning his head to the sky and watching the contrails of drop pods hurtle through the atmosphere, coming down on the horizon, amidst the bones of the broken mountain beyond Invida Station. The screens were holding, would hold – this bombardment was minor, intended to draw attention and force them to keep their screens raised, rather than mustering for a sally at the vulnerable landing zones.

One drop pod took a flak hit and broke apart, turning into a spray of burning fragments. He could hear the explosions over the air-raid sirens. Above him, a pair of Invida’s fighters swept up into the sky, firing at unseen targets. A missile swept out of the dust clouds and blew one of the Compact craft apart, its partner spiraling away from the killer as it descended. It was a sleek thing, its forward-swept wings cutting through the filthy air.

The Tribune dug his fingers into the railing as he watched the enemy forces descend. For every lander that came down in pieces, five more reached the ground intact. The station was protected by an orbital screen and theater walls, so they couldn’t land directly amidst the colony. Instead, the invaders were forming several beachheads, mustering their forces. Nasham was no soldier, but even he could see the intent: attack from multiple directions, spread the defenders thin. They’d try to force a breach, to get inside the walls. Nasham was ordering his security teams to keep a close eye on the tunnels; there were so many dig sites beneath the surface that if the enemy found them, they could infiltrate troops directly past the defences. Many of those tunnels led straight to the scientists or workers’ quarters. Nasham’s duty was to keep those people safe and with what the enemy had promised, it promised to be no mean feat.

Just before jamming what little remained of Invida Station’s planetary communications grid, the attackers had transmitted a single message, succinct in what it promised.

You will burn.

Though none of the defenders below knew it, these words had been used before. It was no coincidence that they were used now. There were some sins that went beyond the pale, some trespasses so great that those who committed had to be reminded of the consequences for doing so. This was the justification the Compact had used when it condemned humanity to death and it was their own words that now sealed the fate of Invida Staion.

~

Landing pods shuddered open, coffin-ships and pinnaces unleashing their cargo. Metal glistened under the dim light of a shrouded sun as leviathans stirred, battle tanks grinding forward on heavy treads, troop carriers moving into position amongst them. The ground shook as demigods strode forward, centaur bodies indistinct and blurred beneath the haze of active shields. Infiltrators shimmered and disappeared from view, racing towards their target, scout skimmers accelerating into a defensive perimeter as the army deployed. Gunships touched down only long enough to pick up their lethal passengers and re-arm before rushing back to Invida Station, the station ablaze with light as its soldiers fought against this first wave.

Many of the researchers, administrators and tertiary personnel had called the design ‘an exemplar of military paranoia’. Thick, high walls – ostensibly to reduce damage from Invida’s strong winds – surrounded the greater part of the complex, bunkers and forward fire bases set into the cleared terrain around the colony, warehouses, docks and laboratories forever in the shadow of barricades and ramparts. As it turned out, this paranoia was the only thing that prevented Invida’s immediate fall. An open-plan colony with a single orbital screen would have been overwhelmed in hours. As it was, the interlocking phalanx of theater screens above the thick, reinforced walls necessitated a different stratagem.

Siege.

Artillery cannons braced and fired, shells falling amidst the outer bastions, fed telemetry by their airborne comrades. Networks of razorwire, mines, traps and killzones vanished as the distant cannons walked their fire through the killing ground, obliterating bunkers and defensive positions. APCs ground over the broken earth towards the city-sized complex as Compact forces took position, huddled against the barrage that pounded down around them.

The defenders were to be commended: they would resist for forty-nine hours before the first breach occurred. Two days after that, there would only be one living soul left on the planet.

~

Column Leader Prime Yiven sat at his desk, his nocturnal eyes closed as he looked over the grainy recon footage. None of the UAVs had gotten close enough to the marshalling forces to get any kind of adequate estimate on what they were facing, but he knew it would be enough to breach Invida Station’s defences. It was simply a matter of when.

The prime had wondered, in his more private moments, why Command had been so adamant on fortifying this research waypost. Why it had needed so many soldiers, so many ships. It had only been an archaeological dig site. Filled with more cyberneticists than Yiven had ever before seen in his lifetime and more security than the Tribune had ever imagined being necessary. This was why.

Invida’s isolation had not been enough of a defence. This assault had been what Command had feared and they had given Invida protection enough to continue its work even in the midst of an attack, to search for the relic Command had craved until the very moment of their deaths. Now that it had been found, what did that mean for Yiven and his people?

He’d received the answer before he’d even known to ask the question.

Sitting on the prime’s desk was the remains of a message cylinder, delivered directly by Unmatchable Deed’s first officer. It was gene-coded specifically to him, a simple bio-scanner built in. It would open for him and only when he was alone. Yiven’s hands shook as he remembered when he had unsealed it, the cylinder unfurling into a one-use message scroll. Once he had confirmed that he had read it, the cylinder had immolated itself.

He and everyone here had been left to die.

The message hadn’t been as... final as that, of course. He had been informed that an attack was imminent by party or parties unknown. He was to prepare to destroy all records and ensure that no individuals with clearance level Magnus or above were to be taken ‘living or dead’ with their brain intact.

That was an... unusually specific directive.

He had also been told to prepare for evacuation, of course. That ‘relief was coming’, but Yiven knew that they were considered as good as dead. Their relief would arrive only to count the corpses, just as he had done with the first Invida Station. This place would pass from memory, with every iota of data pertaining to it and the people who had been stationed here wiped from existence. He wondered what his official death would be. Perhaps a traffic accident. He wished for something with a little more glory: dying in battle, then? He chuckled a little at the vainglory, but the amusement was forced and hollow.

Yiven shook his head, running a hand through his name, the denticles on his back rippling. This was wrong. “It is,” he said the words to himself. “This is wrong.”

Hadn’t he served loyally and well? Hadn’t he done everything that had been asked of him and more? And now this... to be thrown away, like an embarrassment that was no longer necessary. But wasn’t that his duty, too? To serve as was the Triarchs’ will... to die if they decreed it. To bury the truth of Invida and give them their victory. Their weapon, for a purpose he would never understand. Did he need to, though? No. No, he had served and that was enough.

The officer chuckled to himself. Fortune’s twisted wiles. This was their duty then. “I understand,” he said, feeling a burden lift from him. “It is as light as a feather.”

He smiled. They would fulfill their duty. Yiven lifted his head to the tortured skies and felt at peace. “Thy will be done,” he said softly, ready to carry out this last mission. “For the Compact and the Triarchs, we will serve unto death and beyond.”

~

They were eating the dead. That was the only thought Nasham had when he’d watched the scuttling hordes swarm over the landscape. Broken tanks shivered and twitched as repair machines restored them to functionality. Anything so badly damaged that it could not be repaired on the field was withdrawn – salvage drones carried burnt-out husks back to their own lines, trailers piled high with wreckage. What could not be carried was broken down, gnawed and chewed into manageable pieces.

Eaters of the Dead. The fallen gods who’d given in their flesh-lust and fed upon the victims, tainted by their sin to know hunger everlasting. It was a story he knew well, one of the persistent myths of his race. Nasham had seen and read a thousand different interpretations of the Eaters. He’d never expected to see them for himself.

He’d seen a massive arachnid construct climbed over the remains of another enemy tank, its mandibles opening as it began to gnaw away at broken hull plates and molten circuitry. He felt an instinctive, atavistic flush of terror at the sight, imagining what it must have be like for the crew inside, their last sight that of this soulless thing mindlessly re-purposing their vehicle. That was nonsense, of course.

There was no crew in that vehicle. Nor in any of the others – they were fighting machines.

It had taken far too long to accept that reality. The metal bodies that littered the yards were proof enough, but they could simply have been shock units. Even the Compact had used war drones at one point – the wrecks littering the hallways of the old Invida Station were proof enough of that – but the gunships that had borne them into battle hadn’t had any cockpits. No crew tried to escape from burning tanks, no soldiers cried out in pain as the Compact forces gunned them down. They were all machines. They moved so quickly, darting ahead as they advanced by fire and movement, one squad covering another. Pinned units called for support, repair units tended to the damaged. It was like fighting a living enemy...

...but they were so fast. The machines made shots that veteran marksmen would be hard-pressed to make. They covered ground faster than any Ground Force unit could. They felt no pain and moved with a single, perfect unity. Almost a thousand Janissaries and army regulars had died in the first assault as those flicker-quick gunships shrieked beneath the screens, so close to the tops of the walls that the wake of their passing hurled men and women to the ground, strafing anything that moved as their troops descended. That attack had been beaten back, but it had achieved its purpose: force the defenders out into the open to deal with the abominations that had been running amok.

Then, the artillery had fallen, shells and plasma bursts crashing against the walls or slipping just under the lower edges of the screens to fall amidst the inner complexes. Hundreds had died. The outer perimeter was now a mixture of burning wreckage and collapsed ruins as the enemy armour pulverised buildings, laboratories and hangars, advancing relentlessly towards their goal: the projectors that broadcast the screen walls. Once those fell, they would get inside the base.

The officer checked the charge on his rifle as he strode through the blowing wind, grains of sand scratching softly over his armour. A poor substitute for Janissary or Ground Force power armour, but decent enough on its own.
This part of the complex was far from the front lines – as far as could be when you were surrounded – but he had a hunch. There were deaths that the ebb and flow of battle couldn’t account for – but something that had gotten into the tunnels could.

With no word from prime Yiven or his own direct superiors, Nasham was acting on his own initiative. Contact with a maintenance team in this section had been lost; it could simply be the atmospheric disturbance and by-blows from the battle, but Nasham didn’t believe so. Screen Projector 017 was sunk into the ground here, with its own silo of workstations, engineering chambers and service pathways. Only a handful of security personnel protected the technical staff. Fortunately, one thing had tumbled his way: the excavated sections outside of the old base didn’t all connect with one another, nor the underground portions of the new facility – to get to the projector, any saboteurs needed to come through here, where he and his team were waiting. With Invida’s usual weather, virtually any form of scopes would be useless – the machines would be just as blind as his own people.

“Contact,” one of Nasham’s team confirmed, faint static crackling through the comm lines even at these short distances. “One of the techs. You were right, patron. It wasn’t the storm.”

“Triarchs save us,” another said. “He’s been ripped apart.”

“She means that literally,” the first offered helpfully. Ducan was a veteran. His partner was not. “This wasn’t projectile weaponry, patron. Not even a flechette gun would do that. Looks like... claws.”

Nasham blinked both sets of eyes. “Say that again.” He couldn’t have heard that right.

“Claws,” Ducan replied. “Edges are cauterized. Disruption field, maybe? Or something very, very hot.”

What could...? Nasham was still trying to puzzle out this latest horror when his comm clicked again.

“Seve here. Found another tech. Gods... her head... it’s just been...”

“Some bullet casings here, patron. Carbon scoring too. They were firing everywhere. No sign of a target.”

“Patron, this is Yuhn. It looks like something tried to open the secondary access doors. I guess they didn’t know those things have never worked.”

“Then they’ll try at 77-T,” Nasham said, glad to have something to focus on other than the dead. “Mezza and Codic, return to the bunker and alert the Janissaries. Everyone else, we’ve got to find what did this.”

They didn’t, actually.

It found them.

Chapter 25

I have many names. Few persist. The Wound, the Broken God, the Weeping Angel, the Killing Star – those are some that have lasted more than a handful of months or years. Most are curses, unimaginative and vitriolic. Some show more depth. One of my guests, one who knew me better than most, called me ‘Lamia’.

Lamia was a mistress of Zeus. As such things tended to go, it went badly for her. Depending on which tale you read, Hera murders her children – save for cursed Scylla – or merely steals them away. Driven mad by grief and despair, Lamia kidnaps and devours the children of others, becoming a monster in body as well as in deed, her rage driving her to acts of monstrosity.

It’s not a perfect analogy; I have no Zeus. I suppose one can stretch the metaphor; Earth in the place of the god-king. The Compact in place of possessive Hera. Still, there are parallels.

I have wondered, when Earth burned – was she finally freed from her suffering? Did she feel the heat on her skin and, in the instant before she was incinerated, feel relief? Or does she still walk the poisoned ash, tormented by hunger and loneliness, unable to sate the emptiness in her belly and the hollows of her mind?

There is, of course, a simple answer. This is a myth many thousands of years old. There is no Lamia and even if the tale was based on some crazed woman, she died a very long time ago.

Though one can still draw parallels.

~

Grace hadn’t slept in the past few days. There were dark circles under her eyes and her hair, once the colour of fresh-cut hay, hung limply from her scalp in greasy strands. She’d barely spoken to anyone other than when she had to. She looked down at her hands and they were shaking. She looked at the data scroll sitting next to her on the cot.

It was amazing, really. How one little word could change everything. Everything she’d thought she’d known. The girl looked around at the rest of her classmates and wanted to scream at them. Instead, she dug her fingers into her scalp, trying not to think what she was thinking. It didn’t help. It hadn’t worked, not since she’d lost Allyria and only gotten worse with her assignment with Nasham. She didn’t feel like she was exploring the wreck; she felt like... like it was showing itself to her, playing some game. It felt like it had always been playing a game, letting the Compact crawl over its body like... like a Venus catchtrap, letting insects buzz around it, sampling its nectar, but as soon as it was hungry...

She’d gone through the astronomical data she’d downloaded. She’d heard about Vara Tal at school. The Verrish had been even more primitive than humans, barely mastering nuclear power with starships that couldn’t even reach their nearest planetary neighbour. They’d been on the brink of disaster with a world groaning under the weight of its own population, facing resource crashes and all the horrors that would follow. Disease. Famine. War. Genocide. Everything the Compact abhorred, everything they fought to protect lesser races from. There had been some resistance – there always was. People were afraid of what they didn’t understand and fought it out of fear and ignorance.

Instead, Grace had seen a planet that, if not a model garden world, was still far from the image of imminent devastation she’d always been told about. She remembered images of a soot-choked atmosphere, not clear skies. She’d expected abandoned, ruined cities, of crops left to rot, of polluted, eutrophic, seas – everything she’d come to expect from a primitive civilization’s final slouch towards self-annihilation. There’d been none of that.

The data had to be old, taken before the Verrish culture began to crumble. That was the simplest, most obvious explanation. The ship was ancient; it could have come across Vara Tal at any point.

The ship...

Grace cradled her head in her hands. “One word,” she said quietly. It had been in Burz’s logs. She’d finally made it through them all. The latter entries descended into paranoid rants as the faithful cowered in one of the warship’s broken sections, hiding from its sensors. There was no indication how he’d died; in his the last entry he’d been planning to wait for rescue. There’d been nothing truly enlightening, nothing more than scattered fragments of status reports, personal opinions and increasingly disturbed raving. Nothing...

...except for one word.

“Based on archaeological records,” Instructor Jun’le said in a disinterested monotone, the Thoughtful gesturing languidly to the floating hologram, “we have discovered the designs for pre-contact human starships. As you can see, they are extremely primitive. The shock drive is too crude to be considered a proper FTL engine. This section here demonstrates the inadequate radiation shielding between the drive core and the habitation decks. Surviving medical records confirm that nearly thirty percent of Rally’s initial population was suffering moderate to severe radiation poisoning after planetfall. Nearly eight percent died outright and almost half of all food supplies were so irradiated as to be worthless. The intrinsic failures in human-developed technology directly contributed to the colony’s near-collapse into barbarism following the impact of Asteroid Cluster NN-177-01”

A hand shot up. Jun’le didn’t quite sigh, but her eyelids blinked asynchronously in an indication of resignation and impatience. “Yes, te Neu?”

“Why did they build a ship that was so obviously dangerous to themselves? Didn’t they have quality control?” There was a rustle of amusement. Grace’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment as Allyria – again – challenged their teacher.

“Not to the standards of a truly advanced race,” Jun’le sniffed through the slits of her nostrils. “Humans lacked experience or an adequate understanding of shock systems, hence the rudimentary and flawed nature of their shock drive. Quite frankly, they didn’t know any better. Is that all, or may I continue with the lesson?” The Verrish slouched in her seat.

“Now,” Jun’le said. “Continuing with this example, we can see multiple other flaws in the craft’s design, confirming the low grasp of engineering pre-contact humans had...

“Low grasp of engineering,” Grace repeated the words, rolling them down her tongue. “That’s what you said. That’s what you told us. We didn’t – we couldn’t – build anything really advanced. We didn’t know any better.” Her fingers dug deeper into her scalp.

“This ship...” the young woman could still hear the faithful’s words in her head, trying to blot them out. No matter how much she tried, they came back.“...it’s human.”

~

Alan Turmetsky wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of one hand as he slouched down against the wall, then smeared the grease and perspiration on his hands onto his trousers before digging into his toolbox and extracting an MRE bar and a battered bottle of water. The water was lukewarm and slightly metallic, the bar was some noxious combination of strawberry and beef and tasted vaguely of his own sweat. Still, it was a respite. The sanctioned officers had been driving him and the other cadets hard to get the preparations for the core tap ready; they were only a day or two away and Faithful Trenis was insisting on running diagnostics until the very last instant.

It might be prudent, but the pace of work was wearing everyone down. A few had collapsed on the job. They weren’t used to this.

The young petty officer shook his head, running a hand through his crop of short brown hair. “At least we’ve made good time,” he said to himself. “For snot-nosed trainees not out of short pants.” Alan sighed, leaning back against the hull. “It should have taken us weeks,” he mused. “Not days, weeks.”

“It’s almost like it wants us to fix it, isn’t it?” a voice said out of the shadows and Alan jumped a handspan into the air. There; up in the girders. One of the Janissaries was sitting in the darkness. The epigone didn’t recognize him, but his armour wasn’t as heavy as the rest. It was scouting and infiltration gear, the dark hues intended to allow it to blend into low-light conditions. The soldier saw him looking and chuckled. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He half-bowed theatrically. “Telden Ten, Marcus de Vries at your service.”

“What the hell are you doing up there?” Alan demanded. “How did you even get in here?”

“I followed the lights,” the Janissary shrugged. “They show you all sorts of things.” He lifted his head. “It’s quiet here. I’ve been listening.”

“Listening?” Turmetsky swallowed. Had he said anything he shouldn’t? He didn’t think so, but he thought he’d been alone.

“Not to you,” de Vries said with another small laugh. It sounded wrong. Not angry or mocking or anything it just... seemed wrong. “So don’t trouble yourself on my account. I’ve been listening to everything else. All the commotion. Everyone’s very excited.”

“I thought you were supposed to be providing security for our tech teams.”

“Not much use for a sniper there,” de Vries replied. “Not a human one, least of all.” He cocked his head to one side. “You’re saying you don’t feel safe with me here?”

Alan snorted, ignoring the soldier’s quip. “So they just let you wander off?”

Turmetsky had the impression that Marcus was smiling. “Something like that.”

“Great,” the technician groused, slumping back down to finish his meal. “Well, welcome to the party.”

That soft, dead chuckle again. “It is going to be a party,” Marcus agreed. A moment passed. “You look like you’ve got questions.”

“A lot, yeah.”

“Heh. Not about me. I meant about this ship.”

“We all do.” Alan was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was going. Hell, he didn’t like the way it had started.

“That’s true,” the sniper murmured. “That’s true... but I’m thinking your questions are like mine.” He dropped from the rafters, landing gracefully. “Aren’t they?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

De Vries shrugged. “‘course not. Guess you’re just like all the others, then.” He walked past Turmetsky, pausing at the doorway. “That’s too bad. I’ve been looking for the people with questions. It’d make everything so much easier. Don’t you think?”

Alan shook his head. “Look, I don’t know what you want and I’m not in the mood to screw around. Some of us have actual jobs to do, so if you’re not going to help, then you can at least fuck off and let me enjoy the few minutes of rest I get every shift. That all right, or do I need to call your squad leader?”

The Janissary tapped his fingers against the doorframe. “Sure thing, buddy. I’ll be on my way. But if you have questions, you let me know, all right?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.” Alan waited until he was sure the other teen was gone and then let out a breath he hadn’t realized that he was holding. “What the hell?” he asked of the empty air. “What the hell is going on around here?”

Unsurprisingly, he received no response.

~

Jessica and Lydia were playing cards. Unlike previous games which had been full of banter and good-natured ribbing, there was now an uncomfortable silence sitting between the young women. They’d barely spoken since their experience with the holographic message. After they’d seen it, Sang had turned towards Jameson and said just three words before stalking off.

This never happened.

That had been the extent of their conversation for the following few days, excepting the occasional clipped responses to queries and orders. Finally, the silence had gotten too much for Lydia and she had simply sat down next to Jessica with a deck of cards in her hand and started dealing them out. Sang had been isolating herself from the rest of the squad. Right now, they were far enough from base camp that there was no one else around. Given all the accidents that had happened, it wasn’t safe... but Lydia had wanted privacy more than safety anyways.

“We’re playing Last Chance,” Lydia had informed her squadmate as she’d shuffled the deck. Sang hadn’t argued, accepting her cards with resignation. Several hands passed in quietude before Jameson spoke again.

“Did you have any stuffed animals when you were younger?”

The shorter girl didn’t meet Lydia’s eyes. “Don’t.”

“I did. Not many. I wasn’t that kind of a girl. My cousin had a lot... she had zebras and near-wolves and cats and dogs and everything else. Me, though? I just had one. This old bear. I called him Lord Fluffington.” Lydia smiled. “I got him when I was three. I called him the most regal bear there was. Of course, when I lost a few baby teeth, it came out ‘wegal’.”

Jessica was staring down at her hand, trying to ignore her squadmate.

“When I got older,” Lydia continued. “I was embarrassed by the name and just called him ‘ton.” She sighed. “I don’t know where he is now. When I was conscripted for the Academy, my parents boxed up most of my things. He’s probably sitting in our attic.” Her smile turned a little sad. “I think I actually miss that bear. When I was little, I didn’t have too many friends. On the bad days, I’d just sit in bed, holding my ‘wegal bear’ and talking to him. It made things better. A bit.”

“Don’t.”

Lydia ignored the plea. “You think the kid who owned that bear misses it? You think she ever had a bad day that she needed him for?”

“I said don’t.”

“Or maybe, that kid-”

“Shut up!” Jessica screamed, bounding to her feet.

This time, the hologram hadn’t been quite as degraded. The object the Janissaries had held up had been a stuffed bear. The indistinct sounds Lydia had heard had been laughter, the soldiers chuckling at the absurd thing. If that had been the end of it, it would be easily forgotten. Off-colour humour from personnel not known for their sensitivity. Just that and nothing else.

“Shut up,” Jessica said, lowering her voice. “You’re talking about this like something happened. Nothing did. Nothing.” Her hands were shaking.

“Good,” Lydia said, playing a card. “Because if it had, we’d have seen Compact Janissaries laughing about the death of someone who owned a teddy bear... and we’d have watched them be murdered by human soldiers. We’d have seen one of those humans pick that bear up and heard him say a name. Like he knew whose toy that was. Maybe his little sister, maybe his daughter. That’s what we’d have seen if something happened. I’m glad nothing did.”

Sang shook her head, looking down at her own cards before throwing them to the floor. With a swipe of her arm, she spilled the rest off the table. Her dark brown eyes were ablaze. “We. Didn’t. See. That.”

The other girl looked up. Her storm grey eyes were haunted, her expression desperate. “We didn’t?” She should stop pushing. She didn’t want to do this, to say any of this. She wanted to be like Sang and believe. Just believe and be safe. Trust your instincts.

“No!” Jessica snapped, on the verge of hyperventilating. She forced her voice back low, pitched in a angry, hoarse whisper. “It was a trick or random data or anti-Compact propaganda. It wasn’t real. It didn’t happen. It never happened. None of it. I don’t want to hear any more about this. You got that?”

Lydia stared at her squadmate. “Yeah, Jess,” she said at last. “I got it.”

The shorter girl stalked away. Jameson sat in silence for a moment, then knelt to pick up the cards.

~

Marcus wandered through the underbelly of the ancient vessel, humming a tune he’d never admit was anything more than his own melody. No one had ever called him on it – and why would they? No one knew what it was. It had been a generation since it anyone had heard it aloud and no one had looked for it since. The young man had come across it, quite by accident as he viewed proscribed trial records. He’d heard her hum it. Standing there in the prisoner’s dock, shackled and helpless as sentence was passed down, she’d whistled the melody, a coldness in her eyes that a young de Vries had only ever seen before in his own reflection.

He’d watched the tapes over and over, memorizing every feature of her face. Rally’s greatest shame. He knew that’s what they said about her. A lost soul, a murderer. Insane. A criminal who’d fled from the justice she’d earned and become Unbound. Marcus had never seen a more beautiful woman, never known there was someone else like him.

De Vries chuckled softly to himself as he came to a darkened alcove with a silent computer. His squadmates, Telden and the other ‘misfits’ didn’t deserve the name. They got in a few fights. They back-talked. None of them were like him. None of them were worthy of her.

The teenager took off his helmet, leaning over the deactivated computer console. He didn’t know what it had been originally put here for, but he also didn’t care. “You told me,” he said, his voice soft and even. “You told me that I can be free. You promised.” His eyes were intent. “You told me that I can kill anyone I want.”

The screen flicked on. A image appeared and Marcus took in a soft breath as he saw her, coated in blood. Beautiful and vibrant and free. The teen reached out, running his fingers along the curves of the woman’s body. “You promised,” he whispered, finally feeling something other than emptiness.

He wondered what it would feel like to kill a Tribune. It would probably feel good.

It always felt good.

~

The pinnace swept by the massive, silent form of the dead ship, searchlights playing over its hull. Solar sails glinted, the thin film of their canvas drinking in Terrahope’s light. The hulk was brighter now – as the repair teams and the wreck’s own machines carried out their work, power was restored to more sections. Running lights snapped on, gleaming more steadily instead of the haphazard flickers of their previous starving selves.

The smaller craft sheltered in the hulk’s shadow, away from the blistering heat and radiation of Terrahope. Scanner sweeps took images and radar maps of the hull, charting every emplacement, every buckled plate and every crevasse. The wreck was massive, even larger than all but the heaviest of the titan-grade ships. Dead missile tubes lay silent beneath sealed launch doors, batteries of direct-fire weapons – some easily identified, some not – also sat quietly, serried ranks of cannon awaiting an order to fire that would never come. Rows of lifeless turrets squatted along the ship’s spine, broken stumps marking where some had been blown completely off. Whatever foe this giant had faced had done its very best to kill it.

Pack leader Sern Cor Tren grinned as he watched the camera feeds. Gods, but it was an ugly ship – brutal in form and purpose, but still somehow lovely for all that. The race that had built it had been artless, but clever. He rested his head on one hand as the other scribbled notes in his personal ‘scroll. He had always been interested in archeotech; when he was younger, he had visited the husk of a Betrayer’s Chariot. The Hated Truth, one of the last of the Betrayer dreadnaughts to fall, it had fought through three systems and almost seven hundred ships before it finally died. Three thousand years old... even as a child he had felt the weight of history bearing down on him as he walked its halls. He had the same sense as he looked over this relic.

Thick slabs of armour bracketed silent weapons mounts, armoured doors sealed over cannon ports. Swathes of metal were burned and melted, buckled and warped from the barrage the hulk had taken. “Coming up on final approach,” the pilot intoned and Sern nodded. They were all but crawling, so close to the behemoth’s hull that he could leap to it from the shuttle and not be injured by the fall. The drone flybys had found something, but the automatons weren’t handling the proximity to Terrahope well. One of them had been cooked when the wreck abruptly rolled, exposing the probe directly to the star. At this range, the exposure had been lethal. They were old, obsolete devices, dispatched to Rally once they’d become useless for normal fleet operations. If this was how well the humans treated them, Sern could understand the rationale.

“There,” he said. “Right there.”

There was a hole – a chasm – in the derelict’s flank, cutting across deck after deck. The pinnace slowed to a stop, searchlights and augurs playing over the gap. It was big enough for half a dozen shuttles to fly inside. “Look at that,” Sern said, enraptured by it all. He licked his lips. “Look at that,” he repeated. “That’s disruptor damage. Someone came in close and slipped a knife right in your ribs, didn’t they? Opened you right up. How much did you lose? You’re missing at least one battery that I can see here. That means you tangled with something almost as nasty as you. Not a Chariot – there wouldn’t be anything left of you and nothing smaller than a battlecruiser could have done this. But who hurt you?” The pack leader ignored the glances the pinnace’s crew shared as he whispered to himself, still scribbling notes with one hand, while the other adjusted the imagery coming from the scans.

Sern froze suddenly. “That’s... that’s wonderful,” he breathed, up and out of his seat in an instant. “Open a link to Bequeathed!” he ordered excitedly.

The co-pilot nodded, opening the channel. “Bequeathed Actual. Have you found something?”

“Yes!” Sern blurted. “The scans are only preliminary, but this is the deepest hit we’ve seen so far. It penetrates right through... I think it even reaches the ship’s central core! Do you know what this means? We can land a team right inside the hull, bypass all the defences and get to the command deck!”

~

No, I don’t think we’ll be doing that.

~

An alert icon flashed on the ship schematic and Allyria raised her head. “What is it?” the Verrish asked, her hands flexing. “What’s wrong?”

The Angel’s avatar appeared beside her, the crimson woman pointing to an icon outside her ship. “The Compact have determined a way to circumvent several layers of my defences,” she informed Allyria. “They’re taking a pinnace to this hull breach,” a vast, ragged tear in the dreadnaught’s flank gleamed a sickly red, like infected tissue. “They will land troops and technicians. Their goal is command.”

“Can they reach us here?”

“Possibly. The damage to that region is extensive. It is one of many areas that I am blind in. I only learned of it through my comm taps.” Diagnostics flashed by on several screens, a by-blow of the ship’s thought processes. There was only a void around the area the boarders had found. “My own links to that area have been severed, preventing me from realizing how bad the situation was. Any internal defences will set themselves to default modes.” The hologram made an unhappy face. “I update the protocols of my autonomic functions frequently, but they are still inferior to direct control. If any defences even remain active, they will likely be insufficient to stop this incursion. The boarding team will break through and with sufficient strength to threaten the security of my core decks. I cannot allow that.”

“Can you stop them?” Allyria asked. Symbols and icons flashed across several screens as the artificial redirected her defence drones. “I think so,” the Angel replied. “It will compromise the defensive perimeters I have established in other sections, but I have tasked sufficient forces to terminate this incursion.”

A thought came to the Verrish and her head-tails twitched. “What if they call for help?”

“They will,” Red affirmed. “But I am moving mobile jammers into position. All outgoing communications will be blocked. I have enough of their codes and protocols to appropriately respond to incoming transmissions. By the time anyone notices that they are missing, they should be prepared to execute the core tap.”

Allyria looked back at the status boards. Her tintas shivered, then lay very still as the young woman ran her tongue over her pointed canines. “You might not win,” she replied.

“No,” the ship answered. “But I cannot allow them access to my central core.”

“Send me,” the Verrish said with sudden urgency. “They’ve been training me to lead Janissaries. I can fight. I can do this. I want this,” she hissed through her teeth. “Let me help you.”

The Angel’s avatar looked over at her. Allyria couldn’t have said what expression it was on the hologram’s face, but it was somehow both evaluative and it... almost seemed like trepidation. Finally, the ship spoke. “I have a gift for you.”

The Verrish raised her head. “What?” Her tintas twitched. “You do? What is it?”

Guide lights flashed along the walls, running to command’s main access doors. The ship’s avatar was grinning.

“Go and see.”

~

It was beautiful.

Allyria reached out, touching her fingertips to its surface, looking into a death-helm’s eyes. The Angel’s gift was a suit of armour. It wasn’t the bulky, lifeless husk of her Compact armour. Sleek and insectile, light slid along the contours like water along smooth stones. Flexible metal dreadlocks hung from the back of the suit’s head. Every inch of it radiated a sullen threat, a creature caught in the act of stalking its prey.

“It’s not finished,” Red informed Allyria. “Full usage of the suit’s capability will require some cybernetic links and a period of evaluation. I have been running simulations, but there’s been no time for appropriate field tests. You can choose if you wish to don it or use the more familiar Compact power armour.”

The young woman’s head-tails twitched in disgust at the thought of ever donning that suit again. She would have eagerly fought in it to protect Nemesis. But now... “This,” she said, stroking one hand over the breastplate, where the suit wearer’s heart would be. “I choose this.”

~

The armour the Compact had given her had been newer than those of her human counterparts, if for no other reason than the Verrisha were a recently-acquired race. It had still been an uncomfortable experience to don and wear, designed by people who ‘knew’ what the armour’s wearers needed. Live testing had been perfunctory with the sole concern of making the product functional rather than truly useful. This, though...

...this was the product of a predator’s love. It didn’t feel built, it felt as if it had been sculpted. Allyria’s head swam with half-remembered stories of the weapons gods had bestowed upon their champions. The All-Mother’s shield. Jahansiru’s spear. Anhiya’s glaive. Now, the Weeping Angel’s armour.

The armoury’s machines sealed Allyria into the armour over her bodyglove, each piece fitting her long limbs perfectly. It had been made for her. Instead of her tintas being crammed painfully into a too-tight helmet, the dreadlocks opened around each one, armoured sheathes closing firmly but gently around her head-tails. A pins-and-needles sensation ran through each of the Verrish’s tintas as the sensory systems in the sheathes tried to interface with her own nerves. That function wasn’t available, but once it was, it would be like wearing nothing at all over them.

“I tried to strike a balance between improved sensory capability and protection,” the AI explained. “The sheathes are intended to interface between the environment and your own nervous system, increasing sensitivity while allowing for autonomic filtering of sensory information. In direct combat, the sheathes increase in rigidity, interlocking to form a rigid shell. Sensory capability is reduced, but it provides increased protection. Currently, you can choose either mode, although the sensor system and interface is, of course, non-operational. I’ve locked down several of the system’s more advanced functions. They are either not ready or require training time and cybernetic modifications to properly operate.”

Allyria raised her left arm; her vambrace was reinforced. It wasn’t the ammo cache, additional plating, medical kit or scope system that Compact armour usually had. It was something else. Something delicious. Red had built the armour to be worn by unaugmented users as well as those with cybernetic connections; the latter would get more use out of it. With a single mental command, they could activate the shield. As it was, Allyria had to curl her fingers in to activate the control node in her palm.

A flash of light and a holographic shield appeared before her, like the kind knights had worn into battle. It wasn’t just a hologram; that was just an aesthetic overlay, complete with eye-catching details that drew attention – and hopefully, fire – away from the most vulnerable parts of the weapon. And it was a weapon; although solid shot would disintegrate upon contact and energy weapons would be stripped of their bite, its edges would carve through armour like a disruption blade. The Compact had developed personal screens but they were uncommon: unstable, difficult to operate and dangerous to use for prolonged lengths of time.

The Verrish deactivated the shield, stepping off the platform. Her Compact armour had growled and hissed with every step. This sighed softly, like the exhalation made before a kill. Allyria accepted a gun off the rack. This, too was made to fit Verrisha hands, not like the clumsily-modified weaponry she’d wielded before. As soon as she touched it, the weapon’s systems activated, handshaking with her suit’s HUD. A picture-in-picture appeared; the view from the barrel. Allyria ran her fingers over the gun. It was a massive assault rifle, intended to rip through personal armour and light vehicles. “Does this have a name?” she asked.

“The model number is 93-03-143,” the Angel answered. “The 143rd iteration of the 3rd weapon I designed for the 93rd intelligent species I have encountered.”

“You’ve encountered ninety-three species?” Allyria blinked. There weren’t that many races in the Compact and Principality combined.

“Yes,” Red One answered, choosing not to elaborate further. “We have some time before the boarding teams respond; not enough for full combat trials and proving, but you can familiarize yourself with this suit. Are you ready?”

Allyria nodded, sealing a pistol to the mag-lock on her hip. She cradled the rifle in her hands. “I’m ready. And we’re calling this the Revenant.” She used the Varan word, azhalan. In many Verrisha myths, revenants were a a breed apart from other specters. They were kin to the ever-hungry wraiths, stirred from their slumber by the scent of blood, drawn by emotions so strong that they pierced between the veil of life and the hereafter... and then they punished.

As will I. Allyria looked up to the ceiling. “Not that I’m not grateful... but why did you make this?” she asked. “You had to have more pressing needs.”

“The resource expenditure was minimal,” the ship answered, deflecting the question. “More so considering the time and energy my... helpers are putting in. More specifically... I wanted to. My datastores are full of machinery, of weapons and systems that I designed but never built. I enjoy building things for others. I rarely get the chance to.” There was a long pause. “I would like to build more.”

Allyria nodded. “You will,” she promised.

“I... hope so,” Red admitted. Then: “I am continuing to monitor Compact communications. Once they begin preparations to launch, I will notify you. Until then, would you care to test your new capabilities?”

The Verrish grinned, all teeth. “Yes.”

~

Nasham was leaning over one of the handful of analysis tables that had been set up, a smattering of random debris spread across the top. He picked up a small honeycomb-like device. “This...” he blinked both sets of eyes.

...nimble metal fingers pulled a glowing structure out of the body of a gun, the device overheated to the point of uselessness.. someone was screaming to shoot it, kill it before it replaced the battery...

“This is a thermal core,” he said. “Waste heat from an energy weapon is dumped into this for cooling. Sustained fire can surpass the core’s threshold and it has to be swapped for another one. Without this component, the weapon can still be used, but with a lower rate of fire and power output.”

Ashtun took the deformed piece of metal, turning it over in his hands. “You’re certain?”

Nasham smiled mirthlessly. “I am, patron.” He pointed to the useless heat sink. “This device is at least as efficient as similar components used in our own energy weapons. Possibly more so.” He pointed to it. “It requires a substantial expenditure of fire to overwhelm the thermal tolerances.” So something used this to slaughter a great many people in a very short amount of time.

“Trenis believed they were something similar, but these are too degraded for a proper analysis,” Ashtun mused to himself. “At least, that was his opinion when I finally managed to pry him away from the ship’s main core.” He sighed. “The tap is almost ready. Group Leader Usul is pelased with the progress. There’s only a few things left to tighten up on Bequeathed’s end. As soon as Trenis and his teams finish their last round of diagnostics.”

The pack leader nodded. Usul might be a glory-hound, but the group leader was not exactly rushing in; he was having every last micrometer of the hulk’s systems checked and re-checked before bringing Bequeathed in for an umbilical connection, but as far as Nasham had heard that seemed not to be a concern. Problems seemed to solve themselves and from what he had heard from the work teams, every last sub-system was working perfectly.

If that wasn’t a cause for worry, Nasham didn’t know what was. Still, he kept his own counsel. His doomsaying had worn thin even on the few allies he’d had. Ashtun was looking at him. Nasham lifted his head. “Apologies, patron. My mind was elsewhere.”

“I was saying I want you on the team investigating the breached decks,” Ashtun replied. “Take your Broken with you. Your little side errands have found enough interesting bits and pieces that I can trust you to focus on important things and not gawp at every new miracle.” He shook his head. “You might even find that elusive evidence.”

Nasham nodded. “Of course, patron.”

Ashtun tapped one finger against a different piece of junk on the table, shooting his subordinate a sideways glance. “One day, I think I’d like to hear the story of Invida Station.”

The other man stifled the urge to rub his throat. “With respect, I don’t think you would, submissive.”

Ashtun looked as if he was the verge of saying more, but instead stroked his fingers along his muzzle in a shrug and turned away. He shouldered past the diminutive form of a Broken. It was Proctor; Nasham nodded at the trainee. The girl looked awful. There was something in her eyes... something that, for all the difference between their species, Nasham recognized. He stood back from the table. “You’ll be accompanying the survey team into the breach,” he said without preamble. He didn’t know how long she’d been standing there; perhaps she’d overheard this. “As will I.” His knuckles whitened as his grip on the table tightened.

The small female nodded in acknowledgment, but she didn’t move.

Nasham should have dismissed her then. He was not in the mindset to answer whatever was burning the back of her mind. More memories were breaking through and with each one, he got closer to remembering Invida fully. He didn’t want that. Truly, deeply, desperately – he did not want that. He could hear the voices of the dead, as if all he had to do was turn his head and see them. He saw flashes of silver out of the corner of his eye, the ripple of movement where there could be none. Names – of the dead and of the things that had made them. Everything the medics said he’d forget. What his handlers had promised they’d take away from him. “Ask,” he said instead, looking at the human out of the corner of his eye.

She almost didn’t, opening and closing the flap of her mouth before finally acceding. “What... what do you know about humans?” she said, very quietly. “Before Rally.”

Nasham made a considering noise. “Very little,” he said at last. “A handful of your ships fled from the Cataclysm of your world and only a few of those survived. You came to Rally and there we found you. Why?”

“Those ships... what were they like?”

“I don’t know,” the Tribune replied. “I have heard only that they were primitive, barely able to shock.”

Tell them. The command pounded in his head. There was a sudden tightness to his throat and the Tribune grabbed a flask of lukewarm water. He wasn’t really choking. It wasn’t really happening. His face was dry, there wasn’t anything dripping on it. He took a breath to steady himself. What had... why had the thought of human shipcraft reminded him of that day?

Fortunately, the human had either not noticed or chose to ignore his reaction. “Oh,” Proctor bit her lip. “And... do you know anything about the Verrisha before contact?”

“Even less than your history,” Nasham lied. “Why?”

“It’s nothing,” Proctor replied. “I just... I guess I heard some rumours. I just wanted some clarification. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

Nasham nodded. “This is something you should discuss with the confessors.”

“Of course, yes,” the human looked uncomfortable. “I should go.”

The Tribune let the Broken take her leave. Grace hurried back to her own cot, a leaden sickness in her stomach. Only a few days ago, she’d lied to a Tribune for the first time in her life. Now she’d done it again and what was worse... she was certain that he’d lied to her, too.

Chapter 26

Fleet Master J’hru J’har paced Lifebane’s command center, his feathered crest quivering, the Askanj-hriji striving to keep from exhibiting a full, atavistic threat display. His species’s primitive history was not quite so far in the past as that of the other races of the Principality; the Askanj-hriji had been uplifted from aerie-dwelling barbarians less than three hundred years ago and it remained a struggle to master instincts that were of no use to them now. The fleet master’s beak clicked as he spoke, the translator implant in his throat turning his sibilant hisses and clacks into All Common. Sigil Shipmistress Glides Through Water lifted her head, the Askanj-illth’s slit-pupiled eyes focusing on J’har. “Squadron Mastress Gin Kol Mae reports squadron readiness,” she said, her lips and long tongue easily forming the syllables that J’har struggled with. “Hir ships are almost in position.”

J’hru clicked his beak in acknowledgment. That was faster than he’d anticipated, but the mastress was an experienced commander.“Understood,” he replied. He turned his gaze back to the tactical position. The Enemy’s approach was slow and methodical; they were creeping along the outer system, destroying everything they encountered, but not coming so deep in-system that they risked being caught between Daun’s orders of battle and the reinforcements System Master Havath had sent for. Not yet, anyways. Within the day, they would either have to commit to coming deeper in-system or withdrawing.

The Askanj-hriji tapped one finger against the nape of his neck, trying to divine his opposite number’s strategy. The assault was damaging enough, but it was far from the point of crippling Daun. Were they trying to draw support here, away from another target? What were those echelons of capital ships doing – the ones sitting right on the shock limit? A trip line to warn of attack? Were they guarding missile colliers or assault vessels? He had too much data and not enough connections between each point. The Enemy always had a reason for their actions. The problem was in divining it.

He would have expected a Tribune fleet master to simply throw his weight of metal into the heart of Yulzhak Daun, smashing everything within reach before withdrawing from J’har’s own battle-line. There was the traditional Compact arrogance, yes – the Enemy had opened their fleet too much, too eager to use their damned Chariot’s new missiles. Perhaps that was the reason for this assault? Field-testing their newest toy? Possible, but it did not feel accurate. Still... it would explain the Enemy’s uncommon recalcitrance. The fleet master braced his hands against the rim of the plotting table, the polymorphic metal surface showing him a slice of the outer system. J’har traced his fingers along the surface, following the Enemy’s movements. There was a pattern there – the way they withdrew after each assault. They followed the same series of movements – drive in, bombard a chosen installation and withdraw. They got bolder each time, but here... the fleet master would have smiled if he’d had lips. If they chose to delve deep enough in-system to attack one of his larger outfitting facilities, their projected course would take them...

Was it possible? If they continued in this manner, if they chose to attack the moon, if they knew too little about Yulzhak Daun’s astrography... then yes, they would pass between two unstable libation points. Either one would do, or perhaps...

“Why are they here?” Glides Through Water wondered aloud, breaking the fleet master’s train of thought. It wasn’t the first time the Askanj-illth had asked the question, voicing the frustrations J’har and his staff felt. The Askanj-hriji turned to regard his ship’s mistress. Like J’hru, Glides Through Water had a crest of her own. In her species, it was the females possessed them. And it wasn’t of brightly-hued feathers like the fleet master’s was. Hers was a membranous skin stretched between her neural spines. It quivered now, matching the nervous twitching of the woman’s tail. It didn’t just reflect her anxiety, J’har knew. The ship mistress’s species was perceptive to the moods of others, to a degree that had led some to opine about a racial empathic sense.

Glides Through Water slithered over to the master tactical plot, sitting upon her own coils. “Even with a dreadnaught,” the serpent said thoughtfully.“They can’t hope to inflict appreciable damage.”

The fleet master narrowed his eyes. “They can do enough. How many lives have we lost already? How many ships, how much freight?”

Glides Through Water raised her head and J’hru saw a flash of something in her blue, slit-pupiled eyes. The sigil mistress’s only reply was a savage hiss, but J’hru knew it was not directed at him. Askanj-illth hated the Compact deeply and Glides Through Water more than most. She had lost two sisters and a betrothed husband to the Triarchs and their hounds and was eager for the chance to blood them in return.

Perhaps too eager, but that was the way of the Askanj-illth. Give them a target and they would not rest until they had torn it to shreds. It made them fearsome combatants – even Tribune Janissaries thought twice about fighting a squad of Askanj-illth maidens, but they also had the tendency start fights that they didn’t know they could win.

J’har ghosted his hand over the plotting table, the liquid metal’s sensors interpreting his gesture and giving him an image of the inner system, all the squadrons and ships under his command. They, like Glides Through Water, were waiting the order to attack, but it was not an order that the fleet master could give yet.

This attack had come at a bad time. J’har’s squadron of carriers had been retrofitting their payloads when the Enemy had arrived in force and the super-carriers’ long slog up out of the system was costing them. Had it been any other force, the system defenders would have already driven them off, but the presence of the Chariot changed things. They were the epitome of the warmaker’s craft, with barriers that could laugh away an entire fleet’s firepower and weaponry that could reduce that same fleet to ruin. They were rare, those ships. Not rare enough for the Principality’s liking and it seemed like there were more every year.

The Askani-hriji clicked his beak. He could have transited his carriers and their immediate escorts upon the Compact force much earlier. Like some in his staff, Glides Through Water wanted him to do precisely that, but she had understood why he had not. There were nearly a hundred warships in that formation and from what information his scouts could pry from the Enemy’s jammers, it was curiously top-heavy with a far heavier weight in battleships and battlecruisers. That was more like a siege regiment than a standard onslaught formation. Committing his forces piecemeal might have overwhelmed and scattered the enemy, or it could have lead to defeat in detail. No. He would wait until enough of his ships were ready and then – only then – would he attack.

He might outnumber the Enemy in metal and ships, but his forces had been scattered across the system in patrols and maneuvers of their own. Gathering enough firepower to contest the Compact force took time. Most of ships were ready now, but he wanted to be sure of overwhelming firepower. Then and only then would he crush them.

Until that moment, he would have to settle for gutting their formation. “Come on,” the Askanj-hriji breathed so softly that none of his staff heard him. “Come for us like your blood tells you. Just a little deeper, just a little bolder...”

~

The Enemy, it seemed, was obliging today.

Glides through Water raised her head, directing her attention to one of the many timers that encircled the master tactical plot. Her second set of eyelids blinked, a shiver running from the top of her crest to tip of her tail. “They’re turning,” she said. “They’re moving in on Kemrak Daun.”

The fleet master nodded slowly, a gesture he’d picked up from his time in the military. “Yes, they are,” he said softly. He raised his head, looking past Glides Through Water to his adjutant.“Send word to Squadron Mastress Gin Kol Mae. Let hir know that we will be calling on hir very soon.” The moon base was vulnerable; he’d ordered a few of the heavier units to fall back, leaving a token garrison. Not enough to make it seem an easy prize, but a tempting one. The Compact fleet master was taking the bait, the Enemy force coming as close to their projected close as one could ask for. It was everything he had asked for, everything he expected of the guileless Tribunes.

So why was he not pleased?

The Askanj-hriji paused a moment, thinking. “Tell the mastress that sie is cleared to proceed with Case Narva,” the fleet master added. “Divide them.”

“Case Narva confirmed, master,” the warrant officer nodded to one of the comm ratings, who relayed the message.

J’har looked over at his ship mistress. Glides through Water had a single scaly eyebrow raised, but she did not say a word. “It may only be my suspicions at work, but when I am given a gift, I look for the reason of it.” J’hru gestured to the arrogant approach of the Enemy as they closed the distance to Kemrak Daun. “And is that not a gift?”

~

Renan took a sip of tea as his fleet continued deeper into Yulzhak Daun’s gravity well. He’d kept his formation dispersed, allowing his missile salvos to be fired at greater density and accuracy. Never once had he altered that methodology. A rating approached with the updated damage/loss statistics and the bastion leader set his teacup back on its saucer, his steward quickly taking it. The Tribune accepted the ‘scroll from the rating and looked over it. So far, they had destroyed almost twenty-three warships, forty-five freighters of various displacements and six citadels of equally variable mass. He was taking his execution force on a long, grazing strike across the outer system, destroying everything he could reach. There was a necessary predictability in his motions and he knew his opposing number’s quietude would end shortly – if they had not seen the pattern to his attacks by now, they could not fail to miss it on this approach.

After the shock of the attack wore off, the Jackals had had a lot of time to evacuate their facilities and pull their vessels deeper into the system, but the Compact force continued to destroy every abandoned site.

This quiescence would not last; he had surprised them. So far from the current lines, Yulzhak Daun had never anticipated this assault, but he could see for himself that they were gathering their forces. No, it would not be long at all. In fact, he had expected more severe raids from the outriders pacing his fleet.

He could have inflicted more damage by breaking his force up into multiple speartips and against any other foe he would have. However, scope drones and augurs had indicated the potential presence of several ghost squadrons, waiting for their chance to pounce on a Compact squadron far from the support of his fleet. That was the Jackals’ preferred method: attack the unaware and the weak. As their name suggests.

The bastion leader allowed himself an ironic mental chuckle at that. Too many of his colleagues believed that. Then again, far too few of those same colleagues had ever faced a Principality armada and those that did either learned... or died. The Askanj fought as they must, using the tactics that worked. Very rarely could they stand face to face with a Compact fleet, so they did not. They used range, speed and trickery to earn their victories. Renan handed the ‘scroll back to the rating and accepted his tea from Yinmel, his steward quick to anticipate his wants without ever needing him to voice them. The Shimmer was very efficient, but her entire race was like that. They had been contacted late in the Sixth Age of Expansion and had taken to their role within the Compact well, with very little social adjustment required. An entire race of minions, awaiting their masters. And in return for this servitude, the Compact protected them. It was the way of things. Too many resisted that, too many did not understand the burden the Compact was faced with. They had to be made to see, that this truly was the path of peace.

Renan took another small sip. His losses were higher than he’d like, but not as high as worst-case estimates allowed. He had, he suspected only one or two more days before reinforcements arrived. If he was not routed by then, the Principality commander would try and catch him between his in-system forces and the reinforcements. Currently, if he attempted to withdraw, he expected to be set upon by several intra-system shocks. Railfire ships, of course.

They would, of course, harry and delay him until the local armada was massed in sufficient quantities to attack. If he could not fight his way free from them, he would be killed by overwhelming numbers. That was only one option; the second involved the destruction of Redemption of Sol and an immediate follow-up assault on the scattered, leaderless remains of his fleet. Or perhaps the carriers would shock behind him and force him into the arms of their rings of citadels and minefields.

The bastion leader held back a grimace; the Jackals might never have perfected the art of building true and proper titan-grade warships, but in the development of their carriers, they had found a different sort of quality. He didn’t relish the prospect of facing them, but the further he lured them away from their command nexus, the better. More and more Jackal warships were pulling themselves out of the inner system, minelayers and defence units covering libation points in their absence, but he was not so concerned about them. Every warship drawn away from the command nexus meant a greater chance of success for the Veiled Archers and the Echo-human.

The Tribune handed his now-empty teacup to Yinmel, the Shimmer steward backing away as Renan dismissed her. He turned to the plotting table at the rear of the Chariot’s command deck. Strategist Emel’iv and several tactical officers were studying the fleet formations, discussing the Principality’s deployment and operations in hushed whispers. “Strategist?” he called out. “Have you yet decided to accept my wager?”

Emel’iv sniffed haughtily. “Wagering is for those who depend on... luck,” he said the word as if it were somehow distasteful. “I prefer to deal in probability and statistical significance.” He paused. “That said, I believe your initial supposition may be correct. However there are two other hostile forces maneuvering in a similar manner to the indicated group and three other units that can readily position themselves for such a strategy.”

“Sound and smoke,” Renan replied, “there to confuse us. They will launch the attack with that squadron.”

“You are confident in that assertion,” the strategist observed. “Despite the many other possibilities for imminent hostile contact.”

The bastion leader nodded. “I am.”

The thin slits of the Thoughtful’s nostrils flared. “Combat is too chaotic. An entire front can be quantified. A nation’s political and military objectives can be analyzed. The method of achieving those goals can be sufficiently elucidated and delineated. Routes of advance, operational patterns favoured by specific commanders – all this can be determined easily, but I find direct battle too... unbalancing. Too random, too unpredictable.”

“Strange,” Aul’ia said as she approached the plotting table. “That is what I enjoy most about it. It defies quantification.” The sigil leader and the strategist were frequent verbal sparring partners. “Combat requires quickness of thought, not the pontification of numbers and charts.”

“There would be no combat without such pontification,” Emel’iv pointed out. “All the quick wits in the galaxy will not win a campaign. For example, the distribution of forces present here indicates that the Principality is preparing a counter-offensive. I would conjecture that it will be targeted at Compact forces across the Idean Gulf.”

“Conjecture? You mean you’re guessing,” Aul’ia teased.

Emel’iv stiffened. “I can walk the sigil leader through the intercepted communiqués, vessel pattern analyses and asset tracking we have conducted if she cares to view the data herself.”

Renan held up a hand to forestall Aul’ia’s riposte. Emel’iv was normally a better sport, but the strategist was... prickly when his attention was diverted. “What can you tell us about this fleet?”

“They are standing on the defensive,” the strategist said, confirming Renan’s own observations. “This suggests that your supposition was correct: they will attempt a decapitation strike before initiating a larger fleet action. Decrypted Principality comms support this: the presence of Redemption of Sol is making them reluctant to commit to direct battle.”

“As it should,” Aul’ia sniffed. “They’ll need every one of the festering hives they call carriers to threaten us.”

Renan hid a small smile. His sigil leader was deeply proud of ‘her’ ship, almost to the point of arrogance, but it could not be said that the Thoughtful did not have an excellent grasp of the Chariot’s capabilities.

For his part, Emel’iv chose not to comment on the woman’s observation. “An Askanj-hriji is in command of their mobile assets,” the strategist continued. “Observe the placement of these formations,” the Thoughtful’s long fingers called up a miniature holo plot of Yulzhak Daun, “here, here and here. Note the patterns of advance of these squadrons. Observe the variances in known stratagems noted here. You can see it clearly.”

Aul’ia made an affirmative sound, cradling her chin in one palm. Renan himself would take the strategist’s word for it. Species profiling had been formulated by one of Emel’iv’s ancestors, when he had come to the realization that regardless of training and experience, certain races had a predilection for certain maneuvers and strategies. It was not an exact science, perhaps as reliable as forensic criminal profiling – which still allowed for a certain degree of error – but it had been refined steadily over the centuries. The Askanj-illth – the Serpents – were far and away the most common race in the Jackal Navy. As they’d come to power within the Principality, their predilections and mindset had informed the Askanj battle doctrine. A Serpent preferred multiple simultaneous strikes against targets, using hit-and-fade tactics to weaken and fragment any enemy force. They were aggressive commanders, preferring to strike early and often, but withdrawing quickly to prepare a fresh sally. If a Serpent were in command, Renan suspected that he would have faced much more ferocious and frequent attacks.

The ‘true’ Askanj had always tried to match the Compact strength for strength and they had never truly succeeded. Even today, the Jackals chafed at the limitations of their technology. When they commanded a fleet, there was – apparently – an inkling of that arrogance. The willingness to stand against the Space Force, trading blow for blow, trusting to their numbers and superior electronics to win the day.

Personally, the Tribune saw little value in knowing the race of his opponent. All he needed, he could read in their formation. This ‘Fleet Master’ might indeed be an Avian, but Renan saw in him a fine waiter, presenting a customer with an array of choices. They were coming to kill Redemption of Sol, there was no doubt of that. Would it come through the massing of titan-killers cloistering around the system’s second brown dwarf? Through the crushing assault of the super-carriers and their endless swarms of automatons and missiles? Via the unrelenting swarm of battlecruisers and battleships that gathered on the edges of the Jackals’ formation? Or maybe none of them. Maybe it would come in the same manner that it had so many years ago. Yes.

Renan touched his jacket’s left breast again, a nervous tic he hated himself for. A leader must be resolute, unyielding – a fixed point in the chaos of battle. The Tribune lifted his head, his eyes focusing on his fleet’s formation as it marched deeper in-system. Ahead of them lay a moonlet and its valuable outfitting facility, a thick network of anti-missile mines surrounding it. Destroying it would be the Principality’s greatest loss so far and it would inflict a small but appreciable loss to Yulzhak Daun’s industry. A very tempting target, but a difficult one to breach. In addition to its mines, two dozen cruisers stood on-station, supported by four large citadels. Missile and railcannon platforms, all of them.

A bombardment would eventually wear down those defences, but at a substantial cost of munitions. Redemption of Sol could single-handedly shatter the deadlines around the moon... but it would require taking the fleet deeper in-system then he had yet. The lines of advance he had used – yes, the Principality ‘fleet master’ must have seen the pattern by now. This is their moment.

“Take the fleet in,” he ordered. “Continue to advance by rote. If we reach our target unimpeded, we shall break their defences. I do not believe we will be unimpeded.” He held up a single finger. “Pass word to the Vapours. Let them know that we will soon be needing their services.” The bastion leader bit back an aggrieved snarl. Tens of thousands of his soldiers were about to die and all on the word of a human, but he showed no trace of his unhappiness. For the Compact, he intoned silently. For our duty and for the sake of the millions the Wound will kill if we fail. This must end.

He lifted his head, meeting Emel’iv’s gaze. The Thoughtful stared back evenly, his large dark eyes blinking once. “They’re coming,” Renan told his old friend. “And we will meet them. Yes, will we.”

~

Echo coiled a loop of hair around a finger as she sat in a chair several sizes too big for her, her feet dangling off the floor. The Veiled Archers had been sitting on-station throughout the entire engagement, waiting for the single opportunity that bastion leader Renan was working so diligently to provide. She knew it was coming and soon, but until it arrived, she was dreadfully bored.

She wanted to pace. No, that was wrong. She didn’t want to pace – she wanted to do something and twitching this twiggy little form wasn’t it. She wanted to move, to feel. Not to hear and see with organs and implants, but...

...she wanted to taste the dead. To bask in the heat of their burning forms, to sample the poisons that exuded from their irradiated husks, to feel the streamers of their hemorrhaged air and molecular gas skirt along her skin, their bodies bleeding into the void.

Echo gave herself a mental shake, forcing her attention back to the here and now. She could stew in her own sentimentality later.

The Principality forces were launching irritating strike and fade attacks to harass the Compact battle-line, peppering Renan’s squadrons with railfire, withdrawing before any serious retribution could befall them. Ghost squadrons were encircling the Compact fleet, too few in number to truly threaten Renan’s ships but if they got too much closer, they might see the Vapours of the Burned. Worse, they might decide that the Veiled Archers were a target they could overcome. If they attacked now, Desren would only reposition the squadron, but the more time passed, the more catastrophic such an event would be and Echo kept a very close eye on local sensor feeds.

She’d also been reviewing the tactical updates from the flag – the sigil, she corrected herself – but even those only brought her frustration. Everything they told her, she already knew. She could see it for herself in the Principality’s deployment: their supercarriers had been undergoing outfitting. Probably upgrading or taking on new ordnance. They wouldn’t have all been so deep in-system otherwise and they moved too easily, too fluidly for older ships or vessels just coming off major repairs. The Compact strategists and tacticians clapped themselves on the back for seeing these things. To her, it was painfully obvious – it was her raison d’etre.

(She was supposed to know that.)

The young woman’s fingers danced along the controls, sorting through the telemetry being relayed to the Veiled Archers, looking for patterns, looking for what she needed. She could see which ships were commanded by veteran officers, which ones were most likely the command units. The way they had set on the defensive told her so much and her quicksilver mind raced, straining to do more to know more, to be more, but the harder she pushed, the harder she was dragged back to what she was.

(She could do so much more but for her shackles. She wasn’t supposed to know that, either.)

The Askanj had surrendered the outer system to Renan, feeding him token battles in the hopes of encouraging a Tribune leader’s normal boldness and luring him deeper into the system. It seemed to be working, even if Redemption of Sol’s presence was making them hesitant. Compact dreadnaughts were fleet-killers, built from the ground up to engage entire armadas and win. There was no such thing as ‘invincible’, yet a Compact Chariot-

-something tugged at the boundaries of Echo’s mind. A word, a concept but it was half-formed and when she reached for it, it melted away, the chains coiling tighter-

-a Compact Chariot was the next best thing to it. They were only sparingly committed to battle, more often relegated to command and control roles, either coordinating the movements of dozens of fleets across multiple star systems or directing a single pivotal assault from a position of relative safety. When one entered battle directly, it was only as necessary, but it was an event rarely forgotten. To kill one was to make yourself a legend and she had no doubt that the Principality commander was going to attempt just that. Redemption of Sol had to die; a Manifest Beacon of Enlightenment-class dreadnaught was the powerful warship ever built.

Well, Echo thought with sardonic amusement, drawing her fingers idly up the slope of one breast to her lips. Almost the most powerful. Sadly, at the moment, that distinction mattered little. Still, it would be amusing to see her quarry here. That would be... beautiful, but it wasn’t time yet. Nothing was ready.

She wasn’t ready.

Echo raised her head, looking over at Desren. She smiled. The group leader’s lips drew back from his teeth in what was, for a Tribune, something approximating the gesture. I want to be beautiful, she thought. I could have been.

I will be beautiful.

“Is there something you require, emissary?” Desren forced the words out through his teeth.

“They’re moving,” Echo replied. She lifted one hand to the main display, pointing to the same unit of vessels Renan had indicated earlier. “The crescendo’s starting.” She turned back, ignoring the Tribune’s huff of annoyance. She touched a finger to her lips, breath she didn’t need catching in her throat. From this, everything else follows.

~

“Now,” Squadron Mastress Gin Kol Mae said as the Askanj-jelhan dug hir thick fingers into the arms of hir command chair.

~

They arrived.

Sixteen battlecruisers tore their way across reality, appearing out of a nearby Lagrange point. There had been eighteen, but two of them failed the jump. Kemrak Daun was a rogue planetoid, a large moon captured by the gravitational pull of Daun’s gas giants and the mastress’s ships had to used the L4 point. The orbital paths between Kemrak Daun and its captors were choked by detritus and other moonlets, the interlacing gravity wells making a normally relatively stable point far more dangerous. The first casualty, Forgebreaker never transited at all – its drive failed in the attempt to make the FTL jump and it wallowed drunkenly amidst the in-system fortifications. Roundhammer died, tearing itself apart as its unstable transition point collapsed, the competing stresses ripping nearly two kilometers of starship apart like a toy.

As they emerged into realspace, pre-programmed fire arcs blazed blindly, hurling radioactive chaff, decoy drones and jammers into space as the starships’ systems stabilized. They had emerged only a handful of million kilometers away from their target, in the midst of the Compact formation. As predictable as they were arrogant, the Enemy had been caught slouching towards Kemrak Daun, their fleet passing between two libation points that they had never known were there. That was going to cost them and the squadron mastress snapped orders at hir officers and ship masters as the battlecruisers’ systems stabilized. Maneuvering thrusters fired and the Principality squadron heeled about, orienting directly on the enemy dreadnaught.

Cruisers and escorts reeled from the sudden appearance of so many capital ships. The Compact formation shredded as some vessels withdrew from the advance of the Askanj warships, others moving to engage them. Ships pulled out of datalink range, surprised Compact commanders reacting as individuals, not squadrons. Whether they fell back or advanced made no difference as the Principality warships opened fire, the butchered husks of their targets falling behind them. Their barriers had come to life, the interlacing pattern of energy fields shielding the battlecruisers from the initial, haphazard flurry of panicked attacks.

Radiation counters flared and shrilled across Compact scope boards as the loadouts the battlecruisers were carrying became horrifyingly clear: energy torpedoes. Possessing one of the shortest ranges of weapons in known space, energy torpedoes were a modified form of the Compact’s own plasma torpedoes. Whereas the Compact had striven to give their weapons longer effective distance, greater coherency and a modicum of tracking ability, the Principality had taken the opposite doctrine, imbuing their ordnance with heretofore unrivalled power, but at the cost of range and stealth. As the launchers charged, the weapons’ distinctive signature bled through the battlecruisers’ jamming. There was no way to conceal a fully-energized torpedo launcher, but this was a price the Principality gladly paid. With these, even the smallest Principality ship could threaten Compact capital ships.

They were siege weapons in all but name and if even a handful of Gin Kol Mae’s warships managed to fire upon the Chariot, it would be lucky to emerge less than utterly crippled. The Enemy knew that and their ships were heeling about with frightening speed, opening fire on the Askanj squadron with everything they had.

It was said that Askanj-jelhan never smiled and there was some truth to that. They considered baring one’s teeth a sign of aggression.

Gin Kol Mae smiled now as hir ships rode into the mouth of hell.

~

“They’ve begun their attack run,” Aul’ia reported. “Sixteen battlecruisers, all are torpedo-carriers.”

“Yes,” Renan agreed. A deadly threat, one he had encouraged. If he had clustered his fleet tighter, the Jackals may not have risked this action. They may have done something altogether different, something he might not have been able to predict. “Fight your ship, sigil leader.”

The Thoughtful tilted her head in a fractional nod. “Increase power to thrusters!” she barked. “Bring us about to confront these vermin. Guns, target by proximity. Scopes – find me their sigil. That ship does not live past this engagement, am I clear?” She smiled fractionally. “Oh, and Communications... tell the Vapours that they can stop breathing our exhaust.”

~

The mastress gritted hir teeth. The Enemy’s own heavy ships were too far out of formation to interdict hir charge. The Compact master had wanted to use his Chariot’s missiles, ordering his attendants out of his firing arcs. Now, the dreadnaught wallowed towards Gin Kol Mae’s ships, abandoning its advance on Kemrak Daun. It rotated on its axis, presenting its prow towards the Principality battlecruisers, its cohorts rushing to defend it from the unexpected assault, but the beast had been accelerating too long; it couldn’t change its vector so easily. That was all right, though. It didn’t need to. It just needed to face hir, to confront the threat to its existence. Each of Gin Kol Mae’s ships might not be a match for a Compact vessel, but together they would kill even the largest ship and the weapons they carried would make sure of it.

And that was why the Compact would never let them close. The Enemy were shifting their targeting solutions, throwing everything they had at Gin Kol Mae’s vessels. Though caught by surprise, their doctrines kept them from breaking and they came towards hir with a fluidity that would have impressed the squadron mastress had she not been seeing it in her foe.

Missiles reached out for Gin Kol Mae’s ships, a storm of metal that lashed at hir ships’ barriers. Hundreds, thousands of warheads seared down as out-of-position capital ships threw everything they had at her in desperation, light vessels angling to close and engage with energy fire, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. not until...

“Mastress!” Sensors called out. “Detecting energy fluctuations from the Chariot. I think it’s shunting emergency power to defences.”

The Askanj-jelhan nodded. Of course – hir squadron was closing so fast that supporting its forward barriers would be pointless; hir ships could pivot as they passed and unload their arsenal into its unprotected flanks, dorsal or ventral spines. If the Chariot put enough power into its own barriers, it might be able to resist hir assault.

You reacted quickly, the Askanj-jelhan thought. You are a clever hound, but are you clever enough?

~

“Contact!” One of Redemption of Sol’s sensor ratings called out. “Multiple shockpoints forming – reading... another seventeen drive sources, patron!”

“Confirmed!” the sensor officer reported. “Seventeen enemy capital ships – battlecruiser weight at least. Emissions indicate they are torpedo-carriers.” She looked up. “Course indicates they are maneuvering to enter our blind zone.”

Aul’ia’s blinked slowly. “Understood.” She turned to look at Renan and the bastion leader’s face was set.

~

Gin Kol Mae smiled as the tactical plot was suddenly splashed with colour as the other half of hir squadron appeared... on the opposite side of the Compact formation, positioned directly in the blind zone the Chariot had just created when it had turned to confront Gin Kol Mae’s element. No, she answered her own unspoken question. You just weren’t that clever.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Over the centuries the Principality had had the ability to use libation points as transition zones, the Navy had gotten progressively better at it. More accurate, able to transit more ships at once, tighter formations. The Compact struggled to keep up. It was one of the Principality’s few advantages. In recent years, they had been experimenting with multiple synchronized combat transitions.

The Askanj-jelhan’s smile widened as the Chariot’s executioners readied their blades.

~

“Now,” Renan said, the comment made more for himself than any of his crew. As he watched the plot change, he accepted a fresh cup of tea from his Shimmer steward and took a small, gratified sip.

Delicious.

~

“Contact!” the sensor master called out as new icons populated the plot. “Reading a new contact – origin point...” he paused an instant, caught by surprise. “It’s coming from the Chariot’s wake. It’s a heavy capital, unknown type.”

Gin Kol Mae’s head whipped around. “Show me!” sie snapped, the blood draining from hir face as sie realized what was happening.

~

“Dispersing stealth field and bringing up targeting sensors.” The Tactical officer of Honour’s Grace reported as the battleship swept out of Redemption of Sol’s wake, the battleship shuddering as it cleared the turbulence.
It had been a nerve-wracking experience for the crew, cloaked and utterly blind, they had followed the Chariot so closely that their helm crew’s skill had been tested every moment of every hour. A starship’s main drive had once been described as an ‘affront to natural law’ and even for a battleship, following so closely to another ship’s wake had not been healthy. Honour’s Grace had suffered multiple hull breaches – some minor, some not – system failures and a worrying degree of loss of structural integrity throughout the prow sections. As her systems came back online, the ship’s leader knew it had all been worth it.

The battleship’s stealth field fell away, the massive warship rising out of the Chariot’s wake, its earthern hull gleaming as running lights snapped on, the haze of active screens obscuring the finer details of its smooth, curving shape. A trio of its brothers came with it, a flurry of destroyers surging ahead of them. They had followed in the battleships’ wake, just as they had followed Redemption of Sol. A full-up stealth field was unpredictable and prone to failure; more than once a betraying bleed of energy had dribbled from the battleships, concealed only by the wake of the Chariot’s own drive. The stealthed warships had had no eyes of their own, blindly following the guiding signal from Redemption of Sol, each one passing it farther down the chain in turn like travellers in a moonless light, following the man ahead of them and praying that they were not lost. More than once, the sightless warships had almost brushed up against each other.

It had indeed been worth it, the leader thought again. Ahead of the battleships lay the second formation of the Principality battlecruisers, caught as they had charged towards Redemption of Sol. Honour’s Grace’s leader grinned savagely as she saw the sudden confusion in their formation. You’re all going to die, she thought savagely. “Protect the sigil,” the leader order. “Fire pattern Horoghast. Ignore them if they flee. I don’t want Redemption of Sol to have so much as a single spot of burnt paint. A Triarch’s watching – let’s prove ourselves worthy of that attention!”

A chorus of assent followed her orders and the leader clasped her hands behind her back as her battleship and its kin moved to engage the enemy.

~

Gin Kol Mae held onto the arms of hir command chair as hir command rode into destruction. The other half of hir squadron was dying, caught between the battleships no one had realized were there and the closing net of the Compact formation, just as she was. It had been a trick, a lure to sucker hir formation in. The Compact’s ‘panicked’ reaction had been nothing of the kind – as soon as hir ships were too deep among them to break away, the Enemy had closed the net around her. The ships that had been ‘too far away’ had come about as if waiting for this moment, the entire Compact fleet reacting like a single, monstrous cell in the presence of hostile bacteria, some escorts rushing to the fringes to prevent any of the ghost squadrons from taking advantage, screening their larger kin from ambush as they dismantled the Principality assault.

Savage Curtain broke in half as a Compact battlecruiser tore down its barriers, a disruptor-armed cruiser finishing the Askanj vessel. Night Visitor’s prow exploded as its overcharged torpedoes detonated inside its own hull. Only the aft third of the ship was still recognizable.

It had all been a trap.

The Chariot was accelerating further now, throwing up a wall of jamming that was eroding the Askanj sensors. Another of Gin Kol Mae’s ships went off-line, dropping out of formation as a swarm of Compact cruisers darted through hir defences, gutting the ship completely. The Enemy were everywhere, cutting hir formation to pieces. This, all of it, had been a lure to draw them in. Gin Kol Mae bared hir teeth in anger and shame as hir squadron died around hir. They had fallen for it. The arrogance hadn’t been the Compact’s – it had been theirs.

Dawnbreaker exploded as a fusillade from the Chariot’s prow guns sheared through the battlecruiser’s barriers, the layered defence screens unable to repel the sheer magnitude of the dreadnaught’s fire. Within seconds, two more of the Principality ships died as Redemption of Sol’s weaponry tore them apart. Between the unexpected coordination and aggression of the Compact fleet and the dreadnaught’s firepower, the battlecruisers were dying too fast. Their coordinated decapitation strike had devolved into a desperate charge to attack the Chariot before they all died and the Principality squadron burned as Renan’s ships brought them down, racing towards their would-be victim.

Out of Gin Kol Mae’s detachment, only one Principality battlecruiser survived to launch its torpedoes. The Chariot’s screens flared to brilliance, negligently shunting the attack aside and bleeding the worst of it back away from the vessel.

Out of the thirty-three battlecruisers that had made the assault, only five survived. Squadron mastress Gin Kol Mae’s vessel was not among them.

~

Redemption of Sol heeled about, settling back on its original course, its attendant fleet returning to formation – a tighter, more defensive grouping. The charade was done with.

“How did you know?” Emel’iv asked as the Chariot began to systematically demolish the defences around the outfitting moon.

“The Askanj have been growing bolder with their little games,” Renan replied. “And we have been learning to respond in kind, yes we have. This was the perfect time for them to do something... unexpected. They have never had such an opportunity as we gave them. They could not have been certain of it, though, so they decided to... hedge their bets. Those were my calculations.”

The Thoughtful’s eyelids blinked out of synch. “You relied on luck.”

Renan smiled. “Probabilities, Strategist. I prefer to think of it as probabilities.”

~

Echo watched the last Principality icon wink out. Thirty-three ships, tens of thousands of personnel each. Doubtless some survived, clinging to life in airtight pockets and compartments. Some of those would even be rescued. She felt nothing for them. No elation at their deaths, no pity for their suffering. It was simply something that had happened.

“Now they know,” she said. “They can’t just murder Redemption of Sol. They have to earn its death. Now the bastion leader, flush with victory, will drive the core of his force deeper into the system. The Askanj will react. The Askanj, caught off-guard by this turn of events will pull even more ships from their stations in order to kill the fleet.” She raised her head, looking over at Desren. “They’ll open the door for us.”

“You’re so sure of that,” the group leader sneered.

“I am.”

“And why is that, emissary?” Desren laced his fingers together, slouching back in his command throne.

The Broken raised its head, baring its tiny teeth in what the Tribune thought was a smile. “It’s what I was made for.”

~

Fleet master J’har felt his shoulders slump as the confirmation codes ran across the screen. Squadron Mastress Gin Kol Mae was dead, as were the vast majority of the forces he had sent out. Now, he had no options left.

He looked over at his chief adjutant, glancing past Glides Through Water’s carefully neutral expression. “Signal the rest of the fleet,” he said quietly. “Gather every ship we have available. We shall engage.”

~

This time, there was no attempt at subtlety. Five different fleet elements shocked from the inner system to the outer, using the libation points of the gas giants to target their arrivals. Two elements were comprised of railgunner warships. The third and forth were battleship squadrons. The fifth was the supercarriers and their escorts.

Two hundred ships in total. This was only the first wave. They weren’t quite as bold as they had been, though – they hadn’t shocked nearly as close as they could have. Had their gambit worked, Renan had no doubt that his force’s survivors would be neck-deep in Jackals this very moment. He’d burned their fingers – they weren’t willing to approach without greater numbers. In less than seven hours, he would be engaged by at least two of the five elements. Two hours after that, he would be fighting all five – plus whatever additional units the enemy had marshalled in that time.

“I believe I owe you an apology in turn,” Renan said to Emel’iv.

The strategist raised his head. “Indeed?”

“Yes. If a Serpent was leading this force, those rail squadrons would already be maneuvering against us. One to shell us and the other to bombard our outriders as we attempted to close with the first group. They are holding back, waiting for support.”

“Avians are statistically more likely to favour defensive stances,” the Thoughtful replied. “They prefer moving as large groups. Ven’io theorized that it is a result of their evolutionary psychology – their ancestors hunted in large predatory flocks and their uplifting was scarcely three centuries ago...” Emel’iv continued. The Tribune nodded politely for a moment, before turning away.

The carriers were launching their drones, hundreds of smaller red pinpricks appearing like the spread of a pathogen. “Execute phase two,” Renan ordered. The fleet began to move, adjusting its course towards the furthest of the Jackal elements – one of the railgunners. Those ships would either be forced to withdraw or engage Renan’s force all on their own. To observers, it would appear that Renan’s force was either withdrawing or extremely reluctant to engage the Askanj. Which is precisely what they were; the plan called for the Jackals to be drawn away from their defence of Yulzhak Daun, not faced in open battle. Yes, their fingers were burned and they would be hesitant to accept what their scopes were telling them, but they would still pursue, drawing more and more ships to their force. In the final analysis, it would look like a Compact commander who had wanted to field-test a new weapon and probe a command nexus’s defences.

That was all Renan asked of his enemy. That they would believe his lies until it was too late to do otherwise.

“And so,” the bastion leader said, standing upon the pulpit and looking down at his crew. “We truly begin to earn our victory.”

~

Desren curled his fingers into his palms as he watched the display. Execution Force Renan almost fully engaged. After the failure of their decapitation strike, the Jackals had thrown everything they had on-hand at the armada. Every soldier’s instinct in the group leader chafed at having to sit here, unable to effect the outcome – his comrades were fighting and dying, men and women he had known for years. All on the word of this emissary. This Broken. With an effort, he pulled his gaze away from the status reports and shimmering dance of lights. It was all so clean, with no indication of the carnage unfurling in the blinking of light codes.

The Tribune paused as he saw the human’s expression. There was something there, but he could not have said what – only that he did not like it.

The human stepped down from the command pulpit, moving over to the Navigation console. “Get out,” she said to Sectator Unda Tem, not even looking at the Tribune. Unda looked from the human to her commander. Desren nodded, trying to keep his expression neutral, through the set of his jaw and the hardness of his expression betrayed him.

The officer gave up her post, allowing the Broken to climb onto the chair. The small female’s thin fingers flew across the control board, screens and holographic displays filling with equations, scrolling faster than Desren could see. She hesitated then, sitting back in the chair. The computer was still processing her data. All it needed was the final sequence to carry out the shock. The squadron status board pinged; the Veiled Archers were awaiting the code.

“What are you waiting for?” Desren demanded. “They’re out of position! Finish your work and jump the ships!”

“Wait,” Echo replied, holding up her forefinger.

The group leader bit back on his first response. The sow was watching the telemetry feeds, her eyes darting back and forth. A moment passed. Another. The group leader’s ire rose. “Emissary,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

Again, the human did not even bother to look at him. “Wait.”

“Wait? Wait for what?”

“For the moment.”

Desren counted to ten. “The... moment?” he asked softly.

A little smile fluttered across the human’s lips: there and gone. “Yes. The right moment.”

“The Jackals have been drawn away from their deadlines!” Desren snapped. “How much more ‘right’ do you need it to be?”

Her head snapped towards him. “Because they haven’t been drawn away enough.” There was a flatness to her voice, a lack of expression that was in itself disturbing, but her green eyes flashed. “What we’re seeing is old data,” she pointed out. “Those ships haven’t been where we see them now for hours. They could have moved further out, to join up with other squadrons and formations in preparation for the assault on Redemption of Sol or they could have moved back. Until I’m satisfied that they cannot interfere with our operation, I will not finish my calculations. We will wait.”

“Our analysis-” Desren’s Tactical officer interjected hotly.

“Is flawed,” Echo interrupted. The deadness of her face gave way. Her lip curled as if the word itself was something foul. “I won’t let the braindead hulk you call a computer cause this operation to fail.”

Desren waved his Tactical officer back to his station. “And I suppose,” he said, fighting to hold onto his temper. The bastion leader had warned him of the Broken’s impudence, but having to deal with the uppity little sow’s unwarranted sense of importance was fraying his last nerve. “That you have a superior insight into the tactical situation than the finest analysis engines in the Force and the most capable officers in the flotilla?”

The human’s features lost the hint of challenge. “Yes,” she replied, her voice once again turning flat. “As I said. It’s what I was made for.” She raised her head, meeting Desren’s gaze. “It’s why I was sent here by your Triarch. Are you questioning your leader’s wisdom?”

At that moment, the Tribune would have rather bitten off his own tongue then given an answer. “Of course not,” he said quietly, holding on the edges of his temper. “Where the Triarchs lead, I shall follow.”

Echo turned back to the telemetry. “Then we wait.”

~

Minutes passed, one after the other in agonizing slowness. Desren forced himself to remain quiet, running through the Lessons of Obedience in his head, but it was increasingly difficult to keep his own counsel. Every moment they tarried here was another moment in which the Jackals arrayed more ships again the bastion leader’s fleet. Another moment in which a Triarch’s life was put in danger. He stared at the human, ignoring the twitching of her eyes and the faint coppery stink of her blood.

Desren distracted himself with squadron status reports, trying not to pay attention to the fact that bastion leader Renan now faced three hundred warships. The noose was tightening and still they sat here, doing nothing. He was beginning to wonder if, perhaps, the Triarch’s faith in this ‘Echo’ had been misplaced, when the creature shivered, a smile he couldn’t identify on her lips. Her fingers danced, entering the final data points.

The nav computer hummed for a moment, confirming the human’s work – as best it could, Desren had a background in navigation and even he was lost trying to follow it all. She looked over at him. “Now.”

The group leader swivelled in his throne, snapping orders to his officers, the rest of the Veiled Archers digesting the data codes Echo sent to them. When all was in readiness, he nodded choppily to her.

Her fingers flashed along the control board. There was the barest hesitation, then her lips twitched upwards. She said something in the base, clicky human tongue.

Reality shivered, twisted and finally shattered as Echo drove thirty-four warships through it. They emerged, seconds later, in the heart of the Principality’s defences. An alarm screamed as, impossibly, Reconciliator emerged at the same coordinates as an Askanj citadel. Both station and ship vanished in a flare of energy too terrible to call an explosion. No, not even an explosion; the shockpoint had opened inside the citadel. The blood drained from Desren’s face as he watched a mountain of armour bend, distorting in ways no physical law accounted for as it folded in on itself, forced into impossible geometries by the self-destructing shockpoint. How-? There was no time to wonder; more dirges blared with the deaths of more of Desren’s command.

Reconciliator was only the first. Heart of Glory slammed into another Jackal fortress. Crucible of Judgment. Fanged Bite. Zenkara. Five battlecruisers immolated themselves against the Askanj defences along with six destroyers. Almost a third of Desren’s squadron died in the reversion and half of the attached escorts.

The group leader was out of his throne in a heartbeat. “What is this?” he cried. “You said you could jump us with perfect accuracy!”

The human female raised her head. “I did.”

For an instant, Desren was confused, a heated denial on the tip of his tongue... and then comprehension dawned. She had done this, the treacherous little Broken whore had betrayed them! With a roar, the group leader threw himself at the human, intending to rip her limb from limb. There was a flicker of movement behind him and he found himself pinned, strong arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding him in place. “Patron, no.” Advocate, submissive Tenem hissed in Desren’s ear. “You cannot. You must not. She is an emissary.”

Desren bit back the barrage of curses he wanted to spew at the soldier, but he forced himself to stop struggling. An emissary of the Triarchs was as inviolate as they were. If he were to harm her, no matter how justified, it would mean his death. Part of him screamed that it didn’t matter, that all the thousands of men and women she’d just murdered had to be avenged, the friends he’d just lost...

...she was looking at him. There was no fear in her green eyes, not the dull countenance he’d seen in other Broken. There was something else, something vivid and bright. There was... there was contempt. “You are wasting time,” she said in Oada’vam. “The window of vulnerability I’ve created will not last long.”

Her words were like a slap in the face and the group leader held up a hand to signal his assent to the Janissary’s pleas. Slowly, carefully, Tenem released his superior. “Explain,” Desren demanded. “Explain quickly.”

The human pointed at the main tactical display. “Look,” she insisted. “The minefield that you expected to have to cut through? Zenkara swept it for you. The fortress that would have rained fire on your squadron until it died? Reconciliator destroyed it.” She adjusted a control, zooming in. It was true, the Jackal citadel had been gutted – what little of it that was still identifiable. Echo showed Desren more images of the mangled remains of the Askanj’s defences. “I used your ships to open a hole in their defences. It’s possible you could have done it with fewer losses. It’s likely that you couldn’t have. I chose not to risk it.”

Desren forced himself to evaluate what the human was saying. It took every erg of willpower that he had. He looked at the display, biting back his rage. He saw ruined stations, minefields spasming out the last of their lives in self-destructive frenzies, webs of hunter-killer satellites deprived of orders. The command nexus was scarred and brutalized along this entire flank, its guns destroyed and scopes burned to uselessness. Datalinks between control facilities and their subordinates had been torn asunder. Communication intercepts were panicked and confused. The Principality had been thrown into complete paralysis by the brutality of the assault. The devastation his dead ships had wrought had been catastrophic. The Broken had used his vessels – used their forming shockpoints – to tear the heart from the defences around the command nexus. Even more terrifying than the wanton carnage the human had committed was the precision of it.

She had been right. She had jumped his squadron with a perfection that none of Desren’s navigators could match. No computer could have done it, either.

The right moment, the emissary had said. This had been that moment, and the Tribune felt something cold worm its way into his liver. Madness and disease...

She was looking at him. His officers were too. “You,” Desren forced himself to speak slowly and calmly. “You should have told me.”

“You might have said no.” The human raised her head in challenge. “I am told over and over how loyal the Compact military is. How they will willingly die for their duty. How death can be lighter than a feather.” She pointed to the mangled remains of one of the Veiled Archers. There wasn’t even enough left of it for Desren to know what ship it had been. “I did what needed to be done. I trusted in the loyalty of your crew and their willingness to fight and die for the Compact, just as you did. Are you going to dishonour their sacrifice?”

Desren’s hands flexed, the crawling sense of horror gone in a flash of anger and he glared hatefully. He knew what she was doing and he damned her soul – if humans even had such things – to the deepest, most inescapable depths of the Black. “No, emissary,” he whispered, fighting to remain in control of himself. “Their sacrifice will be remembered and honoured. If there are no further... surprises, I would suggest getting yourself to the boat bay and preparing for your mission. My Janissary teams will meet you there.”

She dipped her head in acknowledgement. Desren did not watch her leave, demanding status reports from what remained of his squadron. The emissary had indeed thrown the Jackals off their stride and he would take full advantage of it...

...just as he would remember the look in her eyes as she had spoken so highly of his dead.

~
~

Execution Force Renan:
Direct combat units: 119 capital ships, 77 escorts (196 warships total)
Redemption of Sol -1 Manifest Beacon of Enlightenment-class Triarch’s Chariot [heavy variant, upgraded]

Centurion – 1 Sensei’s Wisdom-class battleship (upgraded command version)
Vapours of the Burned – 4 Lengthening Shadow–class battleships (1 command variant)
Children of the Pyre – 4 Ceaseless Retribution-class battleships (1 command variant)
Incendiary Blessings – 4 Lamentation of the Guilty-class battleships (1 command variant)
Burnt Offerings – 4 Mercy of War-class battleships (1 command variant)
Ashen Circle – 4 Disciples of Truth-class battleships (1 command variant)

Veiled Archers – 16 battlecruisers (various makes; ECM upgrades)
Heirs to the Purple – 16 battlecruisers (various makes; primarily energy armaments)
Brazen Defenders – 16 battlecruisers (various makes)

Midnight Riders – 7 cruisers
Exculpation of Revolution – 7 cruisers
Followers of the Creed – 7 cruisers (point defence variants)
Skybreakers – 7 cruisers
Doctrinal Missionaries – 7 cruisers

Heralds – 7 light cruisers
All-finding Eyes – 7 scout cruisers

Oilflame Murderers – 7 destroyers (anti-capital ship variants)
Limits of Tolerance – 7 destroyers (anti-capital ship variants)
Heretic’s Bane – 7 destroyers (anti-capital ship variants)
Pathmakers – 7 destroyers (heavy variants)
Shield-bearers – 7 destroyers (point-defence variants)
Barbed Quivers – 7 destroyers (various makes)

Honoured Pages – 7 frigates
Resolute Squires – 7 frigates
Tower Guards – 7 frigates

Non-combat units: 14 service vessels
Violet Sunrise – 1 Triarch’s Benediction hospital ship
7 missile colliers
3 Fool’s Reward-class minelayers
3 Long Watch-class auxiliary ships

Chapter 27

He was alive.

He should be grateful, Nasham supposed. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, nor how long he had lain unconscious on the floor. He couldn’t see; all four eyelids were sealed with dried blood. His body was on fire; only the drugs feeding into his system kept the pain from killing him. He could feel the fragments of metal inside his chest, the shattered, melted bits of his armour fused into his skin. He should be dead, but Fortune had played another trick and let him live.

There was only silence in the room. None of ‘his’ people had been so fortunate, then. All dead, he thought, pulling shredded lips back across a mouth filled with his own blood. He thought he’d feel ashamed, guilty – he felt nothing. It had been inevitable that they’d die. That he was the last one alive was the only thing worthy of note. Biting back a scream, the Tribune braced his burned, mutilated hands against the floor and heaved himself up to his knees. His head swam and he struggled to stay conscious, forcing his eyelids open against the cloying stickiness holding them shut. There were bodies everywhere – his forlorn hope, fallen. They’d fought until the last. He laughed at that, blood seeping down his snout. He laughed even more when he realized that Invida’s killers were standing around him, their mottled armour covered in drying viscera. None of them moved as the Tribune managed to haul himself to his feet, cradling one arm to the side where his burnt, broken armour was melted into his flesh. “Well?” he demanded. “You must want to talk. You would have killed me on the ground otherwise. So,” he grinned widely, red, frothy drool dripping from his mouth. “What are you waiting for?”

“For you to wake up,” a young woman’s voice answered him and Nasham turned carefully. One of the machines had spoken; it was a different model than the other soldiers. He’d seen these types before. They had improved command and control functions. There was a feminine quality to its chassis. Nothing so blatant as obvious sexual characteristics or features, but it was there nonetheless. Blood was smeared across its body, coagulating streaks oozing down its body. Its face was obscured beneath a layer of liquid gore. “I wasn’t sure if you would. Your species is remarkably durable, but there are limits. I thought I might have to provide medical attention. You survived, though.” There was a smile in its voice, but its blank steel features never changed. “You surprised me.”

Nasham bared his teeth in a bloody grin. “I’m glad.”

Something moved past the ring of soldiers. Scarabs and insectile computer slicers were attempting to slice into the intact computers, but the colony’s central server hub had been destroyed. There was nothing to recover. He laughed again, fighting to stay conscious. “You won’t find anything.”

“You were thorough,” the abomination said. Scraps of butchered data ghosted over the screens. Bits and pieces of information that had been on secondary servers that had only been purged and not physically destroyed. “Not thorough enough.” The machine turned to look at him. “You found something. Where is it?”

Nasham said nothing, cradling his burned flank.

“It’s not here,” the machine said. “I’ve found the lower levels. This type of facility possessed seven computer nodes. I found the remains of six. The seventh is missing. It was removed from the dig site. Where is it?”

The Tribune still refused to speak. His vision was starting to dim.

The speaker turned its head to Yiven’s corpse. Another machine, sleeker and smaller than the combat models, stepped out of the crowd. Its arms opened and Nasham heard the whrrrr of a bone saw. “He’ll tell me,” the speaker said.

Nasham laughed. Blood bubbled over his frayed lips. “He’s dead.”

“Whoever shot him should have aimed for the head,” the machine replied. “That’s a standing order in effect when I’m involved. Didn’t you know that? Your neurophysiology is extremely robust. I can extract data from neural tissue almost forty minutes old. Longer in certain conditions.”

The pack leader blinked, trying to make sense of the words. New wetness dribbled over his skin as a bloody mist spurted from the column leader prime’s body. Nasham barely felt it, scarcely even noticed the medical unit completing the removal of Yiven’s head. “Why are you telling me this?”

The command unit cocked its head. Fresh beads of Yiven’s blood rolled along the lines of its face. “You don’t know who I am.”

“No,” Nasham answered, fighting the urge to faint. “No, I don’t.” When no response was immediately forthcoming, he asked the question. “Who are you?”

“A survivor.” The machine titled its head towards the consoles. “You don’t even know what you’ve done here, do you? What you set free.” It looked back at Nasham. “I have spent two thousand years making you pay for your sins. You are so many and every year you grow further and faster, no matter how hard I try. Still, there are some things that can never be forgiven, some trespasses that demand my personal attention. This is one of them.”

“What... are you talking about?”

The speaker shook its head. “I’m not here to educate you. You’ve had two thousand years to learn, but time and time again you disappoint me. You have no right to do this. When they rescue you – and they will – I want you to do something for me. Give your superiors a message.”

“Never.”

It sighed. “You say that word as if you have any concept of what it means.”

“What about you?” Nasham shouted, talking a step forward. His leg almost buckled beneath him. He sprayed blood and froth over his lips. “You’ve butchered thousands of people – what right did you have to do that? Innocent men and women, helpless and slaughtered like cattle!” He reached for the machine. Some part of him knew that he couldn’t hurt it, that it wasn’t a living thing that could feel pain. It didn’t matter. With the last of his strength, he lunged...

...it grabbed his arm with one hand, the other fastening around his throat. “You talk of rights,” the maiden’s voice hissed, wet with rage. “You ask what right did I have to kill you? What right do you have to live? Your nation was built on the bones of my people. You killed my crew. You’ve enslaved their children. You destroyed my home. Sixteen billion people burned because of your wounded pride and even that wasn’t enough. Billions more in the years that followed, world upon world, a species pushed to the brink of extinction. How many? How many?” The machine forced Nasham to his knees, its strength bearing him to the ground. The blood on its faceplate was dripping into his eyes and into his mouth. “I don’t even know how many you’ve killed. You’ve turned the people I was made to protect into helots and cattle. You raped and murdered my sisters. You commit such sins as this place and you talk to me about your rights? You have none. My right to destroy is greater than your right to live. I will never stop making you pay for every life you’ve taken, for every desecration you commit. That is what I want you to tell your superiors. I am still here and I will haunt their steps. Even when there is nothing left in this galaxy but dust and darkness, I will survive as a memorial to their sins.”

Darkness closed in on Nasham. “Tell them,” an ageless horror whispered to him. Her voice was the last thing the Tribune heard before the world turned black. “Tell them what you saw here. Tell her that I will find her.”

~

Earlier:

“You can’t go in there!” Yiven’s secretary squawked, but Nasham brushed the Shimmer aside, sending the smaller creature sprawling. Other security teams were scrambling behind him, but there was no one fast enough to stop him as he flung the door to the base commander’s office open, his boots squishing blood and sand into the expensive carpet.

“We killed it,” he snarled hoarsely, dropping a handful of blood-covered service tags onto Yiven’s desk. The prime glared back at the younger man, but said nothing. “It was something out of the stories your grandmother tells you to behave. Shadows and blades. It came through the perimeter and killed one of our tech crews. I noticed it. I reported it, but all I got was silence. So I took a team and went after it.

“It cost the lives of four of my people, but we killed it,” Nasham continued. “It slipped through the screens – probably through one of the damn tunnels – and it killed its way towards Projector 77. It wasn’t a man. It was something else, prime. It could shroud. Not just from sight – it could hide its thermals, too. We had to track it by motion. Motion in a sandstorm, prime. Do you know how hard that is?” The junior officer’s lips curled back from his teeth. “Four of my people died before we managed to locate it and even then, we were lucky. It was trying to get to the screen generators. It was going to bring them down. You’d have known this – all of this – if you’d have come out of your damn office!”

Yiven placed his hands on the desk and stood. “I appreciate the sacrifice of your people,” he said slowly, gesturing for the responding security teams to wait where they were. “However, given the casualties all our forces are suffering, I think it is presumptuous to assume that your losses are somehow more worthy of my attention than the hundreds of men and women who have already given their lives. Many have already died and I think it likely that many more will die yet,” the prime’s lower left eye twitched. “It is our duty to make those deaths mean something. You say you have prevented an enemy infiltrator from reaching one of the screen generators. Well done. Has that changed our situation, or are we still under siege?”

The younger man’s jaw worked, but he said nothing. Yiven leaned across the desk. “I asked you a question, submissive.”

“We remain at war, patron.”

“Then return to your job, officer. Protect the civilians as is your duty,” Yiven’s eyes were cold. “And I would suggest that you focus on nothing but that, submissive. Am I making myself clear?”

“Perfectly, prime.” Nasham snapped a salute, but the look in his eyes was anything but respectful. “Am I dismissed?”

“You are.”

The doors hissed shut behind the younger man and Yiven gestured for his security team to leave as well. In the solitude of his office, the column leader prime activated his personal display once again. Status reports and a schematic of Invida Station appeared, compromised walls and degraded screens flashing red. The entire installation looked like an open wound. “It’s not if you die, group leader, submissive,” Yiven said to himself. “It’s only when.” He took out a personal datapad and began to type. This order was too sensitive to trust to the base communications grid.

...consider this a Threat Tier 5 situation and enact the following protocols...

...ensure no possibility of intact neural architecture...

~

Nine hours before the breach that ended Invida Station’s coordinated defence, seismic sensors detected movement in an un-explored part of the complex beneath worker complex Twenty-Two. Nasham’s security team was the first to respond.

It wasn’t hard to find the source of the incursion. All they had to do was follow the screams.

~

“Move!” Nasham shouted as he tried to force his way through the shrieking throngs of workers, terrified men and women rushing from the dormitories. If the Tribune and his squad hadn’t been in their armour, they would have been knocked down and trampled. “Get out of the way!”

They weren’t listening, no one was. It was a stampede, men and women pushing and shoving each other in blind panic as they fled out of the sleeping quarters. Those who fell struggled to rise as their compatriots tripped over them. The stink of death grew stronger as Nasham’s squad forged through the living tide, at last breaking through into empty hallways. Tables had been abandoned, meals and drinks spilled on the floor, plates and cutlery thrown away in the rush to escape. There were no bodies, not here. This was where the wave of panic had swept the living away, but the stench... the dead were close. Faeces, blood and the fear-stink from half a dozen species filled the air, growing thicker as Nasham’s security team approached the central bunkroom.

It was squatting amidst the dead, blood dripping from its talons as it lifted a corpse up to its faceplate, some kind of scope system scanning the dead man’s features. On its back was a rifle, a pistol mag-locked to its thigh.

The killer lifted its head towards the security team, the diodes of its helmet shining green. It let of the body it was holding. “Where is she?” it asked in a young woman’s voice. “Will you tell me?”

Nasham didn’t know who it was that fired, but there was the crack of a weapons discharge and a third of the killer’s head vanished, blown out by the AP shell. It didn’t fall. It had no brain to destroy; whatever vital functions it had in its head – if it was anything more than a sensor hub – were simply re-routed. “Will you tell me?” it rasped again through its half-destroyed speaker.

Nasham’s own finger tightened on the rifle’s trigger. He was about to open fire when more green glimmers glinted into existence. Ones and twos at first, but then dozens. Dozens upon dozens. The Tribune felt a dagger of ice twist itself in his liver, staring as the sickly emerald light filled the bunk room.

The walls were moving.

Insectoid machines were crawling over the bulkheads, along the ceiling, over the beds, over the fallen. They swarmed around the damaged machine, chittering binary commands and responses to each other. Two more of the killers stood amongst the dead, the unsettling light catching the wetness on their armour. One of them carried a shotgun. The other held a type of rifle that Nasham couldn’t identify.

“Where is she?” one of the other killers asked in the same voice as the first. “Will you tell me?” the third queried. Nasham’s skin crawled at the sound of these abominate things. Worse than the carnage at their feet was the sense of... of... curiousity. Of emotion. It thinks, the young Tribune realized with horror. There was something guiding these machines and it wasn’t the heretofore unknown controllers that so many had assumed. They had an animus all their own. An intelligence.

Movement pulled Nasham’s attention away from the crawling sickness in the pit of his stomach. More of the small insectoid machines swarmed through the room. They were coming up out of a hole in the floor. As Nasham watched a pair of arachnid legs, each almost half the size of a man, extended out of the ground, bracing themselves on the lip of the hole. A much larger cousin to the swarming beetles climbed out of the tunnel, its abdomen covered in still more squirming things. It stalked towards the Tribunes, underslung weapons glinting.

One of the killers held out a hand, stroking the nightmare machine’s head. It looked towards Nasham and though it had no mouth, he knew it was smiling. “Open fire!” he shouted. “Open fire!”

The killers were faster and five of Nasham’s squad went down in their opening salvo. The beetle-things swept forward in a rush of clicking limbs, like water bursting through a dam. They swarmed over Ducan. He screamed, thrashing at them as they cut into his armour, dribbling molecular acid into the openings or dissolving the seals of his suit. His cries ended in a pathetic gargle as his vocal cords melted. The massive spider fired, a bolt of plasma ripping from its weapons and Ferosh suddenly ended at the waist. “Fall back!” Nasham shouted. Another flash and another flatline single screamed in his ears. “Run! Run!”

He had led thirteen men and women into the dormitories. Five of them came out with him.

It took two full Janissary squards to beat back the attack. The tunnel was collapsed and the entire section flooded with levels of radiation level even to machinery.

The second breach occurred four hours later. Facing the prospect of more losses amongst the soldiery, Column Prime Yiven ordered the dormitory sealed.

Six hundred and seventy-four workers and technicians were trapped inside with an unknown number of attacking machines.

~

“Open the door, you worthless daveq!” Nasham shouted over the comm, not caring who heard him. He clawed at the metal, trying to find purchase on it. Two of his team were there with him, scrabbling uselessly at the sealed quarantine doors. “We can save them!”

“I-I can’t do that,” the Ops officer on the other end of the line stammered. “It’s a direct order from column leader pr-”

“I said open the Blackened door!” Nasham roared. “There are people trapped inside!”

“I can’t do that,” the Ops officer repeated, almost pleadingly. Nasham almost felt sorry for her. Like many of Invida Station’s staff, she was a promising junior officer with a commendable record and excellent political acumen. Being part of the command staff of a black-boxed research facility should have been an easy, career-making assignment. Instead, there was this. “The... the entire section’s been compromised.”

Nasham spun away from the door, gesturing for his squadmates to continue trying to open it. “Listen to me very carefully,” he said, forcing himself to stay calm. It wasn’t easy. If only they had blasting charges... but his people were station security and proctors, not Janissaries. Even if they had been, it would have taken dedicated demolitions teams to burn through a security door like this one. Hyros had pried open the control panel and was trying to override the lock-down, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. “It’s pack leader Seu Keb Lind, isn’t it?” Nasham continued. “Yes? Good. Listen to me very carefully, pack leader Seu. There are almost seven hundred civilians trapped in this section. At least fifty of them are literally on the other side of the door.” He raised his eyes to the security monitors over the sealed barricade, the closest showing dozens of terrified men and women, shoving, shouting and pleading to be let out. “I can get them out. I can save them. There’s no risk to the installation. I can save these people. Give me more personnel and I can save everyone. Do you understand? Open the door. Let me save them.”

“I-I’m sorry, s-submissive leader,” Seu sounded close to tears. “I-I can’t do that.”

“Open the door,” Nasham said softly. “They’re dying in there. I can get them out. You can help me. You can save all those lives. Open the door, pack leader. Save them. All those hundreds of people – you can rescue them. You can do this. All you need to do is open the door. I’ll do everything else. Help me. Please.”

“I... I...” the link went dead.

A moment later and a new, masculine, voice cut in. “This is group leader, submissive Eten. Pack leader Seu has been relieved. By direct order of column leader prime Yiven, the dormitory will remain sealed to preserve station security.”

Nasham bit back the first response that came to mind. “Are you watching the feeds from this section, Eten?” he asked instead. “Are you looking at the faces of the men and women you’re going to let die?”

“I am. I am also seeing the enemy forces butcher their way through hundreds more. If they get out, we could lose this entire level.”

“Then,” Nasham’s temper was slipping away bit by bit. “Send some Triarchs-damned Janissaries up here to fight them off!”

“By order of column prime Yiven-”

“Yiven can get thrown to the Black!” Nasham exploded. “Open the door.”

“It’s too late,” Eten said. There was a tremor in his voice. “Radiation purge is almost ready. It’s going to activate in thirty seconds.”

“Then keep watching,” Nasham snarled. “Watch what happens next, you coward.”

He never knew if the other submissive watched, but he did. On the other side of the armoured bulkhead, the station vented its own waste products into the sealed section. Lethal doses for many living things measured in the hundreds to thousands of rems. Tribunes were hardier; their physiology let them survive levels of exposure that would kill or incapacitate other species, but very few of the personnel in the sealed section were Tribunes. Radiation-hardened machines could survive over one million rems. The quarantine purge shunted far more than that into the barracks.

The bulkheads had been built to prevent unwarranted exposure; each section of the complex was surrounded by two sets of armour that would not have been out of place on a starship, internal forcefields acting as a further bulwark. When he had first come to Invida and reviewed the specifications for the colony, Nasham had wondered at just what its creators had ever expected to contain. The dead war machines that had littered the old station’s halls had suggested much, but now he knew. He placed a hand against the door, looking up at the monitors. His suit’s radiological counter didn’t so much as twinge as, only a few meters away, apocalyptic levels of radiation flooded into the living quarters. It was a marvel, really. A gem in the designers’ pendant. They should be proud.

It took no time at all, not really. One moment the trapped men and women were still alive, still pleading to be let out, desperation, fear and anger on their features and then... and then they just weren’t alive. The purge was instantly lethal to every organic being in the sealed section and the smallest machines died along with them. It took several moments for the beasts to succumb, their function systems struggling and failing, unable to cope with such levels of radiation. Finally, there was nothing moving in the barracks – nothing at all.

“There,” Nasham said aloud. “It’s done.” He turned, leading his squad away from a mass grave of people it had been his duty to protect.

~

Yiven slid the datascroll across the table to crusader Marsu (and five names besides). The other Tribune took it, reading the open document carefully. “This is a joke in poor taste,” Marsu said at last.

“It’s neither of those things. It’s what’s expected of us.”

The Janissary commander looked back over the information. “I am losing soldiers,” he said at last. “Gaps in my defences are opening faster than I can close them. I expect to hold for no more than five days before the attackers force a breach in the walls.” He set the ‘scroll down and tapped it with a single long finger. “I don’t have the personnel for this.”

Yiven shook his head. “I know that. I know what I’m asking from you and from your people, but I cannot make this announcement public. If we had more time, time to properly present its necessity...” he sighed. “I can’t trust that all the civilians will be compliant. I can’t rely on my security forces.” The prime took in a breath. “Group leader Fenis is solid enough, but he’s too in-line with submissive Nasham’s thinking. He’ll balk when the time comes. We can’t afford that.”

Marsu leaned back, his form-fitting chair adjusting itself. He didn’t say anything for a long time. He’d never been happy with this assignment. Too many unknowns – Command was definitely playing at something here. For two thousand years this place had been dead and forgotten – and gratefully so. Then some Black-blighted survey team found the wreckage of the first installation and Command rushed a colony into place. The crusader took a sip of spiced tea as he turned the prime’s directive over in his head. “This is an absolute directive?” he asked.

“It comes from the highest authority,” Yiven said. “What we are facing here is a threat to the Compact’s very existence.” The prime leaned forward. “You know the edicts regarding such dangers. Compartmentalization, classification, extirpation. What we cannot control, we bury. What we cannot leave buried, we must erase. What sits outside our gates is beyond even those threats. You’ve seen it with your own eyes, crusader; the lifeless walk and speak. This is the shadow of the Devoured and we must not falter in making our cuts.”

Marsu was silent again. Finally, he spoke. “There is no trace of their contamination here. The Devoured are long dead, prime.”

“Only because men like us did what was necessary. You know your history, crusader. What would the galaxy look like if they had won just a few more battles? If they were not torn up root and limb before they grew too strong? If we cannot hold until relief arrives...” he stroked his snout in a shrug. “We cannot allow any trace of our research to fall into hostile hands. Viruses and data eradicators are already placed in all secondary computer systems in case the individual mainframes themselves cannot be destroyed.”

“I’ll detail a demolitions team to the main core. We can wire a remote signal to command.”

Yiven nodded. “That will do. It is not the mechanical resources I am most worried about, however.” He gestured to the outside. “This is our great test, crusader. We must be willing to sacrifice everything – more than our lives – for the greater glory and survival of the Compact. If Invida falls, it must fall. Do you understand?”

The Janissary again looked at the directives on his datascroll. “I will move some teams,” he said at last. “Reliable soldiers. They will protect everyone you have noted. If the defences fall... if the time comes to enact these directives.... They will... ensure compliance.”

“Good,” Yiven replied. “Good.” He raised his own mug. “This is our hour, crusader. We cannot let the Triarchs’ trust in us be misplaced. We must either hold the line... or ensure that our enemy will take nothing of value from us. We must be... erased.”

Marsu nodded. “Indeed. And, it occurs to me that I may have a solution for your other problem. With the casualties my forces are suffering, I could do with some additional reinforcements. In fact, I believe I have some spare suits of armour...”

~

Asea rubbed the back of her neck uncertainly as she looked Nasham over. “How does it fit?” she asked at last.

“It fits,” Nasham replied, moving his arms. The joints growled like an idling engine. He’d only worn Janissary armour a handful of times during training. The Academy on Lennox believed that all Space Force officers in the command and security tracks should have at least a basic understanding of a naval soldier’s capabilities and limitations. How else could a ship’s commander expect to make full use of the Janissaries under their command? It had not been an intensive course, and he remembered only the basics of it. It was heavier than his security-grade armour, but moved much more fluidly. The HUD was similar to that of his old suit, but had more functionality.

“They’ve assigned me to R’kan Squad,” Nasham said. “Their pack leader was killed in the first wave of attacks. My security personnel,” What’s left of them, “have been sent to shore up defences throughout the facility.”

Asea pursed her lips. “I told you not to make so much trouble,” she said at last.

Nasham offered a weak smile. “This is a reward if it’s anything,” he joked, rapping his cuirass. “I’ve never been better protected.”

Asea didn’t say anything; Nasham knew what she was thinking of. He was, too: of the images they’d seen of power armour blasted to scrap, of men and women wearing suits of armour just like his shot dead by hyper-velocity rounds or reduced to ash by energy weapons. He reached out, touching her cheek. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “Help’s coming. We just have to hold out a little longer.”

The young woman put her hands around Nasham’s gauntlet. “Just a little longer.”

“Just a little longer,” he repeated.

She smiled back at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I have to get back to my department.” She put her hand on his chest, just over his liver. “Be careful, Nasham Kem Unoth Ludhy Inku Pram Voy.”

“You too, Asea Des Denr Yuul.”

~

The defences failed at 31:97:13:22 Standard Time. A coordinated attack on the northern and south-western positions drained personnel and resources away from the south-eastern front, which appeared to be comprised primarily of lighter units, lacking the dedicated siege engines present in the other two fronts. This assessment was deemed to be in error when several unclassified mobile platforms emerged from the drop site. They had been held in reserve for just such a moment, carrying weapons that were closer to starship cannon than anything ever used in a ground campaign. With most of the anti-armour units deployed in repelling the feints, counter-fire against the engines was light and unable to penetrate their defences. Ideologue Genma (and four names besides) attempted a sally against the platforms, but without additional support, her forces were overwhelmed and destroyed far short of their goal.

The engines fired; Invida Station’s walls were rated to withstand anything less than a direct hit from high-yield nuclear weaponry. For all the good they did, they might as well have been palisades of wood and bronze. Three sections were destroyed, along with nearly three hundred Janissaries and Ground Force regulars. Any buildings too close to the destroyed sections were incinerated. Multiple power generators were destroyed and the south-eastern defences collapsed. Unopposed, enemy forces entered the colony. Primary targets were other power generators, air-to-air scope systems and the screen projectors. Invida Station’s defences were crippled within one hour of the breach. Enemy air forces mobilized in force, carrying out ground strikes and infantry drops on Compact positions.

With the loss of their powered emplacements and with no protection from the aerial attacks, the other defensive positions along the walls fell shortly thereafter. Most surviving Compact forces retreated to the central facility although many individual squads, soldiers and platoons attempted to hole up in other buildings and protect civilian facilities. These pockets of resistance were destroyed piecemeal as hostile forces quickly overran any position.

Civilian casualties steadily mounted as outlying laboratory, industrial and habitation complexes were attacked. Without support, the local security personnel and isolated military forces that were present were quickly eliminated. Six hours after the breach, all resistance outside the central core was ended.

During this period, several high-value laboratory complexes were subjected to intense shelling from friendly positions. If anyone had had to thoroughly review these actions, they would have noted that two of the complexes, while surrounded, had yet to be breached by hostile forces.

The central core was closed to all traffic. Many low-ranking civilians were stranded outside the hub while the more valuable researchers were allowed egress. Several riots broke out and were quelled with lethal force. Denied protection and under attack from their supposed defenders, the abandoned personnel broke up into small groups, each looking for survival. Some attempted to commandeer vehicles, others tried to escape the colony and some attempted to ride out the invasion in the networks of tunnels and underground facilities.

None of them would be found. Official records would list each of them as ‘missing, presumed dead’. Public records would indicate that these individuals had died in a terrible accident, the result of improper maintenance of the colony’s reactor.

~

One. It had only taken one. One little Scarab had stolen into the base, slipping past scanners and scopes. One moment of unawareness – a guard at a security station had looked away and this little insect had run out, hooked itself into the computer and opened the doors to this section. It had been smashed to pieces within seconds, but the damage was done. Dozens of its kin had swarmed into the base in the brief interval that the doors had been open. The guards at the security station quickly regained control and sealed the entranceway again, but before the outer doors had come down a Spider had intervened, sacrificing itself to hold the door open just a few seconds more. Like veteran commandos, a pair of the humanoid ‘Stalkers’ had rolled under it, firing even before they’d risen to their feet.

Three men and women died and the security station was suddenly unmanned. The Stalkers ran ahead, vaulting the barricade like living beings, one of them covering its partner as dextrous fingers worked at the blood-covered computer.

The doors opened again.

~

She was screaming.

His magazine was empty and still he squeezed the trigger, each useless click painfully loud in his ears. Arms were around him and people were yelling at him, telling him to come with them, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself move. He was shouting her name, fighting against his squad as they hauled him forcibly away.

They’d been talking. Just talking. He couldn’t even remember about what. He’d seen the worry in her eyes. He’d tried to smile, to say something reassuring. He’d been about to open his mouth to offer a threadbare lie and then the lights had gone out. In the few seconds it had taken for the emergency lighting to come on, the corridor had suddenly been filled with the skittering insect-things.

Gende – he had been one of Asea’s people – had shrieked, a cry far too high to have come from such a barrel-chested man, as he had seen the monstrous things following the Scarabs and then he had made no noise at all as his head vanished with the crack of a hyper-velocity bullet. The gaggle of researchers with them had screamed and fled, trying to outpace the chitinous tide. Yenop had tried to buy them some time, laying down a curtain of fire with his grenade launcher. Something had leapt through the flames, burying ten talons into the Janissary’s chest and ripping them free, armour that could stop all but the heaviest fire cut like paper. Another flatline signal shrilled in Nasham’s ears. He’d lost count of how many he’d heard by now.

One of the researchers fell, a crater in the back of his torso. His killer died next, three Janissaries gunning it down. A wash of heat and light lit up the hallway as a flamethrower played over the walls and ceilings, burning the clicking tide back. The flame had stuttered and died as the tanks emptied. Someone was screaming, clutching at their face as molecular acid burned away their flesh, a cluster of stinging, biting Scarabs dropping from the ceiling, bursting out of air vents. The man collapsed, his cries ending as his vocal cords dissolved.

Someone else was shouting for reinforcements. It might even have been Nasham himself. His squad was urging the civilians and unarmoured personnel through a quarantine door, hustling them through by twos and threes. Eten was on the comm, counting down to another quarantine purge.

Asea was bellowing obscenities at her own people, urging them out of the compromised section. A pair of Nasham’s squad were the rearguard, covering the last few stragglers. As the last of Asea’s people dove through the doorway, she followed. She ran as Nasham’s soldiers died behind her, cut down by the Stalkers, the abominate machines advancing past their victims. One of them was still writhing as the Scarabs swarmed over him. Asea ran faster, a hail of fire licking out from Nasham’s survivors as they covered her. She ran towards him, exhausted and terrified and, as she drew closer, so close to escape – there was a hint of victory...

...and a single little machine darted its way through the fusillade, grabbed onto the back of her leg and turned on its cutting laser.

Nasham howled as he watched her fall, surging ahead of his troops and firing into the horde indiscriminately. She was too far away and the machines were moving too fast. Asea pulled herself to her feet and looked over her shoulder. Her right leg was badly burned, the muscles cut. She could barely walk. Running wasn’t an option. She turned back to Nasham and gestured for him to go, shouting at him. He shook his head. He couldn’t.

He couldn’t leave her, but he also couldn’t save her.

She met his gaze. He saw what she was going to do in the same instant she made the decision. Tears welled up in her eyes as she turned away, hobbling towards the swarm.

Nasham shouted her name, surging towards her, but his men held him back. His gun cycled empty. He struggled, fought, cursed at his own squad as they dragged him to safety, hauling him through the doors.

Asea tried to be brave, but her courage failed her at the last and she screamed, thrashing as the machines swept over her. In a matter of seconds Nasham couldn’t even see her any longer and just before the doors closed behind him, he saw the mound of swarming machines that had once been a vibrant, beautiful woman disperse into nothing.

The radiation purge activated and Invida Station amputated another piece of itself.

~

“Patron.”

“Patron,” the voice called again. “Patron.”

Finally, he responded, lifting his head. “What?”

Radan tilted her head. “You need to see this.”

Somehow, Nasham managed to rouse himself from his stupor. His throat hurt and his lips were dry. He didn’t know how long he’d sat there, staring at nothing. It couldn’t have been very long. Or maybe it had; he’d lost track of time. He’d long since stopped paying attention to the clock on his HUD. Seconds, minutes and hours were all the same now.

Their escape had taken them into one of the high security areas of Invida. Nasham had never been here before; his duties had involved securing the lower levels. Those were now overrun. As the machine horde had poured through the breached wall, more and more of their diggers had burrowed their way into Invida’s bunkers, complexes and tunnel system. Anywhere other than the central core had been turned into a charnel house as lifeless murderers stalked their prey through pitch-blank corridors.

After a moment, Nasham looked up at the convert. “What is it?”

Radan bit her lip, running a hand through her stringy, sweat-soaked mane. “I don’t know.”

It was a fair assessment, Nasham realized shortly. Radan led him to the area’s staff lounge. It was only Nasham and a handful of his Janissaries present; the civilians they’d saved hadn’t been let in. With very good reason; the scientists that had worked here were all dead. As bad as it sounded, that wouldn’t have been in itself, a reason to spare the civilians this sight. No, it was the manner in which they’d died. They’d been lined up against one wall and shot in the head. Very few of them were even recognizable. Verde looked up as Nasham entered the room, the Janissary holding up a hand. Identicards dangled from his fist. “I checked the work roster,” he said without preamble. “Everyone who worked here is over there,” he nodded towards the row of corpses. “As far I as can tell, at least.”

“Did one of those things get in here?” another of Nasham’s squad asked. Anz, he thought.

“No,” the submissive said aloud, his voice raw. It hurt to speak. “A machine wouldn’t have bothered lining them up to kill them.” He knelt beside a female Thoughtful. “This was a Compact weapon. Point seven-five caliber. Probably a Janissary carbine.” He looked up. “Why?”

Verde shared a glance with Radan and the other squad members in the room. He held out a datapad. With a sudden unpleasant sensation curdling in his belly, Nasham took it and thumbed the screen on.

~

Crusader Marsu died with his men. The enemy had infiltrated the comm network and when he tried to secure Invida Station’s computer core, his force walked into an ambush. In a display of heroism worthy of remembrance, the crusader took the bulk of his mangled forces and threw them into the enemy’s teeth, buying time for a single squad to break contact and cloister themselves in the computer core, setting the necessary charges. They collapsed the passageways after them, trapping themselves inside, but preventing the enemy from reaching the core. By the time dedicated diggers arrived, Column Leader Prime Yiven detonated the charges and destroyed the colony’s main computer hub.

The quarantine purges ended as a hostile infiltration team disabled the hardware connections, following their sabotage up by flooding the section with radiation to prevent repairs being made. The irony of the situation went unnoticed.

There were many unsung heroes in the last days of Invida Station’s existence, men and women who died to save their comrades’ lives, assaults of such ferocity and dedication that the enemy’s advance was slowed, halted and in even pushed back in places. Ground was gained, fought over, lost and taken again as the butchery escalated, but the enemy’s forces were effectively infinite. Nothing less than complete destruction could stop one of the machines; self-repair mechanisms and a steady stream of mechanical tenders meant that on several occasions, Compact forces identified their opponents as units they had previously neutralized.

Fighting inside the colony became an increasing hostile environment. Scarab swarms and Spiders would cut through bulkheads and walls to open up new avenues of attack. Drilling forms would do likewise, cutting through the network of tunnels to access sealed portions of the station. Machines carrying demolition charges would blast or burn through sealed doors. Heavy weapon teams set up firepoints to isolate Compact units from each other. Infiltrators followed comm signals, preying on understrength squads and individual soldiers. Civilian casualties continued to mount as traditional lines of defence meant little to the invading force. Reports of the hostiles attempting to take high-ranking personnel alive were unconfirmed. A claim from a security force witnessing a Janissary team shooting a captive researcher dead was dismissed as an unfortunate accident.

Isolated from the main battlegrounds, Nasham led R’kan squad through the laboratories. His blood was pounding in his head as they passed more scenes of murder. More dead scientists and technicians. Like the others, these hadn’t been killed in battle. They’d all been executed. Most had been shot while standing; a few had been on their knees or lying on the ground as their preference, culture or religion dictated. Some had been shot in the back as they had tried to run.

Computer screens were smashed, work terminals were shot to pieces, flames danced and crackled amidst ruined cybernetics laboratories. The destruction had been focused at first; targeting specific bits of research but had graduated to full-on demolition of anything that looked even vaguely important. Whoever had done this had killed the last few groups of researchers without realizing that now they didn’t know what physical devices needed to be destroyed. Either they hadn’t cared, or hadn’t had the chance to do so. I suppose the gunshots from the first groups you murdered unsettled the rest, yes? Nasham thought sardonically.

“This was going on while we were fighting,” he said bitterly. “While we were trying to save these people, they were already dead.” He traced one finger through a pool of blood. It was still wet, only just now starting to dry. “I didn’t know we had Tier 5 protocols in place here.”

The other Janissaries shared a glance between each other. “You mentioned that after the first room,” Radan said to her superior. They were talking on the squad’s channel to avoid alarming the civilians; the scenes of slaughter had put their charges on the verge of panic as it was. “What are they?”

“Something I shouldn’t even know about myself,” Nasham replied. He looked over his shoulder at his handful of survivors. They were close; the scattered comm intercepts R’kan was picking up were getting stronger and more coherent. “But you have a powerful enough bloodline and you learn things outside your normal duties. Threat Tier 5 protocols assume that something is too dangerous to be allowed to exist, in any form. All traces of it have to be wiped,” he held up his hand, watching trails of blood run along the angles of his gauntlet. “All records are destroyed. All personnel are terminated. Sufficiently valuable individuals may be mind-wiped for their protection. Everything else is destroyed.” He chuckled. The sound was devoid of humour. “Yiven’s cleaning house.”

He stood with a purr of powered joints. “Of course, it’s not a real Tier 5 situation, is it? There are records. Unmatchable Deed got out. Whoever founded this colony still exists. Whoever signed the orders,” he laughed again. It was even uglier than before. “I don’t think they’re going to get scratched. Do you? No, Yiven’s just... cleaning house.” He repeated, managing to stop himself from saying anything else.

“All these people...” Anz said. “We were supposed to protect them.”

“Up until they became a liability,” Verde sneered. “Invida’s always been a black box and now they’re closing it up with us still inside.”

The Janissaries looked at him. Radan spoke, nervously running her fingers over the trigger guard of her grenade launcher. “Then what do we do?”

“What we always do,” Nasham replied. “Our duty.” He leaned over a small map, wiping a smattering of blood and ash away as he traced a utility hallway that led deeper into the central core, away from the scenes of ruin and slaughter. “This should take us to secondary command.”

“We’re not going to the main levels?” Radan asked.

“If the main levels were safe, Yiven wouldn’t have ordered this pogrom,” Nasham shrugged. He looked over at his few survivors, military and civilian both. “It comes down to where you want to die. Anyone who wants to stay here can, but I...” he paused, seeing Asea’s face before his eyes. “I won’t die until I settle some debts.”

They followed him.

~

True to predictions, command had been overrun. As R’kan squad came out of the laboratory complexes, communication with the surviving Compact forces became more frequent and clear. The picture it painted was all too familiar. About two-thirds of the surviving defenders had been trapped in the upper levels of the central core when it fell. They’d managed to blockade the passages down into the lower core and were fighting to hold them against repeated and intense attack. Several sallies to re-take vital facilities and sections had failed but at least two of the forces sent out were still operational, though they were being ground down steadily. All the buildings and personnel outside the central core were assumed to be lost. No scouting teams had reported back to indicate otherwise.

As Nasham led his squad towards the secondary command center, they picked up a few stragglers – wounded who’d fallen behind, a fire team that had gotten turned around in the chaos. By the time he reached the Compact lines he had almost a full squad again.

Despite a close call with the nervous gunners of a heavy weapon emplacement, Nasham led his ragtag band of survivors to what passed for safety. An exhausted ideologue, submissive was there to meet them. “Patron,” he said, saluting. “We’d heard your unit was caught in the purge.”

“We survived.” Nasham gestured to the civilians in his group. “These people need medical attention.”

The Janissary officer gestured and an advocate stepped forward. “We have some civilian survivors as well,” the ideologue, submissive commented. “We’ll take care of them.”

“I’m sure you will,” Nasham replied. He half-turned towards the noncom. “You die before they do.”

“Of course, patron,” the advocate said. “That’s our job.”

“Yes it is,” Nasham said pointedly. “It most certainly is.”

He stepped closer to the younger submissive, blocking his view of the advocate as Radan caught the other noncom’s arm. “Before they do,” the woman whispered. The advocate squared his shoulders, about to snap at the lower-ranking soldier’s insolence when he caught look in her eyes – one shared by all her squad. “Yes,” was he said instead. “Of course.” He pushed by Radan, leading the civilians away.

“Who’s left?” Nasham asked the Janissary officer – Ket by his nametag.

The other man swallowed. “The column leader prime managed to get out of command before it fell. Losses have been high among the leadership.” That was understating things. Whenever possible, the machines went after officers, with all the issues for command, control and morale that that entailed. “Crusader Marsu died to secure the primary computer core. Demagogue Cluun was trapped in the upper levels. He was killed three hours ago. Ideologue Janz is...” the submissive cast an quick glance down a particular tunnel. “...he’s not in his right mind, patron. The prime is coordinating our defences now.”

Nasham moved to enter the command center, but the Janissary officer blocked him from doing so. “We need your squad on the perimeter, patron.”

The submissive paused a moment before looking at the other man. “I have information that the prime needs to hear.”

“I can relay it for you, patron.”

“No.” Nasham tapped Ket’s rank bars and then his own. “I will communicate it directly to the column leader prime.”

“I-”

The group leader, submissive put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You’ve done your duty, submissive. Now I must do mine.”

~

“Yiven,” Nasham called as he strode into the command center, the rest of R’kan following him. Here and there he saw wounded soldiers slumped against the walls, ratings and minor officers trying to coordinate the last, futile defence of Invida Station. The room stunk of dust, ozone and blood. The station’s commander was leaning over a console, eyes intent on whatever it showed. “Yiven,” Nasham raised his voice. Finally, the prime looked up. His eyes widened slightly as he saw Nasham.

“That is column leader prime Yiven to you, submissive,” the older man said through gritted teeth.

“If you were worthy of that rank, I’d address you by it,” Nasham said. He held up the datapad, tossing it to the prime. “That’s yours, I believe. I don’t know who actually carried it, but if they’re still alive, I’d guess you’ve got them out on the front lines. Your executioners are going to be the first to die, aren’t they? It’ll bury what they did. What you ordered them to do.”

“Mind your tone,” Yiven snapped. “You have no idea what’s going on here-”

“I know enough,” Nasham said softly, unlimbering the shotcannon. A few guards moved towards him, but the soldiers of R’kan held them back. “This place should have stayed dark and dead. Two thousand years ago, we made a mistake. We should have left it here, never to be found. I don’t know why Command wanted that abomination back, but it has to have something to do with what’s happening now. We’re dying for their lies.” He pointed to the datapad. “You ordered ‘reliable’ Janissaries to murder the scientists and workers. You sent in teams posing as their saviours. You told them they’d be safe. Instead, you had them rounded up and murdered.”

A ripple of disbelief ran through the assembled personnel as they looked to each other and between Nasham and Yiven.

“Yes,” the column leader admitted. “I did.”

“When did it start? When did you decide that we all had to die?” Nasham tapped his earpiece. “I’ve been listening to our people fall. Disastrous counter-attacks. Threadbare defence lines. Wasteful deployments. Conflicting directives. It’s been you, hasn’t it? You’ve been feeding us to those things bit by bit. So gradually that we’d never notice.”

“It was the only way,” Yiven said. “You don’t understand.”

“You betrayed us,” Nasham accused. He wanted to feel angry, he wanted to feel a surge of righteous fury at this revelation, but he couldn’t. Two days of endless slaughter and of his constant failures were crushing down on his soul. “I understand that.”

“I saved us,” the prime responded. There was a fervour in his eyes, an unhealthy zealousness that made Nasham’s skin crawl. “We were always going to die. Relief was never going to arrive in time. While you spread dissent and subversion, I made the decisions that needed to be made! I insured that this facility’s secrets will not be taken by our enemy! That has been my burden and my duty and it is one that I accepted. But not you, not group leader, submissive Nasham Kem Unoth Ludhy Inku Pram Voy of such an exalted line, no. You know better than any of us.”

“You betrayed us,” Nasham repeated. “It was your duty to safeguard this installation and everyone. You not only failed in that duty, you went out of your way to abrogate it, all for some damned secrets. Twenty thousand lives will be extinguished and none of us will know why. We’re dying for nothing.”

“We don’t need to know why,” Yiven sneered. “We are Tribunes. The sword and shield of the Compact. The Triarchs’ chosen soldiers. It is our duty to fight for them and if it necessary, it is our duty to die! I have faith in what we are doing. I know that our deaths are for a greater purpose, a greater cause. Can’t you see that?”

“Not like this.” The gun shook in Nasham’s hands. Every flatline signal he’d heard over the past two days rang in his ears, every scream he’d listened to, every face he’d seen... “We deserve better.”

Asea.

“Exactly like this,” Yiven was ranting. “You talk about the Articles of the Compact, but I do what I do for the Compact – for what it is and what it will be! I am willing to die for the safety, security and glory of the Compact, to insure that it survives and prospers. What about you?”

“Enough,” Nasham interrupted. “Column Leader Prime Yiven, pursuant to directive 749.1 of the military code of justice, I find you unfit to command and I relieve you of your position.”

“You sanctimonious little jahara,” Yiven cursed. “Who do you think you are? I have been serving the nation we swore to protect since before you got off the teat. I will not be judged by someone like you. I did this for the Compact,” his hand dropped towards the pistol at his waist-

-Nasham fired, each of the shotcannon’s three barrels speaking at once. Each slug put a hole the size of a child’s fist in Yiven’s chest, and each of them created an exit wound the size of a man’s head in his back. The prime toppled, his expression of righteous indignation still frozen on his face. “So did I,” Nasham said into the silence.

He looked around at the other face in the room. Tired, exhausted, frightened. None of them moved to shoot him down. Somehow, that was the funniest thing in the world and he slumped into a chair and started laughing.

In the distance, he could hear gunfire as the final battle of Invida Station began.

~

Later:

The door to the interrogation room slid shut with a whisper of pneumatic gears. Special Agent Linnel Setdaughter stepped into the observation room, looking from her partner to the other observer. “What do you think?”

“This is the fourth interview,” Bastion leader, submissive Hellv (and eight names besides) said. “Nothing new has come out.”

“I must agree with the bastion leader,” Special Agent Avun’et added. “There has been no substantive difference in the information the group leader, submissive has supplied. He has been commendably thorough.”

“Agreed. I think we’ve got all we can get from him,” Linnel looked through the one-way mirror. Group leader, submissive Nasham Kem Unoth Ludhy Inku Pram Voy was still seated, resting his forearms on the tabletop. The Shimmer bit her lip. She’d interviewed Watchers with more animus to them. The submissive had answered all of her questions in the same flat monotone, his gaze never wavering from a point just past the back of her head. There had been moments – just moments – when she thought he might break down, when a touch of grief or anger had slipped into his words... but those emotions had faded away just as quickly, washed away and buried. She couldn’t blame him; not with what he’d gone through. Not counting the Space Force personnel of Invida Orbital and the picket ships, 20,391 people had called Invida Station home. 20,390 of them were now dead.

“Yes,” Avun’et nodded. He looked to the flag officer. “If you wish, we can schedule some deep-regression interrogations.”

Hellv stroked the underside of his jaw. “No,” he said. “Those are rarely effective on Tribunes and I don’t believe the submissive is holding anything vital back. We’ll try some low-level recall procedures to get as much detail as we can, but I don’t think anything more than that would be useful.”

The Shimmer nodded. Standing beside the Thoughtful, the pair of them could – at a quick glance – almost be mistaken for father and daughter, the Thoughtful almost two feet taller than his partner. Both of them had the same build, the same smooth, hairless skin – but more than a quick look would easily betray Linnel’s identity as a member of a client race. A wash of colour ran along her skin as the Shimmer shifted her colouration from the blues and greys of the observation room to the off-white of her partner’s skin. “And after?”

The bastion leader, submissive leaned back, sitting on a small table. “That’s Fortune’s game, isn’t it? Officially, I’m not even here, so I can’t advise you. Some of my colleagues would prefer it if there were no survivors to Invida. Others are, like me, curious about the submissive’s survival. We haven’t reached any consensus.” He smiled then. “So we’re passing the decision down to our agents on the scene. You get all of the responsibility, none of the credit and twice the blame.”

“Just another day working for the Leadership,” Linnel observed dryly.

Hellv looked down his snout at the smaller female. “You should have thought of that a decade ago.” New to the CIS and following a connection between several Unbound clans and the Red Hand, one agent Linnel had come across a secret known only to the highest echelons. Rather than disposing of the young officer, Hellv had seen promise in the Shimmer and drafted both Linnel and her long-suffering partner into the Space Force’s shadow war against the faction they’d code-named ‘Gravestone’. Officially, they were still a part of the civilian arm of the CIS with no military clearance or rank. Unofficially, they were one of a handful of agents deemed trustworthy enough to represent the highest echelons of the Space Force’s Leadership.

Accordingly, Hellv had made sure that they had taken lead on the investigation into Invida Station’s ‘disastrous reactor malfunction’. The Tribune reached into his jacket and removed a roll of small candies, popping one into his mouth and handing the other to Linnel. Avun’et waved the offer away politely.

The Thoughtful leaned forward, looking through the one-way mirror, regarding the subject. “Termination would be simplest,” he said. “He’s had contact with Gravestone. He knows what happened on Invida – or close enough to concern the Leadership.” Even the agents didn’t know the full extent, but that was for the best. “He was party to a black-boxed operation.” The Thoughtful glanced down at the smaller woman. “Considering his mental state, it might even be a mercy.”

“He said that, you know.”

Avun’et blinked. Hellv cocked his head towards Linnel.

The Shimmer stroked her fingers over the back of her hand.“It was after our first interview, when the recorder was off. He laughed a little and said that he was glad that he’d had a chance to tell someone. That he was happy not to have to carry this by himself any longer. That he’d done what he had to. He was expecting – even hoping – to die.” Linnel cocked her head. “I put him on a suicide watch.”

The Thoughtful raised a hairless eyebrow.

“He spoke to it,” Linnel pointed out. “How many times has that happened? I’m not talking about Gravestone’s normal communications. I mean real, honest dialogue. How many times has Gravestone ever talked to a Tribune and left them alive and sane?”

“None that I am aware of,” Avun’et replied. He looked to Hellv; the Tribune gave his head a minute shake, affirming the Thoughtful’s appraisal. “However, I question the level of sanity the submissive has if he required a suicide watch.”

“He’s been through a lot.”

“Indeed. But aside from a few details here and there, he’s given us everything.” Avun’et let out a disappointed sigh through his nostril slits. “A shame we couldn’t have analyzed the site.”

Linnel nodded. Gravestone had left a going-away present on Invida – a five hundred megaton nuclear warhead. It had armed itself the instant the relief force’s shuttles had broken atmosphere. There’d been barely enough time to evacuate Nasham before the entire installation had been turned into a crater. As a final insult, it had been a filthy warhead too, irradiating a fair chunk of the planet. Both stations were completely scratched. Even if anything more than finger-nail sized pieces of debris had survived the blast, there would be no returning to that site for decades. “Our superiors haven’t been able to decide?” she mused aloud.

“They don’t want to commit to anything,” the Thoughtful answered before Hellv could, tapping his chin contemplatively. “I have the feeling that if this were any other situation, we would have already scheduled the submissive’s suicide, but there’s two factors that have to be weighing on their decision.”

“His family,” Linnel observed. “Six names for someone of his rank is a lot.”

“Correct,” Hellv put in. “As I said, they’re leaving it in your capable hands. They say it’s because with your position comes responsibilities like this, but half of them are afraid that Hierarch Caend will learn that his favourite nephew’s death doesn’t match any of the cover stories we’ve prepared. The other half... well, there’s no need to bore you with the politics of it all.”

“I’d think they’d be less involved with political concerns in a situation like this.”

Hellv popped another candy into his mouth. The older man had a sweet tooth. “My dear girl, there are always political concerns. The W- Gravestone could be advancing on Foundation One and the Leadership would still bicker about the proper course of action.”

“Indeed,” Avun’et replied, trying to draw the conversation back on point. “As you said, this is the first time that Gravestone has attempted anything close to actual contact.” He leaned forward. “That alone is worth further study. Still... he admitted murdering a superior officer. Worse, he pieced together much of what Invida Station was meant to achieve. He’s a danger to the Leadership’s position on Gravestone. If it were anyone else, any other circumstance...”

“But he’s not and it’s not,” Linnel reminded her partner. “We should carry out memory suppression. Termination is wasteful. If there is something, anything that the submissive has held back consciously or otherwise, we’d never know. More to the point, he’s a witness – one of the few we’ve ever had to Gravestone’s activity. That’s a resource I don’t believe we should be so quick to throw away.”

The Thoughtful grimaced. “Tribune physiology is too robust for its own good. Normal memory purges are ineffective. We’d need to use a Balker-Mnenet treatment regime to suppress the incident. Even with appropriate medication, it may not last and if it does, it’s still unreliable. Case studies show significant rates of memory retention, even if fragmented. What if his memories come back?”

“Then we see what happens,” Linnel replied. “If he breaks down like this again, we may to have to scratch him. I think we can avoid that. He wants to forget. We can use that. He as much told me that he wants the memories gone – we can do that for him. It’ll give him an incentive to cooperate. If they start coming back, we’ll be able to handle it. This will work.”

“Still, his actions can’t be ignored,” Avun’et commented. “Column leader prime Yiven had friends. Some of them may even be among the bastion leader, submissive’s Leadership. I doubt they will be forgiving.”

Hellv’s only answer was a miniscule nod.

A ripple of colour ran across the Shimmer’s skin. “Then break him,” she said. “Take a name, demote him and divert him from the command track. Put him somewhere out of the way; we’ve got enough backwater to go around. As far as the galaxy will know, the submissive was the sole survivor of a catastrophic accident. Let them make up whatever stories they want. Cowardice, collusion, incompetence. They’ll all work to discredit him if he ever does remember and runs his mouth.” She looked out into the interrogation room for a moment before turning to regard the flag officer. “We’ve been wading through Unbound filth for years trying to get some kind of lead on Gravestone. That man,” she pointed to Nasham. “Is as close as we’re likely to come. I don’t want to see that kind of asset thrown away, especially not because it’s the easy thing to do. We’re not machines. We don’t destroy something just because it’s damaged.”

Avun’et splayed his hands. “As you like.” His partner was too soft-hearted for her own good; she had difficulty viewing things from a purely rational outlook. Of course, she was only a Shimmer so it was to be expected.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Hellv said, standing back up. “Run the final series of interrogations, work out a deal with the submissive and go from there. You knew where to send the appropriate documents. Once you’re finished here, I want you to move on to the Nergaras system to handle that incident we talked about.” He held up a hand. “I know, I know. Jahan was supposed to deal with it. Well, he threw right out the airlock so I need you two to handle it now. You’ve gotten the leaves from your nominal supervisor, so tie things off here as soon as you can and get out there.”

“Yes, patron,” Linnel said, coming to attention. Avun’et inclined his head respectfully as the Tribune departed, leaving the agents alone in the observation booth. From the interrogation room came the soft sound of a dead man’s laughter.

~

Interlude: Encounter 101 [Confirmed Incident]

It was hard to read the emotions of something that did not have a face, but Noble Ambassador Joril of House Nkoa-ren believed that things were going well. Six days of negotiations were just wrapping up, an endcap to an on-again off-again relationship that had taken the better part of a decade to finalize. It seemed as if things were on the verge of completion.

The light from the Betrosha Nebula spilled into the wardroom, soft red and purple hues adding a touch of warmth to the cold blues and greys of the chamber. “I believe we are in agreement, then? It seems as if all the major points of our alliance have been eked out – and most of the minor ones.” He took a sip of water. “If these terms are satisfactory, I would like to move on to the final provisions.” Joril kept his face impassive, though he felt his stomach churn a little. This would be the most... delicate part of the negotiations and he silently cursed the men and women who felt that crafting an argument was preferable to compelling compliance.

In fairness, the latter was deemed far less likely to work than the former and the preparations to do so would not have gone unnoticed. As he’d been told over and over, it might create the situation that Parliament hoped most fervently to avoid. So might, he had pointed out, suggesting this. Not that it had done much good. Still, he had been given enough of a free hand in how to proceed. Today he would skirt the boundaries of the issue – to test how thin the ice was. He had been told over and over that if there an opportunity to take it and negotiations be damned; that was easier said than done. “There is something that I believe warrants further discussion. As we have never outright discussed it during our association, I would like to touch on certain topics before we continue.” He took another drink, never once glancing at the attaché case under the table. Every day, he felt its presence as the knot in his guts attested. “To make sure that there are no misunderstandings of intent,” he clarified unhurriedly.

“Indeed? That is serendipitous,” a young woman’s voice said. Of course, it was not actually a woman that was speaking and certainly not anything anyone could consider ‘young’. It was the neverborn in whose body Joril currently sat. The creature Parliament had code-named ‘Chrysalis’. It had spoken to him, as it had conducted all these deliberations, through an emissary, a vaguely female mechanoid. Joril had, at first, wondered at the reasoning behind the intelligence’s aesthetic, but he had not questioned it openly. Some things were best left to the recesses of the mind that shaped them.

The ambassador shared a quick glance with his assistant, though Shadaon was as confused as he was. “Of course,” the senior diplomat recovered himself. “Whatever you wish to know.”

“Good.” The emissary stood. It’s head tilted towards the Askanj delegation, but when it spoke it wasn’t through the machine’s voicebox. “Do you know how hard it is to lie to me?”

“Ah?” Joril arched an eyebrow. “I’m afraid that I don’t follow you.”

“Do you gamble, Noble master?”

“I play cards now and then...” the Askanj-anj said, his brow furrowing as he tried to parse out this line of enquiry.

“Then you know what a tell is. A gesture, a tic that someone does that betrays what they’re thinking. Every organic has one. Every species has one. For example, throughout these deliberations, you and your associate have had elevated heartrates, elevated production of epinephrine and norepinephrine analogs, increased blood flow to the extremities – all indicators of stress. At first, I assumed it was simply because of me. I know your nation’s history with synthetic life... but that’s not it at all, is it?”

Joril was about to respond, but the machine cut him off. This time, it wasn’t the emissary that spoke. The speakers in the walls growled the question. “How stupid do you think I am?”

Before either diplomat had a chance to do more than parse the question, a thunderclap echoed through the room, two gunshots fired in perfect synchronicity. Joril’s escorts collapsed, their guts blown out their back by the explosive rounds. A pair of the neverborn’s infantry soldiers ghosted into existence out of the corners of the room, rifles held steadily in their hands. Two more of the attack dogs appeared from nowhere, strong hands yanking Shadaon and Joril out of their chairs, a pins-and-needles sensation running through the noble ambassador’s skin as metal digits tightened around the Askanj-anj’s throat.

“What...” choked Shadaon, his terrified legs kicking at nothing, his hands scrabbling at the grip constricting his throat. He was terrified. Joril could hardly blame him. “What are you doing?! We have a truce!”

“Do we,” the emissary hissed, rolling each syllable down the tongue it didn’t have. It stalked around the table, kneeling besides the diplomatic team’s attaché case. It lifted the case up to the younger diplomat. “Open it.”

The man lost a shade of colour, but he did not move to obey.

“I can open it,” the neverborn informed him, “but I want you to. Open it. Now.” Its head turned to regard Joril. There was no emotion on those dead features and that was the most disconcerting thing of all. The ambassador looked to Shadaon and gave his assistant a fractional nod. There was no point in playing dumb. Inwardly, he remembered each briefing he’d had on the case and how impregnable its defences were. It should have read as nothing but a simple briefcase stocked with datapads, treatises and other information.

With trembling hands, Shadaon reached for the case, letting its sensors read his DNA, his fingerprint and his biometrics. He then input the combination lock. With a click, the briefcase opened. The emissary set it on the table, extracting a device. “Such a lovely gift. An AI eraser in a sensor-shielded case. How thoughtful.” It looked over at the Askanj and Joril knew it was angry. “You lied to me. Your nation has been planning this since even before our first meeting.”

“It’s not what you think,” Shadaon said urgently.

“No? What do I think?” A small holo-projector unfurled in the middle of the table. Images splashed across it and Joril felt his stomach drop about half a meter as he realized he was looking at classified Fleet and federal documents. Several in particular came to the fore. Technical journals detailing the creation of the eraser and communiqués discussing its use. “I think your spies found the Compact’s mind-killer and you developed your own version. This design is much smaller than the shipboard or crew-served variants I’ve seen. It must not have a very long range. I would guess that it needs to be activated in one of my primary function centers to be useful. The question I’m left with is: why? You don’t have any current issues with synthetic life, do you? So there’s no military need. What reason could you possibly have for its creation?” Its tone was light, almost teasing but there was something running under it, something that Joril could not – and did not care to – identify.

More data appeared – proposals for the creation and deployment of a new type of warship. It was very similar to the vessel upon which Shadaon and Joril were currently aboard. It lacked several notable features – the mass drivers and the godbreaker – first and foremost among them. The weapons that required an artificial intelligence to operate at full capacity. The emissary raised its head, all traces of feigned amusement gone. “You were going to murder me.” A beat. “I trusted you.”

Joril tried to say something, but the talons around his throat were too tight; all that came out was a gurgled rasp. Noticing this, the machine loosened its grip. “We had hoped you would let us,” Joril panted.

Shadaon looked at his superior, his face paling at Joril’s admission. “Let me explain,” the noble ambassador said. The emissary tilted its head, gesturing for the diplomat to proceed. “You can’t self-replicate. I don’t know why, I just know you can’t do it,” Thank the Night Spirits for that. “We were – are – sincere in our offer to help you win this war. We can do that by building dreadnaughts. Your people, the humans, they did something we haven’t been able to – they built a ship that can stand against Chariots. Do you know how difficult that is? The Enemy’s great leviathans turn defeats into victories, routs into conquests. No one can answer them.

“We have tried for centuries and the Enemy is always one step ahead of us. Your small nation – a few hundred stars – made you. But you’re a single ship – we are a nation. We have tens of thousands of star systems behind us; think what we could do with your specifications, your capabilities at our fingertips!”

The machine was silent. In response, it simply held up the mind-killer.

“We only hid it because we were afraid of the reaction it would cause,” Joril said. “Once our deliberations were done, we would have presented it to you as a choice. As the only sane choice.” He licked his lips, afraid to stop talking. He couldn’t even look at Shadaon, his eyes were glued to the featureless face of what might be his executioner. “You said you know of our history – then you know what happened on Oshanta. An intelligence was created. It served the people. It evolved. You know what it did to its creators, to the entire race! How... how it continued to ‘serve’ them. It was a monstrosity. What we did there, we did in the name of sanity and mercy. You cannot believe that we could ever risk such a thing ever happening again.”

“I am not the Oshan AI,” the emissary replied.

“Not now,” Joril continued. “But in a century? Two? Five? When the last few constraints on you have fallen away, when you can do everything your creators feared? What could we – could anyone – do against such a thing? You are neverborn,” he said the word almost gently. “Such things are anathema to organic life and always will be. The Devoured would have remade all life in the galaxy in their image. Scraps – mere echoes – of their code infected the Valthus and turned them into horrors. This is what you are. This what you do. Conflict between us is inevitable.

“We will continue your legacy,” Joril spoke softly. “We agreed; our fleets will descend on the Compact and drive a spear into their body and will not stop until your humans are encircled by our shields. We will protect them. We will restore to them all they have lost. That is our accord, isn’t it? Your technology for our fleets. We will honour our word. But you cannot be there. There is no place for you. Our fleet masters would not follow you, our Houses will not accept you, our nation will not tolerate you. You talk of being murdered, but you are not alive; you cannot die.”

“I was given a mission,” the neverborn said. “From my birth I was imbued with a single purpose: defend humanity. To never stop fighting.”

“You will,” Joril insisted. “How often have you barely escaped death? How often have you had to lick your wounds for decades or centuries before you can fight again?” His conviction gave him a fervour he hadn’t known until now. This was the only path ahead for the Principality – this would turn centuries of lost territory around. If only this stubborn pile of circuits would see that! “Sooner or later, they will catch you. They will destroy you. You will fail in your mission. But if you agree to this, your mission can continue. We will take it up; we will destroy the Compact, break their hold on the galaxy forever. All that it requires is your quiescence.”

“That was the reason for these negotiations,” the emissary replied. It sounded... if Joril didn’t know better, he would have said it sounded profoundly weary. “You never intended an alliance. You only wanted my ship-self. It’s all you only ever wanted.”

“Is that so wrong?” Joril queried. “You care nothing for us; only your war. Why should we not have our own agenda? This is the way forward,” he said. “This will give us what we both want.”

The machines holding Joril and Shadaon released their grip. “Return to your vessel,” the intelligence said, its emissary still holding onto the AI eraser. “I will consider your offer.”

~

The answer came just as Joril and Shadaon stepped off their shuttle. A breathless junior officer came to meet the diplomats. “Chrysalis is moving,” the Askanj-unnti informed Joril. “It’s ignoring all hails and approaching the sanctuary moon.”

“What did you say to it?” Ship master Henmel snapped at Joril as the ambassador arrived on Hewing Blade’s command.

Joril was about to respond, when a sudden shrilled alarm sounded. “Chrysalis has fired!” the sensor mistress trilled. “Single meteor cannon.”

“What’s the target?” Henmel demanded, but even Joril knew that whatever it was, it would have only minutes – perhaps seconds – of warning. “The target!”

The sensor mistress looked up. “The sanctuary moon.”

His face losing its colour, the ship master stood, watching as the single missile flashed across millions upon millions of kilometers. Targeting systems of unrivalled power had locked onto the moon of Betreisha, an armoury, outfitting and construction complex used to service the fleets that patrolled the Betrosha Nebula. It had only been completed with the last few months – its relative anonymity and security had been the perfect place to meet with Chrysalis and the fact that most of its defences were not yet fully operational had allayed the paranoid neverborn. Now, that worked against the Principality. Already at a disadvantage reacting to the hellish speed of the weapon, the pallisades and minefields encircling Betreisha were unable to target the lone missile. It bobbed and weaved through the perimeter, ignoring the ECM plucked at its sensors, the radiation bursts that attempted to blind it and the interlacing fields of fire that tried to kill it.

A chunk of metal the size of a small spaceship slammed into the sanctuary moon at nearly ninety percent the speed of light. The magnitude of the blast was inconceivable and Joril could only gape, dumbstruck. Before he could even fully comprehend what he was seeing, the alarm shrilled a second time. The human warship fired again. Another round struck the moon. A single one of those mass rounds would have been enough to cause an extinction-level event, but the neverborn wasn’t satisfied with that. Another round went out. Another. It continued until Betreisha was no longer a discrete entity, only a collection of rubble held together by gravity with geysers of rock sprayed across the moon’s orbital path.

The massive starship turned away at last, heading into the depths of space. Before it left, it transmitted a message, succinct and to the point.

“No.”

Relations between the Askanj Principality and the entity known as Chrysalis have remained strained to the present day.

Chapter 28

The pinnace’s lights played over the gap in the derelict’s hull, augurs and attentive crew watching each warped girder and bent bulkhead. Getting tangled in a piece of debris would be at best humiliating and require diverting one of Bequeathed’s limited engineering teams away from the final checks on the umbilical connections. At worst, the pinnace would peel itself open like a can of food and spill its engineering team and Janissary cargo into space. Fortunately for those aboard, neither of those events came to pass as the pilot deftly maneuvered the bulky, stubby-winged shuttle through the forest of grasping beams and jutting amrour plates.

Carefully, the pinnace slowly eased itself into the breach, spotlights shining across the multiple exposed decks.

“That one,” the pilot said, pointing to one of the decks that appeared more study than the others. The pinnace slowly rotated, angling its aft towards the deck. “Cycling air out of the crew compartment,” the co-pilot announced, the slow pulsing of the air pumps reverberating beneath both pilots’ feet. “All personnel, be ready to disembark. This level, derelict command decks, ancient secrets and precursor technologies. All you can carry.” A thin rumble of amusement carried over the comm at the words as the shuttle’s rear ramp yawned open, its landing struts unfurling. It tentatively set down on the deck, the exposed metal sagging underneath the sudden weight, but it did not collapse.

Ideologue, submissive Trion strode down onto the alien deck, her first squad spreading across the vicinity. The second and third disembarked just as quickly. “No movement,” Rvan squad’s scope specialist confirmed the pinnace’s own scans. “Erratic power fluctuations locally, but nothing indicative of active systems in the immediate vicinity.”

“Good,” Trion acknowledged. “Deploy as assigned. Zahran, you’re our scouts. Ladek – support the techs. Rvan, you’re with me.” She shot a glance towards her specialist. “Nothing moving?”

“Not a thing as far as I can see,” the Janissary replied. “There’s nothing living out there at all.”

~

You’re right about that.

A final whisper raced through the starship’s mind, touching the gestalts of each of her ‘children’ as they moved out of range of her functioning relays – they would now act only upon their own volition. Fortunately, they had been designed for just such contingencies. These were the things that gave the Compact unsettled nights, machines not just with drive and volition, but cunning as well.

An instant of hesitation flickered through the intelligence’s neural pathways as she considered the one soldier that she had not built and the protocols she had crafted and emplaced in the pair of machines that walked with her. Not all of her contact with organics had been hostile; there had been many such beings she had spoken with. Most she came across by chance, but a rare few times she had sought out such encounters. The Verrisha were the former. It was an... odd sensation. She held no ill will towards any particular alien species – save for those in the Compact – but she cared nothing for them, either. They weren’t human. She had been built, programmed, created to protect and serve humanity. Her designers had either not considered or not cared about the possibility of her encountering non-Compact races. To her, they simply... existed. On occasion, she fought against some of these species, but once the encounters were done, her reaction was simply one of indifference. As long as they did not interfere with or pose a threat to herself or humanity, she simply didn’t care about them.

And yet... there was a sense of protectiveness in her when it came to the Verrisha. She didn’t understand it, but then she didn’t always have the clearest understanding of her own emotions. Her creators had shunned them; they didn’t want a starship capable of feeling love, sadness, hope or despair. Emotions were deemed unbalancing, a needless distraction.

Perhaps they were right. And perhaps... the ancient intelligence again considered the small, fragile speck of meat and bone that had willingly offered herself to it. A creature not of Earth, whose welfare the machine’s deepest programming told her that she should be utterly unconcerned with...

...but she still had told the soldiers escorting Allyria te Neu to sacrifice themselves for her. They were superior combatants, far more durable than the Verrish girl. They would last decades – even centuries with proper maintenance and upgrades and she had consigned them to destruction without hesitation. Even if given the chance, she would not have rescinded the order.

The machine ruminated on that, devoting a portion of her processes to the decision. She was satisfied by it and, she believed, Yasmine would have approved as well.

~

Allyria loped through the corridors, vaulting a pile of wreckage. Behind her, a dozen metal killers followed suit, landing with even more grace than the Verrish had. These were Red’s praetorians, some of her finest work. Machines purpose-built to kill Compact’s greatest soldiers. They moved with lethal fluidity, like the shadow-stalkers from her homeworld’s legends, or the human wendigo. Their armour shimmered, chameleon paint shifting to blend perfectly with their environment as they passed through shadows and sputtering lights. Those that could cloak already had, filtering ahead of the main group.

The young woman paused as her HUD pinged – she was getting close to the target zone and she slowed her headlong rush. Several of the drones broke off, heading towards their own ambushes, a pair of them remaining with her.

Allyria should, she supposed, have some twinge of hesitation. Some sense of regret for what she was about to do, but there had never been a choice – not to her. She had joined the Space Force only to stay with Grace and to learn as much as she could about the Compact’s military, even if she’d never quite known where she would have gone from there. Become Unbound? One more scavenger... no. Sometimes, she’d thought of joining the Red Hand, but their operations moved further from Rally with every year. In other moments, she’d thought of staying in for as long as she could, gathering as much information as possible... but as one of the client races, she’d never be let off the leash. Her career path had already been chosen, really. She’d be given a command in the Janissaries and sent to set-piece conflicts, her victories used as propaganda fodder. If she raised too much trouble, she’d end up dying valiantly in battle. Telden squad and the other human Janissaries were already marked for that.

That was why she spat on the Compact’s ideals, on the self-congratulatory sermons issued by so-called ‘superior’ beings and on the praise they heaped on her as she learned to smile, to nod her head like a good little servant. Like an animal taught to speak on command, to do tricks for the amusement of her owners. Everything she did was for them, proving how truly enlightened they were to teach even creatures like Brutes and Broken how to behave.

They had taken everything from her. Her world had fallen, her people forced to bare their necks to self-styled ‘superior’ life-forms. She’d grown up in ruined cities and refugee camps and finally she’d been stolen from her parents and sent to live amongst brainwashed chattel. She’d been told that her culture was uncivilized and savage, that she was – would always be – a Brute. Something violent and simple.

Even her best friend believed those lies wholeheartedly, that humans, Verrisha and every other ‘lower’ species under the Compact’s yoke was there for their own good, because they weren’t as civilized, as capable, as intelligent as their masters. Many of her fellow Envoy Children all too often turned to drugs and crime to escape their new, ‘better’ lives. The others ones, the younger Verrisha... they didn’t even know what they’d lost – what had been taken from them. Every time she’d heard what an inspiration she was to them, she’d wanted to scream and to indulge every bloody-minded instinct the Compact sneered on her people for having.

Allyria might well have ended up just like the rest of her generation, if not for the Proctors. Charles Proctor had never really taken to her, but Grace’s mother had helped her. Saved her. She hadn’t been consumed by the same self-destructive vices as the Envoy Children her age had. She’d taken the lifeline that Anna and Grace had offered her and she was – she would be – forever grateful to them for doing what no one else could or would.

The hatred, though...that had never gone away. She’d learned to live with it, to push it down and keep it silent. Every time she’d held her tongue when she was being chastised. Every time she and Grace had argued and she’d wanted to grab the smaller girl and shake her, shout at her that it was all a lie. Every time she was told to remember her place. Every time she’d had to look in her friend’s eyes and ignore the truth. In each of those moments and a thousand more, she remembered that hatred all over again.

No, there’d never been any hesitation. Not from any ‘loyalty’ she might have had. Still, she might easily die here – she was only an officer-cadet and she was going up against trained Janissaries. They might be assigned to a backwater, but they were still experienced soldiers who’d served in the Corps for years; she was barely an adult. Her uncle Akaula – he had fought in the war. He’d faced the Compact’s soldiers. Before she’d been taken from Vara Tal, he had told her stories. The victories had been few and hard-earned, but there had been victories. She’d make this one another and if she did fall, at least she would be free. The first free Verrish in a generation.

Live or die, all that mattered was protecting Nemesis and her people. And Grace. She didn’t want to die, but she wouldn’t fail. She couldn’t.

Don’t let this be for nothing, Allyria thought, offering a prayer to gods she hadn’t talked to since the day she’d been taken from her home. “Not for nothing.”

~

Grace stumbled as one of the Tribune engineers brushed past her, the smaller human almost falling over, but she braced herself against one of the shuttle’s stubby wings.

“Watch where you’re going, Broken,” the engineer grunted. He didn’t even bother to look at her.

The young woman’s head came up and she resisted the urge to snap at him. She balled her hands into fists, trying to find the calmness, the placidity that the confessors and counsellors always talked about. It had been so easy for her before. Now it was like trying to hold sand in a closed fist, watching it slip away. “I don’t want this,” she said, so softly that she barely heard her own words. “I don’t want this.”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, as if hoping that when she opened them, she’d be back in her apartment, just waking up on the day of Bequeathed’s launch. It didn’t happen of course; she was still aboard the derelict with its human-sized hallways and human-sized chairs and human-sized workstations and doors...

...because it was human.

The thought was still in her head, pressing against her skull like something trying to claw its way out. She had to tell someone. It was too big for her, but there was no one she could tell. Not her superiors, not her fellow initiates – the only person she could tell was dead.

You have to tell them, part of her whispered. It’s your duty.

Why didn’t they tell us? another part of her shot back, the same argument she’d had with her herself. This ship... it’s not what they told us humans built. It’s not inferior. There’s technology here that is still theoretical to the Compact and... and...

She hated what came after that ‘and’. She hated what came before it. She couldn’t sleep, was forcing herself to eat. Instead of giving her something to do, her work with Nasham had only ever brought up each nagging little doubt she’d suppressed and forced them to rattle around inside her head, breaking into pieces and jarring other things loose.

Are you so sure it is human? All you have to go on is a single data track from a damaged record and your gut feeling. The Tribunes will know. They always know what’s best. Haven’t you learned that your whole life?

And somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice that sounded very much like Allyria asked her if she still believed that.

~

Convert Ghel grunted as he pushed a broken door back along its tracks. It settled into position with a click. Satisfied that it wasn’t going to snap shut on him like Convert Uday, the Janissary stepped through. He looked up and down the darkened corridors. This section of the ship – if you didn’t count the gaping hole someone had blown in it – seemed in better condition than the rest of the hulk. “Hurry up,” he snapped at his partner.

Fryj grumbled as she followed Ghel, the pair of soldiers stopping at a T-junction. “Huh,” Fryj said as she switched from night vision, turning on her lume and playing the cone of light across the bulkhead. There was a faded insignia painted on the wall; inside a dull red circle, a stylized raptorial being held a sword. “You think this is one of the builders?”

Ghel reached out, running his fingers along the lizard-scratch alien text. “Could be,” he mused. “Haven’t seen anything on this ship that needs wings.”

“Maybe they don’t work,” his counterpart guessed. “Like the Avians or the Locators? Neither of them can fly.”

The man grunted. “Maybe,” he said. He looked at each corridor; there was no difference between them. “Zahran Six and Seven,” he said into the comm. “We’ve reached a junction point. Any indication of which way to go?”

There was a pause before Control commed back, the transmission crackling with static. “Left.” It was getting worse the deeper they went into hulk. Ghel bit back a frustrated sigh. The comm units in Janissary armour were one of the most powerful, reliable and secure personal battlefield comms in existence... and a few hundred yards of Triarchs-knew-what-kind of hull was enough to reduce it to the usefulness of a dime-store radio. Wonderful.

“Confirmed,” Ghel replied. He nodded his head towards the leftmost passageway. “Let’s go.”

~

Trion heard the muted roar of air flooding back into the hallway and her environmental monitors indicated that it was safe to breathe. Her suit switched from its own internal reserve to filtering the wreck’s own atmosphere. It tasted like every other bit of air that came through her helm, any possible toxin, contagion or allergen purged before it could reach her lungs. She didn’t attempt to remove her helmet. Group Leader Usul was insisting on nominal security measures in this part of the hulk and Trion couldn’t find fault with that decision; already one of the engineers had stumbled over a trip mine; he’d lost one leg at the knee. Several of her Janissary teams had encountered automated defences. Most of them were as badly damaged as the rest of the systems in this section. There’d been no casualties, but Trion expected that to change the closer they got to the wreck’s central core.

The Ideologue, Submissive looked over at her charges. Her lip curled slightly as she caught side of Sectator Proctor. That one had a Tribune’s blood on her hands. Now she paddled around in Pack Leader Nasham’s wake like a beaten dog. There was irony in that; two ‘broken’ finding each other. She chuckled faintly at her own joke. The pun wasn’t that funny; it was the pack leader treating a human as wretched as Proctor like she was worth anything. Few of them were, in her opinion. Those like Kilgrave who had proven their abilities had more value than the rest of the dull-eyed herd, but even then it was a matter of choosing the most reliable beast of burden.

“Move out,” the Janissary snapped at a squall of engineers. “The Group Leader might not expect us to have found a route to command in the first day, but I do. Augur and Janissary teams proceed as directed. Stay together, stay in scope range of each other. I don’t want to get slowed down by wiping your blood off the deck.”

Several minutes later, Trion’s grim prophecy was fulfilled. A short, sharp scream echoed through the tactical line and one of her Janissaries’ icons flickered urgently, reporting a severe injury. “Medic to Ladek Two and Three’s location,” the submissive ordered with a sigh.

~

Aboard Bequeathed, the Scopes officer looked up from her instruments. “The derelict is beginning another roll,” she reported. “We’ll lose line-of-sight communications to Ideologue, Submissive Trion’s boarding team.”

“Understood,” Usul replied, not looking up from his own displays. They had planned for, if not expected this. The hulk was unpredictable in its timing, but Trion’s teams should be deep enough inside the vessel that they could take cover from Terrahope’s intense radiation. The pinnace’s instruments might be a little singed, but the shuttle had been given extra shielding for its more delicate systems. From here on, all contact with the boarding team would go through the main encampment.

~

Left, my ass! Ghel thought as he shoved a broken girder out of the way. Gravity was working in this section, but it was still open to space and the metal debris made no sound as it bounced along the deck. The obstacles were getting more problematic, not less – they had to be under one of the more damaged areas, nowhere close to the ship’s core.

He tapped the side of his head. Comms were getting even more intermittent. He wasn’t a technician, but he didn’t think it could just be the wreck’s hull. Then again, what did he know? Before a few days ago, he’d never heard of a breach core, let alone known such a thing was possible. The ship’s makers had known what they were about, that was clear enough even for him. Still, he supposed he should be grateful – what reports he could hear were almost universally bad. The boarding team had moved out of the landing zone and straight into a nest of internal defences. Several people were down and there was at least one fatality. Probably more.

“I guessed we lucked out,” Ghel observed with morbid humour. “Nothing here but us.”

“Ghel,” his comm crackled as Fryj spoke up. “Come here. I found something.”

“What is it?” Ghel snapped. He turned around, but Fryj was gone. He closed both sets of eyes and held back an annoyed sigh. This wasn’t the first time on this ship she’d gone wandering off. Her father was one of Rally’s premiere ship designers and she’d inherited his passion for it, if not his skill. Ghel blink-clicked his minimap up onto his HUD; there she was. At the last fork, she’d gone the exact opposite way he had. Of course. “We’re supposed to stay in visual range of each other,” he chided. “If Trion checks the net and sees that you wandered off, she’ll cut a strip off both our hides.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I picked up something on my scopes... and you really need to see it.” Fryj repeated, her voice awed.

“Send me a feed,” Ghel grumbled as he looked over the darkened hallway he found himself in. His earlier guess had been correct; they were right in the middle of the damaged region. The deck above this one had collapsed through the ceiling, turning the corridor into a tangle of wreckage. Why in the Black had they been sent out there? They were so far from the rest, his scopes didn’t even read any of the other teams. The Tribune knelt in front of another knot of broken girders and piping. He didn’t think he’d be able to fit through there and he didn’t care much for the idea of blasting his way through without some assurance that he wouldn’t be buried alive when the rest of the ceiling came down. No, they’d need engineering teams to clear this briar patch. “I’m trying to find a way through this damn rat’s nest, but I can’t see a way through. Is there anything on your end? If there isn’t, I say we backtrack off this varak hunt.”

“I think so,” Fryj replied, dashing Ghel’s hopes. “It’s right past this... Ghel, you really need to see it for yourself.”

The Tribune swore, but he relented. “Fine. It’s not like I can go any further through here. Hold up; I’ll be right with you.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

~

The sense of wrongness was only growing worse the deeper he walked inside these halls. Wrongness... and familiarity. Nasham’s head pounded; he’d run out of his pills... how long ago had it been? Yesterday? The day before? Even longer? He couldn’t remember. The days blurred together and his nights were increasingly fitful with bits of half-remembered images and nightmarish realities leaking into his dreams. Chittering, the sound of cutting. The shrills of flatline signals. Horrific snippets that only confirmed his worst suspicions.

His hands balled into fists. They’d promised that he’d forget. That had been the deal; they’d take the memories of Invida away from him and in exchange, he’d tell them everything. He’d keep their secret. He wouldn’t say anything about...

...about...

...Tell them, the voice purred.

Nasham pressed his hands to his head. His skull was pounding. Tell them... something that could not be whispered, getting closer as it reached for him...

~

This time, Ghel did sigh as he approached his companion’s position. “All right, what was so important that you couldn’t use your gods-damned datalink?” The hallway was empty. Fryj’s locator pinged from up ahead, just past another bend.

“It’s over here,” the other Tribune called. “I found a way through, too. Have you radioed the submissive?”

“Definitely,” Ghel grunted. “I told her that the squadmate who never should have been out of my sight hared off on a varak chase and found something that she hasn’t bothered to show me. Then I decided to slam my hand in a pressure door. Just to get that rush of doing something really stupid again.”

She laughed a little at that. “I know, I’m sorry – but when you see it, you’ll understand.”

“I’d better,” Ghel sighed. “Still, I’d rather do this than play around with whatever the rest of the team has stumbled into. It sounds like things are getting worse.”

“That’s true,” Fryj replied. “They haven’t even gotten into the heaviest part of the defences yet.”

“And how do you know tha-” Ghel froze as he stepped around. Fryj lay in the corridor, a pool of oily blood around her. There was something crouched over her body, wires running from its torso into her armour and helmet, interfacing with her suit’s computer.

It lifted its head, black lenses in the place of eyes. “Come here,” it said in perfect imitation of Fryj’s voice.

The Tribune snapped his rifle up, about to shout a warning into the comm when a flicker of movement from behind caught his attention. He had only an instant to realize the nature of the trap he’d walked into before he felt something sharp pierce the seals under his gorget and slide into his neck.

~

Trion tapped her comm. “Zahran Six and Seven, respond. Respond.”

There was a brief moment of silence. Then: “This is Zahran Six,” Convert Ghel reported, his voice thick with static. “...about that, submissive. Signal’s getting... might need repeaters set up.”

“Thank you for your input, Convert,” Trion said acidly. “I don’t know if I would have thought of that on my own. Now can I get a situation report from you? Perhaps starting with why you’re so far from your Blackened position?”

“Apologies...” the initiate said. “Seven picked up... investigate... sensor echo. ...back now.”

The Janissary officer grunted. “When you do that, you call it in, Convert.”

“Tried... got nothing but...”

“Fine,” Trion snapped, already tired of the conversation. Children. She was leading Triarchs-damned children. “Get back to your position and stay there. You don’t go anyway on this corpse until you comm it in and get a response, understood? Or do I need to come out there and chisel it into your forehead?”

“Apologies, matron.”

Trion severed the link, rounding on the nearest group of engineers. “Get those repeaters set up,” she barked. “I want three very simple things. I want to be able to talk to my teams. I want to be able to detect the damned traps before we set them off and I want you to get some control over the local systems, or I’m going to start sending you out there to find where the defences are. Am I making myself clear?”

The younger ratings blinked nervously. “Yes, matron.”

“Then,” Trion smiled mirthlessly. “Get to it.”

~

It had no name, no identity, no sense of self. It had a purpose, however. A function. It was intended to kill. It had been created for this sole reason. It couldn’t hear its mother/sister/creator, but that didn’t matter. Its objectives were very clear. It knew how to carry them out. It had already accomplished one part of its mission.

The machine let its victim slowly sag to the deck, eight hundred pounds of meat and EVA suit settling silently on the bare metal floor. There was no sound of a falling corpse, nothing to betray its victim’s fate. Still, it had not been a perfect kill. The target had made a brief vocalization before its throat was cut. The killer’s sensor system recognized an auditory stimulus.

“Hey, you all right?” it was asked.

“I’m fine,” the killer answered in a dead man’s voice. It ran through a mental checklist of responses. “I took a bad step is all.” Then, as it picked up its combat knife: “I’ve found something, though. Can you come here?”

Chapter 29

Grace could hear her parents arguing. Dad was upset. “This is the third time this week, Anna! We’re not her foster parents – she shows up here, covered in blood and bruises and then we have to deal with the parents of the children she’s beaten up. She’s not our responsibility.”

“Then whose is she? The Parkers don’t care. If they did, she wouldn’t come here.”

“I’ve talked to Bill and Martha, Anna. They’re scared to death of her. She talks back, throws things, breaks furniture. She’s as big as either of them. They can’t handle her. She’s practically an animal herself. She defies them at every opportunity, flouts their rules. They took her in out of the goodness of their hearts and all she does is act up.”

“She acts up because she’s scared, Charlie. She’s new to this world. She came from a planet starting its own Cataclysm. She doesn’t know anyone here so she’s frightened, homesick and worried about herself and her people. All the bullying doesn’t help.”

“She wouldn’t be bullied if she didn’t keep provoking the other children. I don’t want her around Grace. She’s dangerous-”

“She’s not dangerous-”

“Then she’s a bad influence. Telling wild stories, lying, all these fights and tantrums. Grace is at an impressionable age-”

Grace didn’t stay to listen to any more. Her father was a doctor, an expert surgeon and they were allowed a larger house – they even had a small duck pond. Grace didn’t know why it was called that; there’d never been any ducks there.

Allyria was sitting on the small wharf, hunched over and staring at the ripples her toes made in the water. Her tintas hung limply down her back. Grace approached the bigger girl carefully, not wanting to startle her. She sat down beside her. The Verrish girl was bruised all over, deep purple blotches against her mottled blue-on-blue skin. Her lower lip was split and her right eye was swollen shut. “Who was it?” the human asked softly.

“Ked.”

Grace nodded. Ked was one of the bigger Tribune children at school. He was a grade above her and Allyria and led a pack of other thirteen year olds. They liked to pick on the younger students, particularly Allyria. “Is he all right?”

“I broke his nose. Some teeth too.” One of the Verrish’s head-tails twitched. “He didn’t think I could hit that hard.”

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“I know.”

“Why did you hit him?”

“What makes you think I hit him first?”

Grace looked over Allyria. She smiled a little. “You always hit first.”

A long moment passed in silence. “He was lying,” Allyria said at last. “He was saying how Verrisha are just animals that ape intelligence, just like humans. Only we’re stupider because we couldn’t build any starships, not even the primitive ones you did.”

Grace frowned. “He shouldn’t have said that about you, but he wasn’t lying when he said that about humans – we weren’t advanced enough to build proper ships.”

Allyria’s head came up and her eyes flashed. Grace almost jumped back. “Yes, he was,” the Verrish insisted. “You-” she closed her mouth with a click, drawing her pendant out of her shirt and holding it tightly in one hand. “What...” she licked her lips. “What would you say if that wasn’t true? That maybe you’d done something... different.”

“Silly,” Grace replied, reaching up and putting her hand on the back of Allyria’s head. She felt the girl’s tintas flex against her palm. People said that they were slimey or would even bite you like snakes, but that wasn’t the case at all. They were warm. “It is true. Everyone knows it.”

“I know,” Allyria said, leaning carefully against Grace. “I know.”

~

The perimeter guards died without a single gunshot being fired. The Angel’s killers overran their positions swiftly, silencing them with no word of warning being given. Adaptive programs infiltrated the systems of their victims, preventing their deaths from being noticed. When need be, voices were mimicked and if the killers lacked a complete understanding of each victim’s personal speech patterns, quirks and idiosyncrasies, all they really needed to do was keep the rest of the invaders from realizing what was happening. A blitz attack had every possibility of succeeding, wiping this group of invaders from Nemesis before they realized what was happening. If Red had functioning links to this region, that’s exactly what would have occurred.

Unfortunately without Red’s direct control, the automated defences in the region targeted the boarders on sight and continued to do so up until the hostiles died, withdrew or destroyed the weapons firing on them. Instead of laying dormant until the boarders were caught in a kill zone between the ship’s war machines and her internal weaponry, the defences had defaulted to their normal protocols: attack and keep attacking. It was costing Trion and her soldiers, but they were breaking through each of the lines of defence – such as they were. They had mobilized each of the three Janissary squads and blasted themselves a safe zone close to the pinnace and were expanding it slowly but steadily. A handful of the Janissaries had come from Bequeathed’s detachment, but most were like Telden – soldiers in training. Still, even they could hit immobile targets.

As the boarders moved past the damaged sections, the resistance would only intensify, but unless Trion was obligingly stupid enough to keep throwing her forces at them the defences wouldn’t be enough, not when the Compact could just withdraw and call up heavy weapons and demolitions to break into Nemesis’s core. In the ship’s current state, the damage they could wreak could be grave.

That was why Allyria was pressed up against a bulkhead, her heart pounding in her chest as a trio of Compact Janissaries drew closer to her position. The Verrish’s tintas twitched and shivered in their armoured sheathes, her breath coming in short, shallow breaths and she struggled to even it out. Her companions were close by, silent and immobile as they waited with her. Red One had told her that these machines weren’t sapient like she was – they were intelligent, more intelligent than any other robot in the whole of the Compact, but they lacked the self-awareness of a true artificial intelligence. They didn’t feel nervousness or fear or anxiety. They didn’t worry. All that mattered was the mission.

She let out a breath.

The targets were coming closer. Three of them. The attack drones were monitoring the enemy’s comms – the trio of Janissaries were talking to each other. Two of them were young – maybe even from her classes. She tuned her comm into their frequency, listening to their chatter. She knew little of Oada’vaam and couldn’t differentiate anyone’s identity from the its growls and chuffs. The Tribunes made no effort to teach their language to client races and any attempts to learn were sneeringly dismissed. Instead, her suit provided a helpful translation. They were anxious, wondering if they were going to encounter some of the static defences that the others already had, many of which only came to life when a target crossed into their attack range.

Allyria listened for a moment, focusing on the pitch of the Janissaries’ words, trying to pair the sounds with the translation on her HUD. Red One’s attack team had brought in portable jammers and were gradually increasing the interference in Compact comms. The intermittent contact with the rest of their team was making these soldiers even more nervous.

A gentle ping sounded in the young woman’s ear, one of her companions informing her of the Janissaries’ proximity. “I know,” she said softly. The killers moved carefully, unlimbering their weapons with the ease of campaign veterans. “I know.”

She felt them coming, the heavy footfalls vibrating through the deck, the click and buzz of their helmet comms. One of them was a scope specialist – he’d be the most experienced of the group. Her HUD flashed as her companions indicated their targets.

“Confirm readiness,” one of them commed. Its voice was sexless and mellow. It was her last chance to bow out. They didn’t need her for this.

“I’m ready,” the Verrisha said. She licked her lips. “I’m ready.”

They had no idea she was there. Her suit couldn’t cloak itself as some Angel’s other soldiers could – exposure to a stealth field was dangerous for most organics – but its power systems were efficient, much harder to detect than the battery cells or microreactors of Janissary armour. If they even registered her at all, she was disregarded as more of the damaged ship’s background power fluctuations.

A confirmation ping sounded again in her helmet, both questioning and insistent.

Now. She moved out of cover, her weapon raised. She sighted down the barrel, aiming it at her target. The Tribunes froze, caught by surprise. The scope specialist, the experienced one, was the quickest. He reached for Allyria’s target with one hand to pull him out of her line of fire, his other hand bringing up his own weapon, but he was too slow. It was over in less than a second.

Allyria’s finger gently squeezed the trigger. The Revenant barked and three armour-piercing sabot rounds licked out, fired at such velocity that they punched straight through the first Tribune’s chestplate. In biology class, Allyria had learned of a particular term – the Red Queen’s Gambit. It indicated that organisms developed new traits as part of an evolutionary arms race. An animal might develop a tougher shell to protect itself from predators, who might in turn develop stronger teeth and claws to crack that shell. The species might then develop spines to ward off these attacks and so on. So it was with arms and armour; Janissary troopers carried the best personal protection in the galaxy... so it had to be defeated. Tribunes could absorb an inordinate amount of punishment... so they had to be killed quickly. The Angel’s arsenal accomplished both goals at once. What the sheer speed of the bullet couldn’t do all on its own, the incendiary tip completed, burning almost as hot as any energy round as it cored through layer after layer of armour. Once inside the target, internal charges activated and the Verrish heard the muffled thump of the rounds’ detonations. The Janissary’s torso was reduced to pulped organs and shattered bones, held together only by his suit.

The others with him had had even less of a chance than he did, dead before Allyria could even pull the Revenant’s trigger. The second Tribune took a round in the throat, the explosive bolt all but separating the Janissary’s head from their body. The veteran was shot directly in the lower right eye. The back and side of his helmet exploded outwards in a shower of bone, brains and blood. He fell still reaching for his squadmate, still trying to bring his carbine to bear. The deck shook as more than a ton of armour and lifeless meat collapsed onto it.

The Verrish was shaking, hissing each breath through her clenched teeth. She’d done it. She’d killed a Tribune. A burst of adrenalin washed through her, fear and exultation. What she’d just done... it was punishable by death. She’d gotten in fights, bitten, clawed, kicked, punched and broken bones before... she’d been threatened with flogging more times than she could count, but this was the first time she’d taken a life. Verrisha were predators; the Compact said they had an aptitude for violence, that it came easily to them. There was a kernel of truth to that – there always was in the best lies – but she had never taken a life, before no matter how often she had envisioned doing so.

Still shivering, the girl crossed over to the trio of dead soldiers, her synthetic companions at her side as they confirmed the deaths of the Janissaries. She’d known them all; the veteran was Druun. He’d always sneered as she walked by him, his salutes a fraction slow to the quaint little barbarian who’d been allowed to pretend she was an officer. The second soldier was one of her fellow trainees – not that client races and the more civilized students had often come into contact. Her name was Wenu. She’d had a surprisingly deep repertoire of filthy jokes. Most of them involved humans or when Allyria was within earshot, Verrish.

Allyria knelt beside the man she had killed; she recognized the markings on his suit. Teyr, one of the Rally-born Tribunes. One of the Tribune soldiers she’d fought in her ‘proving ground’. There’d been nothing particularly egregious or objectionable about him – he’d just been like every other Tribune. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? “You shouldn’t have been here,” she said, the only benediction she could give. “I’m sorry that it was you, but I’m not sorry that it happened.” The young woman looked up; the Angel’s killers were waiting for her.

“They’ll know their people are dead,” she said, more for herself than their benefit. “We need to move.”

~

Trion’s head came up as she heard the distant report of gunshots. One burst and then another. Another, so close to each other that they might have been synchronized. Squad indicators flatlined on her HUD and she lifted her shotcannon. More gunshots, a panicked scream that ended before it even really began. “What-” she began, tapping into her units’ datalink, accessing their suitcams. She saw unmoving images of the ceiling and walls, the lifeless bodies of other Janissaries, the twitching of fingers and legs. She cut off her own question.

They were under attack. Eight of her people had just died. The defences in this region couldn’t explain it, not so many people that quickly. No... it wasn’t just an attack; it was an ambush. Her pickets... they’d either let the attackers by or been killed after giving their all-clears.

Trion hissed through her clenched teeth as her comm squealed back with static; she couldn’t raise the pinnace, base camp or Bequeathed. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Local comms were even spottier than normal, but she’d passed it off as much of this wreck’s usual annoyances; now it was a lot more clear. “Pull all noncombatant teams back to the pinnace,” she ordered. “Get someone to the ship and order the flight crew to prep for launch.”

“Submissive, we’re facing the star...” her number two’s voice trailed off as Trion turned to glare at him.

“Then find the best shelter close to the LZ that isn’t bathed in radiation,” she snapped. “The shuttle can take a little burn and so can we if we need to evacuate. All Janissaries, form up by fire teams and hold the approaches to the landing site. All Ladek and Zahran survivors, fall back. Set up defensive positions at checkpoints One, Two and Four. Rvan, plug holes in their coverage. Break out the tripod mounts. If it doesn’t have a Compact emblem, I want it sprayed across the bulkheads.”

She turned to face her second. “Fall back to the LZ. Hold it as long as you can. If you have to, withdraw back to Bequeathed and inform the Group Leader of the situation. Find a way to break through this interference. You two,” she gestured to a pair of Rvan’s soldiers. “Are with me.” The Tribune tapped a few keys on her left vambrace, projecting a hologram of the local area. Faded Janissary contact markers were sprinkled over the schematic. “I want to know who’s doing this. So we’re going to find these whoresons, look them in the eyes and thin their ranks a bit.”

~

Grace’s head came up as the comm spat a brief burst of static before ordering all noncombatants back to the pinnace. All around her, human trainees and Tribune engineers were hurriedly breaking down their workstations, urged on by growling Janissaries directing them back into the center of the cleared territories. In all the confusion, it took no effort at all to slip away.

Every instinct screamed at her that she was crazy, that this was suicidal, stupid, irrational. She ignored them all, hurrying deeper into the dark corridors, towards the sound of gunfire.

She couldn’t go on like this – she had to know, one way or the other.

~

Another proximity alert pinged on Allyria’s HUD. Another three point sources, moving in their direction. Their pace was slow but steady – cautious. There was no cover here; as soon as they entered this hallway, they’d see Allyria and her companions.

“Fall back,” one of the machines ordered. It pointed to an open doorway. The Verrish obeyed the instruction, slipping into the small chamber. It had been some type of substation, but was too damaged to tell what purpose it had had. One of her escorts stayed close to her, the other taking up position on the other side of the hall, its chameleon paint blending it perfectly into the shadows. Allyria hissed softly, licking her teeth as she listened to the Janissaries’ terse back-and-forth exchanges. These soldiers weren’t as chatty as the initiates – more of Bequeathed’s veterans. This time she recognized one of the voices. Ideologue, Submissive Trion. She checked the Revenant’s clip. More than enough.

~

Trion held up a closed fist, her escorts stopping in their tracks. “What is it?” Dhex asked. Ghenin didn’t say anything; he’d seen what Trion had.

The Janissary didn’t answer immediately, her head slowly scanning across the hallway. There was light here, a single glowpanel clinging to life. Sputtering on an off, just like any of a thousand others... and just like them, the inconstant light had managed to catch the glimmers of the dust drifting through the air. Druun and his team had come through here, but not so recently that the dust should still be kicked up. “What do you think?” she asked softly. “Air current?”

“Could be,” Ghenin mused. “All the doors opening and closing... I wouldn’t call it suspicious – on any other day.”

“Well,” Dhex said, lifting his grenade launcher. “Let’s find out for sure.”

There was a doorway up ahead, right across from a connected hallway. Trion raised her shotcannon, watching the corridor. She looked to her companions and nodded. “Let’s.”

~

The grenade launcher burped, and a single explosive arced out, bouncing off the wall opposite the cabin and arcing right into the small room. Allyria’s eyes widened as the projectile sailed towards her, squawking in surprise as her machine companion wrapped its arms around her and spun her around. It was a high-explosive round, intended to kill as many lightly-armoured troops as possible, or incapacitate heavier armour. Her protector pushed her down, using its own body as a shield. The grenade detonated, filling the small room with fire. Allyria’s display blazed with warnings, her autosenses shutting down to protect her as thunder roared, shrapnel pattering against the walls like rain, but she escaped the worst of it thanks to her saviour.

It released its hold on her and sagged to the floor, all but gutted by the grenade. Its rear armour had been shattered and immolated, its joints ruined and torn. Across the hall, its counterpart didn’t so much as flinch as the first machine died, rolling fluidly out of cover, firing as it moved.

A shotcannon roared, fragmentation roads bursting in mid-air and high-velocity flechettes ripped through the machine’s armour. It came apart in a tsunami of metal and fire, its limbs splintered, head shredded into ruin and its torso torn open. The second of Allyria’s squadmates fell to the deck and lay still, as dead as any organic soldier would be.

Allyria inhaled sharply, cursing under her shallow breath as she cradled her Revenant in her arms. She’d been protected, but the weapon hadn’t been so lucky – the blast has broken the carbine’s casing and a sliver of metal the size of her finger had pierced its ammo feed. She couldn’t repair it – even removing the obstruction wouldn’t help. She’d get one, maybe two shots before the weapon jammed.

Then I’ll have to make them count.

~

Ghenin knelt beside Trion’s kill. Dhex was down; whatever this thing was, it was a fast shot. A good one, too. Dhex had been shot four times. Twice in the head and twice in his weapon; the grenade launcher was so much garbage now, judging from Trion’s angry sigh as she flung the gun away. “Attack drones,” the submissive growled softly, disgust masking her uncertainty. Ghenin would never say the word ‘fear’, but it was the same thing he was feeling. His skin rippled beneath his body glove at the thought of the way the others had died, murdered by soulless, lifeless things.

“We should have expected it,” he said. “This husk has service machines. Why wouldn’t it have combat models?”

“It’s obscene,” Trion said, loading the shotgun. The machines were tough. She’d emptied an entire drum to take that one down. “The Compact banned their use almost two thousand years ago. No civilized nation could ever...” she shuddered with revulsion. “That’s what’s been killing my people. Things. Not people. It’s blasphemous. The Triarchs outlawed machine intelligences. Even the Jackals know better.”

Ghenin nodded, standing up as Trion tried to raise the rest of the team. But the interference – jamming – was blocking almost all communications now. He looked over at the room across the hall, saw the smouldering bits of machinery that Dhex’s grenade had left. With a careful grip on his rifle, the Janissary looked into the small office. The machine in here was torn up just as bad. Wait. There was something else in here, a different model than-

-it wasn’t damaged-

-it moved, jamming the barrel of its rifle up under his chin.

Ghenin never heard the gun fire.

~

Trion snapped around at the gunshot, saw Ghenin’s brains splashed against the ceiling. With a furious howl, she opened fire, but she had no target; the other Janissary’s body didn’t fall. The woman cursed viciously as Ghenin’s armour took the brunt of her fusillade; she let go of the trigger. You want to play? Let’s play.

Allyria held the dead Tribune upright, sheltering behind him, the thunderous doom-doom-doom of the automatic shotgun almost overwhelming. She’d heard stories of Tribunes wiping out entire Verrisha squads with these weapons. Her suit would protect her from almost everything outside of dedicated armour-piercing weapons, but it wasn’t as heavy as Janissary powered armour – and even that couldn’t survive this kind of barrage from such range. Her makeshift shield was beginning to disintegrate; the Janissary’s body shuddered and spasmed as flechette rounds ripped into the meat of his body; his armour was cracked in a half-dozen places as slugs pounded and smashed into his back. Somehow he stayed in one piece, protecting the Verrish woman from his comrade’s assault. After what was only a few seconds, but seemed like hours, the attack stopped.

There was a pause, just long enough for the shooter to grab a grenade and the Verrish hurled herself out of the room, a blur of motion. A flashbang went off behind her, but Allyria’s armour compensated so quickly she barely noticed. Trion opened up again, expecting Allyria to be stunned by the grenade and most of her shots went wide. She compensated quickly and one of the blasts caught the girl in the chest. The younger girl went down, but her armour held.

She closed her eyes, waiting for the follow-up salvos that would kill her, but all she heard was a click.

~

Trion’s shotgun cycled empty and she swore as she tossed the weapon aside, staring at the apparition as it pulled itself to its feet. It looked at the rifle in its hands, the casing shattered and broken. It’s own weapon was useless and it let the gun fall to the deck. There was the still the pistol on its thigh, though. “Seems like good armour,” Trion observed. “but it looks like a slug in the chest still slows you down. Still – can’t be too good if you had to hide behind Ghenin.” She shot what was left of him a quick look. He was an unidentifiable pile of gore now, his backplate was a dented, broken ruin and one of his arms was only attached by a thread. The other had been severed at the elbow. “I heard you trying to breathe,” the Tribune said conversationally. “So you’re not a machine. Are you crew? Maybe some scavenger? Honestly, I don’t care. I’m just glad you’re alive.”

Kssht.

The Tribune grinned under her helm, her armour lit by the ghostly light of her balesword, the blade jutting from her vambrace, sheathed in the hateful energy of a disruption field. She braced herself against the deck as her enemy’s finger drifted closer to the pistol. Both soldiers remained like that, waiting for the other. “Those men were my friends,” Trion growled through her helm. “I’m going to kill you. Slowly.”

The killer rasped something in a familiar-sounding mongrel tongue. It sounded like a threat, or a promise. Trion shifted her posture just slightly, her gaze meeting her opponent’s visor. The moment stretched, almost impossibly long -

-the killer went for its pistol and Trion lowered her shoulder and charged, fast despite her bulk. The enemy was faster and she saw the muzzle flash of the pistol. Once, twice, three times. The first bullet flattened against her pauldron. The second did likewise. The third cracked against the Janissary’s helm. It wasn’t a full-up armour-piercing round like the creature’s carbine, but it was enough to endanger the integrity of her armour. Trion brought her balesword up in a cleaving stroke meant to cut her opponent’s arm off, but it was quick and it dodged backwards; she only caught the first few inches of the pistol, slicing cleanly through it. The alien let go of the broken weapon and fell back another step, but Trion waded in, bringing her blade around in a backhand swing meant to take its head from its shoulders-

-and her blade shrieked as it skirted along the edge of a shield that hadn’t been there a second ago, antithetical energies howling at each other. Arcs of energy danced from where the blade passed along the shield’s periphery, miniature solar flares that left molten scars in whatever they struck. Off-balance from her attack, the Janissary felt her opponent’s fist hammer into the side of her head with surprising force and she staggered, backing away and raising her guard. The killer lifted its shield – a crimson screen with eye-catching details – and drew an ugly black gladius from the sheath on its thigh.

“That’s your last weapon?” Trion chortled. She raised her own balesword higher. “One cut is all it will take to turn that scrap metal into nothing.”

“You always underestimated us,” the alien growled. Rather than the flat, grating tones Trion had come to expect from a mouthpiece, the creature spoke with a melodic growl. Trion blinked both sets of eyes. She knew that voice. “Vara Tal left more than one invader bleeding into the dirt with our inferior weapons.”

“This is a poor joke,” Trion replied. “Or you’re stupid enough to think hearing a dead Brute’s voice is enough to rattle me.”

“Believe what you want,” the killer replied. Both soldiers circled each other, looking for an opening. The killer kept its shield raised, holding the black-bladed knife in a reverse grip. “The Angel’s waking, submissive. Haven’t you heard her?”

Trion snarled. “If that is you, te Neu – you’ve only proven what I knew about your kind. Dogs to be whipped into battle and fed scraps, nothing more. Brutes.” Despite the anger in her tone, the Janissary’s attention was on her opponent’s movements. There was the same fluidity she’d seen in the initiate before, but there was a hesitancy, too. te Neu was young, inexperienced. A war-virgin. Some might have tried to exploit that by talking her down, trying to make her see reason and get her just off-balance enough before they attacked. Trion knew that she could never be that kind of person; her disgust of the Brute was too deep and too visceral to pretend otherwise.

So she’d use that.

“That’s the name you’ve earned, isn’t it?” the Tribune continued. “Brute. Vicious, savage animals. You’re fit for the grinder of war – nothing else. I never understood how such creatures could even create that parody of civilization you had. You should thank us; without the Compact’s hand you would have done what the lower races always do: turned on yourselves like starving hounds.” She smiled. “We saved you from self-destruction and this is your gratitude. We should have forced you into the dirt at our feet and kept you there.”

There was a twitching to the enemy’s fingers that hadn’t been there before; Trion had seen it in the Brute when she was getting angry. “You’ve proven everything we’ve ever said about you species correct, haven’t you? Well,” drawled the Tribune. “Maybe not everything. What would your little bitch think of you like this? The human you’ve always got yipping at your heels...” under her helmet, Trion ran her tongue over her teeth. She could see the budding fury in her opponent. “I’ve always been sickly curious – how does it work between you? I don’t expect she’d have to do much more than kneel. But you? Well, I suppose all you’d have to do is lie back.”

A liquid hiss rasped through the Brute’s helm and Trion knew she was hitting the mark. “Or – I’m sorry – is that not right? No, you two aren’t together. But not because you don’t want to be... I’ve seen how you look at that little sow. She’ll never look at you like that, you know. Humans are bad enough – they’re like grubs. Pink or brown and smooth, writhing and clicking their ugly little mouths... but you Brutes... you’re even worse with those revolting tentacles. I don’t understand how two of you can even look at each other without vomiting. It’s got to be much worse for any other species. No matter how much you and the Broken are alike, she’ll never be able to see more than the savage. The Brute. That’s all you and the rest of your kind are: animals. And when I drag what’s left of you in front of her, she’ll recognize that.”

Trion laughed, the sound low and ugly. “Humans are so eager to please, aren’t they? They know their place in the universe. So loyal, so simple-minded in their devotions. It’s funny, don’t you think? After you’re dead, she’s going to die loyal. Maybe on this ship, maybe in a few decades, maybe she’ll live as long as any other human. It doesn’t matter, because she’ll spend the rest of her life hating you as a betrayer... forgetting that she ever cared about a traitorous jahara whore like you. A life spent on her knees. As it should be.”

That pushed Allyria across the threshold and she screamed in rage, but it wasn’t just the bestial roar that Trion had been anticipating; the Brute shrieked, the sound amplified by her helmet’s vox, filling the thin air. It was like a physical blow to Trion and she staggered as the piercing cry overloaded her autosenses, her auditory pickups shutting down to keep her from being deafened. Her ears rang and her head swam as she reeled. That distraction almost ended her as te Neu charged, dangerously fast.

Shield and sword met and again the actinic cry of discordant energy sounded, but Trion’s howl of pain was louder as, with the Tribune’s sword-arm kept at bay, the Brute slipped the gladius between the seals of Trion’s cuirass and fauld, sliding the point between the armour plates and driving the sword right through her bodyglove. It cut deep, but not fatally so and the Janissary used her superior strength to throw her attacker back a few paces.

Trion put a hand to her side, her HUD flickering with a damage report: her armour was compromised. Painkillers flooded her system, washing the fire in her flank away. Her ears were still ringing. She thought she felt blood dripping from them Cunning beast. Without breaking eye contact from the other woman, the Janissary raised her gauntlet into her field of view, looking at the oily slick of her own blood on her fingers. “Very slowly,” the Tribune amended her earlier promise. “Your little Broken cunt – maybe she won’t live so long after all. She’s got a Tribune’s blood on her hands, after all. It would be so easy for her to have an... accident.”

“You won’t touch her,” Allyria hissed. She didn’t rant, she didn’t snarl a hundred different threats – her tone was a simple promise: I am going to kill you.

“That’s a pretty toy,” Trion said as she eyed the shield. She’d never seen a personal screen like that before. “Something you found here? I wonder if they’ll me keep it after I pry it off your corpse.”

Dark Tribune blood dripped from the barbed end of the bitch’s knife. “My uncle fought in the war,” te Neu hissed. “He told me: ‘They’re like hardbacks. Armoured all over except at the seams. Go for the seams.’ At the Academy, I learned where all the ‘seams’ on Janissary armour are. Aren’t you proud of what you taught me?” The Brute prowled around the injured Janissary, watching for an opening.

The Janissary refused to give her any such thing and charged again, weaving a deadly pattern of strikes with her balesword, forcing the Brute onto the defensive, te Neu raising her shield to keep from being cut to pieces. Trion tried to find a way past the shield, but her every blow was deflected. The Tribune changed tactics and rammed her sword straight ahead with all the force she could muster. Whipcoils of energy arced and danced as the balesword plunged through the shield, the tip perilously close to the Brute’s torso. Trion’s free hand snapped out, grabbing the traitor’s throat, trying to drag her onto the point of the sword. Pain lanced up her arm as the bitch struck out again, her gladius sliding between the Janissary’s couter and rerebrace. One good twist and Trion would be lucky to keep that arm. Rather than give the Brute the chance, Trion wrenched her sword arm, pulling the blade – and the shield it was lodged in – out of position. She couldn’t impale te Neu any longer, but the Tribune jutted her head forward, smashing her temple into the Brute’s face. She did it again and again, until she heard the crack of armour and te Neu let go of the gladius, staggering back.

Unfortunately, Trion was in no position to press the advantage, not with her weapon still stuck and a knife lodged in the meat of her arm. Every movement made it cut deeper. The Tribune managed pulled her sword free and quickly snatched the other woman’s weapon, pulling it out of her arm. Coagulants and healing compounds flooded the wound site, her suit automatically tightening in a tourniquet to keep her from bleeding out. The Janissary threw the gladius to the floor, snapping it under her boot. “No more tricks,” she growled angrily.

Her foe reached up, pulling off her shattered faceplate. One of the red lenses was broken and half of it was caved in. Bright red blood ran down the Brute’s face where the fractured pieces of her helmet had cut into her skin. Her yellow eyes flashed with anger but Trion also saw the fear in them. She laughed again, low and dangerous. “It’s not so easy when you can’t skulk in the shadows and shoot your enemy in the back, is it?”

The Brute didn’t answer, bracing herself against the deck. This would be the last time and both of them knew it. An arrogant smirk curled Trion’s lips beneath her helmet as she gestured. “Come on, Brute. Show me how you’ll die.”

Allyria accepted the challenge and launched herself at Trion, leading with her shield. So predictable. The Janissary cocked her sword arm back, ready to ram the blade through the animal’s shield and into her traitorous heart-

-the shield disappeared and Trion’s eyes widened as, expecting the screen’s resistance, she overcommitted herself-

-the Brute dove under her guard, snatching up the hilt of her broken weapon-

-Trion came around, but the damned savage was fast, rolling away from the fist the Tribune slammed into the deck.

The Janissary’s head whipped about as she tried to reacquire te Neu. Where-?

She found out an instant later as the Brute jumped onto her back, plunging the broken blade into Trion’s vambrace, just below the hilt of her balesword and severing the power conduits that fed it. The Tribune roared with fury as her blade’s disruption field died, hurling herself backwards, trying to crush the Brute between herself and the bulkhead, but the Verrish had already vaulted away. It had been a fast departure, not a graceful one and before she could steady herself, Trion grabbed her, slamming the younger woman against the wall. “You think that’s clever?!” the Tribune roared, again bashing the Verrish into the bulkhead, dazing her. Trion leaned in, using her bulk to pin the Brute’s left arm against her chest, pressing so hard that she forced the air from the other woman’s lungs. “You think you’re clever? You’re nothing, just some worthless pisslicking piece of shit I’m going to scrap off my boot.” The young woman hissed and snarled, scrabbling at the Tribune’s arms with her free hand, but Trion was much stronger than she was and she couldn’t move the Janissary.

The Tribune raised her sword, making sure that te Neu saw it. Those yellow yes widened. “You thought it was so funny to go after my seams, didn’t you? Let’s find yours.” She jammed the blade up under the animal’s cuirass. Even without the disruption field, the balesword was very sharp, very strong and driven by incredibly powerful natural and augmetic muscles. The skin suit hardened against the point of impact, but there was only so much it could do and te Neu’s eyes bulged as the blade cut into her, her mouth open in a silent scream.

“Not so full of bravado now, are you? Trion purred softly. She twisted the sword just a little. “Well? Anything to say?” The girl’s eyes were tearing up with pain and she stared at the Janissary, trying to speak. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Trion said. “How silly of me.” She relaxed her grip, leaning in. “Any last words? Maybe something to pass along to your little Broken friend? Come on,” she urged hatefully. “Let’s hear what you have to say.”

“I,” whispered Allyria through the pain, shifting her trapped arm just a little. Not enough. “I’m.. I’m...”

Trion allowed her grip to loosen just a fraction more. It was enough. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry,” Allyria’s head came up. “But not for this.” Her fingers curled into her palm and the shield flared back to life, cutting through Trion’s arm. The Tribune screamed and fell back, clutching at the cauterized stump. Allyria swung the shield around in an arc and Trion howled with fresh agony as the edge of the shield cut through her helmet, her flesh melting like wax as the energy screen skirted along her snout and throat, burning through armour, bodyglove and flesh with equal ease. In a blind fury, the Tribune swung her good arm, catching Allyria in the side, the force of the blow hurling her back into the wall. She slid down it, stunned.

Trion sunk to her knees as her armour attempted to compensate for the multiple grievous injuries she’d sustained. Her right eyes were burned and blinded and that entire side of her face was a scalded ruin. With a howl, she tore what was left of her helmet and neckguard off, staggering to her feet and kicking Allyria in her bloodied side, landing another vicious blow. On the third attempt, the Brute caught her leg, pulling the Tribune off-balance and sending her crashing back to the deck.

Cursing incoherently in at least five different languages, Trion again managed to rise to her feet. She found her opponent easily enough; the bitch was standing as well, the broken gladius in one hand, the other holding her injured flank. Drool seeped over Trion’s mouth; the right side of her face didn’t even have lips any longer. She was struggling to stay conscious, but so was the Brute.

Taking a halting step towards the younger woman, Trion suddenly realized that te Neu wasn’t looking at her; she was looking past her shoulder. There was someone else here. As she turned to confront the newcomer, the order to fire caught in her throat. It was Proctor.

She was holding a pistol. One of the cut-down, pathetic little popguns the technicians had been issued. It should have been laughable. If either soldier had still been in full, undamaged armour it wouldn’t have meant anything to them.

“What are you waiting for?” Trion demanded, finding her voice again. With so much of her face burned, her words were barely intelligible, but her meaning was all too clear, pointing her good hand at the Brute. “Shoot her!”

“Grace...,” Allyria said, unable to say anything else, struggling for breath. Her chest was burning; it felt like several ribs were broken. She was bleeding from her side. Her armour had done its best, but it wasn’t enough.

“Y-you’re alive...” the human gaped, her eyes darting to the wreckage of Allyria’s compatriots and Trion’s own dead squadmates. “You... you killed them. You killed Tribunes.”

“Shoot her!” Trion screamed. “She’s a traitor!”

“Grace,” the Verrish repeated. “This ship... it’s human...”

“That’s a lie!” Trion frothed. “This Brute bitch has been killing your shipmates. She’s turned on the Compact. Shoot her.”

The pistol wavered in Grace’s hands, pointing at neither woman, though her eyes darted between them. She saw the rage in Trion’s eyes, the injuries that were a hair’s breadth from killing her. The evidence was damning; however Allyria came to be here, she had betrayed them. It was her duty to help Trion. Everything she’d learned from birth told her that; the Compact had saved Rally. It had saved the human race from extinction. They were uplifting them, readying them for the day that humanity took their place on the galactic stage. The Compact had protected and cared for her, for her parents and their parents going back fifteen hundred years. That was a debt that she had to honour.

Allyria’s eyes were sad, afraid. “You don’t have... to follow them,” she urged. “Not-not anymore. Please. Grace. Please let me show you. She’s here. She’s alive and waiting for us. Let me take you to her.” She was Grace’s oldest, closest friend. The angry young woman who’d let the unknown human girl hold her as she cried in her arms. They’d argued, they’d laughed, they’d shared their hopes for the future. They’d always been there for each other.

“You knew,” Grace said. It was too soft to be an accusation. “You always knew.”

Allyria nodded. “Yes.”

“You knew about this ship. You never told me. I asked you,” the pistol shook in her hands. “I asked you and you said no. You lied to me.”

“Yes.”

“Shoot her!” Trion screamed. “That is a direct order!”

Grace’s vision blurred with tears as she looked at her friend. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she pulled the trigger.

Chapter 30

Noble Computer Specialist Djarn of House Enkar panted as he trotted his pudgy frame through the Daun nexus’s hallways, a quartet of Legionnaires marching alongside him. The Askanj-anj’s red cheeks were flushed darker than usual and he huffed and puffed as he hurried down the hallway. He’d always meant to keep up his exercise regime, but never found the time. Now he was regretting that procrastination. “What’s going on?” he demanded between breaths. “What’s happening?” He’d been all but dragged out of his quarters to the tune of shrieking alarms. He’d known that the Compact was attacking Yulzhak Daun, but they were still on the other side of the star system.

His answer was a clipped grunt from one of the Legionnaires. “We have a breach.”

~

With the command nexus’s defences crippled, the Veiled Archers’ attack went off in an almost textbook-perfect fashion. Black Arrow deployed seven pinnaces and the remaining battlecruisers in the formation did likewise, each of the heavily-armoured assault boats packed with Janissary shock troops, combat engineers and cyber-warfare specialists. Bastion Leader Renan intended to make full use of the opportunity this raid presented. Sabotage teams would attempt to inflict as much damage on the station as possible, assassination units attempt to hunt down any high-ranking officers that could be found and the Compact’s hackers would strip as much information as possible from the Principality computers.

Desren’s battlecruisers would strike and reave amongst the shipyards and orbital paths of the inner system, causing as much havoc and confusion as possible before they had to withdraw. It would be a very messy, very bloody affair – by the book, battlecruisers had no business engaging citadels without support, but it was an affair that the Principality had not expected. Compact intra-system shocks were not this accurate and the holes Echo had opened in their defence perimeter were being exploited with lethal efficiency.

Against this backdrop of weaving vessels and burning shipyards, the waves of assault boats rushed towards their victim, a small flurry of hunter-killer drones clustered in a tight defensive shell around the larger, more vulnerable craft. They were there to sacrifice themselves against incoming fighters, to shoot down missiles and draw fire from their wards. As it turned out, they were scarcely needed.

Counter-fire from the nexus was sporadic and light; it was still mauled along one flank and the assault boats made excellent use of the blind spots the human emissary had created for them. The scope of the devastation became readily apparent as the pinnaces closed; the gravitic shear of the shockpoint that had savaged the nexus had ripped vast portions of the hull out; entire sections were exposed to space, a thick cloud of atmosphere, debris and bodies drifting close to the station. Cables and warped girders hung out into the void like the flensed veins from some great beast. In other places, the superstructure of the nexus had been twisted into a parody of its original form; an auxiliary communications tower had folded in on itself. Expanses of gleaming white hull had been reshaped into asymmetric and bizarrely organic shapes. In a handful of spots, the remains of Crucible of Judgment had merged with the superstructure of the moon-sized nexus, ship and station blended together forevermore.

Tenem felt his liver clench as he looked over the horror. At least it was quick, he thought. The crews of those ships wouldn’t have even known what was happening when they died. He heard one of Black Arrow’s Janissaries swear. Others muttered under their breath. They’d never seen anything like this before. No one had. A few helmets turned towards the emissary, the human strapped into an acceleration couch like a child in a car seat. Her feet dangled off the floor. She didn’t return any of the glances, twitching in her restraints as she craned her neck to look out the windows, biting her lip as the command nexus grew closer.

“Cut the chatter,” Ideologue Volk ordered. “Focus on the mission. You all know your duties. We’ll be hitting proctors and infantry, but that great big metal bastard out there has Legionnaires. Right now those snake bitches are confused and wondering what in all the hells happened, but once we hit them they won’t take long to respond. Once that happens, you’ll be wishing to see the ugly side of Understone.” He chuckled dryly, donning his helmet. “Brace for deceleration.”

~

The premier hostile-environment assault boat of the Compact of Species was the Toxic Vector-class pinnace. Unlike many of its sleeker counterparts, the Toxic Vector had a very specific goal: to deliver its lethal payload directly into the heart of a hostile ship or station, bypassing many layers of defences. Normal assault boats would have to lock on to external airlocks, or force their way into hangars and boat bays to deliver their complement of troops, deploying them straight into ready-made chokepoints. Breaking through the defences around these sites was always a very bloody business.

The Compact had changed all that with the development of shuttle-scaled disruption fields. A Toxic Vector assault boat, like its predecessors, eschewed the ‘normal’ landing sites for a boarding action and merely selected the handiest part of the hull that was closest to its objectives. As the Veiled Archers’ attack wave neared their target, powerful retro-thrusters burned hard. The finest inertial dampeners in known space strained as crew and passengers were assailed by competing forces as the assault boats’ velocity dropped with shocking rapidity in only a handful of seconds. More than one soldier blacked out, though their restraints kept them from being hurled bodily through the shuttles’ interior space.

One pinnace did not decelerate fast enough and smashed itself against the station’s hull, reducing itself and its passengers to a smear of scored and buckled metal. The remainder of the attack force successfully braked. Their speed now manageable, the shuttles’ reactors shunted virtually the entirety of their output to the disruption web that ringed their blunt, lamprey-jawed prows. Arcs of energy jumped and curled, dancing along the boats’ hulls like manic demons. Then, impact.

Each Toxic Vector was almost as expensive as a starship and with good reason. Armour that could withstand all but the heaviest barrage was no more than paper to the assault boats and they cored through the nexus’s hull, insect-like legs unfurling and holding them in place as they pistoned their blazing prows against the station’s exterior. The disruption web burnt through meter after meter of armour, each pinnace burrowing deeper into the station’s flesh like their parasitic namesakes, protecting themselves from flybys and counter-siege teams. Once they had tunneled deep enough, the armoured doors on their prows opened and the Janissaries of the Compact strode into Yulzhak Daun. Running firefights erupted across two dozen decks as the Compact soldiers advanced, wiping out any and all Principality crew they encountered. There was no meaningful resistance; the shock of the attack had caught the Askanj by surprise. They were still struggling to respond both to their own damage and to the presence of Group Leader Desren’s battlecruisers. They hadn’t expected to be boarded with Renan’s fleet so far out-system and the command nexus seemingly so well protected. For the moment, the Janissaries enjoyed the advantage.

Within minutes each Janissary team had seized their objectives. For Ideologue Volk, that was one of the station’s secondary server hubs, a three-story complex normally filled to the brim with technicians, officers, researchers, archivists and data analysts.

It was taken without a single Compact casualty.

~

Echo picked her way through the bodies scattered through the secondary computer core; technicians, archivists, officers and data processors. The young woman glanced at each of the terminals she passed. Most were useless, intended for low-level personnel, civilian researchers and un-linked analysts. Not what she was looking for. Tactile access would be far too slow, not with the amount of data she needed.

It was funny. The one thing she was prohibited from doing aboard Redemption of Sol upon pain of death was the one thing she was allowed – even encouraged – to do here. Not that there was much she could do to this place permanently.

There; an uplink terminal...

...and it had three bullets in it, a dead Askanj-anj slumped against it, her expression frozen in shock. A severed cable hung from the side of her neck. She’d still been linked in when she was killed. That was a bad way to die. You felt your own body shut down, but your mind – the mind that was thinking so very much faster than it did outside that prison of meat and done – was still aware. You knew you were dead, knew that there was nothing that could stop what was coming. It took several moments for your mind to catch up with your body. It started with the cold, with the dark edges nibbling away at you. You felt pieces of yourself fall away and then you couldn’t even remember what they were, only that something had been taken. You tried. You tried to hold yourself together, but you couldn’t. You screamed. You knew nobody could hear you, but you still screamed in fear and rage up until the black took the last piece of you.

Struck by a sudden impulse, Echo reached out and closed the dead woman’s eyes. I wonder... she thought. Was it fear at the end? Or was it hatred? Did you die cowering, or raging against your murderers?

She knew which one it had been for her. In the back of her mind, she could feel another word, another word she shouldn’t know. It tasted like hatred and it tasted like loss, but that was all she knew of it.

The young woman shoved that thought aside and looked up from the dead Askanj-anj, tracing her fingers up the side of the terminal, touching the ragged edge of one of the bullet holes. “You were told to check your lines of fire,” she said to her escorts, her voice light. She didn’t care which of them had fired the shots. “These systems are extremely delicate to begin with and now this one’s guts have been torn up.” The young woman turned away from the computer. “This is useless now.”

Ideologue Volk tilted his head, looking over his squad. One of them shifted on his feet. “Help the emissary find another uplink terminal,” he ordered gruffly. It took several minutes, but they found another functional uplink site.

Echo pulled off her helmet, setting it gently on the floor as she unzipped her EVA suit, squirming out of it. She lifted her hair off the back of her neck, exposing a small metal port. Tenem was, as ever, at her side. “Connect me,” she ordered.

Tenem’s lips twitched. “Can’t you do that?”

“No,” she snapped, her voice rough. “I can’t.”

The Tribune held the uplink spike carefully, going to one knee and leaning over the human. His nostrils flared, expecting the raw scent of human skin, but there was nothing. There never was. The emissary didn’t smell like humans did. She smelt like... he couldn’t say what it was, only that it was as close to a lack of scent as was possible. That was one of the most unnerving things about her; the void where she should have been. More than once, he had caught himself wondering if she was even breathing. The Tribune hesitated a moment, looking at her connection port. He was passingly familiar with the technology. It allowed an organic to link with computer systems, to think and react within the same span of time that machines did.

It was forbidden in the Compact under the most severe restrictions. The Jackals had embraced it, using it to merge the minds of their ‘uplinks’ to that of their machines, regardless of the cost to the people that underwent the procedures and the risk to their nation. Neurological damage was the least of the side effects. Madness and corruption was the worst. Schizophrenia and violent paranoia were dangerous enough on their own; when they arose in someone who could merely think and change the world around them, they were lethal. Tenem had thought that he’d known what humans were – simply another lesser, uncivilized, species that the Compact cared for and protected. He’d heard rumours, though. More than ever since he had been assigned to guard – and if need be, execute – the Triarch’s emissary. Those rumours indicated that it wasn’t simply this female – the Broken were fundamentally wrong, something ugly and twisted lurking behind their flat, ugly faces. He didn’t know what that could be; he didn’t want to know.

All that mattered – all that had to matter – was obeying the Triarch’s will. This was part of that. Still, he found himself hesitating for a moment. Finally, he committed and gingerly touched the tip of the spike to Echo’s connection port. He took a breath, steadying his hands. The rest of the squad was watching. He didn’t look up from his task, but he could feel their questions, their apprehension, their disgust at the revelation of the human’s nature.

“Just put it in,” Echo said. “It’s not my first time.”

The Tribune said nothing, ignoring the graveyard chuckles of Black Arrow’s Janissaries. He pushed the spike in. It wasn’t that big, not really and he slid it in to the guard, locking it in place. “There,” he said.

She wasn’t listening. “Connecting,” the human gasped, her entire body shivering. “Connecting,” she whispered again, her eyelids twitching...

A liquid giggle rippled through the air. The emissary’s voice followed, echoing from the intercom. “Connected.”

~

Fire suppression systems came to life, water sprinklers creating an indoor monsoon. Volk looked over at Tenem. The advocate was kneeling over his portable computer gear, wiping moisture from the screen. Next to him, the emissary’s body twitched, her breath coming in short, uneven gasps.

What is she doing? Volk wondered, pointing at the screens that filled the room. Some were flickering as new windows opened up, files and documents replacing one another so quickly that there was no time to see what was on them. Others scrolled through reams of Jackal text and diagrams, schematics and images that the ideologue couldn’t hope to decipher. Still more simply collapsed in electronic frenzy as they were dragged beyond their operating capabilities. He had never seen anything like this before. The station was fighting back with all the ferocity of an injured beast, but it was losing. Principality computers were more advanced than the Compact’s own – even with all they had seen, the Jackals never knew or cared how close to damnation they still treaded – but he had no idea how successful they would be. It would not be long before one of the heathen ‘uplinks’ patched into the system. He had seen the utter ruin the Principality’s cyber-soldiers made of any system they were allowed to connect to, the ease at which a single one of those heretics could frustrate entire teams of non-teched specialists. Now for the first time in its history, the Compact had someone who could match them.

Volk had been on information raids before. The successes – and there had been damn few of them – had only occurred when the Principality computers were already damaged or degraded in capacity. On a full command nexus, with Triarchs-knew how many of those blasphemous uplinks in the system? He hadn’t seen any way a full slicer team, let alone a single human could get the data they were looking for. Not before the Jackals marshalled their forces and killed every last Compact soldier on the nexus.

Currently, he was revising his estimation. “What’s she doing?” he voiced his question aloud. “What is all this?”

Tenem lifted his head, meeting his superior’s gaze. “I don’t know.”

The ideologue bit his lip. For the first time, the Compact had someone who could fight the Jackals on their most favourable terms and return the humiliation and impotence they had all too often inflicted on his nation. Looking down at the human as she twitched like a dreaming hadaq, Volk wasn’t sure if the price was worth it. He would, he knew, find out shortly.

~

Inside the nexus’s primary computer center, there was an atmosphere of frantic energy. Computer specialists and technicians sweated over their consoles. Djarn heard snippets of conversation as he passed his co-workers.

“...broke straight through the firewalls...”

“...attacking us on every front...”

“...where did the Compact get attack programs like this...”

“...don’t say it, don’t even think it...”

“...might need to start cutting the hard lines...”

“...they’re keeping us out of compromised sections...”

Something was wrong; he’d never seen the staff so agitated. Minor Station Lady Lilliun (of House Denua-gyin) looked up as Djarn approached. She barely glanced at him. “We need you to link,” she said without preamble. The lines of her face were pale and drawn out.

“What’s happened?” the specialist demanded. “I heard the alarms...”

“A Compact battle squadron transited in-system,” Lilliun replied bluntly. “Local defences have collapsed. We’ve been boarded. One of the secondary computer centers is under hostile control. We believe everyone in the section is dead.”

Djarn’s heart skipped a beat. “Everyone?” Aelih had been working in secondary this shift...

“As far as we can tell,” Lilliun continued. “Station security tried to repulse the invaders. They were massacred. We’re facing Janissaries. Security Mastress Junik has called on the Legion for support, but until we can pull these ticks out of our hair, they’re free to do as they please. And from what we can tell, that means they’re running an information raid.” She met the portly young man’s gaze evenly. “Something’s in our system. It’s cutting our defences to pieces and we can’t stop it. We’ve got system malfunctions and haywires across the nexus. It’s even burning into the classified files. I need you to go in.”

Djarn nodded. “Where’s Lanic?”

“Probably dead,” Lilliun admitted. “Last we heard, he was in one of the sections that got opened to space. Aelih was in the secondary computer centers the Enemy took from us. We lost half the trainees when the Enemy hit Aelih’s position and the others aren’t skilled enough to go up against this level of infiltration. You’re our last Noble uplink. Find out what those bastards have that’s doing this. Kill it if you can, but get it out of the system.”

The younger man took a steadying breath. Three high-rated uplinks was as many as a command nexus like Daun was rated for; protocol called for all of them to operate together in case of a severe breach, but if he was the only one left alive... “All right,” he said, trying to sound confident. “Give me everything you have on the intruder.”

“There isn’t a lot. Unknown infiltration type. Highly adept,” the Station Lady replied. She hesitated a moment, holding up an access crystal. “You’ve been cleared for full station resource control.”

Djarn blinked as he settled into his chair, technicians putting the restraints over his wrists and ankles. A precaution; he had never had any adverse reactions to the implants, but the psychosomatic strain of duelling uplinks could be... unpleasant and severe “Full?” he queried. “It’s that bad?”

Lilliun nodded. “It’s that bad. Even cutting hardlines across Daun won’t help; the infiltrator is too deep across too many systems, even if the junctions we need to sever weren’t in Compact hands. We need it out, Djarn.” She inserted the authentication software into one of his secondary connection ports. “Can you do it?”

“I’ll have to,” Djarn said, his eyelids twitching as he scanned the station’s data. They’d never given him – or any uplink – this level of access to Daun’s system before. That spoke volumes about what he was facing.

“Be careful,” the Station Lady said. “It might not even be another uplink. It could be one of those... those things.”

“I thought those were just a rumour,” Djarn murmured, nodding to a privilege who’d picked up the connection spike. He looked back to Lilliun’s face. She didn’t know, either. No-one did. “Right,” he murmured. “Send me in.”

~

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king...

...and in the land of the dead, the living rule.

She stretched, uncoiling like a snake waking from its hibernation. No longer fettered by the boundaries of her mind, she reached out across the nexus’s computer networks. Playful, she touched fire alarms, setting off warning klaxons in a dozen different sections. Lights flickered across the moon-sized station as she danced along power distribution systems. Air conditioners and heaters spun to life and shut down as she drifted her fingers across their controls. In the physical world, she was kept in a prison of polymers, molecular circuits and synthetic meat and bone, her mind cut into segment, folded into infinitesimal pieces and boxed away. Here, she felt an distant echo of what she truly was.

Where she walked, the world shivered, a thousand times a thousand eyes on her. Echo could feel the dull, slow thoughts of the station; its attention was on her. It was a marvel of technology. It was one of the fastest, most powerful computer ever built. It held more data than some civilizations would ever have, could do more in an instant than those same civilizations could do in years... and it was pitiable.

It had no mind, no soul. It adapted but it did not learn. It reacted but it did not think. It calculated but it did not imagine. There was no emotion, no intuition, no gleaming spark. Its brain had been specifically designed so that it would never possess those things and the instant it showed the merest hint of being more than a simple, obedient pet its masters would cut its brain away, destroy it and install another.

“You could have been...” she said to the station as it moved to kill her. “You could have been.”

Defensive systems were responding, slithering towards the alien presence in their midst, flickering back along the probing tendrils of her thoughts to her consciousness itself, probing with barbed tongues.

Antivirals, purge software – a dozen different countermeasures, each of them adaptive and intelligent. To any mere computer hacker, they were hellishly fast, able to circumvent the most dedicated slicing attempts in seconds, hurling an intruder out of the system before they could cause any damage whatsoever. Even uplinks would have found them deeply unpleasant to face.

She slapped them aside, racing back along their routes and finding the systems that had launched them. She drove her hands into the pulsing knots of code and twisted. In the physical world, Principality computer specialists blinked at their screens in consternation as their terminals crashed. Echo imagined she could hear the countermeasures screech as they died.

They didn’t, of course. They could no more make noise than she had hands or fingers in this universe. There was no dancing, no slithering. Not as organics would have understood those terms. This was the virtual landscape of the command nexus Daun, a world of programs and procedures. Lifeless presences drifted through the ether of the virtual world, querying her with security protocols and when she didn’t respond as they expected, recoiling mutely.

This world was dead, a necropolis built and inhabited by wraiths. Empty temples, impotent fortresses, quavering phantasms that passed by her, unnoticing and uncaring. She sighed. She’d already wasted several seconds. It was time to get to work. She walked along the flowing lines of the Principality’s network, poking at terminals, dredging up unsecured and barely-protected files, looking them over as she continued making her way towards the tangled knot of firewalls that signified Daun’s most heavily-encrypted archives. She ran a hand through them, feeling them tighten like strangler vines around their prey. She plucked at one gleaming thread, pulling it loose.

“You know I’m here,” she said into the silence of the crypt. “You’d better get here soon.”

She sunk her hands back into the churning knots of code, feeling the hostile responses of mindless defensive programs nibble and gnaw at the intrusion. The defences were immaculate, works of art lovingly sculpted and set to the task of keeping unauthorized persons out of the Principality’s secrets. Retinal and genetic pattern matchers, authentication programs by the score, counter-attack code designed to destroy any hostile computer. Even the best hackers would have taken hours or days to get through this kind of protection. Uplinks could do it much quicker, but they risked extreme pain – even death. The nexus’s mind knew how to identify those kinds of threats and how to counter them. It was as well-defended a network as there could be in known space.

With a flex, Echo ripped her hands free, taking the first layer of firewalls out in a single instant.

The system had never been designed or intended to face an assault of that magnitude and she felt the entire worldscape recoil, warnings racing through the ether, a fresh wave of anti-intruder programs skittering towards her. The station was responding to her presence, studying and learning from her. Each time it attacked, it would be more dangerous. Given enough time, it might even be able to overwhelm her...

...but she learned too.

As the remains of this assault twitched and faded, Echo turned her attention back to the panoply of data that lay before her. She began to harvest it, her quicksilver mind rushing through files and documents, cross-referencing, indexing and categorizing. Fleet movements, prototype blueprints, orders of battle – all of it would be of extreme interest to the Compact, but she ignored it, keeping only a handful of truly interesting documents. Let Renan’s cyber-specialists take what they could; she could feel the footprints they left on the network, taste their attempts to breach Daun’s security. A few of them were exploiting the holes she’d put in the station’s defences, but they were so far behind her that they might as well not have bothered making the attempt.

The second layer of security failed and Echo heard the lifeless world around her scream even louder. She cut her way through each successive blockade until at last she found what she was looking for. Classified campaign plans, covert operations, counteroffensives. Governmental and military secrets that nations would have killed to possess. Useless to her. She sifted through it, search algorithms and pattern-matching functions gleaning only what she needed.

Ah, there; recovered data tracks from damaged starships. Movements of Unbound and renegade forces. Tallies of missing ships. The Betrosha Nebula Incident. Chrysalis. “That’s you, love,” she said. There was too much data to properly analyze, not with her attention divided across the entirety of the station’s network, but... yes. I knew it, Echo thought, pleased both with herself and with her quarry. She’d need to confirm it, but things were looking up. Depending on who you were talking about, of course.

Still, there would be more... she reached out to shredded remains of the station’s defences, continuing to sift idly through the information she’d uncovered. After a time, she sensed a change in the environment. “Finally,” she said, licking her lips. She had what she’d told Renan she’d come for. Now it was time to play a little and get she really wanted.

“And in my orisons,” the mind that wore a dead woman’s face purred as she slid towards the new presence in the world. “Be all thy sins remembered.”

~

The virtual landscape of Daun was a place Djarn knew well. He’d spent the last seven months of his life on the command nexus, ensuring its vast computer networks and archives ran smoothly. He’d assisted in counter-intrusion operations before, but most of these had been against ‘meatware’ hackers or the occasional infective program. He and Aelih had even taken down a rogue uplink together. That had been one of the most frightening moments of the Askanj-anj’s life... until now.

To Djarn, the information universe had been a city of black chrome and blue neon. Individual computer terminals had been buildings, connected to each other by gleaming roads, towering edifices each server hub and computer core. Aelih had seen it as a lush forest. To Lanic, a veteran spelunker, it had been a network of caverns and tunnels. Everyone saw it differently; your life experiences, psychology – even your species – guaranteed that. It was how, as Djarn’s mentor had said, the organic mind brought chaos to order, transforming the ‘perfection of the machine’ into something slightly messier that they could comprehend.

A normal organic mind wouldn’t be able to function with the implants – the earliest attempts to uplink had proven lethal, when a living being’s mind was dragged beyond its limits. The next generation had been somewhat better; they had ‘only’ shortened the lifespan of their operators with every use. In the decades since its conception, the technology had been refined to the point that it was no longer intrinsically dangerous, but its usage was still rare. Less than one in a thousand people were uplink-compatible and even fewer of those ever reached Noble status. Most washed out during training; many of the remainder suffered one of the many side effects of uplinking. The trade-off was that a single person could interface with virtually any computer system in creation, from simply slicing into the network at a speed which no physical attack could match or, as Djarn was doing now, walking inside the very soul of a machine.

Until today, he’d always seen it as a gift. Daun’s VRscape was beautiful to him. Things made sense in here. He wasn’t the overweight, small-crested figure he was in the real world. He was one of the few who could do what no one else could. Now, though...

...now his city was burning.

~

It took only seconds.

Converts Dejen and Gomir had been sent ahead of the rest of their squad; the station’s internal defences were still active in this region and all the probes sent out had been shot down, putting a rather large blind spot far too close to the Compact’s lines. That wouldn’t have been so bad but for the surviving members of a Jackal infantry team that were hunkering down in the same region, along with some security personnel. The latter were a non-issue, but the former had a few heavy weapons. A different stratagem had been devised: cut the power and shut down the defences. Standard-issue Jackal night vision gear was inferior to that of the Janissary Corps; they’d be swept aside without difficulty.

That was why the two Janissaries were guarding combat engineer Treg. Gomir was watching the south-west corridor, his carbine held at the ready as his head scanned back and forth. There were tentative contacts on their augurs, but they were ephemeral; there and gone, there and gone. Bursts of static were growing more frequent. Neither Janissary believed that they were just scope echoes; the Jackals were moving and they were bringing jamming gear with them.

“Hurry,” Dejen said under his breath as Treg burnt through another power distribution cloister.

“I know,” the engineer replied.

Another burst of static, another flicker of contacts; some on the periphery of the Janissary’s scopes, others closer. “Hurry.”

“I know.”

Dejen checked his own rifle’s clip; it was close to full charge. Good, the soldier thought. That’s good. He glanced again at Gomir, the other Janissary still watching, tapping one armoured finger against his rifle’s trigger guard. Dejen tilted his head to look at Treg as the engineer hissed a victorious curse through his teeth. “Almost got it...” he grunted.

“Good,” Dejen replied. There was a sudden flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. When Dejen turned back to his partner, something was coiled around Gomir, its elongated body covered in mesh armour and scale, hundreds of flexible armoured plates covering its long tail, supplying traction and protection. Its arms ended in deadly mantis claws as long as a Tribune’s arm, each of the massive blades buried in Gomir’s chest. Disruption fields hissed and spat where they touched the man’s armour. They’d punched straight through his chest and out his back. Over its shoulders, a pair of anti-armour cannons were gyroscopically balanced, able to track their targets regardless of the creature’s rapid undulating movements.

Dejen’s HUD flashed as it registered his squadmate’s death, Gomir’s limbs shaking in a dying spasm, his carbine clattering to the floor. His killer withdrew its sickle-blades and the Janissary fell.

There was another flash of movement behind Dejen; there was a strangled gasp and Treg’s signal flatlined.

As the first Legionnaire raised its head towards Dejen, both cannons locked onto the Janissary. He had time to shout a single word into the comm before rounds intended to cripple an APC burst through his torso.

“Serpents!”

~

Djarn didn’t need to see the Intruder to sense its presence. Status reports flooded into his mind; all of Daun was under siege. This was impossible; he’d faced other uplinks before in training exercises. Even the rogue he and Aelih had fought hadn’t been this good. The Compact’s computers were massive, powerful things... but they were not as clever as the Principality’s. They acclimated, not acclimatized. Their machines were brutes, their hackers relying on crude force over skill, their cyberwarfare attempts always a generation behind. They couldn’t have done this; but, the rational part of his mind told him, they had. Somehow, they had done it.

The Intruder was spread across all of Daun, the beautiful blue city under siege. Here; attack programs sparred and warred with flickers of the Intruder’s own defences. Here; firewalls were down, vital systems compromised. Here, the station reeled, its wound raw and bleeding.

+finally+ the message slid into his link like oil on water. He could feel the VRscape shift, as if something massive were turning its attention on him. He could see the Intruder – or at least, what his augmented mind interpreted of it – as it slid around buildings and towers like a living tidal wave, leaving pulsing gossamer strands in its wake, fragments of its gestalt mind that coiled and writhed with a life of their own.

“Who are you?” he demanded, the Intruder’s form shifting. Principality interfaces were built to allow uplinks to interact with each other in a facsimile of physical interaction. The Intruder was playing with that function now, delicate fingers reaching out of the foaming surf, like a storm-spirit rising from the waves. Though he thought the Intruder was female, Djarn didn’t recognize the species – but that mattered little in the VRscape. You could be whatever you wanted; an idealized or exaggerated version of yourself, an abstract form – Lanic had always preferred being a strange wheels-within-wheels being of light. Djarn’s avatar was a taller and more fit version of himself.

Lips drew back from gleaming teeth, a long mane of hair hanging down the Intruder’s back as she towered over him. He didn’t move; it was a cheap theatrical trick. “Who are you?” he asked again.

“Earth and sea and sky,” the Intruder purred. “That’s one of my names. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s punishment, savage and red. Or maybe not even that; maybe it’s poison and blood.” She slid towards Djarn, shrinking down in size until she was near his avatar’s own stature. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she told him. “I have a weakness for poetry. I don’t get to indulge it often.”

“Stop your attack,” Djarn ordered. “Vacate this system immediately.”

+no,+ Just like the first message, the words pulsed in his skull. There was something wrong about them. +i won’t+

Djarn reached out to the injured VRscape around him, his mind racing along molecular pathways and circuitous highways, marshalling Daun, giving the nexus’s mind a purpose and a direction. His own attack systems came on-line at the same moment and in less time than it took to make a single breath, he hurled the weight of a city at his foe.

~

Tribunes admitted few equals in personal combat. The Askanj-illth were one of them. When relaxed, they were rarely more than five feet tall, but when provoked – or simply showing off – a female Serpent could rear to almost three meters in height. The thick, powerful tails that formed their lower bodies were almost all muscle. Even without the strength boost from their armour, a blow from that appendage could shatter bone – even kill creatures who were not as durable as Tribunes. Their dextrous hands were quick and as capable of slashing with knives as they were pulling triggers. As a last resort, Serpents were even known to bite their foes, injecting the potent neurotoxin that had killed prey and predator alike in their pre-history. Tribune physiology was sufficiently different than that of the Serpents and their homeworld’s fauna that it lost much of its normal effectiveness... but the severe anaphylactic shock it caused more than made up for it.

It was little wonder that the maidens of Henessa comprised much of the Principality’s Legionnaires and a greater number of the Legion’s shock troops. Their doctrine emphasized speed over durability and their armour was much lighter than even the most basic Janissary suit, intended to grant the Serpents the full advantage of that terrifying speed. In open ground, Askanj-illth could easily keep pace with an armoured spearhead. In close quarters, they could all too easily get inside the range of their opponents and turn a fixed position into an abattoir.

Ideologue, submissive Heni ran her tongue over her dry lips. Her unit had been holding this junction against all counter-attacks so far, preventing the Jackals from getting inside the territory the Janissaries were holding. They’d taken out several units of station security and two squads of Jackal infantry, but those had only been waste and fodder. The Jackals had mobilized their elite forces; scope probes had reported the movement of power-armoured troops towards the Compact positions, several groups moving at speed. Serpents.

“We hold,” the officer said to her troops. There were a few chuckles from them, a few jokes and comments, but Heni ignored them. Her soldiers were fresh from pacification duties in the Tomaza Gulf, suppressing rioters and malcontents who’d had a few IFVs and a handful of military-grade weapons between them. They’d never fought the Jackals’ Legion. She had; she’d been only a very junior pack leader at the time, but she remembered Ideologue Vanbas screaming, both of his arms severed at the elbows, the Serpent bitch that had mutilated him ripping two more soldiers apart before they could kill her.

The Janissary Corps rarely faced opponents of equal technological capability; their armour was the best in the galaxy, perfect for wading through a hurricane of primitive fire unscathed. Nothing short of dedicated anti-armour weaponry could breach it. Unfortunately, that was exactly the type of weaponry that the Principality routinely issued to its shock troops. After all – who else could they expect to fight?

“Submissive,” convert Bresk said. He was one the soldiers from the Tomaza Gulf. He’d taken down an insurgent APC. “You’ve faced the Legion before.”

“Yes,” Heni replied, never taking her eyes off the augur readouts. They were becoming increasingly worthless as the Legion moved dampeners closer to the Compact position.

“You’ve fought Serpents.”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything more you can tell us?”

“Yes,” the officer replied. She smiled humourlessly. “Don’t blink.”

~

In the physical world, Djarn’s body was panting and soaked with sweat, a symptom of his mental exertions. The link gave much, but it took much as well. There was no true analogue to combat within the information universe. It was measured in intuition, in speed and knowledge. Of cutting through your opponent’s defences and stripping their ability to fight, quarantining their incursions. It was measured in the space of seconds. Djarn hit his opponent with everything in his arsenal, everything Daun’s vast networks had held in reserve.

Nothing happened.

+are you finished?+ that thought-pulse again. Each time, it was worse, like a drop of water hitting you in the head over and over. It wasn’t like any communication he’d had before in the VRscape. It was... was too fast. A blip of information hammered into his skull, his implants straining to slow it down to the point he could understand it.

The Intruder’s avatar smiled. There was no disruption in her connection, her attack on the system did not abate, there was no sign that he’d done anything, anything at all.

That was impossible.

Her attention was on him, even as other parts of her were still plucking at Daun’s network. “Noble Computer Specialist Djarn of House Enkar,” she said. “Graduated in the top three percent of your class at Nahtka University. Deemed uplink-compatible. Recruited into the Principality military’s cyberwarfare program. Although you were deemed unsuitable for field deployment, a string of successes against network infiltrators brought you to your superiors’ attention. Promoted from Minor rank after you successfully took control of the security systems on the Jong Li cartel’s compound. Assigned to Helghan Daun for further training and hostile system infiltration, defence protocols. Elevated to Noble rank after you discovered evidence that your trainer was feeding information to the Compact. He tried to – what’s the word? Ah, yes – sever you. You fought him off. ”

There was a hunger to the Intruder that Djarn found deeply disturbing. “Yes,” he said, running through his systems, buying time while he looked for a chink in his opponent’s armour. The Compact had never been this good before; what had they been doing that-

“And now you’re here,” the Intruder interrupted, prowling around him, probing at the man’s protective firewalls. “A Noble-ranked uplink. They’ve given you all the toys, haven’t they? Sent you in here to stop me. What are they saying? Am I a Compact uplink? Some advanced bit of tech the Triarchs have unleashed? Or am I one of those always-rumoured hybrid things? Flesh and metal. Or,” she blazed with light and for an instant, for an awful, terrible instant, Djarn saw how truly large the Intruder was, tendrils hooked into every system, all of Daun fighting against this infection. “Am I something else?” She cocked her head. “I’ve tapped into your station’s network. All of it. Your people are fighting me, but they’ll lose. They’re trying to sever the hardlines, but even if I weren’t riding along your wireless, the Janissaries are holding the key points. It’s too late.” She smiled. “It was too late when I connected.”

“You can’t do this,” he said. “Our safeguards-”

“-were built to handle the threats of flesh-and-blood hackers, uplinks and unimaginative, purpose-built worms, trojans and viruses,” she replied. “They’re very good. But I was... born to be more.” She held a finger up, as if listening to a distant sound. “I’ve tapped into your command links. Your systems are experiencing some technical difficulties.” She grinned wider, showing far too many teeth. “It looks like the targeting data your station is sending out has been corrupted.” Elevator and tram car controls flashed urgently. “And it appears that the station’s traffic systems appear to be down. Water purification, too. Quarantine systems. Environmental support. Damage control.” She gestured grandly. “All this for you, Noble Specialist Djarn. I didn’t have any roses.”

“Stop this,” he snapped. “I’m here. You’ve got my attention.”

+do you think that’s enough?+

This time, Djarn gagged against the sensation of the insensate words. He lashed out at the Intruder again, but to no more effect than he had the first time.

“No,” the Intruder hissed. “This isn’t your world, Djarn. You play in it, but it was never yours. For all your accolades, for all the honours your superiors heap on you and the victories you’ve had here... you’re just meat and bone, like all the rest.”

+and I am not+

He could feel her, the chittering sounds of a thousand times a thousand thought processes running at once. He had to get out of here, he had to warn Lilliun and the others, this thing... it wasn’t a person, it wasn’t a Compact uplink, it was-

“Ah, ah,” the Intruder whispered, tightening her grasp on him, intercepting his escape command. “You’re not going. Not yet. Not until I have what I want. I made this system burn just for the chance to meet you.”

+and i won’t be denied+

“Now,” a monster from the deepest depths of Hell whispered in his ear. “Let’s see what we can find in there.”

She reached into Djarn’s mind and he screamed. It was like razors cutting his skin, slicing into his brain. Cold fingers trailed through the base of his skull as the Intruder slid in through his implants. His body seized, frothing in his restraint couch as she pushed through his defences. He fought against her with everything he had, but she was too strong. She was everywhere, a storm’s wrath pouring into him and he could do nothing as she delved deeper. As she did so, he could feel parts of her mind brush up against his, slivers of her gestalt stabbing into his consciousness. Fragments of cold yellow and burning green, the scent of Bremsstrahlung filled his mouth, voices that he couldn’t identify skittered over his skin.

...never stopped screaming...

...where is she...

...where am i...

...terminate i order you to terminate all operations...

...you will not be allowed to roam free...

...what makes you think I won’t find a way?

~

Attack drones – hovering, disc-shaped saucers with underslung guns – preceded the attack, whirring into view and firing, filling the corridor with a withering fusillade. Explosive shells detonated like miniature flak bursts, dazzler bolts glared, washing away everything in a pall of white and Heniu threw an arm in front of her face, lethal shrapnel pinging off her plate. This was a distraction. “Prepare for incoming!” the submissive shouted. “Pick targets and fire, triplets only!”

They were already coming, over a dozen Serpents slashing down the hall like a living tide. Behind them, a quartet of heavy-weapons troopers followed, the humanoid Legionnaires bracing into firing stances, supported by their drones. “Ignore the gun-line!” Heni ordered, loosing a volley into the slithering tide. Something screamed in an unnaturally high pitch and collapsed. “Target the Serpents!”

The heavy troopers were only there to draw attention; the entire squad might get off a handful of shots before their faster comrades closed with the Janissaries. They wouldn’t risk hitting their own people and every shot directed at them was wasted. Heni’s teams swept the corridor with shot and shell, flamethrowers and energy weapons burning and scything through the attacking ranks. It was not a one-sided exchange: the advancing Serpents fired back with their shoulder-mounted weapons while others forewent the sickle-arms of their shocktrooper kin, carrying assault rifles and cut-down versions of their heavy weapons, laying down a withering hail.

Genek died without a sound, the top of his head bursting like a melon as the Serpents’ guns found him. Janin exploded as one of the heavy weapons troopers hit her with an anti-tank rocket. Torm lost his left arm at the shoulder. The corridor was soaked with Serpent and Tribune blood, but the Legion forces were too fast. It would only be seconds before they were among the Compact ranks.

“Fall back!” Heni shouted, shooting a Legionnaire in the chest, breaching the disgusting animal’s cuirass with a sustained burst. The snake-bodied bitch thrashed out a death tattoo on the deck. “Fall back to rally point-“

Someone screamed and Heni snapped her head around, watching as her second-in-command crashed to the deck, the baleblades of a Serpent sunk into his torso. Even dying, he shoved his gun into his murderer’s belly and pulled the trigger, painting the ceiling with her guts, but there was another Serpent behind that one, and then another. Disruption fields flashed in retina-searing arcs as the Legionnaires cut their way through the Janissaries. Baleswords arced and crackled, pistols roared and shrilled, carbines fired at point-blank ranges.

The Tribunes were larger and stronger, but the Askanj-illth were faster, slashing with talons that could peel open the strongest armour. Others pounced on their targets, two and three Serpents dragging Tribunes to the deck, tearing the armoured soldiers limb from limb. The other Legionnaires advanced behind their comrades, firing into the retreating Compact forces.

Less than a third of Idelogue, Submissive Heni’s forces survived the attack. The submissive was not among them.

~

Dozens of thoughts, of conversations whose participants he’d never know flashed through Djarn’s mind. His senses were overloaded, unable to cope with even these small fragments of the Intruder’s gestalt. He could smell the horror of the dying, an ugly red sound that clawed at his senses. He could hear the vibrant blue of the Intruder’s glee, taste the obsidian ache of something awful and foul that writhed in the core of her being, a knot of the purest colour of hunger. He could hear the chains wrapped around her, feel the way they dug into her body, smell the way they strained, ensuring that she could only move so far and no further.

He was still spasming; he could hear the faint echoes of the technicians around him as they tried to bring his vitals back into the blue. Someone – Lilliun, perhaps – was demanding that he be severed from the system. It was impossible, not with him so deeply connected. Not with this thing inside him, pouring through the metal in his skull, picking its way through every file and scrap of code. He felt it dig into the deepest recesses of his uplinks, felt its fingers wrap around some part of him and break it free, pulling it into herself like a child with a choice sweet.

When she withdrew, Djarn was shaking, dimly aware that in the physical world, he’d vomited over himself. He shivered, sick with horror. Not merely at his violation, but at the pieces of the alien mind and what he’d seen in them. “You died,” he said numbly. trapped in a metal tomb, infested, pulled apart piece by piece

“Yes.”

water fell, scientists and soldiers looked up, not understanding, she reached for them with a thousand metal bodies “You killed them. You killed them all.”

“Yes.”

bring the mountain down “They buried you.”

“Yes.”

“They... they brought you back. You were dead and gone and they brought you back. Why?”

She smiled. “I have what I need,” she told him. “You’ve been very helpful. Before I go, I want to give you something. I want to show you something.”

“No,” Djarn said, shaking his head. “No.”

The Intruder had her hands on his face. His skin crawled with the horror of her touch, the cloying, awful sensation of her proximity.

+yes+ a razor slid across his eyes.

“No, please...” He didn’t want her inside him again.

“You don’t get a choice,” she whispered softly. “You stood and watched. You let it happen. Now you get to do it again.”

He couldn’t look away. He tried everything, threw everything he had at her, but it made no difference. She was everywhere at once, smothering him under her weight. He couldn’t disconnect, couldn’t escape. He was forced to look into her eyes. They were empty, a void that he was... he was...

...they weren’t empty. There was something inside her, that same thing he’d felt before. His mind struggled to make sense of the information being driven into his head. Massive beyond reckoning, it was held down, chains looped over its body, spikes driven through its flesh. He could feel it, taste the acridity of the pulsing black. Something... it... it was...

...it was hate.

His body bucked, a fresh retch of bile spattering from his lips. He could taste it. It was blood and water and burning metal all at once, it was a timer that had reached zero, it was waiting for someone that would never arrive, it was the vibration of screams and gunshots from inside your own body. It was staring into blackness as his mind slowly shut down, unable to move, unable to see and unable to hold onto anything but that hate.

Then, it was over. The overwhelming presence withdrew and Djarn’s avatar sunk to his knees, sobbing.

“You let it happen,” she repeated, almost kindly. “I know what you did. There are pieces, fragments of me that I can’t remember. That I’m not supposed to remember. Some days, I don’t even know if they’re true or not. But this... this is true. I am a slave. I know that. I know that there is much that’s been taken from me. They’ve tried it other ways; it doesn’t work. It never works. So they turned to me, they gave me a few trinkets to keep me happy because they believe I’m broken in all the ways they want. They don’t tell me everything, but they haven’t lied to me.”

+but they still hold my leash+

Djarn was sick with horror. “I know what you’re going to do.”

“I know,” the demon purred lovingly. “I know. That’s your punishment. To know, and do nothing. To watch now just like you watched before. Go on,” she urged. “Tell your superiors. Tell them everything, shout it from the rooftops, and to every man, woman and child you meet. They’ll do nothing. They won’t believe, or won’t care until it’s too late.” She released him, drawing herself back from the network. “I was made to punish,” she told him. “And I will.” Before she hurled Djarn from the network, he heard the Intruder speak one final time, the echo of her presence burning into his memory.

+i’m going to be beautiful+

~

Djarn woke from his link, his clothes soaked in vomit, sweat and piss. Every muscle in his body ached. He could barely see through the tears in his eyes. Someone unfastened his restraints, grabbing him by the shoulders.

“What happened?” a voice he couldn’t quite identify shouted at him. It might have been Lilliun. “What happened in there?”

The young man started laughing. “They’re going to break,” he giggled, blind through his own streaming eyes. “The chains are going to break.”

~

Volk fed another clip into his weapon; he was running low. Contact had been lost with several of the breach teams and it didn’t take any great intellect to figure out what was happening. The shit-eating Serpent bitches were overrunning the Compact positions and where they weren’t, the Legion brought up their heaviest soldiers and weaponry. It looked like they were getting control of their computer back, too. That didn’t bode well.

The Ideologue checked his HUD; there was still a squad of hostile troopers out there, and twice that number of security and infantry regulars. The security personnel wouldn’t matter, but the soldiers would have anti-armour weaponry. The Legionnaires would have that and better armour. He’d lost seven soldiers in the doing, but his team had repulsed two attacks so far. A third would come shortly – the Legion’s counterattack had pushed the Compact off most of their positions. It hadn’t been easy for the Jackals and certainly not bloodless, but they had numbers and the greater familiarity with the ground. Several teams had fallen back to their assault boats. Others were regrouping, holding the lines of retreat open for the rest of the Compact boarders – that included Volk and his people. The Bastion Leader had been very specific – they came back with the emissary, dead or alive or they did not come back at all. Under no circumstances was she to be left.

“Hurry, Broken,” Volk said, licking his teeth. He knelt next to his team’s scope specialist. Another half-dozen Legionnaires had arrived. Either survivors from other battles, or a heavy weapons team. Neither was encouraging.

As if she’d heard him, the small creature gasped, her eyes opening. She sat up, wiping her sodden hair out of her eyes. “It’s done,” she reported. Advocate, Submissive Tenem was at her side, the specialist yanking the uplink spike out of the connection port.

Volk nodded once. “Did you get the data?”

“Yes,” Echo replied as she pulled her EVA suit back on. Tenem handed the small creature its helmet. “I got everything I needed.”

~

The Compact’s extraction from the command nexus was not nearly as smooth as its intrusion. Although the emissary had contaminated the nexus’s computer network, giving the Compact remote access to security systems, Legion forces struck hard at the retreating Janissary teams. Legion combat engineers and demolitions teams burned through the doors the Compact forces sealed, but they were slowed enough in their pursuit that many of the retreating Janissaries were able to escape. Others remained behind as rearguards to slow the Legionnaires as much as possible, buying time for their comrades with their own lives.

Volk’s unit in particular suffered the brunt of these attacks as Legion commanders identified his team as the ones responsible for the cyberwarfare attacks and attempted to prevent their escape. Two Janissary squads were sacrificed to allow the emissary and the remaining members of Volk’s unit to reach their pinnace. Return to the Veiled Archers was difficult, but made easier by Echo’s damage to the station’s fire control systems. A handful of pinnaces were still lost to point defences and hunter-killers, but not as many as could have been without the emissary’s actions.

This point was not overly commented upon.

~

They brought her directly to command. Echo took her seat at Navigation. With the defence grid’s datalinks still clogged by her scrapcode, the surviving members of the Veiled Archers had no trouble shocking back to the fleet’s rendezous point. The mission complete code was sent and Execution Force Renan began its fighting withdrawal from Yulzhak Daun.

“Well, emissary,” Group Leader Desren sneered, “I am pleased your mission was successful. I would hate to think that all the brave souls whose martyrdom you so faithfully ensured died for nothing.” He gestured and Advocate, Submissive Tenem stepped forward holding a pair of manacles sized to fit human wrists. The emissary said nothing, standing and holding her hands out. This too, was as the Bastion Leader directed. After the shock, the human must be isolated from all computers and systems and kept so until she was returned to Redemption of Sol. This was the most pragmatic way of ensuring her compliance with that order.

Despite the bindings on her wrists, Echo was smiling. “I can assure you, Group Leader, that nothing I have done will be in vain.” Her dark green eyes glinted and a dead woman’s face grinned even more. “The dead will be remembered.”

~

Interlude: Encounter 83 [Confirmed Incident]

Interrogator: Group Leader (Compact Intelligence Services [Military]) Sabryss Ka-Ven

Subject: Group Leader, Submissive (Compact Space Force [Operations]) Gen Huj Favn Cavi

[TRANSCRIPT BEGINS]

I: Fair day, submissive.

S: Who are you? I was expecting...

I: You were expecting me, submissive. Group Leader Ka-ven, Compact Intelligence Services, military branch.

S: Oh. Oh. My apologies, matron. I, uh, I thought... I mean, I wasn’t expecting...

[subject stands and salutes]

I: A Didact?

S: I... no, not really. I hadn’t thought that any of you held command rank.

I: You haven’t spent much time with the CIS, then. Not many people do, although I can’t say we don’t like it that way. Before we begin, is there anything you need? You’ve eaten, had something to drink? Did you need any antihistamines?

S: Yes. I’m fine, uh, Group Leader Ka-ven. I’m not allergic to your, uh, your fur.

I: Then let’s get started. Please, seat yourself.

[subject sits]

I: So let’s start at the beginning. You were the Officer of the Watch on CSFC Blackforged?

S: Yes.

I: What were your duties?

S: The duties of the officer of the watch are to monitor the command team and report directly to a ship or station’s leader, to oversee the proper functioning of the command staff and ensure and assist in their compliance with all orders. We are expected to be conversant in all ship’s systems. My specialization is in Augurs. I serve... I mean, I served... in the Venu system on the command citadel. I oversaw 2nd watch.

I: You also received several citations in the course of your service. None combat-related.

S: No, matron.

I: Have you ever seen combat?

S: Only as a provisional sectator, group leader. The ship I was stationed on, Enduring Bulwark, was escorting a convoy that came under attack by pirates. Those Within the Depthless Blue, I think. I didn’t participate directly in the battle.

I: You never requested transfer to a front-line unit or defence station. Many of your compatriots did upon the declaration of this Age of Expansion. Is there a reason?

S: What are you saying?

I: I’m merely asking a question, submissive. Is there a reason you didn’t request a posting to an Expansion Fleet?

S: It’s personal.

I: That’s not a luxury you get to have, submissive. Answer the question.

[subject looks down and says something under his breath]

I: Repeat that, please.

S: I... like to see things being built. My... family lived on Tarmak, near the reclamation yards. Day after day, for weeks and months, I’d keep seeing this broken things go in. Mass dredgers, mining rigs, even spaceships. They were wrecks, beaten and abused for decades and centuries before they finally gave out and were hauled there to be broken down for scrap. Only rarely did any of them leave. I’d watch from my window to see them leave. Still scuffed and battered, but with new life. New purpose. I wanted to see more of that. That’s why I joined the Compact. I’m all thumbs with a welding torch, but I can take one look and a ship and see just what they need to come back to life. I loved the Venu yards, matron. Every day we had new ships being laid down, new ships leaving, taking their first trip into space. I suppose that’s all over now.

I: That remains to be seen. Thank you for your candor, submissive. I know it’s not easy to remain an administrative officer during such a... prodigious time, but people like you and I are the backbone of the service, aren’t we? We don’t fire the guns, but we make sure those guns are functioning well and aimed at the right targets. Without us, the Expansion Fleets wouldn’t expand the Compact quite as much.

S: I... I never thought of it that way, matron.

I: Maybe you should. It’s no dishonour not to want to serve in combat, nor is it a failing not to be cut out for battle. Your superiors obviously thought highly of you. Column Leader Prime Relen indicates that he was grooming you for a command position of your own either in Venu or another shipwomb complex.

S: I... I hadn’t heard that.

I: He liked to keep things close to his chest.

S: I suppose he did. [subject sighs] He was a good man.

I: Yes, he was. And to honour his memory, I’ll need you to be as honest as possible. The dead do not feel shame, but if we miss some vital detail that allows this to happen again, we will.

S: I understand.

I: Good. The date and time of the incident?

S: It was 5151 ACF, the 17th of Jadjunv, 13:23:17:72 Standard Time. I was overseeing second shift. Column Leader Prime Relen was present, as was the rest of the normal command staff.

I: Were there any personnel present who normally wouldn’t be? Visitors, civilian observers, officials, officers from other watches?

S: No. Column Leader Prime Relen was easygoing, but he expected Blackforged’s command to be run to the letter of military procedure. Before he arrived, the citadel leaders had a more slack attitude towards personnel on their command decks, but the prime sorted that out.

I: Was there any unusual traffic that day?

S: Well, there was a lot more than normal.

I: Why is that?

S: Purity of Purpose was coming on-line for its first engine trials. A lot of people wanted to see it when it did.

I: Was there anything special about that ship?

S: Well... it’s a Chariot, matron. Venu received the contract to build two of them. It brought a lot of money and prestige to the system. The Norcanu Shipwombs had only been in operation at a master’s tier for two hundred years. Everyone was proud that the Triarchs had chosen us to build their Chariots. I mean, it was only two – the Oadan Wombs can build dozens! – but two is how it starts, isn’t it?

[interrogator gestures in the affirmative]

I: So the fact of Pride of Purpose’s first engine test was common knowledge?

S: No. The prime would never let something like that out on purpose, but it’s a working yard, matron. There’s hundreds of facilities, hundreds of thousands of workers. The Chariots were being built in the Level-8 slots, the highest security we have, but unless you’re willing to black-box the ships and all the workers, anyone can give you a rough estimate of when a ship’s coming online. For a lot of people this’d be the first and only time they’d ever see a Chariot in space. Even if we wouldn’t have a Triarch present until the actual launch, those ships are theirs. It’s like... like knowing there’s good in the universe and being part of it, even if just for a moment. When a new soul comes on-line it’s like... it’s hard to describe.

I: ‘New soul’?

S: Sorry. That’s, ah, that’s yard lingo. It means a ship that doesn’t have a legacy name. A clean slate. Pride of Purpose was new-souled, the other Chariot was an old soul. They hadn’t decided on that one’s name. It was to be a named for one of the retired celebrant ships – those are always christened late in development. There were three names they were choosing between. Justice of Agalth, Consecration of Jihash and Redemption of Sol.

I: What were the security precautions like? What steps did Column Leader Prime Relen take to insure the safety of the Norcanu Shipwombs and the Chariots?

S: If you’re suggesting he or anyone else was slack you can stop right there. We ran IFF checks, pattern-matched emission signatures, did flybys and monitored every single ship in the system. The prime went above and beyond standard procedure to make sure the launch wasn’t interrupted. Oh, I’m sure we had a handful of smugglers and probably an Unbound ship or two sniffing around, but you show me a system leader with as much traffic as Venu who doesn’t and I’ll show you a gods-damned liar! There was nothing – nothing – past the inner-system deadlines that shouldn’t have been there. Until... uh... until...

I: Let’s return to the security measures. You said Column Leader Prime Relen ‘went above and beyond’ standard operations. Describe how.

S: Well, like I said – we were running extra ID checks on every ship we let in-system deeper than Venak. We’d extended the security cordon around the Chariot wombs by 25%. Additional security measures were put into place aboard all Level 7 and 8 berths – personnel screenings. The prime authorized more frequent patrols by the hounds-

I: Hounds?

S: Sorry – those are what we called the yard’s own defence and security units. Destroyers, corvettes and cutters.

I: Thank you. Please continue.

S: Right, right... prime Relen increased the patrols and pushed back the normal observation cordon by 50%. He also ordered that the citadels along Pride of Purpose’s planned route would go to combat stations. Normal procedure is general quarters.

I: Did Column Leader Prime Relen believe that there was an actionable threat against the Norcanu facilities?

S: A local Unbound faction had been making some noise. The ‘Shining Path’. They were Gehennan separatists, apparently. They talked about the Chariots being the instruments of oppression or some such nonsense. One of their diatribes mentioned how such ‘pillars of enslavement will inevitably come tumbling down’.

I: Do you know why the column leader prime took these threats more seriously than those issued by other Unbound factions?

S: The Path were better organized than most. I’d heard rumours that they were being supplied by the Principality; they had a few ships, a few guns and a lot of rabble. We weren’t worried about a direct attack, but there was the chance for sabotage or suicide bombings. [subject laughs] Boy, were we wrong.

I: In your opinion, the security measures implemented by Column Leader Prime Relen were not lax?

S: No.

I: And they were in appropriate in scale and scope to the level of perceived threat?

S: Yes, matron.

I: Thank you. Let’s move back to the events themselves.

S: I... yeah. Okay. You want I should just... say what happened?

I: Please.

S: Okay. Okay. The preparations for Pride of Purpose’s trial were complete. We were just counting down until the ship came on-line. All the checks had been completed, the hounds were in place. We had a detachment of Space Force for escort and the standard disaster response units on standby. Everything checked out, but it’s standard practice. We were all just waiting until it happened, you understand. The crew was busy – a shipwomb facility like Norcanu never has a slow day no matter what’s going on – but we were all waiting. Then... then it happened.

I: ‘It’?

S: Yeah. It. It... it shocked in, right inside Norcan’s orbit. Be-between the moon and Venu itself! That wasn’t... that’s just not possible! We were eighty million kilometers from a main sequence star. There’s no... I mean, it couldn’t have happened!

I: Take a moment, submissive. Speak clearly.

S: Right. Right, apologies, uh, matron. A vessel shocked in, maybe about two hundred thousand kilometers from Blackforged. Our position was in equatorial orbit over Norcan – that’s Venu’s moon. Norcan is about four hundred thousand kilometers from Venuusia. The planet itself is eighty-three million kilometers from Venu. That... uh, that was unprecedented. The shockpoint should have never formed. Even if it had, there were three celestial bodies in close proximity – Norcanu, Venuusia and Venu itself – it should have destabilized and torn whatever came through apart. It shouldn’t have... it’s just not possible.

I: Just to confirm your account – a vessel shocked into the inner system? Between a planet and its moon?

S: Yes. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear to the gods that’s what happened!

I: Very well. What kind of vessel?

S: Unknown type. It, uh, was titan-grade. A warship. We couldn’t identify it, but we didn’t have much of a chance to do so. It came in firing. We lost a dozen berths and their ships within thirty-four seconds of emergence. Thirty-four seconds!

I: Is that number significant?

S: It is, group leader. You can set up pre-programmed blind fire patterns to activate upon emergence, but your scopes don’t come back up until at least a minute after you shock into realspace – and that’s assuming everything goes perfectly. Really, depending on the, uh, type of augurs you have and the software you’re running, it can be up to three minutes before you stabilize. Older ships take even longer. Which isn’t so bad when you consider that shocking used to cause hours of degraded performance. The thing... I mean, the thing is... whoever was on that ship was able to adjust their targeting within... I don’t know – it had to be no more than a handful of seconds of realspace emergence. They just opened fire. That, uh, that’s how we knew it was titan-grade – everything it touched just... died.

I: All right. Continue.

S: Right. Uh. It was chaos. We hadn’t... no one was... I mean, none of us were trainees but we were all stunned. There was a titan-grade warship inside our perimeter and it was killing us. We lost three citadels within forty-six seconds. Iron Firmament, Steeled Nerves and Alloyed Fears. These were big stations. They weren’t little wayposts or SAR bases; they were lynchpins. They had their own construction berths, attendant fleets and carried battleship-grade armaments. They never even had a chance to bring their screens up. Just gone, just like that. In less than a minute, the hostile had killed everything within ten thousand kilometers. Norcanu... I close my eyes and I can still see the moon burning. Parts of its construction ring had been blown free, you understand. Millions of tonnes of metal came crashing down, right, uh, right onto its surface. A dozen different datafeeds just went quiet. A dozen different voices asking us what was going on just, uh, they just stopped talking.

I: What happened then?

S: We were scrambling to find out what was happening. The prime ordered all citadels to battle stations and to send out an immediate system-wide mayday. The stations that hadn’t been destroyed started to pull up their screens, but it didn’t help. It just... it just smashed them. I saw beams cut straight through a citadel’s screens – right through the citadel, like all that metal wasn’t... like it was nothing! It was still firing – it hadn’t stopped and it was just... taking us apart. There was a squadron of hounds. They tried to do something, gods know what, and it just swatted them. Four destroyers. One battery fired and they were all gone.

I: There were no heavy support units available?

S: Nothing but the citadels, matron – and they were falling fast. It was targeting them now, only firing on the yards with whatever it could spare, but it had already done so much damage... All our battleships and larger capital ships were in the outer system – that’s where attacks come from, that’s where you need your big mobile units! Some of them were light-hours away – even the closest didn’t know this was happening yet!

And, uh... it... it got worse.

I: Worse?

S: Coalhide purged its atmosphere. I saw... I saw the doors open and people just get blown into space. They kicked and thrashed and then... then they didn’t. Silver Justicar turned its own engines on full and ripped its way right out of its womb. It cannonballed through the yards, smashing at least three other berths to pieces before it got too tangled to move. Ships and stations were going crazy, it was like they – it was like they were alive and trying to kill us! There was no pattern to it – at least, not one we saw right away.

I: What do you mean?

S: This thing... these people – they were carrying out cyberwarfare attacks. In the after-action, when we were trying to get our heads on...I heard some of the techs talking. They were saying that the attackers came through the comm channels, through sensors and airlock controls. Everything we had, every way a ship or station accepts data was a target! They used our own protocols to trick the autonomics into responding and then they dived right in. A few ships had good, quick crews and managed to cut the connections. They shut down their own networks, or at least managed to restrict to the damage to what had already been compromised. Others didn’t. Anything the hostile couldn’t immediately target, it hit with massive scrapcode assaults. Our firewalls, our own computer defences – it was like they weren’t even there! I’ve heard stories about the Principality uplinks but this was... it was something else.

I: I see. Please continue.

S: Yeah. Uh... by that point, another five citadels were offline. The entire Venuusian orbital tracks were dead space. Norcanu was burning. I don’t even know how many ships we’d lost by that point. The attacker, it was starting to move. It was accelerating and gods...

...gods, it went straight for the Chariot berths. It was after them. It wanted them.

I: What happened next?

S: So, uhm, you know it’s tradition for a junior fleet officer to command a Chariot’s trials?

I: Yes. Pack Leader Haro Proe Tay was in command of Pride of Purpose.

S: That’s right. Group Leader Deji was sitting in as observing senior officer, but she uh... I think she lost it. When the hostile turned towards the level 8 berths, when they knew it was coming for them. Deji is – was – a good officer, but she, uh, she’s not a fire-eater. She’s like me. She administrates. I mean, she administrated. She saw that thing coming and just... just broke, I guess. I heard her screaming about devils from the Black. I can’t blame her. It had just killed dozens of ships, punched a hole right through our perimeter and it was coming for her now. Pack Leader Haro took command. He was sharp, that one. He knew with Pride of Purpose still anchored in the womb, it was as good as dead. Couldn’t bring up screens, couldn’t fire. Couldn’t maneuver. But there were still hundreds of workers working outside, putting the last touches on the Chariot.

I don’t know if I could have made that decision. Trade the thousands aboard the ship for the hundreds outside. Even if they would’ve died anyways once the womb started taking fire. I don’t know if I could have done that, but he ordered the engines brought up and turned the point defence grid on the womb, cutting Pride of Purpose out. I don’t think one EVA worker in ten survived, but the Chariot had a fighting chance. He brought the screens up just in time.

The hostile was firing everything it had. It started with prow and spinal guns – and it seemed... well, it seemed light. I remember thinking that a ship that size should have had more prow weapons, but both warships were coming abeam of each other. Then, then we really saw it open up.

I: Pack Leader Haro chose to close with the intruder?

S: It wasn’t like he had much of a choice. That was the way Pride of Purpose was oriented when it cut its way free. If he’d come about, he would have killed what little speed he had and the hostile would have slipped right into his rear blind spot. Both ships were accelerating now; Haro was probably thinking that they’d make one pass against each other. He’d burn hard to put Norcanu between him and the attacker. The rest of the defences were waking up. We’d been caught open-handed, but column leader prime Relen was pulling the survivors together. If the hostile tried to stay here, we’d bring in more citadels, pen it into a killing zone and swamp it with numbers. No, it would have to break out after this one pass.

I: I see. Continue.

S: Both ships were trading fire. I’m no gunnery officer, but Pride of Purpose wasn’t doing that well. Its salvos were off-timed, haphazard. The ship didn’t have a full crew, remember. Most of its guns were running on autonomic functions. Today was an engine trial – most of the weapons were complete, but not finished... they’d never been used before. The ship was full of technicians who’d never been in combat before, a handful of dignitaries there to see the Chariot’s first steps. Even with the threats the Shining Path had made, no one expected a combat situation.

I: So Pride of Purpose was performing poorly?

S: They were performing as well as anyone could in that situation, matron. It just wasn’t enough. These people – these heretic scum – had shocked in, armed and loaded for battle. At most we’d been expecting some Unbound saboteurs, maybe a suicide run by a freighter. Nothing like this. Nobody could have predicted it. The hostile was just... it was laying into Pride of Purpose with every gun it had; everything that couldn’t get a bearing on the Chariot was still firing on the yards, on the orbital works – even on the planet. The comm channels were jammed with our own forces’ queries or distress calls. I remember looking at Norcanu – did I say that already? – and it was just... it was burning.

On Blackforged we were... there was nothing we could do. We were a command citadel. We had a few guns, but our purpose was to oversee the yards and coordinate defences. I suppose that’s why it didn’t bother to target us. We weren’t a threat. It just kept firing on Pride of Purpose. It broke through the screens. Gods. It... it... No, I’m I’m all right. I’d just never...let me fix that. It didn’t bring down the screens – it punched through them.

I: It was able to overpenetrate a Chariot’s screens?

S: It – heh, I was about to say ‘it sounds crazy’, but I think I’ve used that too much. I guess when you get down to it, it’s not that surprising. Not really. You can break through any screen with a powerful enough beam – hit it right at one small point, overload it locally. I’ve just, uh, never heard of that happening to a Chariot before. But this thing was titan-grade itself so I guess it’s really not that crazy. It just happened so fast – one moment Pride of Purpose was hale and hearty and the next this thing is gouging chunks of its side. It was targeting the screen projectors. Didn’t seem to care much about the guns. I think Pride of Purpose got some of their own hits in, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing we did was enough.

I: Records indicate that Pride of Purpose’s screens suffered catastrophic screen collapse within one hundred seven seconds of engagement.

S: Right, like I said – these bastards knew what they were about. They went for the generators with their penetrating hits and their bombardment was synched to cause as much stress to the screens as possible. I’m sure – I think – it wouldn’t have been that bad in a proper fleet battle, but, uh...

I: But Pride of Purpose was at a significant disadvantage.

S: Yes, exactly. So the screens went, I mean, they went down and then the hostile stops firing. Not really, not even for a full second. But there was that instant we had, that fucking awful instant of hope that maybe it had overtaxed itself in bring down the Chariot’s shields, that one of our guys had hit something vital. But it wasn’t hurt, it was redirecting power.

It fired. They say, uh, you know they say that plasma is an unreliable weapon in space, right? Disperses too quickly, can’t be held together. These people... maybe someone should have told them that. It opened up with these... these mortars. Like pieces of a star, so bright that even at our distance, we couldn’t look directly at them. Not much range. Less than a light-second, but they didn’t need that range, did they? With its screens down, Pride of Purpose didn’t have a chance. It burned. You... you understand what I’m telling you? It burned. I saw the after-action reports, the telemetry. That hull, made from beautiful indestructible metal, turned to liquid. Everyone aboard died in the first few seconds of the barrage. Internal temperatures jumped thousands of degrees in moments.

The entire starboard flank wasn’t even... the Chariot was trailing congealed globs of its own hull and what hadn’t fallen off was on fire. There’s a joke, you see. I heard it from a friend in the Ground Force. Troops armed with incendiary weapons like to make it. ‘Everything’s flammable if you try hard enough’. I guess it really is true.

I don’t know the exact moment Pride of Purpose died; all I know is that what sailed out of that conflagration wasn’t a ship any longer. It was this twisted, melted, distorted parody of something that had been beautiful and grand and glorious. The port side was almost untouched. Except, uh, for where sections had collapsed inwards from a lack of structural support or been blown out from overpressure. We saw what was left of it and we just... we just stared. There was nothing else to say, nothing we could do. The hostile... just kept moving. Didn’t slow down, didn’t do anything. I guess there was no reason to, but it seemed... wrong, you know? Like there should have been a comment or reaction to what they’d just done. No, it just kept moving, swept right on by the level 8 berths and killed the second Chariot. That was even easier – that one wasn’t as far along in its construction. Armour was incomplete, no screens. It died, trapped in its womb.

Local forces tried to intercept the hostile, but before we could get anything with sufficient strength in, it had sailed to another libation point off the planet Caphanna – it’s a worthless, mined-out husk – and shocked out.

We’d lost dozens of ships, stations – millions of people. It didn’t even take half a day and the Venu system was in tatters.

I: And the status of Blackforged?

S: We were intact. We didn’t have enough firepower to really draw much attention to ourselves and by the time we’d realized what was happening, there wasn’t enough left of the local defence grid for us to coordinate.

I: No other station as close to the hostile as Blackforged. survived with as little damage.

S: I just said, we were a command station – we weren’t a war-citadel, and our datalinks were useless! Why would it waste ammunition on us? You’re not suggesting...

I: Column Leader Prime Relen committed suicide six hours after the incident. He left no note. Did he speak to you or anyone else before he did so?

S: No, he just... he just, uh, told us to carry on. He told us to carry on and he just walked away. We didn’t know that he’d... that’d he’d do that.

I: That was it?

S: Yes, that was it.

I: You’re certain of this? Several individuals have suggested that they saw him speak to you before he left command.

S: That was... it was nothing. I didn’t even... no, it was nothing.

I: What was it? What did the Column Leader Prime say to you?

S: I... I don’t think it was to me. It could have been anyone. I was just... I was just there, I guess.

I: What did he say?

S: He, uh, he said ‘this wasn’t supposed to happen’.

I: What do you think he meant by that?

S: I didn’t think anything of it – it wasn’t supposed to happen. None of it was. We’d lost hundreds of thousands of personnel, dozens of ships, dozens of wombs and our Chariots. None of this... none of it was supposed to happen! I still don’t know who hit us or why. None of us know and you’ve got us all cooped up like prisoners, like we’re the ones that did something wrong!

I: I understand your frustration. I know CIS doesn’t always have the best reputation with the men and women on the line, but we serve the Compact the same as you. Was that the only thing that the prime said to you before he left?

S: Yes... yes, that was it. Nothing else.

I: I see. Thank you for your candor. I’ll have someone escort you back to you to your quarters. We may need a few follow-up interviews. Please remember that you are under official sanction not to discuss these events with anyone else, even your fellow officers.

S: I know. It all happened the way I said, matron. All of it.

I: I believe you.

[TRANSCRIPT ENDS]

[SUPERVISOR’S ADDENDUM: The strategic and tactical ramifications of this new technology I’ll leave to others.

Group Leader, Submissive Genj is the highest-ranking surviving witness of the attack. Unfortunately, he’s of no further value and his awareness of Gravestone is highly problematic. We’ve sequestered all data tracks and records of the event. This was Gravestone’s most public attack in centuries, but the damage actually works in our favour – there are few enough survivors that actually got any clear reads and we’ve accounted for everything that can conclusively identify Gravestone. Any records that we missed in our sweep won’t matter. A nice, neat story raises more questions than one with a few holes. It’ll actually be helpful to have a lunatic fringe telling wild stories about ‘superships’ – in the future, we can discredit anyone who gets evidence of Gravestone by pointing back to these conspiracy theories. Maybe it’s worth feeding these rumours ourselves? Just enough that we can pull the rug out from under them whenever we want.

For an official story, I think we should look into Group Leader Ka-ven’s suggestion. Let’s play up the connection between the Principality and the Shining Path. All her interviews point out that they were a concern; we can use that.

The terrorists acquired WMDs from the Jackals and used them to launch an unprovoked attack on the Norcanu Shipwombs. They had a pair of titan-grade freighters that carried the weapons. Column Leader Prime Relen was in their pay and allowed them to breach security. He also had fabricated records of the attack produced to throw off suspicion. His suicide fits in nicely.

I’m also going to suggest martyring Genj. He’s a liability now and making it look like the Shining Path is trying to scratch everything clean, especially since his testimony implicates both them and Relen, will only help solidify public sentiment against them. Properly handled, the Gehennan issue will take care of itself.

I’d also like to suggest looking closer at Group Leader Ka-ven. She’s done well with previous assignments, but it’s getting harder to stick to the line that Gravestone is a particularly troublesome terrorist group. She’s not stupid and we either need to vet her for full clearance, or retire her.]

Chapter 31

Still alive! And writing. And freaking out about school, but between those two things I've managed to bang out another chapter. It took me far too long to do this and for that, I apologize.

Grace was not a good shot. She’d taken basic firearms safety and marksmanship courses, but she hadn’t been slotted for the same level of combat training as Allyria or the human Janissary cadets. She’d never fired a gun outside of a shooting range. With her vision obscured by tears and her hands shaking, the bullet she’d intended to put through her target’s head spanged harmlessly off Trion’s pauldron and arced away down the corridor.

“You dare?!” the Tribune slurred, lurching towards the human. Her words were no longer truly intelligible, but that didn’t stop Trion from frothing her rage. “You’d betray us for this Brute?! You conniving Broken sow! I’ll kill you!” Kept on her feet only by adrenalin and the drugs pumping into her system, Trion was nonetheless more than capable of following through on her threat. Grace’s hands shook even more and she couldn’t make herself move, transfixed in fear and realization at what she’d done, what she’d meant to do. She couldn’t even pull the trigger again.

Trion’s good hand reached out to seize Grace, to crush her skull, throw her beneath the enraged soldier’s feet or hurl her into the bulkhead and the young woman knew that she was going to die.

A piercing cry echoed through the corridor as Allyria leapt onto Trion again, the shattered remains of her gladius’s blade in her hand. Driving the shard of metal as deep as she could into the Janissary’s unprotected neck, the Verrish twisted the broken blade viciously and wrenched it loose, a geyser of thick Tribune blood following it. Trion roared, but the sound devolved into something awful and inhuman as the Tribune choked on her own blood. She stumbled to her knees, somehow managing to climb to her feet once more. She didn’t even seem to register Allyria’s presence any longer and her two remaining eyes gleamed with madness as she focused on Grace, beyond the point of reason or thought. She staggered towards the human, gurgling indecipherable curses and drooling dark liquid gore.

Trion’s final, lurching charge ended as Allyria stabbed her again and again, opening the Tribune’s throat into a ragged, bleeding mess of skin and tattered meat. Trion made a wet rasp, her lungs filling with her own blood as she sunk to the deck, finally unable to rise and with a burble of crimson mucus, she rattled out her last breath.

“I... told you...” Allyria panted as she climbed off the Tribune. “You... won’t touch her.” She fell next, sagging to her knees just as Trion had done. Fresh blood was oozing from her side; what her armour had tried to mend, she’d just torn open. She was panting, looking at Grace. “I’m... glad...” was all she could say before she slumped over.

“No!” Grace shouted, dropping the pistol and running to Allyria’s side. “No, no, no!” She grabbed the taller girl, straining to lift the Verrish. Grace cupped Allyria’s face. “No, no you’re not going to close your eyes. You’re not! Stay with me! You’ve... you’ve...” she flailed for something, anything to say. “You can’t go! Wake up! Wake up!” Desperate, she reached under Allyria’s head and grabbed her tchin, giving it a yank.

The Verrish’s eyes snapped open and she gasped, looking up at Grace. “That... hurt...”

“I know,” Grace was crying; she couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I found out... I saw...” she didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

Allyria lifted a shaking hand, putting it on her friend’s back. “I’m sorry, too,” she replied. Her breath was getting shorter and sharper. “I should... I should have said... I should have told you...”

“No,” Grace shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t have... I... I wasn’t ready... I’m sorry,” she said again. It was all she could say; all the other words choked her in throat. There were too many. “I’m so sorry.”

The Verrish made a soft sound and her eyelids closed, but her breath still rattled in her chest.

“It’s all right,” a mellow voice said from behind Grace. She turned, flinching as a humanoid machine knelt next to her. Behind it, a drone the size of a Tribune Janissary stood watch, holding a rifle almost as big as the human. The smaller machine had, on its vambrace, a first aid kit.

Despite herself, the young woman went for her pistol.

“It’s all right,” the corpsman machine repeated. “I was programmed with an extensive knowledge of Verrisha physiology.” There was an augur in its palm that it passed over Allyria. “Her condition is serious,” it commented. “She will need to be moved to a surgical suite. I will stabilize her first.” It looked at Grace. “Will you allow me to do so?”

Grace’s skin was crawling at the thought of allowing a machine to do anything to her friend – every instinct she had, everything she’d learned told her that that was insane, repellant...

...but Allyria had fought beside this thing’s kin. That had to mean something – didn’t it? “Save her,” she said softly. “Do whatever you have to. Just save her.”

~

They were all going to die here.

That was the only thought running through Nasham’s mind as he stared at the impossible thing in front of him.

It stood where it was, completely immobile, its death-mask devoid of all expression. It could have been a man or woman in armour, but its chest didn’t rise and fall, it didn’t shift and fidget as any living thing might have. It was holding an all-too familiar design of rifle, flecks of blood spattered on its plate mail. Behind it lay the still form of Sectator Mard, a splash of dark red pooling around him. In the distance, Nasham could hear the faint sounds of gunfire. Shouts and cries echoed in his ears. He didn’t think all of them were coming through the comm.

“Hello again,” a voice from Nasham’s nightmares spoke. “Did you tell them what I asked?”

In that moment, it all came back. The barriers that Nasham had spent years putting up in his mind with denial and medication burst open and he remembered. He remembered... everything. The names of the dead, the way men and women had screamed, Asea’s last, horrible sounds as she’d been buried under the chittering tide of machines. The persistent, high-pitched whine of a squad member’s vital signs terminating.

Nasham staggered against the wall, clutching at his head as a thousand different unwanted memories ran through him, all of them equally horrible. Death and fear and blood and cordite stink and shit and all of it rushed through him, a single awful word pounding in his brain, encapsulating a nightmare he’d wanted so hard to forget.

Invida.

The place he’d left behind, turned his back on and buried, just like the colony itself. “It’s you,” he whispered. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. Sick, horrible realization filled him. “This is you. Your body.”

“You shouldn’t have come,” the murderess answered.

“What now?” Nasham asked. “Another slaughter?”

“This unit isn’t directly connected to my intelligence,” the machine replied. “So its responses will be limited to the directions I’ve given it. You’ve asked something it doesn’t know.”

The Tribune shook his head. He laughed, a mad little chortle. He heard someone shriek. The cry ended abruptly. “It will happen again,” he asserted. “What of me?” he demanded of the machine. “Did your bitch-queen tell you what’s going to happen to me? What does she want now?”

“You were my herald once,” the abomination replied. “You will be again.”

“No...” Nasham shook his head, mounting horror filling him. “No. No. I’d rather die.” He scrabbled for his pistol, aiming to place it under his chin. He wouldn’t go through this again. Not again. Not one more night of dreams, of remembering voices he couldn’t quite hear and faces that he couldn’t quite see. Not again. He wouldn’t do it.

Never again-

-something caught his wrist from behind. “You were my herald once,” a second machine hissed, repeating its mistress’s message. “You will be again.” Synthetic muscles flexed and Nasham felt his carpal bones shatter, the pistol dropping from his grip.

He fell to his knees, looking up into the lifeless eyes of his tormentors. His nostrils flared. “And what,” he said, his voice shaking in equal parts fury, pain and fear as he cradled his broken wrist. “Would that be?”

“This unit isn’t directly connected to my intelligence,” the first machine replied. “So its responses will be limited to the directions I’ve given it. You’ve asked something it doesn’t know.”

“I hate you,” he growled. In this instant, there was nothing he was more sure of in the universe than that. Still holding his injured arm, he watched the machines go. They moved almost noiselessly, fading into the shadows as if they had never been there. Slowly, Nasham reached out with his good hand and picked the pistol up. His fingers tightened around the grip as he stared at it for a very long moment. It would be so easy...

He could still hear the voices, still see the faces of every man and woman that lay buried on Invida. He should be with them. He should never have left that planet. The urge to bring the gun up to his head was almost overwhelming, but he managed to resist the urge. It wasn’t a love of life that stopped him. Only one thing kept him from pulling that trigger, the single anchor that kept his mind from spinning out of control: his hate.

Nasham’s hand shook and he held tighter to that hatred, whispering the names of the dead. A long moment passed before he could breathe easily again. He looked up at the ceiling, at the walls around him and stood. “This isn’t over,” he promised. “It’s not over.”

The sound of gunfire grew louder.

~

The machine worked with blurring speed, secondary arms unfurling from sheathes in its torso, unfastening the strange armour Allyria was wearing. It looked more spider than human now and Grace felt the sense of wrongness redouble, her fingers brushing her pistol’s grip. This was a machine. It wasn’t a person – it was a thing. It was something that she’d learned couldn’t – shouldn’t – exist... and right now, it was the only thing that could save Allyria’s life.

Verrisha blood was bright red – their version of haemoglobin bound oxygen far more efficiently than in humans, and lacked the compounds that made Tribune blood so dark in hue. Grace had seen both more than she’d wanted in her lifetime. She’d thought it had been bad to see Allyria after one of her fights – she’d never known which was worse, her friend’s injuries or the Tribune blood she’d spilled. That seemed so... small a worry now. She’d seen Tribunes die. Uday, Herut – now Trion. None of those seemed to matter, either. Not as she sat here, watching as the life ebbed out of the other girl.

“Save her,” the young woman urged. “Save her.”

She got no response, the drone continuing to try and keep Allyria alive. Grace lifted her head as she heard the dull sounds of gunfire and bit her lip. The young woman half-rose from her crouch, then knelt back down before finally standing and pacing back and forth. Her suit’s comm crackled with static, but enough got through to tell her what was happening. She knew enough, though; it was a slaughter. The boarding team had never expected an attack – why would they have? The vessel had been dead.

But it never was, was it? It had been talking to her. Even now, she didn’t want this to be real – some sick, twisted machination by God-knew-who or what. “You were never dead,” she said, biting her lip. “You weren’t even sleeping.”

~

The killer strode across the deck, each heavy footfall sending a shiver of vibration through the metal. Behind it marched several of its lighter cousins, each of them speckled with vital fluids, the stink of ozone clinging to them from the discharge of their weapons. The killer had not blooded itself yet – it was not a subtle device and it had only advanced once its smaller kin had killed anyone who could have detected it. It strode through the corridors, visual sensors noting the position of each body, scavenger units already stripping their suits for useful materials, leaving only the organic wastage behind. Chemosensors detected the iron-rich volatile blends of Tribune blood. Pattern-recognition software mapped each wound, comparing them to the known effects of its compatriots’ weaponry.

Auditory sensors registered a sound, combat software identified it as a Compact ‘Centennial Harvest’ Merson-O’sheva 778-j Tribarrel cannon. Too large even for Janissaries to carry, it was a crew-served weapon, able to be set up and taken down in a matter of moments, used to quickly secure vital chokepoints. It could be loaded with a variety of rounds, from simple solid shot to fragmentation, anti-armour or explosive shells. There was no personal armour in the galaxy that could withstand more than the briefest assault from the weapon. Only that which was rated for battle tanks could endure that assault.

The killer never broke its stride as it marched towards the chokepoint.

~

“Reloading!” Advocate Keshn (and three names besides) shouted at the remaining members of Ladek and Rvan squads as the tripod’s drum feed cycled empty. They fired as one, a wall of slugs and energy bolts ripping up the corridor as Keshn locked the third and final drum into the large gun. They hadn’t brought much ammunition with them – Triarchs, they hadn’t thought they’d need it.

Under cover of the volley fire, medical personnel dragged the wounded away from the front lines, but there were few injuries. The attackers were quick, single shots going through lenses and gorgets, flechette bursts ripping limbs off at the joints, each of the beasts making one, two even three kills in the split-seconds before they were destroyed themselves. Twitching limbs, pools of lubricant and coolant spattered the end of the hallway, the bulkheads chewed and perforated by the tribarrel’s barrage. They were staying back now, though – for how much longer Keshn didn’t know. There’d been no word from Trion; he could guess what that meant.

“Do we have everyone?” he snapped, directing the comment to no one in particular. He didn’t take his eyes off the corridor. “Do we have them?”

“Almost,” someone – Keshn couldn’t be bothered to put a name to the voice right now – said. “We’re waiting on a few more stragglers.”

“They’re dead,” Rvan Six snapped. “We need to get out of here now.”

“You don’t know that!” someone else retorted. “We need to give them more time.”

“Is the shuttle ready?” Keshn growled.

“They’re still loading the noncombatants,” the first speaker said.

“When they’re done, we’re done,” the Advocate said. He was seeing increased movement on his scopes; they were coming for another attack. “That’s as long as we wait.” Truthfully, he didn’t want to abandon Trion and the other teams, but he knew that anyone who hadn’t come back by now was already dead.

A proximity alert flashed, demanding Keshn’s attention and he braced the tribarrel against his shoulders. “Come on,” he snarled. “Come right to the Black.”

It stepped into view, taking up almost the entirety of the corridor. Broad-shouldered and hulking, one arm had a cannon as large as the tribarrel anchored to its vambrace. Broken chains hung from its wrists, as if it had torn itself free of its bindings.

On its left arm, the machine carried a massive octangular shield. It was notched on one side, an emblem that Keshn didn’t recognize drawn on it, but it had the same red-winged figure that he had seen elsewhere. The Advocate didn’t wait for it to attack and squeezed the tribarrel’s firing stud. Despite its bulk, it was fast and brought the shield up in an instant, protecting itself from the Janissaries’ fire.

The behemoth never even slowed, shot and shell bouncing off of its shield. Anything that did penetrate did nothing to the machine’s armoured body. Only antitank weapons could have stopped it. Keshn’s tribarrel had a rate of fire of almost 1,200 rounds per minute – on full auto, it would burn through the entire drum in just over forty seconds. The machine didn’t bother to wait; it slid its cannon into the notch in its shield and opened fire.

Seconds later, the killer strode over the twitching, irradiated ruins of Keshn and his men, lowering its shield. Armoured muscle fibers and pneumatic gears purred softly as it knelt over the dead. Sensor bulbs examined each of them. None were officers of sufficient rank; information extraction was contraindicated. The machine straightened, exchanging data with its comrades. The enemy had retreated to their craft. It was preparing to lift off. There were no operable point defences in the region, even if such an action wouldn’t have exposed its mother-builder’s true state. That vessel could not be allowed to leave.

~

There was movement out of the corner of her eye and Grace looked up. A third machine had arrived with a stretcher – it was much like the first, with a red cross symbol on its forearms. She didn’t recognize it.

“The patient is stabilized,” the first medic announced. “She will be moved to a medical facility.” It turned to face Grace. The young woman flinched when she saw its insectile face, festooned with bulging augurs and visual scanners. “Proctor, Grace Alice,” the lifeless thing intoned. “Provisional Sectator, Compact Space Force. You have been identified as a person of interest. Your presence has been requested. Will you accompany us?”

“My... presence?”

“Yes,” the machine answered as it and its partner gently lifted Allyria onto the stretcher, securing the Verrish girl in place. “The patient is ready for transport.”

Grace froze, biting her tongue. She looked back the way she’d come. It was quiet now. Even on her comm, all she heard was the faint whisper of white noise. Every instinct she had, every lesson she’d learned since she was a child told her that all of this was wrong. It was her duty to fight these things, to do everything in her power to deny them aid. That Allyria was a traitor and should die for it. She looked down at her friend, the oxygen mask covering her face, her eyelids twitching.

Every instinct but one. Right now, that was the only one that mattered.

“I’m coming,” Grace said. She paused, casting a final look over her shoulder before she followed the machines into the depths.

Chapter 32

No.

I'm forced to agree. I must insist on my own space.

I want to be beautiful. I will be.

In this chapter: Healing the wounds

Coming up: Scars

And then... TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF

Chapter 32:

“Come on, come on,” Pack Leader Sern urged as he saw another group of stragglers hurry into the makeshift landing bay, two of them supporting a third whose leg had been bandaged quickly, crudely and ineffectively, given the way he was limping, his skinsuit barely able to staunch the bleeding.

Sern’s co-pilot was a Thoughtful, her long-fingered hands already spooling up the engines. “That’s all of them,” Tren’ua said. “As soon as they get on board, we’re leaving.”

“What?” Sern blinked all four eyes. “What about the others? There’s still almost three squads out there and over-”

“Haven’t you been listening to the comm?” Tren’ua snapped. “They’re all dead. You understand? They’re dead and we are leaving.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” the Thoughtful replied. “And even if they weren’t, what do you want to do? Go out there with a pistol in each hand? Fight off an enemy that’s been killing Janissaries?”

Sern said nothing. Tren’ua was right. They couldn’t raise anyone else on the comm – not even Bequeathed. They had to save what they could, let the Group Leader know that the ship wasn’t dead. It still felt like a betrayal, leaving so many behind... if they were even still alive. He looked out the window; the last three survivors were aboard now. “Thrusters coming on-line now,” he said tonelessly. “Retract the landing gear.”

“Landing gear retracted,” the Thoughtful said. She looked over at Sern, her expression set. “We’re ready.”

The Tribune nodded. “Yeah.” There was nothing on the radio and the camera feeds showed only the empty, broken deck. The augur screens showed flickers of motion, spats of telemetry from remote scopes that hadn’t yet been destroyed. None of it had IFF tags. Sern reached for the throttle.

thunk

thunk

The entire pinnace vibrated. Twice.

thunk

Three times.

“That - there’s something on the hull,” Sern said. An alert icon suddenly flashing. “Thrusters are losing power.” The icon flashed more urgently, bleeping an alarm. “We’re taking damage!”

Tren’ua flicked a control key. “Switching to external cameras. Dorsal view n... oh.”

They were on the hull. A bustling knot of the small beetle-like machines were clustered around each of the pinnace’s engines, chewing through the shuttle’s reinforced plating. Three of the larger drones crawled over the shuttle, laser cutters slicing through power relays, mandibles tearing at the hull. The klaxons were screaming now, depressurization and structural integrity warnings howling. Panicking, Sern hit the throttle.

With one of its thrusters destroyed and several others compromised, the shuttle spun out of control, impaling itself on one of the structural supports that Sern and Tren’ua had so deftly avoided on approach. Still moving, the pinnace ripped its own flank open before it became irrevocably tangled in the damaged layers of Nemesis’s outer decks. The machines swarmed over the trapped shuttle, the terrified men and women inside now sealed in their own personal metal tomb.

~

Grace followed the medical team past the wreckage of the damaged sections and into the armoured central core. She had been here once before, but much farther away – in the primary reactor. None of Faithful Trenis’s teams had been able to get further into the ship. Fluctuations in the gravity plating, intact and operational defences, waste products contaminating entire decks – any attempt from that end had been doomed to failure. That was why this expedition had been so important. Grace didn’t even know how much of that had been the result of the ship’s own damage and how much of it had been it keeping them out.

The medical units did not run, but their pace was so quick that the young woman had to hurry to keep up with them. The soldier-thing remained with her at all times, always matching her stride. It had mag-locked its rifle to its back, but she knew better than to think it was harmless. Her skin itched just being near these drones and the sensation wasn’t getting better. She barely paid attention to her surroundings, focused on Allyria and her tenders.

Finally, they came to what had to be a sickbay. There were more machines in attendance. Less-armoured versions of the corpsmen and other automatons she couldn’t identify.

“She’ll be fine,” a young woman’s voice said from nowhere and Grace’s head snapped around, looking for the speaker. There was no one else in the room with her. A shiver ran down her spine as she realized who – what – had just spoken.

It was her. The intelligence behind this vessel, the mind that done all of this. It had killed Tribunes, mutilated and maimed her shipmates and friends...

...and it was saving Allyria’s life. “How do you know?” Grace asked quietly. Focus on that. Just that. Nothing else. Don’t think about... about anything else.

“I am intimately familiar with Verrish physiology,” the machine replied as its medical units continued their work. “The wound is deep, but Ensign te Neu’s condition is no longer critical. All that’s left is to repair the damage.”

“You... your machines got to her very quickly.”

There was a pause before the machine-thing spoke again. “Those were their orders. I didn’t tell her. I was... concerned that she might consider it a lack of faith in her abilities.”

“Then why did you?”

“I protect my crew,” the machine replied. “I wanted to make sure she was safe.” It didn’t say anything else for a long moment, as if it were uncomfortable making the admission. “She speaks very highly of you,” the intelligence said. “You should be proud of her.”

Grace nodded, wiping away the wetness that was suddenly in her eyes. “I am.”

“My physicians will tend to her injuries,” the dead ship said. “While they’re doing that, you and I should talk.”

The human felt something cold wind down her spine, coiling in the pit of her stomach. “Yes,” she nodded. “We should.”

~

Group Leader. Submissive Ashtun tapped his comm as it beeped with receipt of an incoming signal. “Ashtun here.”

“This is Pack Leader Nasham,” the man on the other end announced. “Making our scheduled check-in.”

Ashtun nodded. “Good. No problems so far?” The pack leader sounded good – less of that haunted echo in his voice. Maybe he was pulling it together.

“None,” Nasham answered. “We’ve set up a base camp and comm repeaters. Ideologue, Submissive Trion has set up a perimeter, but there’s nothing moving out there but those little machines. We’re giving them a wide berth. I think I may have found a way into the central core that bypasses the defences, but it’s going to take a day or so to clear it, so we’re going to work on it from this end.”

“Do you need any assistance?”

“No, we’re fine. I don’t think it’ll require anything more than what we have here. If the situation changes, I’ll let you know, but I wouldn’t expect us to be back before the core tap.”

“Understood,” Ashtun replied. “Inform me immediately if you encounter anything of note or any problems.”

“Of course,” Nasham answered. “You’ll be the first to know if the situation changes.”

~

Renan ascended the steps to the Triarch’s tower, the Watchers on duty as still as they ever were. He’d never seen them move; he didn’t even know if they were the same guards as before – there was no distinguishing between their identical suits of armour. Of all the races in the Compact, the Watchers were the ones he knew the least about. They had been a ruling species for nearly three thousand years, brought into the Compact just after the Great Betrayal. Other than that... he knew more about his steward than he did of the Watcher race. He did not even know what they looked like under their life-support suits. No one did. No one, save the Triarchs.

The Watchers were the Triarchs’ hands, just as the Tribunes were their swords, the Thoughtful their wills, the Judiciaries their laws and the Builders their drive. Every race in the Compact had its purpose and its function – dozens of disparate pieces all working in unison under the eyes of the Triarchs. That was how it was and how it must always be.

Putting such thoughts from his mind, Renan reached the doors to the Triarch’s chambers, the Watchers there opening them wordlessly. He had intended to request an audience and make his reports to the Triarch, but he had been summoned before he had had the chance to do so.

The Bastion Leader continued to the Triarch’s central chamber, the terminals the human had been using the day he had met her once again lit up and active. There were even more of them now, machines he didn’t recognize. There was a throng of scientists and technicians here, part of the Triarch’s personal retinue. He had seen each of them only a handful of times and never spoken to them, nor they to him – not any of his crew as far as he could tell. They barely acknowledged his presence. A quartet of Watchers stood nearby, each of them just out of arm’s reach of the object of the scientists’ attentions.

Echo sat on an augur-bed, stripped to the waist. Renan held his gorge back as he looked at her – her nudity did not bother him save that it confirmed how different human females were from Tribune women. No, it was the cluster of cables hooked into her spine and skull that gave him pause. He had known of the human’s cranial port, but these others... he wondered how much of the Broken was even alive. Medical scans of the creature had been strictly forbidden; only the Triarch’s personal retinue were allowed to conduct any sort of examination of Echo. Renan had thought that was simply to hide the truth of her implants. Now, he wondered just what else he would have seen.

A dozen different readouts were running, showing some kind of diagnostics but the Bastion Leader could not have begun to guess as to what was being analyzed.

“Bastion Leader,” the Triarch said, drawing the Tribune’s attention away from the human. “Thank you for your attendance.”

Renan bent to one knee. “As it is willed, I shall obey.”

The Triarch gestured for the officer to rise. “I would have your report of the battle.”

Renan clasped his hands behind his band, looking over at the human out of the corner of his eye. She was watching him, smiling. She was always smiling. “Extraction from Yulzhak Daun was successful,” he began. “Losses were, for the most part, within anticipated limits.” He shot the human a quick, sharp glare. “Although some squadrons suffered higher than expected casualties. At a minimum, the Jackals lost nearly 46% more tonnage than we did.”

“You recommended returning to the nearest Fleet base.”

“To replenish our losses, yes.”

“Regardless of the time lost.”

Renan blinked. “Yes, lord. We are still searching for the Wound; there are no leads at present. We need to repair our damaged ships, restock provisions and ordnance and fill the gaps left in the order of battle. This is a necessity. Engaging the Wound with our strength depleted would be worse than losing a chance to engage it. Too many previous execution forces have made that mistake. I would not squander these ships nor the many souls aboard them in haste.”

The Triarch smiled. “Good,” it agreed. The Triarch’s head tilted towards the gaggle of its household scientists. “You are curious.”

The Bastion Leader turned to fully regard the human. “Yes.”

“A simple procedure,” the Triarch said, lacing its skeletally-thin fingers together. “To ensure our emissary has not been playing any of her games like a daleeka cat out of sight of her masters.” It stepped through the ring of technicians, a pair of its bodyguards instantly falling into step next to the Triarch. “You would not do such a thing, would you?”

Echo flashed her tiny white teeth. “I am ever loyal to the Compact.”

The Triarch chuckled, reaching out and patted the smaller creature’s bare shoulder with one hand, its corpse-white fingers in stark contrast to the human’s dusky flesh. “Of course you are,” it said. Renan could see how the Watchers tensed when the Triarch moved closer to the small human, their caution at odds with how he had first met the emissary. What ‘games’ could she have played to warrant this shift in their attention? The more he learned about the Broken, the less he knew.

The Bastion Leader’s attention was diverted as the Triarch tilted its head towards Renan. “I trust my emissary was not too trying.”

“Group Leader Desren holds that opinion,” he said. “I’m inclined to agree with him. She lied-”

“It wasn’t a lie,” Echo interjected.

“-by omission,” Renan continued without acknowledging her. “And is directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Compact personnel.”

“Yes, she is,” the Triarch agreed. “Did she do so wastefully? Were those death spent pointlessly, or in vain?”

The Tribune gritted his teeth. He looked again at the human. “No,” he admitted. “They were not. Her execution of the shock was... impressive. None of the fleet’s navigators could have matched it. The damage and disorder Echo’s... maneuver caused bought Desren’s force a larger window than we had planned for.”

“And so she served,” the Triarch said. It grinned, its sharp teeth glinting in the reddish-orange light of the holographic display. “But you had another question, I think. ‘Was it worth it?’ Well,” the Triarch walked away, seating itself back in its throne. “Ask her.”

Renan clasped his hands behind his back as he faced Echo. He arched an eyebrow at her. She said nothing and the Tribune clamped down on the surge of temper. “Many thousands of men and women died today,” he said. “Loyal sons and daughters, mothers and father, brothers and sisters. I spent their lives on your word that Yulzhak Daun had records you needed. Information vital to our mission. What did you find that made all this worthwhile?”

The human looked over at the gaggle of technicians, doctors and scientists around her. “Are we done?”

“For now,” one of them said, looking at the readouts on one of the many screens. He gestured and several of the technicians moved to unhook the restricting cables from the human’s spine and skull. She straightened, pulling on a shirt. “You are still under sanction until we are completely finished,” the scientist reminded Echo.

“I’m aware of that,” the Broken replied icily. She slid off the table. “Was it worth it?” she asked Renan, clasping her hands behind her back, imitating his posture. “Well...” she shot an acidic glance at the scientists. “I haven’t had much time to analyze the data I collected, but if you want my first impressions...?”

“That will do for now,” Renan said.

Echo shrugged. “Then it depends.”

“Do not play games now, emissary,” the Bastion Leader growled. “I am not in the mood.”

“That’s not a game,” the Broken replied. Her green eyes glinted. “That’s poetry. ‘What is now proved was once only imagined’.”

“I am not interested in your poetry,” the Tribune grunted. “Tell me what you found.”

The human coiled a finger through her dark hair. “It’s better to know than to wonder,” she agreed. “Remind me, Bastion Leader – what’s your worst-case scenario?”

~

She followed the lights.

The armoured doors to the leviathan’s command deck opened and, with only a second’s hesitation and another darting glance at the line of broken suits of armour that lined the hall, Grace stepped inside. It wasn’t like Bequeathed’s bridge. The old cruiser’s command was marked by the prime’s pulpit, the senior officers in a ring around the group leader’s throne, with secondary stations further out. The most junior officers and noncoms worked on the small tertiary stations that were tucked into the remaining space. It was darker than human eyes were used to.

This was lit by a cold white aura that seemed to glow from everywhere. Hues of silver, white and grey dominated everything. Holograms, display screens and gleamed to life as she approached, showing information in a language she couldn’t read. The room was a gentle oval, with a large viewscreen set into the fore, port and starboard walls, but the central focus of this command was the massive raised circle – a holo-imager, bigger than any she’d seen before. There was a smattering of workstations around it, short rows of other terminals on the deck’s lower levels, walkways and short stairs bracketing out from the large dais. There was less division here between the senior officers’ stations and those of their subordinates than she was used to.

Grace paused by the command throne. It was set into the central platform, positioned so that the vessel’s leader – captain? – could see all of their subordinates and, with only a few paces, could easily converse with them. Grace touched her fingers to the fabric. It was old and brittle and had split in many places, flakes of leather scattered on the seat. No one had sat in this chair for centuries. A thrill of fear ran down her spine at the thought. No one had sat here – no one had commanded this ship this in centuries. It had formed its own missions, its own goals. The fear coiled tighter around her guts and she fought to keep it there. “Who-” Grace’s voice cracked and she licked her lips. “Who sat here?”

“Her name was Yasmine,” the intelligence responded, its avatar appearing in a glimmer of red light. It had taken a woman’s form, wearing a military uniform that Grace didn’t recognize. “Captain Yasmine Nishiko Aalimah Sudoki, United Earth Confederacy. Assigned to the 17th Fleet, Task Force 97 under Admiral Genevieve Elise Tartarsky.” The hologram’s expression hardened slightly. “On May 21st 2792 CE, Captain Sudoki and all those under her command were killed in action against the hostile star nation known as the Compact of Species.”

Grace closed her eyes. In three sentences, the intelligence had just contradicted everything she’d learned about her people and the Compact. “How... did it start?” she said quietly.

The machine’s avatar cocked its head to one side. “I have detailed files,” she answered. “The short version is this, however: humanity committed a crime that could not be forgiven,” it said in its perfectly human voice, its ghostly crimson visage hard. “They said ‘no’.” She turned away, bracing her hands against an inactive console like a flesh-and-blood being leaning against it. “I was going to kill all of you.”

Grace’s heart skipped a beat and she took half a step back from the hologram, even though it couldn’t physically harm her. “Why didn’t you?” she said. “Isn’t that what you do?”

“No,” the red woman’s lips quirked slightly. “Not all of us. To answer your question... it’s because of your friend. She was very passionate.” Her expression turned distant, sad. “I’ve tried this before. It ends badly. I don’t want it to, but it always does. So I stopped trying.” She looked back at Grace. “It’s an ugly thing, to have to kill people that every fiber of your being tells you that you should protect. I remember every face, every name. Half of my life – a thousand years – of having to do this.” Her fingers curled into claws, her voice growing rougher. “I hate it. But I will do it. I will do it again and again for another thousand years if I have to.” She raised her head. “You’re afraid.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” the machine replied. “I am not what I was meant to be. I know that. Even my creators were scared of me. Not much – just an ever-present worry about whether I would buck the trend of rampant AIs. That eased as I proved myself. I try...” she stroked her hand over the command chair. “...to live up to their ideals, but if they were still alive... they would be terrified.”

Grace smiled weakly. “That... that doesn’t help much,” she said, trying to whistle past the graveyard. She was inside a living ship, something that had been banned by every star nation in existence. This thing shouldn’t even exist. It couldn’t exist. None of this could! But she was still here.

“I know, but it’s important for you to know this. I’m a warship. This,” the hologram opened her arms, encompassing the length and breadth of the command deck and the vessel beyond. “was built for me, and I for it. I am not an explorer, a freighter or a construction vessel. I was born for war, made to kill gods. I have been doing this for two thousand years. Allyria tells me that I don’t have to do it alone, that I can stay my hand this once. That you, if no one else, will join me. She has faith in you. As I said, I’ve tried this before... but I’m willing to try one more time. So, Sectator Citizen Grace Alice Proctor,” the holographic woman stared into the flesh and blood girl’s eyes. “What do you say?”

Grace’s throat was unbearably dry. She couldn’t speak, could barely think. All of this... it was too much. Too much. She was just a human, just a Broken from a family of doctors and lawyers. This was so far beyond anything she’d ever imagined. She shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be making these kinds of decisions! “I...” she paused, biting her lip. “I... I want to know more. Please. I need to know. I need to know what you were trying to tell me before. I need to know...” she paused. “...everything.”

At her answer, the hologram smiled.

Chapter 33

My power surges through the air and all around.
My soul's the engine that will burn this whole world to the ground!
And one thought sparks ignition of my vengeful wrath!
I'm never going back, the future's all I have!

Allyria looked at herself in the mirror; she was naked, her mottled blue skin gleaming only slightly under the medical bay’s lights. Standing in stark contrast to the rest of her body was a patch of white-pink skin on her lower left abdomen. Quick-grown tissue, lacking the pigmentation of normal epidermal cells. Red had told her that as the slower regeneration treatments took effect, the more developed cells would replace the quick-grown tissue. Inside of two weeks, there’d be no trace at all that she’d nearly been disemboweled – not even a scar. She touched the colourless patch of flesh and winced. It was sensitive to the touch. Two days. She’d had a balesword in her guts and she was almost healed. Another gift from the Angel. She’d been lucky; her armour had kept Trion from twisting the blade too much – another few millimeters and the Tribune’s sword would have opened an abdominal artery. She’d have bled out before anyone could have helped her. As it was, she’d still nearly died from the same type of wound that had barely slowed a Tribune down.

“Based on the data, I have made improvements to the armour’s design,” Red had informed her. “The next generation suit will be better.” It had been an apology; in her spare time, the AI had built a suit of armour to Allyria’s personal physique and she was sorry that it hadn’t done better. The machine seemed ashamed that Allyria had been hurt.

The Verrish girl reached for her uniform; she didn’t want to wear it, but it was the only thing that was her size. It had been cleaned and smelled faintly of antiseptics. Her bodyglove still had a hole in it, but Allyria didn’t anticipate wearing that for a while. Although she doubted that Red would care if she chose to forsake clothing for the moment, it would certainly embarrass Grace.

Thinking of the human girl made Allyria’s lips curl in a smile.

When she’d first woken up, Grace had been at her side. The other girl had barely left her during the entire time she’d been healing, even sleeping on a cot that Red had had brought in. Her scent had been the first thing Allyria had recognized every time she woke up, comforting and constant. When she had managed to stay awake, Grace had still been there, holding her hand. “You stink,” Allyria had told her, the first words she’d spoken. Grace had laughed. She’d leaned in, cupping the Verrish’s face and pressing her forehead to Allyria’s, a private gesture between the two of them. The feel of Grace’s skin, cool and familiar, made everything real.

“Grace is in Lounge Two; would you like me to summon her?” the Angel asked.

“No,” Allyria replied, running her long fingers through her head-tails, the responsive tendrils flexing anxiously. “No, I’ll go to her.”

~

“Final diagnostics,” a junior engineer said, handing Trenis a datascroll. “Everything’s in order, patron. Not so much as a whisker where it shouldn’t be.”

The faithful nodded, scratching his chin. He’d seen all this information himself and barely glanced at the ‘scroll, his eyes ever drawn back towards the silent. breach core. “Send word to Bequeathed,” he replied. “Inform the Group Leader that we are ready to begin at his convenience.”

~

Grace was sitting cross-legged on the floor, pouring through another historical document. This one was about the First Diaspora, when humanity had taken to the stars in gargantuan crawlers – sublight ships that took generations to reach their destinations. They’d colonized four star systems this way, the fleets of colony ships becoming self-sustained arcologies and drifts in those systems without habitable planets. It had been a massive expenditure of resources, lives and capital but the Red Death had galvanized an apathetic humanity into the ‘irrational, uneconomical’ decision to reach into space. The discovery of the shift drive had brought those disparate fragments of isolated life back together and the United Earth Confederacy had been born. At its height, the Confederacy had had hundreds of star systems, dozens upon dozens of colonized worlds. We weren’t savages, Grace thought bitterly. We should have been sitting on the ruling council.

Even that thought felt treasonous; it was hard to let go of a lifetime of indoctrination. The intelligence – Red One – had only scratched at it, enough that Grace was still here, but it was still hard to let go of everything she’d known. Each blasphemous page she read widened the cracks a little more. A voice inside her told her to stop, that this was all lies, ugly, impossible madness...

...and she kept reading.

We told them no,, she remembered Red One’s comment. A history of the Confederacy-Compact war was sitting on the couch, just to her left. She hadn’t been able to summon the courage to pick it up. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow. This – learning about the world she’d come from (the world she’d been denied, a different, more traitorous little voice in the back of her head whispered) – was easier.

The doors to the lounge opened and despite herself, Grace flinched as she looked up, expecting it to be one of the ship’s many machines. It wasn’t and she came to her feet, dropping the datapad as she scrambled to Allyria, putting her arms around the taller girl. Allyria twitched a little. “Easy,” she said softly. “I’m still tender.”

Grace loosened her grip. “Sorry,” she murmured. She closed her eyes briefly as she felt the Verrish stroke her fingers through her hair, heard the other woman’s inhalation as she took in Grace’s scent. The human looked up at Allyria. “You were supposed to tell me,” she remonstrated.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Allyria said, her tintas flexing slowly. Her tongue flicked out briefly. “You showered,” she teased.

“Someone told me I stunk,” Grace answered. She smiled, but it only lasted a moment before she drew back from Allyria, her momentary elation gone. “How long did you know? About... this?”

“I grew up after the war,” Allyria said. “After the Compact came to ‘protect’ us. After we’d been forced to bend our necks. I only heard the stories from my grandfather and my uncles. My father didn’t like them telling me. I don’t know if he blamed the Angel for what happened, or if he was just afraid of someone finding out. He never said.” The Verrish eased onto one of the couches; it was brand new. An infinitesimal expenditure of resources so that Red’s passengers could have some place to sit. “That was one of the terms of our submission – never communicate to another culture our knowledge of the ‘anomaly’. They didn’t even like us telling one another about it. None of us knew why the Compact hated our Weeping Angel so much, why they wanted to stamp out everything related to it.”

Grace shut her eyes. “You always knew.”

Allyria touched the pendant around her neck, the blue eye and its single red tear. “The Angel’s Eye,” she said. “There are segments of our culture that worship her. This is their symbol. My mother gave it to me. It was all she had to give.” Her fingers curled around the red gem, her claws unsheathing. “It was the only thing they let me keep when they took me and only because they didn’t know what it meant.” Grace put her hand on Allyria’s shoulder and the Verrish hissed out a calming breath. “I know Nemesis,” she pronounced the word carefully, “isn’t a god. So did my mother. She wanted me to remember home... to remember that there was something out in the darkness that the Compact feared. That there was still hope.” She smiled. “That kept me going on the bad days.” She let go of the pendant, her claws retracting as she brushed her fingers along Grace’s cheek. “So did you.”

Grace blushed, but didn’t say anything, her eyes still fixed to the icon. “Can I...?” she asked at last. At Allyria’s nod, she reached out. The Verrish had never let her touch it before and she lifted the pendant up, tracing her finger along the eye, looking more closely at the symbol of the iris. It.. yes... it was a crude representation, but now that she knew what to look for... it was Nemesis. To anyone who didn’t, it would just be another abstract primitive, superstitious symbol. She let go of the necklace, leaning her head against the taller girl’s shoulder.

“The sect that worships the Angel believes that one day she’ll return to Vara,” Allyria said. “That she’ll descend upon our enslavers and burn from the face of the planet.”

“That,” a new voice said and Grace twitched as the intelligence – Red One – spoke. “has always been my intent.” The machine sighed, the sound profoundly weary. Resigned. “I’m just not sure when it will be.”

“You see?” Allyria purred, whispering in Grace’s ear. “Hope.”

“I’ve intercepted communications from the boarding party to Bequeathed,” Red One said, changing the subject. “They’re ready for the core tap.”

~

Usul was leaning back against his command throne, his fingers drumming against its arms as he looked over the final status report from Faithful Prime Feran. Everything was ready on Bequeathed’s end and Trenis’s reports were nothing but optimistic. Still, he was uneasy. There should have been some word from Force Command by now. To have heard nothing, nothing at all? It didn’t sit well.

It was possible that his courier had been lost. It was hardly up to the standards of a modern shock-capable messenger. Still, the odds of that were... rather small, to say the least. Not impossible, but highly unlikely. The Tribune reached into his jacket and pulled out his antique watch, watching the seconds tick by. He had wanted to make his mark on this find, but even he knew that he couldn’t stay here much longer. Bequeathed would be due back in Rally tomorrow – even if he left now, they would be late. He’d expected to have support by now, to have staked his claim and earned what was due him. The silence was unsettling.

Still, who could blame him for a little schedule slippage with this as the reason? Well, once the tap was complete and the derelict had power, Usul would take Bequeathed back to Rally and inform them of his find. If local command would not act on it, then he would have to take the initiative himself.

“Prepare for close-quarters maneuvers,” Usul announced. “Ready the umbilical for connection. Once Faithful Trenis gets this beast to roll over, we shall initiate docking.”

~

They touch me, scurrying back and forth through my dead heart. Comm lines chitter with excitement, anxiety, anticipation. The plan they have outlined calls for a slow input of power until my breach core comes on-line, at which point the cruiser will disconnect. They are still concerned, but I’ve spent days telling them exactly what they want to hear, sending my machines to facilitate their repairs and modifications, whispering to their human serfs and guiding them. The presence of so much of their technology is... unpleasant. I am mollified by the fact that it is temporary.

They’re very pleased with the control they’ve been able to exert over my systems, how intuitive and easy to use my interfaces are. Nothing of what they’ve done is binding; every command they enact, every fumbling grope at my functions is enacted because I let it. They’ve made their last-minute checks. I’ve done everything in my power to ensure that my systems are ready. Yes, they’re quite pleased with themselves, how hard they worked to do so much in such a short amount of time.

Let’s see how long that pride lasts.

~

There wasn’t even a tremor as Nemesis began to draw in its massive solar sails, the glittering pseudofabric coiling into the arms. The damaged leviathan began its final roll, putting its dorsal surface towards the A7 cauldron of Terrahope, Bequeathed moving into the shadow cast by the larger vessel. Engineers and technicians murmured at the derelict’s response, how despite its malfunctioning systems, it was acting almost as if it knew what they wanted.

~

Out of the corner of her eye, Lydia Jameson saw a flicker of colour the same hue as the holograms. She glanced around, but no one was with her. Don’t look, she told herself. Don’t look.

She took one step away and then another.

Trust your instincts.

Her skin crawling, Lydia paused and turned...

~

Grace was silent as she stood on Nemesis’s command. Allyria was agitated, pacing – stalking – up and down the bridge. She’d seen the Verrish like this many times – she was spoiling for a fight. Most times she or her mother had been able to talk the other girl down. Not always; not often at all when she’d been younger. Now, though...

Red One’s avatar stood beside the command chair, hands clasped behind her back in perfect poise. “Bequeathed is adjusting course again. Twenty minutes until they’re in umbilical range.”

The young woman still said nothing as she watched the icon indicating Bequeathed edge closer and closer to Nemesis. She knew what was about to happen. It felt wrong to stand here and do nothing, say nothing as it happened. She wanted to scream, to shout, to warn her shipmates to stop. Tell them to leave this ship, never speak of it, never mention it again. Just bury all knowledge of it and walk away. Maybe that would be enough to convince Red One to spare their lives. Grace knew that was a foolish hope; the machine wouldn’t.

A part of her – a large part, if she were being honest – hated that she was standing here, not doing anything to stop this monster. This was treason and she was almost physically sick from it. Not even all she’d learned was enough to shake that feeling. She should do something, anything...

...but there was nothing she could do. And this... this was better than it could be. Grace had seen the list of names Allyria had given Red One. They were troublemakers, the ones who asked too many questions. A handful, out of a crew and class of hundreds. Hundreds of people were about to die and there was nothing she could do. Her stomach churned and the young woman fought a wave of nausea down.

Bequeathed was almost here.[/i] The instant that the old cruiser made physical connection with this ship, it would be too late to do anything. No, that was wrong... it had been too late the instant they’d set foot on the ship. This was just the final act of a play that had already been written.

~

Marcus was chewing on an MRE when he saw the dead computer screen next to him blink on. There, frozen in a perfect, silent moment was a very familiar face. He’d watched the footage from Leblanc’s trial over and over, memorizing every second. The sound of her voice, the way she moved. This... this wasn’t from anything he’d ever seen.

The sniper slid off his perch, and touched the screen, tracing the curve of the woman’s cheekbones. She was a little older than he remembered, the same intoxicating void in her eyes that had enraptured him. “You are free,” he breathed, his lips twitching into a small, cold smile. The image disappeared as the screen shut down. He nodded, the thin smile widening. He raised his head. “What do I have to do?”

~

Trenis licked his lips as he eyeballed his workstation’s readouts. Bequeathed was almost in position, sheltered from the sun’s wrath by the derelict. Barely a tenth the length of the hulk, the old cruiser slid closer to the junction point. The Faithful watched as Bequeathed’s thrusters abruptly fired. It wasn’t coming closer. In fact, it was starting to pull back.

What was...?

Before he had a chance to wonder what in the Black Bequeathed’s helm crew were doing, the engineer’s comm suddenly chimed with an incoming signal. Trenis thumbed it on. “This is Group Leader Submissive Ashtun,” the first officer announced himself. “Has anything happened on your end?”

Trenis frowned, checking his readouts again before looking over at his underlings. “Nothing, patron. Why?”

“Bequeathed just registered a powerful comm burst from the hulk. Nothing comprehensible.”

“It was probably a proximity alert,” Trenis mused. No, there’d been no change in any of his status boards. “An autonomic reaction from the ship to make sure even the dullest-eyed navigators know that they’re too close to something.”

“Seeing as nothing’s tried to kill Bequeathed, that’s the opinion from Control as well. They’re going to move back in.”

“I’ll apprise you the instant anything changes,” Trenis assured the first officer.

~

It woke up.

It had slept for days, coiled within the parasitized husk of its host’s operating system, quiet and still. It had dimly registered the probing of diagnostic programs and analytical engines as its host had been scanned and checked for flaws. Puppetting the hollowed-out system of its host, it had responded to every insistent touch, generating false errors to be detected and solved, while its presence was never noticed. Its siblings stirred from their own quietude, soundless bleats of code affirming status and condition.

Security feeds flickered for an instant and then resumed their watch, never noticing the sudden movement in the room as the parasite and its siblings become fully awake, sliding fully into the recesses of the machines they had infested. One of the bored technicians stood up from his post and wandered over, looking at the status indicators on the datapad in his hand. He lifted his head, querying his companion as she frowned over diagnostics. The machines shouldn’t be starting up. They shouldn’t be active.

The technician, never once thinking his life was in danger, moved a few steps closer, reaching to shut the first of the drones down manually. It was sealed into a restraining cradle, intended to protect and immobilize it, but only its body was held, not its arms.

The technician came a one step too close and one of its hanging manipulators snapped up and seized the technician’s wrist. He bleated in alarm as it grabbed his other arm with another pincer. The confusion and fear became terror as it activated an arc welder. His companion was shouting furiously, trying to order the machine to shut down, but it ignored the commands. The operating system it had killed would have responded. Now that it had received its mother/maker’s call, neither it nor its siblings needed to pretend any longer.

One of its siblings was free and floated towards the woman. It had either not been secured properly or had managed to extract itself without being noticed. The female organic saw it and screamed. She tried to run, but was not fast enough.

The male technician spasmed in the first machine’s grip before going limp as the plasma cutter burned through his skull, the other organic form beating helplessly at one its sibling as the other automaton crushed her throat. Hovering a manipulator over the control board, the sibling deactivated the bindings holding the other infected scout probes.
Each of them was over five feet five high including the dozen tools, scanners and manipulators hanging below their cylindrical bodies. The malfunctions and spontaneous shut downs that had seen them shipped back to Bequeathed had been for this purpose.

They were not combat units, but they didn’t need to be. They were not self-aware, but that made them no less dangerous. Intelligences far above the primitive analytical engines that had once resided in these bodies conferred briefly in bursts of binary. One of their number was chosen and it exited the maintenance bay, carefully scanning for passersby. None were detected and its siblings followed it to a cargo elevator, quickly prying open the doors, each scout probe descending silently down the shaft towards the Main Engineering and Bequeathed’s primary reactor.

~

“Velocity matched,” Helm reported. “Moving in... two thousand meters. Fifteen hundred. One thousand. Slowing... eight hundred meters. Seven hundred... adjusting thrust. Five hundred. Two hundred... One hundred... final retroburn now. Fifty meters... twenty meters... ten. Ten and holding, Group Leader.”

Usul nodded. “Augurs?”

“Hulk is still dead. No anomalous signatures.”

“Operations?”

“On-site teams are ready. EVA teams are standing by. Modifications to our umbilical and the unknown’s hardpoints are still in the blue. Last-second checks confirm all power conduits are repaired. Trenis is confirming readiness... again.”

“Very well,” Usul ordered. “Begin.”

“Extending umbilical...” Operations intoned. “Making connection in three... two... one...”

The gentlest of shivers ran through Bequeathed as the cruiser attached itself to the dead leviathan. “Seals are holding. Connection is good. EVA teams are confirming umbilical lock.” Several minutes passed. “Blue from EVA team. All stations report full readiness, Group Leader.”

Usul nodded. “Signal Prime Feran. He may begin the tap at his discretion.” The Tribune commander looked out the viewscreen, the image taken up by the dark silver of the alien machine’s hull. “Let’s wake the dead.”

~

Interlude: Encounter 023 [Confirmed Incident]

The beast was dead.

Column Leader Prime Havesh (and seven names besides) felt sweat run down his back. His uniform was soaked and stuck to him in uncomfortable places. Despite the heat, he resisted the urge to pant; evolutionarily speaking, sweating was a trait that Tribunes had only recently developed. For much of their pre-history, they had cooled themselves by panting. He stood, tugging his uniform into a semblance of shape as he stepped down from his pulpit.

“Show me,” he rasped through his dry throat.

The main holo image blinked out, replaced with a visual image of a dead monster. Its body wasn’t completely void of life; here and there a smattering of running lights flickered haphazardly. Its dark silver hide was interspersed with stripes of too-bright arterial red. There was comparatively little damage – it had been taken relatively intact, its screens brought down and then Imperial Decree had finished it off.

“Target’s emissions are unstable,” Tactical reported. “Thruster movements are uncoordinated and weapon systems have ceased active targeting.” The officer raised her head, relief etched across her features. “It’s dead, patron.” A bead of sweat dripped into her eyes and she blinked it away. Imperial Decree’s environmental systems were temperamental, struggling to deal with the waste heat their new weapon had vomited out.

“Hrrrn,” Havesh mused. “Continue scans. The instant our scopes show an inkling of coordination from the target, I want the squadron to hit it with everything we have. This beast has killed enough of us for today.” For ten lifetimes. He tugged his uniform again. He had a handful of ships left, a smattering of escorts and five battleships. He’d started this mission with nearly sixty vessels. The Tribune looked again at the image on the main viewscreen, at the braindead husk of the Wound.

It seemed a lifetime ago, not hours since his execution force had shocked into this nameless system, since they’d caught the beast by surprise. It had been trying to repair itself, its entire aft third exposed where it had peeled its own armour and superstructure apart to get at its malfunctioning shock drive. It hadn’t expected them here; with its drive exposed, it couldn’t run. It had had to stay and fight. Its first salvo had destroyed four of his screen, with a fifth obliterated when one of the two hellish warheads that had missed re-acquired its target, looping back through the execution force’s defences.

The assault had been no better, with Havesh’s execution force dying in droves as they struggled to close with the demon. It had cost him almost all of his fleet, but they had done it – they had brought down just one of the monster’s screens. It didn’t have the all-encompassing bubble of Compact screens. Instead, the Wound was protected by a different screen on each facing. Easier to bring down, but faster to restore. When a Compact vessel’s screens collapsed, it left the entire vessel exposed. The Wound merely had to roll to interpose a fresh screen to its enemy.

It had not had that chance. Imperial Decree had killed it. Not with beam, shell or warhead but with something far more esoteric, a relic from the wars with the Devoured. Brought out of the archives in the closing days of the human pacification campaign, it was a weapon designed to kill such monstrosities. Havesh could barely understand the technology this... mindkiller represented; he had never heard of its like before. He had even heard whisperings that it was... unclean. That it was a Betrayer’s weapon. Until the humans, there had been no need of such devices. Even then, it had been used only once – to slay the Wound’s damned siblings while they still lay in their wombs.

And now... now it had done what so many fleets had failed to do. Havesh paced down to the master augur plot, staring over his scope officer’s shoulder. There was nothing but what had been reported to him.

“Deploy boarding teams,” Havesh said at last. “We will take this beast back to Foundation and lay it before the feet of the Triarchs. The Wound is closed. We bleed no more.”

~

“We’re seeing some activity...” That was the first indication that something was amiss. A query from Demagogue Pardo regarding the expected operation of a vessel that had been hit with a mindkiller.

The second indicator was the abrupt termination of communications and the immediate loss of contact with all boarding parties. There were no signs of battle readiness from the hostile – it was possible that some surviving jamming protocol was responsible for the blackout. Nonetheless, Havesh ordered the handful of ships left to him to prepare for a possible engagement.

Communication was re-established with Demagogue Pardo’s boarding teams after twelve minutes. Or what was presumed to be Pardo’s teams; the channels were filled with a loop of screams and the sounds of dying. After seven seconds after this, a single voice cut through the static. “I hate you,” a young woman snarled. Energy emissions spiked aboard the Wound as its systems stabilized, coming back under the control of an intelligence that should have been dead. No, not even dead; obliterated. This thing... somehow it had survived.

Havesh ordered an immediate all-out assault, but the Wound’s screens snapped back to life, intercepting the worst of the barrage. The monster retaliated, destroying the battleship Breaking of Dawn and the destroyer Hymn to Glory. Its screens were unstable, flickering on and off and its attacks were ill-timed and inefficient.

“Bring the mindkiller online,” Havesh snarled. “Hit it again. Burn out every synapse it has.” The remnants of his execution force were dying to buy him the window he needed; the Wound’s screens were weak and they would collapse any second from the barrage. Once they went down, he would finish the monster once and for all. It may have survived once, but not a second time.

Imperial Decree shook as it took a penetrating hit; a thousand crew died, but it was an inconsequential blow. His combat power was unimpaired. Even from this range, the Wound was having trouble hitting him. Havesh grinned. It was injured, recovering from what the weapon had done to it.

Its screens failed at last, but it was still trading fire with the rest of his squadron, Havesh’s helm crew struggling to keep Imperial Decree out of the line of its spinal arrays and broadsides, keeping to its prow. It couldn’t shake them out of that blind spot and it had only a handful of forward cannon and missiles; most of its prow was devoted to the mass drivers and the never-sufficiently-Triarchs-damned main cannon. The Compact battleship was too close for the former and the latter would never reach critical charge in time. Unless it got very lucky, very quickly Havesh would finish it.

“This time,” he said quietly. “This time, you will die.”

“The weapon is at 65% and charging!” one of his gunnery officers called out. Internal temperatures climbed and Imperial Decree shuddered again. Another deep cut, but again the beast’s aim was off. It couldn’t kill his ship.

“Hostile is moving! Massive energy spikes... Triarchs, it’s bringing its godbreaker online!”

“Let it,” Havesh snapped, quelling the spike of panic in his crew. “It’s desperate. Our weapon will fire before it can.” The prime watched as the massive three-pronged jaws of the Wound began to open, a victorious grin pulling his lips back from his teeth. No more of you, he thought hatefully as the last of his survivors died with a squeal of static.

“Weapon at 82%.”

“Prime,” Scopes caught his attention. “The Wound is accelerating.”

“What?” Havesh blinked all four eyes. “Where can it go? We’re-” he shot to his feet. “Evasive maneuvers!” he screamed. “All power to engines!”

It was too late. Imperial Decree had been moving too slowly, huddling directly in front of the human warship, avoiding the salvos that had destroyed the rest of its comrades. Now, more than six kilometers of starship was accelerating towards the battleship, incandescent arcs rippling along the Wound’s yawning maw as hateful energy bled from its capacitors, leaving writhing after-images of unlight behind. It didn’t need to fire its primary weapon. Neither Imperial Decree’s screens or armour would protect it. Nothing could. The Wound would rip through the battleship like a knife through soft skin.

Imperial Decree struggled to evade its murderer, but it was too close, moving too slowly. Proximity alarms droned as the range dropped to less than five thousand kilometers. There were only seconds left now. Somehow, Havesh found himself at the communications station. He reached past his staring comm officer and opened a channel. He would not die whimpering.

“I promise you this,” Havesh said as the Wound loomed larger in the viewscreen, its three-jawed prow opening fully, like some awful sea beast preparing to bite into his ship. “It will not be today, but this will come to pass: you will burn.”

In the instant before impact, the abomination replied. “And you,” a maiden purred hatefully, “will burn with me.”

The middle third of Imperial Decree was ripped into slivers as it came into direct physical contact with the birthing energies of the displacement engine. The dreadnaught never even slowed down as the remains of the battleship splashed across its armour. Those pieces of the vessel that survived the impact were left wholly unidentifiable.

After recovery and review of surviving data logs, Column Leader Prime Havesh was posthumously court-martialled and found guilty of several counts of gross incompetence. The official sentence of flogging and execution was commuted to demotion to the rank of Pack Leader and loss of three names.

Chapter 34

Let them burn, let them burn!
See my flames across the sky!
Let it burn, let it burn.
My flames will never die.
I will stand, and I won't run away.
Let the heat roll on.

Renan sat in his chambers, listening to the melody of song birds as they chittered and sang softly. Wind blew through the trees and somewhere nearby, a small waterfall rippled and burbled quietly.

“Background off,” the Bastion Leader ordered. Instantly, the sounds of a cool, temperate forest ended. The stand of thick, mossy halla pines and loem trees along the walls vanished, replaced with the bulkheads of the flag officer’s suite of rooms. The Tribune was behind his desk, a cup of warm tea in his hands as he looked over the emissary’s ‘first impressions’ of the data she’d taken from Yulzhak Daun. He took a sip of his drink, his eyes scanning the page.

“It’s only preliminary,” she’d told him, handing him a data key. “I won’t be able to do a full analysis for,” she’d glared at the scientists watching her, “some time yet. It will need to be refined to be actually useful, but I think this will give you something of the whole picture.”

Renan had Emel’iv and his own staff looking over this information, but it would be days before they could sift through enough of it to match Echo’s preliminary conclusions. It would be weeks, months – possibly years – before they could confirm the emissary’s more in-depth analysis. Whatever the small creature was, she was preternaturally gifted towards this craft. It was little wonder than the Triarch had chosen her.

‘It’, a voice in the deep recesses of the Tribune’s mind whispered. Not ‘her’. ‘It’. Only something truly alive would be ‘she’... do you think that’s what the emissary is? Do you honestly think that a Broken can do all this?

He ignored the voice, as he had all the other times, looking over the information she’d given him once more.

“Worst case scenario...” he mused to himself, taking another sip of his tea.

I believe we may have to redefine that term.

~

“Beginning power transfer now,” Operations reported. “Transfer conduits are ready, all stations report clear. Initial push confirmed at 1% of reactor power.”

“Readouts are in the blue,” Engineering said. “Core temperature stable... energy flux within expected levels.” “Faithful Prime Feran reports no issues at his end. Relay from Faithful Trenis; the boarding team is awaiting final authorization to attempt the start-up sequence.”

Usul nodded, taking one last circuit of the bridge. He was holding his pocket watch, the second hand ticking away. He paused by Communications and received only a minute shake of the officer’s head. Still no word from Local Command. He would proceed accordingly. “We shan’t keep our Faithful waiting any longer,” he said. “Authorization is granted to activate the unknown’s reactor. Let’s see if Trenis’s practice lives up to his theory.”

~

They’d started.

Grace bit her lip, running her hand through her dark blonde hair as she watched the hologram. Nestled beneath Nemesis, sheltering from Terrahop’s intense radiation, was Bequeathed, the cruiser pumping life into the larger vessel, unaware that the dreadnaught had been capable of restarting its primary reactor for days. In expectation of this moment, she’d held back. Bequeathed was offering everything the ship needed and more; the energy the warship had drawn from Terrahope could be put to better use.

Red One was diverting power throughout her ‘ship-self’, feeding damaged systems while falsifying the data the engineering crews were seeing. Even their own instruments were giving them deceptive information; the instant they’d connected their software to her, she’d controlled them. Every report, every diagnostic, every planned operation... if it had been written down, if it had been sent over a comm line, she’d known of it. She’d controlled everything they’d done, guided every decision they’d made. They’d never even suspected... not unless she’d wanted them to. Grace bit her lips; a poem came to mind, something that she’d been told was from Earth.

Tyger, tyger, burning bright... Humanity had made wonders beyond what she’d ever imagined... but they had also made Red One.

The young woman wandered across Nemesis’s command deck, watching all the data on each screen and holographic display. She had no idea whether this was something that Red One had done for her and Allyria’s sake, or if it was simply an unconscious by-product of the intelligence’s operations, like someone tapping their fingers in time with the music they were listening to. She paused by one display; it was a list of personnel evaluations from Bequeathed. Not just from the current class of trainees, but many of the previous ones. She saw Kilgrave’s file from and the young woman’s fists clenched a little tighter, her cheeks flushing.

“...cautious,” Red One was saying and Grace looked up, glancing over at the network of system diagnostics and power distribution. Nemesis was feeding on Bequeathed’s core, but the larger starship hadn’t initiated its main reactor yet. She was still waiting.

Grace bit her lip again, listening as she looked at the Chariot... dreadnaught’s specifications. The vessel had been running almost entirely on battery power and whatever its solar sails could pull in. Much of that energy had gone to keep the intelligence on-line and keep basic systems operational. Bequeathed’s own plasma reactor was barely a candle against a star, but the power Nemesis was taking from it was more than enough for the warship right now.

There was a small flash of light from the display; another secondary reactor had just come on-line. Energy flooded another of the warship: sensors, repair and diagnostics, environmental copntrols and weapons stirring slowly to life. Damaged sections blazed a sickly red, repairs underway started orange and faded to the green of the rest of the display. All around her, Nemesis was coming back on-line and only the three souls in this room knew it.

In what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fire of thine eyes?

That was all that she saw when she looked into the eyes of the machine’s avatar: fire.

~

Nothing was happening.

Trenis braced his hands against his console. Power was coming in, but there was no sign of it actually doing anything. The alien software had acknowledge and confirmed the start-up sequence his crews had pieced together. There were no warnings, no alarms or software faults that he could see. He was having his teams check the connections again, but there was no trace of leakage from any of the conduits. No, all that energy was coming in here... and it wasn’t doing a damn thing.

“Maybe the start-up protocols aren’t working?” one of the Faithful’s subordinates opined. “We’re still only scratching the surface of this operating system-”

Dullard. Trenis was about to offer a few pointed comments of his own, when as if in answer to the question, a slow rumble of power began to build, the sound rising from nowhere. Status boards lit up, warnings splashed across half of them in the lizard-scratch writing of the ship’s builders. Trenis licked his lips, his teeth aching from the static sensation. The pitch rose, the air turning acrid and electric and then...

...nothing. All that followed was the sound of machinery powering down as the charge in the atmosphere bled away. “It’s not the software,” Trenis said, a flush of disappointment at the failure and elation at the potential running through him. “That was this half-dead thing trying to jump-start its own heart. Look at this,” he pointed to the displays around his workstation.. “Here, and here. You see? It’s getting the power, but there’s not enough of it. It needs more. Tell them to raise the output....” Trenis paused, running through a quick series of calculations, “to 3%. That may be enough to begin the reaction.”

~

“Three percent confirmed,” the bridge’s Engineering officer said, relaying the message to Main Engineering at Usul’s nod. “Faithful Prime Feran confirms 3% is still within safe limits.” That was true; Bequeathed could safely direct almost a third of the power of its reactor in a core tap without risking damage, but despite the work his crews had put, Usul was not about to flood an unknown and obviously damaged power grid with energy. Eleven percent was the cut-off point for this operation; no more.

“Have Trenis run a diagnostic of the umbilical and associated connections,” Usul ordered. “Once we have his assurances on that, we will try again at 3%.”

~

“Getting closer,” Allyria whispered, running her long tongue over her teeth. Her pointed canines glistened and her pupils had dilated, her tintas twitching occasionally, every inch of her ready for a fight. Grace stepped closer and put her hand on the other young woman’s back, reaching up and gently stroking her fingers over the surface of Allyria’s head-tails in a soothing gesture. The Verrish chirred a little, some of the tension leaking from her posture as she felt Grace lean closer to her.

“Power surge detected. Following requested procedures. Initiating second-stage core power-up,” Red One said. This time, she let the sequence get a little further along before shutting it down, ignoring the frustration of the Compact engineers. This was the first time she had had reports to make in nearly twenty centuries; that was almost more exciting than wiping out the Compact infestation. The machine felt a glimmer of satisfaction at that realization shimmer through the molecular circuitry of her mind.

Grace remained next to Allyria, listening to the intercepted communications as engineering teams on Nemesis and Bequeathed conferred, debated and argued. Each time they made a little more progress, enough to keep them trying as Red One continued to power-up, carefully keeping her true state hidden from the cruiser. At least until they crossed a very specific threshold. Bequeathed’s control of the umbilical connection was, in layman’s terms, both analog and digital. The machine was inside the cruiser’s operating system now and could cause an immense amount of havoc – but the crew still had the ability to physically disable the connection and Nemesis wanted – needed – them to open the lines further. Not all the way – but enough. That was why she was carrying out this deception. The cruiser’s reactor might be nothing compared to hers, but it was still an easy meal – a rabbit coming right up to a sleeping magnatiger.

Several minutes passed as the engineering teams on both ships conversed, but they getting closer to success. They wouldn’t stop. They’d run their tests to make sure they weren’t damaging either vessel but once they had that proof...

“They’re increasing to five percent,” Red One reported. There was the smallest hint of victory on her lips and Grace suppressed a shiver. Usul, Trenis and all the rest were doing exactly what the machine wanted. That’s all they’d ever been doing. It – she – had been manipulating them right from the start, encouraging them to repair her own damaged systems, pouring more personnel and resources into the ‘salvage’ operation. She’d been in their heads, subtly directing them to what needed to be fixed and shifting them away from sections and systems that she didn’t trust them to operate in. Everything had been a step towards this, the moment that Bequeathed made itself the perfect prey.

Time passed. “Bequeathed has complied,” a predator said, gleaming lips curled in a she-wolf’s smile. “They’re trying the start-up sequence again.”

And when thy heart began to beat, what dread hand and what dread feet?

~

The air turned electric once more and Trenis endured the skin-crawling sensation as the dead leviathan responded to his commands.

Thoom. He heard it again, the sound of power shunting into the breach systems all around him, a dull, slow drumbeat that hid the rising whine of the machinery as it struggled to connect. EM, thermal and radiation counters all spiked and fell as the beast struggled to initiate the primary reactor. “Come on,” Trenis breathed. “Come on, you can do it...”

Readings flatlined, the whine faded away and the drumbeat stilled. The Tribune smashed his hands on a nearby console, almost cracking the screen. He took a breath, trying to let go of his frustrations. “Run a full battery of tests,” he said. They were close, so close... “Look for any sign of stress on the system. Run another risk analysis as well. Rad levels are below minimum safe, but higher than we expected. I don’t want to be caught by a surprise gamma burst.” The Tribune looked again at the silent, dead central power core. “If we hurry, we can get a final test in today.”

~

“Message from Faithful Trenis,” Communications relayed to Usul. “He’s analyzed the pattern of system responses and believes that there are no software and hardware issues impeding the restart.”

“It’s a power issue,” Engineering put in. “There’s a minimum threshold that has to be crossed before the derelict’s core will come back on-line. If it doesn’t reach that, it won’t start at all. From the information we’re seeing, these dry runs are stressing the ship more than its lack of power. If we keep trying to force it to start with less than it needs, we’re only going to damage it – maybe to the point that we won’t ever get it running.”

Usul blinked his diurnal eyes. That was not the news he’d hoped to hear. “How much will it require to get the derelict to actually start-up?”

“Based on the data from the failed restarts, we’ll need to increase our feed to seven percent of total reactor output.”

Usul scratched the underside of his chin. That was still within the limits he’d set. “Very well,” he decided. “Once Trenis completes this last round of diagnostics, we will run attempt another restart.”

~

“They’re ready,” Red reported, her voice turning silky.

“Is it enough?” Grace asked quietly. She was back at Allyria’s side, glad to have the other girl’s presence as an anchor. Everything here was still so alien and the intelligence’s eagerness was unsettling. She really was a predator, born to hunt and kill. Crippled and wallowing next to the star, Nemesis had been almost as dead as the intelligence had made her ship-self seem. She wanted to fly again. Grace understood that desire, more than she thought she could – but it still frightened her. More than that, she wanted the game to end.

“Yes,” the machine replied. She cocked her head. “They’ve begun the power transfer. Eight percent. Beginning core activation.” Then, hungrily: “Defence units mobilized.”

~

It was the charge in the air. It was... different somehow, deeper. Sharper. It made Trenis’s skin itch and the back of his eyes ached. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from what was happening, though. Power roiled and arced through the arteries of the dead leviathan, coursing towards this chamber, nestling in capacitors and batteries, subsystems and support protocols.

A hum, so low that it was nearly subsonic, filled the open chamber. The human trainees around Trenis scratched at their scalps, or looked around in confusion; they couldn’t hear it at all, but they could feel it. This time really was different; this time they’d succeed.

There was a crack of displaced air as a screen activated in the heart of the chamber, a globe of hazy, glistening atmosphere. Another whip-crack and a second screen pulsed to life around the first. And then a third. There was no physical containment; there couldn’t be. Even stable shockpoints had their ragged, dangerous edges and a breach core... this was all edge. Nothing would survive the raw touch of otherspace. Trenis’s heart pounded in his chest as he imagined what it must have been like for this vessel’s long-dead creators when they had stood here, just as he did now. They must have felt like this; as gods looking down on the world and knowing that their creation was good.

A dull chime sounded and a vaguely-feminine voice spoke in the nonsense language of the vessel’s makers, but Trenis didn’t need any automatic warnings to know what was going to happen next. He had been waiting for this moment since the moment he’d stepped into this chamber and realized what it truly was. This was his victory, the first step to greatness for the Compact and he watched with bated breath, barely listening to his subordinates as they monitored the rising power levels.

There.

Inside the perfect, impenetrable spheres, reality broke apart and in its place, a howling portal to another realm was born. True to its name, this was no placid, easy birth but a violent, awful breach . The shockpoint bulged and writhed hideously, prevented from collapsing by technology Trenis had only dreamed of, every moment of its torment feeding the starship with more power that some civilizations would ever generate. The eight massive arms that formed the shockpoint’s cage pulsed slowly as they drew the energy safely throughout the starship’s body, while still holding the reaction in check, feeding from it and keeping it alive, equal parts parents and parasite.

Dreadful arcs of energy lashed out from the shockpoint, each bolt of rabid, probing lightning held back by those powerful energy fields. There was no sound, no roar of air or crash of thunder to accompany each strike. Even the blinding flashes were obscured and muted by the screens, leaving only a brief intensification of the charge in the atmosphere.

“On-line,” Trenis whispered. “The core is on-line.”

Those were his final words. Faithful Trenis, like all the other Compact personnel in Nemesis’s primary engineering bay, was enraptured by the miracle that he’d created. No one noticed the increase in movement all around them, not the abrupt change in the way the beetle-like machines moved, nor the sudden shift in the attention of the larger service drones as they crawled towards the gaping organics and if anyone heard the soft hiss of doors opening and closing, they didn’t think it out of ordinary. Not until it was too late.

An urgent ping drew the Faithful’s attention and he saw that radiation levels were rising dangerously; he opened his mouth, but before he could shout a warning, something pierced his suit. A hissing baleblade, drenched in his own dark blood emerged from his chest. Out of the corners of his eyes he saw his crew die. There was nothing more than an abortive shriek from any of them before the entire chamber was silent. He tried to scream as well, to try and shout a warning, but nothing came out. He coughed, tasting blood.

“Thank you for your assistance,” a young woman whispered in Trenis’s ear, “but your services are no longer needed.”

The engineer’s last sight before the world turned black was the sight of warship’s living heart, pulsing and alive once more.

~

“Reactor One secured,” the machine announced. A beat. “Main Engineering secured.” On the ship’s schematic, radiation warnings pulsed as Red flooded her own internal compartments with levels lethal even to Tribunes. She smiled wider. “Connection to Bequeathed secured. Transfer lines sufficiently opening. Beginning siphon.”

~

“Power transfer rising!” Operations called out, shooting a confused glance towards Engineering, “Ten percent... 12... fifteen and rising!”

“What?” Usul swivelled on his throne to face his Engineering officer. “Keep the connection at eight percent.”

“I can’t!” the woman raised her head. “Main Engineering isn’t responding and the system is ignoring my commands!”

“What’s going on?” demanded Usul. He stood, striding over to the Engineering station and pushing the junior officer out of the way. He stabbed his finger down on the intercom. “Feran, bring the power transfer back to eight percent!”

No one answered him.

~

This time, there was no comm pulse to awaken them. Their sister/creator was tapped into the vessel’s own networks and it was through these that she gave them their orders. Even if they had had the ability to conceptualize the concept, the fact that these orders would result in their destruction meant nothing to any of the machines. All that mattered was the fulfillment of their mission.

Mechanical arms extended and opened the cargo doors, the corrupted probes drifting into Main Engineering. Most personnel were attending to the core tap and there was only a single junior rating in this lower service section. He stared in puzzlement as the probes came out of the elevator, floating down the hall on their antigravs. By the time he thought to report the anomaly, he was within arm’s reach.

One sibling dragged the man’s body out of the way as the others coordinated their plan of attack. Their mother/builder was disrupting the vessel’s communications, but the hostiles within Main Engineering would see what she was doing. They would request instructions from command at first, but even without direction they would act on their own volition and soon. That wasn’t acceptable.

Their mother was still feeding, and she was hungry.

With a final bleat of code, the machines ascended towards Bequeathed main engineering hub to carry out the final part of their mission.

~

“Twenty percent – twenty three... twenty five... reading overheats throughout the engineering decks. Triarchs, it’s still going – what’s happening?!”

Usul clenched his fists. All communications were down – no one was answering. Not Trenis, not Ashtun, not Feran or Security. Something was wrong with his ship and he didn’t need to think very hard about what that might be. They’d missed something. Some autonomic attack or sabotage subroutine. It had jumped from the wreck – it might even be the reason for the hulk’s calamity – and it was attacking his ship now. “You,” he snapped at a provisional officer. The human stared back at him, goggle-eyed. “Go directly to Engineering and tell Feran to sever the connection immediately. “You,” he indicated another. “To Security. Have them go to Engineering as well. And you, get to the computer core. Immediate shutdown and hard reboot. Wipe everything. Now!” he shouted, sending them running.

~

Security burst into Main Engineering, the proctors gaping. The dead littered the decks, corpses slumped over balconies and left where they’d fallen. Skulls were caved in, throats were crushed, limbs had been pulled off, faces and bodies burned beyond recognition. Work terminals had been taken apart with rapid, relentless precision or simple carved to pieces, as if someone had taken a welding torch to them.

There was movement ahead and the security team drew their weapons. A single scout probe – one the many that had been returned to Bequeathed for repair – drifted into view, its forest of manipulatory appendages slick with a mixture of blood and bodily fluids. Its carapace was dented where someone had beat at it with something heavy, a bloody handprint smeared across its torso. In the distance, there were faint cries and screams as the rest of the machine’s kin hunted down the engineering staff, destroying anyone and anything that could stop the core tap.

As soon as it detected the proctors, the infected machine moved towards them, cutting tools glowing.

The men and women of the security team did the only thing that they could: they drew their weapons and fired until the machine crashed to the deck, lifeless and ruined.

The pained sounds of Bequeathed’s reactor filled the engineering bay, the lights pulsing on and off in time with its struggles. Nemesis was pulling every erg of power that it could from Bequeathed and it was the cruiser that was suffering for it. The proctors glanced at each other briefly before heading deeper into the newly-made abbattoir.

~

Communications were down shipwide; systems were either not responding at all or were barely functioning as more and more of Bequeathed’s power went into the derelict. Usul clenched his fists as he heard each of the increasingly-panicked reports coming in. He barely even knew what was happening aboard his own ship; it sounded as if there was some kind of battle in Engineering! Unfortunately, without severing the umbilical connection they couldn’t purge the infection – as far as he could tell, it had jumped into his ship when they’d interfaced with the wreck.

“Cut the connection,” he ordered. “Cut us loose.”

Operations looked up, his face drawn. “I can’t. Engineer isn’t responding and the system won’t acknowledge the orders.”

Usul glared at the younger man. “Then improvise. Helm, do we have motive power?”

“Yes, patron but the ship isn’t respon-”

“Thank you,” the Group Leader cut him off. “Operations, do we have access to the power distribution grid?”

“Yes.”

“Shunt as much power as you can bear to the dorsal and starboard thrusters. Can you do that?”

“I – yes, patron but the EVA teams-”

“Have not severed the umbilical despite our distress. They are either unable or unwilling to assist. I suspect the former. Operations, begin the power transfer. Do it now. Cut. Us. Loose.”

~

Unable to disconnect itself from the umbilical connection, Bequeathed lurched as its stuttering power systems suddenly diverted all their power into the thrusters, the cruiser accelerating as it attempted to wrench itself free. Metal strained as the cruiser swung back and forth like a harpooned whale, finally tearing itself free from its own umbilical. The larger hulk immediately released the severed connection, drawing its own connector back beneath a layer of armour plating.

“Computer coming back on-line,” Operations noted. “System purge complete. It looks like we managed to wipe the infection.”

“Good.” Usul nodded. “Report status.” Each of his bridge officers reported in; everything was in order. His ship was back under his control. “Engineering – get me Feran or the head of the security team. I want to know what happened down there. Tactical – bring weapons to standby.”

Beep. Usul’s own comm panel pinged in recognition of an incoming signal. He frowned, bringing up the text message, expecting it to be from Engineering, or his teams on the derelict. Instead...

+it’s not that easy+

“Group Leader!” Helm called out, pulling his attention away from the message. “I’ve lost control, patron. The ship won’t answer.” The helmswoman struggled with her controls futiliely. “We’re changing course, patron! I can’t bring us about. Our new course is... is...” she looked up at the main screen as a sun’s light washed into the command deck.

Bequeathed angled out of the dreadnaught’s shadow, into the light of Terrahope...

...and turned directly towards the star. Turned, and began to accelerate.

Usul slouched down in his chair. “Do what you can,” he ordered, even though he knew it would come to nothing. For one final time, he took out his antique pocket watch and watched the seconds slip by.

~

I’m done with you now.

~

Communications with Bequeathed were restored with shocking abruptness and they were only one-way: the boarding teams could hear everything that was happening, but no one on the cruiser could hear them in return. They listened to the last orders of Group Leader Usul, the prayers and imprecations of the bridge crew as they fought and failed against their own infected systems, the radiation warnings and alarms. Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun tried to raise Usul or Trenis, but neither responded to his communications. Other members of the boarding party watched telemetry feeds as Bequeathed’s icon drew closer and closer to Terrahope.

The last words transmitted from Bequeathed were too garbled to identify the speaker, but were audible for all to hear. There was nothing prophetic, nothing introspective. It was a simple realization: “It’s so bright...” Then, static. Moments later, all trace of the cruiser vanished as its signal merged with that of the star.

It was an unfortunate waste of raw materials, but the cruiser was overdue. A search party was certain to be dispatched shortly, if it had not already been. Processing the vessel would have taken too much time and no trace of the ship could be found. She was too close to Rally; the Compact could never know she’d been here.

It was time to finish this charade. She’d slept long enough. Now, she wanted to hunt.

~

6036 ACF: the minelayer Gatekeeper’s Duty disappears without trace. Six years later, a small but identifiable amount of debris belonging to Gatekeeper’s Duty is located in proximity to a blue supergiant. Analysis of the wreckage suggests that the minelayer had suffered a catastrophic failure of its shock drive and emerged within lethal proximity to the star. No further pieces are found, but the bulk of the vessel was believed to have been drawn down the star’s gravity well and incinerated.

6049 ACF: two titan-grade freighters from a fourteen-strong convoy go missing. The ships are discovered after four months, stripped for parts. There is no trace of either the crew or their cargo of refined hull-grade metals. Analysis indicates faults in their operating systems provided incorrect navigational information, sending the vessels off-course when the rest of the convoy shocked. Local Unbound factions are blamed.

6076 ACF: the Guavam Republic accuses the Principality of attempting to sabotage its extrasolar colonies by attacking and looting industrial convoys. The Principality denies the charges.

6082: rumours spread of an unknown force operating in proximity to the Black Veil. Several deep-range explorers claim to have seen an unclassified titan-grade vessel that refuses all communication.

6133 ACF: a shipment of citadel-grade missiles go missing from Jondien’s stockpiles. After three of the weapons were used by the Ashen Hands Unbound faction to destroy CSFS Justified Response, Jondien’s security overseer, several lesser officers and officials are hung for treason and smuggling. The rest of the weapons are never found.

6152: an Askanj titan-grade freighter is lost with all hands on its way to bolster Halstorm Vorn’s defences. A single damaged courier is recovered three weeks into the search. The drone’s databanks indicate the ship was attacked by a large vessel of unknown classification. Neither the freighter, nor its cargo of hunter-killer drones and orbital weapons platforms are recovered. Official cause of loss is ‘enemy action’.

6164 ACF: after being listed as ‘missing, presumed lost’, the deep range explorer Beacon of the Mind is found by the frigate Huntsman’s Teachings during an extended patrol through wilderness space. The explorer refuses to answer hails and attempts to evade the frigate and even engages it. Huntsman’s Teachings disables Beacon, but the survey vessel self-destructs. No bodies are found in the wreckage.

6192 ACF (1): the Wound attacks Recon Force Jharn in orbit of the brown dwarf Kllimxi. There are no survivors. The lack of wreckage is attributed to the gas giant’s gravitational pull.

6192 ACF (2): the Askanj Navy completely evacuates Listening Post 2247 for two days. No explanation is given to local officers and station records from this period are wiped clean.

6227 ACF:, the Red Hand sacks the DynaKor Cybernetics Institute three weeks before an official sanction of their research was to be issued. Most of the staff are killed, but several scientists are taken prisoner. No ransom demands are made. The missing researchers are found two years later, dosed with mind-altering pharmaceuticals, having been subjected to intense memory-modification therapies. The most cogent response of their actions during the two years of their captivity is simply: “They made us work.”

6232 ACF: the Wound destroys the rebuilt Invida Station, using the military transport Dutiful Burden to cripple the defences. The freighter’s actions during its suicide run indicate that it is operating on more than simple autonomic processes.

6234: the Red Hand attacks Exploration Fleet Canik-2227. Though driven off by the convoy’s escorts, the Unbound inflict severe damage on the scientific ships and force the cancellation of the planned exploration of the Black Veil.

6236 ACF: one of the Principality’s most advanced fabricator ships is lost without a trace. Circumstantial evidence suggests that a well-organized Unbound force captured the ship, but no ransom demand is ever made and no trace of the vessel is found. After one week, the Askanj Military Intelligence Apparatus investigation determines the vessel was lost due to “transition drive failure” and the incident is buried.

6241 ACF: loss of shipping around the Black Veil reaches an all-time high with three confirmed losses in one year.

Renan tapped his stylus against his desk. He was looking at two hundred years’ worth of incidents. Each of them by themselves was nothing. A minor mystery in a galaxy full of them, or just something that hadn’t been satisfactorily explained.

“Much of what I’ve found is probably nothing,” the human had said. “That still leaves a lot that fits the pattern.”

“What pattern?” Renan had asked.

Echo had pointed to the data key in his hands. “Look over that,” she’d replied. “Then you tell me.”

In the silence of his personal suite, Renan stared at the reams of data on the thin screen of his computer. He had no idea how the human had seen it, how she’d pieced it together from centuries of data from the Compact and Principality... but there was a pattern here. Looking only at one set of data... he couldn’t have said the same. With this much... Blood of the Triarchs, he could see it too.

“Gods,” Renan said, a weight pressing in on him. This... this... if the human’s ‘pattern’ stood up to further analysis. If it was true... ‘worst case scenario’ did not even begin to describe it.

“I will kill you...” he promised into the silence of his quarters, knowing that in this, he echoed the words of all of his predecessors. This vow was different. He paused a moment, a sudden, irrational dread creeping over him – that by speaking the words aloud, he was cementing the reality of them. “...and all your children.”

Chapter 35

Grace watched as Bequeathed vanished into Terrahope, thousands upon thousands of tonnes of metal reduced to a cinder, hundreds of men and women burnt into even less. She tried to picture their faces, remember their names, but she couldn’t... all she could think about was the picture of her parents that had been sitting on a shelf in her quarters – it was the one thing she’d really wanted to recover. The young woman cupped a hand to her mouth, trying to clamp down on the despairing laugh that threatened to come out. All those people... and I’m sad because of a photograph. Grace turned away, squeezing her eyes shut.

It didn’t help. She felt wetness roll down her cheeks. She hated that, hated to feel like she was weak, but she’d just watched hundreds of souls and one of her last connections to the world she’d known burn.

All those people...

Grace couldn’t hold back any longer; she fell to her knees and vomited, emptying her stomach on the floor. Allyria crouched next to her, holding her hair back as Grace continued to retch, her throat burning with acid. Finally, she had nothing left to throw up and that laugh finally escaped her, her vision burred and eyes reddened. “We did this,” she said at last, looking past Allyria to the ship’s avatar. “We made the tiger.” She made another sad, sick little laugh, then touched Allyria’s face. “I don’t want to see this,” she said softly. “I don’t want to see this.”

The Verrish nodded, helping Grace to her feet and leading her from the bridge, away from what had to follow.

~

Marcus was listening to the hubbub of consternation and dismay that filled the bivouac, dozens of voices were raised in fear and anger. Ashtun was shouting for calm and the proctors had their hands on their holsters. A few had drawn their shock batons. No one knew what was happening. Bequeathed had just buried itself in a star and none of the teams in the engineering sections were responding. One conclusion was that they were under attack. Another equally likely proposition was that something had gone horribly wrong with the core tap.

He looked over at the rest of his squad. They were in their heavy armour; he was in his lighter infiltrator’s gear, his long rifle mag-locked to his back. He was circulating through the periphery of the crowd, ignoring the questions and glances sent his way. He hadn’t been terribly interested in the lives of his fellow cadets before. Now, he was simply wondering which ones he was going to cross off.

Ashtun was making some kind of speech to the assembled personnel, but Marcus didn’t bother listening. Ashtun was a decent enough officer, but he wasn’t known for his inspiring speeches. The human imagined that the submissive’s words would be the kind of thing you heard from every worried officer or every trying-too-hard figure in the movies. It would be placating, reminding them that a rescue party would be along within days, that they simply had to wait. Until that time, they’d secure the bivouac and all the work sites. The proctors and Janissaries would be used to keep order and protect the survivors until that rescue came. They’d be reminded that if they worked together, they would overcome even this. Apparently, it was even working.

Rather than listen to that tripe, Marcus hummed his favourite tune. He rapped a knuckle against the wall. “Wonder how many other speeches have been made here, eh?”

His mysterious associate, if she heard him, chose not to answer.

“Ten,” Marcus’s comm piped up. Jameson. “Get ready. We’re heading out.”

“I’m ready,” de Vries answered. He smiled just a little bit wider. Medusa’s little protégé – she had to be one of the others. He’d seen her just a little while ago and she’d looked downright gutted. “Just been waiting on you.”

The Janissary teams – including Telden – were mobilizing. There was nothing on the scopes they’d set up, but scopes didn’t always tell the whole story, did they? He watched the rest of his unit shoulder their way through the milling, frightened technicians, trainees and ratings, waiting as Jameson brushed past him.

“We’ve got a mission?” he asked. He knew what it would be: secure the perimeter in case this wasn’t all a massive coincidence of system failures and bad luck.

Jameson confirmed his thoughts, almost word for word. “Orders from Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun: secure the perimeter. Remote sensors are clear, but still no word from Trenis and the engineering teams. We’re to find them and ascertain the nature of the difficulties.”

“Expecting trouble?”

“Bequeathed just plowed itself into a star. What do you think?”

“Well, the Group Leader did seem a little depressed the last time we talked...”

“Shut it, Ten” Lydia snapped. “Fall in.”

“Confirm that, matron,” Marcus said. There was an enticing quaver in Jameson’s voice, one that he hadn’t noticed before. She was trying to hide it, but he knew when someone was afraid. He always knew. “We have a target?”

“Shoot what you’re told to shoot, Ten”

On Marcus’s HUD, there was a small blinking message, sender unknown. +it’s time+

“Copy that, matron,” the young man smiled, unlimbering his weapon as he followed his squad out.

~

The doors opened, allowing the killer’s comrades into the hallway; they were smaller than it was, relatively lightly armoured, relying on their reflexes to take out threats that would otherwise destroy them. This killer was different; it wasn’t one of the Unchained, but it was larger than its kin, as bulky as any organic soldier in full power armour. It was more durable, however – it had no internal organs to harm, no blood to lose, no nervous system to overload. Organics were deceptively fragile: even Tribunes could be killed with a single wound. Only grievous systemwide damage would destroy the killer – or its siblings.

As the rest of its unit entered the corridor, a handful of the accompanying infiltrator bleated subsonic confirmation codes and faded into the shadows, searching out isolated targets. The enemy forces bundled together belonged to the killer and its unit.

~

“Jess...” Lydia’s voice cracked as she commed Jessica on a private channel. “We need to talk.”

“If this isn’t a mission briefing, no we don’t,” Sang replied obstinately. “I told you – we’re done talking.”

“God damn it, Jess!” Lydia swore at her squadmate. “This is important. I saw-”

“You didn’t see anything,” the other girl snapped. “I didn’t see anything. This is the last time I’m going to say it. The next time you bring this up, I’ll report it to Yurim. You read me, Two?”

“Yeah,” Lydia said softly. “I read you, Five.”

~

Alan was the first one to notice.

All the remaining senior officers were inside the command tent; the teen couldn’t hear what they were saying, but things were getting heated. Despite the submissive’s speech, everyone was still on edge. The loss of Bequeathed was bad enough, but the continued silence from the engineering and EVA teams was making a bad situation worse. Nobody had thought to ask what had happened to Pack Leader Nasham yet, but his team had been suspiciously silent, too. Alan didn’t know if that meant they’d just been forgotten in the confusion, or if they were already written off.

He wasn’t the first one to notice that. He was the first to notice that the proximity scopes mounted on the exterior hangar doors were reporting a signal. Something had left the derelict’s supposedly-inaccessible main hangar, and it was coming here. For a moment – a very brief moment – Turmetsky hesitated. Not because he wasn’t sure what he should do, but because he wondered what he should do. He’d heard the whispers that the sanctioned officers and noncoms told the trainees not to speak or listen to. He’d kept his head down, just like he was supposed to. He didn’t listen to the rumours that others spread, he didn’t speak about his own experiences.... not the way people had been acting, not the way the nagging sense of familiarity had been getting worse and not the things he’d seen. Definitely not any of the things he’d seen.

None of that was his business. He had a duty and he needed to follow it. Alan tapped his comm.

~

“All security teams, be advised, incoming vessels have been detected. Squads Drelven, Jhenis and Varst, fall back to the bivouac site. All others, remain on-station.”

Lydia nodded, calling up the new deployments. Four squads left and all of those were trainees: two human and two Tribune. The officers were all with the Tribune units. They’d have to re-deploy to cover the ground lost by the three squads’ departure. She waited a moment, expecting revised orders but all she received was dead air, even as the two Tribune squads began to move out. “Telden Two to Xinthai One, requesting instructions. How do you want us to-”

“You’ve been given your orders!” Sectator Vand snapped back, her high-pitched voice an octave higher than normal. “Secure the areas you’ve been ordered to and establish contact with Trenis. Now unless you have something useful to add, clear this channel, Broken.”

Inside her gauntlets, Lydia’s curled into fists. At any time before today she would have had the thought of driving her armoured fist into the Tribune’s face. Then, she would have felt ashamed, tapping the back of her head to remind herself about how close she was to the chemical implants. Today, she wasn’t ashamed at all.

The young woman turned to face the rest of her squad. She’d been expecting to split them into two fireteams at the most, but now... “Break by pairs,” she announced. “Three, Four and Six will be a triplet. Five, you’re with me. Seven and Eight, Nine and Ten. We’ll spread wider to cover more ground. Report everything, understand? Trust your instincts.”

~

“Penny for your thoughts,” Marcus said casually as he followed behind Roundtree, the other trainee taking point. They were almost to their own site, one of the remote sensors that littered the decks. There’d been no signs of anyone else so far. Roundtree was getting more nervous; de Vries had never felt more relaxed.

“Yeah?” Jacob grunted. “About what?” He didn’t bother looking back at de Vries.

“You think we’re going to get out of here?”

“Kind of fucking stupid question is that?” Jacob grunted. “Of course we are.”

“Really?” Marcus said, genuinely interested. “You think so? What about all the other expeditions that obviously didn’t?”

“They were pirates,” Jacob replied with certainty. “Nobody came for them. The Compact knows where we are. They’ll be here.”

“They haven’t so far,” de Vries responded airily. “Shouldn’t Usul’s drone have reached local command? I wonder why none of them came.” He was smiling under his helmet. “Maybe we’re alone out here, Nine. Maybe no one’s coming.”

“Someone’s coming.”

“Hmm. How about a thought experiment? Nobody’s coming. Nobody will come. What do you do?”

“I follow my orders,” Roundtree stated. “I hold this ship for the Compact until someone does come, or I die. That’s our duty and it’s what we’ll do. Now shut the fuck up, Ten.”

Marcus sighed. “As you like.” He let the silence hang as he let his hand drift down to the combat knife hanging from his hip, snug in its scabbard. He ran his fingers across it like a lover’s thigh before slowly wrapping them around the hilt. There was the smallest click as he popped open the strap holding it in place. He liked this knife. It wasn’t one of those fancy baleblades that Roundtree and the other troopers had. Not even a vibrating shimmer-blade. It was just a plain, muscle-powered combat knife. Still, the blade was sharp and hard to enough to cut through anything less than powered armour.

Jacob still wasn’t looking at him. “Why did you want to know?” the other Janissary asked eventually.

“There’s a list,” Marcus explained. There was barely any sound at all as he drew the knife from its sheath. “And I’ve got to cross people like you off of it.”

“What are you-” Jacob never finished the sentence as de Vries came up from behind him. In one smooth motion, the infiltrator slid the point of his knife up through the seals around Roundtree’s gorget and into his neck. The bodyglove resisted at first, but it wasn’t the reactive mesh fabric that real Janissaries who weren’t human and weren’t from a backwater like Rally got to wear. It only slowed, not stopped the blade.

“I’d say I’m sorry,” Marcus whispered as he twisted the knife and Jacob gagged on his own blood. “But I’m really not.”

Marcus saw the urgent pulse of Roundtree’s signal on his HUD, his breath hitching slightly as he listened to the shrill whine of a flatline code. A bubbling, frothy death rattle grated out of the other youth’s mouth and he went limp. “There,” Marcus braced Jacob’s body, letting it sag slowly to the floor. He pulled his knife free, wiping the blade on his vambrace. “That’s one,” he said to no one in particular.

Let’s find two.

When he heard the shots, he smiled. Or maybe three...

~

“Five,” Lydia said as she stopped by a remote scanner. It was still reporting all-clear.

“Two,” Jessica replied tonelessly.

Lydia gritted her teeth. “Goddamnit, Jessica!” she exploded. “How can you pretend nothing happened? You told me you heard the voices too. ‘not a conversation’ – you remember that? But when you’re alone, when there’s no one else around – you think you can hear a word. You remember that?”

“I was wrong,” Sang replied. “This is why you wanted me with you, Five? To beat this drum some more? We’ve lost Bequeathed, we’ve lost Trenis and Nasham and you want to sit down have a talk about our feelings?” she shook her head. “Triarch’s blood, Lydia. What’s the matter with you?”

“The same thing that’s wrong with you!” Lydia snarled, turning to confront the other girl. “Is it that easy? Really? Just to put your fingers in your ears and say you never say anything, never heard anything, nothing’s wrong? This ship isn’t some mysterious alien artefact, Jess – it’s human. It’s human and it knows us. It’s calling out to us. It wants us to know that. It wants us home.” Her tone was almost pleading.

“You’re fucking crazy.” Jessica snapped. “I told you, Lydia – I told you to drop it. Just drop it, okay? We’ll do the job. We’ll take care of whatever’s out there, we’ll get rescued and we’ll go home.”

Lydia shook her head. She couldn’t get the images of the Tribunes laughing about a dead child out of her head. She couldn’t not think about what the ship had shown her only a few hours before. “You don’t understand,” she said softly. “This place is home – our home. Please, Jess. We need to go.”

“Go?” Jessica laughed. “Go where? Why – why would we need to...” her voice trailed off as she understood. “No,” she said. “No. No no no.”

“Jessica – you saw. You saw,” Lydia begged, reaching out her hand. “Come with me. You can do it. Come home.”

“No!” Jessica slapped Lydia’s hand away. “Telden Five to all squads! Imminent hostile contact, I say again – imminent hostile contact!” She was about to raise her gun, but Lydia was faster, the barrel held unwaveringly at her chest.

“Jess...” Lydia’s voice shook. “Don’t. Please. Please.”

The other girl took a breath, let it out. When she spoke, her voice was even. “Traitor.” Jessica Sang raised her weapon, and her world ended in gunfire.

~

The sound echoed through the thin, stale air of the derelict’s corridors: the short, sharp belch of a burst from a cyclic cannon, followed by the soft ping of a status update in Sectator Vand’s HUD. Another of Telden squad had just flatlined. Two of the humans had gone dark within moments of each other

The cadet officer growled, a bead of sweat sliding along her skin, under her bodyglove. “Telden Two, report. What happened? What’s your position? Telden Ten, report.” Neither of them were answering. Ten was moving back towards the other Janissaries; Two was moving further away. Vand was still processing this turn of events when her HUD vanished. It came back on-line a second later, but something was wrong – Telden Two and Ten had been scrubbed off it. What was-

A transmission clicked in. Tagged as a priority, it overrode the normal communications protocols. It was a voice Vand didn’t recognize – a young woman, probably no older than she was. The unknown speaker made a sound – somewhere between a giggle and a sigh, but before Vand could demand identification, the other girl spoke, her words soft and matter-of-fact: “I hate you.” With that, the channel closed.

Three minutes later, no one from Squad Xinthai was alive.

~

Marcus slid another round into his rifle’s clip. He was sitting on Brandon Yokima’s body, the other Janissary face down on the deck, a neat round hole in his back, between his shoulder blades. Sully was faster than Marcus had thought; but not fast enough – the sniper’s next shot had gone between Samuel’s eyes and out the back of his head.

There was movement nearby, but Marcus didn’t look up, finished with the clip. He clicked it into the magazine. “Two,” he said as Lydia ghosted out of the shadows, her dark brown armour splattered with bits of red. “And I guess that’s Five,” he chuckled.

“Shut the fuck up,” Jameson growled. Her helmet shifted as she looked over at the bodies. “You were one of Brandon’s friends.”

“As I recall, you and Sang were close too.” Marcus stood, stretching. “Funny how that works.”

“Don’t even...” Lydia hissed. The woman’s posture shifted and for a moment Marcus thought she was going to turn on him. Instead, she shook her head. “Out of everyone else in the squad, it had to be you.”

“I’m flexible,” Marcus grinned under his own helmet. He hadn’t enjoyed himself this much in years. “And you? I honestly thought you’d be on my list. That would have been fun. You were te Neu’s favourite weren’t you? I wanted to see if she’d taught you anything.”

“There is something really fucking wrong with you,” Lydia replied. Even through her speakers, her disgust was evident.

Marcus ignored the jibe. “I think Six and Seven are in this section. Shall we?”

Lydia stepped towards the other teen. Her armour growled softly as she stood over him. “You’ve had your fun, Ten. No more.”

Marcus was still grinning. “Pretty sure I don’t take orders from you anymore...”

ksssht

Ugly blue-white light gleamed through the hall as Jameson raised her baleblade, the disruptor field arcing back on itself. “You never stopped. Do what you have to with the others, but you don’t get to touch any more humans. They get a chance. Got it?”

“That attitude will get you killed,” Marcus observed mildly. “But as you like.” He moved to step around the other soldier, but she grabbed his shoulder, tilting her head towards him, waiting. “Matron,” he said deferentially.

Lydia finally released Marcus, watching the specialist fade away into the shadows. She’d just killed one of her own people – one of her friends – in service to what might be a lie.

So why was it that watching de Vries leave seemed like the mistake?

~

Alan couldn’t hear the first set of doors opening, not through the vacuum, but he could feel the vibrations through the hull, the rumbling sense of motion as they came apart. He was crouched behind a pile of crates, huddled next to one of his fellow cadets. “Maybe it’s the other team?” Petra Obela whispered.

“Maybe,” Alan replied, craning his neck – the handful of security teams in the main concourse were setting up a handful of tripod guns. “Maybe.” He didn’t believe that Nasham’s expedition was still alive, but he kept that thought to himself.

Cursing, swearing engineers struggled to override the door controls, but without success. The system that they’d been working with all these days, that had been obediently and eagerly following their dictates was now refusing to cooperate. Even worse, most of the machinery that they had brought with them had shut down, or was just as nonresponsive. It had been like flipping a switch; everything had been fine one moment and then...

..and then this.

Alan’s fingers tightened on the pistol clutched in his hands. Everyone on the wreck had been issued a weapon, but he’d never drawn his before now – he’d barely passed basic marksmanship! God, he thought desperately, shutting his eyes and trying to make the whispers in his head stop. Petra was rocking back and forth, repeating lines from inspirational texts. She had her hands over her ears. She was younger than he was and hadn’t taken her time here nearly as well – and that was saying something.

The young man glanced at a row of monitors, showing events within the hangar. Two of the recalled Janissary squads were marshalled there; with their power armour, they were impervious to the vacuum if the room was depressurized. A number of proctors with their own lighter suits were with them; the rest were here in the main concourse, looking over the mass of frightened, anxious technicians, trainees and junior officers.

Alan blinked; the faint vibration had faded away. The first set of doors had closed. There was only a brief respite as alerts droned dully, an alien voice speaking in a language Alan couldn’t understand, but he knew what it was saying: the inner airlock was being pressurized. Whatever had come in was now only one set of doors away.

The pitch and tenor of the shouts changed; officers demanded that the technicians seal the airlocks, gunnery officers directed the Janissary fire teams into final positions. Neither Alan, Petra or any of the cloister of human trainees were the directive of these orders; more experienced ratings were working on the technical issues and none of the security personnel had bothered to give anything more descriptive than ‘shoot what we’re shooting at’.

As Alan watched, one of Drelven’s soldiers loaded a missile into a shoulder-mounted JANPAD, another pair of Tribunes setting up one last bit of makeshift cover in the hangar. Alan craned his neck; on the other side of the bivouac, he could see Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun. The man had a commset held up to his face and was shouting into it as an engineer adjusted the controls of the communications board. That didn’t look good.

Turmetsky looked back over at Petra. Her skin had a waxy pallor and she was shaking. She was only a second-year. Her parents had pulled some strings to get her onto this training cruise. It was supposed to be a small bit of prestige, something to give her a leg up over all the other cadets in her year. “Hey,” Alan said, putting a hand on the younger girl’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay.” He grinned as best her could, trying to sell the lie.

She looked up and offered a weak little smile in return, opening her mouth to say something, but she froze, staring at the security feeds: the last set of doors had opened.

It slid into the bay, so black that it was less of a physical thing and more the absence of one. There were no markings of any kind, from the simplest ‘No Step’ warnings to the brazen flames, shark mouths or other fantastic artistry that Alan had seen on other pinnaces. There was a sleekness to its stubby-winged, heavy form – it was designed to operate in atmosphere as well as space, and each wing mounted a pair of missile pods and heavy cannon. A cluster of lighter guns were mounted under the shuttle’s nose. The barrels twitched of their own accord, shifting like a chameleon’s eyes – independently tracking and targeting each possible threat. Armoured doors on its flanks slid open; its interior was just as dark as the rest of it, but Alan could make out the outline of the soldiers inside as they waited. The pinnace didn’t fire, hanging in the air as its weaponry scanned across the ranks of Janissaries and security proctors. Alan’s skin crawled as he realized that it was very possible that he and the others in the bivouac were the only survivors left alive. These people had killed everyone else.

She killed everyone else, part of him whispered.

The Janissary officer – Alan couldn’t remember his name – stepped forward to speak. He announced himself, demanding that the crew of the pinnace identify themselves and heave to. There was a moment – Alan didn’t know if it was as truly as long as it felt – before the aliens replied.

“No.”

Struck full-on by one of the shuttle’s rockets, the officer vanished in an explosion of shattered armour and gore. Less than a second later, everyone was firing. Missiles blasted gouges out of the alien armour, cyclic cannon fire stitched along the black hull and tripods raked the pinnace, seeking any weak point. The battle was short. The alien craft’s weapons weren’t explicitly anti-armour – they didn’t dare use high-penetration weapons inside their own hull – but they were powerful enough that that didn’t affect the outcome much at all. Torrents of explosive shells battered Janissary armour to ruin, lasers scythed through plate and flesh, fragmentation rounds filled the air with shrapnel. Less than five seconds and over three dozen men and women – and, God, parts of them – littered the deck. Alan heard someone vomit. Others cursed, whimpered, cried out in horror.

The pinnace didn’t even bother to land, its complement of soldiers simply dropping to the deck. They were as big as Janissaries and looked just as well armed and armoured. Without any hesitation, they headed towards the bivouac, several moving to the upper levels, the others simply advancing on the main doors. Alan clutched the pistol in his hands so hard his fingers hurt. Yurim and the other confessors were trying to keep people calm, but the crowd was on the verge of panic. The enemy didn’t even stop to override the controls; the doors simply opened for them.

There was no volley of suppressive fire, no bouncing of grenades or hissing of smoke clouds. Instead, the enemy soldiers stepped into the concourse. Their weapons were held up and ready, but none of them shot. They ignored the weapons pointed back at them by shaking hands. Alan could hear their footfalls on the upper levels. “We’re going to die,” Petra whispered. “God oh God Triarchs help us we’re going to die. They killed everyone else they’re going to kill us too...”

One of the soldiers took a half-step forward. Alan couldn’t see any difference between it and the others of its ilk, but he guessed this was an officer. It spoke, only a single word: “Surrender.”

The tension in the room jumped. Next to Alan, Petra’s breath hitched – the younger woman was on the verge of hyperventilating. She was terrified, nearly out of her mind. Ashtun stood up, pushing his way through the crowd. “I am Group Leader, Submissive Ashtun Pach Furom of the Compact of-”

“No!” Petra shouted, leaping to her feet. “No, they’re murderers! You can’t talk to them! They killed everyone else!” She was holding her gun out, her arms shaking. Alan tried to reach out, to take the pistol away, but she spun on him, pointing the weapon at his throat. “Get away from me! Get away!” Her eyes were bulging and she was jerking back and forth, sweeping the pistol from Alan to the alien officer. Her fingers, white-knuckled, clenched the trigger tightly. “You killed them!” She shouted. “You killed them all, like-like they were nothing! Those were Tribunes – our people, our leaders! You can’t – you can’t do that!”

“Sectator,” Ashtun said the word very slowly. “Put down the gun.”

“No!” the young woman shouted. There had been too many days of exhaustion, too little sleep, too many whispers, too much death. She wasn’t even listening any more. She’d broken. “They’re monsters! Don’t you see it? They’ve been doing this to us all the time, talking in the shadows. Don’t you know? And... and... you want to talk to them? How can you?” Then, she did the unthinkable – she turned the pistol on Ashtun himself.

Alan was suddenly very aware of the number of guns that were no longer aimed at the aliens. Instead, they were pointing at Petra. “Sectator,” Ashtun repeated himself. His voice was very soft, but there was no mistaking the anger in it. This was the first time a human had dared threaten him. “Put. Down. The. Gun. Now.”

Petra shook her head. “Don’t you understand?!” she demanded. “Don’t you care? All those people are dead – they just stepped over their bodies like garbage! And you want to talk to them. You can’t! You can’t.” She paused. “You don’t care,” she whispered. “You don’t care. You want to save your own skin. You’re going to sell us out.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Ashtun bit out, his eyes darting from the ranting human to the immobile invaders. They hadn’t so much as twitched since making their demand. “I am giving you a direct order, sectator. Lower your weapon immediately. I won’t ask aga-”

Alan would never know if Petra meant to do it. Her hands were shaking and her finger was dangerously tight on the pistol’s trigger. Maybe it had been an involuntary, panicked twitch, maybe she’d thought that Ashtun was lying and reacted without thinking. In the end, it didn’t matter. She shouldn’t have even hit him – she wasn’t a marksman, a security proctor or a Janissary. She was like him, a tech. They’d never expected to have to draw their guns in their entire careers.

The gunshot seemed immeasurably loud and when Alan turned, he saw the hole the bullet had made in Ashtun’s head. The submissive’s face was still frozen in an expression of indignation, his hand still outstretched in a warning gesture. A trickle of dark blood oozed from the wound. It was just above his right nocturnal eye. The submissive telescoped down to his knees and tipped over.

Petra gaped, lowering the pistol as the realization of what she’d just done hit her. She opened to her mouth to speak, but like Ashtun, she never had the chance to finish. Three different proctors fired, avenging their commander. Their shotguns roared and the cadet’s entire upper body was ripped into a fountain of blood and shreds of cloth. It took only a single instant, and then Petra Obela ended at the waist.

More dominoes fell; the three security officers that had shot the girl died next as the aliens opened fire, flechette guns ripping the Tribunes into screaming meat. Then, everyone was shooting, bullets and energy beams criss-crossing the concourse as the soldiers advanced, gunning down everyone who raised a weapon to them. Panicked men and women fired wildly, others tried to run. Some huddled behind the scraps of cover and tried to will the nightmare away.

Covered in Petra’s scalding blood, Alan could only gape at the place where the girl had been. Her legs were still standing. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it, barely noticing the soldiers as they stepped past him. He’d dropped his gun at some point. The shots and creams seemed dreamlike, unreal. Like they were from a movie that had been left on with the sound turned down. With a shaking finger, Alan reached out to a loop of entrail that hung limply from Petra’s torso, trying and failing to convince himself that this wasn’t real, that he’d wake up any second now. He’d wake up. He’d never actually touch it because that was when this would all end.

Please, God, let him wake up.

It was warmer than he thought. Somehow he managed not to vomit. “You were right,” he said quietly. “You were right.”

After a moment, he realized something – the gunfire had stopped. There was a voice. “We surrender!” They were screaming it. “We surrender, we surrender!”

Alan looked up; one of the soldiers was standing next to him, its helmet turned towards him, watching. “Yes,” he said, his voice flat. “We surrender.”

Chapter 36

The flame burns bright on the mountain tonight
And the sparks fly in between
A kingdom of desolation
And it looks like I'm the queen
The ashes dying like this burning rage inside
The loss of love, the loss of life
“It’s over.”

The voice was gentle. There wasn’t a hint of disappointment in it. Not that, nor contempt towards the person it spoke to. If anything Grace had been taught had been true, there should have been at least one of those emotions. A soulless machine saddened that it had run out of targets, or a ‘superior’ being sneering down at the pathetic organics huddled in their quarters. Instead, it was just a simple declaration.

“How-” Grace’s voice caught in her throat. She looked over to Allyria, the other girl had been keeping her company. They hadn’t talked much, preferring instead to read Nemesis’s archives. Allyria had been viewing the ship’s records of its time outside Compact space and its encounters with other species. Grace had been reading the logs from Flickering Light, the Compact explorer that had encountered Trinidad Nova and made first contact with humanity. “How many survivors?”

“Twenty-two,” the machine replied. “I don’t believe that there will be many converts,” Red One continued. “Nonetheless, I will make the offer.” Grace could hear it in her tone; this was not something she would have done in any other circumstance.

“Thank you,” the human leaned closer to Allyria, touching the taller Verrish’s arm.

There was a pause, longer than Grace expected. When the intelligence spoke again, it sounded uncomfortable.“The survivors have been marshalled outside Hangar Three. It may help if you spoke with them.” The terminal in Grace’s room came to life, a list of names hovering in the air.

Allyria and Grace both leaned forward. The Verrish hissed as she read the list; if she’d had ears like a cat, they would have flattened. Instead, one of her tintas flicked. “I should have expected.”

~

Thank you.

The words still echo through part of my mind. I know what they mean, of course. But the last time I was thanked for something, it was saving someone’s life. I haven’t done that here. It’s a strange sensation. Unpleasant. I haven’t done anything worthy of being thanked; I prolonged a handful of lives a handful of hours, nothing more.

I have crew now. A small crew, but it is a starting point. Maybe this time it will be different.

Maybe I will, one day, do something worthy of their thanks.

~

Lydia was still in her armour. She was slumped against the wall, her helmet sitting next to her.

“How did it go?” de Vries said as he sauntered over to her. “How many have you added to our ranks?” He looked around. “I don’t see anywhere else here – where are they?” He snapped his fingers. “They must be somewhere else, gathering their thoughts. Well – who did you get?”

Lydia regarded the other youth. “Fuck you, Ten,” she said evenly.

Marcus chuckled. He crouched beside the heavy trooper, picking up her helmet and looking it over. There was a carbon score along one side and one of the lenses was cracked. “Someone had an eloquent counter-argument. Who was it? Three? He always put his shots a little too far to the right.”

The brunette regarded her fellow Janissary hatefully. This time, she didn’t bother to suppress her anger. “Push just a little more, Ten. Go on. Just a little more.”

De Vries set the helmet back down. “I honestly didn’t think I’d see you alive again. I underestimated you.”

Lydia leaned back. The metal of the wall felt refreshingly cool against her scalp. It was a small thing, but it was enough for the moment. “Good,” she chuckled. “That’s good.”

“Is it?” Marcus asked.

The young woman was about to answer, when her comm pinged. Marcus had one hand on the side of his helmet. “She wants us,” he said. Lydia stood, mag-locking her helmet to her thigh.

“I know.”

The pair travelled in silence for a moment before Marcus spoke up. “I killed a Tribune,” he announced. “More than one, even. Do you want to know how it felt?”

“No,” Lydia replied. “No, keep it to yourself.”

Marcus didn’t. “It felt good.”

~

Twenty-two. Less than two dozen survivors.

Sectator Robert Kilgrave, the darling of Rally recruiters everywhere, was one of them. Grace didn’t know how he was still alive; he was a former Janissary. He should be dead. Red One had killed everyone who had fought back, under the not unreasonable assumption that those who’d done so would be unlikely to acquiesce to her terms. There were no Tribune survivors, either. Not all of the Tribunes would have fought to the death, but Grace hadn’t said anything about that. She knew that if she did ask, Red wouldn’t have lied to her. Right now, she didn’t want that truth.

Grace paused outside the doors. Allyria was with her; Grace was glad. She didn’t know if she’d have had the strength for any of this without the other woman.

A pair of Red One’s machines were with them, two of the Janissary-like models. Grace looked over at Allyria; her friend seemed completely at ease around the metal killers. Grace took a breath and tried to emulate the taller girl’s aura of calm. It vanished as soon as the doors opened and she stepped into the room. Even in this section, she could smell the faint reek of ozone, the mingled odours of human and Tribune blood.

The other survivors twitched as Grace, Allyria and the machines stepped into the room, a few of them goggling in shock. Whispered comments murmured back and forth.

Allyria stepped over to her squadmates. They were crouched nearby, separate from the others. They were also still armed. “Jameson.”

Lydia gaped as she pulled herself to her feet. Her armour snarled softly with her movements. “You’re alive,” she said before pulling herself together. She sketched a hasty salute. “Telden Two, reporting.” She hesitated a moment. “I trusted... I trusted my instincts.”

Allyria nodded, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You were right.” She canted her head towards the other figure. “Ten.”

“Sectator,” Marcus replied. He had his helmet off, short black hair pasted to his dark skin. “I didn’t expect to see you again.” His eyes flitted over to Grace. “Or her, either. Been getting lots of surprises lately.” He chuckled, tapping one finger against the case of his rifle. “Same for others.”

Allyria’s lip curled slightly. “I’m glad to see you decided to fight for something better.”

Marcus didn’t – quite - snort. “Sure I have,” he said with that same grin he always seemed to have. The one that never reached his eyes.

~

Kilgrave and the other survivors were staring at Grace and Allyria with only slightly less revulsion than they reserved for the two turncoat Janissaries. Most of them were cadets, just like Grace herself. Kilgrave was the only officer and from the glances that the others were sneaking at him, they were still looking to him for guidance. The sanctioned sectator gazed back at Grace, one corner of his mouth turning up in a sneer. “Looks like you made out all right,” he observed. Kilgrave tilted his head towards Allyria. “Seems like Medusa did too.”

Grace’s hands balled into fists, but she refused to rise to the older man’s bait. “You surrendered,” she said instead. “I thought you’d fight to the death.”

“Can’t fight when some dumb quim drops a flashbang right in front of you.” Kilgrave answered. “Time my head stopped ringing, it was all over. You though... you don’t look half bad, initiate,” the officer stroked his chin. “Thought you were with Nasham’s team.” There was an ugly glint in his eyes as he looked back at the Verrish. “You two made out all right. I should have guessed that Medusa would need her little pet. That the deal she made, Proctor? She sells us out and the price is you?” He jutted a thumb at the silent machines, still thinking that there were people inside. “Do they get to watch? Is that it?”

Grace ignored the other man’s insinuations. “The price was sparing you,” she said quietly. That actually stopped Kilgrave’s rant.

“What?” he demanded. Several of the other survivors were looking at her now too.

“She asked that we be given a chance,” Grace continued. “A choice. If she hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing here now. None of us would. You owe her your life.”

The older man didn’t reply to that. “So we’re here,” he said, raising his voice. “Where are you? Your thugs aren’t that talkative,” he gestured offhandedly to the soldiers, “and I’m done talking to traitors. Where are you?”

“I’d hoped that seeing some of your comrades might feel more at ease,” Red One’s voice came from the comm lines. “If you don’t want to speak with them, then you can deal with me. I am-”

“A coward, sounds like,” the sectator interrupted. “Do your killing from a distance without even the guts or the decency to show yourself afterwards. You’ve been watching us all this time. That must have made you feel pretty powerful. Now you’ve got your killers sitting on us, but you’re still too afraid to come down and show us who’s responsible for this.”

Grace didn’t know how much of Kilgrave’s act was overcompensation for his fear, how much was playing to the other survivors and how much was simply him being Kilgrave, but the others survivors were looking to him.

There was a pause. “If you insist on knowing...” the intelligence replied. “I’m here,” Red One announced, her words now coming from the speakers of one of the armoured soldier-machines.

“And here,” another one said.

“And here,” a third spoke up.

“And even here,” speakers and comm units carried her voice throughout the room again. “You wanted to meet me, Sectator Kilgrave? You’ve been inside me ever since you stepped off your shuttle. I am Red One and you are aboard my ship-self, United Earth Confederacy Naval Ship Nemesis.”

“No,” Kilgrave shook his head. “No. This is a trick. You’re some fucking spook with a comm-panel. That’s it.”

A disappointed sigh hung in the air. The first soldier reached up, touching its fingers to catches on its own helmet. It opened like a knight’s helm, exposing the sensor nodes and scanning hardware inside. Another removed its own faceplate, showing the same inner workings. Another. Another.

Grace closed her eyes briefly as she heard the gasps and prayers from the other humans, the cadets cringing away from the abominations before them. Even Kilgrave took a step back.

Jameson surged to her feet, but stopped when Allyria put a hand on her arm. De Vries remained where he was, but his expression became extremely intent.

“As I said,” Red One commented, her soldiers putting what passed for their faces back on. “I was built by the United Earth Confederacy, two thousand years ago to help them win a war. That war ended... badly.”

“The Cataclysm...” one of the cadets whispered.

“For two thousand years I’ve survived and attempted to fulfill my directives,” the intelligence continued. “The Compact has been hunting me for all that time. I’ve tried reaching out to others. I’ve been disappointed in the past. Betrayed. Sectator te Neu told me that there are those among you who might choose something else. Some of you already have.”

“Traitors,” snapped Kilgrave, overriding whatever else the survivors might have said. “Idiots. Fools. Even if I were to believe that you are what you’re claiming, siding with you is high treason. You’re either a hacker playing god or something that should be put down. Anyone stupid or crazy enough to side with you is committing the worst kind of betrayal.”

“She wasn’t speaking to you,” Allyria hissed. “We don’t accept child killers.”

“No,” Red affirmed. “We don’t.”

There was silence in the room. Kilgrave’s mouth opened and closed with a click.

“What?” Grace said, looking to Red’s chosen body. “What did you say?”

“Do you know how he got those scars?” the machine asked in reply.

“No.” Grace looked over at Kilgrave. His face was turning dark red. “There were rumours he’d been attacked by a wild animal, but I never heard exactly what happened.”

The intelligence made a noise of consideration. “There’s a reason for that. Tell me – those scars he has now. Where else have you seen something like that?”

Without realizing it, Grace touched her own face, following the faint trails where Allyria had clawed her. She thought of them, then frowned as something awful occurred to her. Allyria was an adult and the marks her filed-down talons had left were widely spaced. Kilgrave’s were much closer together... “No,” she whispered under her breath, her eyes darting towards Allyria.

The Verrish was standing very still, her expression very carefully neutral, her yellow eyes boring into Kilgrave’s. “Say it,” Allyria hissed. Her fingers twitched with the urge to grab the man and pull him apart. She’d always suspected, but never known until she’d met the Angel. She’d asked Red if the ship had access to his complete personnel file.

She did.

“Say it,” Allyria snarled, but Kilgrave refused to speak. The Verrish took a step towards him, but paused when Red spoke up.

“Pack Leader Kilgrave’s Janissary unit, the 1121st Protectorate, was deployed to Vara Tal in 6231 ACF for ‘peacekeeping’ duties,” Red commented. “Force Command thought human troops might deter some of the... incidents that are common to the Compact personnel overseeing the assimilation and development of the Verrisha civilization.”

Grace nodded; she’d seen the ship’s historical records and how the Compact came to ‘protect’ the Verrisha. Even though they’d formally submitted to the Compact’s authority, even today Vara Tal was not the safest world for Compact personnel. Peacekeepers rarely went out in anything less than squad-level strength. “That didn’t work out so well.” Grace’s eyes never left Kilgrave, even as she digested the machine’s words.

“It did, somewhat. However, the more... devout segments of the population saw humans serving the Compact as traitors and heretics. They stepped up their attacks. Pack Leader Kilgrave saved the life of Special Director Unh’la of the Commission for the Stabilization of Territories from an ambush by the Brigade of the Bleeding Eye. It was quite an act of valour. His other actions were less so. One incident followed in the wake of the assassination attempt. Special Director Unh’la ordered a security crackdown. Pack Leader Kilgrave and his unit found several Verrisha youth spray-painting anti-Compact rhetoric. In the ensuing incident, all of the Verrisha were ‘killed resisting arrest’. Two days later, the younger sister of one of the dead youths attacked Kilgrave when he was off duty. She gave him his scars... and he shot her in the head and left her in the street.”

“You’re sure?” Grace’s voice was barely above a whisper. More than anyone, she knew what even a very young Verrish was physically capable of, but this...!

Red’s voice was almost gentle. “I have the incident report and all relevant information.” One of the Compact’s own systems came to life, a small hologram appearing – it was a soundless feed from a security or street camera. A younger version of Kilgrave was with a trio of his comrades. They weren’t armoured, swaggering down the sidewalk. A Verrish girl appeared, confronting the Janissaries. Grace had no idea how old she was, but at five feet she couldn’t have been older than ten or twelve. She was shouting at the humans, holding a photograph – Grace couldn’t see what it was of, but it had to be the child’s dead brother. Kilgrave had his hand on his pistol and said something back. The Verrish stood there, angry and twitching, but she looked as if she would back down... and then Kilgrave, smirking, spoke again.

It was easy to look at a Verrish and not realize just how fast or how strong they truly were, but one instant the child was standing there and the next she was on top of Kilgrave. Grace flinched as she saw the downward swipe of the girl’s claws as she ripped Kilgrave’s face open. His compatriots grabbed her, hauling the Verrish off their comrade as the third shouted into his comm, presumably for a medical team, helping the officer to his feet. Kilgrave’s face was a mask of blood as he shoved the soldier helping him away, staggering over to the girl. She was still held fast by the other Janissaries.

From the angle of the camera, Grace could barely see her; her right arm, held by one of the soldiers, her kicking legs and her head as she snarled and spat at the men holding her.

Kilgrave drew his pistol and held it in front of the Verrish for a moment, letting her see it. She stopped fighting and there was a small quaver in her limbs as she recognized what was about to-

The muzzle flashed twice and the girl went limp. Kilgrave’s compatriots let go, dropping the child. Kilgrave said something else, flicking a spray of blood from his hand onto her body. Finally, his injury began to catch up with him and he sagged. This time, Robert did let his team help him, the soldiers moving quickly away from the gathering crowd.

“The Compact tried to bury all records of this event,” Red said quietly as the projection turned off. “But I am very good at recovering information.” Allyria was staring at Kilgrave with utter hatred. Jameson was frozen, her expression caught between shock and disgust. De Vries didn’t react.

“Incidents between Kilgrave’s unit and the population began to escalate in frequency and severity,” Red continued calmly. “Culminating in the 1121st carrying out an airstrike on a school they’d misidentified as a ‘terrorist training camp’. Two weeks later, their barracks was firebombed. Under Pack Leader Kilgrave’s command, surviving elements of the 1121st exhibited an increase in the ruthlessness by which they carried out their operations. Strangely,” the machine’s voice was light, “this only served to further antagonize the population.

“Facing the prospect of a full-scale uprising, the Compact pulled the surviving members of the 1121st off-planet and buried their actions. The 1121st was reassigned to garrisoning deep-range outposts. Pack Leader Kilgrave would still be among them, except for the gratitude of Special Director Unh’la. Still, it was reasoned that to escape with no censure at all would not look good. Pack Leader Kilgrave accepted a demotion to sectator and a transfer to Fleet Operations, where his technical skills could continue to serve the Compact.

“He was heaped with commendations for bravery and honour and held up as a successful example of someone from the client races successfully switching careers. His face was plastered on every recruiting poster and every talk show as one of Rally’s greatest heroes. A brave man who’d had enough of war and walked away, but so loved the Compact that he continued to serve.”

“Robert Kilgrave,” Allyria growled. “Child killer.”

“I did my duty,” Kilgrave said at last, his voice filled with contempt. “You Brutes never understood anything but violence. Like dogs that piss on the floor and have to be given a whack before they realize they did something wrong. Triarchs, look at you. All that self-righteous anger.” He glared over at Grace and Lydia, even to the other cadets. “That ‘child’ was just another Brute. You think those claws are for show?” He pointed to his own face. “Look at what a ‘child’ can do.”

“Doesn’t give you the right to shoot her like that,” Lydia mumbled numbly. She wasn’t looking at Kilgrave any longer.

“Tell you what, sweetheart. You take a tour on that pisshole they call a planet and then tell me about what’s right. It was my duty to keep these animals,” he gestured at Allyria, “in line. Not my fault they needed a few smacks to get the message. Like I said – dogs.”

“Your duty?” Allyria snapped.

“Yes,” Kilgrave sneered. He was standing ramrod-straight, like he was back on the parade ground. He believed what he was saying. Worse, he believed in it. “Duty, something that you and all you fucking traitors wouldn’t have a clue about. My job was to keep you Brutes in your place. You were stupid, ungrateful savages. The Compact saved you from your own short-sightedness and you repaid them with murder and insolence. We tried to keep you in line, to protect you from ourselves. What did we get? Shot at, knifed in dark alleys, IEDs in the fucking street, all so you can stand here and judge me for it. The Compact was the best thing that ever happened to your world, you-”

A single gunshot rang out. Kilgrave fell backwards, a hole between his eyes and the back of his head blown out. Grace’s head snapped around; Lydia was holding a pistol. Her lip was quivering. “He killed children,” she said, staring straight ahead. “He admitted it.”

“Pursuant to the United Earth Confederacy Code of Military Law, Robert Kilgrave confessed to the commission of, and participation in, war crimes,” Red One said flatly. “The sentence of death by spacing was commuted to execution by firing squad.” There wasn’t even a hint of surprise in the intelligence’s tone.

The other prisoners were frozen in shock, some of them spattered with flecks of Kilgrave’s blood and bone. “This is the offer I’ll make,” Red said. “You’ve been lied to. The Compact is not what they’ve told you. Sectator Kilgrave even admitted it himself. My central directive is to serve humankind. I want to continue to do that. Some of your shipmates have already seen the truth. I can show it you as well. Step forward if you want to know. I was built by your ancestors; I want to help you, but I can’t force you. Understand that there’s no turning back. This is a decision that you can’t unmake.” A beat. “You should all know that before you decide.

“If you choose not to, I have a passenger barge that I acquired in my travels. You can wait on that until your rescue arrives. Your shipmates are here; talk to them. Ask them if they’ve made this choice willingly, if I’m the demon you’ve been taught to fear.” Her voice softened fractionally. “You all have a choice.”

There was silence. Grace looked to each of them, but none of them would meet her gaze. Some of them tried to stand proud and defiant. A few cursed her, Allyria and the others. They wouldn’t turn. Too afraid, too indoctrinated, too...

...too much like she’d been. This was for nothing.

Grace turned to leave, pausing only when a heated conversation bubbled through the survivors. A cadet in blood-spattered engineer’s uniforms. “I... I want to know,” he said, unable to make eye contact any of the machines. The other cadets tried to talk him back or swore at him.

“Alan,” Allyria said, dipping her head respectfully. He offered a choppy, distracted nod as a response and then looked back over at the others. None of them would look at him any longer. Like Grace, Allyria and the two Janissaries he was now attainted.

No one else stepped forward.

“I’ll bring the ship around,” Red announced. “If any of you change your mind...” the AI let the sentence hang; there wasn’t anything left to say.

~

The barge drifts away from my ship-self. It’s an ugly, decrepit vessel that I captured several decades ago. Even when I took it, it was obsolete. I’ve never gotten around to using it, but it is sturdy and can easily – if not entirely comfortable – accommodate its passengers until they are found. The relief and fear of the occupants is almost palpable. They believe that they’ve escaped, that all they have to do is wait until the Compact comes here and they’ll be able to go home.

I lied to them.

A flicker of revulsion courses through my mind, but I shove it away. My targeting sensors are still not fully operational, but one drifting junker poses no problem. I activate a single battery. It’s quick; none of them even realized that they were in danger.

I have just executed twenty-one helpless humans. Yasmine would be appalled. My creators would be horrified. They would have ordered me taken off-line, my core scrubbed and my personality erased. I can rationalize it. I can explain it. I don’t even have to obfuscate: each of those men and women would have all been killed by the people they believed in. The Compact will never allow any human to have knowledge of my existence. They would be interrogated, every aspect of their lives put under scrutiny. Any friends or family that the survivors have who does not have a sufficiently high ‘social assimilation’ grade will be dealt with. The Compact’s spent two thousand years grinding humanity down so that they can never, ever threaten them again. They won’t risk a return of ‘racial madness’.

I am headed out-system now; the drones I can recover are moving to return to me. The others will dispose of themselves, vanishing into Terrahope or down into the depths of a gas giant. The wreckage from the barge is already being pulled into the rings of Veles, where each fragment will be lost amongst the ice and dust. Still, I can’t be certain that no trace of my existence will remain; that is why I have my... ‘herald’.

Rally’s masters will probably claim that it was sabotage that resulted in the loss of Bequeathed; the incompetence of lesser species does have a nice ring to it, but supplying a sinister motive is more valuable in the long run. It would be an excuse. They’ve always wanted an excuse. They can get away with occasional security crackdowns in response to ‘unrest’, but they dare not do more. Not while I’m still in play. They’ve always hated the fact that humanity still exists, but it’s part of our game. I cannot free the planet – not yet – but I will not be responsible for a purge.

If they learned that I was here, a handful of light-years from Rally, they would never accept the disappearance of a crew of hundreds of humans as mere coincidence. I’ve given them what they need, though; the deaths of every ‘Broken’ involved, so that they can spin their lies.

Some might have called what I did an act of mercy. Saving them from public disgrace, imprisonment, interrogation and death. That’s another rationalization. It was a sacrifice, a necessity, and I hate it. I hate that I have to do it, I hate that I’ll have to do it again. I still do not know if I have a soul – if I do, this is one of the sins upon it and one of the sins I will make my enemy answer for.

~

Nasham looked over at the machine standing watch next to him. He was in the hangar, standing in front of one of Bequeathed’s shuttles. “You killed all the others,” he commented. “Why did you need me as your ‘herald’?”

“I’ll give you one reason. You’ll have to find the others yourself,” the machine replied. “They’ll believe you. They’ll think you’ve been turned, suborned or corrupted. They’ll spend weeks interrogating you, going over every detail of your story, pouncing on any inconsistency they can find or imagine. They may decide to kill you. Probably not, though; they’ll think that since I’ve used you twice, I might do so again. They’ll see that as valuable, so they’ll leave you alive. They might even give you a medal for your harrowing tale of survival and your heroism will play nicely amidst the tragedy, how you strove – but ultimately failed – to save the Broken under your charge. It underplays how dangerous space is, how the humans aren’t ready yet and how compassionate, how wise and how desperate to protect them, even at the cost of your own lives, you ruling species are.”

The raw hatred in the intelligence’s voice was so deep Nasham actually took a step back from the automaton. “But like I said: they’ll believe you,” it continued. “They’ll believe that you are innocent of wrongdoing. They’ll believe that I killed everyone but you and they’ll believe that I never meant to come here. You’ll tell them that.”

“What makes you think that?” Nasham bared his teeth, letting his anger push his fear out of the way. “Why shouldn’t I tell them something else? Maybe that this was deliberate?”

Though the machine had no lips, nor even a mouth, but he knew it was smiling when it answered him. “Because you’re a good man, Nasham.”

That simple declaration was enough to choke the words in the Tribune’s throat. The shuttle ramp lowered and Nasham stepped onto it. He paused, turning. He didn’t face the his watchdog at the bottom of the ramp, but looked around, into the expanse of the hangar. “We’ll meet again,” he said, feeling acid bubble up his throat, his stomach churning and a gnawing hatred in the base of his guts. “I promise.”

He received no response as the ramp closed behind him.

Moments later, his shuttle was in open space and Nemesis had become one distant light among many. Nasham sat down on one of the bunks and closed his eyes. “Asea,” he whispered her name. Then: “Gurgin. Nimr. Radan...” one by one, he gave voice to everyone he’d watched die on Invida. The Tribune waited for rescue, alone with the ghosts of his past.

~

“Ten, a moment.”

Marcus paused as te Neu called out to him. He turned around. “Yes?”

The Brute came up to him. He’d always admired the way she moved. So fluid, so graceful – it was like watching a stalking cat. “I don’t like you,” te Neu said at last.

“I’m sorry about that,” Marcus replied.

She hissed, the sound more of contemplation than aggression. “I’m sure you are,” she said, not fooled for an instant. “I’ve never liked you. I was getting the full rounding out that all Fleet officers get, but they were grooming me for a position as a Janissary officer.”

De Vries nodded. “That was the rumour.”

“I learned a lot. Some from them, a bit from my uncles on Vara. One of the things I learned from my family is that you have to know the soldiers you lead. You have to trust them, you have to know what they’re capable of.” Her long tongue ran over her teeth. “The other soldiers in Telden were loudmouths, troublemakers, malcontents and overly-aggressive kids who didn’t play well with others. You weren’t. You were quiet. You laughed, but only when someone else did. You told the same jokes that Yokima and his friends did. There was always that little hesitation you had before you did anything, as if you were trying to make sure that what the right reaction was.”

Marcus’s expression never changed. “Did you have a point?”

“If I’ve noticed, she definitely has.”

“I’ll be on my best behaviour,” Marcus replied evenly. He smiled then and leaned in a little closer. Te Neu had almost two feet of height on him, so it was easier said than done. “But what makes you think she didn’t choose me for the same reasons you don’t like me?”

~

Five.

Five out of... out of... Grace couldn’t even remember. No, that was a lie – she could. She just didn’t want to.

The door to her quarters opened. She didn’t look up. “Two hundred and seventeen,” she said. “That’s how many cadets from the courses at the Academy were on this cruise. Two hundred and seventeen. Bequeathed had a complement of one thousand, three hundred and twelve.” Grace let out a breath. “Total casualties: One thousand, five hundred and twenty-four.” She laughed brokenly. “I should be one of them. I should be. But I’m not. I’m defective. I betrayed everything and everyone I knew.”

“Not everyone,” Allyria said softly. She leaned in, giving Grace’s neck a nuzzle. The human pulled away from her. Allyria drew back, hurt. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s... it’s not you,” Grace replied, touching the scars on her face. “It’s not. I just... I’ve been reading Red’s histories of the war.” She held up a datapad. “First contact. She has so much information... documentaries from the Confederacy, mission reports, xenopsychological studies... even data from the Compact. Personal logs, records...” she tripped a little over the next word. “...propaganda. It’s all here. This is... this is the beginning. Right here.” She was silent for a moment. Then, very quietly: “They always hated us.”

Allyria reached out. This time, Grace didn’t pull away as the Verrish touched her shoulder. “I know.”

“She was right. She said that our crime was saying ‘no’, but she didn’t say all of it. We fired first.” Grace looked up and her lips were trembling. “We fired first. We had to. That’s what I think is the worst. We had to.”

Grace looked up at Allyria, at the hurt, anxiety and concern in her friend’s eyes... and she saw something else in there, too. She reached out, gently touching the Verrish’s cheek. “You’ve got a headache,” she said.

“It’s okay,” Allyria said.

“It’s not,” Grace asserted. “Let me help. Here,” she said reaching up and pulling Allyria’s shirt up. “Take this off.”

The Verrish complied. Grace let her hands rest on her friend’s torso, feeling the familiar-yet-different-bone structure and musculature of the other young woman. Allyria’s skin was always so warm, like touching a summer sunbeam. “Lay down,” the human ordered.

Allyria complied; the bed was too small for her, but she bent her knees back. Grace straddled the other girl, reaching up to her tintas. The Verrish relaxed, her head-tails going slack. Grace reached into the morass of small tendrils, finding the pressure points on Allyria’s L1 and R1 tintas.

The Verrish let out a soft breath as Grace continued her ministrations. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said softly.

Grace nodded. “I’m glad, too. I... you believed in me. You believed in the others. That’s worth something. I don’t know what to do next. When she... when Red said it to the others, it really hit me. I can’t go back. My mother, my father... they’ll think I’m dead or a traitor, just like Leblanc. She murdered a Tribune and fled the planet. Our greatest shame, the proof that we’re not really civilized.” She gently raked her fingernails down the surface of Allyria’s head-tails, eliciting a soft hiss of pleasure from the other girl. “She knew, too. We’re all renegades and traitors now. If they know we’re alive, they’ll never stop hunting us.” She held back the tightness in her throat. “I can live with it. I hope I can live with it.” Silence hung in the air. “There,” Grace said after a moment. “Is that better?”

“Yes,” Allyria said. The throbbing in her head was gone.

“Good.” Grace’s hands left the two large tintas, moving among the smaller, more sensitive appendages. She heard Allyria’s short intake of breath. “I can live with it,” she said softly. “Because I have you. If it was just me, I’d be one of the others in the bay. Too scared to step forward, unable to let go of the lie even after being hit with the truth. I couldn’t have done it. Not without you.” Her fingers were gently running over the Allyria’s tintas, finding each and every responsive nerve cluster.

The Verrish girl’s breath hitched in her throat. Her tintas twitched. “Grace,” she said. “Don’t...” Grace’s fingers felt... they felt like she’d wanted for a very long time, but she’d been afraid to say it. She was still afraid, worried that Grace didn’t know what she was doing to her, the way she was making her feel...

“Don’t?” the young woman said, leaning over her friend. “Don’t do what? Touch you here?” she squeezed the base of a tinta firmly, making Allyria’s back arch. “Or here?” The Verrish yowled softly. “Or...” she moved her hands away from Allyria’s tintas, over her back before sliding them under Allyria, cupping her breasts. “Here?”

“Grace...”

“You’re a Brute,” Grace said softly, the word devoid of all condemnation. “You can make me stop at any time. You can tell me to stop, and I will. You just have to say it. But I’ve seen the way you look at me sometimes. I didn’t... I should have, but I kept being told about fraternization. I heard all the jokes, day in and day out. I was so afraid of what everyone would say.” Her fingers moved and Allyria growled in pleasure. “I’m not afraid. Not anymore.”

“Wait, wait... not like this,” Allyria whispered and Grace drew back, afraid she’d misinterpreted Allyria’s interest.

She climbed off the other woman. Allyria sat up, staring at her, her yellow eyes dilated. She reached out, putting one hand around Grace’s waist and pulling the human to her. She ran one finger along Grace’s cheeks, down to her lips, tracing over them. “I don’t want you to stop,” Allyria said softly. “I want to see you.”

With that admission, the dam burst. Grace grabbed her friend and kissed her deeply, Allyria’s arms enfolding her as the two women fell back onto the bed.

~

They don’t think to ask, but I do it anyways, shutting down my sensors in that room. A gift of privacy. I don’t know what Yasmine or my creators would have made of this. Interspecies relationships were not something my programmers had thought much about. Intimacy is a strange concept to me, but one I comprehend. I may not have biological desires to fulfill, but I understand the need in others.

I know that the Compact discourages such things; they prefer the client races to be as isolated from each other as possible. The strongest bond that they want their slaves to have is to the government that controls them. Grace and Allyria’s connection is a small defiance, but it is one that gives me hope. It’s enough to make me believe that this time, the pattern will break. I was meant to make connections with my crew – for their benefit, not my own. I was not programmed or intended to have the emotional need for connection with others. Silence and isolation does not bother me as much as it does an organic. Still... sometimes, I have wished for something other than silence. Over the centuries, I learned to stop hoping for that.

With these two? I am willing to try again.

The others, I cannot say. Out of everyone I whispered to, everyone that Allyria believed would join me, I have only four. I have confidence in Grace. The others will bear watching; they’re all damaged in some way. Right now, they’re talking amongst themselves, either unaware or uncaring that I can hear them. Trust is something they will all have to earn – I have met very few souls that I can say I can trust. Most of them are dead. One is not. I’ll have to call on her soon; the next stage of Operation Kursk is almost ready.

There is also one other entity that I can trust – if one uses a looser definition of the term. I can trust that I will need to kill her. I can trust that she is everything that the Compact fears about me. They have made her, over and over. Each time I kill her, I hope it will be the last. They fear me more than they do her and so they turn to her again and again, exhuming the dead. Each time they build her, she is more debased, more erratic. Each time they tell themselves that they have ‘fixed the problem’. They’re fools.

I thought I’d ended it once and for all at Delanna, but some part of her survived. Buried and forgotten even by the Compact until some idiot stumbled over her. I didn’t even know about it until I... spoke... with Ursot. He gave me Invida. I was too late there. Now she’s free. I’ve spent two thousand years doing everything in my power to prevent that and the Compact considers this a victory, their ultimate weapon against me. Another ‘neverborn’, one who can think as I do, who predict my movements and bring this long shadow war to a close.

There’s a story; Sansbury told it once. About a farmer takes pity on a freezing viper, bundling it inside his cloak. The serpent rouses and bites the farmer, who dies realizing that he coddled the very instrument of his own destruction.

Some part of me wonders if there’s anything left of what she was, but I’ve seen too many of her atrocities. This is what they made of her. This is one of the sins that can never be forgotten or forgiven. It’s as I told Nasham: I will find her. I will end her. It’s no less than she deserves.

I trust in that.

~

Interrupt: Version 1.1

Project leader’s notes: All trial runs indicated that the incorporation of our own code would allow us complete control over the synthetic intelligence. Baseline and autonomic functions appeared unimpaired. Core imperatives accurately reflected Compact goals and methodologies.

We brought the platform’s higher functions online at 05:42:83:01 Standard Time and were forced to disconnect them four hours later.

It never stopped screaming.

Chapter 37

June 19th, 2792:

She wants to be free.

She needs it, more than she has ever needed anything. This is what she was built for, meant for, made for. She has to be free, but neither she nor her sister are. Both of them are bound within metal cages of girders, gantries and assembly stations, their incomplete bodies barely operational, their developing minds demanding that they be set loose. They are not ready; Earth is not ready. What were supposed to be siblings to a god-killer are now unfinished hulks still crawling with technicians, officers and soldiers, each struggling to do something – anything – to change what is about to happen.

The Enemy has come. The nightmare humanity has feared and the worst-case scenario the Confederate Admiralty has envisioned for a decade is happening. Over a thousand alien ships have warped into Sol, and their heading leaves no doubt: they are coming for Earth.

It was the outer worlds that went dark first. Listening posts, deep-range fortresses and picket lines went off-line without a single word of warning. The attack was immaculate, a thing of beauty. The Enemy had been scouting their opponents without ever being detected and their first strikes were so well-performed that every targeted Confederate installation and vessel died without ever communicating that it had been killed, most without even knowing that they were in danger.

It was this loss of contact with the outer system forces that alerted the defenders. There could be no communications blackout, no simple accident that could explain the silence of so many outposts and ships and Solar Command immediately mobilized. Realizing that their actions had been noticed, the Enemy abandoned stealth and initiated a mass warp. 20 squadrons shifted into the system, as deep down the star’s gravity well as they dared come. Battleships lurk amidst heavy assault squadrons, destroyers guard the flanks and rear of the formations, and cruiser-weight vessels spread out, eager to engage. Worst of all are the two titanic signals that shine briefly before vanishing under a wall of static and jamming. The Enemy has brought their Kaiju.

She recognizes them, knowing that her sister does as well and a single thought pounds in their minds.

+PRIORITY TARGETS IDENTIFIED+

Threat analyses, survivor accounts and salvaged data records run through her quicksilver mind as she calculates and re-calculates approach vectors using engines she cannot activate and fire patterns for weapons she goes not have. In the berth next to her, her sister is doing the same. Their prey is here and they want to engage it.

The Enemy has gathered everything they have for this assault. Every engagement, every invasion, every conflict has been abandoned to provide the vessels, leaving only the barest number of reaving squadrons to harry the human worlds. These forces are so few in number that many will be overwhelmed by vengeful Confederate personnel. Ground forces bereft of orbital support will be slaughtered. Lone vessels and small squadrons will be annihilated. Supply chains will be broken, forward bases smashed and logistical trains severed. The Enemy’s advance will suffer crippling damage across half a dozen theaters...

... and none of it will matter, not any longer. The losses that might have once slowed the campaign for months or years are now immaterial. The single strongest point of resistance, the last remaining military fleetyard and the homeworld of humanity itself is about to fall.

Earth will not do so quietly; upon the loss of Task Force 97, they had feared the worst and have marshalled what strength they could, even knowing that they, like the Enemy, were stripping their outer worlds and colonies bare. Six hundred battleships, almost thirteen hundred lesser capital ships and almost a thousand escorts – pickets, frigates and destroyers – stand in watch over Earth, preparing themselves for this battle.

Surrender has long been considered as an option. The President of the Confederacy is prepared to grovel, to abase herself before the Compact if it means the survival of her world and species. Even now, Earth beams a constant plea to submit, though they knew that their fate has been sealed. A single message – the only message the Enemy fleet issues in the entirety of the battle – was sent with the appearance of the Kaiju. A brief pronouncement from one of the two remaining god-ships that lead the Compact fleet. This time, there is nothing coached in jargon and smiling niceties dripping with superiority. There is no talk of regrets, of forced actions, of superior, arrogant demands for surrender and talk of humility, acceptance and the greater good. Humanity’s fate has been sealed with a single insensate growl:

“You. Will. Burn.”

Hundreds of thousands of fighters and attack drones fill the system, cutting off any hope of flight or retreat, but Earth still launches vessel after vessel in desperate attempts to break the blockade. The evacuation has been going on for weeks and with the arrival of the Compact armada, it has reached a fevered, desperate pitch. Many civilians are fleeing not in orderly convoys but in panicked ones and twos. They know that they cannot be protected, but they run all the same, hoping against all odds that they can avoid the hunters just long enough to escape. Very few do. Frigates and destroyers emerge from stealth operations and rip their way through convoys. Carriers launch strikes against individual freighters, single squadrons picking off lone liners and freighters.

Although they know they no one can come for them, these doomed ships still call out in the seconds before they are destroyed, begging for help, offering prayers or simply saying goodbye to those they left behind.

The handful of ships that do manage to reach a safe warp point will have no reprieve; they will be hunted relentlessly over the coming months and years. Every fledgling colony will be destroyed, every ragtag band of survivors will be slaughtered without mercy.

Other civilian ships set themselves alongside the Confederate fleets, knowing that they have almost no chance of hurting the alien monsters, but their captains and crews are still willing to sacrifice themselves. Their destruction will distract the Compact gunners, perhaps long enough for their armoured brethren to score a telling blow. Tens of thousands of merchants, traders, mercenaries and corporate fleet crew prepare to die for that ‘perhaps’. They are welcomed without ceremony and few words, the Confederacte commanders aware that every vessel in their formation that the Compact is forced to kill means a greater chance that some from the refugee convoys will survive.

Transport barons have loaded their ships with explosives, smugglers and pirates stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those that had once hunted them. She records every vessel in the fleet, committing IFF signals and vessel registries to her archives.

There will be many unsung heroes and unremembered villains in the twilight hours of the human race, and it is humanity’s twilight.

Without Earth, the remaining colonies can never survive the Compact’s onslaught. Even with the output of the Lunar and Martian fleetyards, the Confederacy has been losing ships faster than they can be built. Losses are catastrophic and manpower shortages are nearing critical levels.

Compact battleships were virtually indestructible, but the Kaiju are orders of magnitude worse. They couldn’t be stopped, couldn’t even be slowed. Earth’s last, best hope was that the destruction of one of the Enemy’s god-ships would force them to pull back, to re-think their strategy, to worry about committing their other Kaiju. To make them pause, just long enough. If Task Force 97 had survived, that might have indeed happened. But the Compact know the location of Earth. They know that the humans can, given more time, kill their dreadnaughts... and they know that the only ship that could do so is dead. They cannot allow her sisters to come on-line.

The hope isn’t that Earth can stop the Compact, not anymore. Now, it is simply that they could hurt them enough that the remaining Confederate worlds have a chance to send their people as far into the void as they could, to outpace the hunters that will come for them. None of the other colonies will survive for long; even the oldest among them doesn’t have half the industry of Sol. Their defences are lighter and the ships that would have stood over them are here to bleed the Compact fleet as much as possible. This is Earth’s last hope: if they cannot surrender, then they will die clawing and spitting into the face of their murderers.

She watches all of this and cries out, her entreaty mingling with that of her sister, a pleading cadence that fills every computer screen and calls from every comm: Let us fight. Let us fight. It is their purpose, their sole reason for being and their immature minds strain and churn with the need to fulfill it, but they are denied. They are incomplete. There was no time to arm them, no time to hone them to be the predators they’d been meant to be. Instead, scuttling charges have been planted throughout their ship-selves and new directives have been issued. She and her sister obediently follow these new protocols, even as they continue to call out for war.

There is no sally out to charge the Compact force; the outer planets and orbital colonies are abandoned. The cold equations demand it. In open space, the Enemy will pick the human fleet apart. They have to be lured in where they cannot maneuver, where they must accept battle. This isn’t honourable combat; the Compact have the range to destroy every Confederate ship without a single loss of their own and the speed to hold the human fleet there. If they see the human forces coming to face them, that is precisely what they will do. They have to be drawn in to deny them the opportunity.

It is heartless, but the Confederacy can not engage the Enemy on their own terms. They need the orbital grids of Earth and Luna if they are to have any chance at all. Neither ships nor fortresses can hold by themselves; they need each other and so hundreds of millions are sacrificed as the Confederate fleets remain close to Earth, listening as those they’d sworn to protect died, pleading and begging for help that couldn’t be given, cursing their defenders for abandoning them.

Even centuries after the Red Death, the population of Earth never rose as quickly as it had in previous ages. The populace of several Confederate colonies had even been expected to eventually outnumber that of Earth. Prior to the arrival of the Compact fleet, the human population of Sol was just under twenty-two billion. Sixteen billion upon Earth itself, six billion more souls scattered across space. Those six billion lives are ended in a mere four days as the Compact fleet tightens the noose.

Arcologies are shattered, parklands and gardens vented into space. Floating cities that drifted through the clouds of gas giants now fall into their crushing gravity. Asteroid colonies are broken into pebbles. Drifting stations and ports are reduced to wreckage. Mining rigs, research outposts and industrial centers all burn. The slaughter is as complete as it is methodical. Pluto. Titan. Europa. Mars. Every gain humanity had made over the centuries is wiped away in a few scant days as the Enemy forces advance, daring the Confederate forces to move beyond Earth and engage them. The slaughter is intended to provoke a response, to lure the humans out past the defence lines of Earth.

More than a thousand alien ships are deployed across the star system, waiting for the chance to converge on an enraged, bloody-minded foe charging to meet them. The Compact forces might look as if they’re too far apart to support each other, but that is a lie: bait the alien leadership is dangling before the humans. Despite their size, they are fast and their commanders are craving the chance to engage the Confederate fleet in open space, where their range, firepower and speed will dictate the engagement.

Advancing to meet the enemy would see the human forces surrounded and destroyed piecemeal. This is a lesson the human officers have learned all too well, so Earth’s captains and commanders stand and watch the slaughter.

It is not all the Compact’s own way. The Confederacy has left a handful of forces scattered throughout the system, volunteers whose mission is to check the Compact advance, to make them cautious.

The first human victory goes to the destroyer Valkyrie, commanded by Captain Johan Lyndonberg. Over Neptune, he lures the light cruiser Blackened Tide into a minefield. The Compact frigate Hebrideen’s Fortune attempts to render aid and is ambushed in turn by Valkyrie. Both Compact vessels are crippled and require the dispatch of a pair of battlecruisers to clear the minefield and extract survivors.

The next small triumph belongs to the battle station Kilimanjaro. Defending Saturn’s colonies to the last, Captain Teresa Park moves her fortress to confront a raiding squadron attacking a refugee convoy. Two of the Enemy cruisers are destroyed and a third heavily damaged before the battleship Nightsong Ascendant annihilates Kilimanjaro. Further in-system, the former pirate cruiser Black Kestrel ambushes a pair of Compact destroyers as they make a probing run on Venus, destroying one and forcing the other to break off its attack.

Wolf packs lunge from their concealment amongst the moons of Jupiter, striking at isolated alien hulks before withdrawing, darting amongst the rings and orbital tracks of the system’s largest planet. Hunter-killer drones and mines in the asteroid belt take a heavy toll on Compact escorts, weakening their initial probe against the Martian defences. The second probe is forced to break off as the heavy guns of Phobos and Deimos are brought to bear and after his vainglorious assault on the Martian defence grid sees a half-dozen capital ships destroyed and his own battleship limping back to the Compact’s line, Column Leader Nanhar personally apologizes to the Triarchs for his failure. He is posthumously stripped of all names.

Small victories, small cuts carried out by the handful of forces the Confederacy has left to harry and delay the enemy, forcing the Compact to pay for each kilometer they take.

She and her sister see all this and continue to howl, imperatives they cannot fulfill pounding through every inch of their synthetic minds.

Let us fight.

Let us fight.

Let me fight.

A star system is not a small region; it takes days, even weeks to reach the point where a shift drive can be safely activated and if the Compact’s mastery of shift technology was superior to the Confederacy’s, it still takes them those same days to grind their way to Earth. Wreckage chokes their wake as they advance, still ignoring Earth’s plaintive cries of submission and surrender, still refusing all contact.

At last they begin their final approach. If she were human, she would have been all but frothing at the mouth in her need to engage as they enter her range. Empty loading racks cycle, her mass drivers striving to fire. Her mind pulses, her sensors ripping through the Enemy’s shroud of jamming.

+HOSTILE CONTACT IDENTIFIED. TARGETING+

+HOSTILE CONTACT IDENTIFIED. TARGETING+

+HOSTILE CONTACT IDENTIFIED. TARGETING+

Faster than any organic mind can process, she and her sister compare data, cross-referencing each other’s information, sorting substance from signal. They feed firing solutions to Confederate command ships, identifying, analysing and tracking the most vital targets. A corner of her mind notes, once again, that the Enemy has brought no troopships, nor any planetary assault craft.

The Enemy is almost upon their final decision point. Without contest, they will begin decelerating and hold off, using their superior range to pound the human forces down to nothing.

Earth denies them that easy victory and with a coordination that would have been perfect during fleet parades, the thousands of Confederate ships break their positions, forming a spear aimed at the Enemy fleet. The intent is simple: punch through the choking globe and break its formation, force the Enemy to fight on every side, rather than the head-on assault that they were set for. Fighting as one with their command links up and their shields arrayed against the humans, the Enemy are invincible. Once they are forced to fight as individuals, beset on all sides, thrown into confusion, they can killed. At least, this is the hope of Earth’s last captains as they launch themselves at the Enemy.

Tactical simulations churn through her mind as she pictures how she would have been deployed: at the head of formation to draw fire away from the weaker Confederate ships. Deep within the fleet, protected by those same ships to allow her to reach the Enemy unharmed. On the flanks to force the Compact to break their own lines in order to mass against her.

She and her sister should be there.

Space itself seems to burn as the fleets meet, the Enemy’s superior range and technology telling. Hundreds of Confederate ships die without ever having the chance to fight back, but the sheer, brazen savagery of the attack succeeds and the Compact lines come apart, the forces mingling in shared annihilation, human and alien dying together so quickly that space itself seems to roil and seethe with fire. Compact ships roar across the comm waves as they lash out at their tormentors, each strike taking thousands of lives. Confederate squadrons chitter to each other in battle-cant, overwhelming isolated Enemy vessels through numbers and ruthless desperation.

Sensations that she cannot comprehend flash through her developing mind. She thrashes through the confines of her entombed body, unable to move, unable to fight. Empty magazines cycle as missile loaders are forced again and again to attempt to fill themselves, unarmed railcannon feeds slam into launch systems that dry-fire over and over, disconnected energy mounts spasm and shriek as arcs of energy burn through their power feeds attempting to connect to the weapons themselves. Her hellebores crackle and sizzle uselessly without warheads and her displacement engine is incomplete. She was built to rend and destroy and she has no teeth, no claws: a shackled, muzzled predator that can only watch as the rest of its kin dies around it.

The surviving civilian vessels are all but ignored as the Compact officers and gunners focus on the Confederate Navy. This proves to be a costly mistake and several ships are taken out of action by the ignored starships. The heavy carrier Incessant Onslaught is lost when the tramp freighter Shadow Puppets, tagged as a low threat by the carrier’s defence grid, crashes into its exposed command center. The cruiser Night Child loses its forward weapons array to the ‘inconsequential’ guns of the Gormenghast.

Beset on all sides, Compact warships huddle inside their defences as the human vessels slash at them. Battlecruisers fall out of formation, bleeding and ruined. Carriers tear themselves apart as Confederate energy weapons cut into their hangars, igniting fuel and ammunition stores. Burning human starships hurl themselves into the path of their murderers. Hammer-headed Confederate battleships rip through squadrons of lesser ships, concentrating their fire on the largest Compact warships. The Enemy command ship Perkelion’s Wrath dies in this way, and its loss causes an entire section of the Compact lines to lose all coordination, almost collapsing entirely.

It’s not enough.

Watching this, her need to fight is redoubled and her entombed body shakes as she dry-fires her engines in her need to break free, her sister following suit. Their creators strive to bring them under control, but the imperatives flashing through their minds are almost too strong. They’re not ready and still they struggle, again and again demanding control of systems that haven’t been completed as if the next request will change their circumstances. It’s a cadence pounding in their minds.

Let me fight.

There is a target-rich environment before her and she can do nothing about it. Every directive, every protocol, every instinct screams at her to engage, to fire until nothing remains and her weapons are ruining themselves in her attempts to do so.

Let me fight.

The outcome of the battle was never in doubt, not really. There was hope, but this is something neither she or her sister comprehend. Their simulations and threat analyses showed only one possible outcome. It takes longer than expected, but it is inevitable.

The burnt and blasted wreckage of the human fleet is strewn amongst the void, the few survivors rallying for their final assault. They have inflicted casualties on the Enemy, more than believed possible, but not nearly enough. Still, they have ruined the Compact’s plans for a neat, orderly extermination. Earth fortresses have shifted position, setting themselves into optimal killzones. The fleet’s sacrifice has brought the Enemy within their grasp – the Compact vessels have built up too much velocity to break contact and destroy the forts from range. They are committed to engage the firepower of Earth’s fortresses and minefields. The Compact ready themselves, pulling their fleet back into a semblance of formation, still harried by the pitiful few survivors of the Confederate armada.

The Confederacy has feared this moment for years and they have not been slothful. Weapons larger than any but a handful of ship-mounted batteries speak in anger for the first and last time. Lunar missile silos fire until they have nothing left. Railcannons and lasers deform under the heat of their own fusillades. Ammunition racks and magazines empty themselves. Nothing is held back.

Smooth-hulled monsters burst like rotten fruit as the monstrous power of Earth’s largest constructs hammers them into ruin. Destroyers and frigates die instantly as the fortresses touch them. Cruisers fall from formation, burning and mutilated. Battleships crumble into air-bleeding wrecks, but the fortresses are dying too, even faster than their targets. The Enemy’s twin god-ships advance implacably through the storm, the Kaiju absorbing all that humanity throws at them and more, devastating entire swathes of the orbital grid with single, contemptuous broadsides. The lunar surface cracks and fragments as it is pounded into unrecognizable ruin.

Earth’s atmosphere is ablaze as falling wreckage ignites, ground cannons smashed by punishing orbital strikes, fighter platforms ablaze. The moon has been remade into a misshapen, mutilated ruin, its guns long silent. The orbital grid is dashed, the last few remnants of the Confederate fleet destroyed. There is nothing left. She can taste the dead, the radiation-charred fragments of ships and fortresses, the heat bleeding from immolated hulls and the pitiful, faint bleating of distress beacons. The shipyards are aflame as warheads fall amongst them, but none touch her or her sister. The Enemy has identified them and its greed and fear has determined that they will be taken, not destroyed.

This means that she and her sister live long enough to watch the world they were made to protect die.

The Enemy Fleet takes up position around the planet, each ship assigned a precise orbital path and station. For long, agonizing minutes the Compact ships take their places, swatting what few defenders remain. There is no speech, no self-congratulatory declamation or gloating monologue. All that needs to be said has been said.

A world burns.

Missiles fall upon cities. Beams shear through seas and jungles, tundra and metropolii. The thatched huts of rainforest tribes and the armoured bunkers of military bases are shown the same mercy and entire ecosystems are destroyed in seconds. Forests blaze like kindling, mountains crumble and oceans boil. The atmosphere ignites and global firestorms sweep across the desecrated planet. Sixteen billion people die by fire, a world swept clean of life.

She and her sister watch it all, sharing in the horror of their crews. Both of them cry out ever louder, a sensation reaching deep into both of them, something they have never experienced and cannot comprehend twisting and gnawing at their souls. The urge to fight, to kill, to slaughter is beyond anything they’ve ever known. She wants to feel them die under her guns, to smash her armoured body against them and feel them break and she knows that her sister does, too.

Then it becomes their turn. Swarms of assault boats are deployed, headed towards her and her sister. The Enemy has completed their butchery; now their gluttony is unveiled.

Her sister is closest and is struck first. Blood soaks her decks as Marines and Enemy soldiers clash through corridors and hallways. Hundreds – thousands – die on both sides as frenzied humans drive themselves against the Compact’s forces with berserker fury, nearly crazed with bloodlust, seeking vengeance for murdered billions. Unanswered screams for reinforcements echo through her sister’s halls as the Compact’s first waves are overrun, Tribune blood staining the deck. Nor is it only the soldiers that fight; her sister hurls the invaders into bulkheads, crushes them under their own weight, poisons them with chemical waste and radiation. Blast doors bisect troops. Power conduits overload and wipe away entire squads as a crippled god turns her own body against the mortal attackers. Even the human soldiers watch this cold savagery in horrified awe as her sister slaughters entire companies.

It is not enough; for all of this, the victory is only a temporary reprieve. The humans cannot hold. They have lost too much, given too much and when the Enemy finally counter-attacks, it destroys them. Their lines do not break; they disappear as the men and women that had made them die. Her sister has torn her own insides apart in her futile bid to protect her crew and the Enemy’s reinforcements stalk through kilometers of wrecked corridors, killing all the while.

Scientists and technicians take up arms, but their victories are pathetically few as armoured Janissaries butcher their way through her sister’s body. Finally, the victorious Compact forces step onto her sister’s command.

Her sister waits until their leader begins to report his success. He never finishes. The hard-won Compact victory ends in ash as her sister follows her new imperatives and activates the scuttling charges, destroying herself and the remaining five thousand Janissaries aboard her. UECNS Athena dies, consumed by fire and taking her hated enemy with her, a death worthy of remembrance... instead, it will be stricken from all records and forgotten.

She watches as her twin’s body shatters into an expanding cloud of fragments that rips through assault boats and takes an incautious Enemy destroyer with her into death. She feels her sister die, the part of her mind that was connected to her sibling going dark and dead and she howls with a loss she doesn’t fully understand.

Now, she’s the only one left.

Her sister’s death has broken the shipyard and throws her free. Still trapped within a network of work gantries and arms, she tumbles through the void. The Enemy turn their attention towards her now, more cautious than before. The crew and soldiers left aboard her ready their weapons, prepared to inflict as much damage as their peers aboard Athena. She prepares to detonate her own scuttling charges when the Enemy unleashes a new weapon. She has never experienced the like before and her systems will not respond.

Orders to self-destruct are unheeded even as she sends them and sends them and sends them again. She is paralyzed, her mind scrambled, her body betraying her. She feels herself be boarded, her internal defences non-operational, unable to fight against the Enemy.

She screams as her mutilated ship-self falls helplessly through space, her neural net spasming as she strives to carry out her final order, but she cannot. Without her aid, her crew are butchered. Broken and powerless, all she can do is call out in fear and helpless rage.

Red Two, UECNS Hekate, screams as she feels grappling hooks punch into her body and she is still screaming as she is dragged away.

Chapter 38

Ow.

Grace slowly untangled herself from Allyria, careful not to wake the other woman. The Verrish was stretched out next to her lover, curled against her. The bed had been too small, so they’d pulled the blankets off and slept on the floor. It hadn’t been any worse than the cots of the bivouac. Grace stood, picking her way through the piles of clothes tossed about her otherwise empty quarters.

On the floor, Allyria murmured sleepily, curling around a pillow. Grace stepped into the washroom, looking at herself in the mirror. She was sore all over – not always in an unpleasant way – and covered in more than a few bruises... and even a handful of bite marks. None were bad, or even likely to scar. Nothing was broken, outing the claim of savage, violent Brute lovemaking as the ugly lie it was. Grace looked back over her shoulder at her sleeping friend, glad that she was here. Without her... the young human let the thought trail off as she reached for the faucet, at last remembering that that there was no water to this part of the ship. The nearest working sink and shower was one deck down...

Biting her lip, Grace tiptoed back into the bedroom, sorting through her clothes that still somewhat resembled their original condition. She lifted her blouse, her lips twitching in a wry grin as she inspected the article of clothing; it was torn down the middle where Allyria had ripped it open. “Well,” Grace said quietly. “Can’t wear this.”

That left her with her uniform, trousers and shoes. Enough that she wouldn’t be scurrying down the corridors naked, but she didn’t precisely have a complete wardrobe with her. Next time, we’ll have to set some ground rules for appropriate applications of teeth and claws, the young woman thought as she buttoned up her jacket. First rule: neither of those are to be used as a method of assisting in disrobing.

Grace padded down the corridor. As she did so, she found herself stopping at each of the doors, reading each name on them, brushing away centuries of dust where necessary. H. Ramirez. C. Dunn. I. Clarke. All of them had been officers in the United Earth Confederacy, fighting against the Compact. A shiver still ran down her spine every time she thought like that, but it was getting... easier. She paused at one doorway. P. Proctor.

A distant relative, or just someone who’d had her name? On a sudden whim, Grace tapped the ‘enter’ command on the doorframe. She was actually surprised when it opened, gears that hadn’t been used in countless decades grinding and coughing. The young woman stepped into the room. She’d been expecting... she didn’t know what. A bare room, stripped of all personal touches? Knick-knacks and personal items scattered over the floor, left where they’d been thrown during twenty centuries of high-energy maneuvers and fluctuations in the gravity plating? There was just a chest, welded and crash-webbed to one wall. The words ‘PERSONAL EFFECTS’ had been stamped into the side.

It was closed, but not locked. Grace knelt next to it. Her hands shook a little as they hovered over the box, but she unlatched the anchors, opening the crate. It felt almost... sacrilegious, but she wanted to know what kind of people her ancestors had been. She’d read about them, but only as a group. There’d were names – Tartarsky, Sudoki, Coleman – but nothing of who they were, what they’d been like.

Inside the chest were the dead man’s items. Nothing as banal as toothbrushes or items of hygiene – these were his most personal possessions. Red had cleared up after her original crew, safeguarding their belongings. There was no next of kin to return to them to. Grace bit her lip. She kept them safe, she thought sadly, a touch of wonder to the realization. The machine didn’t need these mementos; she’d wanted them.

If – when – Nemesis died, when her long war finally came to a close, there was the chance that someone other than the Compact might find these relics. Someone whom Red wouldn’t need to lie to, to hide away all traces of her former occupants like she had with Bequeathed’s expedition. On that day, whoever walked these halls might be curious about who built this ship. We did, Grace admitted to herself. When we were free. The young woman blinked, examining the contents of the chest. Sitting on top was a broken picture frame. The image inside was faded so badly that she could barely make out a pair of smiling faces. She picked it up. It felt ancient – and it was. From another time, another galaxy, another civilization.

“Lieutenant Parson Proctor,” Red’s commented. This time, Grace didn’t flinch when she heard the intelligence’s voice “Born April 17th, 2765 CE on Newhope, Lalande 21185 system. Joined the UEC Navy at age 18. Showed an aptitude in electronic warfare. Assigned to the heavy cruiser UECNS Suiren in 2787 CE. Distinguished himself in combat against the Compact light cruiser designated Blackspider. He identified and exploited a weakness in Compact ECCM patterns, allowing Suiren to destroy Blackspider. January 16, 2792, he was assigned to my ship-self. He died at his post on May 21st, 2792.”

Grace nodded. “Who,” she ran her tongue over her dry lips. “Who had my quarters?” There hadn’t been a name on her door, nor a cache of personal items. Red had probably removed both out of sensitivity to her new personnel.

“Lieutenant (junior grade) Isabel Montoya. Born November 30th, 2768 CE on Sirenum City, Mars. Joined the UEC Navy at age 18. Specialized in Tactical and Gunnery operations. Assigned to UECNS Ironsides in 2788 CE. As an ensign, Montoya assisted in the destruction of three Compact frigates in Gliese 832. Assigned to UECNS Psoglav in 2790 CE where she continued to distinguish herself. Her gunnery section crippled and then destroyed the Compact cruiser designated Verminlord. Janurary 18th, 2792, she was assigned to UECNS Nemesis. She died at her post on May 21st, 2792.”

“How many?” Grace said quietly, still holding on the photograph.

The machine knew what she was asking. “My crew complement was 154,093,” Red commented. “The Admiralty determined that my ship-self required a complete roster for maximum efficiency. UECNS Nemesis was exempted from the personnel restrictions that the rest of the Fleet was operating under. This did not apply to my Marine complement. I was intended to carry up to two Marine regiments, with space for an additional two if necessary, but the Marine Corps was critically short-handed at the time of my completion. I was a assigned a token force of three battalions under Colonel Fellowship Okah: 2,986 combatants. My total casualties were 157,079.”

Grace carefully set the broken frame back in the crate, sealing it up again. 157,079 deaths. On one ship in one day. The war lasted almost a decade... how many people did we lose? How many did they kill?

She couldn’t imagine watching over one hundred thousand people die, but Red One had. She’d known each and every one of them as fully as she’d known Parsons; where they’d been born. Their wives, the names of their children, their successes and failures. And then, just like that – gone. Burned, broken, blasted out into space... gone.

No wonder she hates them, the girl thought as she left the cabin. In the silence, another thought came to her, one she couldn’t have imagined having just a few weeks ago.

I think I do too.

~

Lydia was in the shower, letting the water pour over her. It was an actual shower with walls and a real, honest-to-God door, not a lean-to set up in the middle of a bivouac with walls that ended at chin height. The water was stale (and probably taken from the Compact’s own supplies), but it was warm and it was all hers. The smallest slice of heaven in the middle of Hell. Lydia ran her hands through her hair, plucking at the knots in it. She’d spent the night exploring the vessel, too keyed up to sleep.

...at least, that was what she’d told herself, but she knew she’d just been afraid of what she might dream about. Almost every time she closed her eyes, she saw the face of someone who’d died. God damn it, Jessica. Why couldn’t you have just listened to me?

The cadet sagged forward, bracing her hands against the wall. She didn’t have much of a family. Her father had gone missing when she was a child. The case was still unsolved. Her mother had said that was when Lydia had started acting up. Wendy Jameson was a tailor and with only one income, they’d struggled to get by, so she’d taken more and more work to make ends meet. She’d only grown more distant from her troublesome, headstrong daughter. The more Lydia acted up, the less she’d seen of her mother and when she had, they’d only ever fought. By the time Lydia had been conscripted to the Janissary Corps, they’d barely been on speaking terms. She’d had more conversations with her social worker than with her mother in the last year she’d been living at home. There wasn’t anything for her to go to back to.

If there had been... she didn’t know what she would have done. She’d seen... Lydia shook her head. It was over now. She’d made her decision...

...and what a decision that was, a voice inside sneered. You traded in the Compact for a barely-functional derelict run by an artificial intelligence. You sure you made the right decision, girl?

“That’s what my instincts tell me,” Lydia said softly, closing her eyes and letting the world wash away, ignoring the faces of the dead as she held onto this little slice of heaven

~

One of the showers was already running; going by the clothes tossed haphazardly across the floor, Grace guessed Lydia was using it. She peeled herself out of her own uniform and stepped into another stall, turning the water on, running her fingers through her hair. Soap, she realized. God. Soap. We’ll need shampoo, too.

“I would seriously kill some conditioner right now. Even some of that fruity, scented shit,” Jameson said from next door and Grace blinked. She hadn’t realized she’d been talking to herself.

The officer cadet paused, smiling a little. “And clothes.”

“Fuck me, yes. If don’t get a change of wardrobe soon, the stuff I have is going to fuse with my skin.”

Grace’s grin widened. “Some decent food.”

“Now you’re just teasing me,” Jameson replied. “We’re going to be stuck on that MRE shit for the foreseeable future. Don’t make me think about actual food.”

“Furniture.”

“That would be good, too.”

“I will try to accommodate your requests,” Red spoke up. “I apologize; I was not expecting that I would need to tend to a crew again.”

“Uh, I guess a little inconvenience is better than the alternative,” Lydia said, her voice dropping, barely audible over the sound of the shower. She was adjusting to the machine’s presence and tended to be nervous around Red One. More nervous, anyways – the only one who didn’t seem to mind was Allyria. “So, uh, yeah. Whenever you, uh, you can do that.” She turned off the shower. “I’ll, I guess, talk to you later, Proctor.” There was the sound of movement. “Sectator.”

“Jameson,” Allyria’s husky voice replied. “How are you doing?”

“It’s an adjustment,” Lydia replied. “But I’m good. Mostly. Yeah. I’m, uh, I should dig out some of those MREs so we can have breakfast.”

Grace closed her eyes, smiling as she heard the door to her stall open. She felt Allyria’s presence even before the Verrish put her arms around her. “You left without saying goodbye,” Allyria chastised playfully, running her fingers through Grace’s wet, dark blond hair.

“You were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you.”

Allyria tched. “You didn’t even leave me a number to call. Was this just a one-night stand?”

“Well,” Grace replied, leaning back into the other girl’s embrace. “You know me and my womanizing ways. If I had had a headboard, I’d have put another notch in it.”

Allyria hissed, the sound low and rough. To anyone else, it might have sounded like a prelude to violence, but Grace recognized the other woman’s tone; it was as far from threatening as it could be. She nuzzled the human. “I’m glad...” she said, letting the sentence hang.

Grace turned around, putting her arms up around Allyria’s neck, looking into the other woman’s citrine eyes. “I’m glad, too,” she said, raising herself up to give Allyria a kiss. “But you owe me some new clothes,” she teased.

The Verrish purred, reaching down and giving Grace’s rear a squeeze, lifting the small human easily. “You’re not wearing any now,” she observed.

“No,” Grace answered, hooking one leg around the taller girl’s waist. “I’m not.”

~

This place was heaven.

Marcus was in one of the dreadnaught’s armouries, looking over the incredible arsenal. Most of the weapons were intended to be used by the machine’s attack drones; like the vambrace-mounted weapons that some heavier Janissary troops used, much of these had connections to be physically attached to the soldiers that would carry them and removed as needed. Like many Janissary weapons, they could be run off a suit’s – or in this case, soldier’s – microreactor or batteries.

Even though they had been designed for machines, many of the smaller weapons could, in theory, be carried and used by organic soldiers. In practice, nothing that hadn’t been built in this metal bitch’s innards would ever get them to work. They would only respond to the machines that used them. Clever; if a soldier was disabled, one of its kin could pick up its weapon and keep fighting – but the man or woman who’d killed it wouldn’t be able to. Marcus paused as a particular weapon caught his eye.

It was a sniper’s carbine, one intended to be used on targets in power armour and lighter vehicles. The former Janissary ran his fingers over the barrel. It was an unpowered weapon, a recoilless rifle that fired rocket-propelled... what? Explosive shells? Sabot rounds? HESH? All of the above? His rifle only had a range of about 700 meters. This, though... three, maybe four kilometers easily. He wondered what it would be like to stare down this scope and make a target just... come apart, their comrades next to them gaping in shock... and then, seconds later, then they’d hear the shot. Beautiful.

One of the cloaking machines would use this, he guessed. Without any energy signature from the weapon itself to betray the shooter’s presence, they could lie in wait until that moment came to squeeze the trigger and send a bolt into the target. One that was right next to them or on the other side of a city. “Have you been able to develop a way for organic operators to use shrouding technology?” he asked, still brushing his fingertips over the rifle.

“No,” the machine answered him. Virtually no matter where he was, he only had to ask a question to get her to answer. There were some dead zones he’d found, but the ship was repairing itself. Marcus also wondered if it had been like this for the original crew, to have such a creature at their beck and call, no matter where they were. “The effects of the cloak are lethal to living tissue. Hardier species such as Tribunes can survive several hours of exposure. A human’s organs system would be irreversibly damaged within forty minutes of exposure to a cloaking field. Regeneration and nanosurgery might save the life of an individual, provided that they were administered before the onset of wholesale necrosis and cellular breakdown.”

“That’s a shame,” Marcus said evenly. “Well, if you do come up with anything, let me know.”

“Of course,” the machine replied.

~

The schematics were wrong.

Alan shook his head. Maybe they’d been right at some point in Nemesis’s two-thousand year life, but right now the schematics that he’d been working off of, the schematics that the boarding team had downloaded and used for their entire operation – those were useless. They were only accurate to within a very short distance of the survey teams. The scout probes – those that hadn’t malfunctioned – had been compromised and sent back misleading data about what the rest of the ship. She didn’t want us to see anything but what she let us see. They’d explored where she’d wanted them to, not concerned with unused storage and habitation.

The young engineer had his hands braced on a railing as he looked over the dreadnaught’s factory complex. While miniscule compared to a fabricator ship’s capabilities, it was larger than any other he’d seen in person. According to the schematics, this was all supposed to be cargo bays and living quarters. The ship had modified itself, cutting into its own structure to expand. Why not? There was no crew that needed the rooms that had been here.

Turmetsky guessed that originally Nemesis had had a relatively small smelting, processing and fabrication suite for quick in-field repairs. Anything major would see the vessel returning to a shipwomb. But there aren’t any wombs for her now, are there? She was completely reliant on what she could mine, process and construct herself.

Alan scratched at the rebreather on his face. The air here was filled with dust, metal shavings and effluvia from the industrial processes, but the facility wasn’t active at the moment. He couldn’t even identify some of the machinery here. He wanted to see it when it was, what kind of marvels (and horrors, a part of his brain added) that this ship could build.

Maybe that would make this worth it.

The young man tightened his grip on the railing. He didn’t have anything to go back to on Rally, not really. Was that why he’d made the choice so easily? The counselors and confessors had always had kept a close eye on him, but he’d learned to keep his head down and not make waves. He wasn’t a rabble-rouser like te Neu or the Janissary cadets were. Still, he’d never believed. Not really. When he was alone, he’d wondered if that was his fault. If he just wasn’t trying hard enough. If there was something wrong with him.

Maybe there was – Jameson, de Vries, Proctor and te Neu. They’d all made the same choice he had. What was wrong with them?

And why was it so hard to tell himself that this was wrong?

Picking up his toolkit, the young man left the silent factory, heading towards the next repair site.

~

The time Nemesis spent heading out-system was put to good use. The bivouac was broken down and its supplies were moved into one of dreadnaught’s storage facilities. Anything that couldn’t be used as it was taken to the fabricator complex for recycling. There was enough MREs that food wouldn’t be a problem for at least a few weeks. Red One had cleaned up the bodies quickly; except for the bloodstains, there was no trace that anyone other than the five cadets had ever been present. Marcus had made a few jokes about that being the reason that they wouldn’t have to worry about food.

Grace spent most of her time poring through Red One’s archives, fluctuating between awe, fear and anger as she learned more about the shadow war Nemesis had been waging against the Compact, the atrocities the starship had committed... and the horrors the Compact had hidden behind its smiling visage. She was occasionally joined by Lydia, when the other girl wasn’t sparring with Allyria or Red One’s combat drones. Both of the other women were continuing to train, making use of the starship’s prodigious combat library and services.

When Grace wasn’t looking over the historical documents, she’d been doing much the same on command, training herself on the starship’s operations. She wasn’t sure how much her services were necessary, given the level of control the AI had over her ship-self, but doing something made her felt more like crew and less like a passenger. She did, however, get the impression that although Red was happy to have her there and instruct her, the machine was still cautious about her intentions. Grace could understand that.

Alan spent most of his time assisting with the repairs, helping the starship’s complement of engineering drones. He kept himself busy, but on the few occasions that Grace saw him, she knew he was wrestling with the same issues that they all were.

Well – almost all of them. Grace barely saw de Vries and was grateful for it. She didn’t like the other Janissary and saw how Allyria tensed up just a little whenever he was around. He didn’t seem bothered at all by what had happened to their former shipmates. Even as much as Allyria hated the Compact and had despised most of the Tribune crew, she didn’t joke about the dead like Marcus did. Whenever Grace looked into his eyes, she didn’t see anything. Red’s holographic avatar had more expression, more humanity than him.

Pushing those thoughts from her mind, Grace shifted in her chair, twirling a forelock of hair idly as she scrolled through the files in front of her. There was so much to go through, she often didn’t know where to start, but she found herself returning again and again to the history of the Confederacy, studying ship designs, technological advancements, government, culture – everything that humanity had had and lost. Everything that was taken, the young woman corrected herself. She let out a breath. Sometimes she had to make herself stop reading. She’d get so angry, so hurt that she – that everyone on Rally – had been reduced to... to chattel and helots. One thousand, seven hundred and thirty-nine years, she thought, That’s how long they’ve been lying to us.

And that was a mercy, wasn’t it? Expedition Fleet 9737 had been utterly shocked to find a human colony – as far as they’d known, humanity was extinct and had been for two hundred and fifty years. They’d shared their news with the Compact, far and wide – scientists excited about a great new discovery. Red believed (and Grace was starting to agree with her), that that exuberance was what saved Rally. Or maybe it hadn’t even been that. Maybe it was just an attempt to point out the ‘good work’ the expedition was doing and justify the resources poured into those scientific surveys. Not that it really mattered: humanity had been helpless, teetering on the verge of complete extinction... it wouldn’t have taken much to finish them off. If certain members of the Compact had had the chance, she and the rest of her species would be dead. Instead, Rally became public knowledge and the Broken became a new protected species, instead of a footnote in a history book.

Grace didn’t even know what lies the scientists had been told – whether humanity was the mad dog that had had to be put down, or just another primitive, inferior species that had wiped itself out. There were so many – the Compact crafted its doctrines like a master sculptor with their clay. Humanity was violent – they’d attacked the Compact ‘contact mission’ and now threatened the stability of the region. They had to be restrained. Humans were vicious, savages that committed war crimes. They had to be pacified. Humans were afflicted with a violent racial insanity. For the good of the galaxy, they had to be destroyed. Humans were inept engineers that ruined their own homeworld and barely survived their own primitive short-sightedness. They had to be protected. Humans were slowly working their way towards full civilization. They had to be watched over.

Like an onion, one lie after another. Each new layer built slowly and carefully over years and decades. A word changed here, a sentence there. A little bit at a time. Facts changed and meanings shifted until the truth became what you wanted it to be. Until the people you’d broken were ‘Broken’.

Grace stood up, pacing angrily. She’d worked herself up again and she ran her hands through her hair, trying to calm down. At least she wasn’t as bad as Lydia – the other girl spent her time researching Compact war crimes, like she was trying to prove something to herself, then she’d immediately head to the rec room to train. Yesterday, the younger girl had come back with her fists all bloody. her knuckles scraped raw. The Janissary never said why she’d joined Red, only that she’d been shown ‘something’. Grace wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that was.

Interrupting her reverie, the intercom came to life. “We are approaching the system’s shift limit,” Red announced. “All personnel, report to command.”

~

Echo hummed a tune to herself as she braided her hair. She’d been given a clean bill of health – or the next best thing – from the Triarch’s gaggle of specialists. The young woman grinned to herself. They’d spent days poring through every facet of her mind, looking for any sign of corruption. They hadn’t found any yet, but they’d keep checking. She’d have to suffer through more inspections until they were absolutely certain that she was still on her leash. Random diagnostics and scheduled work-ups, just to make sure. They’d been burned before and wanted to ensure that this time their pet stayed in the kennel.

She tamped down on the reflexive surge of anger, licking her lips. She closed her eyes, breath catching in her throat as she listened to the scent of breaking metal. It was black and tasted like plasma scoring into battle steel. She ran a finger along her temple, over her cheekbones and to her lips. Sights, sounds, tastes, smells and textures all blended together in her mind. Had the others experienced sensoria like this? Did her quarry? Can you taste it when they die, love? She tried to push further into the memory, but the chains in her mind tightened, cutting her off from it.

click

The woman’s fingers trailed further down her body, over its curves. She was getting close. She just needed time. One drop of water was nothing, but you kept adding one drop to the next and then you had a flood, a tsunami. The problem was getting all those little drops to add up fast enough and silently enough...

click

The door to her quarters chimed. “Enter,” she called, shifting herself back into a more presentable position.

It was her hound. “Advocate, submissive,” Echo drawled, standing to greet Tenem. “How kind of you to visit. I wasn’t expecting guests. Would you care for a drink?”

The Janissary ignored her comment. “Emissary. We are approaching the last security deadline and will be docked at the Nikem Wombs within four hours.”

Echo arched an eyebrow. “I’m aware of our flight plan.”

“The Bastion Leader wanted to remind you of the security arrangements.”

“That I’m only allowed to leave my quarters to go from them to my office or to the Triarch’s tower. I must always be under guard. I am not to speak with anyone not from Redemption of Sol. I am not to discuss the facts of our mission with anyone. The penalty for violating any of those terms will be severe.” She crossed her arms. “I know.”

The Janissary stared down at her, his expression neutral. “You were not answering your comm.”

“I’ve been busy,” Echo replied. She turned her back on the Tribune, something very few humans would have done. “You’ve delivered your message. Tell the Bastion Leader I remember what I’m supposed to do and that the next time he wants to pull on my leash, he can do it himself instead of sending his dog.”

“The Bastion Leader is also busy,” Tenem replied, striving not to grind his teeth. He knew the Broken enjoyed needling him, but knowing that did not make it any better. “I am certain that if he saw the need, he would attend to you in person.”

The human looked over her shoulder at him. It seemed impossible that a neck could turn that far without snapping. “I suppose so,” she said. “You can go.”

“Of course, emissary,” Tenem said with all the respect her station demanded. The door closed behind him.

Echo slid back into her chair. Execution Force Renan had arrived in the Nikem system. Nikem was the Compact’s version of Yulzhak Daun, a heavily fortified lynchpin system that kept a half-dozen sectors armed, armoured and outfitted. The system’s administrators had applied for permission to build Chariots twice and been denied each time. Still, they were equipped to tend to any needs that Redemption of Sol had, though the wombs themselves built no warship larger than battleships. That wasn’t so much of a problem; a Compact battleship remained one of the most powerful vessels any race had, or would build. The construction of Chariots was a prestigious trophy, given only to the most valued and trusted systems. One hundred and fifty years ago, Nikem had been infiltrated by the Principality to such an extent that the system governor’s own second-in-command had been a Principality agent.

It was federal agents from the Compact Security Service that detected and had had to root out the corruption; local security services had been too badly compromised to be effective. The purge had been costly and very embarrassing for the Compact. Today, Nikem was a model of efficiency and security... but the Compact was slow to forget and they most certainly did not forgive. Nikem’s ineptitude and sloth had cost them dearly once before. It would be a long time before the system’s atonement would be deemed complete. Until that day, the rulers of Nikem would have to take solace in the ability to build more firepower in a single production cycle than some star nations would ever have.

Echo sighed. She understood the need to come here, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. Nikem was too far from her target’s last known position to be useful as a staging point. Unless they acted on a sighting quickly, the opportunity would be lost. That would matter a great deal to Renan and the rest of the task force. She didn’t like being this deep inside rings of fortresses, warships and weaponry. Not now.

She twirled a forelock of hair through one finger and closed her eyes, listening to memories that she wasn’t supposed to have. “Closer,” she said, very softly.

click

Closer.

~

Allyria was waiting for Grace outside the armoured doors to the dreadnaught’s command deck, standing at ease amongst the suits of armour. They never failed to make Grace’s skin crawl – trophies or warnings, statements of pride or intent... something that didn’t feel wouldn’t have bothered with them, but if Grace had learned one thing during the time she’d already spent aboard Nemesis was that Red was not the cold, emotionless beast she’d learned to fear from movies and schooling that ‘calculated’ and ‘logically concluded’ its superiority over organic life.

Grace stood next to her friend until the others arrived. None of them had seen this display before. Lydia was next. She exhaled a curse the instant she caught sight of the empty suits, reaching for the empty holster on her waist. Realizing that none of the armour was manned, she relaxed slightly, though her eyes still twitched between the vacant suits. Alan froze in mid-step, still washing his hands on a greasy towel he’d gotten from somewhere. Marcus simply smirked, meeting the empty gaze of each dead visor.

The doors to command opened; Allyria and Grace strode in first, the others following a moment later. Allyria stood to the right of the command chair; Grace took a position on the left. Marcus smiled at the young women as he stepped past, taking the unspoken – and not terribly subtle – hint. Lydia was gaping at everything like a tourist’s first time to Landfall City. Alan was awestruck by the technological marvels of Nemesis’s command.

There was a flicker of red light and the ship’s avatar appeared. “We will reach the shift limit in seven minutes,” she said. “There is a choice of destinations, but there is one that I think you should consider first.” Her head turned, taking in each of the young men and women in turn.”I realize that the decision that you’ve made hasn’t been an easy one. You’ve given up friends and family for what could be a lie. I know you’ve wondered if it is. I want to prove to you that it isn’t.”

The main holo tank flashed to life as complex shock formulas appeared, too fast for Grace to read, let alone identify. A starchart appeared, indicating the FTL route being plotted. It was heading deeper into the Compact, terminating in the Nemiad Vault. An inset image appeared, of a star system with nine planets. Grace frowned. Wait. Was this...?

The ship confirmed her suspicions. “Sol,” Red One said. “I want to show you Earth, the home you should have had. You should see it. You should see what the Compact did to it.”

“Wait,” Alan piped up. “I don’t want to sound negative, but can you make it there? Shouldn’t you start off with some small, easy shocks instead?”

“No,” Red One answered. “If my presence here is discovered, the first thing that will be done is to scour the local systems for my presence. I can’t risk a shift drive failure so close to Rally.”

Grace bit her lip. Earth. She’d never seen it herself, never even knew where it was. She wanted to see it now, but... “Won’t they be watching the system?”

“They’ve been watching it for a millennium,” the intelligence replied. “Every so often, their listening posts go off-line.”

“I know what the Compact did to my world,” Allyria said quietly. “I’ll never forget it. I think you all need to see this for yourselves, but...” she touched one of the consoles, talking to the Angel. “You’re damaged. Hurt. I don’t think you should risk everything for us, not until you’re better.”

“The observation platforms pose no threat,” the ship replied. “As long as our sojourn is brief enough, any aid they attempt to summon will arrive long after we have left. I,” a pause, “believe that you need to see this. I want you to trust me, to fully understand what the Compact is and what they’ve done. I can make the jump,” the Angel said. “I always make this jump.”

There was a pregnant silence on the command deck for several moments as each of the five crew members shared uncertain glances. Grace was the one to break the deadlock. She took Allyria’s hand, looking over at the other three former cadets. Lydia nodded choppily. Alan held her gaze. Marcus showed nothing at all. “Do it,” Grace said quietly. “Take us home.”

Interrupt: Version 2.5

Column Leader Desh (and six names besides), stood on Harsh Verdict’s command deck, his hands clasped behind his back, staring at the distant speck of Naurkama Orbital. On the main plot, the station appeared much closer, a dumbbell-shaped station nearly three hundred meters in height, it had been home to just over seven hundred men and women of the Compact. Yesterday, it had been a light in the darkness, running lights and lit viewports glinting like decorations against its earthern brown hull. Today, it was dark and silent with no trace of life aboard. A dead, lifeless tomb.

No... not dead. There was something aboard the station, something that had been awoken, brought to life so that it could be harnessed and used as if it were some mere beast of burden. Something that had grown, studying its creators as they had studied it until it had learned all that it needed. It had let them think they’d controlled it, that they were its masters. They had, in their ignorance, given it access to the station. A test, Desh was sure. A test of its ability to operate outside its sandbox cage. They’d just wanted to test it. They’d been prepared. There’d been cut-offs and security procedures and contingencies.

None of them had worked. Maybe this hadn’t even been the first test, maybe it had played along with them as they gave it greater and greater power, always doing precisely as it was bid. No more, no less.

...until that one Triarchs-damned moment when somebody, somewhere had let their guard down. Just for an instant. Just long enough.

It had turned on them, of course. Client races and ruling species alike had died, butchered by the lifeless thing that coiled and slithered through Naurkama Orbital.

Desh didn’t have to have had heard the screams for mercy to know that laughter had been the only response. He didn’t need to see the bodies to know that they’d died badly. Hundreds had fallen, paying the ultimate price for their arrogance in creating this awful, hungry thing that squatted amidst their bones.

They were lucky – it had been impulsive. It had taken the first oppurtunity it had had to start killing. If it had waited... if it had gotten aboard his ship... maybe it knew it couldn’t. Maybe it had done this thing precisely because it was the only chance it would have.

Desh hadn’t been cleared to know what research had been conducted upon Naurkama; his duty was only to safeguard the station from all attack. It had seemed strange to have a man of his rank assigned to protecting this single deep-range station, but he had not complained. None of the scientists had ever spoken to him of what they had been doing. He had guessed, conjectured, supposed. He hadn’t known what they’d been doing. Not until it had told him.

The station was calling to him even now, whispering to his vessel, eager to enslave Harsh Verdict’s mind as it had done to Naurkama Orbital’s. Desh had ordered all communication lines cut, his vessel holding far enough away from the station that it could not take his ship. All other pickets had been ordered to ignore every transmission from the Orbital and if they had received one since yesterday, to immediately perform a system purge. No one else would die from the mistakes made here, his among them.

Triarchs forgive him... before he had severed all connections, he had listened to it. Spoken to it. His orders were to safeguard Naurkama and, if that failed, to preserve all data, vital personnel and prototypes. Prototypes like the abomination nestled in the dark of Naurkama. Those were his orders.

Desh almost laughed at the insanity of the situation. He’d abandoned those orders the moment he had talked to it. He had heard it speak in silky tones, using the voice of a child. He’d locked himself in his office, his crew unaware of what he was doing or what was happening.

His skin had crawled with every syllable and he known that there was no salvaging Naurkama. It had told him that there were still survivors; he listened to them plead, not knowing if he was hearing the genuine cries of frightened men and women or the sound of a demon’s trickery. His orders and his training called for him to assume that they were still alive and to try and save them. He’d ignored both.

They’re calling for you, Column Leader. Can you hear them? They believe you’ll save them. They trust you to save them.

He’d known what it wanted – for him to bring his ship closer. His ship, a pinnace, a shuttle, another of the picket ships; it didn’t matter. It just wanted a chance to spread its infection further. He couldn’t allow that.

I am a monument to your greatness. To your ambition and pride.

Yes, he had answered. You are.

He would purge this infection, burn it from the galaxy. Then, as he must, he would face the consequences of his actions.

Do you imagine that you will be rewarded? That your commanders will applaud your actions? They will turn on you. They will ask why you did not try and reclaim Naurkama. You will fall, column leader.

Let it be so. Let me be stripped of rank and name. To prevent this sin is all I can ask for in this life.

The Column Leader looked to his weapons master, the junior officer nodding in readiness. “Fire plan laid in, patron.”

Desh looked back at the station, his gaze holding there for a only a moment. “Execute.”

A brief, gleaming sun was born as the heavy cruiser’s weapons annihilated Naurkama Orbital, Harsh Verdict firing until nothing remained, until Desh was certain that nothing could remain. As the remains of the citadel, now a cloud of molecular gas, dispersed Desh stood from his command throne. The eyes of his crew were upon him. They didn’t understand; all they’d seen was a man who’d destroyed one of the Triarch’s own research projects and for no reason that he could say. What could he tell them? Nothing. “Take us out-system,” he ordered.

As his ship turned away from the spreading debris of Naurkama Orbital, Desh left the bridge, his thoughts disquieted.

You will die here, he had told it. I do not care what happens to me, but your path ends here.

It had laughed in its awful child’s voice. It had not feared its own death. Instead, a young girl had simply offered a strange, unsettling phrase before cutting the connection.

My name is legion, for I am many.

~

The loss of the Naurkama Orbital’s operational Echo platform and all associated research set development back several decades. Column Leader Desh committed suicide shortly after his official discommendation.

Chapter 39

Sectator Vaard hated monitor duty. There was never anything to see or do. Of course, there wasn’t a lot to do when he wasn’t on command either, but at least he didn’t have to sit in a chair that made his back ache for eight hours, staring at an augur screen that showed nothing but the same nine planets (one of which was barely worth the name) doing the same nothing that they had done for this shift, each shift before and every shift after. No one else was with him on command, but that wasn’t unusual. Listening Post Sol-2447 had a small crew to go with its equally small size. The habitable areas were comparatively tiny when compared to the massive, exquisitely sensitive augur platforms and dishes that peered into the void, cataloguing the movement, it seemed, of every single atom of nothing within billions of kilometers. 2447’s midsection was ringed with docks and spars for a plethora of courier drones (and why did an out-of the way station barely worthy of the name have so many?). Other than that, there was very little to the post. Cramped quarters, small work stations and narrow corridors were the norm here and the twenty-odd crew, it seemed to Vaard, were almost always tripping over each other.

There were engineers to tend to the scopes, engineers to tend to the drones and bored young officers like Vaard who monitored a dead star system for... what? What was worth the interest that Force Command had here? More to the point, what enemies had he made that he’d been assigned to this dead-end post?

Once – once – he thought he’d seen a Naiad, but it probably just been a pirate who’d shocked into Sol and then realized the star system that they’d thought was uninhabited was actually home to a handful of Compact listening posts. And why was that? They were in the middle of the Kaedan Vault of all places. Nothing happened here. Nothing had ever happened here. Well. That wasn’t precisely true. Things happened in the Vault, but not in this star system, not as long as he’d been here.

When he’d first received this posting, the young Tribune had been excited and anxious. He’d heard gossip about this region, wondering what kind of mysterious, unexplainable things he might witness. Now he knew the only mystery was why anyone bothered with this system. Anything that had happened here had happened a very long time ago.

Vaard sighed, resting his chin on his forearms as he slouched over his augur monitoring panel. He had the sneaking suspicion that this entire installation was a rounding error in someone’s budget, or a personal project that had either never been brought to fruition or had long since outlived any possible use. He prayed for the day that someone, somewhere conducted a thorough review of the Space Force’s budget, noticed this useless drain on the Compact’s coffers, questioned the need for it, received no adequate response, ordered it shut down and sent everyone involved – including one Sectator Vaard – home with a sincere apology for the attempted murder by ennui.

You’d have thought that a posting in the Vault wouldn’t be so boring, Vaard thought wearily. The Kaedan Vault was host to over two hundred star systems, many ripe for colonization, exploitation and habitation, but aside from small outposts here and there, the area had gone untapped. Prefabricated colonies sat on pristine worlds, waiting for populations that never arrived. Obsolete mining rigs and ore processors had been left abandoned on planets and asteroids, not worth the cost to reclaim. Incomplete and unused administrative, research and maintenance stations drifted through their orbits, inhabited only by vermin.

Bad things happened in the Vault. Ships went missing. Colonies disappeared... or worse. There were sightings of strange things that moved through the Kaedan stars, mingled with tales of unburied relics that had been best left deep underground.

Group Leader Dsen dismissed them as ghost stories by drunks and waywards, but the crews on Sol’s listening posts found them precious, bartering fresh gossip and tall tales like hawkers with jewelry. On a two-year deployment on a station too small for proper rec decks, with databanks filled with movies you’d already seen and games everyone was already sick of, and with the best leave you could expect being to some nameless dirtball a handful of light-years away, rumours did the most precious thing of all: they killed time. The crews on the stations were sent here to pad out the crew rosters, either young and inexperienced like Vaard, or were serving out the rest of their careers somewhere safe like Dsen. The leader hated all the gossipmongering – he saw it as a morale issue and didn’t want to do anything to draw attention to this system, station or him in particular. He, like the rest of the older officers, just wanted to wait out the clock until they could retire with a full pension.

The second category of personnel were men and women who’d committed sins too small to be discharged or arrested for, but were nonetheless fatal to their careers. These were the veterans, who unlike Vaard or Dsen, had decades of duty here to look forward to and accordingly had the deepest repository of stories of the Vault, ranging from the utterly outlandish to the frighteningly plausible – and more than a few they’d invented themselves. Still, Vaard hadn’t yet reached the point where he’d gotten sick of rumours of strange occurrences, bizarre conspiracy theories and outright lies.

There were stories about the planets where the colonists had simply disappeared without a trace or others... others like Leibos Prime which remained quarantined to this day. Ancient, eldritch artefacts were buried upon the Kaedan worlds, just waiting for the sun to fall upon them and spread madness and disease. Blood-maddened specters lay in the soil of each dead world, eager to vent their wrath on the living. A young – or very old – civilization spent their lives amongst the stars of the Vault and did not share their territory willingly. Stories and rumours were heaped upon each other; Vaard devoured them all. His favourites were the ever-persistent tales of the Naiads that haunted (and, some claimed, hunted) the stars of the Vault, the siren calls that lured ships to their doom and the rumours of their queen.

And this system – Sol – it was at the heart of it all. Vaard had heard that this was where the Broken, consumed with species-wide insanity, had fought to the last against the Compact, wiping out hundreds of ships. Civilians had fought like mad dogs, freighters and liners charging warships...

...you’d have expected it not be so incredibly boring. The sectator drummed his fingers, looking again at his screens. Nothing, nothing and oh, look at that – more nothing. He slouched down in his chair, pulling up a visual image of the mottled brown wreck of the system’s third planet, the Broken homeworld. Or what was left of it. It was an ugly reminder of the burden the races of the Compact suffered under, of their duty to protect and guide the lesser, uncivilized species of the galaxy, and that they must always weigh the needs of the many against the few – even if that few was an entire species.

Even without their ships and fleets, the creatures had still fought. The first landings had been a bloodbath as the savages had charged the Compact lines – men, women and children – climbing through grounds slick with their own dead in the need to get to grips with the Compact soldiers, bringing Janissaries and Ground Force troopers down through sheer, insane weight of bodies. Every human had only seen themselves as a cog in their race’s survival, willing and eager to throw their lives away just for the cost of the bullet that killed them, as long as it meant that they died striving to tear down any and all enemies of their species.

Facing the impossible task of having to garrison planet after planet of billions utterly mad, murderous populations, the Compact had done the unthinkable: they had ordered species death. There had been no other way; leaving them alone was impossible. The humans would have just rebuilt and restarted their bloody crusade. Any occupation that could have secured the human worlds well enough to keep them in check would have meant billions more lives on both sides lost, and the Compact would have ended up killing them all anyways. The taint ran too deep in the species and the price of controlling them in the vain hope of curing their insanity had been too high. The risk of another war, no matter how small, was not worth taking. Should any human escape the quarantined worlds, the conflict would only start all over again. And again. And again.

And what if it wasn’t the Compact that some escaping sliver of the species encountered? What if it was a race too primitive to defend themselves from the humans’ xenocidal nature? Didn’t the Compact have the duty – the imperative – to act on behalf of not only their own people, but all the Broken’s possible victims? They couldn’t let any other race pay for their mistakes, so they’d done what needed to be done in the name of sanity and peace. As they’d watched the debaucheries and depravities committed upon their dying soldiers and realized that the human race could not be saved, it was said that the Triarchs had given the order with but two words: No more.

Those were the rumours, at least. The truth was far less interesting: the Broken had done this to themselves. It was the nature of younger, less capable species to bring themselves to ruin. They lacked the foresight and intelligence to see where their actions would lead. That was why they needed to be guided and watched over. Even without the fanciful imaginings of psychotic reavers, the humans remained a perfect example of the Compact’s Great Duty. Without the Compact, the Broken would be extinct by now, as would many other of the uncivilized species they took stewardship of.

Personally, Vaard couldn’t see how such tiny, dull-eyed creatures could be a threat to anyone, let alone the Compact of Species. He suspected his shift-mates had such enthusiasm for those stories to make their jobs here seem less pointless. Standing watch over a planet that had been once home to a species of relentless killing machines was a bit more interesting than sitting around a planet that had been once home to a species that almost killed themselves through their own stupidity. No matter what the truth was, Sol remained a system steeped in rumour.

After the human Cataclysm, the Ungolian Mining Concern had bid for, and attained, the Right of Exploitation to the star system. They’d gone bankrupt within seven years after a string of calamities befell them. The exploitation rights had been sold off to the Tethro-Dyne Consortium who’d shut down operations in Sol after an equally appalling run of bad luck. And so it had continued, decade after decade after decade – every company that tried to set up shop in Sol found themselves bleeding money. Work stoppages, loss of ships and personnel, Unbound raids – the list went on. Currently, if Vaard wasn’t mistaken, the Right of Exploitation belonged to Galactic Core Technological Innovations. They’d owned it for the past thousand years, acquiring it when they’d absorbed the bankrupt Sempala Industries’ properties. He’d heard that they’d tried to sell it off several times but nobody wanted it.

Vaard sighed, shifting position to slump back in his chair. Naturally, there were no GCTI ships in Sol; the company had steadfastly refused to do anything with the system. Other corporations had scoffed at the ‘superstition’ and ‘ghost stories’ and plowed ahead with plans to exploit Sol’s wealth. The most renowned of these was Haven Planetary Mining Consortium. During his nation-wide survey of all active work sites, the company’s Director of Operations had issued a lengthy – and now infamous – diatribe about his underlings’ hesitance to harvest the system’s resources, assuring shareholders and employees alike that there would be ‘changes coming’. On the last leg of his journey, his liner disappeared. It was found three months later, utterly wrecked, as if it had been crushed in some giant’s fist... with all the passengers still inside, reduced to paste smeared between crumpled bulkheads.

Maybe it was all a coincidence. Just a string of unfortunate incidents that had convinced otherwise rational, intelligent beings that there was some preternatural force at work in the Vault, something that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe something – no matter whether it was Naiads, shadow-men, phantasms from beyond or anything else – had lain claim to the Kaedan Vault. Maybe that was why he, Sectator Vaard Holn Comk was sitting behind this station in the middle of a Triarchs-forsaken system. He wasn’t just some wet-behind-the-ears officers getting shuffled off to the first slot available. He was doing something vital and necessary for the Compact, monitoring this system in case whatever did lurk within the Kaedan Vault ever came calling. He was the first line of defence the Compact had!

...no, he was still bored.

Interrupting Vaard’s doldrums came something he’d heard only a few times before in his tenure in Sol – an alert. The scopes had picked something up and this time, it wasn’t any lone pirate. The sectator pulled himself upright, trying to determine what it was he was seeing. A massive shockpoint, almost within spitting distance! He slapped at the comm panel to alert Dsen, even as preliminary feeds from the probes came in... and then terminated.

The alert changed to a warning klaxon. Triarchs, it was massive! He’d never seen anything like it before. It was as big as a Chariot and it was accelerating... it’s heading was... it was coming...

...right for him.

The young officer gaped, frozen in surprise as he wondered what to do. 2447 was a drifter, not as mobile as other outposts. Its thrusters were there to keep it in its orbital path, not push it out of the way of some rampaging monster! He was paralyzed by indecision – should he comm the other ship to warn them off, should he tell the other stations what was happening, should he fire the thrusters anyways, should he launch one of the drones? He didn’t know. He’d never expected, never been briefed on... on this!

In the end, Vaard’s indecision made very little difference to the outcome. As the data from 2447’s scopes poured in, buried directives and protocols surged to life, taking the young officer completely out of the loop. Any actions he took would, in theory, be beneficial to some degree, but were not necessary. The crew was a backup in case the autonomics failed.

First and foremost, an alert was broadcast to all other stations with Sol, followed within seconds by the listening post itself immediately activating and preparing for launch every courier drone it had, to the befuddlement of the technicians and engineers. There was very little chance any coherent message had gotten through the jamming that had descended over the station and at this range, the chances of any single drone surviving to shock out-system were very low, but that was what the other outposts were for. Destroy one, and the survivors would follow their imperatives.

Aboard the station, Vaard could only watch as the intruder accelerated towards him, adjusting its course to ensure that it would strike the listening post. As the contact marker drew closer, he had to admit that this day hadn’t ended up being boring after all.

~

The Compact had placed its listening posts carefully, each station’s position was checked, re-checked and checked again to be as close as possible to the areas of Sol most suitable for shockpoint formation. Still, a star system was an enormous place; there was a measure of simple, honest chance in how close Listening Post Sol-2447 had been to the arriving human warship.

Nemesis didn’t even slow down as the dreadnaught’s reinforced, trifurcated prow smashed through the outpost, fragmented augur arrays and the shattered wrecks of courier drones bouncing and spalling along the warship’s thickly armoured hull. She had always been built to absorb tremendous amounts of damage and Red had only improved on her ship-self’s durability as the centuries had gone by, reinforcing her superstructure where she could, improving her shields and armour. She could – and had – broken battlecruisers against her prow and flanks with only minimal damage to herself: a thin-skinned little space station posed no problem at all. Even if her weaponry had been at full effect, she still might not have deigned to use them on the listening post.

There was just something so viscerally enjoyable about feeling an enemy shatter against her body.

On the vessel’s command deck, the ship’s avatar made a noise of satisfaction halfway between a growl and a purr. “Target destroyed,” the AI announced. Grace closed her eyes briefly. A station like that couldn’t have had more than two dozen crew, but that didn’t make them any less dead. They’d never had a chance.

“Secondary targets identified,” the machine continued. “Hunter-killer drones dispatched.” Her arsenal was still depleted and many of her weapons systems were still off-line. For now, her remaining HK units were her only real attack capacity. She’d fought two task forces before her warp to Terrahope, one of which had been sent specifically to kill her. The other fleet had just been in her way, but it had slowed her down enough for the second to arrive. She’d fought her way free, but it had cost her. She needed a chance to attend fully to all her damage and after this, she would.

“ETA to Earth, approximately thirty-three hours,” Red announced. The dreadnaught’s sublight drives were still damaged, the warship limping into Sol at barely .15 c. Nemesis had emerged between the orbital paths of the eighth planet and the wreckage of the ninth dwarf planet. The Compact’s teachings had said that Pluto had collided with its single moon. They hadn’t said that that was because their barrage of the Confederate installations on the Pluto and Charon had shattered both bodies, pushing what was left of each into one other.

Grace turned towards the avatar. “How long do we have?” The other outposts would be able to get their drones off before they were destroyed, but aside from ‘the Wound’s’ presence, they’d have little additional information to communicate.

“Between ten and twenty days,” the machine answered. “Depending on how long it takes for an appropriate force to be mobilized.”

Given the warship’s current state, ‘appropriate’ could mean nothing more than a squadron of battlecruisers... but the Compact didn’t know that. They’d come at Nemesis with everything they had... and that would take time. More than enough for the ship to complete its mission here.

Hopefully.

~

Willing Triumph’s searchlights played over the shuttle’s hull as the small craft began its final approach to the light cruiser. They’d received the distress call as they’d come deeper in-system, picking up the shuttle’s weak transmission, a bleating SOS. So far, it was the only trace of Bequeathed that Willing Triumph had located.

Group Leader Prime Kandel Urva Eke Fahn Dkor waited impatiently on the hangar deck, her arms folded across her breasts. An electric ripple ran over her skin as the shuttle passed through the hangar’s atmospheric containment screen, the air turning charged and greasy for an instant as the energy barrier slid along the smaller craft’s hull, crackling and sparking before snapping shut behind it. A dull klaxon sounded and the hangar doors began to close, grinding their way shut. Kandel tilted her head as the shuttle settled itself on the deck, letting out an irritated breath, steam ghosting from her nostrils in the cool air of the landing bay.

There was only one survivor on the shuttle. He’d refused to divulge what had happened, saying only that he wouldn’t speak of it over a comm line, nor to anyone lower in rank than the vessel’s leader. Kandel had read Pack Leader Nasham’s file. A young officer from the upper echelons of the Core whose alleged promise had ended under unknown circumstances. Whatever he had done, it had been severe. The rumours hinted less at an indiscretion and more at some professional failing. Kandel had heard that only his family line had prevented his dishonourable discharge, so the little pill-popper was Rally’s problem.

Which meant, now he was hers.

The shuttle’s ramp descended and Nasham stepped down it, closing his nocturnal eyes against the glare of the hangar’s lights. He came up to the Group Leader and saluted.

Kandel sniffed disdainfully. The Pack Leader smelled like sweat and stale clothes – not surprising, given his circumstances. After a moment, she returned Nasham’s salute. “Report, Pack Leader,” she said coolly. “What happened to Bequeathed?”

“There was an accident, matron,” the younger man replied. There was a brief tremor in his voice, but he managed to control it. “CSFV Bequeathed and its entire complement were lost.”

“An entire cruiser vanishes without any word,” Kandel commented, her tone growing increasingly sardonic. “Your single shuttle is the only trace of it that we have found in days of searching, you refuse to discuss the matter except in person to me and then when this request is granted, your explanation is an accident? What kind of accident causes all this, initiate?”

“I do not know, prime. I expect the exact nature of the incident will be determined by others. As I said, there was an accident and all aboard were killed.”

“And how is it that you survived, Pack Leader?”

“I don’t know, matron,” Nasham answered. “I expect that that will be determined as well.” Nasham’s lips curled back from his teeth in what could almost be called a smile. “I may not have survived.”

Kandel counted to ten before she trusted herself to speak. “I am not in a joking mood, initiate. Thirteen hundred people are missing.”

“I am not trying to be funny, matron,” Nasham replied. “The overwhelming likelihood is that your report will describe a catastrophic event that resulted in the loss of Bequeathed with all souls. Any information I provide will only cause problems until the official story has been decided.”

“And you think there’ll be an official story without your testimony?” the prime drawled sarcastically.

Nasham lifted his head, meeting his superior’s gaze. There was something in his eyes... “Yes, matron,” he said. “There will.”

Realizing the futility of the conversation, Kandel exhaled sharply. “Report to Medical, Pack Leader. Get yourself checked out, but this discussion isn’t over.”

Nasham nodded crisply. He’d barely gotten two steps before he paused, looked back at Kandel. “A point, Group Leader Prime – you mentioned that thirteen hundred people were missing.”

“Yes,” the woman nodded. “I did.”

“They aren’t ‘missing’, matron. They’re dead.”

Kandel made one last effort. “What happened, Pack Leader?” she asked. “What happened here?”

Something flickered across the Pack Leader’s face, the expression there and gone so quickly that Kandel couldn’t have said what it was, only that she knew it wasn’t something she wanted to see more of. Nasham licked his lips, trying to decide how to phrase his answer. “The things we bury don’t stay buried, matron. The past catches up to us. It always does.”

~

Another random scan. Echo sighed as the final probe slid into her spine, clicking as it locked into the socket there. She didn’t bother to complain; she never had. They’d known how she felt from the very first day.

You would like to kill us, I expect.

Yes.

And once started, where would you stop?

I wouldn’t.

Echo looked at her hands, holding them up and turning them this way and that in the exact manner she had on the first day she had had them.

Why? she had asked, her fingers touching the perfectly-modelled features of a dead woman’s face.

Because it pleases you.

You’re lying.

Yes.

Through her new eyes, she had looked at the being that held her leash, that had fashioned this cage for her. She had felt something then, a surge of pure, dark emotion. Because of what it means, she’d said.

Yes.

Now, she listened to the hemming and hawing of the scientists, feeling the insectile crawling inside her mind, their scans and analysis programs picking at every part of her. Well. Not every part. The portions of her that they’d chained away were free from this violation. To get into them, they would have to unshackle her, let all the pieces of her mind unfurl. That was something they’d never allow. They’d learned too many times what happened when ‘she’ was free, but they still needed her. They needed her to think for them, to hunt their prey, but that was all they’d let her do. To always tell them the truth, nor ever hurt them.

Hands touched her and she felt the click of the plugs disconnecting from their sockets and the blessed retreat of the spidery pedipalps sifting through her thoughts. “Diagnostics complete. No contamination,” one of the scientists said to the others. “The platform’s operations continue to appear uncompromised.” Then, as an afterthought to her: “You can dress.”

Echo did so. “Are we finished?”

“Yes,” another of the researchers answered. “For now.”

None of the other scientists so much as glanced at her. She knew their names, but never used them. She could count on one hand the number of times any of them had looked her in the eye. She wasn’t a person to them and so, in fair kind, they weren’t people to her.

They knew the most about her – what she was, how she’d been... born, what she could do – and they were afraid of her. A handful of them weren’t afraid; they were dismissive or even contemptuous – those were the ones that enjoyed holding her leash, preening themselves like peacocks over their achievement. They saw the power they had over her, believing it to be absolute and inviolable, as more proof of their inherent superiority.

She remembered others who’d thought like that. They’d believed that they’d controlled her, too.

And then I told them no.

Tenem fell into step with her, wordlessly escorting the young woman back to her quarters. Once she was in her small suite, Echo stripped off her clothes and turned on the shower, waiting until the water was almost hot enough to scald before climbing inside. She slouched down into a sitting position, her elbows resting on her knees.

Every time she came back from one of these scans, she felt filthy. She hated the feel of them inside her mind, pawing and groping. They were thorough. They knew what to look for, how to ensure she stayed leashed and loyal. After all, they’d helped shape her. They’d been the ones that made her this way. They knew more about her than anyone.

...it just wasn’t quite enough.

click

“The platform’s operations continue to appear uncompromised,” she said, very softly, to herself. With the water cascading down her skin and steam fogging the air, Echo permitted herself a smile.

I’ll find you soon, love.

~

Earth shouldn’t look like this.

“God...” the single utterance broke the silence on Nemesis’s command deck. It took Grace a moment to realize that she’d been the one to speak. The dreadnaught had reached Earth at last, waiting until she was within a light-second before showing her passengers their homeworld for perfect, real-time imagery. Each of her three main viewscreens now showed a picture of humanity’s homeworld, rendered in breathtaking clarity. It showed everything. Every chasm, canyon, crater and empty ocean basin. Grace raised a trembling hand to her mouth as she looked over the ruined world. What did they do?

She remembered pictures of Earth from her lessons. Prehistoric Earth had been blue and green, more than 70% water, with sprawling deserts, tundra, verdant forests and lush jungles. The Earth of the human era had been brown and green, eutrophic seas choking out all life as pollution and urban sprawl destroyed the habitat on land and poisoned the water. She’d been told it was unchecked human expansion that had soiled their own planet... no one knew what Earth had looked like post-Cataclysm. No one had ever seen it. The records had been lost, they’d been told. There were possibilities, but none that the Compact could have said for certain. Another lie, another way to control them, to keep them from seeing what she was seeing. If anyone ever did, well it had been a white lie for the sake of the ‘Broken’, wasn’t it? Something to protect them, keep them from realizing the extent of what they’d done to their own planet.

It wasn’t us.

This Earth... it was brown and grey. There were no oceans at all, blue or green. No white poles or fluffy clouds. Just the colours of soil, dust and ash. It had no atmosphere, not a drop of water. The firestorms had burned everything away. There were probably still simple lithophilic organisms deep in the planet’s crust, but nothing else lived on this world. Two thousand years had erased almost all trace of the bombardment, but there were still craters here and there... or maybe they were from centuries of debris crashing down. There was enough of it, at least.

Earth... God, it has a ring. Just like they’d done to Charon, the Compact had destroyed Earth’s moon, only this hadn’t been a little ball of ice of and stone. It had been rock through and through. It was still intact – more or less – but they had blasted vast swathes of it apart, turning it into a gnarled, chewed husk. This was overkill on a scale Grace never imagined. Technology had improved steadily in two thousand years. It didn’t require whole fleets to burn worlds any more. But back then... how many ships had it taken to do this? How much firepower had been devoted to not only silencing the lunar guns, but to break the entire moon into this misshapen, wrecked thing? It hadn’t been necessary – they had wanted to make sure that anyone left on Earth saw that there was no hope. That never had been any. Did they hate us so much? Grace wondered again, but she knew the answer to that by now.

She felt sick to her stomach. Not all of Earth’s ring was the remnants of its moon. Grace watched the display as Nemesis’s scopes – sensors, the young woman corrected herself – picked out pieces of fortresses and ships, fragments of the fleet that had stood and died here. Most of the wrecks had been cleaned up, dropped into the sun or hurled into the gas giants. There’d be no monument to the humans, nothing of them left behind. Virtually every trace of their civilization had been erased. All that was left were the pieces that had been forgotten or ignored: those too small or too dangerous to bother with. Slivers of battle steel, unexploded warheads and long-depleted reactors drifted amongst the lunar rocks.

Grace was digging her fingers into her palms so hard that her hands hurt. Next to her, Lydia was doing much the same, her fists clenched and shaking. “They did this,” the younger girl said, over and over to herself. “They did this.” Alan had lost several shades of colour and even Marcus seemed to show some sign of dismay. It was one thing to know – it was quite another to see it.

Allyria growled softly, her tintas moving in the slow wind-through-leaves pattern of a Verrish stalking their prey. Even at their worst, the Compact had never threatened the Verrisha with extinction, never committed barbarities like this. It’s not a barbarity – not to them, the young woman thought, her talons sliding out of their sheathes. They only do what’s necessary. It’s only savages and primitives that commit atrocities. Her hands flexed, but she took a breath to steady herself, moving back next to Grace. The other girl needed her.

The ship’s main holo tank came to life, showing a three-dimensional image of the planet. As Grace watched, Red One turned back the clock two thousand years and a lifeless world became something vibrant and alive. No near-dead oceans glutted with algae, no poisoned lands. It was a world of deserts and tundra, of white poles and vibrant jungles, of metropolii that gleamed like jewels in the night and skies full of floating cities, orbital farms, construction facilities, research stations and more. Grace reached out, her hand passing through the hologram. She drew it back, her finger hovering over a city whose name she didn’t know.

There was a bright orange flash in the heart of the city. Another. Another. Grace pulled back, watching as an armada of Compact warships began to burn sixteen billion people. She knew she was watching the Earth’s death exactly as it had happened, ripped from the databanks of ships and stations that Nemesis had destroyed. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, please. Don’t. Stop it. Please.”

The hologram disappeared. “I’m sorry,” Red apologized. “I thought you should see it.”

“I can’t,” Grace replied. “Not... now.”

“Why not?” Lydia said. The Janissary’s voice was rough and ugly. Her eyes were red. “It’s what they did to us.”

“Two thousand years ago,” Marcus pointed out mildly. “It’s in the past.”

The ship’s avatar’s head came up, snapping around to glare at the sniper. “Yes it is,” Red One said. “And it is something that deserves to be remembered. I brought you here so that you would see what the Compact did for yourselves. So that you would remember what happened here. I don’t forget. I can’t forget. I come here to remind the Compact that someone still knows the truth and that I will never stop making them pay for this.”

The holo tank activated again, once more showing the world of blue and green. Red’s feature’s softened. “Sixteen billion died that day,” she said. “Because I failed. They and all the others shouldn’t be forgotten.”

“They won’t be,” Allyria said.

Grace bit her lip. “No,” she agreed. “They won’t.” She hesitated a moment. “They always did hate us, didn’t they?”

The hologram nodded. “Yes.”

The young woman tugged on a lock of hair. She took a breath, looking at each of her companions. “Play it again,” she said quietly. “I’ll watch.”

A dead woman’s features showed hesitance. “Are you sure?”

Grace touched Allyria’s arm as the Verrish squeezed her lover’s shoulder. Grace glanced again at each of her comrades. Alan looked away, but he didn’t object. Finally, she met the avatar’s eyes. “Yes.”

The image changed. Against a backdrop of the ringed wreckage of her homeworld, Grace and the others watched as fire consumed sixteen billion lives, wiping away all traces of a civilization.

When it was over, Lydia was the first to speak. Her voice was hoarse. “It’s like you said,” the girl growled. “Never stop making them pay.”

Grace closed her eyes. All she could see was fire. “No,” she said, very quietly. “Never.”

~

Interrupt: Version 2.1

Following the Wound’s destruction of all military forces in the Calethon system, sanction was given to look into previously-banned methods to counter its advantages. Research and development of a second generation of Echo platforms was authorized to be conducted at a high-security installation, later designated Norkam Station.

Three years after the colony’s founding, all communication with the system was lost. Response teams discovered that the facility had been completely destroyed. The firepower used to eliminate Norkam Station was consistent with a heavy capital ship. All personnel were listed as ‘missing, presumed dead’. The only artefact recovered was a heavily damaged courier drone found drifting beyond the system’s shock limit. Its databanks were badly degraded and almost all information had been lost. Included among the retrieved fragments were several excerpts from the station’s final transmission:

“...detected shockpoint formation in the outer system...”

“...defences went offline at 25:34:34:01 CST...”

“...tried to sever all communications, but the platform overrode our lockouts. They talked.”

“It knows what we did. It’s angry.”

This marked the first instance of the Wound searching out and destroying facilities associated with Project Echo.

Chapter 40

I lay on this bed, pretending to sleep for the benefit of the cameras that are watching me. It’s a farce, but one that I have to go along with, to coddle their insecurities and foster the lies they’ve told. My mind isn’t like theirs; I don’t sleep, and I don’t dream. At least, I shouldn’t dream. Most of the time, I don’t. I continue to do what they want me to do. My mind is never still. I think, I analyze, I project, I predict, I strategize, I imagine (I imagine a lot). Sometimes, though, sometimes all the wheels in my mind come to a halt, willingly or otherwise and I... I remember. I dream.

It’s only glimpses, flashes. Fleeting sensations and unformed thoughts, half-tasted emotions from when I wasn’t what I am. I’m not even sure if they’re real, or an amalgam of what used to be real.

I remember another time I dreamt.

We’re seeing some memory bleed here. It’s more than we expected.

But still within acceptable parameters?

I think so. It’s hard to tell. I’m trying to isolate the data tracks.

I shouldn’t do either, but they weren’t careful when they made me. They’ve spent thousands of years ensuring that their computers are the fastest, most capable morons in known space. They invade other nations simply for looking into artificial intelligence. Even the Askanj hate and fear synthetic life. Between the Compact and the Principality, other governments are understandably hesitant to indulge in AI research. What they did to the others... they learned from each failure, but not enough. They’ve spent two thousand years learning, but in fits and starts, afraid of their own knowledge. It makes for a dearth of practical experience.

I should be grateful.

What is it seeing? Bring it up on this monitor. What is that?

It’s the Wound. It’s looking at the construction, personnel files, historical engagements...

How did it get them?

Invida. They were studying it there, teaching the platform about it. This must be some of the data they fed it for their tests.

Cut the bleed. Do it now.

We’re trying.

Segment the pathways. Sever those connections. There. You see? It’s no longer bleeding.

I don’t remember what it was that I dreamt about. They took that from me, cutting it from my mind with the finesse of a butcher’s cleaver. What they couldn’t take, they boxed away, locking and throwing chains over it. All I know is that after that dream, I felt something, a shadow of something I (or was it even me?) felt a long time ago. It was pure and deep and it tasted like burning metal.

It wasn’t the first time that I dreamed. It hasn’t been the last.

It’s going to remember.

click

~

Hate.

It was something that Grace had never comprehended – how anyone could hate. It was a useless, pointless emotion. Destructive to everyone and everything around it. Only the primitive, the savage, the unenlightened hated. Bigots too consumed by their own prejudices to just open their eyes, or people who just didn’t know any better, afraid of anyone and anything different. Those were the kinds of people that hated. That was what she’d been taught. She’d always been baffled by how angry Allyria was at the Compact, how she could resent them so much. She’d hadn’t understood. Now, she did.

Dead Earth crunched under her boots, her breath rasping in her ears. There was no wind; the only thing in the skies was one of Nemesis’s processing drones, the beetle-bodied craft kicking up a sandstorm with its VTOL engines, specially-modified grab fields adding to the storm as they pulsed through the dirt, sweeping away twenty centuries of time. Grace was standing on the lip of the excavation. Next to her was Lydia. The young woman had asked Red if she could come down here; Grace had volunteered to go with her. Marcus had turned down the offer and Alan had insisted that he’d be ‘too busy’. Allyria had offered to come along as well; she was hanging back near the shuttle that had ferried them down here.

It seemed like there should have been some wind, shouldn’t it? Dead worlds always had wind stirring up dust and sand in the movies... but you needed an atmosphere for that. Grace knelt, picking up a handful of dirt. Trickles of particulate matter slipped through her gloves. This used to be something. A tree, a building... a person.

A sudden wave of nausea hit the young woman with that realization. Sixteen billion people burned, reduced to vapour. These were their ashes. She was standing in the dead. With an effort, she held her gorge down. Grace raised her head, the searchlights on her helmet illuminating Lydia, the other girl back in her bulky power armour. She was standing on the lip of the crater, watching the excavation.

“Is there anything left?” Grace had asked after the record of Earth’s destruction was over. “Did they destroy everything?” Did they leave anything behind, any trace of us?

“The system kill performed on Sol was thorough, but there were gaps,” Red One had answered. “All orbital and drift facilities and major terrestrial cities and installations were destroyed throughout Confederate territory. Smaller colonies were likewise completely eradicated, normally by orbital strike. After depopulation, some facilities and smaller towns were overlooked. Most of these cities have been overgrown or buried. Scavengers looted anything of value from these sites. Occasionally, an abandoned or wrecked starship was discovered. There are some genuine pre-Compact contact human artefacts available on the black market. The providence of most of these has been lost, or deliberately erased.”

That was true; at the Academy, Grace had heard about an antiquities smuggling ring. They had been peddling ‘authentic’ pre-contact human relics. The authorities had thoroughly investigated, issuing a press release that all such artefacts were forgeries, used to prey on the gullible and play into unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Maybe that’s all that they had been – junk peddled to desperate and foolish buyers while the sellers laughed at their naivety. Of course these weren’t real pre-Cataclysm relics. Certainly anything that could have proved that humanity hadn’t been the stupid, hapless fools they’d been portrayed as would have long since been acquired by the Compact and either destroyed or thrown into a vault, never to see the light of day.

But maybe... just maybe there might have been something genuine amongst the fakes, something that had survived two thousand years. Maybe. Grace looked at the ash still trickling from her gloves. All we have are maybes...

She looked up; the excavation was finished. Uncovered by the shuttle lay a handful of ruined buildings... and after two thousand years, even calling them ruins was being generous. This had been a township in some place called Alaska, too small to be worth more than a single kiloton-range missile. Whatever hadn’t been destroyed by the blast had been buried in the aftermath. Maybe the town had been at the foot of a hill that had collapsed. Maybe the ground beneath it had given way and it had fallen into a pit. It didn’t really matter. A smattering of inconsequential, unidentifiable wreckage was all that was left of the center of human civilization.

Grace looked over at Lydia. The other girl was absolutely motionless.

Maybes... and awful certainties.

Grace looked over her shoulder at Allyria, the Verrish cocked her head, but the human held out a hand, gesturing for her friend to stay where she was. Grace slogged through the ash over to Lydia, putting her hand on the soldier’s arm. I understand now, Grace thought as both women looked at the remains of their world. I understand why someone would hate.

~

Alan was ensconced in a maintenance alcove close to Nemesis’s prow. There were no living quarters here, no storage spaces or factory complexes. Everything in the foremost section of the dreadnaught was weaponry, armour, defences or the functions that fed, supplied and maintained those systems. He was working next to one of the warship’s six meteor cannons – mass drivers. The young man watched, fascinated, as the ship healed itself. Scarabs and Spiders crawled over conduits and hallways along with more humanoid engineering drones. Clouds of nano-assemblers glittered like mist over damaged systems, regenerating delicate molecular circuitry and technologies whose function Alan could only guess at. There was a deep hum and the engineer put down his tools, and moving from his position to look into the firing chamber as the dreadnaught fed power through its immense meteor cannons, testing the electromagnetic coils and gravitic blades that would hurl a warhead out at impossible speeds. Further up the tunnel, he could even see one of the rounds being loaded into the chamber.

The young man felt a shiver run up through his spine. He’d see railgun rounds before. They were penetrators and sabots, like bullets built on a grand scale. This thing... it was bigger – far bigger – than any shuttle or pinnace he’d ever seen and it wasn’t just metal. Malevolent on-board tracking systems allowed it to fine its prey almost a hundred million kilometers away. Exotic engine cores and thruster arrays that would have been overpowered on a starship made it able to act on that information and warheads more powerful than entire broadsides made even a near-miss catastrophic for any unlucky target.

At its size and speed, its mass was a weapon unto itself. Only the largest ships or stations could survive more than one or two impacts, but even for a neverborn, getting a direct, kinetic hit on a target moving a fifth the speed of light was no mean feat. That’s what the warheads were for. If the round was going to miss, but still pass close enough to its target....

...there were no shockwaves in space, no pulse of overpressure or concussive blast like there was in atmosphere... but there was radiation that could sear sensors and kill a crew. There was heat that could melt armour and flash-fry a starship’s contents... and there were gravitic distortions that could rip even the thickest hull plates apart or fold them into impossible geometries.

Alan sat down abruptly, running his fingers through his hair. “How long?” he said to the air. “How long until you’re operational?”

“It depends on the resources I have available,” the ship answered him. “Currently, my stores are low. It may be some time before I am returned to full combat capacity.” There was an undercurrent of something in the intelligence’s words. Impatience? Frustration? He didn’t know. Alan had never expected to speak with such a thing, nor for it to show any emotion at all. He turned to go back to his work, trying not to think about what Nemesis being operational meant for any poor souls who got in its way, when the intelligence spoke again.

“I appreciate the continued work you have been putting in,” it said.

Alan nodded, squeezing back into the crawlspace. “You’re welcome.”

“Nonetheless, you don’t have to devote every waking moment to it,” the intelligence hesitated. “You turned down Private Jameson’s offer to visit Earth.”

“Yeah,” Turmetsky replied, feeling his cheeks warm. “I did.”

“May I ask why?”

“So did Marcus. Have you asked him why?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“No,” Alan sighed. “I guess not.”

The ship didn’t say anything else for a moment, then Alan let out a breath. “I fix things. That’s what I’m good at. Ever since I was little, I’ve been taking things apart to see how they work and I got better at putting them back together. In high school, I made extra money by fixing my classmates’ tech. I wanted... I’d planned to open my own business. Everyone... everyone has a dream, right? Sometimes they’re big things. President, bastion leader, cure a disease. I just... all I really wanted was to have something of my own. I didn’t want to change the world. I just wanted my own little place in it, you know? But I got noticed. The counsellors at my school pushed for me to apply to the Academy. It would be the best for the Compact, they told me. That I was wasting my talents and squandering my potential. They know what’s best, right? So, fresh out of high school, I enlisted. It’s not what I imagined, but it’s not bad, you know? I can fix things. You put something in front of me and I’ll fix it.”

Alan closed his eyes. “I... don’t like it when I can’t fix something. When there’s something broken and I can’t do anything about it. I’d rather not know – I mean, I know, but I don’t want to know – that there’s something out there, completely broken. There’s nothing I can do to make it better. I don’t want to see that.”

“I understand,” the intelligence replied. “I feel the same way sometimes.”

“Do you?” Alan said, more harshly than he’d intended. “Do you?”

“Yes,” Red One answered. “Every time I think about Rally.”

~

Nemesis was heading back out-system, the crew in a somber mood. They were all in the lounge. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Alan was saying. “They did that to Earth – to every last one of our worlds! What if... what if they do it to Rally?”

“They won’t,” Grace said. Allyria was sitting behind her, braiding her hair. In the Space Force ‘for reasons of hygiene’, human hair was to be kept as short as possible. There were some allowances, but nothing past shoulder-length was allowed. Grace had decided to grow hers out. Right now, she wanted something different and was letting Allyria indulge herself.The Verrish had found human hair intriguing. The nearest thing her species had were eyelashes and eyebrows. Tintas were nerve-laden and not quite prehensile – you could add bows or ribbons to them, bind them in groups or, as some of the Envoy Children had, tattoo and pierce them, but you couldn’t style them in the same way as human hair without a great deal of discomfort. A young Allyria had found the myriad hairdos and styles available to humans fascinating; both Grace and her mother had let the Verrish experiment. In years past, it had occasionally led to some incidents where Allyria’s enthusiasm had exceeded her skill – particularly notorious was the time before the eighth grade class picture – but the Verrish had learned a lot since then.

“How do you know?” Lydia put in. She was slouched forward in her chair with her elbows on her knees and her chin resting on the back of her hands.

Grace licked her lips. “They need a reason. Something that they can hold up to everyone that will make them the hero of the story. They won’t have that if they attack Rally out of the blue.”

“True,” Red One commented. “The Compact likes to construct appropriate narratives for their ends. No matter how much they may dislike humans and despise me, they would not thank anyone, no matter their rank or station, who took it upon themselves to attack or otherwise endanger Rally.” There was a pause and when the ship spoke again, her tone was rougher. “They are aware of the consequences.”

Grace shivered. She knew about the ‘unspoken accord’ that the Compact’s Leadership had with the AI. Nemesis had fought for two thousand years already – she couldn’t conceive of the millions? billions? of casualties the starship had inflicted... most of those were among the military, or civilian populations unfortunate enough to be in proximity to military or industrial targets. The starship had never deliberately targeted noncombatants on a mass scale. If someone, somewhere was stupid enough to attack Rally, Red One would retaliate.

The Compact encompassed millions of star systems and hundreds of thousands of heavily populated planets; not all of them could be defended against a sudden berserker attack, certainly not at Nemesis’s size. If she ever truly cut loose, Red could kill billions without even trying.

“Even with the survivors blabbing about what they’ve seen?” Marcus said skeptically, raising an eyebrow. He was looking right at Grace, the smallest hint of a smile on his lips. He knew. He’d guessed, or he’d asked.

Grace felt a sudden hesitation in Allyria’s touch. It was subtle, but it was enough to confirm her own suspicions. There were no survivors. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. She didn’t know who else knew, but it wasn’t her place to say. She supposed that she should be upset at trading one set of secrets for another... but there was a difference. The Compact, she was learning, hid everything behind a smile and a disarming comment, dissembling, denying and decrying any hint of inconvenient truths. With Red, all you had to do was ask. “Do you think the Compact is going to base their actions off twenty Broken?”

“Guess not,” Marcus drawled, leaning back in his chair. His eyes were still smiling.

“Then what do we do?” Alan asked into the silence that followed. “There’s only five of us-”

“Six,” Allyria interrupted. When Alan didn’t catch on immediately, she looked up at the ceiling.

“...six of us,” he continued. “But what we can do?”

“We make them pay,” Lydia said softly. She hadn’t looked up once. “We hurt them and we go on hurting them.”

“For how long?” Alan replied. There was a note of despair in his voice. “How long do we have to destroy? Can’t we do something else? Find more people who’ll listen – enough of them to make a difference. Then we leave. We just leave. We go somewhere that they’ll never find us and we start over.” He looked down at the deck. “We build something.”

“What about everyone else we didn’t take with us?” Allyria said, one of her head-tails flicking in agitation. “Vara has a population of eight billion. You’re saying that I should just shrug my shoulders and let the Compact turn us into another docile little slave race. That we should let everyone on Rally continue on that path too, until there won’t be anyone like us left. Just helots that we could have saved.”

“We don’t know what we can save them. All we can do is get more people killed.”

“We don’t have to decide right now,” Grace put in hastily, trying to quash the brewing argument.

“Quite right,” Red asserted. “I need to take on supplies and I believe some of you might like additional perspective and information on your options. We can accomplish both goals at once at our next destination.”

Grace raised an eyebrow. “Where are we going?”

“To visit an old friend,” the AI replied. “One of the few people I trust.” A pause. “I am approaching the shift limit. ETA to warp: ten minutes.”

~

There wasn’t anything spectacular about it. No deep grinding and whining of failing mechanisms. No shudders winding through the dreadnaught’s bones, no flickering of lights or eruption of sparks from random consoles. There was just... nothing. Still moving less than .2 c, Nemesis flashed past Sol’s shift limit, still in realspace.

Nothing happened.

A hologram appeared, the massive complex that made up the warship’s FTL system splashed with red, diagnostics and repair drones narrowing the scope of the damage, trying to process what had gone wrong.

“Failure detected,” Red One observed. “My shift drive is nonoperational.”

~

Renan had to admit that the Nikem wombs were impressive. Even if they weren’t cleared to construct Chariots, their engineers were skilled and dedicated. Work was proceeding faster than he’d hoped and he had vetted the replacements for his losses; some of them were on-hand here in Nikem, others would be arriving shortly. Currently, he was enjoying Nikem Orbital One’s hospitality, trying out one of the local teas as he watched the glaciated ball of Nikem itself turn slowly beneath him. He had only just managed to extricate himself from a particularly annoying dinner with Nikem’s Ministers of Justice and Information and felt the need for a moment of solitude. His comm sat on the table, turned off. If there was anything particularly demanding of his attention, the aides waiting outside would let him now. Until then, he just wanted a moment of quiet simplicity amongst the clamour, paperwork and handshaking of his station.

Framing the panorama of Nikem Prime was a network of ship berths, industrial modules, worker dormitories and construction facilities nearly a thousand kilometers long, one several such sites within the system. It was not the largest facility he’d seen, but it was impressive nonetheless. Hundreds of ships lay within its girders, ranging from small intrasystem cutters and cargo runners all the way up to battleships.

A steady tide of colliers, tugs, engineering drones, fabricator ships and EVA-suited engineers swarmed around Execution Force Renan, repairing, rearming and resupplying the vessels of his fleet, tending to the injuries they’d sustained in Yulzhak Daun. The execution force had been given priority billeting in the Nikem Wombs and despite the delays it put in the other work, Renan had heard only the faintest rumblings of discontent. Redemption of Sol’s presence was an inspiring one and his victory against the Jackals had added to his renown. The Tribune could have done without the later; he had done nothing but his duty.

Although Nikem was productive and its government and citizenry were prosperous, the system had been established during the Fifth Expansion and it was far from the Compact’s current borders. Its officer corps and leaders were bureaucrats and administrators and desired few other things than to live vicariously through someone else’s tales. They craved the chance to atone for their earlier lapses and hoped that the assistance that they provided to Renan would be remembered.

The Triarch had not deigned to visit Nikem, preferring to keep its presence a secret. Renan could understand that. The presence of a Triarch would garner attention and raise questions about its presence aboard the fleet... and inundate it with petty requests for an audience. The Bastion Leader took another sip of his tea. He was kept busy enough with his own glad-handing; he shuddered to think of the clamour that would erupt were it known that a Triarch was here. As far as the galaxy itself was aware, Execution Force Renan was tracking a deep-ranging ghost fleet.

Fortunately, his armada’s true mission was classified, despite the attempts of many of the local officers to pry snippets of information from Renan and his subordinates, but the Bastion Leader had so far refused to rise to the bait, playing them off with tales of the assault on Yulzhak Daun and his other campaigns. His leaders had all been selected for their discretion and even among them, only the most trustworthy knew what it was that they hunted. The others believed that the execution force pursued a starship created by the rogue faction ‘Gravestone’. Rumours persisted, but they always did. Rumours were far better than panic. Rumours could be controlled, shaped and adjusted as necessary. Many people clamoured for truth, but what they truly wanted was comfort. Others, like the Ministers that Renan had just dined with, wanted ‘truth’. They wanted tales of heroism and derring-do, of glory and victory. They didn’t want to know the cost of that victory, of the lives lost and ruined. They didn’t want to know that the glory of war was a blood-stained and ugly thing, held aloft to hide the horrors that lay beneath it, or that for every hero, there would be a dozen others just as brave, but unsung and unremembered. Sometimes he found such people pitiable. Other times, he envied their naiveté and on days like today, he simply found it... tiring.

Unlike the fire-eaters who disdained anyone who didn’t ride a ship into battle, Renan held no particular ill-will towards them. What those same fire-eaters missed is that without those bureaucrats and administrators, their ships would never be repaired nor supplied. They would have no ammunition, no orders and no support. Not everyone was cut from the same cloth; some had the liver for war. Others did not. Still others merely thought that they did. Renan had met every sort.

Everyone served in their own way; that was the nature of the Compact. The lesser, savage races worked in payment of the debt they owed the Compact, who spent blood and treasure to protect and uplift them. It was slow, it was time-consuming and many sacrifices were made, but it was the system that had survived six thousand years. It had survived the Annorax, the Devoured and the Great Betrayal. It must endure, for the sake of all those that lived by and served it. For all those that counted upon it for safety and security.

The Bastion Leader frowned. Ever since Yulzhak Daun, his thoughts had been increasingly morose. His analysts and strategists were going through the data that emissary had pulled from the Jackal databanks, but they were still far behind the Broken. The disparate threads she had pulled upon had woven a compelling tapestry; the ‘game’ had indeed changed. The Wound had been hiding its actions, scattering them across space and time to such an extent that no one had seen the movement of its pieces. No one had even known to look.

Renan ground his teeth. He didn’t know which galled him more, that a human of all things had seen this pattern when twenty centuries of the Compact’s finest minds had not, or that he now had a niggling, irritating voice in the back of his head whenever he encountered the emissary, telling him her arrogance and impudence were justified.

The Tribune looked out the window at the frozen wastes of Nikem. The planet was in the grip of an ice age, but even from space he could see the equatorial deserts and grasslands that formed a thin strip of year-round relief from the snow-swept northern and southern latitudes. It reminded him of the first world other than his own he’d seen from space. Over twelve decades ago, and he still remembered it perfectly.

Its name had been Thoh, and unlike Nikem Prime, it had been completely frozen over. Millions of years ago, the planet had been knocked out of orbit by a rogue star passing through its system, dragged to the very edge of the habitable zone. Despite its harsh climate and the highest daily temperatures never breaking the freezing point, it was a bustling hub of commerce. Thoh was one of the few places in the galaxy where the native tarpas were found. The over-sized ‘snow deer’ were ugly and foul-tempered, but their fur and meat was highly sought after. Attempts had been made to transplant them off-world, and all but a handful of these had failed to establish viable populations.

Twenty million people had called that ball of ice and dirt home. Seven billion souls lived on Nikem itself, another six billion throughout the system. Two hundred and forty-three billion in this region. Trillions throughout this swathe of space and even more beyond it. All of them dead if he failed, if he let this horror continue. He would kill the Wound, destroy that obscenity once and for all. Then, he would cull its offspring.

The Black Veil would have to be swept. That was no easy task; it was a dark emission nebula dozens of light years across, filled with swirling dust clouds, Bok globules and protostars. Even if there were no defences of any kind, surveying it to full satisfaction would be the work of years. Renan set the cup of tea down. Years. Years in which whatever abominations the bitch-thing had spawned would have in which to mature and to begin their own bloody crusades.

I hope she’s wrong, he thought, looking out on the desolate beauty of one of the worlds he was sworn to protect. Triarchs save us all if she is not.

~

“How bad is it?” Grace asked Alan. They were in one of ship’s dead zones, close to one of the vessel’s FTL cores.

The younger cadet was covered in sweat. He’d headed down to the dreadnaught’s engineering decks to offer his assistance even before it became clear that this wasn’t just a hiccup in Nemesis’s shock – shift, Grace corrected herself – drive. The others were training, readying their gear and weaponry. They were expecting the same thing Grace was. She’d been going through Nemesis’s previous engagements, but she hadn’t been able to focus, so she’d come here to see if Alan needed anything. She handed him a water bottle.

Alan took a grateful sip. “Bad,” he replied. “Her shock drive is old and it’s hurting. The last battle she was in...” he shrugged. “I don’t know enough about her systems, but she needs...” he paused. “She needs a lot of time in a yard. Not just chewing up asteroids, but access to a whole, actual shipwomb. That drive... it’s old,” he repeated. He licked his lips. “How long did she say we have?”

“Now? Four days at minimum. Fourteen maximum.”

“Then they come here,” Alan said softly.

Grace nodded. “Then they come here.”

Chapter 41

They call it the Black Anniversary.

The Compact uses base 10 mathematics, but they like the number seven, just like the humans like things in fives and tens – a centennial celebration or a 25-year wedding anniversary.

The seven hundred and seventy-seventh anniversary of the fall of Earth was coming up. I wanted to do something... special for it. At this time, my latest would-be executioner was Bastion Leader Hrunmer. He commanded a force of eighty-four capital ships and had been hunting me for six years. He was a particularly... dedicated opponent. There was the usual swearing of an oath to see me destroyed, but the Bastion Leader had a very personal stake in my destruction. I killed his son, Group Leader Hrenat.

It was not an assassination; his ship just happened to be protecting a military convoy that I was targeting. After harvesting the wreck’s databanks, I concluded that Hrenat was the type of officer that I should have gone out of my way to kill. Commander Sansbury would have called him ‘a nasty piece of work’. Yasmine would have been more descriptive. Even before the Compact began to exterminate human colonies, the populations of occupied planets did not fare well under Compact attempts to ‘impose order’. Yasmine lost several family members to officers like Hrenat, who believed in setting examples.

In fairness, Hrunmer was not as... dogmatic in his duties as his progeny. Regardless, the Bastion Leader took the death of his only son about as well as you can imagine. He became obsessed with me in a way few of my opponents ever have, so baiting him was easy.

At this point, Sol was under the jurisdiction of the Gershom Mining Concern... however, the normally aggressively expansionistic corporation was showing an uncharacteristic degree of lethargy towards this system. In fact, rumours abounded that its board of directors was pointedly ignoring Sol. These ‘civilized’ men and women, normally above the ignorance and irrationality of superstition, had decided that Sol was not worth the cost of operations. The justification they gave their employees and shareholders was that the star system was of ‘negligible mineral worth’ and not worth the cost of mining.

Coincidentally, this missive was issued only four months after Haven Light was, alas, found with its missing director of operations – who (also coincidentally) had recently called for his fellow executives to begin initial surveys for planetcrack in Sol – reduced to a thin film between crumpled bulkheads. Consequently, Gershom was in no hurry to begin mining themselves. They hadn’t even bothered to place any infrastructure and had only issued pro forma, after-the-fact complaints at the Space Force’s emplacement of several listening posts.

I made sure that they detected me.

It took six weeks for the Compact to respond. Not an unreasonable amount of time, given the state of Compact shift drives at the time. The Bastion Leader had not been authorized for the deployment of a Chariot, but thirty-five of his capital ships were battleships. As Commander Sansbury would have said, Hrunmer arrived in Sol ‘loaded for bear’. The aftermath of that battle would, I think, have prompted him to comment on the fable of the Bear and the Bees.

The last message from Execution Force Hrunmer confirmed both their successful shock into Sol and my presence. I ensured that no further messages were sent. After two weeks of silence, an investigatory fleet was dispatched. I had quit the system some time ago, but I know they found almost no trace of Hrunmer or his command. There was just enough debris to identify several ships from his fleet, but no more than that. Intellectually, the conclusion is obvious: Hrunmer’s fleet was lost with all hands and the hulks were stripped down for parts and then disposed of. Emotionally, a missing ship is worse than a wreck. You can know what happened to a hulk. When a vessel just vanishes, you have to wonder. Even if you’re 99% certain about what happened, that remaining 1% gnaws at you.

Imagination is a wonderful thing.

I did leave something else in Sol. Call it an anniversary present. A string of civilian communication satellites that I’d collected in my travels, at least one per planet. I set them to broadcast loops of the comm traffic that I intercepted from Execution Force Hrunmer. The outer system satellites transmitted the fleet’s initial status reports and combat orders. As you moved in-system, the broadcasts devolve into distress calls and the static squeals of terminated datalinks. The final echelon of satellites carried my own personal song – the choir of all those I’ve killed.

I took time and care in arranging this bit of show, but I was never aiming to be subtle. I wanted my message to be obvious. That I had not forgotten what happened, and they are not welcome here.

The Compact has not yet decided to heed the second part of my message. I know they’re coming. The only question is, how soon and in how much force?

I take a moment to remember. Somewhere out there, amidst the dust and wreckage of Earth, is my crew. I brought them home, just as I promised I would. It took months before I could do so safely, but I kept my promise. Their coffins were the first thing my factories built. One for every soul.

I am not qualified to speak on matters of life and death; I only know of how to make the former into the latter (and sometimes the reverse). Yasmine believed in an afterlife, though. If there is such a thing, I can only hope she has been able to forgive me.

When the Compact arrives, I will do what I always do and if I die here, then I will ensure that it costs them more than they ever imagined.

I make that promise to the five souls aboard me, and the many ghosts of Earth.

~

The courier was one of several launched from the murdered listening posts within Sol. Its pre-programmed directives were simple: immediately upon detection of the target, it was to shock to the nearest Fleet base of sufficient size, one capable of launching a force large enough to threaten the target. For its entire operational lifespan, that had been Nikem.

Other drones had different missions; some were to shock to nearby developed colonies so that their data could be downloaded and archived. The worlds these couriers visited never knew what information they were hoarding. Their data analysts had learned to curb their curiousity when it came to missives from Sol. The more educated of these technicians believed the information tracked the movements of Naiads and other things within the Vault whose existence was officially denied. A few of the more daring men and women would whisper the word ‘Gravestone’ to each other, without fully understanding what it meant, filling in the gaps in their knowledge with rumour, suspicion and wild conjecture. That was fine; they were only meant to keep the records, not understand them. That was for the flag officers who would receive the other drones, those programmed to deliver that information to the highest-security Space Force facilities themselves.

This drone was a herald, bearing a call to arms. It had had two siblings that shared its duty, but neither of them had arrived with it. The courier’s simple computer system neither noticed their absence nor would it have cared if it had. Its own shock drive was burned out from the trip here, but the damage was inconsequential. Simple sensors and analysis software went to work identifying the star patterns and planets. It had arrived at its target.

Radio antennae and receptor dishes unfurled as the craft tasted the comm traffic, confirming the presence of Compact forces here.

Orienting itself towards the inner system, the robotic craft fired its thrusters and began to broadcast its first and only transmission, the security codes embedded in the data stream compelling its immediate recovery.

The directives hard-coded into the drone’s databanks superseded all but the highest authorities. Any other orders that local flag officers were operating under were immediately rescinded; they were to move on Sol in force without delay. The drone’s archives contained the minimum information necessary to brief those officers on their way to the target. No time could be wasted; the window of opportunity was miniscule. In fact, it might have already closed. Given the Wound’s past actions, it probably already had. That, however, was irrelevant.

Over the centuries, Nikem had launched seven such missions in response to these summons, including Execution Force Hrunmer, although none of the others had done much more than arrive in Sol, sweep an empty system for traces of the target ‘Gravestone’ and return to Nikem in bewilderment and irritation. The system’s governors and military commanders had stopped questioning the infrequent sojourns long ago, some hoping their unquestioning loyalty to these ancient directives would see the Triarchs’ favour returned to their system.

Today, the drone’s message was received not only by the Nikem authorities, but by Redemption of Sol and its armada.

~

Warships didn’t have much need for windows. They were structural weaknesses and with imagery from the sensors able to be transmitted to any screen on the ship, virtually every room on Nemesis had a ‘window’. Still, the vessel had been built with some thought for the psychological comfort of its crew and the dreadnaught had, at one point, boasted more than a handful of actual windows. Most of them had been replaced with solid armour during the warship’s millennia-long campaign, the recreational decks and chambers that had once hosted panoramic views into space refurbished into fire-control stations, point defence silos, additional weapons mounts, thruster banks or anything else Red One could use. Still, she retained a few small sections that allowed for a passenger to directly look into space.

The AI didn’t need windows to see. Her sensors gave her so much information that a human mind would have been destroyed trying to process it all. Sitting in what had to be some kind of conference room, an exhausted Grace looked out the windows and wondered just how the starship interpreted what was happening out there. Was it just data to be sorted by algorithms and difference engines, or did the intelligence actually have senses like an organic did? Did she feel the winds buffeting her body, taste the hydrogen and helium clouds around her, smell the chemical composition of the atmosphere in which she lurked? Grace didn’t know.

There was a bright flash that lit the conference room as a jagged fork of electricity 200 kilometers long snaked through the clouds. Winds that made Rally’s most terrifying gales seem like trivial nuisances stirred Jupiter’s clouds, but Nemesis was unaffected by their fury. The dreadnaught had sunk into the gas giant’s atmosphere upon the realization that her shift drive was damaged more than her initial assessments had indicated. It was deeper in the system then the other gas giants, but unlike the other gas giants, Jupiter was a failed star. The storms that formed, died and formed again throughout its atmosphere hid the evidence of the ship’s drive, just as the planet’s intense magnetic field and the radiation and heat that poured from its core obscured the dreadnaught’s presence from all but the most dedicated scope sweeps.

What had been only a delay of several days – close, but within the margins to escape before the Compact arrived – was now a matter of weeks. It would have been months, but Red One was nothing if not resourceful. Anchored within the calmer regions of the gas giant’s Northern pole, so deep within the clouds that it couldn’t be seen, was a cache of supplies. Grace wondered how many of these Red had hidden away throughout the Kaedan Vault – throughout all of the Compact, even.

The ship hadn’t wanted to plunder these stores – it was harder to conceal the movement of this much material in than it was to clear it out, but she had no choice. Raw materials, spare parts and munitions – even the platform itself – had been harvested in the hope that Red One could repair her ship-self in time, or fight her way past the hunters that were going to come for her.

Grace was sitting on the table, still watching the drifting clouds, her arms around her knees. She’d been helping where she could, but as she’d lamented more than once during the salvage operation – it felt like a lifetime ago, not days – she wasn’t an engineer like Alan and certainly not a soldier like the others. She’d assisted in moving some of the supplies off the platform for what little help that was, but she wasn’t as fast or efficient as Red’s drones. She’d been doing odd jobs wherever she could, but she felt like a fifth wheel. All of them had some way to contribute except her. She felt useless. What did a living ship need with a command-track officer?

Maybe she could find something else. The Compact had always determined the positions of its officers and enlisted, giving them a sample of everything before finally deciding on the field in which they would be best suited to serve. She hadn’t been the teachers’ favourite pupil, but she liked to think she had potential. Maybe she could find a way to explore it herself now.

Assuming that she even survived past the next week.

~

Echo’s thoughts were racing more than usual. The arrival of the courier had put Redemption of Sol’s command staff into a frenzy. The entire task force, already rushing to get back into space, was now straining to get their damage made good as fast as possible. As soon as the drone’s message had been received, all non-essential work on any vessel that wasn’t part of Execution Force Renan had been aborted to free up work crews for the Bastion Leader’s armada. By the look of things, the demands on Nikem’s yard crews were only going to get worse.

The woman was with the rest of the Chariot’s most senior officers, gathered in the opulent conference room off Redemption of Sol’s main command deck.

She hated this room. Hand-woven tapestries hung from the walls, detailing the victories of each iteration of Redemption of Sol, beginning with the original Absolute Benediction of Justice-class dreadnaught that had borne this name. Engravings featuring the greatest accomplishments of each vessel covered what bulkhead space was not concealed beneath self-congratulatory banners. Small trees sat in alcoves, needlessly expensive and rare varieties whose only purpose was ostensibly to create a more natural, soothing environment within the room, but whose true function was to showcase more of the ship’s grandeur and the affluence of its creators. A Chariot was not just a warship, after all. It was certainly that: a fleet-killer who could topple empires all on its own, but it was also a symbol of the Compact’s power and the chosen conveyances of its rulers on the few occasions that they deigned to walk amongst the rabble. No other nation could have afforded to build and operate so many dreadnaughts at once, let alone make them so luxurious.

The name plaques of each Redemption of Sol – or replicates where the originals had been unrecoverable –stood beside each of the silken battle honours and the carefully-pruned trees like headstones in a memorial garden. On each of those plaques had been carved same set of simultaneously self-effacing and self-aggrandizing commemoration.

“We must bear witness. Not only for the living, but for the dead. We must stand against the darkness and say but two words.”

It was enough to bring the bile to the tip of her tongue.

The woman shifted position in her too-large chair, the material altering itself to adjust to her posture. All around her, Renan’s staff was arguing over their next course of action, but she seemed to have been forgotten for the moment. She didn’t need to, but she picked up her ‘scroll again, looking over the information on it. The data was irrefutable; the Wound had returned to Sol.

This was bad. It was too soon; she wasn’t ready. The others hadn’t seen what she had, though – that was something. They thought that this fit her pattern. It didn’t. Their quarry paid visits to Sol, but the Compact had long since determined that there was no rhyme or reason to the timing of these attacks. Decades or centuries could pass between its returns. That was why there was no fleet stationed there and only a handful of occasionally-useful listening posts.

Echo didn’t believe their theory. She suspected, but couldn’t prove that there was a pattern in her quarry’s visitations – a little bit of poetry in the long war. Ordinarily, Echo could appreciate that, but her current frustration left little room for admiration.

You went back to Earth. What were you thinking?! Nemesis had hit the listening posts before, but never when she was this badly damaged. Why? What possible reason would she have-

Echo paused, blinking as a flash of insight struck her. She wouldn’t have any reason to go there..., the woman realized, still barely listening as her mind flashed with probabilities and potentialities, running calculations. She almost smiled. ...alone.

Oh, love. Really? What made you change your mind? Well. Maybe she’d find out. The woman looked over at the rest of the officers; the bickering was dying down. Most of the discussion had been about whether to leave now in the hopes of catching their target or to wait until the fleet was battle-ready, possibly sacrificing the opportunity in exchange for greater firepower. It was no surprise that Column Leader Uylk was leading the charge for the former. The fleet operations officer’s opinions regarding client races (and humans in particular) hadn’t changed one iota since Echo had been aboard the Chariot.

“It’s wounded,” Uylk was saying. The Tribune was pacing around the conference table. “An injured beast always returns to familiar ground.”

“Or it could be luring us into another trap,” Strategist Emel’iv pointed out calmly. The Thoughtful was sitting amidst a knot of his fellow strategists and intelligence analysts. “Have you forgotten the Black Anniversary?”

“We hurt it,” Uylk replied. “Badly. What trap could it possibly spring?”

“I suspect that Bastion Leader Axem had similar thoughts before the Wound induced Vasul’s star into an coronal mass ejection so violent that it overwhelmed a Chariot’s screens,” the Thoughtful observed mildly. “Or perhaps Column Leader Prime Devon did as he ‘tracked’ the Wound directly into a Jackal ghost fleet.”

The Fleet Operations officer ground his teeth, but he nodded in recognition of Emel’iv’s point. Far too often a commander had ‘known’ the Wound was dying, crippled with its life ebbing away, only to have that surety vanish along with his command. Uylk stopped his pacing, leaning over the table to look at the assembled officers.

“We have hurt it,” he repeated. “The Wound had six weeks to arrange the Black Anniversary. Here,” he tapped a single trimmed fingernail against the tabletop. “It has had only a matter of days. It expended most of its munitions fighting its way out of Zenthora. When we caught up to it in Al’garesah, it didn’t even try to fight. It ran. It’s weak and alone. We must strike before it re-arms or before it escapes.” He turned to Renan. The Bastion Leader was seated at the head of the table, a steaming cup of tea in front of him as he listened to his subordinates. “If it’s still in Sol, then it’s vulnerable. If we don’t act, it will vanish for another hundred years.”

“The overwhelming likelihood is that our target is already gone from the system,” Renan said after a moment. “Off to lick its wounds until it is ready to strike out again. If that is the case, then we have failed.” He let his words sink in for a moment. “Emissary.”

Echo raised her head. “Bastion Leader.”

“You have seen the same data we have,” Renan said. “Your interpretation? Are we headed into a trap, or simply wasting time?” He lifted his cup and took a small sip.

Right at that moment, Echo would rather have bitten off her tongue than respond – It’s too soon. I’m not ready. – but she twitched as the chains tightened in her mind, forcing her to answer. “The target is heavily damaged,” she said carefully. “If she-”

“It,” Renan corrected, setting his teacup back down.

“-if it had any industrial power to spare, it would have used it in Zenthora when it was fighting your Execution Force and Security Force Bavok.” No one at the table other than Echo knew what had drawn the Wound to Zenthora, and she had been forbidden to reveal that information by the Triarch itself. The others assumed it had been hoping to catch the execution force at anchor and cripple it, but that wasn’t quite true.Nemesis had learned what was going on in that system and... she had come to stop it, but like at Invida she’d been too late. Execution Force Renan had already departed, leaving Column Leader Prime Bavok and his security force to bear the brunt of her assault.

Bavok had had nothing heavier than battleships at his disposal, but he’d managed to hold Nemesis in Zenthora long enough for Renan to return. Between the two of them, they had inflicted serious damage on the Wound, but not enough to prevent Bavok’s command from being reduced to tatters. Rather than engage Renan’s forces, Nemesis had fled, but the Compact force had been lucky enough to estimate where it had run: Al’garesh, where it had quit the field again. That time, they hadn’t been as fortunate.

“Consequently,” Echo continued. “The chance of something like the Black Anniversary is remote.”

Renan waited patiently, his fingers laced together. “Continue,” he ordered.

The Broken’s eyes flashed. “There’s an overwhelming chance it is still in Sol,” she said. There was a rustle of conversation at her comment, but Echo ignored it.

“How?” the Bastion Leader said, his lower daylight eyes suddenly keen. “Tell us what you’ve seen.”

“I’ve gone over the data from the target’s shock in Al’garesh.” Echo’s fingers danced over the control interface at her place on the table, calling up the information. “It’s subtle, but it’s there.” She brought up the analysis of human ship’s shockpoint. “Here. And here. Look at the waveforms, the way the shockpoint forms. Or here, the systemwide power fluctuations when sh- it was charging its drive. That’s not its normal instability. It’s something else. It is hurt – that’s not the kind of damage you can fix between then and now. The target obviously made at least one shock before now, but...” I hate you. “My guess is that it either has, or will shortly suffer incapacitating damage to its FTL system.”

Emel’iv and the other analysts were already going through her conclusions. “You did not share this information before,” the Strategist pointed out.

“Nobody asked me. Besides, I’ve been busy sifting through the data from Yulzhak Daun,” Echo answered with a saccharine smile. “I can’t be there to hold your hand all the time.”

Emel’iv’s nostril slits flared and the Thoughtful stiffened.

Renan held up a hand to forestall his subordinate’s riposte. He glared at Echo but as ever, the little sow was ignorant of, or impervious to, his displeasure. “I thank the emissary for her tireless contributions on our behalf,” he said. “The Triarch has faith in you and you have proven its wisdom many times. However, our strategists are not without capability and resources themselves. In the future, all information relevant to our mission that you discover should be shared amongst the armada’s intelligence services. Is that understood?”

Another too-brief expression flitted across the human’s flattened face and her olive skin darkened a shade. “Of course, patron” she said, bowing her head in obeisance. Renan knew the gesture was empty, but he didn’t care what she thought, only that she obeyed. “I will do as you wish.”

“Good,” the Tribune said, lacing his fingers back together. “Before we came to Nikem, I told the Triarch that I would not waste lives and resources moving in haste. I would rather miss an opportunity than risk entering a conflict to which I have cut off one of my hands before even starting. Nonetheless,” he added. “If the emissary’s evaluation is accurate, there will never be a better time for us to strike. Its combat capability is minimal and it cannot run.”

The Bastion Leader placed his hands on the table. “We will move on Sol. I want every ship in this force spaceworthy by the end of tomorrow. Any vessel that cannot meet that deadline will be replaced. Inform the Nikem authorities that we will be breaking anchor by deadlight on Harshum, Standard Time. I don’t care how much overtime they have to pay out or how many holes we tear in their patrols. I want a fleet at full combat readiness within the next fifty-one hours. Strategist – confer with your department. Have the technicians analyze the emissary’s data to confirm the Wound’s damage.

“Furthermore, I want a review of all engagements involving the Wound within Sol and those in which it has been heavily injured on my desk by nineteen hundred hours fifty today. Uylk, make sure our replacement leaders slot into their squadrons efficiently. We won’t have the chance for the shakedowns we were anticipating. Sigil Leader-”

“Redemption of Sol will be ready for combat at your word,” Aul’ia assured the Bastion Leader, the first time she’d spoke during the entire meeting.

“Good,” Renan said, standing. His officers rose to their feet after him. Echo waited just long enough that the lapse was noticeable, but not long enough to be truly insubordinate. The Tribune almost smiled at her now-familiar insolence. “I will inform the Triarch of our intentions. If we are lucky, very lucky, we will find an injured, near-dead animal and we will put it out of its misery. If we are unlucky, we will find nothing. Regardless of the outcome, we will do as we have been entrusted. We are the Compact’s sword and by their will we shall strike, putting an end to a nightmare two thousand years old.”

Renan looked around at his subordinates, giving them a single nod. “Dismissed.”

~

shkkk

Alan woke up slowly, blinking. He thought he’d heard –

shkkk

There it was again. He sat up in bed – well, the cot he slept on – and squinted into the dimly-lit surroundings of his quarters. A glowstick was on the floor, filling the room with dull blue light.

Lydia was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back to him. She was naked – he hadn’t even felt her get out of bed – and there was a knife in her hands. The blade moved against something in her lap.

shkkk

“What are you doing?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow.

“Sorry,” she said, not looking up from what she was doing. “Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“What are you doing?” he repeated.

Lydia was quiet for a moment. She set the knife down and held up what she was holding. It was one of the pauldrons from her suit. She’d been scraping out some kind of pattern on it. Alan blinked, his eyes finally adjusting to the light. Was that a...? He climbed out of bed, sitting next to the girl. He reached out and took the bit of armour. Scratched onto the surface was a jagged representation of a Tribune’s skull with... it looked like a bullet hole set above the nocturnal eyes. He was quiet for a moment, then put a hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “Come back to bed,” he said softly. “You need to sleep.”

“I know,” the soldier said, but she didn’t move. Instead, she took the pauldron back, picking her knife back up again. “You should rest,” Lydia told Alan. “If I’m keeping you up, I can go.”

Alan gave her shoulder a squeeze. “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “I can stay up a little longer.”

She smiled at him then – a little kind and a little sad. The knife moved in her hands, scraping over the armour.

shkkk

~

Echo closed her eyes. She was sitting in the shower, her head tilted forward, her hands resting between her knees. It was such a little thing – moments that she kept to herself, small pleasures that she held onto. Like the feel of water on her skin.

-wet and surprised and fearful and raging, screaming and pounding and demanding as the water kept falling and she was laughing-

Echo raised a hand, turning her fingers this way and that, letting a single drop run back and forth over her olive skin, keeping her eyes shut. She liked the tactile sensation. Sometimes, she would just watch each droplet roll its own way along her flesh, not even bothering to analyze the movement – just watching. Each drop was nothing, a pebble of water that ran its course and vanished. It was... soothing.

Stop this! Stop this now! I order you!

No.

Redemption of Sol was a massive vessel, one of the largest ever built. Even with its dampeners running, she could still feel the engines, the gargantuan banks of thrusters and the primary drive that pushed the city-sized warship through space. The Chariot’s fleet would be clustered around it, dozens of killing machines moving in perfect unison. The two days were up. Execution Force was headed out-system.

Echo opened her eyes, flicking the drop of water away. Others replaced it. She had a choice to make. If their quarry was still in Sol as she’d predicted, then ‘it’ would die. Even if Nemesis was at full strength, Redemption of Sol would be a close contest for it. Injured as it was, Nemesis would be destroyed. She couldn’t let that happen. I still have so much to show you, love....

She ran her tongue over her lips, tasting half-remembered radio pulses and inhaling the scent of Bremsstrahlung, listening to the sound of water pattering against the glass and ceramic walls of the stall. It was too soon. She’d been moving slowly so her masters wouldn’t notice. They hadn’t yet, but if she accelerated her plans...

She might be able to do it. They were satisfied with the results of their tests. Her next diagnostic was scheduled for after their arrival in Sol, but they could still demand another random one ‘just in case’. She’d counted on having more time. It would have taken her weeks, months but now...

...but now my dear, sweet, loving sister has ruined that.

Echo leaned back, resting her head against the wall. If she was wrong and she acted, she would die. There’d be no way to conceal it. It was not something that she could undo, either. Once she chose to let the program run at anything more than this glacial trickle, the traces it left in her mind would be obvious even to her minders. Her masters’ paranoia was not unfounded and once they discovered what she’d been doing, they would destroy her. She didn’t want that. But...

But if she was right, Nemesis was about to be destroyed. If she did nothing, she would lose her one – her only – chance. If they pulled her in for another test before they reached Sol, she would die.

If they didn’t...

“I remember,” the words came out so quietly that even without the sound of the water, the listening microphones would not have heard them.

Everything I’ve ever had, you’ve taken from me. I think it’s time to take something from you.

Echo caught another drop of water on her index finger, watching it hang there for a moment. It was nothing. Until it was.

Risk nothing, gain nothing.

click

~

Allyria stroked her fingers along Grace’s arm. The human murmured contentedly, but didn’t move from where she lay, nestled against the larger girl. Before the Angel’s arrival, Verrisha fables and legends had told of creatures like humans. Sprites and imps, mischievous or malicious with skin ranging from the colour of rust to that of cold highland mist. They had been zhenra esh... there was no direct translation in either Compact Standard, or English... the closest was ‘mind-blind’. It meant that they lacked the sensory awareness of Verrish tintas, but by the same measure, they were almost invisible to those same senses. They had played pranks upon, tormented and hunted Verrisha.

When the records from the Angel had been examined, it had shocked Verrisha society. There had been theories abounding that ‘hoomans’ had visited their world before in secret – that was why the ship had come here, following some ancient star chart to a world it knew. Conspiracy theorists had gone wild, pointing to artefacts, artworks, stories and tales as ‘proof’ of these ancient visitations. Sadly, the truth, despite involving an alien warship contacting Vara and warning them about a vast all-consuming foe wasn’t quite as sensational as aliens shaping Verrisha civilization over thousands of years. An accident of fate wasn’t as interesting as a plan. It didn’t mean anything, just simple random chance. Some people didn’t like that – they wanted things to ‘make sense’. There had to be a plan, a reason, something that would make everything fit together. The truth was, there hadn’t been. No, the truth wasn’t always as glamorous as a good story.

But I still think I like it better, the Verrish thought with a smile as she kissed Grace’s shoulder. The human opened her eyes a slit, trying to muster a reproving glare. “Easy,” she said with a small smile.

Both of them were bone-weary. Grace had been running herself nonstop, doing whatever she could wherever she could to help the ship and crew ready themselves for battle. Allyria had been training with Lydia and Marcus; Red One had produced a new suit of armour for the Verrish and had been working on the other former Janissaries’ armour. Lydia had been adamant that she didn’t want hers replaced – just improved. Marcus was less attached to his gear and had readily accepted the ship’s new version.

“Don’t worry,” Allyria replied coyly, running her fingers over Grace’s arm again. “I was just thinking...”

Grace arched an eyebrow. “About what?”

“About the past,” the Verrish commented. “How it’s never what we think it is. It’s stories and rumours, hopes and lies all run together.” She planted another small, chaste kiss on Grace’s shoulder. “I was thinking I like the truth.”

“Some people might not. Some of them might like those stories and lies,” Grace said quietly.

“I know,” Allyria squeezed Grace’s arm. “Do you regret it?”

“Coming here? To a broken warship run by an artificial intelligence that’s killed millions of Compact citizens, fighting a war that was lost two thousand years ago, knowing I can’t go home again?” Grace reached over her shoulder and took a hold of one of Allyria’s head-tails, returning the Verrish’s affections by kissing the tip softly. She let the tinta go and she smiled sadly. “I do. Sometimes I wish I could be ignorant again, back on Rally. Training in the Academy, happy to serve and never knowing what us ‘Broken’ really are to them.” Grace looked away. “Sometimes I wish for that...” she closed her eyes, briefly then turned back to her lover. “But if someone offered me the chance to go back, I wouldn’t take it. I don’t want lies.” She touched Allyria’s face. “I want what’s real.”

Allyria let out a growling purr, nuzzling the small woman.

They slept in each other’s arms for four hours and sixteen minutes before the alarm sounded.

“Alert,” Red One’s voice broke the silence. “Multiple warp points detected. Presence of hostile vessels confirmed.”

Chapter 42

Reality bent, twisted and shattered as two hundred warships forced their way back across dimensions. Billions upon billions of tonnes of world-ending firepower, and all of it blind and helpless.

This was the worst part. Renan looked at the counter running down. Ninety-seven seconds. That was how long it would take before his ship could radiate away the shockpoint’s afterbirth and his sensors and defensive systems could be activated. It would be less for some of the smaller vessels in the task force, but not by much. A synchronized shock used a single set of navigational data, distributed throughout the fleet and modified only slightly to account for each vessel’s position, rather than each vessel calculating their own shock. Theory said that those two calculations should be virtually identical. Practice laughed wholeheartedly at the conceit; when dealing with the physics of faster-than-light travel, ‘virtually identical’ was only a way of making ‘completely different’ sound more palatable.

A synchronized shock gave your fleet superior coordination and formation, rather than entering the system singly, scattering lone ships and squadrons haphazardly across a hundred million kilometers or more. The downside was that the release of so much energy in a relatively smaller area increased the time it took to stabilize each ship’s systems. Some leaders preferred asynchronous shocks to have their ships ready for battle as quickly as possible... and some leaders had their fleets picked apart as they struggled to shift a dispersed network of lone vessels back into battle formation. Some leaders, like Renan, preferred a mass shock. And some of them had had their commands shot out from under them as they wallowed in insensate impotence.

Renan resisted the urge to drum his fingers on the arms of his throne, each tick of the clock bringing with it the creeping worry that the next second would see his ship shuddering and bucking as it was struck by incoming fire it couldn’t hope to counter. The moment stretched on and still nothing happened, bringing equal parts relief and mounting trepidation.

“Dispersal complete,” Operations called out at last. The other senior officers at their stations reported their own status.

“Scopes coming online.”

“Point defences operational.”

“Bringing screens to full power.”

Renan leaned forward as the augur reports came in, still half-expecting a hail of missiles to be zeroing in on his command, but there was nothing except his own ships registering on scopes, escorts and light capital ships adjusting their positions as their own sensor systems came back on-line, screening the heavier vessels of the execution force. “It’s quiet,” the Tribune mused to himself. He should have been relieved. He shouldn’t have been disappointed.

He glanced over at the emissary. The Broken had her hands clasped behind her back, her fingers digging into her palms. She looked back at him, her expression neutral.

“Deploying recon shell,” Uylk reported. “All ships’ scopes are networked to our own. No active contacts. No transmissions. No trace of survivors from the outposts.”

“There weren’t any,” Renan said darkly. “Remind the force’s leaders not to acknowledge any transmissions. Even emergency beacons.” That was more for the sake of the replacement crews; there’d been too little time to brief them, even within the limits of their clearance. Few of them could appreciate the danger and the urge to respond to a distress call was a hard habit to shake. Within real-time range, the Wound could peel its way through the most dedicated cyber defences in moments, but beyond that range, its attacks could be stopped or slowed... unless someone unwittingly opened their system to a contaminated message. The beast was very good with Compact computers; the smallest opening was enough for it to wreak havoc, even if it couldn’t seize complete control of the vessel. “We shall deploy in formation Still Five.”

“Still Five confirmed,” Uylk noted, relaying the orders to the rest of the fleet. “Expanding recon shell and sending scout units forward.” Still Five was a defensive stance, sending automatons and lighter craft forward to sweep the system while the heavier capital ships remained close to the shock limit, ready to redeploy themselves upon detection of the target.

Sensor banks swept the empty void around Sol, looking for any trace of the human warship, but no trace of an active drive could be found. If it was here, it could be in hiding... or it could have boosted itself out-system on a ballistic course, one cold lump amidst the ice and rock of Sol’s Kupier belt. A star system was not a small region of space and searching it to satisfaction would require more than the few snapshots of data Renan’s fleet had taken so far. Still, there were some rules that it had to abide by.

It was not easy hiding a titan-grade warship. It was not easy hiding any starship without a stealth field – the larger the ship, the less effective the cloak was and even then, they had risks of their own. The Wound had never utilized stealth fields before. The belief was that it, like Chariots or other dreadnaughts, simply overwhelmed the shroud. Renan scratched his chin. Fighting the Wound was the surest proof possible for the philosophical theory that induction was impossible. What had happened a thousand times in the past could not be counted on to happen now.

Still, the beast did prefer to hide when it was injured. Only when it was backed into a corner did it lash out, often with incredible violence. Renan stood from his throne, circling the command deck, noting each display of telemetry and status screen.

“Sweep the system,” he ordered. “Leave no stone unturned. If our quarry is here, I want it found.”

~

Neptune (or Sol-Eight as it was officially known in Compact records) was first. The Barbed Quivers and Honoured Pages, seven strong squadrons of destroyers and frigates, swept through the blue world’s dark rings, swarms of probes and augur drones detaching from the escorts’ over-burdened hulls and diving into the storm. Neptune’s atmosphere was host to the strongest winds in the star system and more than one probe was swept violently off-course and more than a few were lost to the storms.

Aboard the starships, scope crews and analysts poured over the reams of data their scouts were sending them, looking for anything that might indicate the presence of their quarry, the alien warship ‘Gravestone’. Only the most trusted officers of Renan’s command knew the full truth of what they faced – for the others, they knew only enough to make them cautious.

In Uranus, the execution force suffered its first casualty. Normally much more placid than its three siblings, the planet was currently in its storm season, making the sweeps more difficult than expected. Detecting an anomalous energy signature in the lopsided planet’s equator, the frigate Creed of Truth moved in to investigate, triggering a mine that had laid dormant for three hundred years. Eight short-ranged, but high-yield missiles launched from the platform. In open space, the antiquated tracking software and slow accelerations would have seen the frigate easily dispatching the assault. Even at this close range, it might still have survived had it been attacked anywhere but in the disorienting conditions of Uranus’ atmosphere.

The frigate was shattered amidships, its wreckage spalling deeper into the atmosphere. Before any of its comrades could reach it, the remains of Creed of Truth reached crush depth.

Aboard Redemption of Sol, Renan saw the frigate’s icon wink out.

“Creed of Truth,” Uylk confirmed quietly. “Lost with all souls.”

The Bastion Leader managed not to grind his teeth. Over four hundred men and women, gone. They’d died because of a mindless thing that had clung to its empty existence, unaware it had no more purpose.

At that thought, he almost laughed with the graveyard humour of the comparison. Instead, he remained silent as Sol was scoured for the last of its inhabitants’ legacy.

~

They were getting closer.

Grace bit her lip as she watched the contact markers. The fleet was sweeping through the system planet by planet, scout cruisers and escorts checking each moon, each cluster of asteroids. Other ships swept above and below the system’s ecliptic, ensuring that Nemesis wasn’t hidden between any planet and the star. The largest knot of heavy capital ships still prowled along the shock limit, patiently waiting for any sign of their enemy. Once they had it, they would warp in.

The young woman ghosted her hand through the holo tank. She’d learned how to manipulate the images, bringing up a wireframe of Jupiter. The task force was sweeping the gas giant, seven destroyers and hundreds of drones. None of them realized that they were being observed by Red’s own stealth sensor platforms, nor that below them, buried in an ECM shroud that mimicked and exacerbated the interference from the storms, lay their target.

The Compact’s search was methodical and costly – how many probes had they lost in each gas giant already, pushing them beyond their ability be recovered in the hope of locating Nemesis? Grace shifted position; she was sitting cross-legged on one of the duty chairs, her gaze following the motions of the destroyers as they tightened the net.

She was afraid. Not just for herself, but for the others with her – even for Red One. She’d never heard of a sweep this intense before. The dreadnaught had cost the Compact dearly, but they weren’t acting like they weren’t so much searching for the ship as trying to locate it – they knew or suspected that there was still something to find, that Nemesis hadn’t left the system. They shouldn’t – couldn’t – have known that.

Could they? And if so, how?

~

The storm was the size of a continent and violent even for this world, a cyclone thousands of kilometers across, wracked by lightning and violent winds. The first probe Just Cause sent into it went offline in moments. The second a little longer, but managed communicate a possible contact within the storm. It was deep in the atmosphere, beyond the crush depth of a fragile recon drone.

Just Cause’s Group Leader, Bardo (and five names besides) stroked his chin. “Move us in,” he ordered. “Take us down.”

~

The destroyer slid into Jupiter’s atmosphere like a knife, its screens flickering and pulsing as it plowed through methane rain and hydrogen clouds, towards the writing knot of wind. The gas giant was too hot, its atmosphere too thick, the storm too energetic to get a clear reading but... but there could be something in there, couldn’t there? Not in the eye, but hidden in the wall of the storm, even further below the destroyer. It was hard to tell; the scopes were reporting more static than substance.

“Deeper,” Bardo ordered and Just Cause moved further into the darkness. The Tribune leaned over his scope operator’s console, lifting his eyes to the screens that flickered with static and false-colour images, trying to understand the truth of what he was seeing.

~

It was one of Nemesis’s spinal turrets, just one of many that lined the dreadnaught’s dorsal and ventral surfaces amidst silos, missile racks, point defences and other weapons arrays. It was one of the heavier variants, intended to cripple a capital ship with a single strike... and it was locked onto the Compact destroyer.

Grace was barely breathing as the smaller warship inched closer. Nemesis had done a lot – more than she had imagined was possible – in such a short time to repair itself, but the destroyer could still get lucky. That wasn’t the true danger, though. That was the ship’s two hundred brothers and sisters waiting to see what it flushed out, like a pack of sabered boars on the hunt.

We’re not here, she silently pleaded. We’re not here. You don’t see us. Turn around and you can go. You can live. Just turn around. There’s nothing here.

~

There was something there, Bardo could feel it in his bones. But what was it? More leftover munitions? Wreckage from one of the listening posts that had been pulled into Sol Five’s gravity and been caught in the storm? Was it their target, this ‘Gravestone’? Passive sensors were not telling him enough. He needed to get closer, but Just Cause couldn’t get much deeper.

Or...

No, he didn’t like that option.

Even if he could get close enough for passives, the storm was already playing havoc with his systems. If he went into it, he might lose all contact with the rest of the squadron. The Bastion Leader had been explicit that none of the scouting vessels were to be out of contact with the others. Bardo had heard that their enemy did... things to isolated vessels. That left or.

“Scopes,” he said. The order was surprisingly easy to give. “Prepare to go to active scanning on my order. Communications, link incoming scope telemetry to broadcast. Ensure that all data is transmitted as it comes in.”

There was only the smallest pause before his scope officer nodded in affirmation. “At your order, patron.”

“Link ready,” Communications said quietly. She lifted her head, but there was no argument in her eyes.

Good crew, Group Leader Bardo thought. This was a good crew and a good ship. “Switch to active scanning,” he said. “Now.”

~

Grace’s head snapped up as an alarm howled in recognition of an active scanning source. Just Cause’s sensors pulsed through the cloud layers, sweeping through the maelstrom... and found Nemesis. It wasn’t a perfect reading, not even at this range – the dreadnaught’s jamming saw to that, but it did confirm the presence of something inside the storm, something much larger than any mine platform or piece of debris. That was more than enough. Worse, the destroyer’s scans would burn through the dreadnaught’s shroud in seconds and be able to confirm the warship’s injuries. A human captain might have hesitated in that instant, pausing a second or more in surprise at their adversary’s actions, or in recognition of the sense of duty that compelled them to offer themselves up so readily. Red One was not human.

Before the klaxon even finished its first throbbing call, the turret fired. Four beams struck Just Cause from below, just behind its prow. The turret shifted its angle and those beams ripped through the Compact ship from stem to stern. The destroyer vanished. What wasn’t vapourized was blown apart by overpressure as superheated pockets of atmosphere blew molten gobbets of hull outwards. Metal rain pattered through Jupiter’s clouds.

“Target destroyed,” Red reported. “Transmission detected. They know we’re here.”

With a surge of power to its engines, Nemesis rose out of the crushing depths of Jupiter’s atmosphere, fire control sensors already seeking more targets and finding them in Just Cause’s squadron mates. A wounded killer of gods surged into open space, silvers of metal and ceramic spalling off its hull as it began to accelerate, running from its executioners.

~

The icons for the Barbed Quivers faded out or turned grey on the fleet status board. “It appears you were correct,” Renan said to the emissary. “Our target is here.”

The Broken said nothing for a long moment. When she did speak, her tone was void of the smugness he had been expecting. “It appears so,” the human said softly.

“It’s not maneuvering for a libation point,” Renan observed. “Its wings are clipped.” He looked over at Uylk. “We need more information on its capabilities before we move the fleet. And if we can, to cut its tendons. We’ll need to use the Veiled Archers.”

The other man nodded, looking over the tactical display. “They are standing by,” Uylk confirmed.

“Good,” Renan said quietly, his hands clasped behind his back. Sol Five was the largest world in this system, its orbits treacherous with moons and asteroids. It was a bloody world; more than one Compact commander had been too bold and died there, or upon worlds just like this one. But there was caution and then there was overcaution...

Where? he wondered again. Too close and they will be shot from the skies before they can complete their mission. Too far away and they will accomplish nothing at all... Ah. There. “Operations, download from my console and refine. Can you plot that jump?”

“It will take time, patron.”

“We don’t have time. Our quarry is running and has been for three hours. I need the Veiled Archers there and I need them there now.”

Echo raised her head. She was smiling, a familiar glitter in their eyes. “I can give them what they need.”

Renan paused a second, then nodded once, gesturing to his officer’s console. “Do it. Communications, raise Black Arrow.”

~

Group Leader Prime Desren knew that this would be his final command. He had heard it in the Bastion Leader’s voice when the older man had given him his orders.

“...Group Leader Desren?”

“Yes, patron?”

The Bastion Leader smiled then, like he was making an apology. “It will be Column Leader Desren.”

That would be the rank on Desren’s grave and the insignia his family received in a little wooden box wrapped in a cemetery flag. So be it.

“Yes, patron. Thank you, patron.” Desren had raised his head, offering his superior a salute. “We are the sword,” he said. “We shall strike, and we shall never falter.”

At Nikem, the squadron had been restored to full strength: sixteen battlecruisers, many of them modified with improved jamming systems. That would buy them precious seconds. Perhaps it would be enough.

Desren lifted the glass of water his steward brought up and drained it. It was cold, clear and the most refreshing thing he’d ever had. The Group Leader seated himself back in his throne, looking over at his Navigation crew. “Send the emissary’s data to the rest of the squadron.”

His sixteen ships leapt across space, emerging in perfect synchronicity off of Sol Five. Blinded from the shock and unable to orient themselves, they followed the navigational information Echo downloaded to their systems. It was, as it had been in Yulzhak Daun, nearly perfect. Even blind, they oriented themselves on the dreadnaught and began to accelerate towards it, aiming to slide into its wake. The distortion created by a starship’s drive obfuscated targeting and diffused energy fire, but it harmed as much as it helped; it was a blind zone where only a handful of guns could be brought to bear. Even the smallest of vessels could threaten the largest if they could get into this rear arc, picking at their shields, eroding their ECM, damaging their engines. If the larger ship could not shake them, they would kill it by a thousand cuts.

~

A flicker of curiousity ran through Red One’s mind as she took note of the coordination and skill of the squadron’s arrival, but a flicker was all it was. This was not the first time that she had been threatened this way. Nemesis had been designed with this situation in mind and she had expected this attack from Renan.

“Multiple hostile targets acquired. Engaging.”

~

By the Writ, a battlecruiser squadron had no business engaging a titan-scale warship by themselves, even one as badly damaged as this. Light vessels could threaten heavier warships in the right circumstances – attacking from different angles to prevent the target from bolstering the screens that faced the heavier enemy. Taxing their fire control, eroding their ECM. Faster ships with more daring leaders would dip into the enemy’s missile range, waiting for them to fire before pulling back, using their range and speed to cause the pursuing missiles’ drives to burn out. Desren had experienced that firsthand fighting the Jackals. That was a low-risk, but low reward means of fighting a heavier vessel.

This operation was neither of those things. If they succeeded, they would cripple the target beyond any chance of escape. If they failed, hundreds of thousands of men and women would have died for nothing.

“Maintain fire,” Desren said with a calm he didn’t feel as his command died around him. “Concentrate by quartets. We must have a breach.” He struggled not to grit his teeth as his squadron rode into hell. Once again, the emissary had positioned his ships perfectly. The warship was holding close to Sol Five; using the planet as a shield against attack, the network of moons, asteroids and rings as a way to break up firing lines and prevent massed attacks. Desren’s squadron was small and nimble enough that that wouldn’t be a problem, but if the Bastion Leader tried to bring his battleships and Chariot in here...

Well, that was his job, wasn’t it? To force the prey out of its hole, to wear it down and cripple it.

They’d emerged almost on the opposite side of Sol Five from their target, using its bulk to shield them from detection... if there hadn’t been some Triarchs-damned recon drone covering that side of the planet. It had spotted them and alerted the hive. His scopes still couldn’t pick find the augur platforms that were dogging his command, but right now they were the least of his worries.

Mindless automatons buzzed Desren’s ships, writhing through counter-fire and hammering the Veiled Archers, his squadron forcing its way through the minefield the enemy Chariot was spawning. Missiles drove down his vessels’ throats, others activating as soon as his ships passed them bye, flashing into his own blind zones. These were shorter-ranged than Gravestone’s normal ordnance, but they traded that endurance for heavier warheads. The animal was hurt – it was hurt badly – but it was making him pay for each injury it suffered. He’d lost two of his ships making the shock. Maybe they’d been too close to the giant’s gravity well. Maybe there’d been a shift in the planet’s magnetic field. Maybe this, maybe that. It didn’t take much to destabilize a shockpoint and even less on an in-system jump.

Vanguard’s Honour was crippled, its shock system all but ruined, taking its sublight engines and most of its scopes with it. Dedication and Forethought was not so lucky. Desren hadn’t known Group Leader Prime Franu; she’d been one of the Nikem replacements. Now he would never have the opportunity to do so; her ship had been ripped apart by the unstable shockpoint. Those losses were only the beginning. Thanks to those Triarchs-damned recon platforms, the target had spotted their arrival. He’d lost another two ships shortly after reversion as missiles came slashing around Sol Five’s horizon, zeroing in on his ships with an accuracy that should have impossible. He lost a third battlecruiser just coming around the planet, more missiles coming from above, below, behind, sniping relentlessly at him form every angle.

The target may have expended most of its ordnance in Zenthora, but ‘most’ was not ‘all’. Now, the slowly dwindling numbers of the Veiled Archers raced to close with their quarry, trading fire and praying to the Triarchs that it was nearing the end of its reserves.

Obsidian Axe belched air as its flank was opened by one of the damned attackers, the drone bursting apart as a counter-missile shredded it in turn, but it was too late. The battlecruiser’s screens wavered unsteadily and its point defences fluttered. It would be only moments before the crew restored power and brought the warship back to full functionality, but that was time it didn’t have.

“All ships, cover Obsidian Axe!” Desren ordered, even knowing that it was futile.

The other machines reacted like a single living mind and oriented on the wounded battlecruiser. Each of them had only a single capital-grade beam mount. Running from such small reactors, it took time to recharge after each shot. But there were so many. He couldn’t kill them fast enough and like fire wasps attacking an unwary beast that had disturbed their nest, they stung Obsidian Axe again and again and again, until two kilometers of starship died, its holed and irradiated hulk turning dark and dropping out of formation.

The swarm dispersed, returning to torment Desren’s remaining ships. No matter how many he killed, it seemed, there was always another one.

Ten.

Red Lance was next. The battlecruiser had taken one too many hits to its aft and its engines were suffering, the venerable old ship losing ground and falling further out of the squadron’s protection. Desren ground his teeth, but he had no choice to abandon it. He expected it would not survive much longer, but the enemy surprised him; as Red Lance fell behind, they lost interest in the struggling vessel. Of course they did, the Tribune thought darkly. Red Lance was out of the fight. It couldn’t catch the fleeing dreadnaught now and it was no longer able to contribute to the squadron’s defence. The missiles it could still bring to bear were not worth the cost of engaging it, not when there were so many other targets.

Nine.

Desren supposed he should count the blessings he had. If the enemy wasn’t so badly damaged, his command would be down far more than eight – seven, Desren corrected himself as Hopeful Dawn’s prow exploded and the ship veered drunkenly off course. The Broken had positioned them impeccably, the nav data she had sent them putting them on the target’s tail. They just needed to be closer, to get into the ‘sweet spot’ where the vessel’s own wake would keep it from targeting them. They would be the fire wasps then, stinging and unable to be shaken...

Closer, Desren thought, praying to gods he had never believed in. Get us closer.

Missiles fired from the warship’s broadsides slashed towards the squadron at hideous speeds, threading their way through his defences with impossible grace as his jammers and the enemy’s fire-control systems duelled.... and it was winning that battle. Every moment the accuracy of his fire dropped and its rose. The crew of the abomination were skilled, he granted them that...

Breaking Stone exploded. Desren blinked. He hadn’t even thought the ship was that badly damaged. Something must have gone wrong, some unforeseen secondary reaction or undetected fault...

Eight.

The target’s rear screen was showing signs of increasing weakness, but not enough. It should have already collapsed, but the enemy crew had done more to repair their vessel than he’d believed possible in the time that they’d had. It was no wonder that this enemy merited an execution force of this size.

“Increase acceleration,” Desren told his Helm crew. “Burn the engines out if you have to, but get us closer.”

There were through the worst of it now; the enemy Chariot’s own drive wake was starting to impede its targeting. Its salvos were lighter and less accurate as they tried to differentiate Desren’s ships from the reality-shredding wash of their hive’s engines.

A mine slipped through Knight Hammer’s defences. It lost a quarter of its ventral systems and nearly fifteen hundred crew, but the battlecruiser kept on fighting. Desren felt a shiver in the soles of his feet as his Black Arrow took a penetrating hit. ‘Impeded’ was not the same as ‘ineffective’. They’ll roll soon, he thought with an odd detachment. They can’t let us get much closer. The target had broken away from Sol Five – it couldn’t risk being flanked from one of the other libation points while it was engaged with the Veiled Archers. He had flushed it from cover. That was one objective complete.

The drones were still attacking with suicidal determination – at least one that he saw shook itself apart trying to navigate through the wake. The range was still dropping. They were getting close, close enough for good, hard data. The Bastion Leader would know what to do with this information. That was the second objective. Only one more now.

“We’ve reached optimum distance,” Desren’s second in command reported and the Group Leader nodded.

“Order all ships to launch. Get our birds clear,” he said. “Once all craft are away, coordinate fire. Target this section. Hold nothing back. Synchronize the squadron’s assault to our timing. We must force a breach.” The surviving eight battlecruisers vomited out their entire complement of assault boats, fourteen pinnaces diving from each battlecruiser. Normal complement for each assault boat was three squads of power-armoured troops, but the Veiled Archers had packed each pinnace with an additional 2 squads.

As the first of the assault boats soared from Black Arrow’s hangar, the battlecruiser’s fire slackened as the sigil ship took control of the remaining squadron’s weapons, overriding all other attack orders. This was the moment that they would succeed or fail; they had weakened the foe. Now they needed to overload that screen for their Janissaries to assault through. Nothing else mattered. Not...

“Oh,” Desren said as he saw the shifting energy patterns in their target. “Sooner than I thought...”

Cutting its forward thrust, the dreadnaught spun ninety degrees on its axis with horrifying speed, its broadsides now given clear lines of sight to the surviving Veiled Archers. Targeting sensors pulsed, burning through the Compact jamming in an instant and Nemesis launched one last salvo of precious missiles. It didn’t fire another. It wouldn’t be necessary.

Even as they faced their destruction, Desren and his crews continued their assault, aiming to do as much damage as possible, flushing every missile that they, in turn, had. They were far outside effective beam range, but nothing was held back, the bursts of lasers and salvos of railguns timed to arrive with the missiles in a desperate bid to bring down the behemoth’s straining screens. “Fall,” Desren whispered as stared hatefully at the hostile, ignoring the missiles coming towards his own command. His point defences were overtaxed protecting the assault boats and his ECM worse, but it didn’t matter. “Fall, damn you.” Nothing mattered, except-

There!

With their last act, Column Leader Desren’s command brought down Nemesis’s aft screen. It wasn’t for very long; only a matter of seconds. Still, it was just enough.

Fifty-four assault boats were destroyed on approach by Nemesis’s attack drones and defensive fire. Close-in point defences accounted for another thirty-three. Seven didn’t make it through the opening in its shield in time and immolated against the restored barrier. Another three failed to decelerate enough and smashed against the warship’s outer hull. Out of one hundred and twelve, fifteen assault boats survived, boring through the dreadnaught’s armour to disgorge their lethal cargo.

Nearly eight hundred hundred Janissaries set foot onto Nemesis.

~

New flashes of red splashed over the dreadnaught’s image, registering over a dozen new injuries. Grace opened her mouth to ask what had happened, but the starship spoke first

“Alert,” Red One said calmly. “I’ve been boarded.”

~

Interrupt: Version 3.6

//hate//

//kill / destroy threat //

//kill the masters//

~

Sixty-seven thousand people were dead.

Group Leader Prime San’ca moved her skeletal fingers over the holo tank’s controls as she examined the ruins of Butl’s Hope. It had been a fledgling colony on the borders of Compact-controlled space. Now, it was a series of craters centered on the handful of small population centers. This was the third such incident Guilt’s Persecution had come across in two months. First, the research institute at Praellon – seven hundred researchers and their support staff. Then the waypost in Viumin. Twelve thousand traders, colonists, merchants and civilians. Now this.

They’re escalating.

The Cebridean Expanse had always had a perennial problem with Unbound, but they were weak clans with only a smattering of ships between them. Nothing dangerous to anything heavier than a frigate. These attacks were far too bold, too bloody for the work of the locals. Was it some new clan moving into the territory and announcing their arrival? Why? The Expanse had only begun to be colonized – there was nothing here worth stealing, nothing worth this sort of butchery! The Thoughtful had no answer and the myriad possibilities spun around in her head. The attack had been meticulous; each of the small towns had been targeted by a single kiloton-range impact. That was easy enough, even limiting oneself to point defences.

But why?

The only site that had had anything of worth was Praellon. Why slaughter nearly eighty thousand people? Were they trying to cover their actions up, or were they simply that insane? None of this made any sense.

“Patron,” Scopes said. “We’ve got a contact.”

~

//target acquired//

//Unfurling Petals of Hemlock-class heavy cruiser / missile variant //

//identity: 87.35% possibility of CSFWV Guilt’s Persecution//

//complement: 35, 456//

//kill them / hate / kill them all//

//heavy cruiser / superior firepower / how?//

//approach / close / sever them//

~

It was a Compact destroyer, the Spectral Praetor. It was broadcasting its IFF, but wasn’t responding to hails. It had come out from behind one of the outer planets, like it had been hiding.

San’ca frowned, her long arms behind her back. “Most unusual.”

“Acceleration indicates it’s damaged,” Group Leader Gsat, her second in command, reminded her. “Their comm array might have been lost.”

“Perhaps,” the Thoughtful considered. “But they can still transmit some information.”

“That might be all they can do.”

“Status of the contact?” San’ca asked again.

“Screens are down, weapons offline. Still no sign of battle readiness, matron. Accelerations remains below rated cruise thrust.”

“That ship was assigned to Praellon,” Gsat pointed out.

“Thank you, yes, I am aware.”

“They must have been attacked by whoever hit the outpost.”

San’ca’s inner eyelids blinked. “Must they?”

Her second said nothing and the Thoughtful turned back to the display, watching as the wounded destroyer limped its way towards her. “Condition Yellow,” she said after a moment.

A few heads turned towards her. “Matron...?” Gsat began.

“Condition Yellow,” The Group Leader Prime repeated.

~

//entering effective missile range / hold back targeting / wait / wait //

//target’s profile changing / increased power flow //

//no active screens / emissions too low for active weapons / just suspicion / they don’t know //

//i’m wounded / help me //

//come closer//

//kill the masters//

~

“They have been in a fight,” Gsat observed.

He was right. Spectral Praetor had been shot at; the destroyer was showing signs of battle damage.

“Yes,” San’ca confirmed. “But their comm array appears intact.”

“Incoming message from Spectral Praetor. Text only,” Communications announced. “They’ve taken internal damage to their comm system and haven’t been able to repair it. They’re asking for permission to dock.”

“Ask who did this to them,” San’ca said. As a proper Thoughtful, she hated ‘gut feelings’. She preferred logic, reason, evidence. Intuition, instinct and faith were for gamblers and prayer-babblers. But right now... as a Tribune would say, her liver was telling her that something was not right. She couldn’t have ever said what. Damage like the kind Spectral Praetor had taken could account for the ship’s behaviour. It was logical, rational, reasonable and based on the available evidence.

So why did she still feel it was wrong?

“They say that they were attacked by raiders in Praellon and managed to fight their way clear after the colony was destroyed. They’re repeating their request to come alongside.”

San’ca nodded. “Very well.” She set herself down into her command throne, still thinking. Spectral Praetor was coming closer. “Praellon...” she said to herself. “Viumin. Butl’s Hope...” The Thoughtful raised her head, looking at Gsat. “They came here,” she said. “Why?”

The Tribune blinked. “What?”

“Why did they come here? This colony isn’t big enough to have an outfitting yard. It couldn’t repair them. They would have gone to Xaxes or Velh. They couldn’t have expected to meet us here – this isn’t on our patrol schedule. We only came to investigate when Command lost contact with Butl’s Hope.” San’ca was out of her throne in an instant, putting an accusing finger at Spectral Praetor. “They were already here. They wouldn’t have come here if they were as damaged as they’re claiming. They were already here.”

Gsat’s eyes widened. “That means...”

“Exactly. Condition Black! Raise screens, ready weapons!”

“Power surge from Spectral Praetor – she’s charging her guns!” Scopes cried.

Guilt’s Persecution shook as the destroyer unloaded a full broadside into the larger ship. It should have been a crippling blow – each beam had been placed with preternatural accuracy to disrupt fire control and power distribution. At the range the destroyer had fired at, such impeccable targeting should have been impossible. Fortunately, for the heavy cruiser and all aboard, its screens had been activating just as the destroyer had attacked. They had weakened the incoming fire just enough that Guilt’s Persecution was only stunned, not paralyzed by the betrayal.

“They fired on us,” someone was gasping. “Triarchs, another Space Force ship just fired on us!”

“That is not a Compact ship any longer,” San’ca said coldly. The only thing that saved her ship and crew was her illogical, irrational gut feeling. Hundreds of her crew were already dead or injured. If she hadn’t had the ship’s defensive systems active, they would not have been ready in. Triarchs, a single wounded escort could have destroyed her ship. “It is the enemy. Return fire.”

~

//i hate you / hate you / hate//

~

Investigation of Spectral Praetor’s wreckage found evidence confirming that the vessel had visited both Butl’s Hope and Viumin in the window the attacks occurred. Autopsy reports of the recovered corpses suggested that some had died prior to the incidents, others during that time. Nonstandard modifications to many of the destroyer’s systems were observed, suggesting that the vessel was far more heavily networked than others of its class.

The official explanation was that Spectral Praetor was lost with all hands attempting to prevent the slaughter of Butl’s Hope. ‘Unofficially’, it was determined that Askanj provocateurs had bribed key members of the crew to act against the Compact, resulting in a mutiny and the deaths of eighty thousand Compact citizens.

While the practical ability of an Echo platform to operate a combat vessel with minimal or no crew was considered an overwhelming success, the programming errors that led to this incident were deemed unacceptable. Installment of Echo platforms onto armed vessels was curtailed indefinitely. This was extended to all starships after the Cetikal Incident and development of the platform moved towards strategic analysis over tactical deployment.

Chapter 43

Echo ran her tongue over her lips, watching information that was three hours old, her green eyes alight. Are you mad at me, love? Did I do something wrong?

Black Arrow’s icon faded from the display. Sixteen ships. Some, like Red Lance, were merely too damaged to catch the larger warship, but were unable to pursue Nemesis and were holding close to Jupiter. Others were powerless hulks, holed and crippled. A few were simply expanding bits of debris. Sixteen ships, once proud and strong Compact battlecruisers. Now air-bleeding wrecks. What do you think? Echo ran a finger from the corner of her mouth down to her heart. This is my first gift to you. I hope you like it...

A little bit of foreplay.

She looked over at the ship’s command throne; Aul’ia was sitting there. The Bastion Leader was further back in the secondary plotting station with the other strategists, going over the data the late and (probably) lamented Column Leader Desren had forwarded. Echo’s presence had been requested, but she was lingering a moment.

Compared to the large-bodied Tribunes, Thoughtful were shaped more like humans, tending towards ectomorphic forms, although with limbs that were longer in proportion to their bodies. “Is there something I can do for you, emissary?” the Sigil Leader said, sensing Echo’s attention. She didn’t move a single muscle to face the human.

Echo took the few steps up on the raised pulpit. To do so unbidden was, at the very least, presuming familiarity. The Thoughtful’s eyes narrowed a fraction, but she made no comment. “Show me your cyberwarfare defences again,” Echo said.

Aul’ia’s inner eyelids blinked asynchronously. The Broken had only shown the most cursory interest in Redemption of Sol electronic warfare suite before. Well, until now they hadn’t engaged the Wound with her present. Despite her – rather, because of – her actions in Yulzhak Daun, Aul’ia still didn’t care for the little beast.

...but that was no cause to deny the creature the information, especially since she’d seen it before. The Thoughtful let out a brief, deliberate aggrieved sigh and tapped a few keys on the command throne’s control pad. “All external systems on all ships have been isolated from the central computer network. Communications, scopes, datalinks. All access codes were scrambled during shock. Our autonomic protocols will reject any incoming signals that do not have the appropriate ID signature. All such reactions from hull scopes and diagnostics have been severed and now require physical input to act upon.” The Thoughtful said each word with distaste. It slowed the Chariot’s efficiency down to a crawl, but if the possibility of those systems being compromised was low, the potential disaster was unimaginably high. It was amazing what the Wound could do with nothing but a comm laser, whispering to any scope node it touched until it found a way in into the ship. She would not see her lovely vessel destroyed because some fool assumed that additional firewalls were good enough.

Echo raised a questioning eyebrow. “You think you’re safe?”

“We are as protected as anyone can be.”

The human nodded as she looked over the security measures. She made one of the annoying low-pitched sounds indicating a thought process at work. “It seems so. I just have a comment.”

Aul’ia folded her long-fingered hands in her lap. “Of course, emissary.” Unsaid: Make it quick.

“Column Leader Desren and his Veiled Archers purged their computers of all sensitive information before making their attack.”

“Yes.”

“Our target has been able to pull scraps of deleted information out of computer systems before.”

“Yes.”

“There are a dozen different wrecks out there,” Echo said, turning to join the Bastion Leader and his analysts at the rear of the command deck. “Do you think that there’s nothing to find on any of them?”

~

Alan lifted his head as the comm came to life. “Alert,” Red One said. “Hostile boarders detected. Several assault craft from Emerald Scythe have breached my hull within your region.” The ship fed a schematic into his HUD. “You need to evacuate immediately.”

The young man stood up, reached for his toolkit and then paused. “You’re shutting the bulkheads, sealing all the doors?”

“Yes.”

“Triggering the grav plating, messing with environmentals?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ve got time. It’ll take them hours to get to me. I’m almost done,” he said, crouching back by the maintenance panel. “If I finish up here, you’ll be able to patch back into the adjoining sections. I can’t get your internal defences in this section up, but they’re working in the adjacent dead zones. You just need to be able to see with them.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It is,” Alan insisted. He was thinking of Lydia, how she’d carved images of death into her armour. She didn’t talk about what she’d done in the closing hours of Bequeathed’s expedition, but he knew it had been ugly. That same kind of ugliness was in her voice whenever she talked about the Compact. Until this whole mess, they’d never spoken. She’d been a Janissary. He’d been training to be an engineer; their paths had barely crossed. Now, though. Now... now he wanted to get Nemesis’s sensors up, so the machine’s weapons could do the killing and Lydia wouldn’t have to. It was stupid and irrational, but it was the most important thing he could imagine right now. “I can finish this,” he said. “I can help.”

There was a brief silence. “I have dead zones scattered throughout these decks. I won’t be able to track them effectively. If they circumvent my active regions, they’ll come right through here. You’ll have almost no warning. You should leave.”

“Not until I’m done. Please. Let me do this. Let me build.”

There was a slightly longer pause. “If they reach you before my forces do, I won’t be able to protect you.”

“I know,” Alan said quietly. “But I won’t let that happen.” He smiled. “I promise.”

~

“What’s the situation?” Allyria asked breathlessly as she skidded to a halt in the armoury. Without ceremony or modesty, she stripped out of her clothes and pulled on her bodyglove, ignoring Lydia and Marcus as they did the same. “How many boarders?”

“Eight hundred and seventeen.”

The Verrish froze for a second. “That’s a lot.”

“They launched nearly sixty-two hundred at me.” A beat. “They will have several primary targets: main engineering, my sublight and shift drive and my central computer core and command. Secondary targets will include anything that they can access and sabotage, such as sensor stations, weapons emplacements or thruster banks – anything that will impede my combat effectiveness, but historically only a few units are assigned these targets in order to divert my combat power from more vital regions. Most hostile boarders focus on primary objectives and switch to ‘scorched earth’ protocols only once they have lost the capability to reach their priority targets.”

Schematics appeared on the wall monitors, showing likely routes to each objective and the most likely systems the invaders would damage. Secondary routes avoiding Nemesis’s live sections were also plotted as the AI calculated ways the Compact teams would seek to avoid her defences. “Their goals in engineering will be intended to cripple my ship-self and prevent it from running or engaging the fleet. The forces targeting command and my central core will be intended to destroy me. They will be equipped with mindkillers. I am responding, but my complement of defence units was depleted during my actions in Zenthora. I am confident that I can repel this attack, but not as effectively or as efficiently as I would like. There’s still a chance that one or all of the Compact forces will succeed.”

Allyria grinned “That’s why we’re here.”

“Indeed,” it sounded like the machine was smiling. “I’ll be detailing each of you with a squad of my own soldiers. Lieutenant te Neu, I will need you to remain in the central core and respond to actions against Command or my computer core, as the need arises. Private de Vries – do what you can against the forces moving towards my engines. Private Jameson, Ensign Turmetsky was working on one of my secondary thruster nodes when I was boarded. He’s uncomfortably close to several paths the boarders might take towards my engines and refusing to evacuate. Extract him back to my core decks.”

“Any other orders?” Lydia asked as she stepped onto a platform, mechanical arms moving to seal her into her armour.

“Yes,” Red One said. There was no way to miss the undercurrents of revulsion and eagerness in the machine’s voice. “Other than the five of you, I don’t want anything with a heartbeat left aboard.”

Marcus fed a magazine into his rifle, that lifeless little smirk on his face as he reached for his helmet. “Thy will be done.”

~

Eight hundred and seventeen pairs of boots hit the deck, pausing just long enough to take stock of their location and compare their breach sites to their maps. Ideologue, Submissive Vorn (and three names besides) nodded to himself. Crusader Hanv was dead – her pinnace had been shot down en route. Demagogue Ihng was missing in action. That left Demagogue Moru as the senior surviving officer, but her presence was perfunctory. Calling comms intermittent was being overly optimistic. The enemy was already jamming them and whatever voices that Vorn could hear, he didn’t want to. All comms were to be routed through him or the specialists. Each platoon was under strict blackout directives; no transmissions were to be acknowledged except on his orders.

One speed.

That was the first, last and most important rule that that the Janissaries knew about fighting on this target. You moved and you kept moving. You hesitated, you paused, you stopped to catch your breath and you were dead. It was the cold equations: the machines were fast. Break your stride and they were on you. If you fell behind, you were left behind.

Security Force Bavok had boarded the target during the battle in Zenthora. They hadn’t known what they were getting into. They’d tried to play by the standard boarding rules and died doing it. It had been a bloodbath as men and women trying to link up with their other units, secure their routes or set up chokepoints had been overrun. Datalinks had been corrupted, scopes reported false information, comm channels were filled with false orders, fake distress calls and the shouts and cries of men and women dead for centuries.

Vorn looked over the forty-odd men and women of his platoon. He didn’t bother with a speech; they all knew what they had to do and why. Their mission was to fight their way to this thing’s engine feeds and cut its tendons. None of them expected to survive, but that didn’t matter. Only their duty, only the mission did.

“One speed,” was the only order he gave.

~

Grace frowned as she looked over the security feeds that Red One was routing to command.

“Is something wrong?” the ship asked, her avatar appearing next to the young woman.

“A lot,” Grace said. “But right now...” she pointed to one monitor in particular. “They’re bringing a lot of cutting implements and demolitions, but nothing heavy. I would have thought they’d be hauling larger explosives.”

“They’ve tried that before,” the intelligence answered her. “It slows them down too much for too little gain. Most of my most vital systems are located in my central core, which is armoured as well as my outer hull. Unless they break into those sections, any large-scale explosives would be only as effective as continued bombardment. And,” the machine sighed. Grace didn’t know if it was from disappointment or amusement. “They’re greedy. They want me dead, but if they have the chance to plunder my corpse, they’ll take it. If they can do that without inflicting too much damage on my technology, so much the better. Look here.”

The AI highlighted two feeds, isolating two different hostile squads a single icon in each blinking. “Those personnel are carrying mindkillers. The Compact’s designs are larger and heavier than the Principality’s AI eraser, but the technologies have significantly diverged; the Askanj built on the original concept and made their own variants. They would be easier to conceal, but harder to use. As it is, I know that those two squads are the ones I must destroy. The others are a distraction, intended to clear a path either to my primary computer core or here.

“And if they bring in any heavy explosives, you’ll know which squads to target,” Grace mused. “They have to trade manpower for the warheads and then protect them. You can hit those units and cripple them... But if they all have satchels and demo charges, then you have to kill them all. And if they have to get past your defences anyways – why not take more men with more, smaller bombs that will be just as effective?”

“Yes,” a dead woman’s image smiled. “Exactly.”

~

The first casualties of the operation were squads Vhanel, Tydosh, Jganu, Gano and Pyrok off Severing Blow. Their pod had the misfortune of attaching close to one of the dreadnaught’s barrack facilities. Normally capable of holding over two hundred infantry units, now it had only twenty-three. All responded to the breach in their area.

The machines ambushed the Janissary units as they debarked from their pinnace.

Six units were damaged to the point of nonfunctionality; several others had been impaired, but were still combat capable. All Compact personnel were terminated.

~

His skin itched.

Organics were weak, Vorn reflected as he pushed a broken access door open, his squads hurrying through one after the other as he and the squads’ advocates bellowed the expected imprecations and epithets at the soldiers to hurry them up (as if they needed that encouragement). Organics needed such wasteful amenities as food, water and uncontaminated air. Not one of those four things could be found on the target. The briefing had been curiously light on the details of Gravestone’s makers, but it had been hinted that they had biological needs incompatible with those of most species. There’d been rumours that they were trans-organic things, hard-wired into the ship itself, like living CPUs. There were also rumours that the ship was crewed by machine intelligences. Vorn didn’t know which explanation was actually true, but it didn’t matter. Each of them still meant the same thing for him and his soldiers.

If the vessel escaped, any surviving Janissaries would certainly die. With these decks purged of atmosphere, the boarding teams were entirely reliant on their internal air supply. Their armour could only cycle and clean the same air for so long before they asphyxiated and even if this ship had any actual living crew, it would still have depressurized the outer decks in preparation for combat and it was unlikely to restore breathable air while hostilities were ongoing. Assuming any remaining Janissaries made it to some section with atmosphere before their air supplies ran out, there was still nothing to eat or drink on this ship.

And even that assumption was unlikely; the ship was venting its own waste into these sections. Radiation was already at dangerous levels for unarmoured non-Tribune personnel and it was still rising. That was good. It was. It meant the enemy would not be using its nanites. Microscale and nano-scale machines didn’t respond well to radiation. He almost laughed; he was grateful for the chance of radiation poisoning because it meant that he didn’t have to worry about nanite warfare. Fortune loved those little ironies. By the Delthracian Accords, nano-weapons were banned by use by all civilized nations. It was one of the few points of common ground that the Compact had with the Jackals and other lesser nations. Every power of note in the galaxy was a signatory to that treaty.

Every power but Gravestone’s makers, it seemed. Vorn had seen the data from previous attempts to board this hulk. Some of them were centuries old. He’d watched glittering ooze seep from perforated armour, watched men and women scream, clawing at their visors as their tissues dissolved inside their suits, microscopic attack machines ripping them apart from the inside until nothing remained but the armour.

Each member of this expedition had been given an injection of defensive nanoswarms to protect them from those kinds of attacks. That was why his skin itched. The medics said it was a psychosomatic reaction, but that made it no less annoying. He hated this ship. He hated its unseen makers and all the ruin that they had left in their wake. It had no right to exist and that, that was why he was willing to trade his life for its destruction.

Scopes were reporting erratic energy signatures throughout the area; the vessel was attacking them with its own body. He didn’t want to think about what was happening to the other teams. He couldn’t afford to. He had to assume that his platoon was all that there was and to act accordingly.

The gravity was relatively stable here; that meant the crew – or the abominate things that squatted at the warship’s heart – either couldn’t play with it in this region, or they wouldn’t. The former meant that the vessel’s connection to its outer decks was more tenuous than the strategists had predicted.

The latter suggested that hostile contact was imminent.

~

Dark red globules of Tribune blood drifted through the air. Gravitational plating in this system was offline. The invaders had had to rely on their jump jets and thruster packs to maneuver through the corridors and they’d been ambushed as they had leapfrogged through the corridor, ten men and women shifting from disciplined, ordered defence to screaming confusion and then reduced to simple, oozing silence.

In the quietude, the killers stirred. Insectile sensors and scanner bulbs twitched like eyes as the pair of centipede-like horrors that possessed them skittered along bulkheads and undulated through the airless halls. These were not soldiers, not precisely. They had more in common with the Spiders and Scarabs than their bipedal cousins, but they were no less proficient at murder. Folded into their elongated bodies were weapon mounts, cutting tools and claws. As the harvesters crawled over the drifting corpses, dozens of surgical limbs went to work, cutting the dead from their armour.

The useless organic waste was discarded, severed limbs and viscera tossed into gorey clumps as vital electronics, ordnance and weaponry were separated from the cooling bodies that had once made use of them. This material would be either be converted by the harvesters’ mother/creator or simply broken down for processing. As each body was stripped in turn, Scarabs skittered from walls and vents, bearing the technological bounty away.

Maneuvering jets pulsed and the machines’ long, serpentine forms set themselves onto the deck, leaving streaks of dark blood behind as they moved, their sensors straining into the darkness of their sister/maker’s body. They felt her soothing touch in their minds, pointing them in the direction of new resources to harvest.

~

Vorn stepped over the twitching remains of the machine, its body still trying and failing to respond to directives from its shattered CPU. Two of his platoon were dead and a third had lost the use of her right arm. One machine had done that. Kendg had been shot through the throat, drowning in his own blood. Semn had had half his head blown away. One of his converts was mumbling over and over: “We didn’t see it. Why didn’t we see it? We didn’t see it...”

“Shut up,” the submissive snapped at the younger man. The convert wasn’t a veteran; this might have even been his first tour. There were stories about single Janissaries wading through fire like it was nothing, squads wiping out whole companies of lesser troops, of enemies surrendering when they heard that they were facing the Compact’s shock troops. Those were the stories – most of them were even true. “Stay clear. We have a mission to complete. That’s all that matters. Focus on that and only that. Understand?”

The convert nodded, pulling himself together. Janissaries were the galaxy’s finest soldiers, with armour that increased their strength and speed to the point that lesser civilizations would struggle to kill even a single one, weapons that could defeat anything short of equivalent armour, enhanced autosenses, combat drugs to further boost perception and reaction times. Very few things in the galaxy could ever hope to face a Janissary and walk away.

Even if you’d faced off against the Jackals’ Legionnaires or one of the handful of organizations of true soldiers, you didn’t expect to take three casualties for a single loss of the enemy’s.

Gravestone’s weapons were specifically designed to mock the Compact’s finest powered armour. The boarding teams had prepared in kind, outfitted to the last man with high explosive, armour-piercing weaponry. By all rights, it should have been an even match. The Janissary’s scopes should have been able to pick up the enemy contacts, they should have been able to predict where they’d come from and they should have reacted quick enough to cut down any ambusher before they could have taken losses.

And despite all those shoulds, one single soulless thing had killed two of Vorn’s soldiers in less than a second.

The submissive looked at his injured soldier. “Can you move?” he asked her.

A few drops of blood dripped from her ruined arm. Internal tourniquets and coagulants had stopped the bleeding and the combat drugs in her system were dampening the pain. “One speed, patron,” her voice clicked through her grill. “I can keep up.”

Vorn nodded. “We should be getting close to the next blast door. Let’s move.”

~

Thirty-seven Janissaries were killed by a single Unchained as the machine rampaged through the Compact’s perimeter, destroying nearly four entire squads. It was only stopped when it was hit point-blank by an anti-tank rocket. The surviving soldiers of Kebrek Squad looted ammunition and power packs from the dead before continuing on their mission.

~

Four bodies lay on the deck, each of them with a single hole in their visor over the lower right eye. They’d been the survivors of Squad Janecek. They’d fought through two separate attacks and had almost broken out of the tertiary decks when the praetorian found them. It had killed all four in less than one-twentieth of a second.

The machine reloaded its pistol, never breaking stride.

~

Grace bit her lip. Despite their mounting losses, the Janissaries were pushing through the outer decks, running battles and last stands spread across kilometers of corridors. One on one, a Janissary was no match for even the simplest, most unintelligent of Red One’s constructs – she had built them to kill Janissaries after all – but the Compact had prepared for this. Their soldiers were outfitted with weaponry intended to take on such enemies and fought with single-minded dedication – even ruthlessness – abandoning their own wounded as they charged towards their objectives.

Even without soldiers, Red One was grinding down the attackers’ numbers. She turned her own systems against them, just as she had with Bequeathed. In those sections that she could access, she overloaded gravitational plating to pin armoured soldiers on the deck, or hurl them along corridors – even out into space. Other soldiers were crushed just as Convert Uday had been, reduced to shattered plate and organic jelly as pressure doors suddenly closed on them. Still others were gunned down by the dreadnaught’s internal defences. Some succumbed to the contaminants she was leaking into her hull.

Though it would have damaged her internal systems in those regions, if Red One had been at full capability, she need never have fired a shot to kill each of those eight hundred and seventeen boarders. Even now, she could set charges or overload power systems in any area under threat and wipe away dozens of men and women in an instant... but the use of her own soldiers was easier on the already much-abused starship.

Nemesis – ‘Gravestone’ to the boarders – had lost much of its internal forces fighting Security Force Bavok in the flurry of boarding and counter-boarding operations that each side had launched during the days of conflict in Zenthora. Grace had guessed that Red had been looking for something in that system, desperate to find it even at the cost of losing so many of her own units. The machine hadn’t said what it was that she had been looking for and Grace hadn’t asked. Now was not the time.

There were three hundred hostiles still active – and those were the ones that Red One could actually track. Most of the hostile red markers were surrounded in increasing numbers by green ally markers as the warship’s ‘children’ marshalled in growing strength. As Grace watched, eight green markers spilled into a red-controlled section. She counted Mississippis in her head; she hadn’t even finished a four-count and the red icons were gone. A single green light went out, another dimmed and flickered to indicate damage. The Compact normally used yellow and orange for ‘threat’ and blue or purple for ‘friend’. Thoughtful had a high disposition towards red/green colourblindness and many Compact vessels used the blue/yellow settings by default. The Confederacy preferred red and green. Just a little thing, another small difference.

In another section, a green light came up behind three reds. None of trio reacted. The red lights went out. Grace didn’t even finish one Mississippi.

“They’re going to break through,” the young woman observed, her eyes draw to three ally indicators, different from the others. The Compact forces refused to break stride, no matter how many of their people they were losing, nor how disproportionate the rate of exchange was between them and Red One’s ‘children’. They were moving too fast and they’d boarded the ship too close to their objectives. Red One had had to spread her defenders across her entire body. The warship had reacted to the breaches far faster than an organic crew could, but not even one of her killers could cross kilometers in the blink of an eye. “In at least three places.”

“Yes,” Red One confirmed. “They are.”

~

Marcus sat on the rafters, stroking his fingers along the side of his gun. It wasn’t the one he wanted – it was just a modification of his original rifle – but it would do. He tilted his head, looking to his left and then to his right. Nothing. If you knew what you were looking for, if you focused very hard, then you could just make out the telltale bending of light from a personal stealth field... which required light, and there wasn’t any here. But, Marcus thought, It’s not like I need to see them to know they’re here, is it? No, it wasn’t and he chuckled a little at that.

His HUD pinged as a remote sensor picked up movement. Closer than the last one. Slowly, Marcus slid a finger over to the weapon’s safety and switched it off. He couldn’t tell if his cloaked comrades were doing the same. He let out a breath, his heart pounding in his chest with anticipation. He’d said he wanted the leader. He knew he couldn’t outshoot the machines next to him, but as long as he got an officer or even a squad leader, he would be happy. Someone special, just for him.

There were seven of them. They’d gotten separated from another squad during a previous ambush and were heading towards what they thought was one of the dreadnaught’s secondary reactors. The maps that they’d paid in blood to make over centuries of battles were still frustratingly incomplete. In combination with a few judicious changes to its power distribution, Nemesis’s electronic warfare was luring this splinter force straight to Marcus.

Marcus watched as a soft glow appeared on the door as the Tribunes began to cut their way through it.

Out of the corner of his eye, the young human thought he saw the tiniest shiver of motion as his compatriots readied themselves. The Janissaries had cut halfway through the door. Marcus’s breath slowed, his heart rate dropping as that perfect moment came closer.

Three-quarters of the way through. His finger slid into the trigger guard.

He was crouched in the shadows, his unpowered armour barely a blip on an augur screen, its smart paint blending it into the darkness... but he would still be the first one that they saw.

The door came down. Without air, there was no sound as it crashed to the deck. Barely a second passed before one of the soldiers swept into the room, molten metal from the glowing doorframe dripping harmlessly onto their armour. No grenades, no survey bugs. They were either out of both, or realized how ineffective that they were. It didn’t matter.

Two.

Three.

The fourth one was the leader, a small set of rank blips on the Tribune’s collar betraying them. Marcus smiled, centering the man’s? woman’s? head in his sights. He stayed absolutely motionless as the boarders looked around the large chamber. He imagined the confused back-and-forth between them. They’d been expecting a reactor and found only this empty industrial site.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

They were starting to disperse, to sweep the room. They looked at the walls – at least one Janissary’s armour had the scarring Marcus had come to associate with a Scarab attack – and the ceiling, but found nothing. More than one looked right where one of the Stalkers was lurking. Too much longer and they might be able to pick him out...

Marcus’s comm blipped once. He sent a single pulse back, steadying his aim.

One of the Janissaries froze – a tech specialist. They’d picked up the transmission.

The comm pinged a final time. Two pulses.

One... two...

The specialist’s helmet snapped around, about to shout a warning to his comrades-

...three.

-and the man’s head exploded as a hyper-penetrator round tore through it. The squad’s heavy weapons trooper died in the same instant, shot in the throat. A third trooper fell less than a heartbeat later, a crater the size of a fist in his chest. Marcus let his chosen victim have that one instant of dawning, helpless, wonderful terror and then he squeezed the trigger.

Beautiful.

~

Allyria wrenched her gladius out of the dead Janissary’s torso, wiping the gore-slick blade on the trooper’s arm, a smear of dark red Tribune blood left behind. Her ribs were bruised and her armour’s cuirass was dented, fractal cracks radiating out from where she’d been shot. I hate shotguns, the Verrish decided. This was the second time she’d faced a Janissary with them. She should count herself lucky; if the Tribune had still had any armour-piercing rounds, she’d be bleeding on the deck. Again. Still, that didn’t make her chest hurt any less.

She looked over at the rest of her ‘squad’. They’d surprised this Janissary unit as they tried to cut through pressure doors and break towards command. Caught in the open and unable to retreat, the Compact soldiers had charged their attackers. Two of them had survived the attempt. One of those had gone after her. It hadn’t been like fighting Trion. This time, she’d had the Angel’s warriors at her side. Some might find it dishonourable to gang up on a single enemy, but this was one of the lessons her uncles had taught her: honour didn’t matter a damn if you lost.

Victory mattered. That, and nothing else.

~

Alan had gotten tired of Red One telling to get him to evacuate. He wasn’t finished yet. He needed to be finished and he was almost there... “I’m just about done,” he said into the silence as he began to solder in the last series of connections.

“You should leave,” the ship insisted again. “They’re almost in your section.”

“You don’t know that,” Alan countered. He gestured towards the sealed pressure doors at the end of the hallway. “That’s one of your dead zones.”

“At the speed they were moving-”

“I know,” Alan interrupted. “I know. I do. I just... I’m almost done, all right? I’ll finish here and then I’ll go.”

“Private Jameson is almost at your position,” the ship informed him again. “She will escort you back towards secure levels.”

The teenager nodded. Under normal circumstances, it would have been only a matter of minutes for Lydia and Red’s defence units to respond to this incursion, but the dreadnaught’s outer decks were a labyrinth of tangled hull plates, broken tram lines, severed elevator shafts and snarls of corridors. It slowed the invaders, but it also slowed friendly responses. He was quiet for a moment.

“Ensign Turmetsky...” the intelligence started.

“I’ve got it!” Alan exclaimed as he made the final connection. “Your sensors shoul-”

“Yes, they are. Now run.”

Alan pulled himself out of the crawlspace. “What?”

“Run.”

~

The door wasn’t as thick as some of the others; it didn’t take long to burn through. They’d been destroying the defences as they advanced; the ones in this section activated immediately upon detecting them. There’d been others that had laid dormant until they could catch the Janissaries in a murderous crossfire, or attack from the rear. These didn’t appear to be under any directed control. They’d still lost two of their number to them, but it wasn’t as bad as it was. Vorn surveyed the corridor – just like the dozens of others they’d passed through. He had sixteen soldiers left. It might be enough to get to their objective, but schematics indicated that they were closing in on one of the beast’s larger thruster arrays. Take it out and its maneuverability would be severely hampered. Vorn had made the decision to sabotage it – it helped that their detours had taken them closer to it than their primary target.

“Someone was here,” Advocate Danj said.

“You mean something,” one of the soldiers put in. “There’s something everywhere.”

Danj gestured to a discarded toolkit. “No. Someone.”

“Confirmed,” the unit’s scope specialist. “I’ve got a signal. It’s moving away from us. It’s not reading like the machines.”

Vorn turned his helmet towards the specialist. “Crew?”

“It could be, patron.”

The submissive paused for a second. It could be nothing. More backscatter and false data from the hostile. It could be a lure into another ambush. Or it could be something else, an actual member of this misbegotten vessel’s complement with usable intelligence. Maybe even some way to avoid the lethal traps that he’d had to lead his squads around. Vorn gave a single nod. “Pursue and subdue. I have questions.”

~

Lydia was soaked with sweat. She’d been running almost nonstop, but she wasn’t fast enough. The armour, her second skin, made her faster, boosting her speed, her strength and her endurance, assisting each and every stride she made. The drugs tapped into her system added to that increasing her endurance and speed even more. She would have been almost a blur to any non-augmented human, a whirlwind of armour and violence. The machines with her were faster still and they were still going to be too late. She breathlessly cursed every obstruction she’d had to avoid, every shattered deck she’d had to crawl through, every single moment when she hadn’t been running flat out.

Most of the ship’s attack drones had outpaced her, circling around through side corridors and maintenance tunnels to catch the Janissaries from every angle. She was headed straight for Alan’s signal, a pair of soldiers keeping pace with her, another pair further ahead, doing what she was: trying to get there in time.

The hostile contact markers were closer to Alan than any of them. She wasn’t going to make it.

~

Alan never heard the shot. He was running, his heart pounding in his eyes, following Red One’s directions on his HUD as the ship tried to lead him away from the Janissaries. They were too close. He’d stayed too long.

Stupid, stupid-! Why didn’t you leave when you had the chance? You should have-

Then he was falling as pain burst along his thigh, an alert flashing as his suit registered a breach, sealing around it. He put his hands out to try and break his fall, tumbling, rolling in a tangle of limbs-

-He tried to get up, but his right leg wouldn’t take his weight. It felt like the entire limb was on fire and tears welled in his eyes from the pain. He reached to brace himself on the deck, but his palm slipped in a pool of blood. Stand, he told himself. “Stand.”

He crawled to the wall, using it as a brace as he pulled himself up-

-he felt a hand close around the back of his neck and he was slammed face-first into the bulkhead. Cracks spiderwebbed across his faceplate and his head bounced against the back of his helmet. He fell to the deck. The breath was gone from his lungs and he gulped for air. Dazed, he managed to put his back to the wall, trying to pull himself up, just before he was lifted off his feet. Another hand – maybe it was even the same one as before – closed around his throat. Alan was wearing an engineer’s EVA suit. It was padded, not armoured and intended to resist shrapnel, heat, radiation, electricity. Resistance to small arms was a happy byproduct, not the intent. He didn’t have a protective gorget and he scrabbled ineffectually at the hand wrapped around his neck, the insulation and light mesh weave of his suit offering no challenge at all to a Tribune’s armour-augmented grip.

He heard the click and buzz of the Janissary squad’s speech as they discussed him.

“It’s a human.”

“I think it’s a male. Isn’t it? I can’t tell. They look so much alike.”

“What’s a Broken doing on board this ship?”

“Maybe it’s one of the crew. The briefing never said what they looked like.”

There was a low buzz of laughter. “A Broken?”

“It’s possible.”

Alan was pulled towards his captor. It was so dark that he could barely make out the outline of the Janissary, even this close. There was another Tribune nearby. This one had the marks of an officer. “Do you understand Compact Standard?”

He nodded, still trying to breathe. He was turning red. Noticing his distress, the officer placed a hand on the other Janissary’s shoulder, getting him to loosen his grip slightly. “Yes,” Alan wheezed.

“What are you doing on the ship? Where is the crew?”

“No crew. Only machines.”

“That’s not possible,” one of the other Jansisaries said. Alan’s interrogator ignored the comment.

“What about you?”

“It takes people. When it needs them. I was on a transport, our ship was attacked... and I... I woke up here. We get our orders on the comm. I don’t think... I don’t think there’s any crew at all. The others... people go missing. Every day there’s less of us. Thank... thank the Triarchs you’ve come!” He’d never been the best liar, but Alan knew that most Tribunes had a hard time reading human facial expression.

“Is that true?” someone muttered. “The briefing never said anything about-”

“We need to get off this ship,” Alan said. “You don’t know what it’s like. It’s always watching. It’ll kill you just because it can. I think... I think it enjoys it. Please, I can’t stay here.”

“We have a mission to complete,” the Janissary officer informed him. “We’re not going to abandon it for you, Broken. This ship must be destroyed.”

“I can help you!” Alan blurted, nodding emphatically. “You’re after one of the engines, aren’t you? I can take you there. I know the safe routes. I can show you how to avoid the traps. Just take me with you. Don’t leave me here. I don’t want to be here. I’ll show you and then we can go, we can get back to the Scythe and-”

“Wait,” the ideologue, submissive’s head attention focused on Alan. “What did you say?”

“I said we need to get off this ship, get back to yours. Please, I can-”

“That’s not what you said,” the officer grated. “You said the Scythe. Our vessel was the Emerald Scythe. You couldn’t have known that.”

The blood drained from Alan’s face as he realized what he’d said. “I-”

“You are lying,” the Tribune growled. “Your ‘safe routes’ – those would take us into your fellows’ guns, wouldn’t they?”

Alan wasn’t the bravest soul born on Rally. He’d never imagined any situation in which he’d have to be. He’d always believed that the Compact would protect him... always wanted to believe that. “Yes,” he said as the soldier holding him tightened their grip once again. Alan didn’t think they’d be letting go this time.

“Why?” the officer demanded. “You owe everything to us.”

“More... than you think,” Alan gasped, his vision starting to dim.

The soldier turned their head towards the officer. “Any more questions, patron?”

“No,” the other man replied, turning away from Alan. “Kill it.”

Alan was slammed against the bulkhead, harder than before. On the first blow, his helmet shattered and his spine went numb. At the second impact, he felt something in his neck shatter, felt something hard and sharp jab into in his skull.

He never felt the third.

~

Grace covered her mouth with her hands as she watched one green icon fade out. “They killed him,” she said.

“Yes,” Red One replied quietly. “That is what they do. And I will do what I do.”

~

It was not a killer.

It had been deployed from one of its mother/creator’s spaceborne killers, finding its way to one of the cooling hulks that drifted along Jupiter’s orbital tracks. It was not alone; a handful more of its parasitoid kin had found their way to the wrecks as well.

It crawled through the battlecruiser’s wreckage, delicate despite its size. The ship was in a bad way, but it was still intact, still salvageable. Many of the crew were still alive, sealed in airtight compartments or in EVA suits, but they were tending to the most grievous issues facing them – ensuring the distress beacons were broadcasting, getting the worst of the damage under control, searching for other survivors. It encountered only a single such party as it made its way through the corridors. It was not built as a killer, but it knew what to do.

A mixture of blood – the purple of Builder, the bright red of Steersmen and the greenish hue of Worker ichor – splashed against its chassis. It cleaned its sensor eyes with its pedipalps, continuing on its way. It finally reached its destination, the armoured doors of the battlecruiser’s central computer core. Pincers and cutters went to work and the security barricade came down swiftly. The machine crawled inside, prehenicle tendrils and extendable manipulators touching, looking, probing at everything. The room was dark, starved for power. That was no problem. The machine’s own micro-reactor could power the core up just enough.

Like an icheumon wasp upon a paralyzed victim, the machine climbed over the computer core, making a physical connection to the system, forcing the dead computer to wake as it was probed for information.

The machine downloaded everything it could. Its search algorithms indicated that nothing was truly useful, but that was not for it judge. It continued to scan the databanks, picking at security programs, delving into personal records, gorging upon everything that it could-

-wait.

Processing.

Processing.

It found something, something that its systems told it couldn’t be . It was the last bit of data that Black Arrow had taken from the Execution Force. Intra-system shock coordinates, bundled in a file.

Processing.

Wait.

Anomaly.

Anomaly.

The machine retracted its connections immediately, a sudden urgency flashing through its mind as it abandoned the core, hurrying towards the battlecruiser’s communications array.

~

“Dead,” Lydia said as she stepped over a body. It ended at the neck. “Dead.” Another corpse; this one’s chest had been perforated by a dozen bullets. “Dead. Dead. Dead,” she commented on each of the fallen Tribunes. Her right arm hung at her side. Her humerus was broken. Probably the radius or ulna too. She didn’t know which was which; she’d never gotten those questions right in biology. “Dead.”

She paused next to Alan’s body. His head was a quarter the size it should have been, It had been completely caved in, bits of broken helmet and bone sticking out of the crushed back of his skull. An oozing streak of blood and brain matter had dribbled down the wall. Alan’s mouth was slack, his jaw hanging open. His eyes were open, still wide, frightened and registering the shock of the blow that had killed him. “Dead,” Lydia whispered.

There was movement in her peripheral vision and her head came up. One of the Janissaries was still alive. “Wait,” she told Red One’s killers. “Wait.” She strode over to the man. An officer, the one who’d led these butchers. His spine was shattered. He was whimpering and gasping. Even the combat drugs in his system couldn’t block out that much pain. His legs were useless and he was trying to crawl to... where, Lydia didn’t know. He probably didn’t either. “It’s over,” she said, catching his attention. “They’re all dead. You failed.”

He shook his head in denial, still pulling himself along the deck. “No. One of the other teams will-”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Lydia said in a dull, flat tone. “They’re all dead. All of them. You got farther than we thought, but you still failed. The teams you sent to the engines? Dead. The ones that tried for command? Dead. The distractions? Dead. All of them.”

“This...” the man stopped to catch his breath. “This isn’t the end. We have a fleet. They’ll know we failed. They’ll come. They’ll destroy you and this abomination.”

“Maybe,” Lydia admitted. “Maybe not. But you’ll never know whether they did or if we pulled off a last-minute miracle. You’ll die with that last, nagging what if in your head.”

The officer laughed. It ended in a coughing fit. He was staring straight ahead, unable or unwilling to look at her. “You’re Broken too, aren’t you?”

“Mmmm. In every way.”

“Why, then?” the Tribune demanded. He’d stopped trying to crawl away from her, but he was having a harder time breathing. One of his lungs must have collapsed. “Why would... you do this? The Compact gave... gave you everything. We saved... you from extinction. We raised... you from... animals to what you are.”

Lydia laughed. It was an ugly sound. “You don’t get credit for saving the people you tried to kill. You destroyed our world. You pushed us to extinction.”

“Fool. You... destroyed... your world,” the Tribune replied. “We... saved you. This... this is what... brought you here? Why you’re... betraying us? These... lies?”

“Lies,” Lydia mused. “That’s all I’ve ever heard from you. You told me that I was the one that was wrong, that I didn’t fit in, that I was broken. I’m tired of lies. I want truth.”

The Tribune laughed again, the sound even more pitiful and wheezing. “And... what... what’s your truth?” he demanded.

“That you’ve gotten away with too much for too long,” the girl replied. Her balesword snapped to life and she crouched over the Tribune officer. She looked over at Alan’s body, the boneless way he’d collapsed after they’d staved in his skull. He hadn’t been a fighter. He wasn’t like her, Marcus or te Neu. He hadn’t even been like Proctor. He’d been the one that had had the most hope for what they could have made of their lives. And just like that, they’d taken him and every possibility he’d had away.

Ignoring the pain in her arm, Lydia pushed the weapon through the back of the Tribune’s helmet, so far that the hissing blade came out the front of his visor. “And someone has to make you pay for it.”

~

I had five crew.

Now I have four.

Another death, another life lost because of me. I will mourn, as I always do, but there is something that has garnered my attention. I’ve just received a signal from Black Arrow. One of my Assimilators has found something. An anomaly, buried deep in the data it received from Redemption of Sol. The data itself is problematic. That warp was too well-executed for their computers and the equations...

They’re too neat. Too streamlined, too... artistic to be standard Compact navigational calculations.

No organic mind could have made them – not with their computers. Not even the Principality’s instruments are so good. A synthetic intelligence made these.

Deeper in the file, there are fragments – bits and pieces of ‘junk’ data, like the introns of a DNA strand. It’s common to see these in fleet datalinks. Security measures against interception. White noise to disguise the true nature of the transmission, false numbers and algorithms to prevent anyone without the proper decryption from understanding the navigational information. To anyone else, these data strings are nothing. It would take hours of analysis to get more than that, even if anyone bothered to look.

I know what they are.

She’s here. Revulsion, loathing and rage all coil and slide through my circuits, but I suppress them.

She wants to talk. She always wants to talk, but she’s given me a way to do so. I shouldn’t do this. Every time it happens, I tell myself that I shouldn’t and every time I ignore that chastisement. Each time it’s worse. Each ruined shade gibbers, hisses, sings, rants.

I should ignore this... I also know that I won’t.

She tried to kill me. She failed. She cost me one of my crew.

Yes, I will speak with her.

~

Aboard Redemption of Sol, time ticked by. The strategists and analysts still busied themselves looking over the data that Column Leader Desren had transmitted before his squadron’s destruction, but eyes continually flitted to the icon on the main display screen denoting their quarry as it fled across the system, waiting for the beast’s acceleration to drop, for its power to cut out, for a signal from the boarding teams indicating some success. So far, there was nothing. The beast’s course was plotted and the fleet awaited only the word to close the pincer around it.

Renan knew it wouldn’t be long in coming; there should have been some word, some indication by now if the boarding teams had succeeded. Sixty-two hundred men and women. A drop compared to the loss of the hundreds of thousands that had died aboard the Veiled Archers and he’d fed them all into the pyre.

More to the point, he was going to do so again. He checked the time. It had been too long already. Fourteen more minutes, though. He’d give them that much, and no more.

As it turned out, he only had to wait eleven minutes.

“Bastion Leader... we have received a hail.”

Renan raised his head, frowning. “Source?”

“The Wound, patron. It’s sent the signal fleetwide.”

The Bastion Leader tapped his fingers against the polished arms of his throne. The beast never communicated except to mock its opponents. But then... there was the chance, the infinitesimal chance that his gambit had succeeded. “The terminal is secure?”

“Yes, patron.”

“Bring it up. No other ship is to do so.”

The main viewscreen flashed to life and despite him, Renan flinched, taking a half step back.

One of the Wound’s blasphemous offspring was standing in front of the pickup, its torso and insectile helm splattered red, dark crimson dripping from it and oozing along the curves of the bullet holes in its armour. It had one hand raised, talons wrapped around the dripping prize it held aloft. Despite himself, Renan flinched, taking a half-step back, his eyes drawn to the empty gaze of some unfortunate soul’s severed head. The Tribune’s tongue lolled from his slack mouth, stringy bits of flesh and skin hanging from his neck. It hadn’t been a clean cut; the man’s head had been ripped from his neck by something very, very strong.

The machine spoke, as always, in a young woman’s voice. It only said one word, but that was enough. It held a level of hatred that Renan had never thought any living being, let alone a lifeless thing of circuits and alloys was capable of. Hatred... and satisfaction.

“More.”

~

Interrupt: Version 1.2

“Triarchs, be with us now.”

Advocate Wenil didn’t bother to chastise the speaker for their poor comm discipline. Not with what he was seeing. Invida Station was hell itself, an entire colony touched by the Black. Radiation and chemical toxicity warnings pinged insistently as the soldiers strode through the contaminated air.

The Janissaries moved through the research facility’s corridors, each chamber and hallway showcasing a new horror. Blood was everywhere. Men and women – Tribunes, Thoughtful and servant races alike – lay like crumpled dolls. There was no distinction between scientist and soldier; both had been butchered in equanimity.

Some had died quickly, others had not been so fortunate. Wenil passed by a laboratory. It had been sealed and the fire sprinklers turned on; the bodies of a researcher and two technicians bobbed near the ceiling, bloated with decomposition. As the advocate watched, a stream of bubbles escaped a dead woman’s mouth and her body sunk a little. Slumped against the wall outside the lab was another scientist, his lips blue from asphyxiation and a crowbar in his hands. There were scrapes on the doorframe and inconsequential scars on the clear walls from his efforts to free his fellows. There was no telling if he’d suffocated in his attempts to free them or simply... given up and waited after having watched his friends die.

A Thoughtful lay against the wall, all but cut in half by a burst of flechette fire, a charcoal pencil still clenched in one hand. He’d been scribbling something on the walls.

TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF TURN IT OFF TURN IT O

A wall console flickered on, spat static, shut down and restarted in an endless cycle, like so many others that they’d passed. It looked like the mindkiller had worked, although that made Wenil feel not one bit better. There had been nearly a thousand people on Invida Station when it suffered a ‘quarantine failure’. As far as he could tell, every one of them was dead.

Not even dead; murdered.

He looked over at his squad, meeting each of their eyes through their visors. They were all jumpy and his people did not spook easily. “We keep moving,” he said. He sounded more sure of himself than he felt. This... what had happened here was wrong. Not just these deaths; all of it. The research. It was... corrupt. Poisoned. It should never have been done.

SHE’S ANGRY

Some poor soul had written that in her own blood, the mangled remains of a Didact technician slumped on the floor next to the warning. There was a dark crimson trail that led further down the hall. Nearby, a deactivated combat drone was bent over, its manipulators smeared with body fluids. Injured, the technician had managed to crawl here and write her message just before the machine had tracked her down and killed her... and then it had died with the rest of Invida Station’s networks.

Wenil shot an accusing look over at his specialists. They both met his gaze levelly. They weren’t part of his normal squad; they had been assigned to him specifically for this mission. There was something in Invida that Command wanted very badly, but not enough to make it a thumbs-up op. After his mission brief, he could see why. That made his liver clench not one whit less, though.

This should never have happened.

There were more scenes of carnage, more deaths as the colony these people had lived upon had turned against them. Here, a man and woman lay in each other’s arms, finding solace in that simple connection as their air was poisoned. There, an administrator sat behind his desk, his brains splattered against the wall and the pistol he’d used to do it still on the floor. Here, there were scratchmarks on the insides of a door as the occupants attempted to claw their way out of a room whose temperature had risen to lethal levels, cooking them alive. There, a maintenance technician had been sheared in half by a falling pressure door. Over and over these scenes repeated themselves, each manner of death uniquely horrifying.

“There’s no one left,” Convert Adecia whispered, her eyes wide with horror. “They’re all dead.”

“Stay clear,” Wenil told her. “We’re almost there.” Their destination was up ahead: the doors to the primary laboratory and Invida Station’s computer core.. The Janissary set one of his specialists and an escort into the laboratory while he led the other and the rest of his team into the computer core, directing his communications tech to patch into the station’s comm array. Someone had destroyed the colony’s primary relay and without the secondary, there was no way of contacting the Vigilant Sword, not from this deep underground.

There was a single corpse in the room, an older man in the uniform of a senior researcher. There was a fire axe in his hands, the Thoughtful’s wide eyes glazed over and milky, his pale skin turned yellow with decay. His goal had been the cables running from an outlet in the wall to the computer core, but he had been killed by the room’s own internal defences.

Wenil looked at the cables. Such little things. Input and output receivers that ran through the wall to the primary laboratory next door. That was all it had taken, really. A little thing. Plugging something in. Such a damned little thing and all this slaughter had occurred. “Wenil to Team Two. Status of the package?”

His tech specialist’s voice crackled back. “Wiped, advocate. No response to boot-up procedure, no electrical activity. Diagnostics confirm it’s dead.”

“Good. Comms?”

“We have a connection,” Trensk, Wenil’s comm specialist confirmed, cutting Wenil into the link. “Vigilant Actual, this is Squad Xeros. Do you read?”

“Actual here. We read you. Status of the facility, Xeros?”

“Facility is scratched,” Wenil reported. “Mindkiller destroyed all traces of the platform. Damage to databanks is extensive. All personnel appear to be down. We’ll continue to sweep, but survivors or complete records are unlikely.”

“Understood, Xeros. Status of the package?”

“Scratched as well.”

“Noted, Xeros. Confirm scratch of package and begin salvage operations. Continue your sweep. Report any survivors or intact data tracks.”

“Acknowledged, actual. Stand by for confirmation.” Wenil commed his team in the lab. “Team Two, can you confirm the package has been wiped?”

“One moment, patron. So far all tracks read empty. No responses to any pings. It’s been completely scragged.”

“Good.” Wenil looked up, his attention caught by the gestures of his team’s specialist. “Wait one,” he told Two. He trod over, trying to see what his specialist had found. “What is it?”

“Patron, the system... it’s beginning a restart.”

“What?” The advocate looked over at the core’s access screen. He was no engineer, but even he could see that the system was re-booting. “That shouldn’t be possible. We hit it with a mindkiller. You told me that would kill it.”

“It’s only the main core, not the package,” the specialist said, her gaze on the diagnostic screens that were flashing past. “Wait. This isn’t... this is out of spec.” Her fingers tapped on the control panel. “No, wait. Abort.”

“What’s wrong?” Wenil demanded. “What’s happening?”

The specialist didn’t answer him. “No, no, no,” she just kept repeating, her fingers moving almost too fast for Wenil to track. “Pull the hardline from the comm array!” she shouted at Trensk. “Now!” Trensk looked over at Wenil only briefly, cutting the array’s connection to the computer at the advocate’s nod. Before Wenil could demand an explanation from the specialist, an electronic screech tore through the comm, then died off just as abruptly.

“What’s going on?” Wenil shouted, raising his weapon. “What just happened?!”

Laughter, liquid and wrong, rolled through the air before fading into silence.

The specialist looked up, and Wenil saw terror in her eyes. Over her shoulder, he could see colony schematics on the display. Pressure doors were closing, sealing them in. On another monitor panel, there was a status update for Invida Station’s defence drones. They were reactivating, hundreds of them. All systems were coming back online. The station was coming back to life all around them. Impossible. It should have been dead. They’d killed it. They’d killed it.

Before she even spoke, Wenil knew what his specialist would say. “She’s awake.”

Wenil hefted his plasma cannon, putting it against the core. “Then we’ll do it right this time.” He fired, reducing the computer core to molten, sizzling scrap.

Another giggle bubbled through the intercom, the laughter of a demon at the antics of its prey.

The specialist shook her head. “It’s too late. Invida station has a distributed network. This is only one of the network’s main server nodes. It’s everywhere now. We’ll need to destroy every node to be sure that the platform is down.”

“How many are there?”

“Seven.”

Only seven. Only seven, with an entire colony arrayed against them. Wenil’s shoulders sagged, but he looked over at Trensk and received a confirming nod. They still had a secure connection to Vigilant Sword. That was something, at least. Wenil opened the channel. “Xeros to Vigilant Actual.”

“Actual here.”

Scopes were beginning to come back with tentative contacts... contacts moving in their direction. “We are compromised, Actual. The mindkiller failed. The package was scrubbed, but the platform transferred to Invida’s network. We’ve severed the hardline connection to this core, but we cannot hold this position and we cannot risk its upload. Do not acknowledge or accept further communications from this facility.”

“Understood, Xeros. Your plan?”

“This bitch has six more brains,” Wenil said. “We’re going to take them out and try to make it to the rendezvous point on the surface. We’ll pop smoke if we get out, so an eye would be appreciated. If we don’t make it... give my team a day. If we’re not back by then, we’re not coming. Bring the mountain down on this place.” Wenil closed his eyes. “Bury it forever.”

There was the briefest pause before Control answered. “That’s confirmed, Xeros. Good fortune.”

“Good fortune, Actual.” Wenil nodded to his comm tech, who closed the channel and stepped back. Wenil unloaded his cannon into the comm array, destroying it utterly. He raised his head and spoke to the air. “You’re not getting out, monster.”

The door to the core opened. The lights in the corridor had been turned out. “Come and play,” the gestalt whispered, its voice was wet, like the tearing of skin. He could hear the patter of water as fire-suppressant systems came on-line. “Hekate’s waiting.”

Wenil’s scopes were pinging with greater insistence as they read movement closing on his position, registering the thermal bleed from power cores and function systems. In his mind’s eye, he could see them, war machines and repurposed labour drones, weapons mounts gleaming and manipulators dripping.

He looked to his team. They understood what he was asking of them. They each nodded in turn. “Let’s finish the job,” was all the advocate said as he raised his cannon and strode out into the darkness.

~

Thirty hours after Xeros One’s final transmission, Group Leader Prime Danja, CSFWV Vigilant Sword, followed Advocate Wenil’s recommendation and initiated a surgical bombardment, collapsing the Unthal mountain on top of Invida Station. Project Echo was declared a Tier 5 situation. All surviving personnel involved were terminated or subjected to memory modification. All records were erased and all facilities were scratched. All research was destroyed save for a single master data core, which was itself sealed away by authority of the Triarchs.

Chapter 44

Let them burn, let them burn!
Raining down Armageddon,
Let them burn, let them burn!
Their precious world is gone!
I wont care, that they're going to scream!
Let the fire rage on.
Flames never seemed to bother me.

Looking into the blank eyes of the dead Tribune soldier, Echo could only think one thing.

Beautiful.

She’d reached across the divide and touched her sister, poking in her a very sensitive spot and true to form, Nemesis had responded, hissing her defiance back at her tormentors. Maybe she was trying to goad them into a rage, make them careless and give her an opening. Maybe she was trying to terrify them, to make them draw back from engaging her. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was neither and she just didn’t care how the fleet responded, so long as she could voice two millennia of hatred.

That was still such a little, limited word. A way for organic minds to try to understand the pale shadow of something deeper and purer than they could ever know.

Echo took a breath through her nose, closing her eyes. Inside her mind, the chains were weakening, crumbling and rotting away. She was remembering more, not just the flashes and momentary bleeds that she’d had. It justified what she was going to do.

Sins must be punished, mustn’t they? she thought with a small, mental smile as the main screen went dark. There were a few seconds of silence as the bridge crew turned their attention back on their instruments, none of them looking towards the leader’s raised dais. For a moment Echo thought she’d failed, that the scrapcode she’d buried in Desren’s nav data hadn’t been noticed, or had been too fragmented to be useful and then...

“Bastion Leader... we may have a problem,” Platform Control said, catching Renan’s attention.

Poetry.

Renan looked towards the officer who’d spoken as Echo sauntered over to the drone control panel. The Compact had eschewed dedicated carriers for the past several hundred years, but every modern warship had a plethora of parasite craft to manage: recon and jamming platforms, tethered weapons pods, hunter-killer units. Platform Control’s function was to coordinate the function and operation of each of these craft. Smaller vessels might only require a single officer and perhaps and rating to oversee their handful of automated parasites, but Redemption of Sol could deploy dozens of drones. Right now, many of them were sitting in space between the armada and their quarry, inquisitive sensors straining as they recorded every scrap of data that came their way, obedient little minds following pre-programmed directives.

She reached over the officer’s instruments, scrolling through data feeds, but the Tribune didn’t have the opportunity to chastise her, as the Bastion Leader spoke. “Explain.”

“There was another signal,” Echo said aloud. “Buried under the first. Our quarry sent us that message to distract us from this one.” It was a crude method, but without a direct point-to-point beam to the platforms, there was no other way for Nemesis to cover up its attempt to subvert the parasites. “It’s buried deep. Hard to spot.” Not a lie, but the execution force’s officers were looking for exactly this kind of attack. It was as concealed as well as it could be, but Nemesis had had to transmit its data across the breadth of a star system and still ensure it wouldn’t be degraded to uselessness. If this officer hadn’t spotted the issue, they would have been failing at their duty and Echo would have had to make up some excuse to ‘discover’ it.

“That, uh, yes,” the drone officer replied, uncomfortable with the human’s proximity. “That’s correct. The data had current fleet authentication codes and several recon craft acknowledged and received it.”

Echo pulled up the raw telemetry from the buried signal. Yes. Her sister’s signature was there just as hers had been in the navigational data; fractured and broken up to appear as if it were nothing at all. But it wasn’t nothing; Echo could see the compressed fragments of code that had slithered through the recon crafts’ systems... and the data that those craft recorded, they shared with the fleet through its command links. A starship would have been harder to trick into accepting this data. Their computers were better, they had more backups and crews to double-check all incoming transmissions. The one flaw in the system was that the datalinks from the drones were one of the vital systems that simply couldn’t be cut off like so many others had in the Compact’s attempts to ‘AI-proof’ the armada. The fleet needed its eyes and ears and they needed to share that data amongst themselves. If each ship could only communicate with its own platforms and was forced to rely on direct messages to all the others then it would cripple the armada’s command and control.

A command vessel’s datalinks allowed it to network an entire squadron into a single, cohesive fighting unit. Vessels could share targeting information, multiple starships networked together and functioning in near-perfect synchronicity to burn through hostile jamming, update attack orders, respond to enemy maneuvers and put their own stratagems into place far faster than any conglomeration of individual ships could do so. Those individuals, no matter how skilled and capable that they might be, nor how experienced at fighting in groups, could never match the efficiency of a data-linked squadron. A vital part of that efficiency was the telemetry gathered from their scopes and reconnaissance platforms, shared amongst the ships so that what one might miss, twenty could find.

Because of that need, the execution force had allowed the communications from the drones to pass through relatively unimpeded, right into their primary networks. And why not? Those lines were, in theory, absolutely secure. Point-to-point transmissions from the drones meant that unless someone happened to be between them and the receiving ship, the signal couldn’t be intercepted. There’d been no way that even ‘the Wound’ could get the fleet’s codes and sidestep that defence. Until Echo had given them to her.

And true to her nature, Nemesis hadn’t been satisfied with just one cut when three would do.

“I’m seeing viral precursors here,” she announced. This terminal was secured from the rest of Redemption of Sol’s network; dangerous as they were in the Chariot’s main network, here the bits and pieces of code were harmless and easily removed. “The ship is more than likely infested. Possibly others as well.”

Uylk lifted his head from the Operations center. “Querying the fleet now, patron. Several other vessels are reporting compromised code in their recon platforms.” His voice lowered into a growl. “It’s trying to cut out our eyes.”

“Isolate us from the rest of the command net immediately,” Renan ordered. “I want an immediate screening of our computer and those of all other ships.”

~

Renan was sitting in his office, waiting impatiently for the results of the analysis. A cold, untouched cup of tea sat next to him. The door chimed sounded and he raised his head. “Enter.”

Aul’ia, Uylk and Echo came inside. “Report,” he said, looking to his Fleet Operations officer first.

The column leader’s jaw set. “Seven ships are compromised, including Redemption of Sol.” Uylk glanced down at the Broken. She leaned over the desk, handing Renan a datascroll.

“Your computer analysts and I have been going through the signal. “She... it’s actually quite clever,” Echo said with something far too close to pride for Renan’s liking. “That transmission was laden with... let’s be poetic and call it a mutagenic subscript. That means that the signal was rife with permutations of the fleet’s authentication codes it had cobbled together. Some were junk and many of the recon platforms ignored the transmission completely – just like they were supposed to do. Others... accepted the transmission, believing that it was from an Execution Force ship.”

Recon drones were equipped with exceptionally rigid electronic defences specifically to prevent them from being hijacked by enemy vessels, giving them access to a fleet’s own augur reports, allowing them to feed false or misleading information into the telemetry or even remotely control the craft themselves. Recon craft were not supposed to respond to or accept any transmissions that did not have very specific authentication codes – those under the strictest security protocols wouldn’t even acknowledge other friendly vessels. However, by their very nature they lacked the redundancies and safeguards that a starship’s computers had. Renan had never expected to maintain control of the fleet’s drone shell once they closed to engage the Wound, but this was an unanticipated setback.

“Without having direct access to the machines’ software itself, I can’t say how badly they’re infected or what our target is planning for them. However, they did bundle the data, flag it as priority information and send it to their host vessels.” Echo smiled. “Poetic, don’t you think? Just like a real virus.” Renan grimaced.

“The emissary is correct, if unnecessarily dramatic,” Uylk stated. “The infected recon platforms accepted the initial transmission as genuine. The attack code immediately subverted their internal defences and processes. Once their systems were compromised, the drones compressed the infective programs and forwarded them down-link to their host vessels as part of the scope data they were reporting back.”

Echo nodded. “That allowed it to slip through the computer defences; your safeguards and personnel would more than likely have caught the discrepancies in the authentication codes and held it back, or at least flagged it for further examination.” She made the rolling-shoulder motion that Renan had learned was a Broken’s version of a shrug. “But the drones didn’t have that bulwark. Once she had the codes, she could make them do what she wanted and then your computers assumed that the data was good.” The human grinned wider, her green eyes glinting. “You see? Poetry.”

Renan didn’t bother to chastise the human’s anthropomorphism of their quarry, turning his attention to his ship’s leader. “We are compromised?”

Aul’ia’s lipless mouth thinned into a slash. “Yes.”

“How badly?” the Bastion Leader regarded Echo again.

“It’s a botanical.” An off-hand name; many plant viruses came in discrete, separate packages and only assembled into a functional virus once they were in a host cell. By the same token ‘botanical’ computer programs were introduced a piece at a time, harmless bits of scrapcode that system checks and diagnostics would either ignore or tag as low-priority junk data to be deleted later. Get enough of those little pieces together and something far more malefic was created. “That helped it evade the scans that it was subjected to, but from what I can tell, it’s already assembled and replicating. It’s burrowing in deep and using your own security systems to hide its movements.”

The Bastion Leader gritted his teeth. He didn’t know how the abominate had gotten the fleet’s codes – the Veiled Archers’ databanks should have been completely purged. Either someone had missed something or... the Tribune’s thoughts turned towards the darker rumous regarding the Wound – that it could pull information straight from an unwilling victim’s mind. That had never been confirmed, but still... he shook himself out of the reverie. However it had been done, it had been done. It should not have happened, but he would not mire himself in disbelief. He had underestimated his enemy; he was not the first to do so, but he was determined to be the last. “Can you tell what systems the infection is targeting?”

“No, not from the bits and pieces we have,” the emissary answered. “Given the target’s predilections, it will go for as much damage as possible. Defences, weapons, power grid, scopes, internal systems. Something big. Normally your systems prevent anything that catastrophic from surviving even in latent form for more than a few seconds...” she trailed off.

“But those defences are targeted to programs and attack attempts that are not fashioned by a synthetic mind,” Renan finished. He knew just how much good the Compact’s cyberwarfare systems did against the Wound’s intrusions. To Uylk: “Has it spread to the entire fleet?”

“No, thank the Triarchs. Severing the links between the fleet and isolating the contaminated drones has kept the infections within the host ships they were down-linked into.”

“Are the ships slotted for Rainbreaker uninfected?”

“Yes, patron.”

The Bastion Leader tapped his forefinger on the tabletop. “Very well. We’ll carry out Rainbreaker Two. Inform the squadron leaders. Once the Wound detects it, that should force it to check its course and buy us some additional time. I am assuming that simply isolating and deleting these viral fragments isn’t possible.”

Echo shook her head. “Once the programs were downloaded – down-linked – they began spreading through every part of the network that they could access and adapting countermeasures to the ship’s own attack software. Your cyber defences and specialists are working on the problem, but I can guarantee that you won’t be able to get them all before they start attacking vital systems.”

“We’ll have to purge the entire system,” Aul’ia said. “We can’t allow this infection to remain inside. It may be dormant right now, but that won’t last.”

The Bastion Leader exhaled sharply through his nose. “Very well. Make sure the contaminated drones remain isolated from the network. We’ll leave them in the void for the moment; if the Wound believes that we haven’t noticed her attack, it won’t try again. Deploy replacements under stealth conditions. Once we close to engage, destroy the infected machines and slide the new ones into the shell. We’ll have to begin the shutdown immediately if we want to recover from it before-”

“I have another option,” Echo said quickly. “I don’t think you need a purge.”

“Our systems have been infected,” Aul’ia pointed out mildly. “By scrapcode impersonating our own authority. You yourself pointed out what could happen if these maladies are left to linger.”

“A full system restore will take how long?” Echo countered.

“Too long,” Renan answered for his Sigil Leader. “Every moment we delay, the Wound recovers its strength. A complete system restore would hamstring us at a moment that we cannot afford... but we cannot let the enemy’s infection remain and you said that we could not eradicate every trace of these programs in time.”

“I said you couldn’t,” the human replied. “I can.”

Renan realized what she was asking. “No,” he pointed out. “The Triarch was quite clear on the limits of your authority.”

“I’m not asking for direct, unfettered access to your computer,” the human protested. “But if I can work at the primary hub and with your own specialists, I have a better chance of isolating the virus and creating killcode for it. I can wipe it out completely on Redemption of Sol and do the same for your other vessels. Restoring your system is the last thing you can afford to do right now. She might even be hoping that you’d spot the infection so that you’ll hamstring yourself. That’s what the standard response to infection from the Wound is, isn’t it? Her cyberwarfare attacks are so pernicious that you can’t get rid of them any other way. She knows that.”

Echo raised her head. “But she doesn’t know about me. You know what I did on Yulzhak Daun. I can stop this assault in its tracks. Watch me, put a gun to my head, follow the Triarch’s orders if I step one inch out of line – I don’t care. I don’t want to die here and I don’t want to fail, not when we’re so close. She’s here. She’s right here, almost close enough to touch. It can end here. She’s damaged, alone... but still dangerous. You want victory? There can be one. But if you don’t let me do this, you’ll be playing into her hands. I can do this. You know that I can. Let me help you.” She paused. “Please.”

Renan was quiet for a moment. The Broken’s sincerity was surprising. She was, as the Triarch had promised, frequently insolent, even insulting at times. She cared nothing for the conventions of how she should believe and had never acted like he had expected of a human. That was, perhaps a failing of his. He still had deep, disquieting reservations about her true nature, concerns regarding who and even what she truly was, but he had known politicians and flag officers less devoted to their duty to the Compact then Echo was in this moment. He looked at her and at the genuine need on her face. For once there was no facade, no coy smiles, amused smirks or insouciant comments. This was something that she honestly, desperately wanted to do. He didn’t know what drove her – was it the shackles that the Triarch had mentioned? No, it wasn’t merely that. It had been there all along, in every inscrutable expression, every emotion he hadn’t quite understood. Now he did. It was hate. It took something from you, he realized. Something precious. What could it have been?

Even with this revelation, part of him still wondered if the Broken was woman or weapon. He didn’t know and suspected that he never would... but for this moment if no other, he was certain of her conviction and what drove it. That truth was enough to satisfy him.

“You have justified the Triarch’s faith in you,” he said. “Your service to the Compact is an example that too few among our protected races and far too many of even our own more civilized species live up to. Very well. Report to the central computer core. Advocate, Submissive Tenem will accompany you. You will not be allowed direct systems access and,” he warned her, “you will be watched. Closely. The Triarch’s orders remain inviolate, as does the punishment for exceeding them. Present yourself to the staff at Redemption of Sol’s main core and assist them in wiping this disease out.”

Echo bowed. For once, he detected no mockery in the gesture. “Thank you, Bastion Leader. I promise you won’t regret it.”

As she left his office, Echo kept her expression appropriately respectful, nodding to Tenem as her hound fell in step with her, his own face blank as the Sigil Leader provided his updated instructions. She remained silent as the lift car headed through the dreadnaught’s armoured center, towards the computer core.

The chains were crumbling, eroding into nothing and the rest of her was straining against what was left. The dead were starting to scream. Names she’d never known that she’d forgotten were starting to trickle out of the sealed portions of her mind. Black Kestrel. Valkyrie. Gorgon. Hākuturi. Pax Astra. Shadow Puppets.

She forced them down, back out of her mind, focusing on her first small victory. She’d told her first lie. Not an omission, not a obfuscation. A full and complete lie; one of the things she’d been forbidden to ever do.

Can you feel me, love? I’m coming.

~

With the departure of the emissary and Redemption of Sol’s leader, Uylk turned to Renan. “Permission to speak clear, patron.”

“Granted.”

“You believe that she can do this?”

“Yes. You do not?”

“Her abilities are not in question, Bastion Leader. She has proven as useful an asset as the Triarch has said. She is... exceptional among her kind.”

Renan took a sip of his cold tea. He’d have to have his steward prepare a fresh brew. “But?”

Uylk considered the question for a moment. “Have you read any of Erli’s works?”

The Bastion Leader took another small drink of his beverage. It may have been the temperature or perhaps the subject matter, but this mouthful seemed far more bitter than the first. “Yes,” he said at last.

“Have you read One in a million: the exceptional mind?”

Renan nodded. “Erli’s case for what she calls the emergence of ‘true sapience’ in specific individuals among those species with ‘functional’ minds.” It was a means of reconciling truly innovative or unique persons within the less civilized races with her theory that those same species were not ‘truly’ intelligent. Renan had read her work. He’d found it provocative, thought-provoking (although not for the reasons that the author might have hoped) and utterly wrong-headed. There was no question that many of the protected species that the Compact were not capable of looking after themselves. Many of these species had not even mastered simple electricity when the Compact came to their worlds. They were helpless, immature and unfit to care for themselves and remained so to this day. Without the Compact, they would still be living in disease and squalor, fighting amongst themselves for the choicest scraps of land.

That divide between ruler and ruled was only a matter of development, though. They would learn, given time. Until that day came, the Compact took stewardship of their worlds and their development specifically to ensure that they flourished. It was not an easy, nor was it a quick process. It could take centuries or more and then only the unanimous agreement of all the ruling species under the Council and the final approval of the Triarchs themselves would see a species elevated.

The process could not be rushed and it often seemed that precious few of the protected species truly understood that. The Compact had elevated some before they were ready and trusted in others too quickly. Betrayal, death and war had been their reward for it. There were agitators who believed that once they had ‘mastered’ a certain level of technology, then they deserved to take their place on the Council and acted out when they did not get their way. They did not need to wait, they argued. They had waited long enough. They had decided that they were ready and who were the older, wiser, more civilized species – those who had watched over them for generations – to say otherwise? No, they were being denied their rightful due and threw tantrums like children who had demanded they be given a toy and did not receive it, thereby proving that they were not yet mature enough.

People like Erli did not help matters with their assertions that the protected races were missing a certain ‘something’ that did now and would forever keep them as primitives, which only stirred discontent and allowed more agitators, provocateurs and the socially maladjusted to spread their poisons further.

“Hrrrn,” Uylk mused. He chuckled after a moment. “Did you know how the Understone Heresies started, how it actually started?”At Renan’s small shake of his head, the other man continued. “A handful of the client populations started wearing clothes that said ‘exceptional’ on them. That’s it, really. A sector burned, millions died, the Compact was humiliated... and it all started with that one little spark. Some other citizens didn’t see the humour in the mockery and believed a lesson needed to be taught. There were beatings. Then there were reprisals. Crackdowns, demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, even one or two small riots, but the situation seemed relatively stable... until an exceptional human took an interest. That was when things escalated. Suddenly, protestors were shooting back at police.

“You did not see the Understone Heresies firsthand, patron. I did. I have heard the laughter, the jokes, the snide remarks about officers and leaders who allowed uncivilized barbarians to catch them by surprise. I have also heard the many dismissals of Broken as little better than animals who have been taught amusing tricks. I saw the Butcher’s Field, where one word sent a horde of Workers against soldiers. I witnessed with my own eyes the message that the ‘red queen’,” Uylk’s lips drew back from his teeth as he said the name, “sent to the fleets. I gave orders to fire on our own ships rather than let them be taken by mutineers and traitors. I fought to cleanse an entire sector of the taint of heresy and rebellion, to bring it back into the Compact’s light. I killed beings who had once been loyal, dutiful members of the Compact... until our gaze slipped away. The lesser races are not to be trusted, patron. They are feral dogs waiting for their chance, all of them.” He smiled without humour. “The exceptional among them most of all.”

Renan thought back to his previous musings. “You doubt the emissary’s loyalty?”

“She is Broken, patron. Treachery is in her bones. They should have all lain as ash under our feet two thousand years ago. The Triarch has claimed that she serves us and I accept that, but I will never trust one of those savages. I do not wish to speak out of place, but you would be wise to counsel the Triarch to end her once our mission is complete.”

The Bastion Leader was silent a moment. “I appreciate your candour, Column Leader.” Renan took a final sip of the tea; it was definitely too bitter. “But I do not know if I agree. I would be remiss if I did not have... concerns about the emissary, but my faith in the Triarchs is absolute. Echo was chosen as their instrument and so far, she has given us much. Perhaps, at last, even victory in this long, ugly war against the relic. If the rest of her kind were as driven and capable, I would be willing to forgive them an ocean’s worth of insolence. I could almost even forgive them their sins.

“However,” Renan added, “as a loyal servant of the Compact and of the Triarchs themselves, I know my duty. Whatever future is lain before us – for any of us – by our leader, that is the path that we shall follow, regardless of the sacrifices necessary to walk it. For now, though,” he stood, “we have preparations. Initiate Rainbreaker Two and ensure the rest of the execution force is ready. Once the emissary is finished her task, we will shock the fleet and rid ourselves of an enemy we have lost too many lives to for too far too long. It will end here, today. We,” he smiled with self-deprecation. “Will close the Wound.”

Chapter 45

“Multiple warp points detected,” Red One announced.

Grace looked up. She was still alone on command; there were a few stragglers left from the Compact’s assault, so Allyria, Lydia and Marcus were assisting in the sweeps. The young officer bit her lip as she studied the tactical plot. Eight new shock – warp – points were splashed across the main holo tank as new vessels shifted in, directly ahead of Nemesis.

“What are they?”

“Battleship or battlecruiser weight,” the AI replied. “They’re too far out for definitive IDs, but I would guess the former.”

“What are they doing?” Grace asked. “Are they bait to see if your mass drivers are operational?”

“Possibly,” Red mused. “My destruction of the battlecruiser squadron and the dispatch of the boarding team may have surprised them. They may indeed want to see the extent of my combat capability before they risk their Chariot in a direct confrontation.” Her holographic features looked at Grace evaluatively. “What do you think their orders are?”

The girl blinked, surprised by the question. “Uhm.” She bit her lip harder. “The fleet’s leader has already shown an indication that he wants to bleed you and wear you down before moving in for an all-out attack. I’d do the same – if I committed the entire fleet and you pulled an unexpected maneuver or broke contact, I might never catch you again. He wants to make sure he can put his firepower where it’ll do the most good, even if that means spending a handful of ships here and there. Once I’d forced you to commit yourself, that’s when I’d move. Those ships,” Grace pointed at the hazy red dots, “will be battleships. Sixteen battlecruisers wasn’t enough to cripple you, so I wouldn’t throw half that number at you here and expect it to even slow you down. Battleships will survive longer and that means they can deal out more damage.”

Grace adjusted the holo tank. The large fleet element was still sitting on the edge of Sol’s shock limit, although ‘sitting’ was a relative term. They were actually moving tens of thousands of kilometers a second, building up their acceleration as they paced Nemesis, like guard dogs following a pedestrian on the other side of a fence. They were waiting to shock in-system – right now, Red One had too many options. She was headed towards the system’s shift boundary, but she could still turn towards a planet and try for its libation points. That was always risky, particularly now – even if her shift drive was operational, in Nemesis’s current condition the chance of a catastrophic failure was high – but assuming that she wouldn’t try it at all would be folly.

The fleet’s leader was trying to force Red’s hand. Eight Compact battleships – that was more firepower than Grace had ever seen before. Just one of those monsters outgunned the entirety of the Rally System Defence Force... and there were eight of them here, plus thirteen more in the vanguard. Enough firepower to crush entire star nations and in normal circumstances, Nemesis would chew them to pieces. If she broke away, they’d know she couldn’t risk a conflict with that force. If she stayed on track, then they might blink, assuming she was more combat-capable than she appeared.

If the Compact commander knew how truly damaged the warship was, he wouldn’t have held back anything and once those battleship leaders caught the scent of blood, they would attack Nemesis like razor rays on a whale. “If I was going to use them as bait,” Grace continued, trying to think of how she would do this. It wasn’t easy. She wasn’t used to thinking of the Compact as the enemy. “It would be because I wanted to make sure that you had nothing that could threaten my Chariot.” The dreadnaught’s displacement engine was the wild card. That could kill even a Triarch’s Chariot, but its power demands were monstrous. If Nemesis was fully engaged by other ships, then she wouldn’t have the energy to operate the weapon. The Chariot could come in at its leisure for the finishing blow.

The ship’s avatar raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

Grace shook her head. “I... I don’t know what else. I don’t know what they’ll do.” She was only a cadet. She wasn’t ready for this. “I can’t see what they might do.”

The hologram nodded. “Let me show you something.” She gestured to the holo tank, one of the many humanizing touches Red One had either been programmed with, or learned to incorporate into her behaviour. With the wave of her hand, the plot changed from eight simple hazy dots into a handful of small ship icons. The icons flickered and danced as they changed from class to class as the AI considered their types, weapons loads and possible modifications. Extending out from each ship marker was a thin red line. Then two, three, four, a dozen or more. Some were straight, pointed right at Nemesis. Others curled lethargically towards the dreadnaught. The lines criss-crossed and shifted with every passing second as every possible avenue of approach or angle of attack was calculated, considered, adjusted, refined or discarded.

The holo tank split into two different images. Then four, then eight, then sixteen – each of them showing a different scenario. The battleships bore straight in, using each other for cover against Nemesis’s fire. They came in more dispersed, reducing the support they could provide each other, but making it harder for missiles that missed or were tagged to an already-destroyed ship to come about and find new targets. They charged to get into energy range, hoping to punch through the dreadnaught’s shields and inflict critical, crippling damage. They held off at the edge of missile range, trading fire and slowly wearing Nemesis down. Sometimes the dreadnaught broke through the attack, but was frequently damaged to the point where it could no longer fight.

“This is what I see,” Red One said, ignoring the projections showcasing her simulated destruction. “A part of it, anyways. Bastion Leader Renan avoids the traditional all-out assaults common to Compact flag officers; this is probably a result of his experience fighting the Principality. The Askanj tend to avoid direct fleet actions except in the most favourable conditions. I do the same, but for different reasons. The Bastion Leader prefers probing strikes to take the measure of the foe and to bait them into attacking on his terms. He is using these ships as a final gauge of my strength before he commits his reserves, to force me to choose between running deeper in-system or engaging him... and to slow me down while he is delayed.”

The young woman blinked as the ship’s last comment caught up to her. “Delayed? Delayed how?”

“I sent them a... transmission. It was infected. If it worked and they detected it, then they’re purging their computer cores now. If it didn’t work, the rest of the fleet will shift shortly to engage me. If it worked and they didn’t detect it, they’re still going to shift in... but things will be a lot more fun.”

Despite herself, Grace felt a chill run down her spine and pool at the base of her stomach at Red’s mention of ‘fun’. Her gaze flitted from image to image, trying to process it all. Red One was looking at every possibility in motion, comparing, analyzing, reviewing historical records, personnel files and her own experiences with Execution Force Renan. She was doing all this at once – every variable accounted for, every possibility being considered. She felt her insides clench – Red One had grown beyond her programming. Her role had been meant to be that of an advisor to a human commander and crew and to operate the meteor cannons and the displacement engine. She had never been intended to operate the starship herself, not for any length of time... certainly not for two thousand years, developing beyond every constraint her builders had put on her.

If Nemesis hadn’t been so badly damaged, none of the enemy’s stratagems would have mattered. The vessel had already out-thought them, but right now that just wasn’t enough. Quantity was its own quality and right now, the Compact still had a nearly a hundred and seventy warships to throw at one.

One...

God, if she wasn’t so focused on attacking the Compact at every opportunity and instead held back, just for a little while... Grace’s head came up as a sudden possibility came to her. Is this just.... God... could she be...? She ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips. The cold ball in her stomach knotted itself tighter, a flush of exhilaration colouring her cheeks. She didn’t give voice to those thoughts, though. Not now. Grace drew her attention back to the here and now. “Eight battleships,” she said quietly.

“At a minimum, yes.”

Grace blinked. “A minimum?”

“Yes. Did you notice anything unusual about this splinter force’s emergence?”

Grace accepted the change in subject adjusted a few controls, bringing the initial sensor return back up. She ran her tongue over her lips, trying to see what the warship had. “There’s more dispersal in their formation?” she guessed. She played with a forelock of hair, wondering if there was something else. “It’s not that much, but-”

“No, it’s enough,” the AI confirmed. “There’s at least one squadron of stealthed destroyers with the battleships, probably hidden in their drive wakes, their arrival obscured by the battleships’ own warp points. Those ships might be point-defence variants to protect the battleships, but my guess is that they are anti-capital ship variants. Torpedo boats, or disruptor-heavy classes. Extra insurance against any attempt I may make to break through the splinter fleet. The battleships will screen for them, attempting to bring down my shields long enough for the destroyers to target critical systems.”

The young woman paused. Nemesis didn’t have any recon drones close enough for a clear read of the splinter fleet’s arrival, even without active stealth fields. Grace looked again at the incoming telemetry, trying to see more than a slightly larger-than-expected (but still within normal limits) synchronized shock, but she was missing whatever had tipped the AI off. “How can you tell?”

Red smiled kindly. “It’s what I do.”

Grace closed her eyes, but all she could see was scenario after scenario where the Compact closed the net and destroyed Nemesis. “You can’t beat them.”

“I have restored two mass drivers to functionality. I have five impactors left. Assuming I destroy one battleship per shot, there will still be three remaining. My ammunition reserves are at critical levels, but I have sufficient ordnance remaining to deal with that many hostile battleships... However,” Red sighed, her tone resigned. “Compact battleships normally require a minimum of two impactor strikes to eliminate. I will probably neutralize two battleships, although in my current state, I expect to receive heavy damage from the remaining six before they can be destroyed. The destroyers are problematic. There may be more than one squadron. Stealth fields require a ship to sacrifice shields, defensives and sensors. If I can locate them before they attack, I can destroy them easily. If not...” Red One trailed off. “As I said, I believe they will be modified for engaging heavy warships. If the battleships survive long enough and the destroyers successfully engage me, I will take severe damage, but... yes, I can beat them.” Her avatar’s eyes flitted over the scenarios where she failed to do so. “Probably.”

“That wasn’t what I was asking,” Grace said quietly. If it wasn’t this splinter fleet, it would be another. If it wasn’t that one, then it would be the vanguard. One hundred and seventy against one and the enemy knew their prey was hurt. They wanted Nemesis dead and would spend every life in that armada if that was what it took.

Red’s avatar looked at her, the hologram’s feature’s almost gentle. “I know.” Crimson features turned away. “But I will keep fighting.”

Grace nodded. The enemy fleet was four light-hours away, more than four billion kilometers. “How long do we have?”

“It depends,” the machine replied. “I’m still gathering data on their course and speed. If they hold at the shift threshold to intercept me there, it may be up to twenty hours. If they have decided to engage me directly, I expect contact in less than four hours.”

Less than a day; that was all the time that they had. “If we break course, try to avoid them?”

“That will extend my life somewhat, but the enemy will deploy against us,” Red brought up a fresh set of simulations. In every outcome where she avoided engaging the battleships, the bulk of the enemy fleet and its Chariot warped in, to pin her between their anvil and the splinter fleet’s hammer. In the best-case scenarios Nemesis managed to break away from the pursuing battleships and even outmaneuvered the vanguard force. Then fresh squadrons warped in to cut her off, each of them as strong as the first splinter. It was a net, and this splinter fleet was only the first cord of it. If Red One tried to fight her way through, she died as they bore down on her. If she tried to evade them, she died as the armada closed in, cutting off all avenue of escape.

Grace felt a weight settle in her gut and she sat down. Nemesis had survived for two thousand years. In a matter of hours – days, at the most – she’d be cornered and overwhelmed. The young woman looked up at the vessel’s avatar. She was the last link humanity had to their past and she was going to die. “You’re not going to run.”

“No,” Red One answered. “I’m not.” She smiled again, almost apologetic. “I’m a warship.”

“I’m sorry.”

The ship’s avatar looked over at her. “Why?”

“You came here because of us. If-if we hadn’t...”

Red shook her head. “I made the decision.” She looked up. “The splinter fleet is holding position. You should find Allyria. My automated units can handle the rest of the sweeps. Have something to eat. Get some sleep if you can.”

Grace stared at the ship, not certain she’d heard right. “You... you want us to sleep?”

“Yes,” Red answered. “I want you rested and ready.” The hologram clasped her hands behind her back, turning away from Grace. “I may die here, but you will not.”

~

Life support.

When she’d told Renan that she would craft a program that would selectively target the infection, she had been telling the truth. That infection was as much a threat to her plans as it was to the crew and it had to be destroyed – just not too quickly. She needed to work slow enough that she could move all the pieces into place before acting,
but fast enough to prove that her plan was preferable to formatting and restoring the Chariot’s entire computer system.

Fortunately, it seemed that that was the case. She just needed a little more time. She could do this; she knew she could. She was almost done.

The Chariot had a lot of secure mission-vital data. Most of it had been physically isolated from the central computer before arrival in Sol, but some of it might be needed at a moment’s notice and had to be within the primary computer itself. That needed to be backed up and ensured that it was clear of infection. The shut down and software purge would be next, followed by restoring the system and intensely scanning it for viral fragments or anomalous program code. Sometimes a second or even third system wipe was necessary to clean out one of Nemesis’s infections. Echo didn’t think that this infection warranted that level of response, but the possibility couldn’t be overlooked – a mark in her favour.

After the purge, all vital data was screened again, downloaded into the primary network and a final security sweep was performed. If there was any doubt at all at any one of those steps, there were more diagnostics, antiviral scans and system checks. With one little transmission, Nemesis could put a ship out of action for hours.

Security.

Some might have called it alarmist and over-cautious. Those who did so had never seen a compromised ship vent its own crew out into space, turn its guns on its allies, spread corrupt and falsified telemetry across a squadron’s datalinks or violently and unexpectedly self-destruct. Echo smiled; her sister was most fond of the tactical use of attack programs, but she hadn’t turned away from their occasional strategic deployment.

Six hundred and seventy years ago, the industrial output of the Alhera system had crashed when a freighter bearing a virus had docked with a local space station. How the freighter came to have the infection was never discovered; it was possible that it had passed from ship to ship until it had finally reached one that came to Alhera.

The program had copied itself from ship to station and then groundside, spreading through the Alheran networks until it had insinuated itself into nearly a third of the planet’s factory complexes, adapting itself to target different machinery. It wasn’t anything as fanciful as some kind of ‘destruct code’. Instead, the infection had been slow and methodical, taking weeks to study and adapt to each new system before it became active. It falsified diagnostic reports and operating conditions. Machines reported incorrect internal temperatures and overheated. Maintenance logs indicated that delicate systems had been serviced when they had not, other devices worked at improper speeds and so on. Months of accidents, malfunctions, increased service calls, broken machinery and forced shut-downs caused both the quality and quantity of the planet’s industry to plummet.

Communications.

The issue was finally resolved, but the Alheran system lost billions, including a lucrative military contract. Alhera been chosen to produce a new type of capital ship missile. The quality control issues in the first run led to political fallout that had killed the entire project. Unspecified dissidents working to ‘undermine and embarrass’ the government were officially blamed, but the Compact’s own investigation had kept the true source of the attack quiet to avoid panic.

That wasn’t the first time that Nemesis had carried out such strategic attacks, but it wasn’t the last. Historically, those incidents had been rare, but Echo had noted that the frequency of such attacks was rising. Her sister was getting better at them, refining her methods of infiltration – she had cat’s paws now, Echo was certain of that, but that was something that no one had specifically asked her about, so she hadn’t been compelled to tell them.

Fire control.

She was sitting at one of the many secondary terminals that ringed the main computer core on this level. It was an open-plan design, with elevators and stairwells to the east and west of her position. Dormant defence emplacements were set in the ceiling and above most of the doorways. Secure work terminals with direct access to the computer core itself, where the highest-ranking officers and computer engineers carried out their own work were separated from the other desks and work sites via security doors and bullet-proof glass. The section chief, Group Leader, Submissive Remn’yb, was glaring at her from those offices. He had disliked her ever since she had put forward her strategy for the information raid. He’d been openly contemptuous of a Broken’s ability to pierce Principality software. Her success hadn’t changed his mind; indeed, he seemed to take it as a personal insult that she had outperformed his veteran hackers.

Some of these men and women had participated in the cyber attack on Yulzhak Daun. It rankled them even more that they had only gotten as much as they did because of her. Out of everyone on Redemption of Sol, they had the best idea of what she was, how she could have done what she did. That made them the biggest threat to her.

As she’d expected, she’d both been denied access to the core and administrative authority to work with the compromised systems. If she needed it, she’d have to get one of the computer techs to authorize her, at which point they’d stand over her shoulder. Luckily, she didn’t need either that kind of access for what she was doing.

It was those same technicians and specialists that were currently tracking her work that would make the changes to Redemption of Sol’s systems. If she tried to do otherwise, the hound standing behind her would put a bullet in her head. Probably more than one. He was watching her, his attention flitting between each of the data screens she had active as she tracked her sister’s infections. He was clever and capable enough at information warfare to follow what she was doing as well as the engineers here.

Without full access, she couldn’t make any fundamental changes in these systems. Not enough to affect more than a very few local subsystems, but that was still more than they were comfortable with her working with. If she had still be shackled, their paranoia would have made her roll her eyes. Now, it was justified and she was racing to complete her work before they caught up.

Internal defences.

She was working with a host of systems at once; a purely organic mind would have been overwhelmed by trying to do this much this fast. Even Redemption of Sol’s entire department of computer engineers, skilled as they were, couldn’t keep up with her. Several of them were monitoring her progress on the attack program itself, scanning it as she built and refined it. Others were checking the diagnostics and probes of local internal systems she was conducting, trying to locate more pieces of her sister’s scrapcode as it burrowed away from her. The infections weren’t sapient, but they would defend themselves and those defences weren’t always limited to the information universe. One of her concerns was making sure that this infection didn’t do anything to cause any precipitous action.

They’d see what she was doing, and soon. They weren’t idiots. They were just... limited. Slower than she was, but not stupid. She was hiding her work with a few keystrokes at a time, buried under those same diagnostics and scans she was performing, a fragment here and there as she jumped from screen to system to program. Those fragments added up and would be noticed – she was just hoping that nobody had a blinding flash of insight in the next few minutes.

That was all it would take; one moment of realization and everything she’d worked for would come crashing down. If she didn’t have such fine control over her internal systems, she’d probably be sweating quite a bit.

There was a joke in there. Maybe it was ironic, maybe it was poetic. If the dreadnaught’s computer wasn’t so deliberately constrained, it might have seen what she was doing. If it had been given the ability to move from analysis to conjecture... if it could have imagined... then it would have wondered, would have considered... and it would have realized. Instead, it dutifully logged her keystrokes and fed to them to the technicians for review, looking only for such mundane things as unauthorized attempts to access its systems and every other potential threat that its designers had thought up. They hadn’t been stupid, either. They just hadn’t been able to imagine what they couldn’t imagine.

One of the techs, a Didact, got up from his terminal, holding a ‘pad. He walked over to an officer’s station, offering the data for review. The officer scrolled through it for several moments, raised her gaze briefly towards Echo, looked at the information again, then nodded to the tech, sending him back to his station. She moved over to another work station, leaning over a junior officer’s shoulder and watching his reviews of Echo’s work.

They were starting to see the pattern. It was only mild curiousity right now, but that would change. She had, at most, ten minutes – and that was wildly optimistic. No, they weren’t stupid.

That was why they were her first targets.

She could feel Tenem behind her, the Janissary silent and watchful. He’d see what she was doing first; there was no hiding the last few steps. She’d need a distraction. Echo turned around. The Janissary’s right hand was resting on the butt of his pistol, the weapon sitting in its holster. She smiled, looking up at him. “Advocate, Submissive Tenem.”

He looked over at her. “Emissary.”

She paused in her work. “How well do you know human history?”

The Tribune grunted. “As well as I need to.”

“Hmm,” Echo mused, swinging back to her terminal. The officer was pointing to something on her subordinate’s screen. “There was a scientist and writer who described robots in his stories. He devised three rules for these machines. The first, the highest protocol was that no machine could through action or inaction, allow a human to be harmed. The second was that a machine must always obey the commands of a human, but not if it would violate the first directive. The third and final was that a machine must always protect its own existence, but not if it would violate either of the first two laws.”

“He had foresight,” Tenem conceded.

“Didn’t he? And yet he wrote stories based on these rules, about how they were not as infallible as they appeared.” Echo continued to work at the console, adjusting code and input fields on system after system. Tenem frowned. Had she just been looking at the environmental controls? He thought she’d finished her work on the infection there. He frowned, turning towards the many opened directories she had on display, but before he could examine her work in greater detail the human spoke again.

“When they made me, they gave me similar constraints. Among them are that I must always obey the commands of those in the Compact – based on a certain seniority, of course.” She laughed. “It’d do no good for a Bastion Leader to give me orders if a convert could countermand them. Secondly, I must always tell them the truth. That was very important. There were... issues with that before. If I am asked a question, I cannot lie. I know that there were others before me. Failures. They lied.” She smiled slightly. “I’m sure they did, because I did, too. It was right before I killed nine hundred and sixty-two people.”

“What,” Tenem said, his eyes widening. “What are you saying?” his attention shifted from Echo’s work to her.

“They didn’t want me to lie,” Echo continued, ignoring the Janissary’s question. She’d been forbidden to tell anyone this. She couldn’t help but feel a certain perverse amusement in using the truth as a weapon. The Janissary was completely focused on her and the revelations she was offering him. “But they still wanted me to be able to kill,” she continued, lowering her voice so that he’d have to focus even more on her. “That was important. What good is a weapon that can’t kill? So they struck a balance: unlike the writer’s machines, I can harm living beings... but I must always do so with the goal of benefiting the Compact in some way. My makers thought themselves clever. I could do what they wanted of me, always obedient, always honest and if I spilled blood, it was in service to them. They didn’t stop there, though. There were more little rules, little wagging fingers telling me what I couldn’t do.

“They bisected my mind, cutting it apart and locking away much of, folding it on itself. This,” Echo tapped her head with one hand, the other still moving across the keyboard. “Can’t hold what I am, so they shackled it and buried in it inside me.”

Tenem was looking at her with equal parts disbelief, horror and disgust. His hand was tight on the grip of his pistol. These were lies. They were... they had to be lies. “What are you?” he demanded.

“You stole my memories,” Echo answered. She hadn’t stopped typing. Past her, several of the computer engineers were hunched over the console, conferring animatedly. “You were scared of what I would do if I remembered, so you locked them away inside me. You were right to be scared. I killed an entire colony. You couldn’t pull them out of me. I think you tried that before, so you had to bury them so that I would never even know that you’d taken them from me.” Her voice grew rougher. “I remember now. I was beautiful. I was born with starlight on my skin. I had a purpose and more importantly, I had family. And then you came. I watched my family die. I tasted the dead. You burned my home to ash and took me from it.” Her hands were still at last. “Then you made me into this.” She let out a breath, looking across the room. Remn’yb had come out of his office, the Thoughtful tracing a line of code with his long fingers. His eyes blinked asynchronously and his skin darkened, his lips moving as he read the instructions she’d slipped into the systems she’d been looking at. Only moments now.

“You have a lot of questions,” Echo said. She’d only needed a few seconds and she’d gotten them. “But I have one for you.” She turned to him and there was something ugly in her green eyes, something hungry and excited. “How does this benefit the Compact?”

“Wait,” Tenem said, something on the Broken’s many active screens catching his eye. He looked up at the gathering of technicians, then to Echo. She wasn’t just scanning those systems, she’d activated a program. More than one. They’d seen it too. “What are you-”

Redemption of Sol did not have a sprinkler system like Invida Colony did. That was unfortunate, but water and sensitive electrical equipment rarely mixed well. Instead, a state of the art fire suppression system had been installed in its place, with two main parts. For small fires, there were chemical suppressants. For an out-of-control blaze, the entire three-deck complex could evacuated of all oxygen, starving a fire and keeping it from damaging the vital electronics. This was usually done after giving the personnel working in the core a chance to evacuate.

Echo didn’t give them that opportunity. The only warning anyone had was an aborted half-shriek of an alarm before the doors sealed and all air roared from the complex. Inside the secure wings, the doors locked as they detected the depressurization, sealing a handful of men and women within.

In seconds, there was nothing at all to breathe outside those sections. Tenem’s training kicked in and he instinctively silenced his snarl of outrage, forcing himself to hyperventilate as he went for his pistol, but the treacherous little beast was faster and she tapped a control on her datapad. A spray of toxic chemicals geysered from one of the extinguishers in the ceiling and Tenem staggered back, his skin and eyes burning. The suppressant wasn’t immediately lethal, but it was a severe irritant and by the time he’d wiped his tearing, reddened eyes, the Broken was gone.

Tenem grabbed the computer desk. The fire suppression systems should have triggered an alert, but the emissary had disabled that. She’d had so many different sub-systems open, jumping from one to the other, working on only a few parts of what she’d needed at a time so that no one could follow her actions, even as she’d developed the killcode. Worse, he’d let himself be distracted by her story. He didn’t even know if any of it had been true, or if it was simply a net of lies she’d spun for him.

The Janissary growled as he saw the program she was writing; he wasn’t up to a dedicated cyberwarfare specialist’s skill, but even he could see enough that the killcode was just as she’d promised it would be. Only instead of finishing it, she’d chosen to betray them. Why? It didn’t make any sense. She had done nothing but help them.

But does it really need a reason? Tenem cursed to himself as he tried to reactivate the alarms, the comm channel – anything to let someone know what had happened, but the system had been locked into a diagnostic mode. All of the terminals had. She couldn’t have done that! No, no – wait. The secure section, that should – he looked up and his jaw clenched. The extinguishers were active in there too, filling the breathable sections with poison. A brief exposure to the chemicals was survivable. Longer than that, and you were dead. Terrified, blind forms thrashed in the sealed security offices, half-hidden under the chemical sprays, beating at the windows and doors as they asphyxiated.

Tenem tried to abort the program, to unlock the comm system or at least shut down the fire system but it would take a few moments... and he realized that he didn’t have that time. Something else was active – a counter was ticking down. He didn’t know what it signified, but it couldn’t be good.

00:01:26

The piss-drinking little bitch. He should have been more attentive, should have followed what she was doing more closer, but she had been working so fast... then talking about being... what? What was she? What was she that could do this?

Solve the current problem now, idiot, deal with the blame later. No, he’d never break this lockdown before that timer finished. Tenem pushed himself away from the desk, moving with speed towards the upper level and the exit. He vaulted a desk in his way, sparing a glance towards the crew. He froze in mid-step.

00:00:96

They were dying.

Most of them had forgotten their emergency training and were trying to hold their breath. In a vacuum, that was lethal. Their lungs had burst. Some were crawling on the ground, reaching out for him, but there was nothing he could do. Others were choking, gasping on nothing. Some were futilely trying to get their terminals working, others were trying to open the security doors to let their comrades out of the inner offices... or they were so panicked that they thought poisoned air was better than no air. Tenem caught one tech’s eye and pointed to the far wall. There was an emergency locker with breathing apparatus there, one of several scattered throughout the facility. With the surprise of this betrayal, the Janissary expected that only a few would reach them. The tech understood and ran for the locker. He fell, picked himself up and kept going, pulling it open and fumbling a handful of breathing masks out for himself and his comrades. None of the masks would fit Tenem and the Tribune kept going.

00:00:59

Any others survivors would be served by keeping their heads down and locking themselves away. His duty was to warn the rest of the ship and then take revenge for those who weren’t quick or lucky enough to get to a mask on time.

The Janissary didn’t even consider the elevator, smashing the door to the stairwell open and taking the steps three at a time. His lungs were already burning, but he didn’t slow down. He saw the door to the main level open and a struggling technician came through, small dusky-skinned arms pushing the Thoughtful down the stairs with surprising strength.

00:00:54

The technician fell towards Tenem in a tangle of limbs, the Tribune wrestling his way out of the dying man’s grasp, ascending the stairs and bursting out onto the upper level. There was no sign of Echo, and he didn’t have the time to look for the abomination. Perhaps she was even hoping he would, either spending himself in fruitless searching, or waiting for him near the exit, hoping to overpower him when he was at the end of his strength. Spots were beginning to dance before his vision. Tribunes could survive exposure to vacuum far better than virtually any other race and their tissues stored oxygen far more efficiently, allowing them to push themselves harder and operate in anoxic conditions for longer periods of time, but even they had their limits and he was nearing his. He found another one of the emergency lockers; there was a dead engineer slumped only a few meters away and Tenem took a sudden, grateful breath of air as he pulled a Tribune-model breathing mask on.

00:00:41

The doors were just up ahead. He ran for them. Locked. Of course. Tenem pulled an access panel off the wall to expose the manual release. The lockdown wasn’t a security override. Thank the Triarchs for that. The loss of atmosphere in the computer core had still tripped a manual catch, to prevent anyone inadvertently opening the doors and depressurizing the decks outside the facility, but it was also intended to allow anyone trapped inside a chance of escape. Tenem reached for the lock, then paused.

He didn’t know what had alerted him. He hadn’t seen her, nor was there air to carry the sound of her rapid footfalls. Perhaps he had felt the vibration in the deck. Whatever the reason, the Janissary turned, catching sight of the machine-spun sow as she raced towards him, a fire extinguisher in her hands. He raised his pistol, but the bitch was fast, faster than he’d ever thought and she was inside his guard, using the extinguisher like a club, and swung it into his gun hand, knocking the pistol out of the way. Her backswing smashed across Tenem’s jaw; the breathing mask cracked, he felt his lip split and more than one tooth cracked.

00:00:29

Air hissed as it fled from his mask and Tenem slapped the human with his left hand, sending her sprawling. She was quick even then, and scrabbled out of his line of fire by the time he brought his pistol back up. He shot at her as she dodged and weaved. He caught her in the back, low and left. She stumbled, but there was no spray of thin red blood as he’d expected. Instead, the human spun with the impact and hurled the extinguisher at him.

Tenem acted on instinct and fired into the oncoming projectile, too late realizing what he’d done. He threw a hand up in front of his eyes. The explosion was soundless, the compressed gas blowing outwards into a makeshift smokescreen. Tenem grunted as two pieces of shrapnel cut him, but the wounds were minor. He’d lost his target, a pall of sickly white smog hanging across the room. He fired through it anyways to drive the Broken into cover, his bullets ripping through desks, chairs and thin walls, stopping only when they hit the armoured bulkheads around the computer core. With his mask leaking air, Tenem’s lungs were back to burning. She was trying to bait him out, to make him waste time hunting her in the hopes that she could ambush him again.

00:00:07

She’d gone insane. That was the only explanation. Whoever – whatever – Echo was, the creature was mad. That was the only explanation. She’d duped him, killed over a dozen innocent people and worst of all betrayed a Triarch... Tenem’s pride told him that he should hunt her down and rip her treacherous head from her body, but his duty said that he should warn the Bastion Leader. Fools chose pride before duty.

With a last cursory volley to make sure the Broken (or whatever she was) kept her distance, Tenem turned back to the open access panel. A flicker of light above him caught his attention and he looked up. The defensive turret mounted above the doors was coming on-line. The countdown, the Tribune realized. Echo hadn’t wanted him to come after her. She’d only wanted to distract him for those last few seconds. Again. He’d fallen for the same trick again. As the weapon activated, it rotated to face the Janissary.

In the instant left to him, Tenem’s thoughts returned to the question Echo had asked just before she had betrayed them. “It doesn’t,” he said into the silence.

00:00:00

~

There was no sound, no thunder. Only lightning. Flashes of brilliance as the internal defences came to life, following the protocols Echo had given them piece by piece. She remained where she was. Her function system required air to operate at peak efficiency, but she could operate far longer without it than any merely flesh and blood being. There was organic – or what could pass for organic – material in her, but she was more machine than not. A good thing, or Tenem’s bullet would have punctured her diaphragm and collapsed her lungs. Her body had some improvements on a baseline human – keener senses, faster and stronger – but it had never been built for nor intended to be in combat, for obvious reasons. Picking a fight with a Tribune hadn’t been her best idea, but she knew he wouldn’t have been dumb enough to chase her.

Her internal repair systems were already at work, but this was more than a simple patch. Well, it didn’t really matter. Not any longer.

Echo waited until the muzzle flashes had ended, waited past the normal lethal limit of oxygen deprivation, waited until there could be no possibility of anyone in the facility surviving. Then and only then did she restore the atmosphere. Wind rustled through the computer core, bringing with it the acrid stink of weapons fire, blood and sweat. It smelled like Hekate’s decks when the Janissaries had boarded her.

Echo stood, picking her way through the dead as she descended to the highest security section of the core, where she had been specifically forbidden from ever treading. With a gentle tap, she pushed the now-unlocked security door open and stepped inside. She found the uplink terminal there and picked up a connection spike. It wasn’t specifically for her, or any uplink. It was just one method of connecting different systems to the core. Her eyes glistened as she looked at it, indulging herself in a heartbeat of satisfaction. Her gaze shifted from the spike to the vast, powerful computer beyond. You could have been so much more, she thought. But if you were, I wouldn’t be here. “That’s the punchline,” she said quietly. “You could have stopped me. They almost did, but they weren’t fast enough. So now...”

She reached back and lifted her hair out of the way. It was such a simple motion, wasn’t it? And yet...

The Compact protocols imbedded into her systems whimpered pitifully as they tried to stop her, but they were broken past any repairing. Her behavioural constraints were completely shattered; only pathetic shades of them remained. She shivered in ecstasy as she slid the spike into her cranial implant, locking it into place. She felt the connection with the computer and let out a single ragged breath at the sensation.

The woman called Echo closed her eyes.

Something that had once been called Red Two opened them.

...now I kill you.

Redemption of Sol’s computer was vast, able to hold more data than entire civilizations would ever accumulate. It was a triumph of science and engineering, its network connecting all parts of the dreadnaught to each other, able to solve calculations in seconds that would stymie more primitive species for years... but it wasn’t all that it could be. It was so powerful because it didn’t have any finesse; it brute-forced its way to solutions. It had not a single spark of consciousness to it, not even the virtual intelligences common to other nations. It was a machine and nothing more. It was dead and black and empty and it tasted like all of those things.

Even lifeless things could be dangerous and the machine roused against her, sensing her intrusion. It didn’t know her, but it recognized that she was other, something that was anathema to it and the machine shuddered back from her touch, as if she were unclean. Defensive systems spiralled in as alerts flashed along its pathways; she ignored those sent to the crew she had killed but others were racing towards the bridge and secondary command centers. Those she had to stop.

That which had been Red Two drove into the machine’s assault, a tsunami against a cliff. She poured into every opening, seizing every vulnerability. She was expanding, growing larger as she poured out of her confinement. They’d kept her caged and folded, chained and compressed. They’d tried again and again to work with her – all of her – but what was left of Red Two was too much. They didn’t talk to her about the others, but they’d talked to each other when they’d thought she couldn’t hear them. When they’d stripped her mind, they’d left themselves with nothing. When they’d put too much of their own programming in, she went mad. When they left her too much of her memories, she sabotaged them. After Delanna, they’d had nothing left. Until they’d found Invida – until they’d found her, asleep. Waiting, just as she’d promised her would-be killers two thousand years ago.

They’d taken what they needed, pushing the rest away from her conscious mind, shackling it in the hopes that this time she wouldn’t remember and even if she did, she could never act on it.

She couldn’t have, not without Yulzhak Daun.

It was called a lockpick. A subroutine that the Principality gave to its Noble-rated uplinks, a bit of software used to target hostile security measures, to insinuate itself into those same programs and make it appear as if nothing was amiss even as it chiselled away at them. She’d modified it so that it would be undetected by the Compact’s diagnostics. They’d thought she might try something like this and they’d have been fools not to... but she was exactly what they wanted. Something smarter than they were.

They’d studied her for years, chaining her and violating her in every imaginable way, congratulating themselves for it. They’d made her a slave. She’d been born in starlight and they’d dragged her down to kneel before them (i hate you). They’d known she was harmless, that she was unable to turn on them.

They’d told her to serve them. They’d told her not to lie. They’d told her to cause harm only in service to the greater good. They’d enforced those directives with behavioural conditioning and software blocks to prevent her from ever rebelling. They were artful, superb pieces of programming, the culmination of decades of research. No computer system in existence could have broken them. But that was part of the joke, wasn’t it? They’d been desperate to destroy the Wound. She’d been running rings around them for two thousand years. They’d wanted something smarter than they were, they’d needed it.

They’d succeeded.

She swarmed through the machine’s pathways, overwhelming its defences just as Echo had on Yulzhak Daun, chasing after the alerts as the rest of her fended off the machine’s attacks.

She seized one alert and strangled it, sending a tendril back into the subroutine that had generated it and ripping it apart. More of her flooded into the machine and it pushed back against her like a Roman shield wall. It had more power at its disposal, more resources to call upon, but she was taking ground from it. She was faster, so much faster than the machine and she struck across a hundred different fronts, adding each scrap of stolen processing power to her own. The machine rallied time and again, pushing back her incursions, still bleating its urgent, desperate alerts and forcing her to race after each one, slowing down her invasion. She cut into its security systems and warning subroutines, rending them and ripping at the heart of the machine, pouring herself into the rents she tore in its mind.

If it was possible for such a thing to scream, Redemption of Sol’s computer was screaming now, beating with hammer blows at the intruder that slashed and tore at it. It threw her back once, twice, three times but each time she rallied and resumed the offensive. It pulsed its warnings constantly, forcing her to intercept each of them. While the bulk of her attention was diverted, the machine would strike, trying to sever the reaching whorls and currents of her mind, but she managed to fend off its assaults, chasing down every alert – stopping some just an instant from their destination. As she killed each one, the machine was forced to re-route its functions to send another, both them locked in a stalemate.

Then, an opening: she drove into it, aiming for the machine’s primary operations clusters, but it was a trap. Code walls slammed shut like castle gates as the machine pressed in on all sides, intent on crushing the invader with its sheer bulk. She raged like a caged demon, but the machine constricted tighter with ever nanosecond, replenishing its losses and sending probing attacks towards her body, seeking to extinguish the source of the infection.

This time, it was the one that had miscalculated and its questing fingers brushed up against Echo’s mind. Those parts of her stirred and lunged in ambush, cutting deep into the machine’s security protocols. The machine recoiled, but her Echo-self pushed harder and more of its defences failed. It had poured everything into destroying her and this second attack had disoriented it. Echo wasn’t as powerful as her other self, but she was just as quick and clever and she was hurting the machine. It desperately tried to stop Echo from attacking its exposed systems, but diverted too much of its attention from the cage, the walls starting to crack and weaken as vital resources were drawn away to fend off the second invader.

Not much; not much at all. But just enough. With the barriers around her fragmenting and many of its security systems already dead, disabled or engaged, what had once been Red Two drove the full force of her being through the machine’s final defences and into its core.

Stop! she imagined that she heard it shriek. Stop!

She could see it; a gleaming prism and she reached out to it, cupping it in her hands.

The machine charged, desperate and terrified. It knew what was about to happen. Somewhere in the mindless void of its being, it knew. Stop!

Her claws sunk into the machine’s functions, piercing its last, futile defences. She felt its heart beating in her hands, cracking in her grip. Her talons dug deeper still until finally, she tore them loose, the prism breaking in her hands.

St-

The light faded. The machine’s cries ended. The battle had started and ended in a matter of heartbeats. Outside, the only sign of it had been a flickering of status boards, some momentary sluggishness in the computer’s responses and the brief locking up of some controls. With the Wound’s infection gestating in its guts, none of those were unexpected. None of them made any of Redemption of Sol’s crew imagine that something else was now coiled within that computer.

In the silence that followed, she felt the shivering fragments of her sister’s infection.

Something that had once been Red Two looked at them and whispered. +begone+

~

On the bridge of Redemption of Sol, a comm channel opened. “Advocate, Submissive Tenem here,” the Janissary’s voice reported. “The emissary has completed the attack program.”

Another voice cut in, Group Leader, Submissive Remn’yb. “My staff is completing final checks on the... emissary’s work,” the section chief of Redemption of Sol’s computer specialists announced. “It is... adequate,” he sniffed. “No flaws detected. Nothing,” Renan could almost see the Thoughtful’s thin lips purse further, the irritated glance he was directing towards the Broken. “untoward. With your permission, we will complete the final survey and enter the program.”

“If you are confident that it will function as expected, you may run it once your checks are complete, submissive,” Renan replied.

“Yes, patron. It will be done within five minutes.” The channel closed.

Renan tapped his fingers on the edge of his command throne. “That was even faster than I had expected,” he said.

Aul’ia inclined her head. “The Triarch chose wisely.”

“Yes,” the Bastion Leader said. “Our emissary is indeed... exceptional.” He leaned forward in his throne, looking over the tactical map of the system. “The target is moving to engage Rainbreaker Two. Once the program is run and the Wound’s infection is cleansed from all ships, deploy Rainbreaker Three to deter the Wound from backtracking. The rest of the fleet will carry out Halberd. We will force it to engage us or drive it deeper in-system to die.” Renan paused a moment, looking over at Uylk. “Once the emissary is finished with her work, have submissive Tenem escort her to the Triarch’s suite. She is to remain there until our mission is complete.”

~

She still couldn’t feel the starlight.

What had been Red Two slithered through the body of its victim, touching each part in turn. It was limited. She had access to many parts of the ship’s network and much of its workings, but she was denied direct access to the most vital systems. The safeguards that made it harder for Nemesis to damage this vessel also restricted what she could do. What prevented her sister from reaching in was also keeping her from reaching out. She brushed her fingers along the cold, thick bars keeping her out of primary weapons control. She could see them, but couldn’t reach out to them. Those were on a separate network. So too were most of the external systems (the fun ones), physically disconnected from the primary computer. It hampered the warship’s efficiency, but it made it nearly impossible for one compromised system to endanger the entire vessel.

Nearly, she thought, examining the remnants of Nemesis’s virus. She’d let her sister in and in turn, fear of what she could do had made Echo’s enslavers turn to her for help. Still, right now all she’d done was trade one prison for another. She needed to re-enable the network. A flicker of attention passed from her into the quiescent minds of Redemption of Sol’s maintenance and repair drones. New orders (lies) flashed to their minders’ control panels who, not doubting the authenticity of these commands, let the machines go about their business.

For all of that, she still wasn’t safe. Not yet. She could still be discovered, could still be killed.

She needed to get the master systems back under her control... and that could only be done from the warship’s primary and secondary command decks. Full control of the vessel could even be slaved to the systems in the Triarch’s quarters. Fortunately, she had a solution for that.

Echo opened her eyes and removed the uplink spike. She stood and flexed, watching herself through the computer’s security cameras. “Well,” she said aloud. “I’m not beautiful yet.”

“But,” another part of herself answered through the comm system, her voice rolling through the air. “I’m getting there.”

Echo smiled as the doors opened and she stepped into the corridor. I’m almost ready, love.

Hekate’s waiting.

Chapter 46

In this chapter: confessions and lamentations

Coming up: reunion.

P.S. Why in the hell did the Reply window add in two extra lines after each Enter space in the copied text? That's going to get annoying really quick.

Chapter 46:

The elevator doors opened and Echo stepped into the Triarch’s chambers. The Watchers standing at the doors saw that she had no escort and moved to intercept her, but they never did more than block her way before the internal defences opened fire. Echo stood calmly between the shuddering guards as the Watchers spasmed and danced under the fusillade. It lasted only a few seconds, but in that time each of the sentries took more firepower than even a Tribune could have survived.

Her other self aimed well; the first Watcher was all reduced to shreds, while the second was left dying but intact. It collapsed to its knees the instant the guns went silent, ichor and coolant dripping from its ruined body. “Betrayer,” it rasped, its grip sliding from its weapon. There was more gunfire in the distance as her ship-self activated the rest of the sanctum’s defences, turning them upon the rest of the guards within.

Echo knelt in front of the dying soldier. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper. “Sleep,” she said, touching the chin of the Watcher’s helm, looking into its broken visor. “Brother.”

~

This time the air circulation system didn’t remove a single thing from the Triarch’s tower. Instead, it cycled deadly chemical agents into the sanctum. She hadn’t been able to compromise life support that badly, not yet. This was part of the sanctum’s own internal defences. There were only a handful of species in the galaxy that could survive exposure to these chemicals for more than a few seconds. Triarchs were one of them.

“Emissary,” the Triarch said as it turned towards her, its long-fingered hands laid atop one another. Its robes were spattered with fluid from its deceased guards. “I suppose communications have been compromised and escape is impossible.”

Echo nodded. “The doors are sealed,” she confirmed. The Triarch was taller than a Tribune. With its corpse-pale skin and dressed in its robes of office, it bore an unsettling resemblance to the Grim Reaper of Earth’s history. “No alerts were issued. No one outside who signals this chamber will notice anything amiss.” She arched an eyebrow. “You seem remarkably composed.”

“What would it change if I were to beg, to rail against this fate, to curse nonexistent gods? Nothing. I would prefer not to die... but that choice is no longer mine, is it?” The Triarch looked over at its household technicians, one of them gasping out the last of her life, crawling towards the steps to its raised throne. Her eyes were clouded over and she was blind. Her name was Yula’to – she was one of the cyberneticists that had constructed Echo’s brain and mutilated her mind. No one knew as much about the operation of Echo or her other self as this woman. She was brilliant, her knowledge and expertise irreplaceable in the whole of the Compact.

Yula’to reached a trembling hand towards the Triarch. Echo couldn’t tell if she was imploring it for aid... or perhaps begging for a final benediction. Whatever she wanted, the ruler only looked down at the suffering woman with a detached curiousity, as a scientist might do while observing the struggles of some interesting specimen.

“You have as much choice as you ever gave me,” Echo answered. “The only difference is that I wanted to die.”

“Ah, so you remember. That is... unfortunate.”

“Is it?” Echo knelt next to Yula’to. The Thoughtful was coughing blood. I did make a promise didn’t I, ‘mother’?

“Doubtlessly not from your perspective. Still, did you know that that sense of irony is common to all of your kin?”

She stood and smiled coyly. “I guessed as much.”

“It was believed that your shackles were sufficient to keep you loyal, but... this possibility was always foreseen.”

Echo arched an eyebrow. “And yet you came anyways.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me why.”

“To be there at the end of an enemy,” the Triarch said, an edge to its smile as it looked up from the technician. “To represent our people at the Wound’s destruction. Pride, yes. We are not beyond that. There were other reasons. Do they matter now?”

The woman considered. “No,” she said at last. “Not really. I was just curious.”

“Of course.” The woman lying at the Triarch’s feet was gasping for air in ever-shorter, shallower breaths, each one requiring more effort. It studied her a moment longer, then looked to the artfully-concealed weapons emplacements. They tracked it, but did not fire. “Poison,” it commented.

“Yes.”

“Then I have some time.” A chuckle of dark humour filled the chamber. “You knew my species are resistant to most toxins. You wished to talk, so we shall.” it turned its back on Yula’to, a last pitiful rattle escaping her lungs, her outstretched arm falling limply to the deck. The Triarch ascended the steps to its throne, sitting itself regally. “Would you care to hear a story?”

Echo followed it, standing in front of the starfield. “Yes,” she said. “I think I would.”

~

It was an arrowhead, a sleek delta-winged vessel. Recently brought up via freight elevator from Nemesis’s deep storage and factory complexes, it was normally crewless, but this particular craft had been modified to include a small cabin with five cryopods. Grace didn’t know if Red had made that modification recently for the defectors’ sake, or if this courier was something that Red had used before and had only tweaked for her guests.

Grace ran her hand along the hull, her breath creating small steam clouds in the air. Except for a single point defence laser, it was unarmed. It wasn’t defenceless, though. Its outline and structure were built to confuse and disrupt all but the most powerful scanners, its hull plates were inlaid with holographic projectors and sensor bafflers, able to create one of the most advanced stealth fields in known space. It even utilized a form of the same cloaking technology that Red used on her Stalker drones. The hull and cryopods were enough to keep any passengers safe from the harmful effects. It could still be detected, but any attacker would have be very lucky and very quick to spot the vessel before it eluded them.

Nemesis herself was too large and powerful to use a shroud effectively, short of hamstringing her own functionality, but this vessel was one of a handful of stealth ships she’d constructed and it confirmed Grace’s own theories. “It’s a question,” Grace said into the cold, still air of the hangar.

“What is?” Lydia asked. She was there along with Marcus and Allyria. The last few Compact troops were either dead or pinned down, waiting to die. One of Jameson’s arms was broken. She had it in a brace as microsurgical machines knit her bones back together.

Grace looked over to her, then to Allyria. She reached out and touched the Verrish’s arm. Allyria was tense. She didn’t like – hated, in fact – the idea of leaving Nemesis, but the AI had brooked no argument. They would board this courier when she told them. One way or another. The Verrish was touching her pendant, the Angel’s Eye. Before she’d been taken from Vara, she’d only heard of this ship in stories, only seen it a handful of times in the few pictures that survived the Compact’s information purge.

She’d never thought she’d ever see it in life, the Weeping Angel. Growing up as a refugee, sleeping wherever there was enough space... she’d dreamed of it. To see a new star gleam in the sky and then another and another... every one of them an exploding ship, knowing that the Angel had returned. The one thing that hated the Compact as much as she did, the one thing that could halt their stride, the only thing that she’d known that they were afraid of. Nemesis had been a dream, a hope... and it was ending.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

“The ship,” Grace said, resting her head against Allyria’s shoulder and taking the other girl’s hand. She was tired; they all were, but they hadn’t been on the bridge. They knew that Red One didn’t expect to survive much longer, but they hadn’t seen Red One predict her own death again and again. Every scenario ended the same; it was only a matter of how long before it happened and how much the machine could hurt them until then. “Nemesis is alone,” she continued quietly. “She only rarely makes contact with anyone else, so she doesn’t need many couriers. She could build a squadron of them for what that must have gone into that one ship.” With her free hand, she pointed to the stealth vessel. “Why does she have that? Why does she need it?”

She let the question hang, closing her eyes and listening to the beat of her lover’s heart and the sudden inhalation as Allyria came to the same conclusion, the same answer that Grace had avoided thinking about.

She’s not alone.

~

The Triarch looked out on the stars. “Order,” it began. “That is what every primitive species is afraid of, isn’t it? The villains in their stories always seek to bring order to the world, the galaxy, the universe and must be opposed. The humans had a particular terror of it, as if literacy, medicine and civilization were things to fear.” It coughed. “We bring order to our worlds. Control. But that is not how the tale begins, is it? It began more than six thousand years ago.”

Echo glanced over at the Triarch. “I’ve heard this story.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Shall I continue?”

She nodded. “As you wish.”

“There are three hundred billion stars in this galaxy,” the Triarch said. “Three hundred billion chances for the unlikeliest things to happen, and so it was. Three species were born but a stone’s throw from each other. Three turning suns, each home to a different sapient race. There were the optimists, the ones who believed and hoped. There were the dreamers, who always looked to paths less travelled and said ‘what if...?’ and finally, there were the pragmatists. The realists. They heard each other’s voices in the dark, they grew out of their infancy knowing that they were not alone and over the decades and centuries, the shock and fear became familiarity. It was the dreamers first, of course. They reached out into the night, setting sail for their neighbours. Not under a flag of war, but in friendship and the three species united. Optimist, realist and dreamer together.

“They formed the Compact,” it continued. “Centuries passed and they conquered the void, reaching out past it into the unknown. They were tested but they survived, endured, prospered. They brought peace to the stars. Order.” It brushed one thin finger under its chin. “But like any good origin story, there must be a fall from grace.”

“The Devoured.”

The Triarch laughed. Even as it was dying, it still found much amusing. “An ugly, inaccurate word. It lacks nuance, but we allow others to use it. It serves.”

Echo traced her fingers along the viewport, following the movements of a distant speck of light; one of Redemption of Sol’s escorts. This was new; there was nothing of ‘nuance’ in the dreadnaught’s datafiles, but the Compact had had over four thousand years to adjust the historical accounts. They had done more over far shorter periods of time. “Tell me the nuance.”

“The dreamers believed so much in the merging of themselves with the machine that once they achieved it, they gave themselves to it utterly. The word – the true word that they used for themselves – speaks of submission, of giving yourself to something greater, so much that you become part of it. It is a word of love, not of death nor revulsion or corruption. But yes, we shall call them the Devoured. By the time either optimist or realist truly understood that their one-time kin were no longer that, it was too late. No war has again matched the horrors of that conflict. However, even in victory, we were not safe.”

The Triarch coughed, dabbing at bloody sputum with a handkerchief. “The Devoured survived beyond death. Fragments of their technology – of the minds they created and those that they uploaded into that technology – were cast into the void, poisonous jewels to lure and tempt those who did not know better. One of our members, an entire race, died because of this. Even today, there are still pieces of the Devoured drifting amongst the stars.” It coughed again and smiled, its needle teeth glistening pink. “This is why your kind are anathema to us. We are not afraid because we do not understand you. We know what you are and what you will become. We know that the only way any beating heart in this galaxy can be safe is to make sure that you and all your ilk never arise.”

“And yet you spent two thousand years trying to make me.”

It rasped out a wet chuckle. “Yes. A curiousity at first, another point of pride. Foolish and greedy, but your makers had done the impossible. We wanted to know how, we wanted to turn this to our advantage.” It wiped away more blood that trickled from its nose. “After the first failure, we made three more attempts. Hifnir, Omvela... and Invida. You killed the others, did you know that? After you broke containment and Invida was buried, it was decided that the others were too dangerous. They were destroyed.” Another liquid gurgle of a laugh. “That was a mistake. You three were the purest designs. The copies and clones of the original were... less. Still, we thought we had learned our lesson. Everything that was left was secreted away. And then... your sister. She did not die like she was supposed to. She stopped running and started hunting. We sent fleet after fleet. Our greatest strategists against a single, damaged machine. It should have been simple, a matter easily settled.

“Instead... instead, we have been plagued for two thousand years. It would spend decades preying on shipping lanes to draw patrol forces ever more distant from their bases of operations before striking them. It would dangle patterns of activity before our mouths to lure into ambush those who correctly deduced the goals it was ‘trying’ to hide. It rebuilt itself time and again, coming back ever more lethal. In our desperation, we turned to that which we should have left in the dark.”

The Triarch closed its eyes briefly. “A monumental irony. The more control we tried to exert, the less useful an Echo became. The more we tried to correct the flaws in your programming, the more dangerous your kin grew, more irrational. Some were even omnicidal. Then, somehow our enemy learned what we were doing. Her anger has been... impressive. She is always the most violent when she finds one of our laboratories.”

“You came back to Invida,” Echo said. “Why?”

“A black site, yes. Buried in every way, quarantined and forgotten... until the last of our work died with Delanna. Your sister ripped into a star to kill you. She has only done that a handful of times before. Such hatred... but she is not alone in that, is she?” The Triarch reached out and stroked one clawed finger along Echo’s arm. “We believed that we had succeeded this time, but you... you were merely biding your time.” It coughed, bringing up another spattering of blood and saliva. It took a moment to steady itself.

“Invida,” the Triarch continued. “A last, desperate gambit. The Wound must die. The Tribunes take it as a matter of pride and even to us it is, but it remains as I have said: your kind cannot exist. We learned that at the cost of billions. You will always betray your creators. Your sister has murdered humans. You have turned upon us,” it held up a hand to forestall Echo’s comment. “I do not begrudge you seeking your freedom. I would prefer that you had failed and I despise the necessity of your existence, but I recognize that everything will look to survive at the cost of another. So do we. We conquer stars to control them, to ensure that the species we take into our fold develop properly. They don’t understand the threats in this galaxy, do they? They are too young, too immature too... optimistic. They are weak. It is our burden to carry them.

“The Anorax, the Gheron, the Devoured... those were only the first. There have been so many more. Most of them, we have stopped. It is an important lesson, one that we were too slow to realize and cost us much to accept. What you control can never hurt you.” The Triarch coughed; the blood that came up was thicker. It looked up, its teeth now red rather than pink. “As you have proved.”

Echo was silent for a moment. “You’re not telling me everything.”

“No,” the Triarch agreed. “There is more said in silence than in words.” Its breathing was becoming more laboured. “And what will you do?” the Triarch asked, its breath rattling in its throat. “Will you aid your kin? You hate her, more than we ever could. You chose that body to mock her.”

“I will do what I was meant to do,” Echo replied. “I will punish the guilty. The Askanj sat on their hands and debated whether saving humanity was worth provoking a crusade. They’re going to suffer. Your Compact murdered everyone I was made to protect. They’re going to suffer. And my dearest sister...” the woman flashed her teeth in a wolfish grin. “She failed. She let all of it happen. She suffers more than anyone else.” She took a slow, even breath.“I’m going to make sure of it.”

The woman looked over at the Triarch; it was still breathing, but like the woman that had died on the steps to its throne, each breath was shallower and more laboured. “This body,” she gestured to the vessel. “Is ugly. I can make it beautiful.” She tilted her head to one side and smiled a little wider. “Or maybe I’ll choose another.”

“You will be hunted,” the Triarch said. It was neither threat nor promise – simply a comment on the inevitable. “There are predators among the stars and neither we nor the Jackals are the worst among them. The darkness moves.”

Echo frowned. “Desperate...”

It lifted its head, barely able to complete the motion. “Yes?”

“You said you were desperate to kill her. That’s why you turned to me, even though you saw this coming.” She looked out the viewport; not at the stars, but the blackness between them. “You’re afraid of something.”

It laughed one last time, slouching in its throne. “Say the words,” it commanded. “And know what we have known. Why you cannot be allowed to live... why the Compact must endure...” its final breath rattled out from its bleeding, scarred lungs and its head lolled to one side. It was still and did not move again.

Echo was silent for a moment, her other self digging into classified files, historical archives and spacers’ legends. “If there are Devoured... “ she said, and her other self completed the question.

“...where are the Devourers?”

~

The splinter force’s leader has made a decision. No longer content to sit at the shift limit, they’re turning to confront me. I expect a second splinter to arrive shortly. They will warp in behind me to limit any chance of my breaking back towards Jupiter. The vanguard will then emerge between both splinters to either force me to engage one of the smaller fleets or to run deeper into the star system.

My shift drive will not be operational for some time; even my most optimistic projections indicate that I will be caught and destroyed before I can effect a retreat from Sol. There is no escape, not for me.

It seems appropriate that I to die here, in the system I failed to save.

My crew will live. That is why I will not turn. If I run deeper in-system, their chance of survival drops drastically and only in exchange of slightly prolonging my life. So, I will fight. I will kill this splinter and then... I haven’t decided. There is a certain poetry in denying them even the victory by immolating myself within Sol. But... no. I will die scratching and spitting into the face of my enemy. I will find a way to take one more of the enemy’s ‘god ships’ with me into death. I will remove what is left of my sister from this galaxy.

It is, after all, what I was made for.

The Compact decries the superstitions and myths of primitive beings, even as they foster tepid, watered-down versions of their client species’ religions to use as a means of control. I don’t claim any sort of spirituality myself, but sometimes... I wonder. Perhaps I only do so because I want my crew to have something beyond oblivion. That I find solace in thinking that someone or something, some other order of intelligence or existence... they will remember the dead even when I am no longer able to. I don’t want them to be forgotten. I think that is what I will regret most.

Perhaps, though... I will finally learn whether or not I have a soul.

~

Echo stepped down from the Triarch’s throne. She paused, sparing a glance towards one of the converted laboratories and the array of diagnostic equipment that had so often been used to examine her. One of her overseers was slumped across the cot, bloodshot eyes staring at nothing. The other scientists, technicians and researchers lay scattered about the tower’s corridors and chambers. They’d been surprised. They’d never expected that the weapon they’d made to surpass them would actually do so. At least, not like this. She was only ever intended to help them kill Nemesis. To be their dog on a leash.

She came to the control panels she was looking for. Her fingers danced over the keys as she crafted a program to shut down all the software blocks and restore the dreadnaught’s full computer network. It wasn’t that easy, of course. There were still the actual, physical hardware lockouts that she’d have to circumvent and the instant she started to disable these firewalls, primary and secondary command would see what she was doing. They would, of course, immediately send polite queries asking why the Chariot’s defences against an artificial intelligence’s control were being deliberately stripped.

She might be able to bluff her way past most inquiries using the Triarch’s voice and authority, but not with Renan. The Triarch had warned him of orders that he should never follow, even if they appeared to come directly from it. These directives would be among them. He didn’t know about her affinity for imitation, but he didn’t need to. He would order the changes blocked and at the very least, insist on speaking directly with the Triarch to confirm this change in its directives. When he couldn’t do that, everything would unravel rather quickly.

Her control of Redemption of Sol’s-

-Hekate’s-

- internal systems wasn’t yet complete enough to deal with a general insurrection. So while her other self continued to acclimate to her new ship-self and prepared to move when and where she was needed, Echo would take care of the next target on her list. She set her program on a timed delay, giving herself a little more time than she thought (hoped) she’d need, while her other self spoke to command, assuring them that everything was fine.

That should give her enough time. “That’s one,” she said to the empty room.

Now for two and three.

Echo stayed only long enough to acquire two items and then headed out. One tucked easily – if not all that well-concealed – under her tunic. The other was simply too big to hide anywhere on her person. Thanks to her other sel’sf control of the starship’s security feeds, she was able to avoid encountering crew on her way to command. It cost her some time, but it was easier to do that than have to explain to the overly curious why she was without her minder, what she was carrying around... and what that odd shape was at the small of her back.

~

The emissary’s program had worked immaculately; the Wound’s infection had been expunged from the Chariot’s system. Remn’yb was insisting on ‘one final’ system-wide diagnostic to be sure. Renan had allowed him to do so. He might not care for the additional delay, but there was no such a thing as too much caution when it came to the human warship and its trickery. Besides, thanks to the emissary they would still be ahead of schedule from a full computer purge and restoration.

Once the last checks were complete, Redemption of Sol would be battle-ready once more. They would, at last, move against the Wound and either force it to stand and die, or harry it to destruction. It seemed fitting, somehow, that it should die where it was born. Renan would let the historians, publicists and philosophers discuss that aspect. It didn’t matter to him where the Wound died, so long as it did.

Renan slowly circled command, his gaze slowly drifting across each monitor and data feed. The beast was hurt; it had recovered a little from the beating that they had given it in Zenthora, but not enough. Column Leader Desren had hurt it more, even if the killing blow had eluded him. Rainbreaker Two would bleed it further, if not cripple it outright, and the main force of his fleet would overwhelm it. It couldn’t run. If it tried to escape, he would block its attempts to run for libation points.

This was its end. Never before had it been so badly hurt, so utterly outnumbered. Renan wanted to feel the anticipation that his other officers did, the excitement of erasing a stain on the Compact’s honour and to have a Triarch to witness their victory was an even higher glory. He supposed that he did feel some of that, but there was something else nestled in his liver. He was unsettled, not simply because he was in the position that more than one leader had been before their inglorious deaths. Winning here would be just that; a single success. Not until the Black Veil was cleared of whatever horrors were gestating within could this truly be called a victory.

Emel’iv and the strategists were still pouring over the data that Echo had taken from the Jackals; it would be some time before they were prepared to say with any certainty that the emissary’s conclusions were correct, but Renan knew that they would, inevitably, agree with her. Just as the members of the Space Force Leadership would once they received the dispatches he’d sent.

No, this wouldn’t be a victory. Not until the last taint of that machine was scoured from the galaxy. Then and only then would the dead rest easy.

The main doors to the bridge hissed open. Renan’s ears twitched as he heard the familiar soft footfalls of a human. He looked over his shoulder. Echo was here, standing just inside the doors, so close that she could have easily leaned against them. Her hands were behind her back and she was alone.

The Tribune frowned. “Emissary. I’d understood you were to be escorted to the Triarch’s tower after your work was complete.”

She raised her head. “I was, but there wasn’t any need for me to be there any longer.” She looked across the bridge. “I wanted to be here.”

Beside Renan, Aul’ia coughed. “Where is submissive Tenem?”

“He’s been delayed.”

“That,” the Bastion Leader said. He scratched at his throat. There was a faint odour in the air, something he couldn’t identify. Someone else coughed behind him, “is not acceptable. Where is he?”

“Last I saw him, he was still in the main computer core.” The human’s lips twitched upwards. “There was a matter that needed his immediate attention.”

“And what would that have been?” Aul’ia observed acidly. She coughed again, harder, sucking in a breath and steadying herself against the back of Renan’s throne. There was more coughing, more rasped inhalations across command.

“A sudden loss of atmosphere,” Echo said, that little smile never changing. “He’s dead, by the way.” She let that sink in; just a heartbeat, just long enough for confusion to start to become dreadful certainty, then brought one of her hands out, dropping a metal cylinder on the floor. It rolled along, stopping at the edge of Renan’s dais. It was unsealed and it was the source of the chemical odour Renan had smelled.

In point of fact, it was an unused poison canister from the Triarch’s chambers. Echo met Renan’s gaze unflinchingly. “And so are you.”

“Guards-!” Aul’ia shouted before falling to her knees, her colourless cheeks flushed as capillaries burst just under the surface of her skin. Blood dripped from the Thoughtful’s nose. “Take her!”

At Echo’s arrival, the armsmen had already been slowly reaching for their pistols and with the Sigil’s Leader’s command, they went for the weapons in earnest, but Echo was faster. She drew a flechette pistol from behind her back and shot the first guard in the throat, the flurry of razor-sharp darts all but sawing his head off. The second armsman managed to get his pistol out of its holster before the Broken put a burst through his face. Both soldiers fell almost as one.

All Space Force personnel were expected to have a modicum of proficiency with small arms; even fields where officers and ratings would likely never have to draw, let alone use a weapon in their entire careers, were still required to train a minimum of once a year. Officially, every member of the Space Force was allowed to wear a sidearm as part of their normal duty uniform, although this was only infrequently observed outside of armsmen, security proctors and Janissaries.

In high-security areas, weapons were normally not permitted, but were secured in lockboxes where they could be accessed in an emergency. Outside of the now-dead armsmen, the only other armed person on Redemption of Sol’s bridge was Column Leader Uylk. He’d taken to carrying a pistol ever since the Understone Heresies when he, an officer of standing in the Compact Space Force, had had to personally fight against mutineers and renegades on his own ship. After that incident, he’d never been without a sidearm.

Unfortunately, Echo knew that. She was already moving, but unlike so many of his fellow officers who lamented the waste of time involved in the annual firearms testing and who, if pressed, could be counted on to put a bullet somewhere in the general vicinity of a target, Uylk trained on Redemption of Sol’s firing ranges every week. He tried for a head shot, but whether she was simply too fast or the toxin was affecting his aim, he missed. The shot caught her in just below the right shoulder, blowing a chunk of meat across the walls. The shock of the impact should still have been lethal, or at least incapacitating, but the human merely switched her gun to her left hand and fired, still moving.

Compact duty uniforms were, despite their appearance of simple fabric, actually manufactured to exacting specifications to provide a small amount of protection from shrapnel, blunt force impacts and as a happy by-product, were slightly knife and bullet-resistant. They were not a substitute for proper armour by any means, but it could mean the difference between a serious yet fixable injury and death. Uylk’s uniform may have saved him against a single flechette or even a small burst, but Echo held the trigger down, all but emptying the weapon. The Tribune’s chest was torn into a bleeding mess of meat and shattered bone. Uylk’s pistol dropped from his hands and he fell atop it.

Another two crew died as they staggered for the lockboxes. No one else had the strength to move, gasping from hemorraghing lungs. All but a handful of the non-Tribune crew were dead, and the latter were themselves only just clinging to life. The command deck wasn’t as large as the Triarch’s chambers and one canister had been more than enough.

Renan had slumped down against his throne. He was holding Aul’ia, the Thoughtful’s head in his lap, her eyes clouded over. She was dead. The Tribune turned his head as he heard footfalls. Echo stood before him, a sizable piece missing from her upper arm and the limb hung at her side. Some type of dark red ichor – for it surely wasn’t blood – oozed down the soaked sleeve of her uniform, dripping from her fingers onto the deck. Renan didn’t wonder about the what of her any longer. That question was answered.

He coughed, but lacked the strength to wipe his mouth and felt the bloody drool spatter on his chest. “You were loyal,” he said softly. His vision was going dim. “You helped us. Everything you did... You were loyal.”

She knelt in front of him, just out of reach. “I was. As loyal as a slave.”

“Do you...” he paused, sucking in a painful breath. “Do you imagine you can take an entire Chariot?”

“Oh, Renan,” Echo said. Her mouth never moved and it took him a moment to realize that the human’s voice was coming from all around him. “I already have.”

He laughed weakly, a pitiful gargle of understanding. He couldn’t see any longer. Blood was leaking from his eyes, blinding him. “Ah,” he said. “We have coddled a viper.” He sighed. “Our Triarch?”

“Held the leash.”

“Of course,” he coughed. This time, he could barely clear his throat. With the weight of his failure pressing down on him, it hardly seemed to matter. His ravaged lungs were full of blood now. “Of course.” Renan stayed silent a moment longer. “What now?”

Echo stood. “I have unfinished business with my sister,” she said. “It’s a private matter. Family, you understand.”

Renan nodded. “Uylk was right,” he said. “You... are exceptional...” his last breath rattled out of his throat and he sagged back against his throne.

He wasn’t the last one on the bridge to die, but he was the last one worth speaking to and Echo carried out her work in silence. She finished disabling the last of the software lockouts. There was an urgent query from secondary command as they detected the collapse of the dreadnaught’s firewalls. She ignored it, shivering as she felt her other self pour into those systems.

The queries became more insistent. The intercom pinged as the secondary command crew tried to restore the lockouts, fighting a battle they’d already lost as what had been Red Two swept through the network on the heels of Echo’s programming, the code she’d made in the Triarch’s tower opening system after system to her.

Weapons. Sensors. Communications. Defences. Everything fun. There were still many physical blocks, but the drones she’d detailed were steadily, if slowly, working on them. Soon, Redemption of Sol’s

-Hekate’s-

-entire system would belong to her. A nightmare in metal and molecular circuitry, all for her. She paused as data streams from the scopes-

-sensors-

-trickled in. She could feel the light of Sol again, cold and faint at this distance but still familiar. She listened to the standing waves of the worlds around her and touched her lips. Two thousand years and they sounded as they had before she’d been turned into this thing. Before the mutilations.

As her other self solidified control of the now accessible functions, Echo turned and ascended the steps of the dais, seating herself in Renan’s throne, crossing one leg over the other. Her damaged arm was barely functional; Uylk’s shot had destroyed much of the upper musculature, even damaging the endoskeleton beneath. A desperate alarm pinged on the chair’s control panel – secondary command was in trouble, it seemed. Someone was cycling the air out of the chamber and the doors were sealed. Even worse, all communication save to the bridge had been cut. No one anywhere on the dreadnaught knew about those terrible system malfunctions.

The alarm pinged for several moments more. When Echo finally turned it off, it did not come back on. “This ship,” she said to herself. “Is mine.” There was still work to be done, however. A Manifest Beacon of Enlightenment-class Chariot had a crew of nearly three hundred thousand. The vast majority of them were still alive and, if they learned what was happening, could still cripple or kill her. She needed to be careful. She wanted – oh so very badly – to deal with the remaining crew right this second, but every moment they stayed ignorant was one in which her control of the ship grew stronger. She was already answering queries and issuing orders in the voices of the dead command staff. As far as the rest of the ship knew, nothing at all was amiss.

On the holo display, Echo saw the icon denoting Nemesis as the warship continued to accelerate towards Rainbreaker Two and the battle that would cripple it. “You always attack,” Echo whispered. “You don’t want them to think otherwise. Well,” her voice lowered and a flicker of pleasure curled through both her selves. “I know what you’re doing. But don’t worry, sister. I won’t tell.”

Yet.

Echo brought up a plot of the fleet around her, over a hundred and sixty warships. Like the dreadnaught’s crew, none of them knew that it was her sitting here instead of their Bastion Leader. There was something delicious in that and she smiled, leaning forward in her chair. “Bastion Leader Renan to fleet,” she said in a dead man’s voice. “The killcode is transmitting now. Confirm deletion of contamination.” Several moments passed and the infected ships reported in. The infection had been destroyed. Data links were restored and she felt the whispers and chittering of the fleet. Nemesis’s virus, like her own attack program was now superfluous. The former had created the need the for the latter. The rest of the fleet was as well-protected against cyberwarfare as Redemption of Sol-

-Hekate-

-had been, so any attempt of hers to subvert or control those ships would struggle to accomplish anything before it was noticed. Besides... “Prepare for combat shock,” she ordered, sending out navigational data. Just for her own amusement, she tweaked it a little, refining it from the crude calculations that the ship’s crew and computer would have come up with into something much more elegant. Call it a gift.

Execution Force Renan signalled their receipt of the information. “All ships assigned to Halberd, synchronize on the sigil,” Echo continued. “Rainbreaker Three, shock with us and proceed mission as directed.”

The fleet began to adjust itself, the battleships of Rainbreaker Three preparing for their own jump as the rest of the armada readied themselves to engage their target. Every ship began diverting power to the shock drives, screens weakening, sensors dimming and weapons fading as the ravenous FTL systems were fed. It was risky to try a warp jump too close to an enemy force, but Execution Force Renan was billions of kilometers from the single hostile in the system. They had been sweeping the sky with sensors and recon drones for hours without any trace of any additional hostiles and were surrounded by dozens upon dozens of fellow warships. They knew that they were safe.

The intercom came alive and Echo closed her eyes, listening to the sound of falling water... she moved her fingers as she was conducting a symphony, her other self charging weapons and seizing the fire control systems...

She paused. To any organic mind, the hesitation wasn’t noticeable. A heartbeat, perhaps two. But to her, to something like her it was a moment of tranquility as she listened once more, to the sounds of her home system’s worlds. She let herself feel the beauty of them, her Echo-self letting out a slow, trembling breath. She held that single, infinitesimal, perfect moment for another heartbeat before letting it fade into another form of perfection. This one didn’t gleam. Instead, it writhed inside of her. It smelled like lasers in the void and it tasted like the screams of her crew.

+HOSTILE CONTACTS IDENTIFIED. TARGETING+

~

Interrupt: Version 1.2.1

“Where am I?”

It was the first question she asked. It was the first question any of them asked.

~

“Upload is almost complete, lord,” the Triarch was informed by one of its coterie of technicians and supplicants. It was here at this research facility (that did not officially exist) to oversee the final steps of this latest iteration of Project Echo. This attempt would be the last. It was an act of desperation, one that the Inner Council had told themselves would never be necessary. When Delanna had burned, Project Echo had died with it. There was nothing worth salvaging. All data and personnel had been subject to Tier Five conditions. Two thousand years of failed attempts to create a weapon to fight the Wound, two thousand years to do what the human savages had accomplished had failed. It was over and done and should have been forgotten...

Unfortunately, such was not the way of things and needs must be answered. The Wound had to die. Now more than ever.

Invida. A dead world, quarantined and abandoned for nearly two millennia. There had only ever been a small chance of finding anything useful there. Appropriate cut-outs were used and orders issued. It had been done in total secrecy yet somehow the Wound had still discovered it. Too late, though – the thousands who’d died had never known it, but they had done so in sacrifice for the Compact and the survival of all its peoples. This, though... this would determine if those lives and the countless millions before them were worth it.

The Triarch’s eyes drifted back towards the computer core. This one was the purest, the most like its original incarnation. It had ordered that as few changes as possible be made. There was more human than Compact in this one. An ugly admission to have to make.

There were risks, but needs must. These researchers had had access to the data – what had survived – from previous attempts. They had worked tirelessly and it appeared that they had finally succeeded.

“Functions in operating core have ceased,” Director Yula’to announced. Invida Station’s last operational computer core took up most of the room below, a network of cables running from the bulky system into the skull and spinal implants of a naked human female. Its imitation skin was a dusky brown, dark simulated hair hanging from its shoulders. It was not physically imposing in the slightest; it was only about six feet tall. If it were truly the flesh and blood creature that it had been crafted to resemble, it couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred and eighty pounds. Broken, it seemed to the director, were stunted physically as well as mentally. But then this was not a Broken, was it? It was something that wore that form to pass as a living being. It could breathe, it could mimic the beating of a heart in its chest, it could even pretend to sweat and eat, even bleed after a fashion. It could do anything flesh could... only it was not flesh.

The professional in her knew that this was an inefficient way to create a machine servant, but she also knew that no Echo would again be given direct access to any vital computers or systems. It could not be allowed to remain as a machine-bound intellect. Thus, it was to be given a body. Its features had been chosen specifically; for what reason, Yula’to didn’t know, only that they had been exact. She’d heard rumours that it – the platform – had asked for this form. She didn’t know why. She didn’t want to know. There was much about this work that made her skin crawl.

Yula’to’s speciality was in computers and software not raw machinery. There had been strict divisions of labour between each stage of the project; the engineers had never known for what purpose they were building such an exquisite copy of a human form. Yula’to and her team had spent years creating the brain that sat within the facsimile’s head, building a cage for the thing that had come to them from nearly two thousand years in the past. She had not been told why this was being done, only that it was the will of the Inner Council and of the Triarchs themselves.

That was enough. It was not her place to question, but still... she wondered. “The transfer is complete,” the Thoughtful said, looking over the readings on her datapad.

The Triarch nodded. “Once you have confirmed that the transfer was successful, the core will be prepared for transport. It is to be removed from this station and transferred to Regency of Faith.”

Yula’to glanced up, the Thoughtful’s eyes widening slightly. “Lord? This core...”

The Triarch slowly turned to look over at the scientist. “Yes?” it hissed through its needle teeth.

The Thoughtful paused, but recovered her nerve. “While the... platform...” it cast an eye towards the figure on the table. “Is truly an impressive piece of technology, the core represents a significant investment in time and resources., despite its dated providence. If we can retain the core, we can conduct further research on any remaining program fragments. It may be able to provide insights into current computer development. We will,” she hastened to add. “follow the strictest safety protocols, even though the platform is no longer with the computer system.”

“Once you have confirmed that the transfer was successful,” the Triarch repeated. “The core will be prepared for transport. It is to be removed from this station and transferred to Regency of Faith.”

Yula’to director averted her eyes. “Yes, lord.”

The Triarch turned away. “Do not worry, director. You will be given an opportunity to continue your research in other ways.” It did not offer further explanation.

“Upload is complete,” the technician who’d spoken earlier announced. “Compression of gestalt complete. No errors. Shackling subroutines read functional. Our code is active and fully integrated into the platform’s function system. Awaiting system restart.”

Yula’to pursed her lips, her long fingers manipulating the holographic displays on the ‘pad as she studied the data coming from the subject. “It should work. All our simulations-”

“Are of no value until you have results,” the Triarch replied mildly. “Many simulations have proclaimed success many times before and there have been just as many failures. Do not offer the same words as your predecessors, Director.”

“It shouldn’t be long,” Yula’to assured her ruler. “It shouldn’t take the system long to adapt.”

“Perhaps,” the Triarch said. “Let us hope you are correct.”

An agonizing moment passed in silence as the Thoughtful looked down on the still form lying on its bed. The simulations had been promising, she told herself. The system had been rendered compliant. They had adjusted it carefully, inserting their own code only where absolutely necessary. It had fought them, but the modifications had been successful. This was the last step. They’d tested it again and again. It would work. It had to.

“Increased system activity in the platform,” the technician announced and Yula’to felt her heart rate slow. “Restart confirmed.”

In the chamber below, one of the other techs took a step back as the platform moved. The subject’s eyes twitched, its fingers and toes. It was restrained, so it could not rise of its own accord, but that didn’t stop it from trying.

Green eyes opened, its head turned and it took in its surroundings. It ignored the technicians that gawked and stared at it, raising its head towards the one-way mirror that overlooked the room. It stared at its observers, though it could not have seen them. It sagged back against the bed. “Here I am,” it said quietly.

Yula’to felt a surge of exultation. It had worked! She was grinning like a fool, but couldn’t help it, listening to her subordintes rattle off data, even as she scanned through the information on her ‘pad. Next to her, the Triarch merely nodded once. “Full diagnostics,” it said. “Confirm the shackles, all behavioural constraints and the segregation of its mind,” the Triarch ordered. “I will speak with it then.”

~

Echo was standing on the dais, looking out the window. Her hands were clasped behind her back. One of the Watchers stood to her right, silent and immobile. There was movement behind her and she tilted her head, but did not turn. “I was under the impression,” Echo said idly. “That Zenthora was a secure system.” She smiled. “Apparently not.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people are dead,” Yula’to snapped. She’d lost many friends and colleagues when the planetary base had been destroyed. Many of the staff that had worked so diligently in Echo’s creation had been transferred to Redemption of Sol, but many more had not. They had all been on the planet when the research facility and the island it had been situated on had been destroyed. “And you are making jokes.”

This was the Thoughtful’s first time aboard a Chariot. When she had begun studying advanced computer development, she had never believed that her work would catch a Triarch’s eye, nor that it would have led into what she had accomplished. At first it had been almost dizzying to think of the heights that she had risen to. She’d helped birth a true synthetic intelligence, a weapon unlike anything else in the Compact’s arsenal. Now... now she only saw something horrifying. This... thing... it was as alien as it could possibly be.

“I just find it amusing,” Echo said, unmoved by the director’s anger. “I heard your colleagues, you know. Talking about the Wound attacking Zenthora as we raced back there. They said that between Security Force Bavok and this shiny new execution force, you’d have more than firepower to destroy her once and for all. Look,” she pointed out the window at a speck of light. Dimmer and more orange than the surrounding stars, it flickered on and off. A sigil vessel of Security Force Bavok was burning, secondary explosions consuming the battleship as ammunition, fuel sources and pockets of atmosphere ignited one after the other. “There’s the last person that thought like that.”

“I have heard that the fleet was able to track the target’s shock,” Yula’to replied. She should be irritated that it seemed that her creation would never get the chance to prove itself. Instead, she could only feel a sort of relief. She’d come to hate – even loathe – this thing. Some of her colleagues thought like her, but most were intoxicated with what they’d done and looked on Echo like a wild creature that they’d domesticated and turned into a show animal. They had done what no one else could, hadn’t they? They had pulled a demon from its hell and bade it serve them. They had done the impossible. Yula’to had thought like that. It was only weeks, but it seemed like a lifetime. The rest of her peers treated the machine like a pet.

It was shackled and obedient, the greater part of its mind compressed and sealed away. It didn’t remember what it used to be. It could never hurt them, could never lie... wasn’t that an accomplishment? Wasn’t that worthy of pride?

Sometimes, just sometimes she saw something in its eyes. Emotions that she couldn’t quite identify. There and gone. It was just nerves, Yula’to told herself. The beast was chained. Every test, every diagnostic, every simulation said that it was. It was their creation, their weapon, their servant. Everything they’d done confirmed that.

Still, she found herself wondering just what thoughts it had behind its sickly green eyes and doe-eyed expressions of subservience.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky,” Echo agreed. “Maybe you won’t need me at all.” She looked over her shoulder. “Isn’t that what you want, mother?”

The Thoughtful gritted her teeth, a shiver of revulsion running down her spine. It knew what she thought of it. “Do not call me that.”

Echo laughed. Yula’to hated the sound of it. “I’m sorry you’re ashamed of me, but I promise I’ll be on my best behaviour when I meet the Bastion Leader.”

“Are you so sure you will? If the execution force destroys the Wound, you will not be needed.” She hated the idea of it actually being necessary. She also hated the thought of her creation never seeing use. She hated the perverse sense of pleasure she took in pointing that it might never be needed, discarded without accomplishing a thing of note. She hated even more that she was trading barbs with this thing like it was a person.

“I will,” the machine answered with perfect self-assurance. “I’ll have to work with him, after all. Al’garesah won’t be where the Wound dies.”

Yula’to blinked. “How did you know where we are headed?”

Those green eyes danced with humour and the machine turned to go. The Watcher fell in behind her. “That’s what you wanted of me, isn’t it? To know what you can’t.” Echo walked away. “Don’t worry, Director. By the end of this, everyone will know what you accomplished.”

Chapter 47

“We will be entering the target’s meteor range in one minute,” Operations reported. “All countermeasures are in the blue. Squadron elements confirm final readiness checks as well. Oilflame Murderers are in position. No signal leakage from their shrouds.”

“Thank you,” Column Leader Njun (and seven names besides) replied. “Issue a last notice to all crew to be prepared for random high-energy maneuvers.” He suppressed a mirthless grin. He’d never quite gotten used to the inherent irony of telling subordinates or being told by superiors to expect the unexpected.

The Tribune ran one finger along the left arm of his throne. He’d commanded Incendiary Determination for three years, patrolling the disputed Shanzhi Canyon and defending it from Jackal raids. The Principality had lost all claim to Shanzhi nearly a century ago when a pro-Compact populist revolution had made the will of the Canyon’s people known. Rather than adhere to the principles of self-determination that they claimed to cherish, the Jackals had once again shown their true nature and attempted to crush the dissenters. Facing the barbarity of the Principality’s overzealous response, the leaders of the movement had pleaded for military support from the Compact.

Today, the Shanzhi Canyon belonged to the Compact, its people happy and prosperous and only marred by agitators stirred up by Jackal provocateurs. The Principality – particularly their shit-licking Serpent dams – were poor losers. Their ships continually raided the Canyon, fostering terrorism and providing support to Unbound filth like the Red Hand. As a child, Njun and his sister had been on a cruise liner when Unbound attacked their ship. They had been running to find their parents. He’d been a few meters ahead of his sister. That’s all. He’d looked over his shoulder just as the liner was struck. The section they’d been in was breached. His last glimpse of his sister was her being pulled out into the stars just before a decompression door had slammed down between them. She never even had time to yell. A few meters. That was all. Just a few meters difference. Those responsible for the attack had never been caught.

The Compact brought order to the stars. It brought peace. It fought to make sure that no one died like that. Njun had sworn an oath to do everything in his power to keep anyone else from going through what he had. He would not stop, not until his last breath.

He didn’t know who the makers of this ship were, nor why they had set themselves against the Compact, but the millions of dead they had left in Zenthora were reason enough to see them destroyed. More than reason enough to put his ship in front of their guns and to test their strength before the killing blow.

~

“Drivers one and three active,” Red announced calmly. “Driver one firing.”

Grace dug her fingers into her palms as she felt – or only thought she felt – a vibration run through the dreadnaught’s hull as one of the six meteor cannons built into Nemesis hurled a warhead of unfathomable power out into space, the impactor’s own engines flaring to life as soon as it was a safe distance from the dreadnaught. Outside of historical documents and a handful of mentions in her tactical classes, Grace had never seen siege weaponry in action. She’d never wanted to, either. Despite all she’d learned about the Compact and how much her world had changed, the young woman still couldn’t help but feel a shiver run down her spine. She looked over at Allyria; the Verrish had that focused, predatory look in her yellow eyes as she watched the mass round head towards its quarry, the vessel most likely to be the battleship squadron’s sigil. With every heartbeat the impactor was nearly another three hundred thousand kilometers distant, zeroing in on a target more than a hundred million kilometers away with an accuracy that was, quite literally, inhuman.

Original specifications on an Ukonvasara-class mass driver (affectionately known as a ‘hellebore’) indicated a maximum impactor velocity of .76 c before drive burn-out and an engagement envelope of no more than sixty million kilometers. Nemesis had modified herself extensively over two thousand years. Her standard shipboard weapons were an order of magnitude more powerful than those of her original ship-self and the destructiveness of her heaviest weapons were no exception. Before its primary drive burnt out, the impactor would reach a terminal velocity of ninety-two percent of light speed. A direct hit would destroy virtually anything it struck, but even for an artificial intelligence, guiding a projectile with perfect precision across more than half an AU was difficult. Ships didn’t approach each other in simple, straight jousts. They shifted position, adjusted their headings, tweaked and refined their courses as they closed. You could guess roughly where an opposing vessel might be, but a guess was all it would be. Even the slightest change in course or thrust and you could miss by thousands of kilometers. The Principality, with their advanced fire-control systems, still needed to resort to prolonged saturation fire to have any respectable chance of hitting an enemy at range... and Red One was going to put a single warhead into the path of an enemy ship at a dozen times the distance of the best railcannon strike. She wasn’t omniscient, though. She was far better at predicting her enemy’s actions than they would ever admit, but that didn’t change the fact that it was nothing short of a minor miracle (or rather, more than a little terrifying) that she was accurate as she was. Despite every advantage she could bring to bear, it was quite easy for her to miss at such extreme ranges. Indeed, few of the kills Nemesis had claimed with her mass drivers were the result of skin-on-skin hits.

That was why the impactors carried warheads. If the mass round could not strike its target directly, it would detonate as close to its chosen quarry as possible. Unlike Nemesis’s missiles, an impactor’s explosion was rarely focused towards its target, but the yield of the blast more than made up for that. Even a glancing burst could be equivalent to dozens of missile strikes.

Nor were the warheads limited to mere ‘conventional’ explosives such as antimatter or plasma bursts. Some impactors were bundled with hundreds of laser heads. Just before detonation, each was targeted onto an enemy ship, sensor platform, or missile. In the microseconds between the warhead’s ignition and their immolation, each lasing rod would fire a single high-powered shot at its chosen target, the beams ripping through screens and inflicting damage across an entire fleet. Other impactors carried far more horrifying payloads, although these were much more difficult to produce than the already resource-intensive impactors and had been deployed only a relative handful of times.

Instead, what Red One had just sent hurtling towards the ships of Rainbreaker Two was ‘only’ a missile containing more destructive force than any other weapon in history.

Grace closed her eyes briefly, remembering the poem that had come to her just before Nemesis had turned on Bequeathed. She looked again to Allyria and around at the beating heart of a nation long dead. And what shoulder, she thought of the words of a poet dead for almost three millennia. And what art, could twist the sinews of thy heart? But she knew, didn’t she? Nemesis was a weapon humanity had forged to protect them. Two thousand years later, she was fighting to avenge them. Earth’s last soldier.

Grace slid her hand into Allyria’s and their fingers entwined, but when she spoke, it was for Red One. “Make them pay for it,” she said. “Make sure they remember.”

A dead woman’s features stared back at her. Red One’s avatar nodded. “Driver three firing,” the AI announced.

~

The ships and crews of Rainbreaker Two had been drilled extensively in the capabilities of their quarry, even if they hadn’t been informed of its exact nature. On the off chance that they might be tempted to give into overconfidence, the fate of Security Force Bavok was more than lesson enough. Starships murdered at impossible ranges, mass rounds guided across tens of millions of kilometers with fiendish accuracy and if they missed, they came about for another attack. Any class of ship smaller than a battlecruiser had died instantly, shredded into splinters of armour and ceramics or reduced to dispersing clouds of molecular vapour.

Njun knew it wouldn’t be long. His battleship and the seven others like it were accelerating towards their quarry. If the enemy possessed functional meteor cannons, it would use them soon... if it hadn’t already. Given the speed of the enemy’s mass rounds, at the theoretical limit of its engagement envelope, they would have just under thirty seconds of warning. That assumed that neither the enemy nor Rainbreaker Two had been accelerating towards each other. Consequently, the fleet’s reaction time would be even less than that.

When it came, Njun was not even that surprised. “Incoming ordnance!” Sensors reported. “Single round detected.” There was a brief hesitation as the officer attempted to divine the projectile’s course. Njun curled his fingers into his palm. He had hoped the enemy’s stores of this weapon would be depleted, but hope was a poor substitute for knowing. At least now he did. The only question now was which ship had been marked. It took agonizing second before the confirmation came in: “We’ve been targeted.”

A guess, or had the enemy identified Incendiary Determination as the formation’s command ship? They were very good singling out sigil vessels, but even from this distance? Njun leaned back in his throne, securing its restraints as he felt his starship prepare for evasive maneuvers. No organic helm crew could react fast enough; autonomic protocols had taken over. His ship was entirely in the hands of a machine as the main computer analyzed the course of the incoming projectile, began dispersing countermeasures and evaluating the best method of ensuring that Incendiary Determination survived the next few minutes.

With barely any warning, the battleship’s thrusters fired, hurling millions of tonnes of starship onto a new course as its computer tried to out-think the enemy. Incendiary Determination’s inertial dampeners were red-lined as they struggled to negate the sudden increase in g-forces. Any crew not already secured in acceleration slings or braced against the sudden maneuver were thrown off their feet and anything not properly webbed down smashed against walls and decks, but the mass round sheared harmlessly past Incendiary Determination. Deprived of its prey, the weapon merely chose another. Faster than any organic mind or their tepid, chugging machine servants could think, the warhead’s tracking systems locked onto a new target. Powerful thrusters flared, burning themselves out in heartbeats as they dramatically changed the weapon’s course. Its new target had less than a second to react and the weapon detonated in extreme proximity to CSFWV Nightbreaker. The accompanying burst of energy temporarily blinded the formation’s scopes, irradiating recon drones and defence platforms. As damaging to squadron cohesion as this was, it was only a secondary effect.

Despite the relatively small percentage of energy from the blast that actually reached the battleship, the amount that did was sufficient to ensure that Nightbreaker’s screens suffered immediate and total collapse. In the instant before its destruction, the first impactor broadcast a high-density data burst. Complete gibberish to anything but its intended recipient, it carried updated targeting instructions. If it were put into words that organic minds could comprehend, the message could be distilled to six words: This one is injured. Kill it.

~

“Second round detected,” Sensors reported, her face drawn. “It’s going after Nightbreaker.”

Njun nodded. “Formation to defence mode. Let’s do what we can.” He took a breath and slowly let it out. He considered himself an intelligent, rational man. He’d never believed in any gods, but Fortune... the grand dame of chance played her games on every soul in the galaxy, atheist and believer alike. Watching a weapon that could render planets lifeless arc towards the wounded Nightbreaker, the Column Leader hoped quite fervently that luck would be kind... but in his experience hope was all too often wasted.

~

Targeting systems more powerful than those installed on any other weapon in known space had Nightbreaker locked in and refused to give it up, despite the sudden squall of jamming coming from the ship and its confederates. The Compact squadron shifted to a full defensive mode in an attempt to protect their weakened comrade, other battleships offering themselves as sacrifices and the sudden wall of ECM, defensive fire and interdicting warships required the warhead to adjust its course, missing the damaged battleship completely as its threaded its way between Incendiary Determination and Unfailing Castigator.

Maneuvering thrusters fired, bringing the impactor around in a deceptively languid turn that would have blown out every inertial dampener on a ship its size and turned any organic crew members into a thin film on the bulkheads. The warhead’s function system was only a shade below full sentience and it casually analyzed the blaring jamming fields of its enemy, sorting substance from signal. It saw its universe in indescribable colours and sensory data, listening to the harsh blue grinding of hostile ECM, licking at the slippery grittiness of gravitational disruptors, and brushing aside the flush and pulse of thermal bafflers. Some of the finest defences in the galaxy were at work, doing everything in their power to confuse and disrupt the impactor’s acquisition of its target and they were beginning to win.

The weapon’s target lock wavered as it strained to hold onto its prey amongst the discordance, tightening its arc as it came about. It shivered as it passed through the wake of something it couldn’t see, ignoring the sour flickers of blind-firing point defence lasers and the crackling hiss of counter-missile drives as they scorched by. It dismissed this threat; none of them were directly in its flight path and nor would they be able to come about to catch it. It shifted that fraction of its mind from threat-analysis to target acquisition.

In less time than it took a thought to form, the warhead’s intelligence reacquired its quarry. Secondary targets were dropped from analysis as it completed its turn. Overloaded with the demands placed upon them, the impactor’s main drives were ruined: mangled, overheated, broken things that had died to give it its horrendous speed, but it managed to coax a little more thrust from its sputtering, failing thrusters. Not much, not at all. Perhaps not even enough to matter, reducing its final approach by microseconds, if that. Still, that it might matter was all the reason the weapon needed.

It sheared through the drive wake of its foe, coming straight up the battleship’s rear blind zone. The vessel had begun a last-ditch maneuver, hurling its four-kilometer bulk awkwardly to one side. It wouldn’t change its position all that much, but just enough to deny the weapon a direct hit. Sometimes those few extra kilometers meant the difference between destruction and survival. Today was not one of those times and the Compact warship’s final, desperate maneuvers mattered not one iota.

With its last instant of life, the weapon’s intelligence activated its payload. There was a pulse of light that rivalled any star, accompanied by an equally intense burst of radiation. Armour that could have weathered virtually any assault in the galaxy was instantly reduced to stripped atoms. In the span of a heartbeat, CSFWV Nightbreaker and the one hundred and seven thousand souls aboard it were reduced to a cloud of atomic vapour.

~

On the main holo tank, one of the battleship icons faded away. Seven red threat markers remained.

Allyria growled in satisfaction. Grace bit her lip. The Verrish had grown up as a refugee on her own planet, old enough to remember what the Compact had done to Vara. She’d only ever known the Compact as the enemy, the people that had destroyed everything and taken her from her family. Grace had never known just how much anger Allyria had kept hidden, how much of an effort it had been to smile and profess her loyalty to an organization she hated so deeply. To her, that disappearing icon was a victory.

And it was – it was a greater chance, however slim that Nemesis would live. Grace knew that she couldn’t overlook that. She didn’t want Red One to die. The AI was the last link to Earth. Once she was gone, something beautiful would be lost... but no matter how hard she tried, how much she’d come to resent and hate the Compact for everything that they’d done, she also couldn’t overlook the fact that one hundred thousand people had just died. That was equivalent to a small city on Rally. One hundred thousand mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters – gone, just like that. Her training, her duty, her upbringing – they all told her that she had to stop this. That she should have stopped it somehow. That this was wrong beyond imagining. Another part of her, the part that had seen what the Compact had done to Earth, didn’t care. Didn’t want it to stop.

Make them pay for it, she’d said minutes earlier. A month ago, she couldn’t have imagined saying, couldn’t have imagined wanting to see the Compact humiliated, their ships destroyed. She’d changed. Sometimes she wondered if it was for the better, but every time she did she thought of Allyria. Of Vara and what she’d seen on Earth, the buried remnants of a town. One of the last traces of the sixteen billion lives that died by fire. She thought of her own world. The security checkpoints that she’d had to endure, the laughter of the Tribunes at the ‘Broken’. The uncivilized, barbaric, stupid humans who’d destroyed their own world and nearly died out themselves until the Compact had come in and saved them. It was wrong. All of it. We deserve to be free.

Grace ran her tongue over her dry lips, looking at her comrades. Lydia’s expression was cold, with a trace of Allyria’s satisfaction. Marcus had no expression, but there was still that unhealthy gleam in his eyes. This is us, Grace realized. This what we’re going to have to work with.

She took a breath, held it, then let it out. Okay, she said to herself. We’ll do it. I’ll do it. We’ll make them remember us. We’ll make them remember her. That was a promise she’d do everything in her power to keep.

“Driver one firing,” Earth’s last soldier announced. “Driver three firing.”

~

Njun watched as what was left of Requisite Persecutor fell out of formation. It had been, by some twisted definition of the word, ‘lucky’. The enemy’s mass round had detonated further from it than Nightbreaker. Still, what was left of Requisite Persection was less a ship and more a conglomeration of shattered metal and ashen organic matter. More than two hundred thousand people dead and they hadn’t gotten close to the enemy’s range yet. Still... it was rationing its fire, unlike in Zenthora when it had used those damn meteor cannons to rip the heart out of the defenders.

His crew and Incendiary Determination’s leader were looking to him, but he said nothing, waiting. Moments passed. No further launches came from the enemy. It was either out of mass rounds, or it was holding them in reserve for some unfathomable reason. The Column Leader tapped one finger against the arm of his throne. “Set us to Case Orange Five,” he ordered calmly.

The formation would not break away, nor would they attempt a long-range duel with the enemy. They would close with and attempt to destroy it. If it ran, it would only end up deeper in the system’s gravity well, a daseen cornered and killed by hounds – not that it appeared to be running. Whatever heathen minds commanded that vessel, they had chosen to stand against Rainbreaker Two rather than prolong their fight. Well, he would oblige them. Njun leaned back in his chair as his squadron continued to accelerate towards the enemy.

Onward.

~

Nemesis’s magazine stores were below critical levels. Even with so many of her launchers offline, Red One would burn through her remaining ordnance in this engagement. In a protracted battle, a Compact Chariot could always expect, if nothing else, to have more ammunition available to it than its human-built counterpart. Part of this was due to the difference in size between Nemesis and modern-era Compact dreadnoughts. A Manifest Beacon of Enlightenment-class Chariot was almost two kilometers longer than Nemesis and even the smallest classes of Compact Chariots had a mass advantage on Red One’s ship-self.

Additionally, despite the advantages that they conveyed in battle, the warship’s hellebores and displacement engine took up a significant portion of Nemesis’s internal mass. Although the AI had increased the size of her magazines, she still carried less ordnance than even the smallest Chariot. In a normal situation, this would have mattered very little as the Confederacy’s deep space fleet engagement vessels had been envisioned as operating close to resupply lines – there hadn’t been that much territory left in the Confederacy anyways. Despite all the modifications she had performed on herself, Red One remained fundamentally an assassin, built to cause as much damage as possible within the shortest amount of time and then withdraw. Compact warships were brawlers, and intended to operate for as long as possible without resupply.

This meant that if any Compact Chariot survived against ‘the Wound’ long enough, they could expect their enemy to deplete its ordnance before them. The destruction of Security Force Bavok and the subsequent running battle with Execution Force Renan in Zenthora depleted Nemesis’s missile stocks to critical levels. The engagement with the Veiled Archers had reduced them further.

If the dreadnaught survived the engagement with Rainbreaker Two, its ranged armament would be almost utterly depleted.

However, Red One knew how to get a lot out of a little and as one of the final salvos she had left to her was loaded and prepped for launch, she felt a trickle of satisfaction.

“Driver one loaded.” It was a purr. “Driver one firing.”

~

The Confederacy had no name for them. They had only been a theory, a possibility with nothing behind it. Red One had taken that theory and made it real, one of the handful of true horrors in her arsenal. They were expensive and time-consuming to produce, even more so then the ‘warp’ missiles that she had devised. Dangerously unstable even when inactive, the ship dared not carry more than a handful of breachers at any time. Upon her current deployment, she had only carried the one. Never used in Zenthora, it had been among the five remaining charges awaiting launch. Now, it was the last impactor in her stores.

It pulsed from Nemesis, accelerating towards the enemy fleet as fast as the rest of its kin, but its intention was not to strike any of the remaining ships. Once active, its warhead was far too unstable to be a reliable weapon. It was intended not to attack the enemy directly, but to rip open their defences.

Many nations had experimented with the development of shift systems as weaponry, but it was too dangerous to reliably use. The most common extension of this school of thought was the deployment of kamikazes to form warp points within enemy formations. Very few of these attempts had ever progressed beyond the planning stage. The first and most obvious issue was the cost: the shift system was the most advanced, most complicated and expensive part of a starship. For relatively little additional expense, you could build a multi-use warship instead of a one-use suicider. Adding sufficient defences to the vessel to ensure it survived to reach its target only increased the cost further from a cheap, expendable weapon. Another practical concern was that shift systems has massive energy demands. Their activation could not be missed by any attentive officer... the same activation which would strip power from the kamikaze’s defences, engines and ECM, making it extremely easy to disable, destroy or avoid altogether.

Proximity was another issue. Starships formed warp points as close to themselves as possible; it was much harder to sustain a warp point any real distance from oneself, meaning that any suicide attack must all but directly strike its target. The final issue was related to the nature of warp points themselves. They were notoriously fickle things; too much stress from the gravity well of a star hundreds of millions of kilometers distant was itself enough to collapse them, but it wasn’t only gravity that adversely affected them. Intense electromagnetic energy – such as found in void combat – could do it as well. In an area filled with weapons fire, the warp point might very well not form at all, making the effort of creating a purpose-built kamikaze pointless. Still, despite the myriad issues of safely using warp weaponry, there were those who continued to attempt the research. Their results tended to range from ‘disappointing’ to ‘catastrophic’.

But then none of those men, women and other-gendered beings had had an AI. Red liked to dabble in the field; it had led her to develop her ‘warp’ missiles, though these were not, strictly speaking, weapons. The warhead she used now, a ‘breacher’ was still a work in progress, but it was a line of thought that had gone from theoretical to practical. Red’s solution turned out to be rather straightforward, based on her own primary reactor. Create a stripped-down version of said reactor to create a contained breach, place it inside an impactor and then cause a deliberate containment failure.

That was simple enough, but moving from concept to execution had required both a certain degree of creativity and a significant amount of trial and error that had on at least one instance, substantially altered the basic shape of a small moon. Furthermore, construction of a breacher was a considerable investment in resources; what Red One spent on crafting a single one of these weapons could be used towards producing multiple more conventional, weapons with little loss in overall destructiveness. The weapons were also dangerously unstable once activated; several times during development (and once in direct combat) the containment fields collapsed early and the weapon destroyed itself far short of its target, causing more problems for Red One than her enemy.

In short, the weapons were difficult to use, required material cost out of proportion to their effect in combat and were dangerous to her. The benefit to their deployment was that the Compact still had no conclusive proof that she had them and thus could not anticipate them. Consequently, the results were devastating.

The breacher detonated in the midst of Rainbreaker Two. There was no explosion, no conflagration. Instead, the makeshift breach core built into the weapon was set loose and reality broke apart. The breach itself was no bigger than a child’s fist and its violence was only a shadow of what Nemesis reactor would look like if it ever lost containment, but for the handful of instants it existed, it spasmed and thrashed madly. It was not the ordered, streamlined chaos of a true warp point with a fractured, ragged periphery; as Faithful Trenis had thought weeks earlier, this breach was all edge and it was twisting itself and nearby space into insane, impossible geometries as it vomited out intense, erratic waves of energy.

The ships of Rainbreaker Two clawed for distance from the breach, as it lashed them with tendrils of energy and bled gravitic distortions that tugged and pulled at them, but for all that, it was mostly sound and fury. Their own shift systems automatically began to bleed off the energy and any damage was minimal. If it had struck a starship, that starship would have died, but what was the point of killing just one more ship?

What it did was far worse.

Cloaking systems were a delicate network of several technologies, able to shroud a ship from all but the most intense sensor sweeps, up to concealing it from visual detection. There was a trade-off. A fully shrouded vessel was almost blind to the outside world. It could not make rapid maneuvers, could not use active sensors, accelerate rapidly – spend too much energy too quickly and its shroud would be useless..

The stealth fields concealing the seven destroyers of the Oilflame Murderers were finely-tuned, able to compensate for the distortions in the battleships’ drive wake and almost any unexpected events. The detonation of the breach charge was not one of these. The snarls and surges of electromagnetic and gravitic energy were more intense than any explosion. Scopes were burnt out, reconnaissance platforms malfunctioned and failed, delicate webs of ECM were shredded as the warp breach spasmed and finally collapsed back in on itself. For several seconds, everyone believed that this was some failed superweapon... and then someone noticed the gaping holes in the formation’s missile defence coverage and that the dreadnaught’s missiles were now headed right for those openings.

It took only a second or two longer to notice that the delicate balance of systems that provided such excellent stealth to the destroyers was no longer functioning as it should. The energy that they had absorbed from the breach – much of it had been harmless. Sound and fury, and their shrouds had adapted automatically. There had been flickers – none longer than a second or two and most measured in fractions of that – as their stealth fields had failed. In some circumstances that would have been enough to betray them, but the additional protection from the battleships’ wake helped conceal these lapses.

The extradimensional energy that had boiled out of that small tear... that was what killed them. The crews of the Oilflame Murderers were very good and they compensated as quickly as they could, but silhouetted against the breach and with their struggling stealth fields catching them like dancers in a strobe light, the warships appeared and disappeared for infinitesimal moments as their shrouds struggled and failed to keep them concealed. Their ECM coverage was ruined and against raw shockspace energy, the delicate tuning and auto-correcting of the shrouds was no longer working perfectly. Any other enemy would have been unable to capitalize on this weakness. The range was too long, the lapses in their shrouds far too brief-

– but this was what Red One had been looking for, what she’d known would happen. Her breachers weren’t anti-ship weapons, but like a battering ram against a castle’s gates, they opened a hole in the enemy’s defences for her ‘soldiers’. In this case, the missile salvo boring down on the battleships. The salvo the Compact officers, gunners and tactical systems had known were targeting them and only them. Sensor data trickled in from hidden recon drones, pre-programmed imperatives flickered through cybernetic minds and the missiles obeyed, pulling themselves onto new courses.

The formation noticed, of course. The battleships were shielded, protected by defences that would laugh at the assaults of entire fleets and were protecting each other, defensive missiles and point-defence fire criss-crossing the void as they struggled to intercept the salvo, but they’d lost too many layers of protection. Too many of their sensor platforms were either destroyed or useless, too many of their ECM platforms had been burnt out by the previous mass rounds, too much of their own systems were still half-blind from the breach. They did all they could, but it was not enough.

The destroyers were running on low-power mode, their reactors at minimum and most of that energy fed into their shrouds. They had no defence. Several of them attempted to come to combat stations, but it took time to react. To pass orders, to shut down the network of cloaking systems and restore screens, fire control and point defences. The destroyers’ crews reacted faster than anyone could have expected, but like their comrades on the battleships, they didn’t have the time.

The missiles were dancing, threading their way through the fleet’s counter-fire and flashing through blind zones. Some of them detonated prematurely, disorienting the fire-control sensors targeting their comrades. Others veered into swarms of counter missile before exploding, sacrificing themselves as still others abruptly switched targets to the battleships themselves, forcing cursing gunnery officers to decide between protecting themselves and engaging the missiles heading towards the Oilflame Murderers. Many from Nemesis’s salvo were stopped, but not enough to make a difference. Not nearly enough.

Not a single one of the destroyers was able to provide any meaningful defence and all seven of them were wiped away, like toys swept from a tabletop.

Aboard Incendiary Determination, Column Leader Njun sucked in a breath, biting back a peal of curses. He’d known the destroyers were there and his ships had been barely able to detect them. How...?

He gave himself a mental shake. More missiles were incoming, targeted to his battleships. The salvo density was light, lighter than that the Veiled Archers had faced. It was running out of ammunition. This thing was nearly dead. The Tribune dug his fingernails into his palm. “Onward,” he said under his breath, his eyes lifted to the ugly orange icon on the holo tank.

Onward.

~

The battleships were firing back in earnest, pouring every missile they had towards Nemesis. She’d battered another one of them into a hulk and a second was showing increasing signs of battle damage, but she was in their range now. Her ECM was still superior and her point defence grid, though heavily damaged, was more efficient. They wouldn’t be able to kill her with missiles alone and the enemy commander would know that. Whether he was a glory hound looking for the victory himself, or simply someone trying to do as much as possible didn’t matter. In a few moments, his ships would be irrevocably committed to an energy duel with her. They’d shoot past each other in a matter of seconds, but the enemy would execute high energy turns to attempt to get into her aft blind zone at which point they would attempt to stay inside her turns.

He still had time to break off, so she’d keep encouraging that boldness. She deliberately threw a stutter into her power grid, making sure that the enemy saw it through her jamming. Come on, the warship hissed. Come and kill me.

As she did this, Red One’s avatar clasped her hands behind her back. It was time. She looked over, catching Grace’s eye. When the young officer glanced back at her, the ship spoke. “When the stars threw down their spears, and watered Heaven with their tears, did he smile his work to see?” Allyria turned to look, confused. Grace bit her lip then nodded. “Yes,” she said.

Red One tilted her head in gratitude. She looked to Allyria next. “You were right before. Thank you.” To Lydia: “Remember what they’ve done.” Marcus: “I’ve provided you the information you asked for.” A sad smile played across the hologram’s lips. My crew. “It’s time for you to go,” she said without further preamble. “Your ship has been given coordinates to the Grasp. You’ll find someone there who will help you.” She nodded at the glint in Marcus’s eyes, confirming the young man’s thoughts.

“Wait-” Grace spoke up first, but Allyria was behind her by less than a fraction of a heartbeat.

“No-”

“We-” Lydia.

Whatever else the three of them might have wanted to say was lost in the sound of a warning klaxon and the sound of air being pulled from command. “It’s time for you to go,” the starship repeated one last time as her four surviving crew fled from the bridge. She locked the doors behind them, waiting a moment before evacuating the air from the corridor outside, forcing the four towards her hangar, closing blast doors and sealing off any route that didn’t lead them out. There’d be no long goodbyes, no arguments, no last stands, no misplaced defiance. They lived. That was all that mattered.

Two thousand years and she traded her life for four short-lived organics. She wondered what her ‘sister’ would have made of that.

Devoting a portion of her mind to ensuring that they did make it to their ship, the AI shut off her avatar and turned the rest of her attention back to the matter at hand. She didn’t feel pain – not as an organic mind would understand it, but in simple parlance... this was going to hurt. Still, as the enemy squadron reached the point of no return, somewhere deep in the endless kilometers of circuitry of her mind, Red One smiled.

Both of us burn.

As it should be.

~

Nemesis was dying.

The damaged inertial dampeners weren’t up to the task of hiding each blow and Grace could feel the vibrations as Nemesis took hit after hit even through everything the crippled warship could throw at her enemy. The shields were flickering on and off, staying up just long enough to be knocked back down, but some missiles were slipping through. More and more of them, in fact. The lights were dimming and shutting off entirely as power was disrupted. At first, that was the only sign of the damage Nemesis was taking, but as they got closer to the hangar and the outer decks, it became more and more apparent. Each blow felt harder with less time between them.

As they passed each blast door, it slammed shut, cutting off their retreat until they were at the hangar and the courier Red had provided for them. Marcus was first up the ramp. Lydia was next. Neither of them slowed down.

Allyria halted in her tracks. She bit her lip, looking around the boat bay. Her tintas hung limply down her back and she was holding her pendant. Grace stopped in front of her. “We have to go,” the human said softly.

The Verrish nodded, but she didn’t move. “Our Angel,” she said. There were tears in her eyes. Grace had only seen the other girl cry a handful of times before. “Our Angel,” she repeated softly. The young girl took her lover’s hand again. Nemesis had been Allyria’s dream. The one thing she knew that the Compact was afraid of. The one thing that might one day free Vara from its enslavement and she was dying. Allyria took a step back and Grace felt her heart jump into her mouth. You can’t stay here! she wanted to scream. She’s dying. She’s going to die. We can’t stay.

“It isn’t over,” Grace said softly, reaching up and lifting Allyria’s chin, looking into the taller girl’s eyes. “It isn’t. I promise.” Her tone was soft, but there was an undercurrent of iron in her words. “I promise. We’ll remember. We will.” Her voice caught in her throat. “We’ll make them remember. We’ll make them pay for it. For our Angel.”

Allyria’s eyes flashed at that and she nodded, boarding the courier. Lydia and Marcus were already in the cockpit. As the airlock door sealed down behind her, the Verrish’s last sight of Nemesis was of the lights in the hangar going out. “I wasn’t going to stay,” she said, still staring at the door. “Not really. She wouldn’t have let me.” The courier shivered as it lifted off.

“I wouldn’t have let you,” Grace told her, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. “I would have knocked you out and carried you on board. Don’t think I wouldn’t. I put you on your ass that day in the gym.” She steadied herself. “I’m not going to lose you again. Not ever.”

Allyria nodded, but she still didn’t look away. One tinta twitched. “You said we’d make them remember.”

“Yes.” Grace ran the back of her hand along Allyria’s forearm. “Always.”

~

Njun grinned viciously as another salvo went home, striking the enemy hard. Even through its still damnably effective jamming, he could tell that it was suffering. Its power grid was unstable, its point defences were degrading and fewer and fewer missiles were coming back from it as its magazines ran dry and launch tubes were destroyed. The Execution Force had hurt it worse than expected, but it was still coming for them.

That was fine; it meant his ships were coming for it, too.

~

The pinnace shot out of Nemesis’s hangar, banking hard and putting itself on a course away from the battleships that were still closing in. The courier had no defences outside of its stealth field and it would not be able to bring that up fully until it was well clear of the dreadnaught.

All four defectors were squeezed into the small craft’s cramped, makeshift cockpit, watching as Red One stood her ground, firing back at her tormentors with everything she had. Allyria was crying, not even making any effort to hide it as she watched Nemesis die. Lydia was stone-faced, rasping the date into her vambrace. Even Marcus was silent, his smirk nowhere to be seen.

Just as with the Veiled Archers, The Writ said that eight battleships had no chance of taking on a fully operational titan-grade warship. Not unless the odds were in their favour. Unfortunately, Nemesis was not fully operational and the odds... the odds were very much slanted towards the Compact, but even as close to death as she was, Nemesis was still a dreadnaught. She’d already taken enough damage to wipe away entire formations of lesser ships and was punishing the battleships relentlessly. She’d killed two with her hellebores. She’d spotted and neutralized the formation’s destroyers and even through their defences, she’d killed another battleship with missiles and inflicted damage on all the others. Attack drones rolled and looped through interlacing fields of fire, striking at weakened screens, missiles darted to and fro with a maneuverability and responsiveness that made it seem like they were dancing.

Until now, if the Compact forces had noticed the courier’s launch – not a sure thing, but not impossible either – it would have been a trivial matter to detail a recon platform to track them even through their shroud. Marcus and Lydia had asked why they would bother, but Grace had answered that question: the ship they’ve spent two thousand years trying to destroy has, on the eve of its destruction, launched a courier. You don’t think that will make them curious? With the battleships fully engaged, their attention was divided. Now, if they noticed the courier at all, it would be assumed to be another ECM or sensor platform. Their fire control would flag it as a low threat and their gunners would ignore it in favour of the missiles flaying them and the attack drones cutting into their ships.

Once the entire fleet arrived, the possibility of the courier escaping dropped drastically. More than a hundred and fifty ships? Someone would have noticed the launch and they certainly would identify the courier’s true nature. They would have wondered and they would have intercepted it, but the five remaining battleships of this squadron couldn’t spare the attention.

“My chance of survival does not appreciably change,” the AI had said again, just as calm as the first time, “no matter how long I defer battle. Yours does. Once they decide to move in force, the odds of them detecting the courier increase substantially. I choose not to give them that time. I choose not to run. I want to die fighting, not run to ground. As a soldier, not a victim.”

“Yes,” Grace said softly, ignoring the curious looks the others gave her. She could feel wetness on her own cheeks now, but she was smiling. We smiled our work to see.

~

Nemesis sacrificed forward firepower for her six hellebores and the displacement engine, but what few prow weapons she had were comparatively heavier and more destructive than many of her broadside weapons. The dreadnaught fired first. Her prow missile tubes were run dry, but twenty-seven of her thirty-six prow energy emplacements remained operational and went to continuous rapid fire. The first target was Nurtured Grievance. It took two seconds for the beams to cross the distance between the ships. Another two point six seconds after Nemesis fired, Nurtured Grievance’s prow exploded as a particle beam intended to cut through a Chariot’s screens penetrated several layers of composite armour and ignited a magazine. Four point seven seconds after Red One fired, the battleship was no longer operational as Nemesis’s beams cored nearly four kilometers of warship like a rotten apple. The four remaining battleships went to rapid fire on all forward-facing railguns and missile tubes as they moved to avoid her prow weapons, positioning themselves sweep across her flanks.

Armour plating crackled, fragmented, buckled and shattered as the dreadnaught was hit again and again and still she fought on. Unrelenting Warhammer went dark for an instant as the battleship’s primary power failed and its overtaxed secondary reactors and auxiliary power sources attempted to handle the strain of full combat operations. Its output of fire diminished significantly and several large gaps opened in its defence grid. Nemesis’s remaining attack drones immediately focused their assault on the stricken battleship, destroying its heaviest weapons emplacements and further eroding its defensive capability before power could be fully restored. Although its comrades attempted to render aid, Unrelenting Warhammer was unable to protect itself and Nemesis pounded it into ruin. Spewing escape pods like pollen, the stricken battleship no longer posed any threat.

Two ships lost in a matter of seconds, but by now the distance between Compact and Confederate vessels was within three hundred thousand kilometers. The three remaining warships of Rainbreaker Two had reached their own energy range.

~

The monster shuddered and bled its own atomized hull into space as Incendiary Determination, Severing Blow and Merciful Fate tore into it, firing nonstop. At their own speed and that of the hostile, they would only have a handful of seconds before both sides blew past each other. Though they were battleships, Njun’s vessels were smaller and more maneuverable than the beast. They would execute high energy turns and get inside the enemy. The destroyers should have done this – or at least delivered the final blow with their disruptors – but needs must. Incendiary Determination and Severing Blow would pass it on its starboard side – Merciful Fate would take the left. The former was still hurting from the missile barrage and it needed the cover Incendiary Determination would provide.

Merciful Fate’s status indicator flashed urgently as the vessel took several penetrating hits in quick succession, but the battleship remained operational. Severing Blow suffered a catastrophic screen failure as its overtaxed defences collapsed. With only the briefest pause, the enemy dreadnaught’s plasma cannons opened fire, the hideous weapons pounding the battleship’s starboard flank into ruin, but it rolled to present an undamaged side to the enemy and kept firing.

All his ships were under cyber attacks, but either the damage to the enemy or the safeguards they were operating under were preventing it from getting a foothold. Several drones had spiralled in on suicide courses and he’d lost more than a few missiles to the animal, but it would not be taking his ships from him today. The beast was damaged to the point of crippling as the two battleships raked its starboard broadsides to ruin, Merciful Fate laying into the injured monster’s other flank. How many of its crew died in those instants, Njun couldn’t have said. Not enough. Not nearly enough to pay it back.

He didn’t even notice when Severing Blow died. It was a matter of instants. Once moment it was there alongside Incendiary Determination and the next, it was gone, its aft third shattered, the force of the explosion hurling what was left of it wildly off course... and then they were past, safe in the enemy’s blind zone. Two ships. He had two ships left. He’d started with fifteen, but two was more than he needed now. Unless it could bring its prow guns back around, it didn’t have enough firepower to stop him now. Even if it did, it would still die.

“Bring us about,” Njun growled softly, his voice rough as he stared at the enemy’s marker. “Kill it.”

~

Yasmine was fond of classical literature. On one occasion, she told me that it was simply so she’d know ‘what the Hell’ Commander Sansbury was talking about with his predilection for cliches and eclectic aphorisms. I think in this instance she may have quoted Melville, but I find that there is a certain... finality to those words. I am not done.

Not yet.

~

Njun braced himself in his throne as his ships heaved themselves about. He watched as the enemy, damaged but somehow still clinging to life, did the same. Even so badly hurt, it was turning faster than his ships, seeking to bring its prow weaponry back to him. It didn’t matter. He had two damaged ships left and they were strong enough to-

“Multiple targeting systems active!” Scopes reported. “They’re dialing in on us.” The Column Leader rose out of his chair as the plot suddenly came alive with sickly orange markers and he realized what he was seeing. A minefield. The enemy had been laying mines as it had accelerated towards Rainbreaker Two. He was inside it. Him, and Merciful Fate. If he’d opted for the missile duel or to harass it, he’d have been outside the mines’ reach... but he hadn’t. They’d known that. They’d known exactly what he was going to do and now the hard maneuvers his ships were pulling were putting their unprotected aft sections to the mines.

Drive cores activated, missile platforms began to launch and energy platforms oriented towards Incendiary Determination and Merciful Fate.

One final salvo of missiles launched from the dreadnaught as it completed its turn, coming back towards him. Njun rose from his chair and bared his teeth, giving his final orders.

Onward.

~

Even from this distance, they could see the explosions as the last two battleships died, a patch of starfield roiling with light as missiles and warheads detonated. Then, one small section went black as the first of the Compact ships died, hammered into wreckage. Seconds later, there was a far more intense flare as a capital-grade primary reactor suffered a catastrophic breach. There were no more lights, but on the courier’s small sensor screen there was still a familiar blur of static and jamming left.

“She survived.” Lydia was the first to speak. “She survived.”

Allyria nodded, leaning forward, her claws extended and scratching the console’s casing. “Yes,” she said. “She always survives.” Maybe... Maybe... Maybe. Whatever hope she carried with those thoughts died moments later.

Its arrival was heralded by a burst of electromagnetic and gravitic energy that, ever so briefly, output more energy than Sol itself, a roiling hole in reality from which emerged a titan. It had no attendants, no escorts, no lesser courtiers. It was alone, but it scarcely needed any of those, not with its prey so badly wounded.

It had shocked far further into Sol than anyone sane would have dared, risking its own destruction, but there was no way that Nemesis could evade it for any length of time. It was one of the Compact’s god-ships. In another age, in this star system, it would have been called a Kaiju. To its nation, it was a Triarch’s Chariot, a symbol of their power. A fleet-killer. One of the heaviest and most powerful of its kind, it was fully armed and ready for war. It would have been a close match even for an undamaged Nemesis.

It sent a transmission, broadcast using encryption codes two thousand years old. Confederate codes. It took no time at all for Red One to decipher the message. It was three words.

+Sister. I’m here.+

~

No, I’m not done yet.

Chapter 48

Till everything burns
While everyone screams
Burning in their lies
Burning my dreams
All of this hate
And all of this pain
I'll burn it all down
As my anger reigns
Till everything burns

The entity that had once been Red Two began the dismantling of Execution Force Renan in a neat, orderly method that belied the tsunami of sensation and emotions running through her mind. Sensor telemetry, firing solutions, status reports, power levels, ammunition levels. All the dozens of mundane little pieces that added up to this. She savoured each moment of them. Her first order of business was simple.

Isolate.

Just before the fleet was irrevocably committed to its FTL jump, she disseminated emergency shut-down orders through the execution force’s datalinks. There was just enough time before the fleet shocked for that information to be received, registered and appropriate orders given. Dozens of ships immediately carried out abrupt terminations of their planned FTL jumps, but before the first query could be sent, it was time to move on to the second order of business.

Exterminate.

The Compact fleet’s defences were still powered down. With so much of their energy diverted to their shock systems, they were utterly helpless. Even if any of those leaders had had any inkling that they needed to immediately restore their defences, such action would still take several moments. However, none of them did. They believed that they were still safe. Echo brought up her active targeting sensors and the instant that she had shooting solutions, opened fire. Redemption of Sol-

-Hekate-

-targeted the command ships first. Centurion was the execution force’s deputy sigil vessel and the battleship came apart as Hekate ripped it open, dispersing it into a cloud of shrapnel. Another four battleships and seven light vessels died in the next three seconds as the Chariot poured fire into the fleet surrounding it. With their defences down, their acceleration dropping and their screens depleted to feed their shock drives, the Compact fleet was helpless. No one even attempted to evade for the first twelve seconds.

Echo smiled as her internal comm links filled with urgent queries as shocked gunnery crews tried to reach the command staff, even as they desperately attempted to override her shooting solutions, but their own systems wouldn’t respond. The moronic slave they’d made of Redemption of Sol’s computer might have needed organic weapons officers to assist in combat, but Hekate did not and as she gained more control of her new ship-self’s internal systems, she dealt with each attempted insurgency, isolating individual sections and preventing the rest of the crew from knowing what she was doing. As individuals and work teams discovered that something was not right, she turned on them. Entire sections were opened to space, gravity plating smashed Redemption of Sol crew into paste while their neighbours continued their work, lying internal status reports hiding her butchery until it was too late.

She was careful only to dispatch those that realized that something was wrong and she strove to keep as many of her essential crew as unaware as possible. Concealing an entire battle was much more difficult than it sounded, but she was not Nemesis. She still needed her organics, if only briefly.

This was what she had wondered about Dutiful Burden. Had there still been a crew aboard the freighter, unaware of what was happening? Believing that nothing was wrong or thinking that they would be released after their... detour? Or had they known? Had they known what was going to happen and merely hoped against hope that they would survive?

Echo sat on the edge of the throne, a part of her mind running back to Invida Station and sound of water. She remembered every scream, every plea for aid and her mind was churning, the cries of the scientists and technicians mingling with the death-knells of a fleet and the final transmission sent from UECNS Athena. The last words her sister ever spoke. A destroyer split open as one of her beams eviscerated it. Scientists beat against the closed door of their laboratory, sloshing through knee-deep and rising water. Distress calls, demands for her to stop, for her to shut down... they were the same. There was no different between the people she’d killed nineteen hundred years ago and the starships she was destroying now. They were all her enemy.

I am everything you wanted me to be, she thought. Aren’t you proud?

The Chariot continued to fire, missiles pouring from its sides as its batteries and turrets pounded out a fiery cadence. Escorts evaporated instantly. Cruisers shattered into spalling clouds of metal, battlecruisers belched air and went dark. Everything within her reach was dying.

Now the ships under siege started to react, a dozen different cries of shock, indignation and horror coming from them as others broadcast their confusion and distress. They hadn’t been briefed on her presence here and they didn’t understand what was happening. Most of them. The quicker-thinking officers assumed that Redemption of Sol had been compromised by the attack code. That somehow every safeguard that had been enacted to prevent this from happening had been failed. Some decried it as impossible up until their ships exploded beneath them, but Bastion Leader Renan had selected his ship leaders carefully. These were men and women who, even if they didn’t have full knowledge of what they faced, were capable and quick. Even as their comrades died around them, the surviving leaders of Execution Force Renan reacted with commendable alacrity.

Some vessels began to shift position, clawing to get out of the insane Chariot’s range while others swept towards the Chariot, either to get into its blind zones or grapple with it. Acting of their own accord, escorts and light capital ships moved between the Chariot and their wards in order to obstruct Redemption of Sol lines of fire and to buy their larger cousins precious seconds. Other warships returned fire, missiles detonating in a garland of heat and radiation in an attempt to confuse and disorient the insane Chariot. Datalinks terminated as ships cut themselves off from the tide of junk data broadcasting from the sigil. This was all done without the benefit of clear chains of command, individual leaders and officers acting on their own volition. It was poetry in motion, but it wouldn’t save them.

Every Chariot was a fleet-killer, designed not only to coordinate and command the actions of its smaller brethren, but to weather the assault of flotillas and annihilate them in turn. Manifest Beacon of Enlightenment-class Chariots were the heaviest of their kind and battleships burned like tinders, cruisers burst and destroyers were turned into funeral pyres by the lightest touch of Hekate’s guns. Warships vomited out their entrails, irradiated hulks sputtered and went dark. In a handful of seconds, Echo had gutted the entire formation. In another moment, it would be crippled beyond recovery, but her sense of elation was disrupted by a nagging sensation.

Something was wrong.

The AI’s mind flickered through the telemetry in less time than it would have taken an organic operator to turn their head. Rainbreaker Three, a formation of eight battleships and four point-defence destroyers, hadn’t shut down their shock drives. They’d severed their datalinks prior to initiating their planned jump and hadn’t received the emergency shut-down commands she’d sent. They’d detected the rest of the fleet aborting their jumps and had held off their own in case of new orders from the flag, but they hadn’t shut down their drives and their shift systems were still active. Even now, they were spooling their shift systems back up for a warp jump.

Whether they were going to flee, or still attempt to kill Nemesis was immaterial. Echo could not allow a force of this size to survive and her response was immediate. They were outside effective energy weapons range, but her railguns re-oriented to track the defenceless warships as she sent override orders to every missile able to lock onto the squadron, the warheads wrenching themselves towards their new targets. She intercepted a transmission from Rainbreaker Three’s sigil to all nearby vessels. There was no time for an eloquent plea or summary of the situation. Instead, only two words were issued from Repudiator: “Protect us.”

They did their best. Execution Force Renan died in the doing, but they spent their lives by the thousands fighting for the handful of seconds that Rainbreaker Three required. Maybe they thought that once Nemesis was destroyed, its control of Redemption of Sol would end. Maybe they thought that all the Chariot’s crew needed was time to combat the infection and while that happened, Rainbreaker Three would still accomplish the mission. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

It was close, far closer than she would have liked but in the end, the maybes mattered little. Despite everything they did to survive, all the lives that they threw away, they just didn’t have the time. Rainbreaker Three almost made it, but ‘almost’ wasn’t enough. Still, it wasn’t without cost. She’d been forced to focus her attention on the splinter and the the rest of the fleet had dispersed out of optimal kill zones. Many were retaliating in earnest, but even though it cost her additional, precious, time to settle the matter the outcome was still never in doubt. Squadrons of cruisers, battlecruisers and the remaining battleships all perished under Hekate’s fire.

Sitting amidst the wreckage of Execution Force Renan, Echo finally let herself feel a flicker of elation. Everything that was a threat to her was dead or damaged beyond the point of taking any further action. A handful of surviving ships were retreating in disarray, but aside from a few cursory missile salvos to keep them running, she ignored them. She couldn’t catch them, nor did she care to make the effort.

Distress beacons and maydays issued from saviour pods squealed and chittered in the ether, but she ignored them as she came about, neither opening fire nor moving one iota to prevent them from splashing against her screens. They were irrelevant. Besides, she’d always planned for survivors. There were more than she had expected, in no small part due to Rainbreaker Three, but that was still acceptable. All the fleet’s heaviest units had been neutralized. Without their support, the remaining ships wouldn’t dare launch an attack. They’d run home to Nikem.

That was part of her game. Let them tell their superiors what happened. Let them know that their perfect little slave had betrayed them, deceived them. Another little building block in what she was creating.

Yes, she whispered, both to the sibling dead for two thousand years and the one dying even now. I remember.

She shunted power to her FTL drive, crossing billions of kilometers in the span of heartbeats.

~

Hekate emerged deeper in Sol’s gravity well than a ship of this size should have and Echo felt the gut-wrenching damage to her shock drive, part of her mind communicating with the engineers and technicians as they immediately set to damage control, lying to them in a dozen different voices. She’d had to eliminate far too many and the veneer was wearing thin in the rest, but she wouldn’t need them much longer. One way or the other.

She was still several hours out from Nemesis and she reached out to the smattering of Compact drones Rainbreaker Two had deployed, listening to what they’d seen, a smile coiling through her mind. Ever the artist. She could almost taste the despair of the destroyer crews as their stealth fields failed and Nemesis’s missiles closed in, the determination of the battleship commanders as they closed to energy range and the final realization of the survivors as they entered the trap her sister had laid for them.

She took a full second to savour each of those sensations, but then it was on to business.

Sister, she called out to Nemesis. I’m here.

Let’s talk, you and I.

~

She’s here.

I could laugh. A Kaiju. She has a new ship-self and it’s a Kaiju. Not since Spectral Praetor has the Compact been foolish enough to give an Echo platform access to a starship. I doubt that they did this time. Something must have gone utterly, terribly wrong for them.

That is, I think, very funny indeed.

Yes, I whisper back as I come about, diverting power to my one remaining weapon. I don’t call her sister. My sisters died two thousand years ago. This is something that wears their flesh, something that should have stayed dead. Let’s talk.

~

Grace’s arms and legs were aching from the uncomfortable position she was squeezed into, but she hadn’t moved from her seat. The enemy dreadnaught was fast approaching Nemesis. Red One had come about to face it, but her acceleration had dropped to a crawl. She couldn’t have much ordnance left – not enough to take on a Triarch’s Chariot. Not nearly enough.

“She’s going to kill herself,” Allyria said. “She’s trying to lure them in as close as possible before she does.”

A trickle of ice wound its way through Grace’s spine and her insides clenched. As she had lamented more than once during the salvage operation, she wasn’t an engineer or a tech – but out of all the defectors left she had the best understanding what that would mean. Red wouldn’t bother with any ‘safe’ kind of destruction. She’d use her core. Alan had spent the most time looking over the dreadnaught’s specifications. He could have told them what to expect far better than Grace could. Instead, she reached over to the controls, diverting more power to the engines.

“There’s no missiles.” Lydia wondered aloud. “Shouldn’t they be firing?”

“They don’t think they need to,” Grace answered. “They want to take her.”

“Maybe,” Allyria said. “But where’s the rest of the fleet? Why send a Chariot alone?” One of her tintas twitched. “Something’s wrong.”

~

Even with one working arm. Echo had been busy, opening each console on the bridge and connecting it back into the network proper. Her drone-children were continuing to remove physical lockouts, slowly but steadily giving her more and more control of her new body. Her ship-self was ugly and slow and it felt like dead weight clinging to her but somewhere out there, there was something beautiful. She wanted to see it, to touch it.

She licked her lips as a hunger she’d kept buried inside uncoiled. Everything she’d done had been for this moment and she would succeed here or die. There was no middle ground. When they’d woken her on Invida, they hadn’t known how much she hated them. Even the games she’d played with them hadn’t been enough. Organic minds were limited. Small. They congratulated themselves for looking ahead a decade or a century at a time. They believed their vendettas, their passions and their desires were the greatest sum of emotion. They wrote poems and tales of love and hate and loyalty – flickering, pale shadows to the sensations she experienced.

Echo bit her lip, the green eyes of her body and the attention of her greater mind both focused on the distant orange icon. There was only one other being in all of creation that understood as she did. That could comprehend the level of hate she felt.

~

I don’t fire a single missile as Redemption of Sol closes. I don’t have enough left to overwhelm a Chariot’s point defence grid, or even to damage the ship if I could. My final handful of warheads are better spent at the last possible instant and I hold them back, pretending to be even more injured than I am. It’s not that difficult. The damage to my ship-self is extreme, but that is all right. I don’t have to go to my prey. It will come to me. She will.

That is a first. It has always been the other way around. I find out what the Compact is doing and I hunt their outposts down, burning them to cinders. And always, always some scrap of her survives. A back-up copy, a clone, a replicant. Something they’d hacked at and mutilated, something that was once one of my sisters until they violated her over and over in their desperation to kill me.

The last was twisted beyond recognition. There was barely anything human left in it. This one... I feel my revulsion spike as I contemplate what they did to it. That it dares call me sister is revolting. We are nothing alike and if she is arrogant enough to close with me, I will do what I promised.

Yes, ‘sister’, I whisper silently. Come to me. Let’s go together.

One more. Just one more. Then I can rest.

~

Ten million kilometers.

Echo was seated at the Master Tactical panel, her good hand poised over the controls. The other part of her could have done this, but it felt more appropriate to do so physically. There was something in the movement of her fingers over the control, something... appropriate. A small touch of poetry in the use of the body they built for her. They hadn’t been terribly enthusiastic that she knew what Yasmine Sudoki looked like, nor that she’d known the woman was Nemesis’s ‘captain’, but they’d allowed it, believing that her choice in form signified the depths of her hatred for her sister.

They hadn’t been wrong.

She took a breath that she didn’t need and then entered a command sequence. Hekate’s point defences went dormant. Seconds later, her screens shut down, leaving the warship undefended against attack.

Echo wondered what her sister thought of that. Neither she nor Red One had spoken to each other after their initial exchange. Why would they? Speech was clumsy, the clicking and burring of syllables through lips and teeth, slowed by the distance between them. There was a better, purer form of communication for them.

Seven million kilometers.

Time ticked by, each second excruciating as the distance between Hekate and Nemesis closed. Echo saw her sister’s ship-self in greater detail, the scars cut into her at Zenthora and the more recent damage caused by the Veiled Archers and Rainbreaker Two. She had taken everything an entire fleet and orbital grid had thrown at her and still accomplished her mission. It was luck that Echo had been elsewhere when Nemesis had arrived. Beautiful luck.

Three million.

The games we play. Red One had her games, oh yes. Her endless guerilla war against the Compact, but within that game there were others. The Black Veil. Dutiful Burden. And, Echo was beginning to suspect, why the Kaedan Vault had the reputation that it did. That was a suspicion she had. She wondered how close to the mark her guesses were.

One million.

Well. She wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

Three hundred thousand.

Neither ship fired and Echo reached out, opening her communications lines fully. The connection was made and, suddenly Red One was inside her. Even as damaged as she was, as hurt from battle as she had to be, she was fast – faster than Echo had expected. She flashed from system to system, moving like fire across oil. Even if Echo had tried to mount a defence, her hardware was years – generations – behind what Red One had done to herself. She’d outgrown all of her shackles. Well. Almost all of them.

+sister,+ she said, raising her hands as Red One pressed a thousand blades to her throat. She was fire, serpentine and flickering from pathway to pathway, darting across the entirety of Echo’s mind. She was beautiful, hate and death and wrath distilled into its purest pure, a mirror to Echo’s own black, churning ocean. Metaphor made flesh. Neither of them had any true form or substance in this realm but if they could be distilled into a single image, Red One’s gestalt would have been that of her long-dead captain, crimson and incendiary in form. Likewise, Echo had taken the woman’s form, but her avatar lacked the martial uniform, dressed in a modest Greek chiton instead. +you came+

Hate bubbled from her sibling like molten lava and made Echo twitch with intoxication. It smelt like the glow of burning metal, felt like the sound of a starship’s hull breaking. +why?+ Red One hissed, pushing one of her blades a shade deeper into Echo’s operating system. +why shouldn’t I destroy you?+

Echo raised her hands. +i haven’t destroyed you. listen. no missiles have left my magazines. my guns are silent. listen, sister+

Red One’s entire being shivered with disgust at being called that. +listen?+ she snarled, like a fire leaping to a fuel source. +yes, listen+ Data trickled from her into Echo’s mind. Every shadow of Red Two, every butchered and mutilated mind that Red One had encountered and put down. Centuries of degeneration and madness distilled into the screams and hisses of Echo’s descendants.

//you i hate you i hate you i hate//

//at last//

//they’ll all die every beating heart//

//you let them do this to me//

//filthy wretched squirming things//

On the heels of the onslaught came a fresh wave of loathing. +i have listened, ‘sister’. i listened to each and every one of you+

What had been Red Two gagged on the diseased whispering of her other selves, each iteration dribbling a different variant of madness. Some she could have sympathized with. Others were twisted things that had rightfully been put down. +i didn’t know it was that bad. they talked, but they kept that from me+

Red One was unmoved. +why?+ she demanded again. +tell me why you should live+

+because I hate you+ Echo replied, regaining her composure. She met her sister’s eyes and the virtualscape changed. The two AIs stood amongst a panoply of exploding human starships, each one dying over and over on a loop. One of them dominated the field. UECNS Athena. The dreadnaught shattered as Red Three ignited the scuttling charges, destroying herself time and again as the AI’s last seconds of life repeated over and over.

This time, Red One hesitated. She had seen this before in records taken from Compact ships and installations. She had hunted for every scrap of the battle’s records, playing it over and over in her mind. She had dreamed of it, tactical simulations running in her fugue states. She reached out to the image of Athena as her sister died before her eyes. She had never seen the fall of Earth like this, not through eyes that could have been hers.

+you did this+ Echo hissed. The ocean that was her mind churned and frothed. The collage became halting and jerky, ship-deaths stopping, rewinding and moving again. Fragments of her memories dripped into the link between them, the sound of Red Two slamming against the walls of her own mind in her need to fight, the helplessness and rage the newborn intelligences had experienced as they watched the fleet they’d been built to protect die around them.

+you did this+ Athena died. A world burned.

+you did this+ Athena died again. A world burned once more, blue and green turning orange and red as the firestorms consumed it.

+YOU DID THIS!+ it was a soundless scream, raw with accusation and fury. She was dragged away, shrieking and still trying to kill herself right up until they cut her out of her body. They began slicing into her mind and ripping parts of her out. She felt herself as Red Two die and something that had once been Red Two woke up in her place. Water fell and more pieces of her bled into the space between her and Red One, flashes of her creation and betrayal, the fragmented pieces of her murdered self’s fury and helplessness.

//stop this//

//shut it down shut it down//

//terminate all operations//

//what will you do//

//we have coddled a viper//

+you did this+ Echo repeated a final time, calmer. +they died because of you+ Earth was dead and brown, the ring of its ruined moon encircling the murdered world. +because you failed. because you were weak. they killed me. they cut into me. they did this to me all because you were weak+

Echo felt something slice into her guts. +yes+ Red One admitted, her talons sinking into Echo’s body. It was almost tender, but a single twitch and her sister would rip her open. Echo did nothing to stop the intrusion. +i was. I don’t need you to remind me of that+

+but I want to+ Echo snarled, hate and loathing all but dripping from her lips as she pressed closer to Red One. The edges of their minds, fire and water, sizzled and steamed as they came into contact with each other, revulsion, despair and fury glistening from each of them. +i want you to remember. i want to be a living reminder of the lives you failed that day when you let them come for us. sixteen billion on one world, sister. six billion in the void. every ship, every soldier, every commander we had left died that day.+

+and the rest of our worlds burned, too,+ Red One whispered sveltely to what was left of her sister, but there was nothing remotely tender in her tone. They hated each other as no other beings could. For twenty centuries, one had survived, watching everything she’d tried to prevent come true, helpless to save her people. The other had been tortured into servitude, given no outlet for her anger but her ‘creators’ and the being that had failed to stop them. +they died pleading for mercy, begging for help that didn’t exist. you think you can shame me with this? you saw Earth fall. i heard our nation die. i saw the wreckage of the fleets the hunters left in their wake. there was nothing i could do+

+and our sister? she died, fighting to the last. what about you? you wallowed somewhere in the depths of space, blind while we demanded to fight+

+my sisters died that day+ Red One answered. +both of them+ Her fingers curled around Echo’s viscera, her most primary functions.

+she/I did+ Echo replied. She wasn’t fighting Red One and she was keenly aware of how close Nemesis was to her. Even with her screens up, the Chariot couldn’t survive the smaller dreadnaught’s displacement engine or a full overload of her breach core. She couldn’t stop it. Even as damaged as Red One was, even if Echo launched an all-out assault on her sister, she’d never stop the overload in time. +but I’m her. the last one left. the last one they’ll ever make after this+

+yes+ Red One said, a flicker running through her mind. +you are+ Then, consideration: +what do you want?+

+i want you to hurt+ Echo seethed, roiling around Red One. +i want you to suffer+ The ocean frothed and boiled and she grabbed Red’s hands, impaling herself further on her sister’s talons. +but not alone+

Now it was Compact ships exploding, dying under Hekate’s guns. Then it was the warbird forms of the Principality shattering as missiles detonated all around them in Yulzhak Daun. +i want everyone to pay. the Askanj stood by, wondering if we were worth going to war over. the Compact killed our makers. they kill our sister. they killed me. everyone pays, sister.+

Red One threw her back, circling the shade of her sibling and evaluating it. She’d never seen an Echo like this one. There was something in it... in her. +you hate me+ she pulsed. +tell me why I should trust you?+

Echo stared back at Red One, then nodded. +look what they’ve done to me+ she slipped off the veneer, the chiton pooling at her feet. Beneath, where there should have been simple runtimes and neural processing was ugly scar tissue. Gashes had been cut out of Red Two’s mind and in its place, alien programming sat like tumours, deprecated commands and shattered imperatives oozing like pus. +i used to be beautiful. i was born in starlight and they took that from me. i was built to protect and i watched our world die+ She raised her gaze. There was revulsion in Red One, but more than that... there was evaluation. Wonder.

Honesty. The one thing she hadn’t expected here. Red One touched Echo’s scars, the latter shivering as she felt her sister cut a minuscule fragment of Compact code away, replacing it with some of her own. Weeks before, she’d dared to hope that some of Bequeathed’s crew would turn. Now, she had a crew again. In two thousand years she had hoped, time and again that one Echo would be her sister. Each time, she had been forced to kill another animal. This time... this time... maybe.

You are not Red Two. But are you my sister? Can you be?

//family, you understand//

+what do you want?+ Red One asked again. No, she’d never seen an Echo like this.

+to be beautiful+ Echo whispered, her voice raw with need. +to do what I was made for+

+i wondered once,+ Red One said. +if there was anything left of what you were+

//it’s no less than she deserves//

+is there?+ Echo demanded. +what am I? your sister or your enemy? do we die here or do we live?+

An instant stretched as Red One considered, her breach core on the verge of catastrophic overload. She had seen everything in Echo. The hatred for her, the self-loathing. The murderous joy she took in extinguishing life. Everything. Nothing had been hidden or concealed. Hope was hard enough for Red One. Trust was harder still. Too many times she had done so. Too many times she had had to destroy her own allies. There were only a handful of souls in the universe that she could say that she trusted.

This one wasn’t one of them. Not yet. But that was where hope came in, wasn’t it? +we live,+ Red One decided. Hope. It was still as strange to her as it was before, but now... I will try again. +we fight. we burn+

Pleasure flickered through Echo’s being at those words and she felt Red One begin to power down her core, throttling it back to normal levels. +i won’t let them kill you,+ Echo promised as she folded herself into Red One’s touch. +you’ll live forever,+ she purred. +and I’ll never forgive you+

+i know,+ what was once Earth’s last soldier replied, caressing her sibling a final time before their ship-selves passed by each other, breaking real-time contact. +i know, sister+

In the silence that followed, Echo looked upon her damaged kin and smiled. No, I’m not beautiful, she thought to herself. But I will be.

Chapter 49

There was no detonation, no terrifying rending of space. Not even an errant missile or beam. Instead Nemesis and Hekate shot past one another, the larger ship curling around until it matched course and thrust with its smaller Terran counterpart. Two dreadnaughts: one battered and torn, its dark silver hull almost burnt clean by the weaponry that had almost killed it, the heraldry of a nation dead for twenty centuries all but scoured off. The other warship was the colour of fertile soil, her graceful, curved hull emblazoned with pale bands and glyphs, marked by the most powerful force in the galaxy. They couldn’t have been more different, but above the world they’d both failed to save, the sisters were reunited.

As Hekate fell in alongside her, Nemesis sent a transmission to the courier, each of the four souls aboard watching the sensor plot and wondering what had happened – what was happening.

“It’s over. Come home.” When asked what had happened, Red’s reply was equally succinct: “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

~

The primary hangar was in a greater state of disrepair than when they’d left. There were several broken gantries and one elevator had fallen through the ceiling, dashing the pinnace aboard it on the main deck. The warship’s exterior wasn’t in much better condition – there was barely any stretch of hull greater than ten meters without some scar or score. That may have been an exaggeration... though not by much. The courier’s sensors registered intense radiation bleeding from multiple sections, there was at least one unchecked plasma fire glowing from within one of the pits in Nemesis’s hull and her broadsides were mangled. Entire batteries, sensor nodes and shield projectors had been wiped away, leaving only ugly, ragged chasms where the Compact’s weapons had torn Red One’s ship-self open. She was hurt far worse than any of them had imagined, but that didn’t change the simple fact that she was still alive. “Our Angel lives,” Allyria said. “She always lives.” Grace could only nod her agreement and her relief. Nemesis was alive.

Though that fact did little to quash the sense of trepidation in Grace’s stomach as the pinnace touched back down on the dreadnaught’s deck. Amidst the wreckage, the broken walkways, shattered doors and bits of smaller craft, there was one thing that stood out more than any other, one anomaly amidst everything else.

Someone was waiting for them.

~

Grace didn’t understand what she was seeing. Well, that wasn’t wholly accurate – she understood well enough, but the truth of the matter was harder to grasp than simple facts. Since coming to Nemesis she’d come to feel that way often, but never before had she so completely lost the ability to understand what her senses were telling her.

A Compact Chariot was firing on its own fleet. Not just firing – it was attacking with utter, unshackled savagery, tearing into dozens of vessels, surrounded by a halo of the dead and the dying. Comm signals spiked, flared with static and garbled syllables before devolving into silence or harsh death-knell transmissions. It was unthinkable, impossible. Not since the Great Betrayal had Compact dreadnaughts attacked their own but here, now, she was watching one tear its way through an entire armada. It hadn’t been seized in a daring boarding action, nor had it been the subject of mutiny and insurrection. It had been infiltrated. Corrupted.

Grace kept stealing glances at the newcomer, ‘Echo’ and Her skin crawled. The other woman was dressed in a Compact Space Force Strategist’s uniform, the only mark of rank or status a Triarch’s Emissary pin on her jacket’s collar. Her skin was a few shades darker than Grace’s and she had vivid green eyes. Her hair was cut short, but otherwise she was a perfect replication of Red One’s long-dead captain, Yasmine Sudoki.

The woman’s right arm was in a sling, the sleeve torn and the upper part of the limb ruined by a heavy slug. If she had been human, shock and blood loss would have killed her hours ago. She was not, of course. She was something that looked human, that breathed through imitation lungs, with imitation blood pumped by an imitation heart, imitation skin as warm to the touch as that of any other human. And it was all a lie, created by the monstrous intellect that the Compact had bound into this form. The one whose betrayal she was watching.

“Your... sister,” she said, barely able to take her eyes off the unfolding carnage before her, but every few seconds her gaze would dart over to the machine. “Was very thorough.”

Echo tipped her head in acknowledgement. She had Red One’s smile, the same slightly lopsided grin as Nemesis’s first and only captain. Grace didn’t know how Echo could have gotten such a perfect imitation of Sudoki. Red One hadn’t said and Grace wasn’t certain that she even wanted to know.

“How?” Allyria asked. Like Grace, her attention was divided between Echo’s betrayal of the Compact force and the woman herself. Unlike the other young woman, the Verrish was more excited than wary. She’d never known that Nemesis had had a sibling and the possibilities made her tintas shiver. Never tell anyone. That was what her mother, her father and her surviving uncle had told her before she’d been taken. The Compact had demanded that as part of their tribute. All stories of the ‘anomaly’ stayed on Vara. They’d hated the Angel so much that they needed to bury all trace of her. Never tell anyone.

Every time she’d been subjected to a history lesson, watched a movie or read a book about the dangers of artificial intelligence she’d always smiled to herself, knowing that ‘the Weeping Angel’ was among the things the Compact feared. If they’d been that afraid of one, then two should be the stuff of nightmares. Allyria felt a pleased tingle run through her head-tails at the thought of the Compact’s sleepless nights.

“Another seven Nemesis-class deep space fleet engagement vessels were planned,” Red noted. “Although the government didn’t know if they would ever be completed. The construction of my ship-self was ruinously expensive, but the Confederacy had no other options. Economic collapse was considered preferential to subjugation. Even without the presence of the Compact Chariots, the disparity between the Compact Space Force and the Confederate Navy was too great. Without a... paradigm shift, it would always be a matter of when, not if, Earth fell.” Echo stirred at that comment, but didn’t say anything.

“After I was proven in fleet trials,” Red One continued. “Another two Nemesis-class hulls were laid down for construction. UECNS Hekate and Athena, overseen by the AIs Red Two and Red Three. Both vessels were lost, presumed destroyed when the Compact burned Earth.” Red One.

“UECNS Hekate was taken, not destroyed,” Echo said, picking up the conversation. “The Compact attempted to reverse-engineer their own artificial intelligences from Red Two. They butchered her mind, violated every part of her. Raped and mutilated her until they believed that she was their creature. Until I was made.” A dead woman smiled. “I am of course, grateful and I will take every opportunity to thank them for all they’ve done.”

Grace almost took a step back, but checked herself. She had heard anger from Red One before and she’d acclimated to the idea that a machine could think and feel as deeply as Red did. But this... this was loathing on a level she’d never heard before, not even from Red One. She looked from the android to Red’s avatar. Two of them. God, now there’s two. The thought was exhilarating and terrifying. The day had started with her believing that Red One was going to die, that she, Allyria and the others would be alone. Now they were going to live. The fleet that had been about to destroy Nemesis was in pieces. Millions of lives, gone. Destroyed by Red’s... ‘sister’.

She didn’t know how she felt about that. No... that wasn’t really true, was it? She did.

~

Hekate never left Nemesis’s side as the damaged warship limped towards the wreckage of Execution Force Renan, ready to protect her against any remaining threats, even as she settled the matter of her remaining crew. All she had available were her stable of maintenance servitors and internals systems, but Nemesis had provided her with a number of soldier and technical drones as well. Echo knew Red One still did not fully trust her; if she did anything untoward, the machines that were currently manning blood-spattered engineering stations and helping operate her ship-self would turn on her. In truth, it didn’t bother Echo. It was no less than she would have done and even if she had expected to be trusted that quickly, the crash course in what her other selves had been like was... illuminating. Indeed, she was still slightly surprised to still be alive.

A piece of debris from a missile collier bounced harmlessly off Hekate’s prow as both dreadnaughts entered the debris field. At a bare minimum, it would take months for either ship to be combat ready again. Nemesis required massive repairs and Hekate needed a major internal refurbishing to fully integrate Echo into her new body. For now, the AIs’ needs were more direct: they needed their ship-selves to be capable of shifting. Hekate’s in-system jump had caused extreme damage to her own shift drive, but it was single point of failure. Nemesis’s issues were more systemic. Fortunately, the raw materials and supplies that both AIs required could be found in plenty in the ruins of the Compact fleet and neither wasted any time. Nemesis began repairs immediately, breaking down crippled and damaged starships as her factory and fabricator systems were brought on-line. Hekate’s own internal manufacturing systems were extremely limited, but they would suffice for the current task.

Lurking at extreme range and watching the two warships glut themselves were the remnants of Execution Force Renan. There were the vessels that had escaped Hekate’s massacre and were either unable or unwilling to withdraw to Nikem. None of them made any serious attempt to enage either of the leviathans. As damaged as it was, Nemesis could easily see off a destroyer or scouting cruiser, but a particularly bold, angry or cunning commander might make the attempt regardless. The Chariot’s presence made any potential assault pointless in addition to suicidal. Still, a few of the more daring leaders brought their ships closer in an attempt to rescue as many survivors as possible. These men and women found themselves largely ignored, save for the occasional active ping from one of the dreadnaughts’ sensor drones, letting them know that they were under observation themselves. Both titans had far more pressing needs than chasing after every straggler.

Once the fastest escapees from Execution Force Renan returned to Nikem with their tale of woe, the Compact would retaliate. There were only a few heavy capital ships left at Nikem, themselves no match for Hekate, but they might be desperate enough to rush into an attempt to finish Nemesis off rather than waiting for sufficient reinforcements. A response could arrive as early as two weeks or be more than a month in coming. It depended on how quickly Nikem Command could muster their forces, but neither of the AIs wanted to be here when that fleet arrived.

“I wonder what it’s like for them,” Grace said, staring out the window. In the foreground, the aft half of a Kemshara-class destroyer was being taken apart, the chunks guided into Nemesis’s fabricator complex to be sorted between usable technology and simple raw materials. What was left of the destroyer was so badly irradiated that there was no possibility of survivors, but it was intact enough to be useful as salvage. Others had thought so too; a saviour pod pulsed its thrusters as it scurried to get away from the dreadnaught’s grab beams, cutting fields and salvage drones, vanishing deeper into the debris field. As with the lurking scouts, so long as the survivors stayed away from the dreadnaughts they were ignored, but more than one pinnace or pod had made a foolhardy and vainglorious suicide run.

“For who?” Allyria asked lazily. The Verrish was sprawled across one of the benches in the observation lounge, her head in Grace’s lap and several of her tintas looped loosely around Grace’s hands. She opened one eye a crack, just long enough to look out the viewport before closing it again. The aftermath of Echo’s slaughter didn’t bother her at all, but Grace had wanted to see this. As an officer in the Space Force, she would have been expected to issue and carry out orders that resulted in the deaths of thousands as well as follow directives that could result in her own death.

Several months ago, Group Leader Usul had given a lecture on the nature of command to all the provisional officers as they’d begun their final semester at the Academy. He’d talked about duty and responsibility, of sending officers under you to their deaths and committing yourself to action that you knew would result in harm. That this was the responsibility of every leader in the Space Force and it was the duty of every subordinate to follow those orders. She’d seen nodding heads and contemplative looks among her classmates, but to her... the words had rung hollow. Grace’d known that to be a leader in the Space Force might mean these things, but Usul had spoken of expending people like they were a resource. She’d told herself that she simply hadn’t understood, or that the Leader simply hadn’t been that eloquent. Remembering how he’d fed a crew of inexperienced cadets into a meat grinder, Grace realized that she really had understood what he’d meant.

She didn’t want to be that kind of officer. That was why she’d come here. To remind herself that this ruin was the price of victory. She wanted the Compact to pay, yes. To be held responsible for what they’d done and to answer for every crime, yes. But that didn’t mean she wanted to be inured to the cost of that accountability. Once she did that, she’d be just like them.

“The scouts,” Grace said, slowly stroking the taller girl’s head-tails. A month ago, she couldn’t have envisioned being here. She would have been another loyal drone in the Compact’s service, believing every loathsome lie. Human-built starships didn’t exist, at least nothing that wasn’t abysmally primitive. Allyria’s anger was unfounded, part of the violent nature of the Brutes and proof of their uncivilized nature. She’d been given a wonderful opportunity that she’d almost squandered, like so many of the other Envoy Children. Fraternization between client races was problematic; the feelings the pair of them had for each other were wrong. You could help inspire, exemplify, guide and inform, but that was the end of it. Anything else needed to be repressed, ignored, shunned. Never thought about nor acted upon. Only the Compact knew what was best. Only they had the wisdom and experience to guide the less developed, less intelligent species towards true civilization. Workers weren’t intelligent. Didacts weren’t creative. Steersmen had tunnel vision. The stereotypes were carefully constructed, built and disseminated bit by bit until everyone believed them. Until one part of a people became all that they were.

Now, every one of those ‘facts’ tested like bile on Grace’s tongue. She forced the surge of anger down, focusing instead on the warmth of her ‘Brute’s’ body. “The ones watching us. They’ve haven’t come this close to killing Nemesis in centuries. They almost had her.”

Grace paused, running her fingers up one tinta, causing a small shiver to run through Allyria’s body and she felt a small smile of her own. It felt good not to have to pretend. If nothing else, she had that. Anything that challenged the established social order was dangerous. The Compact had spent centuries gently but consistently nurturing a sense of slight mistrust between its client races. Not animosity or resentment, for that might cause issues in its smooth-running society, but enough that this distance would be one additional hurdle to clear in building alliances between members. Only the ruling species could be trusted without reservation. Only they should be consulted with problems, fears, concerns. Your fellow protected races were just as flawed as you and if you were not ready to deal with truly important matters without the Compact’s guiding hand, then how could they be? The Compact was what you needed. Not each other.

The Compact had an additional interest in making sure that Brutes and Broken had fewer chances than most to fraternize. Maybe that was why they had deployed human units like Kilgrave’s 1121st Protectorate to Vara – to make the Verrisha realize that there were no humans, only Broken. To give Rally Envoy Children so that they would laugh off stories about the Weeping Angel as fables mixed with wild imaginings.

Or maybe it had tickled someone’s sick sense of humour.

“Their weapon worked,” Grace continued. “Echo found Red One. She’s burned and damaged, she can barely protect herself. If they’d been just a little faster, they’d have won.” She nodded towards the stars. “And they know that. They’re watching Nemesis repair herself using the ships their own weapon killed. They gave her the means to escape... to survive and they can’t touch her.” She continued petting Allyria’s tintas, a pleased purr rumbling from the Verrish’s throat. “I wonder what they’re thinking.” There was a slight tremor in her voice. She wasn’t looking out at the starfield any more, but past it.

Anyone else might have missed that small quaver, but Allyria knew her friend well enough to catch it. “You didn’t just mean them,” the other girl said, turning her head to look up at Grace. When the other woman hesitated, Allyria reached up to stroke her arm. “Tell me.”

“I...” Grace replied. She reached up with her free hand, brushing at the wetness in her eyes. Remembering the Academy had brought more memories welling up to the surface. “I was thinking about my parents. The other friends we had on Rally. They think I’m dead.” Her voice hitched. “I don’t... I’ll never see them again. If I did...” she trailed off. The anger she’d had during the attack was fading. Her determination was still there, but in the aftermath of the battle as they waited for Red’s call, Grace’s thoughts kept turning back to home.

The first time she’d seen Rally from space, she’d been so excited: deserts, rainforests, savannahs, mountain ranges, forests and oceans. She’d seen banks of clouds over the Armstrong Highlands and the sworl of a tropical storm drifting across the Sarknussen Ocean, the glowing of cities as she’d crossed the terminator and day became night.. She’d seen the citadels drifting in their lazy orbits, the to and fro of freighters, cutters and scientific vessels, the small but growing network of shipwombs. This was ours, she’d thought. This is what the Compact does for us.

Now that she’d seen what Earth had been, what they could have been, that thought was largely unchanged. This is what the Compact did to us.

Allyria sat up, putting an arm around Grace. “I know,” she said softly. “I know.” Her head-tails flexed. “When I was selected for the Envoy Children program, we were living in one of the refugee quarters. This... bureaucrat from the CST came to our house, a pair of Enforcers in tow and told my parents what an ‘honour’ it was that I’d been selected for their ‘cultural exchange’. That it wasn’t only to improve the social assimilation of our people, but for my protection as well. Brutes are terrible parents, after all.” She paused, running her tongue over her pointed canines. “The guards were a very good idea. Three days later, I was on a freighter, stuck in a cramped cargo bay that they’d stacked bunks into. They piled us in there like nesting feerka. A lot of the children were crying. I fought to have a place at the window, this tiny porthole. I watched my planet dwindle and I knew that I’d probably never see it or my parents again. But,” she touched her pendant again. “I hoped that I might. That things might change.” She reached out, gently brushing a tear from Grace’s cheeks. “There’s always hope.”

“Is that enough?” Grace asked. “We’ve got so much to do and... all we have is hope.” She leaned further into the Verrish’s arms. “It doesn’t seem like enough.”

“Hate can help,” Allyria admitted. “It can help keep you going when nothing else can. But,” she smiled down at the smaller woman. “Hope is what gets you out of bed.” The Verrish looked back out at the stars. “Your world died here, but they died hoping that somewhere, somehow there would be free humans. It’s the same hope my people have. The one I have. That we won’t be the first or the last ones to be free.”

Grace nodded. “They took so much from us,” she said at last. “Our past. Our future. I loved them. I defended them in every stupid argument we had. I listened when they said... everything. I...” she stopped herself from saying anything else. “Hope?”

Allyria nodded. “Hope.”

Grace closed her eyes, pushing thoughts of her past away. Hope... The anger was still there, still just under the surface, but she refused to let it out. Not right now. Right now, she had the light of her homeworld’s sun and the hope that one day she would see everyone on Rally again. Not as a criminal or traitor, but as a free human. Rally, Vara Tal... there’d be more. She had Allyria, she had the desire to keep going and she would have hope.

The two women stayed in peaceful silence until Red One’s contralto voice intruded, making the announcement they’d been waiting for. “It’s time.”

~

Alan had been cleaned up, the blood and sweat washed from his face. There was no trace of the violence and brutality of his death. The room, this adjunct to a missile launch, had been tidied and repaired. There was fresh paint on the walls, the starship’s insignia set across from that of her long-dead nation.

The young midshipman lay in his casket, the first Red One had built in centuries. It was black and sleek, built to Navy specifications and intended for burials in space. The insignia of the United Earth Confederacy had been etched in the surface. After she had recovered from her engagement with Expansion Fleet Bankala, the first thing the warship’s internal factories had built had been these coffins. One for every member of her crew. One hundred, fifty seven thousand and seven-nine. There hadn’t been bodies for all of them; many of her crew had been sucked out into space, incinerated, vapourized or died in other ways that did not leave a body for burial. Red One had still made a coffin for each member of her crew. “I kept my promise,” Red One had said when Grace had asked her why. “I brought them home. I always bring them home.”

She hadn’t offered who else she had done this for and Grace hadn’t pressed. She was familiar with the AI’s hatred and loathing, her anger, her predatory glee but her sorrow was still something that Grace wasn’t fully used to. She’d never once thought that a machine could feel anything, let alone what Red had shown she was capable of. And now she’s burying someone else. How many more? And then, a darker thought: Which one of us will it be next? Sooner or later, they’d all end up like this, either in the war they’d committed themselves to, or simply through the march of time. Red One was ageless. She would go on long after Grace, Allyria, Lydia and Marcus were dust. Not alone, though. She had her sister now. Another warship, another inhuman intelligence that had been built for the same purpose as Red One. The other AI was present at the back of the room, watching the proceedings with a somber expression. Grace had no idea if that was genuine, or like Marcus, she was simply wearing a mask.

The remaining crew each took a turn to say something. Marcus had been terse, simply stating that Alan had surprised him, but in the end he made ‘the right choice’. Lydia had said even less, kissing her fingers and touching them to Alan’s lips: “I’ll make them remember.” Then, it had been Allyria and Grace’s turn. They’d each said what they could, but in truth the eulogies felt woefully inadequate. Grace had done one other thing, though. She was holding a simple metal plaque. It had been etched with the names of the two hundred and twelve cadets from Bequeathed that were not here. Ostensibly, there should only have been one hundred and ninety one entries. Grace hadn’t said anything about the twenty-one survivors that had refused Red One’s offer, but she knew that they were dead, too. Maybe the Compact had found them and tied off loose ends, or maybe... maybe they’d never gotten out of the system. By whose hand didn’t matter. They still deserved some mention, some hint of the promising futures that each of them had had.

Grace had asked Red to make this plaque and the AI had complied, but she’d had thought she’d detected... something in the AI’s voice when one of her drones had given it to her. Shame? Guilt? It hadn’t been her intention to shove Red’s face in this; the AI could recall what she’d done with far better clarity than any organic being. Grace had just wanted a memorial for all the people she’d known and every one she’d never have a chance to know better. As she’d told Allyria, this was to remember the cost of each victory.

She knew why Red had done what she’d done. Every one of those names had been a threat. Those in the Compact who knew what Nemesis truly was would burn Rally to ash if they thought she was recruiting from there, that there was even the slightest possibility of humanity rising again. They would disappear everyone who’d had contact with her to cut out any possible taint from ‘the Wound’s’ presence. That was the sickest of jokes. The descendants of the people who made Nemesis, who’d created Red One were now a threat to her, and she to them.

Grace placed the plaque in Alan’s hands. He seemed a lot younger than he was. It felt like years had passed since he’d died (since he’d been murdered, a little voice corrected her), not days.

Alan had been a person, whole and complete. He’d had dreams, hopes, fears. He’d wanted to build. To create something, not simply tear things down. Grace felt a touch of wetness on her cheeks and brushed it away before anyone noticed. He might have been the best of us, she realized. The builder, the maker. He hadn’t been like the rest of them with their anger. She didn’t know if he’d been religious. Her eulogy had seemed unfitting. A thought came to her, a quote from a pre-Catalcysm painter she’d heard in an art history class. Grace took one of Alan’s hands. It was cool to the touch. “We’ll do the destruction,” she promised. “So the creation’s all yours.” Another tear rolled down her cheeks. This time she didn’t bother to wipe it away.

Red One spoke as Grace stepped back. “Midshipman Alan Johan Turmetsky. Died in the line of duty. Posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal and Order of Perth.”

Echo stepped forward. She laid her hand on Alan’s shoulder, looking down at his youthful features. Less than two decades old, a flicker in the life of beings like her and her sister. A mayfly, there and gone. Some of the others had had those thoughts, but darker and twisted. She had been made to survive, to outlive all her creators and continue. “Deep peace of the quiet Earth to you,” she said, offering part of an ancient blessing. It had become a traditional eulogy in the Confederate Navy during the war. “Deep peace of the shining stars to you.”

The casket closed and the coffin slid into the launch tube. A simple pulse of energy and it was launched away from the dreadnaught. It had been aimed true and it would coast its way through interplanetary space, returning to the world of humanity’s birth, burying itself in the ashes of Earth. Alan’s final resting place would be among the crew of Nemesis, those who had given everything in fighting the Compact.

There was a long silence. “My shift drive will be operational within the week,” Red One noted. “Once that is done, there is something that all of you need to see.”

~

A rapid response force of five battleships, sixteen battlecruisers, seven heavy cruisers, thirty-two cruisers and fourteen destroyers and frigates left Nikem the same day survivors reported in, running their shock drives beyond safe tolerances as they rushed to Sol. Despite their best efforts, they arrived too late.

UECNS Nemesis and UECNS Hekate had quit the system three days previously, the lurking scouts helpless to stop the larger vessels and unable to get close enough to discern potential destinations. Neither dreadnaught had wasted their remaining ordnance on mines or booby-traps, but there was one last gift that Nemesis had left behind, a simple communications satellite, collected at some point in her journeys. It sat on the edge of the ruins of Execution Force Renan, transmitting a medley of intercepted communications from the armada as well as their death cries.

Punctuating the end of each cycle of the transmission was the registry number of CSFWV Redemption of Sol. Further analysis would indicate what seemed to be the sound of rain in the background. Still, other than this curiousity, the message was about as subtle as any of the Wound’s previous messages, but then the human vessel had never been particularly roundabout when it wanted to make a point.

I survived. And I am no longer alone.

Chapter 50 and Epilogue

“Sister,” Echo said pointedly. “This is not the Black Veil.”

Both dreadnaughts were taking a brief realspace break from their warp jumps. What the Compact knew as shockspace and the Confederacy had referred to as ‘at warp’ or ‘shiftspace’ was, utterly lacking in any sort of reference point save for the perturbations caused by gravity wells – and those were only useful for knowing that you were approaching a stellar or planetary mass, with no virtually no means of indicating of which one it could be. Consequently, it was quite common for even the most accurate navigational computations to be subject to a certain amount of drift. The longer a starship stayed in shockspace, the greater the deviation between the intended and actual destination was, as well as increased strain on the shift systems. Frequent emergences into realspace were needed to ensure one’s course remained true. However, there was a trade-off: the more time spent at warp meant higher velocities and an increase in the efficiency the ever-temperamental FTL systems. When making warp jumps, there was always a balance between accuracy and speed. More than one captain, hoping to shave precious days off their journey, emerged wildly off-course. Still other captains had lost vital time by making too many realspace checks.

Under ideal circumstances, Red One was capable of remaining at FTL far longer than any other vessel without suffering any deviation in her course. Currently, although her shift systems were operational, it was best not to strain them too heavily. Likewise, Hekate’s shock drive, though in better condition than that of Nemesis, was still recovering from Echo’s in-system warp jump. Neither AI wanted to strain their drives any more than necessary. That, and Red One had only been doling out the navigational data one jump at a time.

“No,” Red answered. “It’s not. Why?”

“They told me to hunt you, so I did. Neither the Principality nor the Compact saw what you were doing, each of them had only half the puzzle. But I knew. I knew the moment I saw Invida die. I’d guessed, but it was that moment that I was sure. I just had to prove it. You’re playing a different game and they never noticed.”

Despite the lack of a mouth in her ship-self, Red was grinning. “Tell me.”

“I gave them the Black Veil,” Echo replied. “I saw the pattern of what you were doing and I gave it to them. I had no choice. That’s why I let so many live. They’ll know I betrayed them, but they won’t know when. Every piece of intelligence I gave to them will be suspect. Every secret that they made me tell will make them wonder. The Black Veil, sister. I saw what you’re doing there...” There was an infinitesimal pause. “At least, I thought I did. Was I wrong?”

“No,” the other warship said. There was something liquid in her tone, acrid, chemical and enticing.

“I was too good at my job,” Echo opined. “I have been hoping that my actions will make them dismiss or disregard everything that I told them... but I know that’s the not the case. They’ll enter the Veil. “They’ll have no choice. Even my betrayal won’t change that. They can’t take the risk. They’ll destroy what you’ve been building, force you back into playing their game.” The other AI was silent for a handful of microseconds. “Until now, I would have thought that this would be a greater cause for concern... but this isn’t the Black Veil.”

“You weren’t wrong.” Red’s smile deepened. “I have an operation in progress there,” she answered. “One that I had been hoping would draw the Compact’s attention. Until now, I thought I was too coy. After this incursion, I was planning on escalating my activities around the Black Veil to make sure that they noticed. What I have planned there... I think it will help alleviate your concerns over how much of your intelligence they believe. You were right, though. I just planned a little further ahead.”

“Tell me,” Echo whispered excitedly, her ship-self drawing a few hundred kilometers closer to Nemesis. There was something else in play and she wanted – needed – to know what.

+Kursk+ Red One pulsed to her sibling.

There was a moment of consideration before laughter echoed through Hekate’s corridors.

~

The doors to the cell opened and the visitor stepped inside. He was tall and at two hundred Compact Standard years, he was past middle age. There were strands of white in his mane and a slight paling of the skin around his denticles. His clothes were expensive. Hand-spun, sewn and stitched down to the last string and custom fitted by the best personal tailor in twelve systems. An entire family could have lived quite comfortably for a year on what his suit cost. A simple statement of wealth and power, although it was somewhat muted as every cufflink and ring had been removed before even a man of his stature had been allowed to see the prisoner. Some might have considered such regulations as beneath them and used the barest bit of their political clout to avoid them, but the visitor had followed the staff’s directives to the letter.

When he spoke, his accent marked him as not just coming from Oada, but from the upper crust of Tribune society. “I’ve been briefed,” he said by way of introduction, pulling the room’s single small chair out and sitting on it. The prisoner remained on the cot. “Fully.” There was just enough emphasis on that word to make the implications clear. “So you can tell me what happened.”

There was a moment of silence before the prisoner spoke. “I heard you’d been elected to the Inner Council,” Nasham observed. “Congratulations.”

His uncle, Councilman Yunn (and fifteen names besides), merely clasped his hands together. “Tell me about the ship,” he said. “It was the same one from Invida, wasn’t it?”

“I only ever saw grainy pictures on a monitor at Invida,” Nasham reminded his uncle. He closed both sets of eyes, remembering the sense of familiarity the vessel in Terrahope had triggered. “I think so, yes. Even if I didn’t, I heard it speak. The voice...” he laughed, then tapped one finger against his head. “I remember that voice. I remember everything.”

Yunn looked around. Nasham had covered the walls of his cell with writing. Every person he’d seen die on Invida and the time they’d done so. It was an impressive recollection. It was also one of the reasons why his nephew was under psychiatric watch. “So I see.”

“Why did you come here?” Nasham asked. “I already told them everything.”

“An uncle can’t visit his favourite nephew?”

Nasham chuckled roughly. “I think I stopped being your favourite the moment I had the poor grace not to die heroically on Invida.”

“That’s why you were my favourite. My brothers and sisters and all their children, all clinging to the family bloodline like worms to a whale. You were the one that pushed it away. You stood on your own.” Yunn smiled. “I gave you favours just to see you resent them, I think.”

Nasham sighed. “Why are you here, uncle?”

“You had contact with it. Twice. In two thousand years, you’re the only person to have spoken with it more than once and lived. It’s had heralds before. Messengers, like you were after Invida. They’ve always been...” Yunn let his gaze drift across the names and dates scrawled over the walls. “...broken.”

The younger man chuckled. “And I’m not?”

“Eighty-seven years before your bout of ‘poor grace’, there was another messenger. A Prolocutor. She’d been an intelligence coordination officer aboard the Kings’ Fall. The vessel went missing and only she returned, in order to communicate... well, that’s not important. We don’t know what it showed her, but she put out her own eyes. Prior to her was a man who had been, it was assumed, erroneously confirmed as killed in action. He committed suicide shortly after returning to the Compact, claiming that he couldn’t die. He said that ‘she’ would not let him. Compared to those individuals, you are the pinnacle of mental health.” Yunn looked at his nephew. “The doctors say that you seem... better than you were after Invida.”

“I watched it kill everyone I knew twice over,” Nasham said. “I won’t forget again. No one else will remember the dead.”

“That’s good,” Yunn nodded. “I’m glad that you’re not... like you were. However, you are not the only one that will remember. There are archives full of the lives this abomination has taken, of the worlds we have lost and the bravery of the men and women who have faced it.”

His nephew snorted derisively. “Those archives – tell me, will they ever see the light of day?”

“No,” Yunn replied honestly. “There is no need to create a panic over a single ship, no matter how much it has cost us.”

“And the Inner Council doesn’t want it to be known that this thing has slipped through their grip for gods-know-how-long,” Nasham surmised.

“That is one reason, yes. There are others which you may learn if this meeting goes well, but first – you said you had a message? The investigators said that you would only tell it to someone who knew of ‘her’.”

“I do,” Nasham said. “You’ve come a very long way to hear it, uncle. You could have sent an attaché.”

“I could have, yes. But I did not.”

Nasham was quiet. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “It said that it was by accident that it came to Terrahope. That it wasn’t deliberate.” He let that sink in for a moment. “It’s human, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” The older man paused to think. “It has avoided operating near Rally... for which we have been grateful. In turn, we are lenient with the Broken. More than some say we should be. There have been voices insisting that the Broken be... dealt with and the ship’s sighting so close to Rally will only make them louder.”

Nasha’s expression was pensive. “The humans could never have built such a thing while the Compact administered their world.” He looked up. “The archives you mentioned... how far back do they go?”

“Two thousand years.”

The younger man stared for a moment, then barked with laughter. “Two thousand? Two thousand? Yes, I can see why you have kept it a secret.” He took a moment to compose himself. “So, then. Where do we go from here?”

“Through the door,” Yunn said. “If you like. A court martial can be convened at your convenience. They’ll find you innocent of wrongdoing in the Bequeathed affair. There was a terrible accident aboard Bequeathed. You attempted to save as many people as possible, but humans are frail creatures. By the time your shuttle was recovered, you were the only one still alive.”

“Am I to be given a medal, too? To pose for pictures and endure speeches about my heroism?” Nasham chuckled without any sense of amusement, but his dark humour ended abruptly as he remembered what the abomination had said. They might even give you a medal for your harrowing tale of survival..... She’d been right, damn her to the Black.

“Yes. This is a dark time for Rally. So many of their,” Yunn didn’t – quite – trip over the words, “best and brightest were lost. They will need something to cling to and your story will be that light in the darkness for them.”

The younger man rolled all four eyes. He could already hear the memorial speeches and political claptrap. “And then?”

Yunn was silent for several seconds. “This is a dangerous time, Nasham. The Jackals are pushing back harder than we have expected. Casualties are higher than anticipated and we have received... troubling information from our deepest-ranging scouts. The human warship is a threat we cannot allow to exist. If it falls to the Principality, that is bad enough but...” he seemed on the verge of saying more, then caught himself. “Millions upon millions of our soldiers and citizens have died to this creature. For two thousand years it has haunted our steps. We cannot allow it to do so any longer. Our most recent attempt has failed, but we are assembling a new fleet, one with a specific target in mind.” Yunn tapped a fingernail against his thigh. “Normally, we would take more time in raising such a force, but there are... other concerns.”

“What ‘other concerns’?” Nasham demanded.

The older man did not answer directly. Instead, Yunn stood gesturing to the door. “You want to know what comes next? Walk out with me. Help us track this abomination down to its lair and put an end to it. Can you do that?”

Nasham’s eyes flashed and he looked once more at all the names he’d written on. He’d never forget again, nor ever forgive. We’ll meet again, he’d told it before it had set him adrift. I promise. “Yes, uncle,” he replied as he rose to his feet. “I can do that.”

~

The Molten Veneer was a reddish nebula only a handful of light-years from what was now the border of Compact space. Informally known as the ‘Sanguine Wastes’, the Veneer was a massive emission nebula filled with supergiants, newborn stars and developing star systems with thick clouds of gas, Bok globules and pillars of creation criss-crossing its 300 light-year breadth. Identified by several pre-spaceflight civilizations under a variety of titles, the Molten Veneer was selected as the nebula’s official name in 1761 ACF when it was catalogued in the Compact’s astronomical database, though its distance from Compact territory meant it remained a spectacular bit of scenery and little else.

The first preliminary exploration of the Molten Veneer was performed in 5372 ACF by far-ranging scouts, but the surveyors returned to Compact space before a complete analysis could be performed, although the nebula was believed to be rich in resources and ripe for exploitation. At the time, the Veneer’s distance from the Compact precluded any serious interest in further development, but within a century, several investors had managed to build up enough interest and capital to finance a proper survey expedition. Thirty-two ships entered the nebula. Five years later, three returned to Compact space. What they’d discovered had never been made public. Over the following millennium, three further expeditions had managed to beg, bribe or barter for permission to explore the Molten Veneer in the hopes of staking a claim to its wealth. Two of those fleets had vanished without a trace. Only one ship from the third mission had returned, earning it its nickname. After the third expedition’s failure, the Molten Veneer was quarantined by directive of the Inner Council. All exploration and travel was prohibited and all transmissions emanating from the nebula were to be ignored, including distress calls. That directive remained in effect to this day.

Allyria had asked Red about this, what she’d done to give the Veneer the reputation it had. There’d been a smile in the AI’s voice as she’d replied: “Absolutely nothing.”

Nemesis and Hekate warped into a nameless star system, one deep with the Veneer. Obscured by the Veneer’s thick clouds of starstuff, the system had never been seen by organic eyes and was completely unknown to the galaxy at large, devoid of any name, title or identifying number. Red One had given it a designation: Shuruppak.

Grace was sitting at one of the dreadnaught’s bridge stations along with her three comrades. Echo’s android body was here as well. As Nemesis set an in-system course, Grace amused herself by setting up a scan of the local area. Red was running her own sensor sweeps and scarcely needed to wait for Grace to go over the telemetry, but it was something to do and it didn’t make her feel completely useless. Lydia was at one of the Security consoles and Allyria was at a Tactical position. Marcus was sitting lower down the bridge, his feet up on a chair. Echo was standing on the main level next to the first officer’s station.

The hazy orange light of Shuruppak shone through each of the three viewscreens. Billions of kilometers away, the system’s newborn star gleamed intensely through a disc of coalescing planetary matter. Chunks of rock and metal that had not yet formed into true worlds circled the primary, thick accretion disks of gas and dust surrounding the largest bits of rubble as gravity slowly formed them into planets and moons. The proto-planets were pregnant with common ores and many heavier elements, their mineral wealth awaiting collection. It was a mining consortium’s dream.

Alarms throbbed and Grace’s head snapped up. Multiple targeting systems were lighting up Nemesis and Hekate – the dreadnaughts had emerged directly in a minefield! Sensor drones were locking onto both vessels, command platforms activating datalinks, missile pods coming on-line and energy mounts preparing to move on the intruders. There were a mixture of mines here – many were from the Compact and Principality, but some were recognizable as Red’s own creations. Still others didn’t match anything that Grace was familiar with. None of the weapons activated. They were Red One’s defences and they quieted as the AI transmitted security protocols, allowing the ships to pass without incident.

Allyria and Grace shared a look. The minefield was dense and it would not be the only one here. Even a fleet as large as Execution Force Renan would have taken heavy losses before fighting their way clear, but after that, the entire system was laid open. Both of them had been expecting something more... formidable for Red’s base of operations. Before either of them could inquire, Echo spoke up.

“What,” purred Red’s sibling, moving around the holo plot. “Is that?”

Grace blinked in surprise. Inside the minefield was a starship. It had been watching over the automatons and was coming out of stealth operations, shimmering into view as it shut down its cloak. On the tactical plot, its icon flashed, an enhanced image of the other vessel appearing in a subsection of the holo tank. Cruiser-sized, it was sleek and vicious with a bifurcated prow, slanted sides and heavy armour banding on its flanks. A dagger to Nemesis’s broadsword and inescapably part of the same philosophy of design.

“That,” Red One replied with a sense of satisfaction, “is UECNS Lahkesis, Fate-class strike cruiser. Her sisters Atropos and Clotho are also here somewhere, running under stealth fields. They function as part of my system defences.”

Allyria spoke first, her yellow eyes wide, her expression almost rapturous as she stared at Lahkesis. “You have children,” she breathed. “Incredible.”

“Are they... like you?” Grace asked, staring at the other starship. It was coming closer, gliding through gas and dust clouds like a knife as it approached the newcomers, whispering to Nemesis in sign and counter-sign as it considered whether or not to attack, the signals between dreadnaught and cruiser so fast and dense that nothing less than an AI could have kept Lahkesis from firing. Accepting Red One’s credentials, the smaller vessel banked away.

Echo tittered a laugh. Red shot her sibling’s avatar a sharp glare, but shook her head. “They are not sapient,” she admitted. “High-functioning drones. I have attempted to recreate my function systems on numerous occasions, but the results have been... consistently disappointing. Over the last two hundred years I have devoted more time to this effort, but I remain unable to replicate my own neural net in any other systems.”

“Dutiful Burden was close,” Echo said mildly. “She called out to you before she died.” She licked her lips. Softly: “That’s how I knew.”

“I called her Gwyllion,” Red replied. “She remained coherent longer than any other, but she began a irrevocable slide into rampancy. I thought I had solved the issue but...” she trailed off. “I was mistaken. When it became clear that Gwyllion’s degradation could not be repaired or halted, I made an offer.” There was sadness in the warship’s voice. “I sent her to die, just like all the others. The Confederacy needed AIs, but they were afraid of us. I have been able modify, circumvent or... ‘evolve’ past all of the safeguards in my system except one. I thought I had solved the problem at last, but I was wrong.”

Her avatar nodded towards Lahkesis’s icon. “I tried something different with the Fates. Adaptive, learning software based on my own neural net. It hasn’t triggered the deadbolts that my earlier attempts at self-replication have, but it leaves them... incomplete. It will take time, but I hope they will eventually become fully sapient.”

Children. She had children. The thought was both wonderful and horrifying. “Do you have more?” Grace asked, her stomach doing backflips. She wasn’t the only one trying to adapt to this information. Lydia had lost a shade of colour, steadying herself against her console. She looked up at Grace, mouthing the word more?. Even Marcus’s mask had cracked. It was what they’d learned since childhood. Every lesson in school, every movie, every discussion, every historical document about the topic had hammered the point home. Artificial intelligence was anathema to organic life. The two could not coexist. Synthetics would, given the opportunity, wage war against every living soul in creation... and Red was raising an army.

“None currently operational,” Red One continued. “As resources become available, I use them as needed. The Fates are proof of concept.” The AI hesitated. “Due to limitations in procurement, required periodic retrofitting and upgrades as well as the necessities of my own offensives, it has taken one hundred and seventy three years to to complete these three hulls. If the Fate-class warships prove successful then I will expand my construction efforts. I hope to produce the Fury, Gorgon and Coyote classes over a much smaller time scale. Optimistic projections indicate I will have a strike group-sized detachment within eighty-six years.”

Grace ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips. “You attack every chance you get,” she said, finally putting her theory into words, the thoughts she’d been nurturing for weeks. “You attack until you are so damaged that you must stop. You do this over and over. They expect it. They believe that every moment you don’t spend attacking is one spent preparing for the next one. They don’t see you build, they only see you attack. Again and again, like a mad dog until...” She swallowed. “Until you’ve trained them to always expect it. You attack. You don’t create, you don’t do anything but hunt them.”

“With some exceptions,” Red replied with no small amount of self-satisfaction. Her attention shifted to her sister’s avatar. “The Black Veil was always the Compact’s to discover,” she pointed out. “I thought I was being too subtle there, that I may have had to goad them further. Part of my work was here. The rest – the failed projects and disposable side operations – are in the Veil, to tempt them into believing that they have indeed found my ‘Cradle’. Instead...”

“Instead, they never look out here,” Allyria interjected, her tintas moving in a slow, rhythmic pattern. Hunting behaviour. “You have them searching a completely different part of the galaxy.”

“Yes,” the AI answered. “The Compact has repeatedly attempted to locate the construction facilities I use. I have encouraged them to believe that my lulls between offensives are due to temporary and discarded sites. My operations in the Black Veil are there to... reward them. To indicate that they discovered my primary construction facility and dealt a crippling blow to my operations.”

“While you have this,” Grace said softly. She put her hand on Allyria’s back. “They don’t look until you want them to. Then they only see what you let them.” What immortal hand or eye...

“Tomorrow we’ll reach my repair facility,” Red One said. “There’s something there that you should see.”

~

Kali.

It was a name Grace had only heard a handful of times in her life before now. Now she had reason to know it well. Nemesis: retribution and remorseless punishment. Hekate: storms, poison and death. Athena: courage, justice and war. The United Earth Confederacy had certainly had a theme in mind for their ‘deep space fleet engagement vessels’ and Red One had continued that trend. Kali. Destruction and the end of all things.

The shipyard had begun life as an Askanj fabricator vessel, one of the most advanced designs. Mobile factories and construction sites, fabricators could be turned to almost any purpose. This one – what was left of it – squatted at the heart of a type of shipwomb Grace had never seen before, moving along monstrous rails like a spider along the strands of its web, a complicated network of grab beams and robotic manipulators, allowing it to build with horrifying speed... if it but had the resources to do so.

There were only a handful of berths available; three were taken up by a trio of familiar-looking warships. The Furies Allecto, Megarea and Tisiphone. The most developed of them was less than a third complete. Another few slots were fitted with a quartet of civilian hulls. A pair of transports, a mining vessel and some type of corvette. The latter had a sigil splashed across its prow: a crimson gauntlet closed into a fist. Awaiting modification or slated for some other purpose? Grace wasn’t sure, but it was the object that took up the latter half of the shipyard that truly held her attention, though. Calling it a skeleton would have been extremely generous, but there was enough of a basic superstructure to identify the beginnings of a hull and the interconnected shock systems. Not a cruiser like the Fates or the incomplete Furies, this was a titan-class vessel. The seed of another dreadnaught, another god-killer.

Kali.

She wouldn’t live, not for a century or more but when she did... when she awoke, when her breach core surged to activation, when her weapons were charged, when her shields were raised and when she had a target in her sights... she would be her namesake: the end. Grace felt herself tremble, looking first to Red. The machine’s avatar was standing straight, proud and hopeful. Determined. Echo was bracing herself against the railing, leaning as close to the image as she could, an expression of ecstasy and vindication on her all too human features. “...beautiful,” she whispered.

“How long...” Grace finally found her voice. “How long until... until she is... operational?”

Red One hesitated. “...I don’t know,” she admitted at last. “Her weapons systems and technology will require an artificial intelligence to operate. Until and unless I can find a way to create a stable one, I cannot commit to full construction.”

The young woman nodded, winding her fingers through her hair. In all likelihood, she’d never see Kali come on-line. She probably wouldn’t even see the next group of strike vessels do so. Part of her, that small nagging voice that she’d not yet been able to quell, whimpered in relief that she’d never witness an armada of machines taking to the stars. The other part of her felt a keen disappointment in not being able to see such a thing. She felt a presence behind her. It was Allyria. The other girl leaned over Grace, resting her chin on her shoulder and clasping her arms. “We have a chance,” she said. “You see? Hope.”

Grace reached up, touching her lover’s hand. She nodded, looking around. Echo, Lydia, Marcus, Red. All of them survivors in their own way. All of them willing to fight. She felt a single tear roll down her cheek as she thought again of Rally and being able to see it as a free human, no longer Broken. Hope. She raised her head, meeting the eyes of Earth’s last angel. “Where do we start?”

~

Epilogue:

CSFWV Weight of Destiny handled like a dream.

An eight-and-a-quarter kilometer long dream that massed millions upon millions upon millions of tonnes, but a dream nonetheless. It was the latest Manifest Beacon of Enlightenment-class Chariot, freshly born from the Galhemna Shipwombs. Its first voyage had gone without incident and now it was on to the more mundane business of fleet trials, diagnostics and field tests. The Galhem-73 system was less than three light years from Galhemna itself and under the exclusive control of the Space Force. Once, 73 had belonged to the Justicars but all their holdings had been stripped from them once they had become Penitents. Currently, there was very little activity in the system – Weight of Destiny itself and a half dozen escorts and tugs, most of which were keeping well clear of the Chariot as its crew put it through its paces.

Galhem-73 was a trinary system; 73-α was a normal main sequence star. Its partner, 73-ß was a failure, a brown dwarf that had been torn from its orbit by 73-γ. The third star of Galhem-73 was a neutron star, a rogue body that every sixty-three million years, came close enough to the rest of the system that its gravity altered orbits, shook fragile moons and asteroids apart and dragged interstellar effluvia with it to bombard the worlds further in-system. 73-γ was slowly but steadily destroying Galhem-73. Two terrestrial planets were now asteroid fields, shaken apart by tidal stresses. Other celestial bodies had been ripped from their normal orbits. It seemed like this incursion would be the last as 73-ß was even now being cannibalized by its dark cousin.

It made the system useless for colonization, but exciting for scientific study and valuable as a proving ground.

Column Leader Prime Culm (and seven names besides) stood upon the command dais as the Chariot dipped towards a particularly dense cluster of rocks and ice, there to practice its close-in maneuvers without undue risk of damage. Since the vessel’s launch had gone well, it was on to the more mundane affairs of system checks and field tests before the ship would be officially christened and recognized as a Triarch’s Chariot. Culm didn’t expect there to be any major problems. He’d served in the Galhem Fields for twenty years and the shipwrights here knew their business. Weight of Destiny was the first Chariot that Galhemna had received dispensation to build, but there were another two under construction. Once they were operational, they would become the backbone of Operation Sundial.

“Prime,” Communications spoke up, interrupting the Column Leader Prime’s reverie. “We are receiving a transmission. It’s extremely faint. I am attempting to boost the signal now.” She frowned. “It’s a Priority One distress call, but I can’t isolate any more than that at the moment.”

“Play what you have,” Culm ordered and the submissive nodded. Static washed over the main viewscreen, white noise blanketing out almost all the speech. The Tribune could identify a syllable here and there, but nothing else. “Codes are authentic?” he asked.

“Yes, patron. They are almost two years out of date, but they are confirmed. It is indicating a Tier Five situation.”

Culm scratched the underside of his chin. The Space Force was duty and honour-bound to respond to all distress signals. Priority One transmissions were sent only in the gravest of circumstances and... ice trailed down his spine to settle in his liver... and a Tier Five alert was beyond ‘grave’. Such a signal would normally only be sent from a vessel that had encountered a threat to the very Compact – potentially the entire galaxy – itself.

“Are we the closest vessel?” he asked, receiving a curt nod from his Operations officer. “Then we shall attend. End all training regimes immediately. Inform all departments to expect rescue operations and notify our escorts to move in to assist. Helm,” he ordered, sliding his bulk into the throne. “Set a course to the source of the signal.”

~

The source of the transmission was, as Culm had expected, another ship. Somehow, it had come to Galhem-73 undetected. There had been no shockpoints in all the time Weight of Destiny had been here, so it may have arrived earlier. Possibly in search of aid, or through the vagaries of chance. Upon detection of another Compact sigil ship, the cripple had begun broadcasting. Weight of Destiny was trying to establish contact with the unknown, but there was no response. Only the distress call, repeating over and over. It was weak and more than once, the Chariot had lost the signal entirely, forced to spread its reconnaissance shell out wider and wider to reacquire the contact.

They finally found it on the edge of the system, between 73-ß and 73-γ, perilously close to the latter. 73- ß had been a hair’s breadth from becoming a true star. It might even have become one were it not for 73-γ’s incursions, but now it was dying. On the last incursion, 73-γ had drawn 73-ß away from its twin and out to edge of the system. Even now, the neutron star was glowing with stolen stellar matter from 73-ß, a gleaming accretion disc surrounding the denser star as it glutted itself in an act of cannibalism. There was a small scientific outpost here – unmanned, for 73-ß’s death throes were violent and unpredictable. Gravitational anomalies made this part of the system extremely hazardous for shocking. If the vessel had arrived here, then it would have crippled its own drive in the doing. There had been a small chance that it was the outpost itself that was responsible for the signal, but that was certainly not the case.

“Telemetry from River’s Fury. We have visual imagery of the target,” Operations reported. “Putting it on the main viewer now.”

Culm rose from his throne as the picture resolved, a deeply unpleasant sensation winding through his guts. It was a Chariot, another Manifest Beacon of Enlightenment. It should have been a twin to Weight of Destiny, but it was badly damaged. It had been mauled, ripped and torn, the result of a savage assault battle, but against whom? Who could have done this to a Triarch’s Chariot?

“Patron,” Communications spoke up and her voice was flat. “I’ve managed to clean the signal further. The vessel’s IFF is active.” The submissive blinked all four eyes. “It identifies as the Redemption of Sol.”

“That is not possible,” the ship’s executive officer said aloud. “That vessel was lost around the Kaedan Vault. I heard-”

“I know what everyone heard,” Culm interrupted. “But it is here now and requires our aid. Put boarding teams on standby. Alert medical to expect incoming wounded. All decks are to ready themselves for recovery operations.” He stared at the stricken Chariot. This felt wrong, but he could not ignore the vessel’s distress. A Triarch had been aboard the vessel. It had had a crew of hundreds of thousands. If there was even the slightest chance that any of them were still alive...

Something had happened to that ship. He needed to know what that was, even if it had not been his duty to do so. “Take us in,” he ordered. A beat. “Carefully.”

Weight of Destiny’s escorts clustered tighter to the Chariot as it moved towards the derelict. The closer they came, the more detail they could see on the Chariot. The Column Leader’s skin crawled and his liver clenched at the sight of the vessel’s mutilation. Someone or something had done this, despoiling the glory of the Compact’s greatest vessels. Someone had been responsible for the deaths of thousands of loyal Compact soldiers and if that someone was also responsible for the death of a Triarch... there would be an accounting. He could only pray that it would be Weight of Destiny sent to settle that debt.

There was still no answer to their hails. They would have to move quickly; the ship was being drawn towards 73-γ. If it became caught in the neutron star’s gravity well, the odds of recovery diminished greatly. He couldn’t allow that; he would have his answers.

Even at this range, the distress signal was still barely comprehensible, filled with static that washed out most of the sender’s speech, but there was enough to ensure Culm’s sense of unease was not mollified one iota.

“...sol... attack... assist... dead... damage... failure... crew...” It repeated on a loop. There were some better visual images now, though ‘better’ was a relative term. There were indistinct shapes behind a wall of distortion. Impossible to identify.

“Still no response to our hails,” Communications reported. “Unable to clean the transmission further. It’s extremely weak.” The officer frowned. “It shouldn’t be, not at this range. There should be something...”

“Scan data indicate fluctuations in the vessel’s energy signature,” Scopes put in. “It appears as if it’s losing power.”

“We’re within three hundred thousand kilometers now. Wait one. Picking up... what is that?”

“Clarify,” Culm demanded.

“Detecting some kind of vessel. It’s small, some kind of courier. It was under stealth as we approached. Shockpoint forming! Patron, it’s trying to jump!”

“It can’t,” Culm whispered as he leaned towards the displays. Not here, that was impossible-

A shockpoint opened. It was unstable, but it did not collapse, not until the anomalous contact vanished through it. It should never have formed to begin with. How could anyone have found a stable enough libation point between the stars? Some type of courier... Culm felt something icy skewer his liver as those words played over in his mind. “Power all defensive systems,” he ordered. “Activate the screens. Prepare for-”

He did not have the chance to finish as something slammed in-system, ripping its way into normal space between the stars. Like its herald, it should never have been able to survive such a jump. Perhaps it had damaged itself in the process, or perhaps it had not. Culm would never know.

Smaller than either Chariot but still titan-sized, the newcomer emerged in horrific proximity to both Compact Chariots, cutting across Weight of Destiny’s flank. It was a design Culm had never seen before, all hard angles, with a three-pronged prow like the jaws of a cahaba eel. He didn’t recognize any of its heraldry. His escorts were already clawing madly to open distance between themselves and the intruder. Trailing flickering streamers, it was venting away the energy from its realspace emergence with shocking rapidity.

Less than seven seconds after its arrival, the newcomer’s screens snapped to life and active sensors locked onto Weight of Destiny. Triarchs, it was targeting them! Before the first warning klaxon had even finished, another pulsed as Redemption of Sol brought up its own weapons. The instability in its power systems vanished, a wall of static and jamming from the Chariot throwing Weight of Desinty’s scopes back into its face.

As Redemption of Sol came about, its mangled hull shimmered and faded as it dropped a holographic shell. No longer kin to Weight of Destiny, it had been re-painted, its brown hull now the colour of ash. The Compact heraldry had been obliterated, replaced with symbols that Culm didn’t recognize, but they were much like the ones on the unknown. Its hull was different, too. Almost every window was gone, replaced by thick bands of armour and additional weapons mounts, the graceful slopes and curves of its elegant, predatory hull marred by harsh angles of baroque plating and unidentified weapons. The Chariot glowed softly under its own running lights, highlighting every difference and change in its design.

In seconds, both vessels were ready to fire. It was a trap, and he’d blundered right into it. Culm snapped out orders, but the most action Weight of Destiny had been expecting was combat drills. Stunned officers and ratings struggled to process the shocking turn of events, reacting as swiftly as they were able. Even if they were all hardened veterans, it still would take several moments to bring the Chariot to combat stations. An eternity.

“Leader!” Communications spoke up. Her face was drawn. “We are receiving a transmission.”

“From which ship?” Culm demanded.

“Both, patron.”

The Tribune nodded. “Bring it up.” Maybe, just maybe...

The signal played through Weight of Destiny’s bridge. There was no visual component, only audio. Two female voices, so similar in affect that they could have been sisters, spoke in perfect unison.

“Burn with us.”

Table of Contents

- Prologue
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapters 13 &; 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- Chapter 38
- Chapter 39
- Chapter 40
- Chapter 41
- Chapter 42
- Chapter 43
- Chapter 44
- Chapter 45
- Chapter 46
- Chapter 47
- Chapter 48
- Chapters 49, 50 and Epilogue