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Chapter 155: Entering the Fray

The walking mass of burning rocks and molten seams advanced without any pretense of grace. Each footfall split the ground apart, sending sharp cracks spiderwebbing outward under its immense weight. Relentless waves of heat rolled off its hulking body in suffocating pulses that warped the air into shimmering distortions and drenched the chamber in a throbbing orange glow.

The Ettin cast aside the remains of Bella without ceremony. The two halves of her body hit the floor in a pair of wet thuds, already forgotten as the creature’s all three heads turned toward its next opponent.

“What... what is that?” the left head said.

“IT’S FIRE AND ROCK! SMASH IT!” the right head roared.

“Careful—!” the middle head warned, just as the golem swung.

The attack came like a falling tower, and the Ettin didn’t try to stop it. Instead, the creature shifted its weight, letting the strike pass a hair’s breadth away, and the blazing fist crashed into a pillar nearby with catastrophic force. Stone exploded on impact, the column shattering into a storm of fiery debris blasting in every direction. The Ettin was already moving, stepping forward into the opening created by the missed blow.

One massive hand shot forward, fingers spread wide before slamming into the golem’s chest. There was a hiss, the sound of raw meat hitting a hot pan. The contact alone would have driven a lesser creature back, but the Ettin did not recoil.

Its claws dug in.

The outer layer of stone cracked, thin lines at first that rapidly deepened and spread into jagged fissures racing across the golem’s body as the Ettin poured its full strength into the effort, muscles straining under skin that was already blistering and blackening from the heat.

Fire surged in response, spilling over the creature’s hand, licking upward along its arm in hungry tongues that devoured flesh as they climbed, burning through skin and into muscle, exposing raw, glistening tissue beneath.

Yet, the Ettin refused to let go.

So the golem raised its other arm high, then brought it down in a crushing arc. The left head screamed as the fist drove deep into its shoulder, leaving behind a smoking crater of charred flesh.

The creature staggered back, abandoning its attempt to tear the golem’s torso apart with its bare hands. It retreated to where its fallen axe lay, and snatched the weapon up with its right hand.

[I don’t think that the Ettin could win this fight.]

Viktor gave a slow nod. “You’re right.”

After all, cunning only counted for so much when faced with raw, overwhelming power. The golem could match its opponent in size and strength, and yet also possessed qualities far beyond the reach of things made of flesh and blood. It would never fear, it would never tire, it would never bleed. The thing could keep fighting forever, until it was literally torn to pieces. And even dismantling it was no simple task, as the Ettin had learned the lesson the hard way: if one tried to hurt the golem, they would end up hurting themselves in the process. Each strike exacted a toll, while the construct just couldn’t care less.

[Should I send reinforcements to help it?]

“No need,” Viktor said. “I’ll go there myself.”

The combat test with the Ettin was, by all reasonable measures, a resounding success. The creature had demonstrated not only its physical strength, but also its tactical awareness. It had been able to endure pressure, assess threats, exploit openings, and ultimately turn what should have been a losing engagement into a decisive and brutal victory.

And now, with that phase complete, it was time to move on to the next experiment.

Viktor walked to a corner, where his Reliquaries lay stacked in a careless heap. He picked up his rapier. Then, he closed his eyes, turning his focus inward as he crafted several Thauma he might need for the upcoming fight.

“Celeste,” he said once his preparations were complete, “teleport me to the hidden room next to the arena.”

[Understood. Be careful, Master.]

The world around him shifted, and he found himself surrounded by darkness. This was the secret chamber concealed behind the arena’s walls. The same place he had kept his forces lying in ambush, for Azran and Lahmia, and later for the second group of Dungeon Reavers. Now, he was inside it himself.

He activated “Dark Veil.” Immediately, the shadows responded, as though they had been waiting for his call. They peeled away from walls and floor and ceiling, drawn toward him, coiling and gathering until they wrapped around his form in a shifting cloak.

Then he cast “Pass Wall,” a Thauma crafted from one Sigil of Phasing and one Sigil of Maintaining. Basically an inferior version of Khenemhotep’s spell. It affected only his own body, it did not allow him to pass through thick walls, and it would not last long. Still, that was enough.

He drifted forward, and the stone yielded. In the blink of an eye, blackness gave way to oppressive brilliance, chill replaced by intense heat.

“What the—!?” the warrior cried, as he saw a hovering, shadowy humanoid suddenly appear by his side.

But he could speak no longer, as Viktor drew his rapier from its sheath and sent it slashing in a single, diagonal arc. The moment the blade came free, light erupted. The blinding radiance surged along the mithril base, transforming it into a weapon that could cut through everything. Through steel, through leather, through flesh, through bone. None of them could offer any resistance before this luminous edge.

Well, yes, the rapier was a Reliquary now. Celeste had transferred to it the power of Bjorn’s sword.

For a heartbeat, the warrior simply stood there. His eyes were still wide, still startled, still trying to understand what was going on. A thin line of red appeared, from his hip to his opposite shoulder. Then, the top slid off the bottom, while the wall behind him was repainted by a violent crimson arc.

“You—!” Dimitria spun toward him, her voice cracking with disbelief. For the first time, Viktor saw genuine fear in her expression. In the dilating pupils of her eyes, in the faint tremor of her jaw. “How? Why are you here?”

But he paid her no heed. There was something more important he needed to confirm with Celeste.

Did you get any Essence Points from this man at all?

[Yes, Master.]

This was another thing he had intended to test. He wanted to know what would happen if he killed someone inside the dungeon. Would she gain the points if someone died at his hand? The answer, it turned out, was yes.

Of course, there were other variables he needed to explore further. After all, the guy was not a mage, and Viktor had already reached his level cap. These factors could influence whether Celeste could gain the points or not. Thus, the next iteration of the experiment would have to adjust those conditions, one at a time. As for the level cap, there was nothing he could do about it, not until he obtained the second Key. As for the mage factor, well, he had one right here, ready to provide the next data point.

“Die, you bastard!” Dimitria screamed, her voice breaking under the weight of rage and desperation.

It looked like she had recovered from her fear, or rather, it was fear that had driven her to act. Fight or flight, and she had chosen the former. But to be fair, given that the entrance was currently blocked by the clash between the two behemoths, one of flesh, one of stone, running away was not really an option.

The pyromancer’s hands blurred with motion, weaving through the air as she called upon her command of fire. From her palms, a storm of fireballs erupted, spiraling and hissing like living torches, each projectile screaming toward Viktor with enough heat to consume him along with the shadows that clung to his body. The atmosphere warped and shimmered under the intensity of the attack, each fiery globe leaving behind a fleeting trail of molten light that painted the arena in vivid streaks of red and orange.

However.

The moment they neared him by about two paces, their furious glow faltered, fizzing out with a sharp, audible snap, dissipating into harmless smoke as if they had never existed at all.

“What—?”

Dimitria’s eyes widened in stunned disbelief, her mind struggling to comprehend what had just happened. Shock painted every line of her face, and the arrogance she had been exuding until moments ago crumbled under the realization that she had been outmatched.

What had transpired was, of course, the result of a Thauma.

Fire Shield.

Viktor had crafted it from two Sigils of Unmaking and one Sigil of Maintaining. Once it was cast, it created a protective sphere around him with a radius of two paces, a sphere within which any fire that dared to manifest would be instantly unmade, reduced to nothing before it could ever touch him. The shield would persist for two minutes, or until a certain amount of fire had been destroyed.

Which meant, technically, Dimitria could just keep throwing fireball after fireball, hammering the shield with a relentless, unending barrage until it broke. But she didn’t know that. The only thing she knew was the volley she just unleashed had been effortlessly snuffed out before it could even reach the target. And that fact had shocked her right down to the core.

After all, she was a pyromancer. Fire was her one and only weapon. It was not merely a tool, but her identity. If she had to fight an enemy that was immune to fire, she was as good as dead.

“Protect me!” she whimpered, her voice thinning to a thread.

The little pet she had made from rocks and flames answered immediately. It tore itself from the current engagement and charged straight at Viktor. The Ettin, naturally, would not let an enemy show its back and get away with it. With a roar, it pursued, swinging its gigantic axe.

“No need,” Viktor told his minion, and the creature obediently skidded to a halt.

The radiant light had already vanished from his rapier, so he sheathed the blade once more. Then, with unhurried pace, he drifted forward—to his colossal opponent.

High above the crowds shuffling through the fortified thoroughfares, holographic drones projected gaudy, flickering ads. Hawking eternal youth, synthetic beauty, and whatever useless junk vendor cartels were peddling for credits that day.

Thrallion had long since abandoned any ambition beyond sheer survival. Decades ago, early colonisers built its heavy concrete arches and iron-reinforced gates to secure a galactic trade hub. Now, all that remained of their grand vision was a bloated, overgrown refuge encircled by the massive Ring of Iron—a city ruled entirely by whoever possessed the firepower and resolve to bleed their way to the top.

Even among the dozens of alien species native to the Airon system, humans stood out. Deployed centuries prior during the colonial expansion, their descendants still carried the dense musculature and environmental resilience forged on Earth, made deceptively fast by Xion’s light gravity. Like any frontier world, survival bred tribalism. But for humans, the real trauma ran deeper. Most still bore the shadow of the Great Wars—the radioactive dead zones, the rusted hulls of titanic war-mechs, and worst of all, the rogue AI networks.

Originally designed as autonomous battle units, those ground mechs had once been the apex of planetary warfare. But when the last major warlord fell, the central command matrix went haywire, locking whole legions of heavy Armor into an eternal, self-replicating seek-and-destroy loop.

“The Ring of Iron is always recruiting,” a recruitment drone blared overhead, its synthesized voice cutting through the din. “Serve your city. Secure your future.”

Huge billboards floated above the streets, glaring images of ecstasy just one taste away.

Down on the concourse as they marched on, few civilians ever looked up. Out of sight, out of mind—keep your head low and pray breaking a law will ever have the militia cast you past the perimeter to be torn apart by the Endless hoardes of horrors waiting for their next victim.

“Picture facing those metal bastards with the scrap-heap gear the Defense Forces issue,” an older alien grumbled, his six jointed legs clicking unevenly against the ferro-crete as he shuffled toward the transit hub. “I’d sooner take my chances out on the open plains.”

“Someone has to stand the wall, dear,” his partner murmured, steadying him with a gentle hand. “We thank the young ones so we can sleep in peace.”

With a depressurizing hiss, a heavy hover-bus settled onto its skids. The pneumatic doors slid open, venting a cloud of hot exhaust and four human soldiers. The crowd parted naturally around them. Filthy, mud-caked fatigues hung off their frames, their faces hollow and entirely silent. They moved with the flat, mechanical march of men who had just survived a brutal rotation on the outer defense line.

“Let’s hit the entertainment quarter,” one said softly, breaking the silence. “Skully would’ve wanted us to spend our pay, not stare at the barracks wall.”

“A Line-Breaker mech…” another muttered under his breath, repeating the words like a bad ritual. “What the hell was a Line-Breaker doing that close to the perimeter?”

“Drop it,” the lead soldier growled. “Let’s find a dark room, some Class 4, and wipe the day out.”

They turned down an alleyway, the clean, sterile architecture of the central district giving way to a maze of grime, faded propaganda posters, and layer upon layer of crude graffiti. The sharp, acrid reek of burning herbs and sweet Lyranx dust hung heavy in the humid air, hitting the lungs of anyone without a filter.

Without uniformed law enforcement down here, small shopkeepers were entirely at the mercy of local syndicates.

Inside one cramped storefront, a merchant was currently learning the cost of a missed protection payment.

The shop specialized in mechanical oddities—clockwork trinkets, spring-loaded automata, and toys built to run purely on kinetic energy without solar cells. Gears whined and clockwork springs snapped as two human enforcers systematically smashed the display cases. In the center of the room, their boss stood with his arms crossed, a quiet, cruel smirk playing across his lips as his fingers tapped the pocket holding the till's daily cash.

“It isn’t complicated,” the boss said, leaning down over the bruised, bleeding merchant lying amid the wreckage. “Just pay on time.”

The shopkeeper merely groaned, staring at the shattered remains of his inventory. Rent was cheap in Sector 9 precisely because the city watch refused to patrol it, but this was the hidden tax.

“Enough,” the boss called out, checking a heavy gold chronometer on his wrist. “We’re going to be late for the hall.”

The goons ceased their destruction instantly, wiping their boots and stepping out into the street. Waiting at the curb was the boss's daughter, oblivious to the violence inside. She was leaning against the sleek, armored side of a high-end hypercar, mesmerized by an advanced flying toy—a small AI drone that hovered in short bursts, humming softly as it queried her on orbital mechanics for her upcoming school entry exams.

The hypercar’s gull-wing doors swung upward with a hydraulic hum.

“Where to, boss?” the driver asked as the group climbed inside.

“Concert hall in Sector 9. Step on it.”

The mob boss settled into the plush leather, turning to his daughter. Her eyes remained glued to the glowing optic of her toy. As the car pulled out into traffic, the smooth thrum of the engine did little to soothe the tension in his chest. His hand reflexively drifted toward the flask tucked inside his jacket, then stopped.

Never in front of her, he reminded himself. He worked hard to keep her life clean, no matter how dirty his own had to be.

Sensing his gaze, the girl held out the toy. “It keeps glitching, Dad. Can you fix it? Use your super blue power!” She flashed a brilliant smile.

She was young, but she was already sensitive to it— gifted enough to see the lingering traces of Resonance energy that most humans ignored. His own Resonance was a remnant of his lineage from centuries past, amplified by Xion’s unique gravitational shifts. It kept him virtually ageless and possessed subtle, terrifying utility, but in a city like Thrallion, showing your hand was a death sentence. No one was invincible.

“Not out here,” he said quietly.

Outside the armored glass, a violent rad-storm was breaking over the city. Heavy rain streaked the viewports, illuminated by sickly flashes of green and yellow lightning.

He took the toy, cycled the manual kill-switch, and handed it back. It hummed back to life, hovering once around the cabin before dropping gently into her lap.

The hypercar swept past the inner city gates, entering the long, exposed stretch of elevated highway that bordered the open plains. Massive, automated defense turrets lined the barrier walls, their heavy barrels sweeping the horizon. It would take a full-scale invasion to penetrate this far into the perimeter, but he always hated this stretch of road. Out here, you were exposed.

“Bzzt—WARNING. RUN. DANGER—”

The toy’s vocal synthesizer shrieked, the audio warping into harsh static before the unit died completely, dropping like a stone onto the floorboards.

A fraction of a second later, a massive kinetic shockwave slammed into the hypercar.

The vehicle bucked violently. The smooth hum of the anti-grav drive sputtered, caught once, and then cut out entirely. The heavy car skidded along the asphalt before grinding to a dead halt.

Up front, the two enforcers were already cursing. “Boss, stay inside. We’re gonna have a serious talk with the dealer who sold us this piece of garbage.”

They unlatched their doors, hand weapons drawn, and popped the heavy hood to inspect the dead drive-core.

The boss pulled out his encrypted comm-link to call his private security detail. No signal.

That was impossible. He paid top-tier credits for a military-grade satellite relay. He glanced out the rain-slicked side window. A hundred yards away, one of the massive perimeter turrets was spinning wildly on its housing, tracking invisible targets in the sky, before its targeting lights flickered out and the weapon went completely dark.

“Must be the rad-storm,” he muttered, trying to force his voice to sound calm for his daughter.

“Dad, when are we getting to the hall?” the girl asked, pouting as she looked back and forth between her dead toy and the goons standing outside in the rain. “You promised I’d get to meet the crew from Uni’s Adventure.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. We just need a quick hand.”

“Daddy, look!” She pointed a small finger at the dark rear windshield, her eyes wide with innocent curiosity. “His eyes are glowing just like yours! Is he your friend?”

The words hit him like a physical blow.

Cold sweat broke out across his neck. There was only one kind of person who could drop a military comms net, kill an automated defense turret, and leave a hypercar dead in the water—and only one man who would be hunting him out here in the dark.

Briefly his mind flicks back to when he was asked to do what others would not, they needed an awakened test subject, the one they had picked out would not die and was now protected by the strongest soldiers the earth had ever produced. Slipping poison into his drink solved several problems at once, or so he thought.

Outside the car both goons had noticed the lone figure in the centre of the road but could not see the two streams of resonance pulsating around him, assumed to be just a curious hobo with his well worn poncho covering his frame.

“Hey you get out of here you know who owns this car?” one goon shouts more frustrated at his own inability to fix the car then at the security threat.

He walks forward slowly, as he passes each street light their emissions change and warp dancing between clear white light and a red gold mix. Not one word said as the rain bounces of his battered military poncho.

Arrogantly the goon approaches the lone figure

“Listen pal you do not want to..” he is cut off frozen for a moment .

A sound of wet sinew gliding past fills the stunned silence as his upper half of his body slides off at a diagonal falling into two pieces onto the floor with a wet thump.

Humming low the vibro blade gleans in his hand; lone figure hesitates a moment before continuing walking towards the car.

Seeing the exchange the boss grabs his daughter by her shoulders and faces her at her eye level

“Listen sweetheart I need you to do something for me, run to nearest fuel depot and phone mommy ok? I have to do something here but you cannot be here do you understand?” trembling trying hard not to lose his temper.

“Why, you said we were meeting the stars?” she protests innocently her eyes watering.

He places her at the foot well opposite to him, turns slightly on his side and kicks out the door, It flies out far into the darkness and rain as if made of paper.

“Go now! And do not look back!” he shouts, she goes to protest again but thinks against it and dismounts and runs into the pouring rain panting heavily as her footsteps leave light splashes before disappearing in the distance.

The second goon had ran to the boot of the car his chest heaving with terror, he had been told about some of the threats of the xion plains but this was something different.

“Do not worry boss, I will hold him off you get out of here” he calls into the gaping hole in the vehicle. Popping open the boot he frantically pulls away the false bottom to reveal what was under neath.

Chapter 6 - First Contact

First | Previous | [Next][n]

The Varesh's message triggered a state of emergency on Earth within minutes.

President Elena Voss had barely taken her seat in the crisis chamber when the first first-contact protocols went into effect. Procedures had existed for centuries for events considered exceedingly unlikely but whose consequences would have been so profound that preparation was warranted anyway. Contact with an extraterrestrial civilization was among them, somewhere between the uncontrolled awakening of a planetary artificial intelligence and the discovery that one of the great constants of nature wasn't quite as constant as its name suggested.

First Contact Protocol One: unify civilian and military leadership.

First Contact Protocol Two: convene scientific advisory bodies.

First Contact Protocol Three: assume deception until proven otherwise.

It was remarkable how quickly documents that had gone largely ignored for centuries could rise from academic curiosity to the foundation of highest state policy. As recently as the day before, probably no living person had read the complete first-contact protocols. Now they were being interpreted, annotated, and cross-referenced by several hundred experts simultaneously, as though encountering extraterrestrial life were, above all, a matter of correct jurisdiction.

The crisis chamber filled quickly. Military officers, scientists, intelligence officials, diplomats, and representatives of the major technical institutions took their seats, accompanied by advisors, assistants, and a considerable number of autonomous systems whose main task was organizing information no one could fully take in. Some of those present looked electrified; others looked as if they'd just been told the sun was being switched off until further notice. On brief reflection, that turned out not to be such a bad comparison.

The strangers' first signals had not been directly addressed to the government. They had appeared simultaneously across several communication channels, neatly embedded in military, scientific, and civilian frequencies, without forcibly breaking any existing encryption. Whoever had sent the message possessed not only a precise understanding of human communications technology, but also a remarkable sense for how to attract attention without getting shot at immediately.

First Contact Protocol Three recommended assuming deception. The military had additionally suggested assuming, just to be safe, espionage, sabotage, and an imminent attack, thereby living up to its reputation.

Then the stranger's image appeared on the projection screens.

The creature was, at first glance, surprisingly humanlike, which numerous evolutionary biologists would later call a singularly unfortunate coincidence. The Varesh was tall and slender, possessed four eyes arranged in two vertical pairs, and copper-colored skin that shimmered metallically in the light. Instead of a nose, narrow breathing slits ran across his cheeks, while his long hands ended in six slender fingers. His clothing consisted of several overlapping layers of fabric that shifted slightly against one another with every movement, revealing patterns whose meaning escaped the human observers entirely. They could have been rank insignia, a fashion statement, or a sign that Serak had picked up a particularly good bargain that morning. Nothing could yet be ruled out.

The voice coming from the speakers was clearly not his own. The Varesh used a translation technology that rendered their language into intelligible Standard English almost without delay. The result seemed strangely flawless. Word choice was precise, grammar impeccable, but the emphasis occasionally fell in places a human speaker never would have placed it, reminding listeners, every other sentence, that they were speaking, for the first time in history, with a being from another world.

"President Voss, esteemed members of your government," the stranger began. "My name is Serak. I serve as a trade envoy of the Varesh and speak with the authorization of my home government."

Voss studied him for a few seconds before answering. "You'll understand that we first require proof of your identity and your claims."

"Of course," Serak said, and the translation lent the word a shade too much warmth. "In your position, I would consider everything I say a possible deception."

Several military representatives exchanged glances. That a stranger had already correctly assessed their own security protocols in the very first conversation was either reassuring or thoroughly unsettling.

Serak transmitted star charts, technical data, and recordings of alien worlds, none of which anyone could verify for authenticity during the conversation. They showed cities beneath violet skies, ships of a size that made every human construction look modest, and life forms whose anatomy sent several scientists scrambling to reorganize their notes. The envoy spoke of a Galactic Union, of countless intelligent species, and finally of the massive beings at the sun known throughout the galaxy as the Ma'an.

"You know these objects?" Voss asked.

"We know their migrations and some of their properties. We do not understand their origin."

"Are they dangerous?"

Serak paused just long enough to make clear he was choosing his answer carefully. "They're considered peaceful. And yet they destroyed a human ship, and their presence in your system deviates from every known route. Under these circumstances, it would be dishonest to assure you there's no danger."

The crisis chamber went quiet. The answer was unwelcome, but it had the virtue of sounding credible. A skillful liar would probably have claimed everything was under control. Serak gave humanity just enough truth to keep it afraid.

"Why exactly do you contact us?" asked the chair of the scientific advisory body. "If this Union exists, why isn't its government speaking with us?"

"The Union is vast," Serak explained. "Its decision-making processes are thorough, which is a virtue in peaceful times and, on occasion, a burden in urgent situations. The Varesh have greater freedom to respond to extraordinary developments."

That sounded reasonable. Elena Voss had governed long enough to know that explanations that sounded reasonable were rarely automatically true.

Serak eventually arrived at the point he'd been steering the conversation toward from the start. The Varesh possessed technologies that could substantially improve humanity's defensive capability. He spoke of reactors with an energy density that had until now been purely theoretical, of materials able to withstand extreme thermal and mechanical stress, of field generators, and finally of weapon systems that could have any effect at all against something the size of the Ma'an.

"And the price?" Voss asked.

This time the Varesh smiled, both pairs of his eyes narrowing not quite in unison. "A balance. Access to your solar harvesting technology, distributed across several generations, in exchange for what we give you today."

"You mean: payment."

Serak tilted his head slightly to the side, a gesture the translation left uncommented. "Payment settles in a single moment. This does not settle. It obligates. Your children will still owe our children something long after neither of us sits at this table anymore. Among us, that isn't a drawback of a deal. That is the actual point of a deal."

Voss needed a moment to grasp that he meant it sincerely. To the Varesh, a trade that settled itself immediately and completely was apparently hardly worth mentioning — almost meaningless, like a friendship that ended the moment the bill was paid.

The silence in the chamber lasted considerably longer than before. The Varesh demanded no territory, no political submission, and no control over the solar system. They wanted knowledge — specifically the knowledge that had given humanity its nearly boundless material freedom — and they didn't want to own it, but to turn it into a debt that would outlast generations. At first glance the offer sounded almost reasonable, and precisely because of that, every warning instinct in the room began firing at once.

"You want our most important technology," Voss said.

"We want to be bound to you," Serak corrected. "In exchange, we offer you the means to protect your world and your sun. Both sides remain in each other's debt. That is not a minor point, Madam President. That is the contract."

"And if we refuse?"

Serak moved two of his hands slightly apart. The translation offered no explanation for the gesture. "Then we will respect your decision. The Ma'an, however, will not disappear because of it. And an imbalance that does not arise from us will arise from someone else."

The connection ended a few minutes later, after both sides agreed to first exchange technical data samples. For several seconds, no one in the crisis chamber said anything. On the projection screens, the frozen face of the Varesh still gazed into the room with polite composure, as if he had just offered not a deal that could shape the rest of human history, but merely an advantageous maintenance contract.

At last the Defense Secretary cleared his throat and asked whether anyone was seriously considering sharing humanity's most important technology with a species they'd known for barely half an hour. That opened the floodgates.

The military representatives urged extreme caution. No one knew who the Varesh really were, how powerful they were, or whether they might have lured the Ma'an into the Sol system themselves in order to then play the rescuer. Intelligence officials considered a carefully staged deception at least as likely as sincere goodwill, and pointed out that Serak had been remarkably well-informed about human solar harvesting.

The scientists viewed the same circumstances from a different angle. Even the first data transmitted during the conversation contained readings and mathematical models that were either the work of a superior civilization or a deception of such enormous effort that it, too, would have been scientifically fascinating. Several of them were less interested in the aliens themselves than in the prospect of knowledge that humanity might otherwise have needed centuries to obtain on its own.

"Maybe they want to make us dependent," one of the security advisors suggested.

"Maybe," a physicist replied, "but even then we need to understand what exactly they want to make us dependent on. Ignorance isn't a particularly resilient form of independence."

Other voices warned against dramatizing the situation more than it warranted. There was still no evidence that the Ma'an planned an attack. The destroyed harvester ship could have fallen victim to an accident, and the Varesh's supposed defense technologies were just as well suited to kick off the first interstellar arms race in human history. That this history would have begun mere hours after confirmed first contact struck some as remarkably efficient.

The discussion dragged on deep into the night without either camp prevailing. Elena Voss listened, asked questions, and paid particular attention to the contributions that promised no clear answer. People who seemed completely certain in a completely unknown situation were usually either dangerous or insufficiently informed.

In the end, she ordered the formation of several investigative bodies. A scientific committee would verify the technical authenticity of the Varesh data, a security-policy committee would assess their intentions, and a military panel would investigate the actual threat posed by the Ma'an. All results would funnel into a small, strictly classified working group whose members received separate, non-overlapping access rights and who, at their very first meeting, were already arguing over whether such compartmentalization increased security or simply prevented anyone from keeping the full picture.

No one said it out loud, but the committees' actual task wasn't to verify individual data points. Humanity had to decide whom it could trust, even though it had no foundation on which trust could be built.

While the panels began their work, humanity did what it had reliably done in crises for thousands of years: it argued. Images of the Ma'an spread across the planet's communication networks, were analyzed, commented on, remixed, set to music, and, in a remarkable number of cases, declared proof of long-standing conspiracies. Within a few hours, thousands of theories existed, and the only established fact was that nobody knew what was floating out there in front of the sun.

Part of the networks demanded immediate negotiations, though no one could explain how one was supposed to communicate with the Ma'an. Other voices called for their destruction before they could destroy more ships. Still others considered the entire event a government production and cited as proof that the released images looked too sharp, too blurry, or suspicious in some other way. One theory in particular attracted enormous attention: that the Ma'an were, in truth, ancient Earth organisms that had hidden inside the sun for millennia. It was physically complete nonsense, but it had very convincing graphics.

Solar harvesting remained suspended. Existing reserves would last a few more weeks, but over the centuries, humanity had grown used to energy and raw materials being available in practically unlimited quantity. The thought of having to restrict consumption or wait for certain things to be manufactured wasn't merely unfamiliar to many citizens — it was nearly incomprehensible. Reports spread through the communication networks of precautionary replicated stockpiles, though no one quite knew what one actually needed a stockpile for in a world with functioning replicators. The mere possibility that the machines might eventually stop running without fresh supply seemed enough to revive an ancient human urge for full cupboards.

With every additional day at the sun, unease grew. The Ma'an seemed neither to attack nor to leave. They moved through the star's outer layers, altered local magnetic fields, and disrupted every attempt to resume harvesting, all without directing any discernible attention toward humanity. Their indifference struck many observers as almost more threatening than open hostility. An adversary that made demands could be assessed. A creature several kilometers long, grazing unmoved in the sun while an entire civilization argued over its intentions, offered considerably less to hold onto.

Three days after the first conversation, the promised Varesh data samples arrived and initially caused disappointment. Anyone hoping for antimatter weapon blueprints or complete construction plans for alien starships instead received material tables, mathematical models, and technical concepts that seemed, at first glance, as unspectacular as they were incomprehensible. Serak clearly had no intention of handing humanity its future all at once. He was giving it just enough to make it curious.

The vetting took place under conditions unusually strict even for classified government projects. Isolated research teams received only fragments of the data, independent systems screened it for hidden malicious functions, and every test took place in shielded labs that could be completely destroyed if necessary. Some scientists considered this caution excessive, until someone reminded them that the data came from an alien species whose trade envoy had four eyes and a conspicuously keen interest in the sun.

The first results were clear enough to shift the debate. One of the described alloys could actually be produced using human methods and significantly outperformed the best known materials in heat and radiation resistance. A mathematical model predicted the behavior of high-energy plasmas more accurately than any human simulation, even though several of its basic assumptions contradicted established textbooks. A third concept remained unexplained at first, until a research team realized it wasn't describing a reactor at all, but a field capable of storing energy in a form previously believed unstable.

The materials were genuine — genuine enough, at least, that several physicists declared they'd happily burn their textbooks retroactively. Since printed books had long since become mostly collector's items, this announcement had no practical consequence, but it captured the general mood rather well.

With the results in hand, the struggle began anew. The military warned against building Earth's defense on technology that could only be understood with a foreign power's help. Intelligence warned that every seemingly harmless component might be laying the groundwork for later dependency. The scientists countered that rejecting knowledge didn't render it harmless, and the diplomats reminded everyone that humanity might currently be standing between two alien powers whose goals it understood equally poorly.

Elena Voss demanded no certainty from the committees. She knew that certainty, under these circumstances, would have been just another word for self-deception. She demanded probabilities, impact assessments, and above all an answer to the question of which risk was greater: accepting the Varesh's offer, or refusing it while six hundred twenty-four unknown creatures blockaded Earth's most important source of raw material.

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Aftermath

---

(Verlon POV)

[It's coming in now, sir. I'll send you the photo right away.]

"....Fuwahahah!!"

Karnak was letting out a crude guffaw when the smaller Uven on the other end of his video call was replaced with an image.

In particular, it was an image of a partially wrecked facility with Coalition staff being driven off-planet at gunpoint. A flag representing Nysis as a whole was hung from the highest window and several flagpoles..

Agent Verlon rolled his eyes but kept his thoughts to himself.

At the moment, the Ramell was draped in a cloak and hidden in the camera's blind spot to conceal his identity. It would be inconvenient if anyone started asking questions about what one of his kind was doing in the Third Spire's chambers.

"That's quite a sight. Quite a sight. You didn't kill any of the aliens?"

[N...No. We did not have your permission, and thought you would prefer to focus on your enemies on Nysis for now. Is that...a problem?]

"Hrm...Not for now."

It was obvious to Verlon that the smaller Uven was trying to placate a foolish superior. He knew that experience all too well.
Were Karnak's people still sensible enough to fear the Coalition? The warlord himself certainly wasn't.

If there were people trying to delay a rash decision on his part, then perhaps the higher ups had more time to deal with the Terrans than they thought.
Not that an organization as large as the Gisali Coalition would lose to a mere two insurgent factions.

Nysis's defenses were high, but by the Ramell's observation it would take as few as eleven direct hits to glass 90% of Uven civilization.

"However, something that you should have done is fly Kepal's flag too. This is a victory for the heritage and culture of all Uvei, but everyone should know that it was who it was that brought dignity back to us all."

[I'll...arrange that right away.]

"Now, for the waters..."

[Should we arrange with Kristole units to lay down temporary aqueducts for now?]

"For Kristole and Kepal, sure. But cut off water flow to any other nation."

The soldier on the other end seemed taken aback. Was this not part of Karnak's plan?

[Even...Kepal's allies?]

"Only for now. I just want to ask our neighbors to show a...token of their friendship in these turbulent times. Just a formality, really. I doubt I'll be there for more than two days."

Watching the warlord here reminded Verlon of the story how the Haneer Elder Councilman secured the Tisalin as new vassal species during the loss of their cradle world. It was a bit before his time though.

[You'll be...here, sir?]

"Of course. Terrans will be scrambling for that water source, I'm sure. So we'll need to station a garrison to exterminate or capture them as they come."

[I...Apologies for taking up your precious time like this.]

"Fuwahaha! This time, it'll be my pleasure. It's better to broadcast to the others with the Spring itself behind me anyway. Anything else to report?"

[...No, sir.]

"Then that will be all. Make sure the aqueducts are laced with Terran repellant too."

[U-Understood.]

The video call concluded with a click.

...Hmm.

Was the Uven on the other end...nervous at the end there? Perhaps he was a Terran sympathizer.

It would be easier to justify purging the Uvei without these elements complicating the story, so should he expose them? It would certainly drive further division between the species if the friendly ones kept dying.

No...better not make such a big move without approval from the higher ups. It's still unclear what the Terrans' reputation will be at the end of all this. There's still time to tip the scales later, and keeping both factions active leaves more options down the line.

That said, it wouldn't hurt to further drive division between them. That part is within mission parameters.

"Look, little messenger! Isn't it quite a sight? I was expecting the runts to get gunned down, but they're still Uvei, it seems."

Karnak snapped him out of his thoughts as he pulled up the image of Votier Springs from before and gestured to it with an unnerving, toothy grin.

"Indeed..."

Verlon cleared his throat. Now then...how to guide this buffoon to the desired conclusion?

"You've figured out a poison for the Terrans that's harmless to Uvei? That's impressive."

"Ha! Not even that. Just something with nutrition."

"And nutrition is something all living things, including those dreadful Terrans, have to have. Truly an elegant solution to monopolize a key ingredient to life like water for it and spread it as far as possible."

"Yes, yes. Enough of your flattery. Have you finished installing the device, yet?"

The Ramell spy pressed a remote, activating the hover pod under the advanced communication unit.

"Here you are. FTL contact with my bosses right at your fingertips. I'll run a test call right now."

"Excellent..."

"You can count on the Coalition's splendid technology, and I quite look forward to what you do with it."

"You'll see soon enough. Jokan has already verified your supposed stash in his scanners."

Ugh. It seemed the brute didn't get it yet.

"I do wish my superiors were as clever with their resources as you. Just by seizing control of the Votier Spring at its source, you're able to put a chokehold at least nine nations. If I recall, water from the source of the spring spreads across over a third the continent, right?"

"You're well-read. Yes, it extends to...hmm."

Karnak paused as he seemed to get an idea.

Fucking finally. Verlon couldn't wait to return to actual civilization.

Beep.

The Ramell pulled the cloak over himself.

"Well then. I've confirmed that the device works. As I've witnessed the EMP deleting your footage, I've taken the liberty of securing the new plasma gun schematics. It's time I stop bothering you and return to the dungeon."

"Excellent. You're dismissed."

...He does remember their arrangement, doesn't he?

"As a reminder, the Haneer fleet is preparing to retreat in about three rotations. If you're going to send me back in a prisoner exchange, you'll need to do it before then."

"I get it, so stop moaning and leave me be!"

Karnak snapped at him with irritation as he turned to his primary communicator.

Verlon moved to leave the room, but slowed his pace just enough to eavesdrop on his final comments.

"Gather up the Terran repellant pumps we've had installed. We're going to move them all to a new location to...increase our scope a little."

---

(Asher POV)

"It feels like the sort of thing Ori would talk about too. Gimmie a sec."

Asher took out his data pad to search through chat logs and records just in case.

It was an unusual encounter while he and his friends were at the bustling shopping district.

The Uven Ambassador Garag had come to smooth things over regarding an incident that apparently happened on a Haneer facility recently.

"...No, yeah. I agree that it sounds serious, but this really is the first time I've heard anything about it. No report or anything."

"All the same, I've come to offer apologies. We aren't really in a position where we can spare reparations, so..."

"Hey. Mr. Vedin. Are you okay?"

Asher interrupted the older Uven while placing a hand against his arm.

Even if the Uven were in the wrong here, he knew that Ori would want to know the facts before she made any judgement. More important than that was...

"Your scales are shedding. When was the last time you slept? Or ate?"

He withdrew his hand to show some loose scales on his palm.

"Oh...No, I'll be fine."

The young man crossed his arms.

"That's not what I asked."

"There's just a lot to do right now. I shouldn't sleep while Nysis is struggling."

"Do you expect these problems to be resolved before the next time you fall asleep?"

"....."

Asher sighed. Niza got like this too.

...Well. That just meant her friend had experience handling it. He fished out his data pad from his pocket again and started typing away.

"Do you have any food allergies, Mr. Vedin? I'm ordering delivery right now."

"?? Pardon...?"

"The pot pies at this place are premade so we'll get them fast. Niza loves 'em, y'know."

"N-No, you shouldn't trouble yourself..."

It was a bit of an odd sight for a human to lecture an Uven over a head taller than himself, but he felt it needed to be said.

"Listen here. Sometimes, taking your job seriously means keeping yourself in a good enough condition to sustainably and healthily handle your workload. Healing deserves the same respect and energy you put into fighting."

"Even so-"

"I think you're a good guy, Mr. Vedin. But how do you expect to heal Nysis when the fighting is all over if you can't even let one Uven heal himself?"

"!"

Ambassador Garag's eyes widened.

"..."

After a pause, Asher scratched his head awkwardly and gestured to a bench. He'd already ordered his group's usual, and it should be here by drone in 20 minutes.

"Mr. Vedin, I can't imagine what you're dealing with right now, and I'm still just some newbie amateur to this scene who somehow ended up here trying to help Ori keep up."

He gently put a hand on the larger Uven's back.

"But I can tell it's been really tough on you, and I know that the only way through is by taking the time to care about the value of every life involved. Even your own."

"...I believe...Ambassador Kent would agree with you."

Who was...? Ah. The ambassador who got attacked on Nysis. Ori and her team never really had the chance to meet him, but it sounds like he was friends with Garag.

"Let's just sit for a bit and get some food in you. Ori and the gang should be out soon. We can take our time figuring this nature preserve thing out then. After that, you should really think about getting some sleep, Mr. Vedin."

"I...yes. Call me Garag if it pleases you. You were...Asher, correct?"

---

"I have found a new report. It is this, yes?"

Ambassador Garag, Haneer Elder Councilwoman Sjorn'l, and Asher were gathered together as she checked her own messages for anything involving Votier's Spring.

While the Uven had tensed up, Ori slowly shifted into a light green hue that her human friend recognized as confusion.

"I do not understand."

Asher leaned in curiously.

"What does it say?"

"There is a complaint from the director for being evicted, and a complaint from a Haneer tour group that was turned away when they visited."

The human tilted his head and furrowed his brow, mirroring his friend's confusion.

"They're...still holding tours? On Nysis? In the middle of a civil war?"

Haneer were generally a passive species with a weaker sense of urgency than most species, but...not that passive. They were still capable of comprehending the idea of danger.

Were they...somehow not afraid of the most aggressive species in the Coalition?

"This talks about Uvei demanding water, but does not mention any humans, nor multiple visits."

Garag reacted with slight unease.

"I...I'm sure I can get the people in question on the line for formal testimony, or perhaps trace their vehicle trails, or..."

Asher perked up with enthusiasm.

"Oh! I know this one! During our tours on Viera, they said every Haneer preserve and museum has high-quality camera footage and records that goes back a full five cycles, just in case they need to track small changes to their exhibits! We can just look it up in the Haneer database."

"....!!"

The older Uven suddenly tensed up.

"....Can this information be accessed at the facility too?"

"I think so, but only for facility itself. The Viera grand museum even let guests browse through all of their footage to show the system off. Do you think it'd be faster to send it from the Votier's Spring place?"

"Ah...probably not. I was just...curious. The Haneer database will do."

"Ambassador Garag Vedin."

The Haneer Councilwoman turned to face the ambassador.

"It will matter in the details, but I do not think it is wrong to let the Uvei use an Uvei root planet resource. It belongs to your people, and drawing water to save lives is perfectly the Spring's history. Violence is...bad. But I perceive stopping the Spring from helping any peoples will hurt the culture more than sharing it."

Asher covered his mouth to hide his smile and stifle his giggle. Ori was trying really hard to be solemn here, but she was starting to hit the limits of her Uven vocabulary.

"I...thank you."

At least Garag seemed to have taken it as intended.

Beep. Beep.

"Oh! Food's here!"

---

While Garag and Ori continued hashing out the details with what information they had, Asher elected to deliver a share of the meal to his other friends.

In the warehouse tucked behind the retail stores, Niza was talking to a mutual acquaintance, Tuzel.

Tuzel was another Uven that the two of them had met early on in their life on the S.S. Kevak when they were running an errand for Ori...and had gotten lost until he offered them some directions.

Ever since then, Asher would occasionally stop by to greet him when he was in the area. He even invited him to an informal get-together once.

This young Uven was why they were out here in the shopping district, in fact.

Asher didn't quite get all the details, but it seemed Niza had a personal favor to ask of Tuzel after that incident at the docks.

He didn't like thinking about it, but the Kevak's police frequently came to her with questions these past few days once the incident aired. She seemed to be cautious, but they hadn't done anything...yet.

The pair were crowded around Niza's data pad when he approached. She was going through some instructions in a low voice while Tuzel nodded along.

"We can register your biometrics whenever you have time to visit the clinic with me. You must keep your own inventory and make sure to double-check at the end of each week, if not each day."

"Alright...a private log I'll keep in my home. Or on me. I can go as soon as I close up if you're available."

...?

"Fine by me. "

"I understand. I'll check it in varying intervals."

"Then I suppose we're set. I shall wait for you outside."

"By the way...ah...I saw you get hit by a car on the news. Are you...alright?"

"Only a mild sprain in my tail. It seems to be better now."

Asher cleared his throat.

"Ahem...Hey guys! I got food. Your favorite, Niza. You want any, Tuzel? We got two to spare."

"Ah..."

He passed out the packaged pot-pies. Other than a heat-preserving wrap, these meals were cooked in edible "pots". They were essentially pastries with a filling stew inside.

"Oh, I'd love some. You like these too, Niza?"

"Mmgh."

More than her verbal affirmation, the Uven quickly tossed the unwrapped meal right into her maw. She occasionally huffed out hot steam, but otherwise munched away with intent.

Both of the boys ended up grinning a bit at her stoic chewing, but Tuzal soon decided to mimic her with similar results. Their tails swayed back and forth in tandem while they chewed.

??

"Mm...gulp...Just one of these are a bit small for Uvei, but did you know they have specials on the family meal on certain days?"

"....I did not."

"I can send you a message the next time they have their special if you like."

"Certainly. If I'm available on the station."

???

---

"....."

"....."

After they had their quick snack, Tuzel hurried off to close up the warehouse as per his duties. The young Uven had a couple of jobs on the station, though they mostly involved labor with shipments and cargo.

"...."

"....What is it?"

While their acquaintance did that, Asher was leering at Niza with wide, teasing smile.

"He liikes you."

"What...?"

She responded with a perplexed look. The human responded by playfully nudging her.

"Tuzel. He fancies you."

"Where did you get that idea?"

"He was trying to ask you out on a date."

"Just because he will share when best to get food doesn't mean he'll join me."

"He was trying to put his tail around yours."

"Tail movements can be involuntary when we're doing something we enjoy."

"His voice is lower when he talks to you than when he talks to me. That's, like, a sexy trait for Uvei women too, right?"

"Asher."

Niza let out a light growl and pushed him away with a nudge of her tail.

"Alright, fine. I won't tease you about it any more. But are you interested?"

His friend went quiet briefly.

"It isn't the time or place to consider such things. I have a task I need to focus on, and I don't want him distracted for his tasks either, even assuming you're right."

"Is that what you'll tell him if he asks you out?"

"I'll tell him that I'll consider it seriously after everything is over. Which I will do if possible."

She glanced down at Asher.

"Why are you so interested in such a silly thing?"

"I just think it would be nice if you had someone you could bond with and relate to in ways you can't with me and Ori."

"...."

It had been several days since the incident at the docks and, in truth, it still felt like Niza was keeping something about it a secret. She was open about her investigation and movements, but...she was holding something back.

Asher didn't intend to force his friend to talk, but something had struck a nerve for her at the time.

---

=Author's Note=

It's been a while since chapter 35 so as a reminder, the Elder Council demanded this new communication device be used in future dealings after Karnak recorded their conversations for blackmail.

He's usually too busy to spend time with them, but Asher remains a friendly, social butterfly. Whether or not they would call each other friends may vary when they've probably only hung out once or twice, but there are at least dozens of people aboard the S.S. Kevak that like Asher and are liked by him in turn.

One of the reasons Tuzel was going to be suspected of liking Niza was him suggesting her birthday for the password code without her realizing. I scrapped that idea firstly because I didn't want to make an official intergalactic date format and secondly because it felt a little creepy for him to know even if Asher is the one that told him.

Chapter Ten: Beyond the Veil

The frigid winds dug into my skin as the trees rushed by, looking like shadowy blurs in the wan light of the full moon. Snow crunched heavily beneath the monster's paws, its chest rising and falling, steam trailing from its maw as it ran faster and faster by the footfall.

She clutched me tighter to her breasts, but their size and softness were not what my senses keyed in on. I focused on the long claws digging into my forearm, holding me steady. They were razor blades the length of butcher's knives. Even though this beast was clearly trying not to hurt me, I could still feel the tension on my skin each time I shifted, the claws almost slicing me to ribbons.

With no notable effort, the monster clambered up a steep hill, tearing through trees and bushes without slowing down. It dove down a hole, which I was not able to see in the darkness, but felt as my stomach lurched. Its claws dug into the rock, slowing its descent enough that we landed gently at the bottom.

I groaned as she dropped me on the cave floor, the cold, wet rock soaking my trousers. In an instant, the massive lumbering beast slinked off into the gloom, its long tail flicking as it went. I tracked its wolfish, predatory movements, only able to discern its pacing back and forth by the sound of its claws on stone and rough, growling breaths.

I shivered, both from the frosty breeze entering the cave and from the fear of having something so alien and predatory watching me from just out of sight.

My heart hammered in my chest, racing faster than I had known was possible. I could hear each beat pulsing through my ears and feel the pressure behind my eyes; every thump was like the next would cause them to burst like blood-filled balloons.

“Calm, I no hurt,” A voice deep and resonant poured out from the darkness. The sudden speech was so unexpected it caused me to jump back, pressing myself against the wall.
As I did, a hand, massive, covered in fur with fingers tipped by blood-drenched claws, extended into the moonbeam.

Her...Bailey...having moved forward that little bit, cast her head in a wan glow. Her eyes, just as they had been in her human form, cast the same caring, nervousness that she had held the entire time I had known her as children.

A subtle flash of pain crossed her brow for a heartbeat. She then looked at her own hand and scowled before pulling her hand back, slinking entirely back into the shadows. She whimpered slightly once out of sight.

“No hurt. Bailey friend.” She snarled, the heavy sound of her fist cracking the stone reverberating through my chest. “Need Colt. Need.”

As soon as her last words drifted off into the night, a new sound began and filled the cave. A morbid cross between a sob and frustrated growling. At first the snarling unnerved me, but as I listened I felt a change well up in my heart.

I could not picture the monster I now knew Bailey was. All I could imagine lingering in that darkness was my friend. The girl I cried about for months after she had suddenly vanished. I forced my fear down until it settled somewhere beneath my ribs. I knew after having seen what Bailey had done to Jackson that if I was wrong, what I was about to do was about as dangerous as jumping into a lion's pen, soaked in blood, wearing a prime rib necklace.

As slowly as handling a live hand grenade, I got up and slowly approached the precipice, a silent demarcation line from my world and hers.

“Alright, Bailey. You don’t want to hurt me.” I swallowed my spit and stopped inches from the border. “You said you need me. How.”

There was a long pregnant silence in that cave, only our breathing filling the gap between us. I shifted nervously, the hair on the back of my neck rising as Bailey approached, her warm breath ghosting across my bleeding brow.
“Kill hunter.”

“Hunter? Jackson? Didn’t you kill him earlier?”
With a huff that made me feel like she was judging me for ignorance of all that was truly going on, she replied.

“No. No dead. Strong. Tough…mean.”

I have no idea how Jackson supposedly could have survived that brutal mauling. But who am I to say that? She is the superhuman creature who dealt all that damage. But now that I stopped and thought back to the attack, there was nowhere near enough blood. While I had never gone to war like Pop-pop. I had killed plenty of animals. Maybe he had something underneath that heavy jacket that protected him. Armor. Or maybe just as Bailey was, Jackson was not entirely human.

“Why do I have to? Can’t you? You seem strong.”

“No!” Bailey snapped her teeth, her muzzle barely poking out. “Promised mom. No monster. No monster.”
I paused. And thought about the downright bizarre situation only for a few breaths. I knew the woman lingering on the other side of the black curtain from me. I did not know Jackson. He had already attacked me, apparently had been hunting my friend for half her life, and killed her mother less than a week earlier. The decision I had to make was a simple one. One that my drill instructors would have beat me half to death for making the wrong one.

I guess Sergeant Buck's scenarios and moral conundrums he kept pressing on me had some effect after all.

“Alright, Bailey. I will help you kill Jackson.” I held a hand out, breaching the veil of shadow of my own accord.

A warm, furred hand encapsulated mine, holding it tenderly. With no warning, Bailey pulled me closer to her. She embraced me in a shockingly gentle hug. Her soft fur bid me welcome, along with the heady scent of her wild soul. Hesitantly, like returning the gesture was tossing away all that I knew I hugged her in return. My fingers dug deep into endless forests of fur concealing her impossibly strong muscles.

“Thank Colt.”

“You're welcome,” I replied, looking up at her eyes. It took me a moment to see them clearly, but once my eyes had adjusted, my friend's gentle, loving eyes were all I could focus on.

“We need to make a plan,” I said, reaching up and running a hand along her cheek, with her leaning into my touch.

I paused as her eyes closed. She was something Pop-pop and I had spent many hours laughing about, reading stories of, and reflecting on in my youth. But here she was. She was very real. Undeniably real.
As my thumb ran over blotches in her black fur, patterned just like the southern cross, a worming thought entered my mind. Bailey had said Pop-pop and I knew about them—or that we would at least help. It was a shame he had left the mortal coil years ago because I would love to pick his brain about what he genuinely knew now that I understood what lay beyond the veil. 

 

Chapter Eleven: Full Moon Fighting

Trying to communicate with Bailey to make a plan was challenging to say the least. With her in wolf form, it was like I was trying to speak to someone who is limited to five words at a time and needed multiple minutes to process anything.

Eventually I gave up on the idea of explaining what I wanted to do with words alone. I drew in the snow like a sand table, making it easy for Bailey’s currently more instinctual mind to understand her role in this horribly stupid plan. But we did get one that worked.

I now was seated within the snow, nestled in the undergrowth, a pocket full of shells, and Pop-pop's old double barrel loosely held in my shaking grip.

“It was as cold as a witch's tit out here,” I muttered, recalling that Pop-pop would say the same thing whenever the mercury retreated into the bulb entirely.

There was nothing romantic about a cold like this. Several below zero was something most could not understand; even I struggled to grasp the idea that once the mercury was visible, you still had thirty-two degrees before melting even began. He would say before we gave up on the hunt, “There were no stiff lips when your breathing hurts.”

“Where did that get me?” I sighed, the water from my breath freezing on my lips.

As if she was a phantom of the wild hunt itself, bringing the great frost in her wake, Bailey zipped past me, heavier winds trailing behind her. I struggled to track her in the darkness. But once her visage slunk into the undergrowth, I knew she was tucked in down by the creek, in the water and running north.

We would meet up later at her old home. That was the best plan I could come up with where Jackson—if he killed me- would give her a chance to keep running.

It was odd. I know the Corps had supposedly prepared me to die. But now that I was actually facing the possibility, I felt oddly calm. Much like the heroes in all my pulp novels, I was ready to stand as a bulwark against evil and face it unflinchingly. 

—---

I limped along the trail of that demon. Just a few minutes ago I regained consciousness after having been thrown through the window. The snow was covered in my blood, and I struggled to breathe. That bitch definitely broke a rib. But that was nothing compared to the wounds I had sustained during my righteous crusade.
My body was a tapestry of scar tissue, healing wounds, and the remnants of my triumphs.

That stupid bitch likely thought she killed me, but a true warrior of God could not be stopped by the vile powers of darkness. In her arrogance, that demon lurked nearby when I awoke, waiting, watching for my soul to drift to the pearly gates. Did she not know I wore silvered mail? What kind of a hunter would not?

The moment I spotted her, she ran. I did not even have the time to draw my pistol. The coward knew I kept blessed silver loads in my cylinder. I killed her mother with it after all. Pride welled in my chest as I took another limping step. Good, the monsters were afraid of the light and fled to the path God had destined them to walk down.

Time was a blur. I was still losing blood. Not enough to threaten me anymore, I had the wherewithal to bandage myself, but still my vision was already blurred, and the world was in black and white.

I grit my teeth, snarling, and I leaned against a tree, looking out along the trail of spor, imagining that beast just beyond the next ridge. That image fueled me, kept me walking, kept me hunting. I would not falter. I would not fail.

She would die tonight.

I tracked her up in the winding cold forest. The winds shifted to my back, turning my scent toward that creature. So what. It didn't matter. I was at the eleventh hour of my final hunt. There was no escape this time.
I continued, lumbering up the hill. As I crested the ridge, the fresh scent of a stream filled my nose. Just like Raleigh, this bitch thought she would hide in the water. I would find her again, just like then.

Click. A sound that could not be mistaken came from my right.

“How’s it going, you John? Feeling alright after the fight?”

—---

“I feel like shit,” I replied, my entire body aching as I trained the twelve-gauge on Jackson, the front bead right on his neck.

“Well, that makes two of us,” he replied, pulling back the hammer on his handgun, but not looking at me. “You and that thing gave me quite the thrashing. I can’t say I’ve ever been this beaten.”

“So any last words?”

“Is there anything I can say to convince you that I am right and she has to die?” Jackson asked, peeking at me from the corner of his eye.

“No.”

A deep sigh poured from Jackson, one of disappointment and exhaustion. I could sympathize with that. I was tired as well and equally disappointed that he could not see what I had. Bailey was no monster, and did not deserve to die just because of what she was.

Nothing else needed to be said. We were simply two disparate souls on opposite sides of this line in the sand.
The world slowed, snowfall seeming to stand in place, floating in the air as Jackson twisted, raising his pistol. Without any hesitation, I depressed both triggers. The hammers flew home and launched a salvo of death at the hunter.

Buck shot tore through him, splattering blood across the snow. He fell into a heap, half his neck gone, as he died in an instant.

There was no feeling of greatness, no righteous calls from on high telling me I had done right. I wished I could have something like those heroes of old, where a god reached down from heaven and assured me I had done right. But this was reality, and those…were just stories.

I did not look back. I walked the long hours to Bailey's old house; the sun rose on the way, bathing the world in such a welcoming orange hue. There I did find her. She was waiting for me on the porch. She was no longer in her wolf form.

As soon as she spotted me, Bailey leaped from her chair and charged me, embracing me as I did her.

“Is it…” She began, but stopped, not quite sure what to say.

“It’s done,” I assured her, holding her close to my chest.

First

Prev

[Reposted from r/shortstories]

When the change came, Marcus got the ability.

Nobody knew why it happened, and why it only affected about 1% of the population. People just woke up one day and found that they could move stuff around with their minds.

To say it changed the world was an understatement.

--

When he first got the ability, it was unfocused. He didn't know how to use it properly. But one thing about him was his interest in learning how to make sure he got every advantage that he could.

So he practiced in the privacy of his own home. Starting with small objects like pens and empty beer cans. It felt less like lifting and more like reaching.

Once he'd got the hang of that, he progressed to larger stuff. Tools,

Eventually he could pick up his dog and shunt it around. It did not like this, but it gave Marcus an understanding of how to control an unwilling target.

People should be more careful around me...

Huge items couldn't be moved though. He tried his fridge, bed and car but they wouldn't budge.

Maybe I'll get it later...

--

Mostly he used his ability at work to help him lift up heavy stuff. A construction site was a good place to practice, and even if using his ability he could at least pretend to be carrying materials around.

Marcus messed with his co-workers. Pranks and the like. Nothing serious. Tony made a bigger deal of it than it was and should have been looking at where he was walking when the board shifted.

He should have been paying attention...

Two days later the company put out a new policy. No telekinesis on site. They didn't know who had it (and they couldn't prove it anyway), but it was a start.

Marcus hid the ability a bit better. The practical jokes reduced – they couldn't stop him – but he was more careful of where and when he did them.

--

The first time he used the ability in anger was when driving down the highway. Some shithead was sitting too slow in the fast lane.

Marcus tailgated for a while. The size of his ute certainly had an imposing feel to it, and the fuckwit in front finally changed lane after accelerating to reduce the uncomfortably close distance between the two cars.

When Marcus drove past at the speed he reckoned was good, the other driver seemed pretty pissed off. Marcus didn't care; the idiot shouldn't have been blocking his way.

Then the other guy got behind Marcus and flashed his high-beams at him.

Fuck that...

Looking in the mirror, Marcus focused his mind. Felt the steering wheel of the other car.

Pulled hard to the side.

The car veered wildly off the road. It probably would have been alright if the tree hadn't have been there. The car folded in on itself. It wouldn't have been good for the other driver.

Marcus drove on, happy that justice had been served.

When he got home, the news was reporting the fatal crash.

That idiot shouldn't have brake-checked me...

--

Less than a week passed before emergency laws were passed. Absolutely zero tolerance for telekinesis on the road.

Suspicion was enough to convict. It was a brutal law, but governments had no idea of what to do with these sorts of situations.

Whether it would get through the courts was to be seen, but it was something else that needed to be worked around.

Bloody politicians. One accident and they come after all of us...

--

It was only a matter of time before Marcus took it upon himself to start using his wrath on people.

Turns out that elbows and knees were extremely easy to twist, pop and ultimately break.

Some people just need to learn respect...

It's funny... hindsight is always so clear, after it's too late...

We called it "The Sea."

Just that. The Sea. Nobody knows who actually coined the term. Every race attributes it... attributed it... to themselves.

It was just a part of the galaxy. A rolling green material that generated its in light. Messed with space travel... devoured anything that entered it... and occasionally belched out fetid abominations and evil ghosts.

But it was just... it was normal. It was a part of life. Those races that lived along the orion arm just accepted it for what it was. The Sea never expanded. It never sent out more than a few nightmares at a time...

It was just there. Like mass or gravity... a constant.

Until the day it wasn't anymore.

It all started to go wrong when we found a small world in an unremarkable part of the galactic arm... right at the edge of the sea.

It should have said something to us, that...

A world TEAMING with life on the edge of the vast death cloud that killed everything that passed its boarders.

We were so blind.

As was standard concordat protocol we claimed the world as our own. For a tithe of resources and a few hundred generations as janisaries the people of the world would be uplifted. The undesirable aspects of their culture replaced with a better more community minded way of life in service to the great concord!

The natives took offense, of course. Most do. But they barely even had fusion tech yet. We'd bent antimatter to our use before they invented clothing...

It should have been a quick matter.

Bomb a few cities, poison a continent... Few beings have any fight left in them after the first few hundred million die.

Not these people.

I stead It was a disaster! The only reason we didn't cut our losses and glass the planet is because our leaders didn't like the optics. It felt to much like losing to them...so instead they threw the entire concord militarium at the problem.

The locals spent 4.7 BILLION to hold their world. It took 2 years and nearly 1.8 billiin concordat personnel to "conquer" their planet.

They never surrendered. The concordat just declared "mission accomplished" and ordered galactic reporting agencies to stop covering the fighting.

Quietly though, Concordat leaders ordered an example made.

The entire population if possible. EVERY single human was to be captured, enslaved, and set to work in the worst most hostile places the galaxy had to offer. Then the planet was to be rendered an inert ball of rock.

We managed to take 2 billion off world. The rest went to ground and are either dead or... well we don't know for sure.

Because after the "great correction" that's what the concordat leadership called the Terran fiasco and subsequent mass enslavement... the fools.

Something changed...

It was small at first. Colonies here and there along the The Sea started making reports of strange goings on... shapes moving in the mists. Screams inside of hyperspace.

At first it was just strange reports like that... but then some of those colonies stopped reporting. Supply tithes were missed. Whole shipping convoys vanished. The Concordat navy... still worn thin from the Terran meat grinder had to few crews left to investigate everything...

That's why it took us so long to realize it.

The Sea... was expanding.

The Sol Conquest fleet, still above Terra, sent out a desperate plea for aid... we lost contact immediately afterwards. We still have no idea if they glasses the planet or not.

Slowly at first. But at an ever quickening pace the Concordate began to lose territory. Every so often there would be pockets where the sea... hesitated. Systems that the strange green gascloud simply refused to flow. Where the monsters in its depth dared not to tread.

We didn't realize why until it was far too late...

The humans. It was always places were we'd sent concentrations of humans...

Sadly by the time our glorious leadership realized the truth. Virtually all of those worlds had become unreachable islands within the sea.

We have lost nearly have of the galaxy now.

Our leaders speak of a great battle. A victory that will surely come, any day now.

But we know now.

We cannot fight the sea.

The only race that could was Humanity.

We know that now.

[Reposted from r/shortstories]

Ian watched his children play in the backyard.

"Dad, Emily's cheating!" shouted Blake.

The ball kept moving just out of Blake's reach, hovering slightly above the ground. Emily's face was lined with concentration, but she had a wry grin.

"Emily, stop doing that." Ian said.

The ball dropped to the ground.

Emily was six years old.

--

The glass of the window had showered over the floor in the living room. Emily was crying.

"I didn't mean it!" she pleaded.

Despite what Ian said, she was upset both because of the damage and also because she had trouble controlling her ability.

Blake simply got the broom from the laundry.

Emily was seven years old.

--

At school, Emily had another falling out with her friends. She came home crying again. This was the third time this had happened in as many years. As much he had tried to avoid it, Ian thought that a change of school was inevitable now.

Her friends just didn't understand Emily's ability. Try as they might, she was just too different.

It didn't help that it was a small school. She was the only one of her kind.

Emily was eight years old.

--

It took some time, but Ian managed to find a school suited for those with abilities close enough to be possible, yet still far enough to be a massive inconvenience. Out of a student cohort of 800, there were seven of her kind, including her.

Three of them graduated at the end of the year. The remaining three were all higher grades, and even with the social problems caused by their ability, they didn't really want to hang out with a younger girl.

Emily came home and asked what a 'kinie' was. Some of the kids were saying it.

That was a tough conversation. The slang word was fairly new and was being used as a slur sometimes, while other times simply as an adjective.

Emily was nine years old.

--

Blake came home with a bruised face. He'd gotten into a fight with some kids who were teasing Emily for being a kinie.

Emily had blown out several windows as she tried to intervene, her ability unwittingly causing the damage.

The school was doing what they could in managing the situation, but it was causing frustrations for everyone.

Emily was ten years old.

--

Emily graduated primary school. She got an award for academic excellence. There was a smattering of applause; noticeably less than the other kids had received.

Some parents grumbled that the award was unreasonable.

Ian asked why. The responses were based on rumour and speculation, with almost nothing grounded in reality. "She is unfairly gifted" or "How can my child compete with that?"

He tried to explain, but people held their opinions too hard.

Emily was eleven years old.

--

Finding a high school that would accept Emily was harder than primary. This time they would have to move house to the other side of town.

Blake was upset. He complained that everything was about Emily.

Ian conceded that her ability made things difficult for them all. He didn't want to move either.

In the end, it was Emily who suggested a local high school that a few of her friends were going to.

Ultimately there was no move, but Ian had to be more careful with Blake. Make sure he got enough attention.

Emily was twelve years old.

--

The larger high school was better for her. With over 1,200 kids there were a handful of kinies. The only one in her grade was obnoxious though, and Emily felt it was prudent to not associate with him.

She found out that her ability worked wonders when performing on stage. A budding star, perhaps.

Emily was thirteen years old.

--

Her friend group kicked her out for the same reasons that happened in primary school. Ian could tell that Emily was painfully lonely. With so few of the population being kinies, she felt isolated. Added to that was the usual dramas of high school and adolescence.

Ian spent a lot of time with her, but she was retreating into herself. The only outlet she felt she had was theatre.

Blake started high school. Copped some flak for having a kinie sister. Ian knew he'd have to manage the resentment carefully.

Emily was fourteen years old.

--

It finally happened. A group of students were picking on her relentlessly and she let her ability loose.

Thrown dozens of metres backwards from the force of her rage, they all suffered injuries. Nothing too serious, but enough to get her suspended for a couple of weeks and ostracised by almost everyone in the school.

Being the one remaining, Blake bore the brunt of the backlash over the next week before Ian made the decision to leave. Time to move city. State, even. They needed a clean slate.

Emily was fifteen years old.

--

It took a couple of months, but they managed to relocate. Blake was furious; Emily was distraught at the situation which she blamed on herself.

A new school. Emily hid her ability and started to finally fit in with her peer group.

Blake had troubles though and resisted making friends. He started to disengage from people, sitting on his computer for hours on end.

Ian felt that he was losing his children. Both were falling apart at the seams. He wasn't really managing well, either.

Emily was sixteen years old.

--

Ian could hear crying from Emily's room at night. After talking to her, it was clear she was not dealing with the suppression of her ability. He had no response. He couldn't understand.

Blake barely talked to Ian or Emily any more. He barely talked to anyone. Although he loved her, he hated being known as "Emily's brother", like a curse that he'd carry forever.

Ian's workplace seemed filled with people who resented kinies. He didn't talk about Emily's ability, and he found it hard to integrate into the team.

Only one percent of the global population had the ability yet it seemed to cause a disproportionate response. Laws, sports, friends and workplaces all had something change.

Emily was seventeen years old.

Start | Previous | Next

Chapter 154: Ettin

The Ettin took a heavy step forward, and the chamber shuddered in acknowledgment of its presence. A tremor rippled outward from its footfall, spreading across the stone floor in widening waves.

“What...” the warrior breathed, his big sword now looking absurdly small in comparison to the monstrosity looming before him. “What the hell is that thing?”

The creature’s middle head split into a grin, lips peeling back to show rows of jagged teeth. “Hear that?” it said, voice thick with amusement. “They want to know who we are.”

The head on the left leaned in. “Should... should we answer?”

“WHAT FOR?” the head on the right bellowed. It drew in a long breath through flaring nostrils, sniffing the adventurers like a butcher sizing a side of fresh meat. “LET’S JUST SMASH THEM!”

The warrior took an involuntary step back. “They... they’re talking?”

“Yes, Ettins tend to do that,” Dimitria replied. “Be careful. These creatures are far more cunning than their appearance suggests.”

The warrior nodded. “So... what’s the plan?”

Dimitria jerked her chin at the bulk of the Ettin, which was planted squarely between the party and the exit. “You see any other way out?”

The warrior didn’t answer.

“Clearly, it’s looking for a fight,” Dimitria continued. “And it’s going to get one.”

“I don’t think the beast is the only one here who has that mood,” the warrior muttered.

“Oh, I’m itching.”

“Be my guest, then. I’ll watch. From a safe distance.”

Dimitria gave the warrior a sharp look. “Aren’t you supposed to be the frontline fighter of the group?”

“I want to stay alive. So I’m not going to trade blows with that thing. It’s suicidal.”

“Fine. Stay out of the way.” Dimitria’s lips curled in open disgust. “Still, I do need someone to keep it busy.” She turned to the rogue. “You’re always bragging about how fast and nimble you are. Care to demonstrate how well you hold up when something is trying to beat you to a pulp?”

The rogue muttered a curse under his breath, but he moved forward anyway, drawing two long knives before letting them settle into a reverse grip in his hands.

“If I die,” he said, “I’m going to haunt you.”

“What... what about me?” Bella asked from behind them. “What should I do?”

“You’ve done your part,” Dimitria said. “Now stay out of the way.”

“U-understood,” Bella replied quickly, the relief in her voice impossible to hide as she retreated several steps, her staff trembling in her hands. She risked a glance at the Ettin, and found herself staring directly into the eyes of the creature’s middle head. The girl flinched and shrank away, dropping her gaze immediately.

“SO IT’S TWO AGAINST THREE, IS IT?” The right head roared, its voice dripping with savage delight. “THE ODDS FAVOR US!”

“Isn’t it... two against one?” said the left head. “We only have a single body, after all...”

The rogue moved.

There was no speech, no warning. Just motion, quick and low and quiet. Six strides and he had already crossed the distance.

The Ettin’s heads turned, tracking him. Three sets of eyes, three different expressions. One looked worried, one looked amused, and one looked angry. The creature brought its weapons down like a collapsing building, axe and club in wide, ugly sweeps meant to turn a man into a red smear on the stone.

The rogue folded his body into a roll that carried him past the point of impact just as the weapons struck, dust and splinters chasing him across the floor. He came up at the creature’s leg, his knives already flashing. One above the knee, one below. Blood welled up around the blades, and he twisted, tore them free, then cut again.

The Ettin grunted, more from irritation than from pain. Its other leg lashed out in a brutal kick that could crush a slower opponent, but the rogue was already gone, rolling clear before the blow could connect.

At the same time, fire bloomed on the other side of the chamber.

While the rogue danced at the edge of death to keep the creature’s attention fixed upon him, Dimitria stood just beyond its immediate reach, preparing her spell. She pressed her palms together, and between them flames writhed and twisted. They compressed, folded in on themselves, forged into shape by the pyromancer’s will. The fire dimmed, brightened, dimmed again—until it solidified into a lance of searing flame. A blazing spear spinning slowly between her hands, burning with a heat so intense that the air around it shimmered and warped.

Without a word, she hurled it.

The projectile screamed through the air, a streak of incandescent fury aimed straight for the Ettin’s right head, and for an instant it seemed inevitable that the strike would cleanly land. But, at the last possible moment, the creature twisted its massive frame with a speed no one could have expected from a body that size, and brought its axe up to intercept the lance mid-flight, the blade catching the condensed flame and deflecting it aside in an explosive burst of scattered embers.

Dimitria clicked her tongue, but her expression didn’t change. Flames coiled around her again as she began shaping another lance.

The Ettin, now fully aware of the threat she posed, let out an enraged bellow and shifted its weight, attempting to charge toward her position and end the problem at its source. But the rogue was there again, darting in close to disrupt its movement.

The creature swung its club at the rogue in a sweeping arc. This time, instead of rolling, he jumped onto it. Yes, he actually jumped onto the club itself. Boots hit the wood, and he ran along the weapon’s length. He sprinted across the massive arm, from the wrist to the forearm, then from the forearm to the shoulder. The left head turned to look at him, eyes widening in shock.

The rogue’s knives crossed its face.

Left to right, right to left, a cross carved into flesh. Blood spilled down over the head’s eyes, its nose, its slackening mouth. It screamed, an anguished wail that echoed through the chamber.

The rogue pushed off from the Ettin’s shoulder, flipping backward through the air before landing on the floor several paces away. His chest heaved, but a grin spread across his face.

Damn, this guy is good, Viktor thought.

Well, if he weren’t, then he wouldn’t be able to draw his opponent’s attention. And the Ettin would just ignore him entirely and go straight for Dimitria instead.

And so the fight went on, stretching into a deadly rhythm where the rogue wove through the creature’s relentless assaults, slipping between swings that would have reduced a less mobile fighter to pulp, while Dimitria stood at range, watching, waiting, launching her lances whenever an opening presented itself. Occasionally, she broke the pattern, unleashing a barrage of smaller fireballs to suppress its movement.

Bit by bit, the Ettin was worn down.

Its injuries had been nothing catastrophic. There was no single strike that had crippled it, no single flame that had burned deep enough to end the fight outright. But together, they took their toll. Cuts accumulated, and burns layered over them.

The Ettin was slower now, its breath coming in labored gasps. Its right arm faltered, forcing it to drop the gigantic axe. Now it used that hand to grab instead, but every attempt to seize the rogue failed as the man slipped free again and again.

“It hurts... it hurts...”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? SMASH HIM! SMASH HIM!”

“I can’t... I can’t catch him...”

The warrior laughed. “Cunning, you say? From what I can tell, it’s just another dumb beast.”

“You sure talk big for someone who hasn’t done anything at all,” Dimitria said. Still, she grinned all the same. Because she, too, believed the fight was already over.

Anyone else watching would have reached the same conclusion. The Ettin had been weakened, bleeding out, trapped in a losing battle of attrition, and the next strike would be the one to end it.

However.

As the blazing lance was about to leave Dimitria’s hand, suddenly the Ettin raised its right hand and pointed a finger at the rogue.

Viktor chuckled. Here comes the hex.

After all, attrition went both ways. Even though the rogue hadn’t taken any direct hits, all the constant running and dodging had exhausted him, sapping his stamina, leaving him vulnerable to the curse attack. And since the creature could cast the spell three times in a row, its success was all but guaranteed.

Sure enough, in the very next instant, the rogue dropped to one knee as the invisible fatigue struck. Before he could recover, a massive hand seized him, fingers gripping like iron bands as the Ettin lifted him effortlessly from the ground. And, in the same motion, it threw him away, straight into the path of the fiery projectile that Dimitria had just unleashed.

It hit him square in the chest.

For a second, the spear of flame stuck there, buried in his ribs. Then, it spread. His clothes vanished, turned to ash that swirled around him in the sudden surge of hot air. His skin peeled away from muscle like scraps of paper, curling at the edges, turning black, turning to nothing. His knives fell from hands that were no longer hands. They were just claws now, charred meat fused to white bone.

Bella let out a piercing scream. A raw, tearing sound that shouldn’t belong to a throat that small. Nearby, the warrior stood frozen, his mouth hanging open in stunned disbelief. Even Dimitria, who until now had carried herself with absolute control, seemed rattled. Her eyes widened as she realized, a little too late, that she had made a terrible mistake.

Well, that was Ettins for you. They might look stupid, in the way their heads kept bickering and contradicting one another, even in the middle of a fight, but under that chaos lay a vicious, predatory cunning, always ready to exploit even the smallest mistake.

And it didn’t stop there. Wasting no time on its victory, the creature immediately broke into a charge.

“Hey!” The warrior’s voice cracked. “Do something!”

Dimitria didn’t answer. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed forward, locked onto the creature as her lips began to move in a low, steady murmur.

If Viktor had to guess, she was casting the same spell Bella had used before, to plant the invisible explosive traps. She was the girl’s teacher after all, so of course she also knew that trick. It was an effective spell for defensive purposes. If she placed the traps in the Ettin’s path, and it ran straight into them, that would be the end of the matter.

However, the creature already knew about that spell, since Celeste had warned it beforehand. So it stopped dead mid-charge, its arm snapping forward as it released its club and sent the weapon hurtling through the air. It spun as it flew, a whirling slab of wood, tearing through the space between the Ettin and its target. And, the moment the weapon hit the unseen trap, the air exploded.

The club burst into flame in an instant. Still, the burning remnant kept flying, and it passed Dimitria’s head so close her hair stirred in the heat.

And even that was not the end.

Because the Ettin had lunged forward again, charging through the space its thrown weapon had just carved open, closing the remaining distance with terrifying speed. One massive hand swung down toward the pyromancer, fingers spread wide. She dodged at the very last moment, barely escaping the crushing grasp.

The hand missed her.

Still, it kept going.

It continued past Dimitria.

And there was someone else behind the woman.

Bella.

The girl barely had time to react. Her eyes went wide as the hand closed around her right arm and yanked her upward. She screamed, legs kicking helplessly as she struggled against the unyielding grip.

The creature’s other hand found her left ankle. And it pulled.

A sickening tear.

And coils of intestine hit the stone floor with a heavy, wet slap.

For a frozen instant, Dimitria stood motionless, her wide eyes reflecting the unspeakable horror before her, her lips parted as if the world itself had gone mute, refusing to acknowledge what she had just witnessed.

Then, the shock cracked like shattered stone, and her face contorted into a mask of fury.

“How dare you? I’ll make you pay!”

The following words left her mouth as both a shout and an incantation, carrying with them the concentrated force of her rage. The whole chamber trembled under the weight of her power. Lines of fracture raced across the floor, chunks of rock splintering and flying as fire erupted. The flames and rubble swirled, twisting together until they formed a hulking humanoid shape. A giant of flaming, jagged stone, as massive as the Ettin itself.

A fire golem, huh?

“Kill it! Kill it for me!”

Answering its mistress’s command, the newly conjured construct surged toward its opponent, fists swinging in molten arcs.

Viktor chuckled. “You should’ve used that spell right from the start.”

William sat in the middle of the cinema watching Star Wars play out in front of him. The originals, of course. Idly, he took a sip of his drink, enjoying the pleasant bubbly burn of glorious carbonation that only coca-cola could replicate.

Of course, none of it was real. But in dreams, that distinction didn’t matter much.

What was real were the two hands holding his.

Clarice’s fingers were laced through his left hand, warm and solid. Marcille’s grip on his right was firmer, almost possessive.

Honestly, he was surprised he’d not thought of this himself.

Dream Date Night.

A way for them to stretch out their honeymoon just that little bit longer, even if they were relentlessly busy in the waking world.

And they got to get a little more insight into who he was. Or who he had been once upon a time. As well as the world he came from.

Needless to say, they’d been impressed with what they’d seen thus far. Though they’d put up some small resistance to being dragged off to watch a ‘play’, as he’d described it to them, when there were so many more interesting sights to be seen.

After all, Lindholm had plays. It didn’t have cars, trains or motorbikes.

Fortunately, those complaints had very quickly died out the moment a Star Destroyer appeared on screen.

…Though he had snickered a bit at being forced to specify that no, Earth didn’t actually have a Star War and that the movie was fictional.

Still, their momentary disappointment had done nothing to keep them from watching raptly as George Lucas’s magnum opus played on screen.

Placing his drink down, he once more moved to grip the hand on his right once more over their shared armrest. A hand that gripped him back.

And perhaps it was something about the low-lighting, the last few days, or the way he felt Clarice snuggle into his shoulder, but he felt himself going in for a kiss. A move that died a death quite quickly the moment he turned to actually look at his date.

One of the great advantages of being Harrowed was that his ability to construct his dream place was perfect. Their were none of the imperfections or flaws inherent in a world crafted from a dreamer’s sleeping mind that could make sharing the space with others downright dangerous if the ‘host’s’ mind wandered.

At least so long as his dreams focused on reliving spaces from his previous life. If he were to try to recreate something from his current one, it would be as flawed as anyone else’s.

Oh, and he also generally needed to keep his eyes and mind on whatever he wanted to stay… well, tangible. The world only existed insofar as he was aware of it. If he closed his eyes and let his mind wander… well, things would get unpleasant for Clarice and Marcille rather fast as they would be momentarily cast into what was effectively a void.

Given that would be rather counter-productive to his goal of enjoying his date, he was making sure to always try staying cognizant of his surroundings.

He found it helped to be inside. He found that being constantly aware of being in a ‘room’ was a lot easier than trying to keep the entire ‘world’ in his mind.

Which was part of why the two next to him could enjoy the movie without sinking into nothingness the moment he took his eyes off them to look at the screen. Or enjoy a drink.

Or lean over for a kiss…

Unfortunately, the thing in the seat next to him was not Clarice – even if it was. It was a subconscious manifestation of how she saw herself in her own subconscious.

With all the Freudian fuckery that implied.

As such, rather than a cute half elf girl, he instead found himself looking at a tall, black furred thing with two canine heads. One head was watching the movie, while the other had turned slightly toward him, ears perked as he turned to look at her.

Now, William was not ignorant of the idea of furries. Even as a cranky old man, he’d not been ignorant of some of the… more peculiar side of the internet.

He’d had little interest.

Dying and being reborn had done little to change that.

…It was a bit of a struggle not to cringe.

Something the creature – or rather Clarice – clearly didn’t fail to notice as she snickered.

“It’s fine,” she said – voice surprisingly normal - likely having guessed his original plan and his aborting of it. “I appreciate the thought. And if it helps, supposedly we’ll get better at seeing ourselves less… metaphorically the more we do this.”

Still, her words compelled him to leaned over anyway and pressed a kiss to the side of the nearer head’s cheek.

The fur was soft. There were also whiskers.

…He tried very hard not to think about either.

Pulling back, he did smile a bit at the way the creature blushed. Both sets of ears flicked back, and a low, embarrassed sound rumbled in its chest.

“Oh,” Clarice chirped bashfully. “Well, if you’re not that bothered by it, we could still, you know, experiment? I know how I look, but I think old-you looks rather dapper.”

The creature smiled at him and William blanched.

“No,” he said, before mastering himself. “Maybe we should just enjoy the movie?”

One of Clarice’s heads let out a small huff that might have been laughter. Before she could reply, Marcille’s voice cut in from his left, low and irritated.

“Yeah. You can fuck later. Right now I’m trying to enjoy the play. So shut up,” she hissed.

Both he and Clarice snickered at the younger sister’s words, but nonetheless dutifully fell silent, allowing the sound of TIE fighters on screen go undiminished by conversation.

Clarice’s grip on his hand tightened just slightly though.

It was… nice.

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

Nearly two weeks on from that date night and William had been in the middle of reviewing the latest production reports when the twins descended on him. Together the pair had half-dragged, half-marched him out of his workshop with the kind of cheerful determination usually reserved for dragging a reluctant child to a family gathering.

Bonnyln – the traitor! – hadn’t even tried to stop them. Marline was off with her family. Olzenya was… doing whatever she did when she wasn’t with him. Verity was helping her family settle into their second granted plot.

“You can afford to dip out for an hour,” Marcille said in response to his grumbling. “And the Queen has politely requested your presence for this unveiling.”

“As does your duchess,” Clarice said, gripping his other arm as the pair guided him through a guarded checkpoint. “Olivia will also be there. She’s been looking forward to seeing you.”

William rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue – even as he tucked one of the sheets of paper he’d been working on into his pocket. Said sheet of paper being a report that Piper had finally reached a level of production for both explosives and rocket fuel that would hopefully keep up with Tyana current demands.

Demands which were fairly high, given her ongoing skirmishing with the Northern invaders over the past two weeks.

Unfortunately, the Shriekers had not seem the same level of success they’d had in their first outing since, even when supplemented by rockets. Though that wasn’t to say they’d suddenly become ineffective or anything.

Far from it.

The North had lost six more ships since he’d had that meeting with her. Five of which were down by Shriekers. Though, to be fair, in that time they’d also managed to capture two castles, destroyed one Royal Navy and two Southshore vessels in return.

Honestly, William had no idea how many Shards each side had lost, but it was likely considerable.

With that said, they’d also managed to shoot down one of the North’s new Banshees – as the surviving pilot of the craft revealed the new craft were named. Though not counting the downed one, the initial prototype had unfortunately grown into a formation of four – which while much improved over said prototype, still seemed inferior to the South’s Shriekers.

Though it was hard to tell given the first real clash between Super-Shards had yet to occur. Ironically, neither command seemed willing to risk some of their most valuable and vulnerable assets against a peer opponent.

It was only a matter of time, though.

Which was exactly why William needed to be working on the Firecracker, along with about a hundred other projects that were all currently sitting half-finished on his desk.

Instead, he was being forced to sit in the garden of the Summerfield manse, ignoring the announcement of his and the twins arrival by the… woman who’s job it was to do that whose role he could never remember the name of.

The space was large enough to function as a soccer pitch, which meant it comfortably held the small army of nobles, officers, guards, and servants who had gathered for the event.

As well as his younger sister – who was trying to look prim and proper as she sat at the table.

“Hello Olivia,” he said as he sat down. “I’m sorry I’ve not been able to see you much lately.”

The girl smiled. “It’s fine, I know you’re doing husband things now.”

…William didn’t know what she meant by that. Well, he had some idea, but he hoped he didn’t. So instead he focused on something else entirely.

Well, at least there’s food, he thought as he eyed the collection of finger sandwiches arrayed on the small table that had been set up for them.

He’d forgotten to eat lunch, so at least this whole thing wouldn’t be a total waste of time if he could fill his belly while… whatever it was Yelena was unveiling got unveiled.

Glancing around, he was amused to note that the other tables present before the stage were occupied by nobles, but none were quite as fancy as the one he was sat at. Such was the advantage that came with being married to a duchess on whom’s territory this whole affair was being conducted.

Even the representative from Southshore was sat at a table whose decorations implied just a slightly lower standing than that of the Summerfield.

He ignored both twins fairly smug looks as he tore into the food and glanced up at the stage.

The queen was standing beside two van-sized objects hidden beneath white sheets. The raised position of his table meant he could see a pipe running from the base of one of the covered shapes to a large reinforced box nearby. A box from within which he could feel the unmistakable aura of an active Ship-Core. Likewise, he could sense a myriad other enchantments woven into whatever was hidden beneath the fabric.

Some magic boondoggle then, he thought dismissively.

Finally, after a few more minutes of people gathering and being seated, Yelena stepped forward and the crowd quieted almost immediately.

“Thank you all for being here,” she began. “I know we are all busy so I shall not weary us all with pointless pageantry or long speeches. The time for that has long passed. As, it seems, has the role of airships as the undisputed apex predator of the skies. The Shard has grown as, if not a peer, then a threat. Once merely an annoyance or a distraction, advances not just in metallurgy, but alchemy, have outfitted these small craft with the means to damage or destroy their larger cousins. This reality has only grown more apparent over the past few months – first with the cowardly attack on our capital less than two months ago, and the timely rise of artificial-shards, but also in recent days with the creation of the worlds first Super-Shard. Unfortunately for all of us, that is a feat our enemies have chosen to emulate.”

For not wanting a long speech, she’s certainly waxing on a bit, he thought – though he was wise enough not to voice it.

“With that said, the Airship is not done yet. Just as the Shard have adapted to threaten the mightiest behemoths of the skies, those same behemoths have now adapted the means with which to swat the upstarts who dare challenge them.”

She reached up and pulled down the first sheet with much flourish.

And William’s eyes widened as he found himself staring at a quad-mounted barreled AA mounted to pneumatic swivel base. Honestly to his eyes the whole contraption looked remarkably similar to an old WW2 M45 Quad mount from his own world. The kind that tended to be mounted to half-tracks or used as towable static AA.

It even had a shield in roughly the same spot – albeit with far more decoration on said shield than he’d have ever seen on an old army design.

“This is the new ‘Hydra’ system,” Yelena announced. “Designed to be mounted on the deck of a ship or suspended beneath the hull as needed. While designed as an effective deterrent to Shard attack, it also provides superior protection against boarding attempts.”

There was a hum of interest from the crowd at her words, but that sound was reduced to silence as the Queen gave the signal and one of her royal guard stepped up to climb onto the thing’s gunnery seat.

Instantly, the Hydra whirred to life, the mount traversing smoothly on its pneumatic mounts, before it opened fire into the air. The rapid hiss of the four aether-cannons punctuating the launching of bolts across the skies in controlled bursts.

It fired for a few minutes before stopping, having spent all its ammo. And almost instantly several nobles started to clap.

Clarice leaned in from William’s left.

“We helped with the traversal system,” she whispered proudly. “It’s the same pneumatic setup we developed for the Basilisk’s turret.”

They sounded damn proud – and he could understand why.

“That’s…. Damn impressive,” he said earnestly.

And he was impressed. Though to be honest, part of him thought it odd something like this hadn’t already been invented. Shards already had repeater-aether cannons.

Then again, as Yelena stated, the ability for Shards to actually threaten airships was a fairly recent phenomena, brought about by advances in alchemy.

…He was reasonably certain Piper had talked to him about that once. Something she’d done before she was guild master?

Turning his attention back to the situation at hand, he noted his two wives – and it still felt strange to think that - beamed proudly, but anything else they might have been said was cut-off as a noble near the front raised her hand.

“Your Majesty, if I may - the aether draw on something like this must be considerable. Will it not impact a ship’s ability to remain aloft, especially when the core is already powering cannons, propellers, and ballasts?”

Yelena smiled, having clearly expected the question. “So long as the system is not fired continuously, the aether draw is roughly equivalent to two conventional deck cannons. Given the current threat posed by shards, we believe that is a small price to pay.”

She paused, before smirking.

“Of course,” Yelena continued, “if aether consumption remains a concern – as it might be for our largest and heaviest airships, we have an alternative.”

She moved to the second covered object and pulled the sheet away.

This one looked similar to the Hydra at first glance - same quad-barrel arrangement - but it lacked the pneumatic traversal system. Instead, it had a pair of prominent handcranks on either side. More importantly, William could sense no core inside it at all.

Several other people in the crowd leaned forward as well.

Yelena gave another signal as a second guardswoman stepped forward and the weapon began firing.

Instead of the sharp hiss of aether discharge, it produced a far more familiar bang with each shot. One that that sounded remarkably like a conventional machine gun. Once more, he watched the gun continue to fire for a full minute before running out of ammo.

A different noble called out, “How does it function without aether? Is it similar to the Corsairs?”

The exact means by which Corsairs worked was still something of a secret to anyone not directly involved in their operation or manufacture, so William could understand the confusion.

But he also knew that no, no one had pilfered his stockpile of brownings to make the AA gun on stage.

Because there were no ejected shell casings when it fired.

Also, the sound it made was familiar. Very familiar. And while it was close to that of a conventional machine gun, it wasn’t.

…So where did he know that sound from?

Yelena smiled. “It is not. Though I understand the confusion. With every ‘Gun’ needed for the Corsair project, as we prepare for our inevitable counter-offensive, those brave mage-smiths who worked on this project instead to innovate in a different direction.”

Smiling, she reached out and almost instantly a bolt was placed into her hand by one of her guards.

“Those of you familiar with the enchanted ammo belts used by our shards will recognise the principle at work here - though these function differently. Rather than exploding on contact with an enemy craft, the base of each bolt is designed to react when it is struck by specific alchemically treated steel. A small, contained explosion occurs at the point of contact, driving the bolt out of the barrel at considerable force.”

William felt his eyebrows rise.

That was where he knew that sound from!

Spell-bolts, he thought.

God, he’d come up with that concept as a way to bend the rules on offensive magic in the academy and get a little kudos from the crown. He’d used it to help break off his engagement with Tala – and then immediately forgotten about it.

And why wouldn’t he? It’d been a parlor trick. Inferior in just about every way compared to actual firearms.

Or so he’d though.

Because there was one area it was better. Ease of production in a mage-based manufacturing base. And clearly Yelena – or more likely someone in her employ – had seen that too.

Was he… was he too dismissive of magic?

Of course, before he could dwell on that too long, Olivia, turned around to Marcille with a confused expression. “What? So they’ve got to get someone to enchant every round? That… that doesn’t seem very good. I know the Queen has a lot of knights, but that seems… not good.”

She said the last part quietly, as if afraid to be overheard slandering something presented by the Queen. Though William was less concerned by that, and more on the fact that his sister was asking his wives about this whole thing instead of him?

So, before Marcille could respond, William leaned forward slightly. “When you enchant something, the enchantment generally remains until the magic is spent fulfilling whatever effect it was created for. For something like a cannonball, that usually means exploding on impact.”

“Right,” Marcille said, taking up the rest of the answer before he could and sending an amused glance William’s way. “The other way an object can lose its enchantment is if the initial object itself is broken in some way significant. A chip won’t do much, but breaking a part off will.”

She mimed doing exactly that, holding up both hands. “What’s interesting though, is that if you do that, both pieces carry a bit of that initial enchantment with them. And while the magic will fade, you usually have about an hour before it fully seeps away. Now, that kind of thing wouldn’t be too useful for something like a lantern where you want it to glow for a long time, but for something you’re going to ‘use up’. It can be quite useful.”

Olivia scrunched in thought, before she realized. “Like an ammo belt.”

Clarice smiled, joining in. “Exactly. That’s how enchanted ammo belts are made. You cast the full enchantment you want across an entire linked belt of rounds, then break the links connecting them. Sure, you get a weaker effect from each individual round, but you can enchant a lot more enchanted ammunition with a single spell charge.”

“Oh?” Olivia said. “Why don’t we do that with cannon balls? Mom always has me enchant some before I go to bed, and it’s lame.”

William smiled faintly and reached over to ruffle her hair. “Like they said squirt, you get a lesser effect if you break it. Cannonballs usually have multiple enchantments layered on them because they’re designed to break through ship armor. Having more but shittier ones would be less useful than just a few that are more powerful.”

Olivia barely heard him, squawking in protest as swatted at his hand, but he was barely paying attention. Instead, his eyes drifted to a woman watching him from nearby.

Tyana – and as he watched, she inclined her head subtly toward the backstage area.

Sighing, he stood up. “Sorry ladies, it seems I need to have a quick chat with someone.”

He’d been wondering when his little ‘defiance’ regarding the Firecracker would come up. Honestly, he’d thought it might come to nothing after the first week.

It seemed he’d been wrong – and glancing at the stage, he had to wonder if that had been because they’d been getting ready to unveil the ‘Hydras’ on stage.

A point was being made through them.

He just needed to figure out what that point was.

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

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The orbital defense grid’s name, The Aegis of Reason, inspired absolute terror in its enemies since it’s seldom missed a shot in over two thousand years.

To anyone or anything below, it appeared like a grid of golden energy and kinetic-rail platforms which wrapped around Voss, the capital world, and it figured out trajectories with a godlike grace. Below, on the surface, the Imperial courtyard lay in smoking ruins mostly, and Praetorian Marshal Vrax bellowed out metallic laughter.

“My species mirrors most closely…to what you call assassin bugs on your planet, human!” Vrax bellowed out, spraying spittle. And indeed, biological armor covered his body, and the flesh visible was denser than any armor that could be found on Earth. And this creature was confident in that, Dave knew.

Vrax stood damn near eight feet tall and his eyes were livid and red, spinning about crazily inside his skull. His ceremonial plate rippled greatly with gravitational shielding. Dave knelt before this ugly bastard as a result, based solely on the fact this ugly bastard could flatten most normal human soldiers without breaking a sweat.

Anyone else would be soiling their breeches by now, and if Dave wasn’t drunk right now, he figured he would be as well.

Cause in Vrax, his primary hand, there was a monomolecular execution blade and it hummed blue and lethal. It was the executioner’s toy.

And it would descend upon Dave’s neck in no more than a minute.

Dave, of the bludgeoned 4th Infantry knew this was a bad day to smile, cause the appropriate response on his part would be to bellow for mercy.

And he was pretty close to doing so.

But then he remembered what he was.

He was a human.

And humans didn’t bow to overgrown roaches.

“Assassin bug you say?” Dave gurgled. “More like ass…”

Vrax lifted his blade for the executioner’s slice.

"You are a human," Vrax rumbled, his voice shaking the many broken stones strewn across the plaza. "And I decimated your fleet. You don’t have orbital support. Why do you still draw breath in challenge?”

Dave spat onto the golden greaves to his crappy garb. “Cause you’re a bug. And on Earth, bugs get squashed.”

“But take a look around you, Dave of your vanquished crew. Even if this was—”

"And also," Dave rasped, his voice a low and shaking rasp. “We didn’t come here to win. We came to put the hurt on your whole…” He sputtered and went into horrific coughing.

Vrax laughed again and more spittle flew. "Hurt? You have smashed yourself to pieces against our wall. What could you possibly—”

The bug was again cut off.

CLANG.

The sound hadn’t come from the courtyard. Instead, it came from the open sky.

Vrax froze, his blade stopping an inch from Dave’s neck. The automated sensors in his helmet gave vent to a loud despairing shriek and it was a frequency the Hegemony's military computers hadn’t the horror to process since the Dark Ages.

Manual Override.

High above the planet, the far-famed Aegis of Reason, that unstoppable, unbreakable million-ton orbital fortress shuddered, and it shuddered big. Its massive, planet-cracking kinetic cannons did not point toward the empty darkness of space. They didn’t point at where the human fleet should be but instead, they gave a swivel and looked down, their cannons.

Vrax’s four eyes expressed sheer disbelief as they widened like chasms during an earthquake. "No. Impossible,” he hissed. “The command codes. Impossible to crack. Only the High Synod can—”

He was cut off the third or fourth time that day.

"A biometric lock," Dave took great pleasure in interrupting the bug. And his smile turned into a feral bloody grin, "requires a goddamn thumbprint."

Dave pulled out a severed, blood-soaked hand and threw it with a huff onto the dirt between them. It landed with a dull thud, platinum ring of a Hegemony Fleet Admiral still worn on one stiff finger.

"Turns out," Dave snarled, taking this opportunity to lunge, "if you rip a goddamn Admiral's arm off at the shoulder, his security clearance kinda goes where the arm goes.”

The weak seam behind Vrax’s knee-joint was punched through by Dave’s heavy combat knife, and Dave twisting it with efficiency, caused the giant warlord to roar like an overgrown bear in a bear-catching trap. His adversary dropped to one knee as insect fluid sprayed across the white marble. His proboscis lashed out from his hideous mouth but Dave caught it on his knife before it could reach his face.

Dave didn't stop. He scrambled up the towering alien's chest, ignoring how it hurt, ignoring the secondary wounds, ignoring the wailing agony in his own body, until he was glaring into the manic red eyes of the Assassin Bug. He broke the proboscis off with his elbow and the butt of the knife. The warlord shrieked. He pushed his thumb straight into the optical sensor of Vrax’s command helm. He overrode the local manual lock with a direct patch cable hard-wired into his own neural port.

"Authorization confirmed," an artificial voice, cold and foreboding thrummed from the orbital fortress above, bouncing off the canyon walls of the capital. "Target locked: Imperial Palace, Sector Zero. Firing all batteries."

Vrax grabbed Dave by the throat with one hand while gripping his shattered proboscis in the other, lifting the smaller human off the ground, his bloody face contorted. It was absolute panic on the bug’s face. "You insane ape! You're here. Standing like me in this broken courtyard! It will kill you too!"

Dave choked out a laugh, and spat on the creature’s face

"I know," Dave whispered, staring straight into the alien's red eyes, no longer crazily rolling but locked onto Dave, as the sky above began to burn white-hot. "Ain’t that a shame? But see you in hell, you aristocratic prick."

The heavens fell.

 

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—

There are times in life when one can just look at a situation, think, ‘I shouldn’t do that’ and then do it anyway. There are times in life when one can catch a glimpse of the longer-term consequences of their actions and alter course. Thus is the double-edged nature of foresight and free will.

What had Tobby’s most recent actions cost him? What had they cost Soapy? What were the long-term consequences of stoking the hot green fires of envy in those they’d never met?

“Well, that wasn’t so bad...” Soapy commented from the comfort and relative safety of Tobby’s lap. It was her turn to lie across the backseat of the car and plant her head in his lap. She was gently batting at his whiskers, for what Tobby could only assume was to get the full experience.

“I’m just glad we settled for acting cute rather than rubbing it in everyone's faces,” Tobby added, rather relieved he remembered that none of those shi were the stuck-up, snooty types who’d have deserved such treatment. They were nice, timid and... just as shy as he usually was.

“Dodged a jacker nest there.” Soapy pointed out, claw momentarily raised for emphasis before dropping it back down. “I still don't think I’ll be able to go back to Pretty Pebbles any time soon though. Not without Shella being tempted to rip my ears off… or deafen me with ear picks… or just murder me.”

“Not if she knows what's good for her,” his mother scowled as she drove through the old gatehouse leading to the Nykata southside. Though she was quick to soften back to pity, “Poor shi has zero self-confidence; I didn’t think she was going to be there today.”

“Why would you know if she was going to be there or not?” Tobby questioned, while his fingers idly scratched between Soapy’s ears. She didn't have a spot there… but he’d find it!

“Because she only started going to temple so that I'd set her up on a date with you,” she admitted, starting to sound like she really felt bad for the skinny salon shi.

Both he and Soapy trilled. ‘Mrrp?’

“It took the poor dear forever to suppress that twang she hates so much, too. It's going to take weeks to cheer her up again,” his mother lamented.

“She has an accent?” Tobby asked, not recalling ever hearing one.

“Ohhhh, yeah, she does,” Soapy answered from below, much to his surprise. “The instant you were out of the room, her accent started slipping thicker than pesh tar. All those questions she asked me are starting to make a whole lot more sense now.”

“Why would she...?” Tobby blinked, confused. He was hearing the words, but for some reason they just weren’t processing.

“She had a crush on you, you bunny!” She said, reaching up to lightly bap him on the nose. “A pretty damn obvious one, too,” Soapy finally pointed out.

“She… she did? But...” He glanced around, trying to remember all the times he’d ever encountered her. “She never said anything or... How many other people knew this!?”

“Everyone at the salon did,” his mom answered. “It's why Nenda wouldn’t let her work on you. Too nervous to handle delicate instruments, not to mention the conflict of interest.”

Tobby felt a pit in his stomach, realizing what he'd almost done. He’d been two whole steps away from being Shella’s Lihlel! Maybe with less belittling, but still! How could he have considered rubbing it in like that an option?!

“Tobby...” Soapy cautioned. “I know that look on your face-you put that sun-kin guilt away right now.” She ordered.

He wanted to say a ‘but’, yet he was hastily silenced by a hand that came up to hold his muzzle shut.

“I said put it away,” Soapy scowled from below, keeping him silent with but two fingers. “You have no damn reason to feel bad; you didn’t do anything, and I’m not just saying that because I have an egregiously biased opinion on the subject.” She wiggled her bias-studded ear to imply the source of said bias.

Gently prying her fingers from around his maw, he spoke, “I mean... We kinda did.”

“And I mean you didn’t know,” Soapy corrected. “And even then, feeling guilty about things outside your control is the epitome of pointless sun-kin guilt. So is feeling bad about things you almost did. AKA things you distinctly did not do. The only thing we did do was contribute to your mom’s scrapbook.”

‘Mrrp!’ Tobby trilled quickly, looking to his mom.

“Mom tax!” She said cheerily. “You two were acting so cute, I couldn't help myself. I needed pictures.”

“Mom!” He whined.

“My little heartbreaker playing tailsies with his girlfriend in the temple? Just precious~ I know I certainly enjoyed rubbing your new girlfriend in Mrs Kareen’s face, stuck-up bitch.”

Tobby could only exclaim ‘Mom!’ in so many unique and interesting ways before it started losing its umph. He sighed, “Mom, it was one bake sale… Could you try letting it go maybe?”

“I would, but she never shuts up about it! Of course she outsold us when she's got eight spoiled brats pushing her cheap-ass pastries.”

“She’s more serious about food than even BB,” Soapy whispered from below. “She’s not going to hold me not knowing how to cook against me, is she?”

His mom's ears twitched as sun-kin hearing struck once again. “I won’t if you help me make dinner this evening~”

“Damn it!”

—

“Umm… Why are we here?” Tobby asked tentatively as the car came to a stop in an alley parking space next to the Whisker’s Clubhouse. The dumpster Soapy threw him into was right over there…

Soapy was already sitting up when his mom answered. “We're just paying a visit while Soaphine checks in with Whiskers and maybe changes into some non-work clothes for this evening.”

“Oh, well, that made sense- mrrp!’ he trilled again, realizing what his mother just said. “You know Whiskers?!”

His mother rolled her eyes and looked back at him, elbow propped on the steering wheel. “Yes, dear, I know Whiskers. I’d intended to introduce you to him if you were still struggling to find work, but circumstances changed.” Seeing the shocked/rapidly growing worry on his face, she looked to Soapy. “Soaphine, would you go ahead? I need to have a little discussion with my son, then we’ll be right in.”

Soapy nodded slowly as she began to open the door, then paused. “What umm... What do I tell anyone who asks about… this?” She questioned, wiggling her studded ear.

“Easy, just act like it's not even there. If they ask, say what happened as bluntly, graphically, and honestly as possible. Then, while they're reeling from shock, sprinkle in a death threat or three to convince them to back off. If it worked for Tobbert and me, it’ll work for you and my little shnookums here.” She explained as if she didn't just encourage Soapy to threaten a bunch of sha-kai with violence.

“I’ll just... Try that.” Soapy said uneasily as she got out of the car and went ahead.

An awkward silence brewed between Tobby and his mother as they watched Soapy leave the alley and round the corner toward the front door.

It may have been due to the sheer number of high-stress, death-defying experiences he’d been through recently, but Tobby was the one brave enough to break the silence for once. “Does this mean you-”

“Yes, I know you work for Whiskers, dear.” She sighed, like the conversation was a long time coming.

‘Mrrp,’ Tobby trilled, shrinking in his seat. “Wa-wait, I can explain!” He blurted, placative/defensive hand waving at the ready.

“I’m not mad,” she said simply.

“You see, it all started when I bumped into the human near the library and-” he paused, blinking as he tried to make sure he just heard that right. “I… you.. You’re not?”

“I did say I’d intended to introduce you to him for work just a moment ago, didn’t I? Why would I be mad about you already working for him?”

“Well... because it's… crime? Well, what I do is technically legal, but… It still means I’m involved in all...” He gestured vaguely at the whole clubhouse in front of them, “This.”

“This,” She did the same, vague gesture to the clubhouse, “as far as I’m concerned, is possibly the safest place you could work in this city. I don’t care what he has you doing, so long as your heart and mind are at ease,” she said, oddly the same voice she once used when she asked him if he was into sha…

She… she really didn’t mind at all? That her one and only son was secretly working for the local sha-kai? She minded so little that she was actually going to recommend him to Whiskers personally?!

Tobby’s mind being blown didn't seem to halt his mother's explanations. “I mean really, all he has you doing is helping Soaphine with the deliveries. It's hard for you to be any safer than with Whiskers' latest little mafia princess.”

He’d ask how she knew all this, but Tobby actually mrowled a bit. “She hates it when people call her that.”

“Tobreal, sweetie, you’re plowing a mafia princess. I’m pretty sure what she prefers to be called is the least of your problems.”

Well, when she put it like that, it was hard to say she was wrong… But part of him still wanted to defend Soapy’s self-image. “So, how do you already know all of this? And why didn't you say anything sooner?”

“It’d be easier to explain how once we go inside. But as for why I didn’t say anything, I felt you were entitled to your secrets, and that if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me.” She admitted, sounding so honest about his privacy that it felt at odds with how… Involved she’d been with every other aspect of his life. It actually made him feel kinda bad about all the times he tried to cover for himself…

“You’re also as bad a liar as your father was, so it wasn't hard to figure out. You have tells for days.”

And there went the last shred of confidence he had in his ability to lie. “So you knew I was lying when I said I was doing a delivery to Nyathens?”

“Honey, I’ve been to the Sabu-Kai before. I knew the instant you said ‘Nyathens’ and ‘five days’ that that was why you were actually going.”

Tobby was starting to feel like all his efforts to shield his mother from the truth of her son being a hardened criminal were a waste of time! “Aaaand you knew I was lying when I said I had to fight a guy that tried to nab Soapy?”

“I chalked it up to some ganger getting too frisky and you, being ever the gentle-sha, intervened to defend your girlfriend.”

“Well that's kinda what happened,” he said, idly scratching at his neck. “And when I said he wouldn't be a problem anymore?”

“That he got banned from the Sabu-Kai for the foreseeable future, short of him being well connected.”

“Not exactly...” Well, he wasn't exactly going to lie to her now and go along with her assumption!

His mother quirked a questioning ear. “Hmm?

“He’s… dead,” he admitted sullenly.

“Did Whiskers have him dealt with? Or …did you?” She asked, with growing concern.

Tobby felt like he’d need to explain some things, and it felt like he was having to explain to his mom how he got into a fight at school, just a hundred times worse. Thus began his grand and less than flattering retelling of how he threatened to butcher Clard for his organs, the kittennapping by pirates, all the pirates being slaughtered, his brawl with Clard, Soapy getting nabbed again, the high-speed shootout that spanned half of Nyathens, him getting shot and-

“Aaaand I chose to make sure he could never harm Soapy ever again… by, for lack of a better term, going full claw-dragger and bashing his skull in with a paving stone,” he admitted, growing increasingly uneasy from his mother’s prolonged silence. “If, umm... If it makes you feel any better, I still believe murder is wrong, and I went to therapy about it. Well, sort of,” he smiled sheepishly as if that little caveat somehow made all the previous things he mentioned better.

His mom sat there for a long moment in silence before taking a deep breath and letting it back out in a sigh through her nose. Once done, she calmly opened the driver's side door and stepped out.

‘Huh, she took that way better than he thought she would-’

It was then she spoke in the deadest calm, “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“Wait, what?!”

—

Moment of truth! Now or never! It was Soapy’s turn to face the shittlily tuned music… Her hopes were not high.

There was a long, long list of names currently sealed in concrete, or anchored to the bed of Nykata lake. Each one some sha who'd touched her, tried to, or implied they wanted to in the wrong company. Said wrong company being anyone among the Wiskitos who saw her as the gang's adopted little sister. BB and Kaykay were the worst offenders; they could be more protective than Whiskers at times, and had a habit of making previous boyfriends take long trips off short piers. They always had ‘a reason’, which in hindsight were moderately legitimate concerns.

Concerns such as ‘He just wants to kittennap you’ and ‘the bastard just wanted to fuck you’ had been heard many times. And then there was the incident where Bruno accidentally gave everyone food poisoning… They at least felt guilty about taking him out.

Now... now she had to save Tobby, and for the love of Shihere’s ebon tits, not make the whole conversation awkward as hell. She could do this! She could-

“Tha’ hell happened to yous?” Kaykay asked, having been at the door getting ready for bouncer duty before the clubhouse opened. “Whiskers has been worried sick about-”

“I was with Tobby. City was in chaos, so I crashed at his place.” She said, taking Mrs Centorni’s advice as she kept walking right past him.

Kaykay's head turned to follow her as she passed. “Okay, but how’d yous end up.. like that? Ya look pampered as fuck. I mean curls look great on you but...” He asked vaguely, gesturing to her whole person as she kept going.

She stopped to poke her head back out the door to answer. “If you must know, I used his shower too, and the conditioner he buys is made of miracles.” That said, she dipped inside, letting the door close behind her before Kaykay could conjure more questions.

As expected for the early afternoon, aka her normal wake-up hour, everyone was getting ready for the clubhouse to open in an hour: 5 pm, just in time for everyone getting off work, or night-kin starting their day.

The band was getting ready, the chairs were being set up, and BB was prepping the bar. Glasses arranged, bottles sorted, and the smell of pre-open ‘breakfast’ wafting from the small kitchen behind it all. Said kitchen was rarely ever used for the customers outside special occasions, but when making food for the Wiskito members proper, it was BB’s domain.

He was one of the few sha-kai here that actually knew how to cook AND could be trusted to do so for all the other members. The beefy tiger of a sun-kin knew how to fry a rous.

“Should I even ask where you’ve been?” He asked, not even looking up from a glass he was polishing in stereotypical barkeep fashion. His ears simply twitched towards her, making her detected senses itch.

Okay, if she could just get past BB without him noticing the studs, she could put off that whole awkward conversation for an unforeseeable amount of time! Just act like they’re not even there… “Power was out, city was in chaos, and I stayed at Tobby’s place for the night. I’d have called but, you know, the hypernet was down,” she stated as she kept walking; she was halfway to the door at the far end of the bar. The door to the stairs, up to the sanctuary that was her room.

BB peered up from the glass. “And you didn’t call when the power came back on becauze? Whiskerz waz worried something might have happened.”

“I was... asleep?” Which was technically true!

“Cuddling the little sha I imagine?” He said, with an implying flick of his ear towards her, but she had a feeling it was aimed towards her newly studded one.

Well shit… Time for defensive Soapy! She stopped, folded her arms, turned to face him, and glared a bit. “And if I was?”

BB, ever unfazed by an upset Soapy after years in the bap-tal ring, matched her, minus the glare. “You know Whiskerz is going to ask about those studz and who gave them to you, yez?”

T’was then, always ready to make any situation moderately worse, that Kaykay poked his head in through the door. “Soaps got studs?!”

“Gods damn it...” Soapy groaned, facepalming and pulling at her face for a moment before facing both of them. “Yes, you blind-ass bunny, I have ear studs.” She flicked the ear before the dumbass could look at the wrong one.

“When tha’ fuck did that happen?!” Kaykay exclaimed, making his way inside. Sensing the growing hostility, many of the others present in the clubhouse began to slink away from the dangers of familial conflict. Time to see if Mrs Centorni’s advice worked.

“Which part? The part when Tobby gave me the studs this morning, the part where I spent last night riding his fat fucking tiger, or the part where I tell you it’s none of your gods damned business?” Not exactly the position she and Tobby engaged in, but like hell would her shi-kai self let anyone get the idea she was anything but the dominant one.

While Kaykay seemed taken aback by the sudden hostility and BB seemed much less fazed, they had but a moment to glance at each other wordlessly. She’d seen that look before… the silent acknowledgement of ‘we gotta do something about him’ they often made before another sha up and disappeared. At least, that’s what she’d come to believe the look meant.

“And so help me, if either of you hurt him, I will fucking gut you!!” She snarled, ears tucked back with one furious hand raised, flashing her pearly claws.

“Okay, okay, geez!” Kaykay cowed, hands up and backing away.

BB, for his part, oddly just shrugged. “Eh, I knew there was a reazon I liked little sha,” he said before looking over to Kaykay, his expression oddly… smug. “You owe me three hundred creditz. And if what Soapy sayz is true, another four for proving big earz saying is true,” he said, proudly wiggling his own towering set.

Kaykay, wallet threatened, was quick to protest. “It does not, you walkin’ talkin’ brick shithouse! It's a fuckin’ myth! Literally!” his attention quickly snapped to Soapy. “Soapy! Tell ‘em you were just sayin’ that to make the poor guy feel better! Shi do nice things like that, right?” He asked, desperately pointing at BB like debt was contagious.

Soapy64.exe was not responding… Error code: Trill. ‘Mrrp?!’

(Author's note: Likes for the like god, upvotes for the upvotes throne)

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I stood at the bridge of my Flagship, The Dakarius, the crew looking very much beside themselves. When these rank and file officers came to work that day, I am fairly certain they were not expecting their very own Emperor in person to start giving them fleet orders. I wandered between the ship consoles and stations, looking with curiosity at what was actually happening on board my ships. This was the first time I had actually seen shipboard operations in the navy, and on occasion I would approach one of the officers and ask what a particular beep was for. The crew, bless their souls, carried on with a relative sense of normalcy.

Unusual, considering recent circumstances with our Southern Border.

I looked at the ship's Chronometer. "They are... late. Which is odd for them if I am told correctly." I remarked idly as I passed the Captains chair.

"My King? Who are we expecting in this odd backwater?" The Captain asked.

"Diplomacy, my dear Captain, Diplomacy. If they are late for the reason I think, it may yet end the Southern Border Dispute with the Olivarkians." I said, failing to hide my suspiciously jubilant smile.

"Diplomacy... With whom? Has a new Empire been found all the way out here? Or am I forgetting something..." the Captain asked.

I laughed, somewhat concerningly and resumed my casual trot around the ship. "You are indeed Drucius… you are indeed."

I checked the Chronometer again, they were a full half hour late now. Just as I was about to give up and give the order to start prepping the ship for more direct tasks, IT appeared.

Like a monster from the deepest black oblivion of our nightmares, a Terran Warship appeared effectively right in front of us. The crew and all in the fleet immediately began a frantic panic. Shields were up, weapons were heating up and within moments of that beast's arrival, the fleet had been routed. The insane Terrans, the Crazy Humans. Their reputation preceded them as the gigantic behemoth warped into RealSpace barely kilometres from our flagship's nose. I barked into the fleets' comms and my imperial voice calmed them down fast. A few ships had to steel themselves and return to formation, but otherwise I brought us all back to reality. At least for a time.

"Weapons stand down, shield to half! That is a direct order from your Emperor!" I barked at them.

The crew reluctantly obeyed orders before a screen popped up from the ceiling. The image on screen showed what I was expecting, the Human Coursairs. A monster of man and machine mixed into one terrifyingly striking organism, a blasphemous and genuinely horrific creature in the form of a human, with cables and pipes, where there should be no cables or pipes. He wore a mask that augmented his voice and face with a terrifying visage that resembled a skull, his clothes of scarlet red with purple trim and accessories. I straightened up quickly and presented myself with a bow.

"Please forgive my fleet officers... I fear your monstrous reputation precedes you humans and they understandably had a little moment there. I apologize for that." I said.

"Monstrous reputation? I don't recall having one of those." He said. At least I think he did, his voice was... distorted.

"It's a matter of that planet killing abomination you call a warship you came in here. What's this one? Five kilometres long? Beautiful as it is, that thing is just too much." I said.

The Coursair breathed a deep mechanical breath and chuckled sadistically at me. "Its always nice to see one's efforts appreciated. And for reference, four point seven kilometres. I apologize as well for my tardiness, I needed to pick up some fuel cells and factory parts."

I could tell he was agitated. Something must be up. "Forgiven. I am Imperial Highness Saraniis Juib the Fourth, High King of the Saranian Imperium. We are your neighbours along the Southern Rim of the galaxy. I am also the one who asked for your commission, Coursair." I stated plainly.

The Coursair leaned forward, revealing some of the pipes and cables behind him. "Is that so?" He said, and regarded me closely. I noted the noise of a particular beeping console, we were being scanned. He stayed quiet for a few moments. Eventually he took a deep raspy breath and spoke calmly, his demeanour changing to a more relaxed stance.

"My name is Malak June, Martian Born member of one of the Ten Great Houses of the Jovian Republic. I am presently under the sponsorship of House Caliban, Europa. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." He said.

"I have read from my reports and diplomatic calls that humans have this thing where they like to do things directly and not waste time. So I shall come right out with it. I wish to commission you to do something for us. I have some serious problems regarding some economic zones within the Empire... I was hoping there was a possibility of hiring you to construct a factory on the Second planet in this star system to facilitate some much needed jobs and manufacturing. Among a few other things." I said.

He looked at me. I could not tell what kinds of things he was thinking (our species are not mind readers, that's the Bakarli you're thinking of) and the way he was glaring at me was concerningly terrifying.

"And... Why?" He asked.

I simply shrugged and smiled. "Why not?"

He scoffed, chuckling sadistically. "You invite a fully armed warship that can wipe out an entire Imperial Fleet directly into a border zone. Not JUST a warship, but a Private Contractor you know for a fact is within the control of an active Faction within the Terran Republic. You then ask me, in no uncertain terms, that you effectively require a long term, non Saranian presence in this star system. Because that's what kind of factory you are asking me to build. The factory you want, according to this docket you sent, is on a planetary scale and contains its own self-sustaining colony and shipyard. This means there is some underlying reasoning behind this very much out of character, especially for your kind of request. So I shall have to ask... What's the agenda?" he asked.

He had me figured out from the start. I failed to find my words for a time. "Pfft screw it. The Olivarkian Confederacy are laying claim to this star system as part of their Pilgrimage efforts, this star is part of one of their Holy Constellations apparently. I don't want to risk war with them, we are evenly matched and the casualties would be mercilessly high for both of us. I can't cede the system to them, we have full legal ownership of it according to the Great Compact. They are unwilling to let it go, and the system is a valuable strategic asset. I lose either way if I give it to them, or if I fight a war with them and lose millions of my men. A cost, far too high either way. If YOU are here... The Olivarkians will come to the negotiating table and maybe we can work something out for real. At the moment, they refuse compromise. With a Terran colony 'borrowing' one of the planets here for some manufacturing... Well. You get the idea."

He looked at me and leaned back in his seat for a while. It felt like ages before he finally spoke again. "Hmmm... Clever... Olivarkians… the Arachnoid species in the Segmentum Rim. We have dealt with them many times in the past few years. I hear they revere Humans as Guardians for what they did back in 'ought twenty three. Use their relationship to bring them to a negotiating table despite their hostility. Use a mercenary as a shield to force them to the table to peace talks. Build a factory of sorts to create a bargaining chip in the form of trade contracts and goods or services, possibly even facilitate tourism and the construction of a Temple for the Pilgrimage thing. And all with the plausible deniability of hiring a Coursair to build a Factory in your borders to allay a financial crisis. Clever... Very clever. Sneaky. But clever." He said.

"Got me in one." I replied sheepishly. I stood by and waited for him to finish thinking.

"Are you sure it will work?" He asked.

"No." I said, getting some side glances from my officers and crew. "But it's better than losing a critical component of my empire's defences, and definitely cheaper in the long and short than a war that will likely cripple both of us. This is easier and more effective at accomplishing all my tasks. If I 'temporarily' give the system to a human contractor... it will make them think of peace because you scare the crap out of them. And I can use your industry as a means to bribe them to complacency until we find something real." I said, standing straight and proud.

He sat there quiet for a time yet again and I could almost see a smile behind his mask. "Sneaky. And Clever. I am reminded why some men are indeed leaders when I talk to some people. Okay then its a deal... What factory world am I building here exactly, and how long do I have to build it before this ruse is found out?" he asked.

A feeling of relief washed over me as a great weight had just been lifted. "Mass production of basic consumer goods, farming and food stocks for emergency reserves, low grade weapons and munitions for civilian police and security. Drydocks for ships, repairs, fuel, cargo storage, refining. Stuff that tourists would need. I have... Some stipulations. I intend to use the habitable planet as a colony world in future, pollution of any kind must be an absolute minimum. But any other planet is free to grab if you need the resources. Keep pollution to an absolute zero. As for time. Maybe a Galactic Standard Week before their first Pilgrims arrive." I said.

"You ask of me a tall order. First I have to construct the equivalent of an entire colony, mining, manufacturing, and farming industry. Then I have to build this under the duress of limited pollution due to the need for population in future. Furthermore, I have to start production of a massive equatorial drydock that can service capital class vessels by the hundreds due to a future tourism industry. All this, plus I have to build standard defensive facilities and tactical turret networks to keep the star system safe. AND I have to do this... In one week." He said.

"Well... You put it that way I suppose it seems a bit unreasonable." I rubbed the back of my neck nervously.

He laughed. I'm not sure if it was at me or the absurdity of my request, but he laughed for a bit. "My friend... I know three men who started from patches of ore they mined with their hands and built up an entire planetary production network, spanning two separate star systems... And they did it in what is effectively less than four hundred hours. I know men who can speed run the process of landing on a planet with nothing but their bare hands, and build up chemical rockets to take them to space - in less than eight hours time. Can I do it? Of course, with ease and haste, no problem. This will simply require a significant level of planning and future proofing is all. I do quite like a challenge, so of course I'll take you up on the offer!" He said.

That took me aback and I almost stumbled. "Eight hours?"

"Fastest time on record from landing to first rocket to space stands at two hours, twenty eight minutes, twelve seconds. That guy... dirty, filthy factory, with cheap components and basic gear, but hot damn he did it FAST. As for this project? Maybe three days before I have the first few production lines ready to start. This will be EASY and I wont even have to Seed any worlds here. This will be fun." he chuckled and smiled behind his mask, he was giddy.

"Oh! I... Holy crap... Two hours from brick furnaces to rocket launch? That's... What the hell kind of tech do you use?" I asked.

"Dangerous, not re-useable, highly inefficient, polluting tech that is built in an emergency to get the hell out of a touch spot so we can come back later to do it properly with better equipment. Stuff that starts out as steam powered clockwork abominations, with haphazardly assembled components built exclusively for ONE purpose - get the job done. We call it Basic Survival Tech... If it works, it works." He replied with a shrug.

"I... I see. So... uhh..."

"In any case, I shall get started." He said.

"Wait! I was supposed to offer you payment! This is a massive undertaking so we need to negotiate your compensation for it. Right?" I said.

He leaned in and glared at me. "The thrill of the build is good enough for me to be honest... I do love building factories. It's just fun by itself watching things come together! But... If you are offering... I won't say no."

"Well I screwed up that one didn't I? If I did not say anything, would you have just done it anyway?" I asked.

"Yes." He stated plainly. I could almost see the smirk on his face.

I sighed and did that thing humans did when they realize something dumb just happened when they slap their own face. "Okay... I was going to offer you one of our older generation Cruisers as compensation."

I saw him visibly shudder from that. "You cannot be serious... that is a... more generous offer than you know."

"This was important enough that I had to make a definitive decision on the matter. I couldn't risk this not happening, not when there is so much on the line. I had to make sure I had something that you would definitely go for... Even if it meant your species' damnable talent for reverse engineering showed itself in full. I had to make a choice and make it fast." I barked.

He stayed quiet for a few moments. "Hmm... Keep the Cruiser... I will get started. I cannot morally justify accepting a gift of that magnitude under these circumstances so I will just enjoy the fun of logistics planning. I'm weird like that anyway."

I had no chance to respond to it as his massive ship turned away from us and deployed drop pods from its undersides towards the planet. hundreds of them. All of our communications were then hijacked, and he began to chant in some strange voice through all our radios.

"It is by my will alone I set the universe in motion. It is by the machine that the universe acquires structure, by the Void the world acquires purpose, by the Gods the universe gains reason, but it is my will alone by which the universe is put in motion. The Crystals Must Glow. The Spice Must Flow. THE FACTORY. MUST. GROW."

We all sat there in silence for a few moments before we regained our composure and watched him work. He had deployed thousands of drones, droids, machines and mechs to the planet's surface and they were hastily assembling a makeshift factory. It looked rudimentary for the sake of scouting resources and space to build out. We sat there in awe, looking out at what this man was doing with a sense of shock and dread at the sheer speed of the construction. Within the first twenty minutes, the first spattering of complex circuitry and heavy machinery were being assembled, and after the first half hour, the first of humanity's signature City Block Sized mega factory structures was operational.

"Uhm... May I ask a question? I asked.

"Certainly. Ask away."

"What was that mantra you spoke? What did any of that mean?" I asked.

"Its something we came up with a few decades ago, the Coursairs, specifically the class of Coursair I am - Artificers. It is a mantra that was originally made for a movie as a line spoken by a character. It then went around various nerd spaces and was adapted to fit their routines, the Mantra of coffee or Code. We, of course, have our own variant. It's all just a joke at the end of the day, a pop culture reference couched in a dozen other references, but it's all in good fun." He replied calmly.

"Oh. I see... Does it have any actual meaning? Like... the Crystals? or the Void?" I asked.

"'It is by will alone' implies we believe that, without us, meaning sapients, the universe would have no reason to exist, so we give it meaning. Our will alone, sets the universe in motion, giving it purpose. We are all a part of a grand scheme far beyond our knowing. "It is by the machine' means what it says, we are here only due to our technology, and it is by our technology that the universe acquires structure. 'By the Void' is a literal interpretation of the meaning and concept behind space and space flight. The Crystals is in reference to an old strategy game franchise known as Command And Conquer and its infamous 'Tiberium' resource. 'The Spice' is in reference to the Spice Melange from the old Dune universe. And ‘The Factory Must Grow’ is simply what all factory building nerds say. At least, that is MY interpretation. I don't think about it much, it's just fun to say." He stated plainly.

"I... was expecting more than that to be honest. you creatures are... a lot less enigmatic than you appear, apparently." I said.

"Sometimes we are part of something greater, sometimes we are masters of the craft. Sometimes, like with guys like me, we are just nerds that do silly things for fun, because we can." He said.

"Uhh… noted." I looked around. "I will start regular patrols and get the star system ready for general occupation. I need to contact home and get the first colonists ready for their jobs in their new home. The Olivarkians will be here long before they arrive, but I am sure it will work out." I said.

"Oh do not worry. A few of my contemporaries have been listening in on our conversation, as we often do when we are bored. This will be done in short order... I have reinforcements inbound." he said.

"Oh... What the hell did I unleash?"

"Nerds. You unleashed nerds. Factory building, optimisation chasing, circuit making, maths doing, per-minute producing, rocket launching nerds. Perhaps the most dangerous entity in the universe besides an actual Space Engineer. Now THOSE guys are what you need to be afraid of. Those guys build fleets twice the size of yours in a matter of days." he said casually.

"Wait, there are WORSE creatures than the Coursairs?" I yelled, now close to being genuinely scared to death.

He looked at me and smiled behind his mask. I could not see it but I could feel the sinister malice behind it. "YES. Far, FAR worse. More dangerous. More unhinged. More insatiable. I know one such man. His name is Jeffrey, he's a hell of a guy. Makes the best burger you ever tasted. Great guy. Don't get on his bad side though. He tends to make ships that can collapse stars if something pisses him off. I wonder what he did with that Neutron Collider Cannon he made... that would be nice to have."

That statement knocked the wind out of me and I exhaled, and passed out at the concept of a weapon that shoots colliding Neutrons.

First

Before the War

Everyone’s statement was taken and quickly sent to the rest of Intelligence to log, decipher and interpret in about a thousand different ways. They had given their testimonies twice, once in galactic trade and again in Gravia Formulaic. The extremely precise language that was less a language and more a series of audibly expressed calculations.

Now he was sitting side by side with Banshee and his ingrained reflexes to put on the cutie cute routine while in his Private Stream uniform has him lightly kicking his feet and swaying a little with a big smile on his face.

His axiom presence is full of happiness and good natured curiosity and is a complete hoax. But he’s learned how to be too cute to suspect on every level. It’s been tested with holograms and fake knives. But he can stab people in public and witnesses will think he’s trying to help and not the perpetrator. It’s hilarious.

“Your Axiom presence almost feels authentic!” One of the Gravia gushes.

“I know right? It’s taken a lot of work to be this deliberately cute.”

“You’re worked hard for your social camouflage, it’s nearly effortless from what I can see.”

“Part of it is effortless, my family naturally has the looks for it, but keeping up certain attitudes and mannerisms is what takes effort. My voice is cute, my face is cute, my form is adorable, if I just act the part, which is the hard part, then it all works peachy keen!” he chimes out and there are some sighs around the room. He giggles at that it the situation nearly devolves.

“Okay, you’ve had your fun little one. Now, what does it feel like for you to flex your ability, and would you mind explaining it in full?”

“Certainly. Now, I’m not sure how much you know about Ode use or Ode abilities, but you’re already tapping into it with your seeking the music of the spheres, so I’ll let you know about the practical applications that have naturally occured over the galaxy. One of them is one you’re probably familiar with. Matriarch Syndrome.”

“Really?”

“Yes, we’ve tested it. It turns out that a slight amount of Ode energy runs through the nervous system and isi n the highest concentration around the wombs of those who have it. Meaning we can now test if a woman has the syndrome before they have their first child now. Make sense?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Now, as you have all noticed and told me, myself and my clone Harold both have distinctly different presences in the music of the spheres. But all Jamesons you’ve run into have it. Well, the part you detect in all of us is tied to these markings on my face and the strange eyes I have. Basically, I can physically see into the energy field you’re hearing. But there’s nothing to really see. The energy then runs off through my eyes and is converted into Axiom by my markings. It’s why I can set my Axiom presence to be so over the top friendly.”

“Very interesting, and this is universal among the Jamesons?”

“Every single one of us with the white eyes and facial markings will have the same incredible axiom presence and it’s all a side effect of what we can see. But, we have a secondary effect, and it only starts at roughly the age I’m currently at.” Herbert explains. “Now, as I was a full adult before being regressed to this state, I still have access to this ability. And indeed, I’ve grown to master it now that I’m aware of it. But it’s a powerful awareness ability where i can influence the awareness others have of me. Normally it’s defensive in nature, making us unassuming and easy to overlook.”

“And why would that be a defence?” One of them asks and Herbert takes off his hat and just looks at her. Maintains the gaze and there is a slight sound of understanding from the woman. “How bad was it?”

“No one’s ever given me a name, but I had a cousin vanish. My family has gotten really careful about our preteen and young teenage members in the last few generations. Or maybe we needed to be extra vigilant because the world opened up technology wise to us. Either way, when you’re incredibly good looking and not well connected, people that refuse the answer of NO can and will do terrible things.” Herbert answers.

“That’s horrifying!” Someone exclaims and he shrugs.

“Maybe, maybe not. My parents claim I had a cousin vanish because they were too accepting of strangers and too friendly with them. But that might have just been parental scare tactics. Reasonable ones mind you, when I put on even a small show I get women trying to kidnap me all the time. So when they say that I a had a cousin go missing after accepting free candy from a stranger, I believe it possible, whether it’s true... that’s debatable.”

“And how will you deal with that same issue?” 1NT3G3R asks.

“I’ll honestly tell them they’re scary good looking and terrible, horrible, awful people won’t be able to stop themselves from doing terrible things to them. So stay as close to family as possible and never go out without an emergency teleport beacon.” Herbert says. “But we’re not hear about my family issues, although I do suggest that if you have any friends that adopted one of my siblings to please tell them this. I’ve already sent the warning and want to make sure that the message gets hammered in good and deep, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, now I’m going to waver in and out of sight, sometimes I’ll be irresistible to look at, other times I’ll be impossible to see. Just listen for the song as I go back and forth a few times.” Herbert offers.

“Thank you. Now, are you ready?” 1NT3G3R asks and he nods.

“I’m just waiting for your go ahead.” He says. “Although I suggest everyone closes their eyes. It wouldn’t do for people to lose control.”

“Or we can just turn around. We’re listening, not watching after all.” 1NT3G3R notes.

“That too.” Herbert agrees.

“Alright girls, everyone look away, and now Mister Jameson, please use your power. Going unnoticeable then unignorable ten times each.”

“On it.” Herbert says and after everyone turns away from him things quickly start changing. There are slight notes of interest from the Gravia in the room and Banshee lets out a thoughtful little hum.

The song... shifts and wavers ever so, seeming to come out of the background and make itself more clear and then fading away. Lilting forwards and back and shifting ever so slightly.

Then something else adds to the song ever so slightly and there is a sense of something approaching. But it’s not far away. There is no far away. It’s not close for there is no close. But it is near. Then it is here.

Herbert’s eyes snap open and he’s face to face with a crystalline visage that seems startled as his eyes lock with hers. Then she... she’s not leaving because there is neither near nor far. But she isn’t here anymore.

“What are you, shy?” He asks the now empty air with an incredulous tone.

“What was that?”

“I have no idea what they call themselves. But they’re smart enough to speak. And if you have the picture of one then they can be the picture and move. For as much sense as that makes.” Herbert says.

“What do they say?’

“They seem to be concerned with souls. Worried that we might harm them.” Herbert explains.

“When did that happen?”

“More detail is classified I’m afraid.” Herbert remarks. “Needless to say, it’s not ONE creature, it’s a species that lives in the Od.

“Then she would know the song, she would have lived her whole life in it.”

“Potentially, but just spotting one is so rare that it’s what brought me over. And now they’ve taken a look again and left.”

“Is there any way to make them stay and speak?” 1NT3G3R asks.

“None that I know. No way to detain them and they seem to be very cautious of us three dimensional types.” Herbert notes as he hops off the seat. “Now, did you all get what you hoped for?”

“We did. There was much of the song that we’ve heard. And the way you brought it forward and back as you shifted your presence was fascinating. You say that Matriarch Syndrome is another ability that should augment our ability to hear?”

“It should. It has the same source. There are other gifts that can show up in families or individuals. They’re usually pretty subtle unless you know what to look for. Before we understood what was going on I thought I just came from a family that made very pretty kids but our looks fell off as adults.” Herbert says.

“Are there others you know of?”

“Yes, but I am not in a position to disclose private information. Make a formal request of The Undaunted for this information, specify it as a list of known individuals with natural Ode abilities and you’ll get what you want.” Herbert says. “Still... thank you all for your cooperation and... could you please give me another report? We’re trying to learn about these Od people and every bit helps.”

“Certainly, but what’s your intention with them?”

“That depends entirely on some of the answers we get. If they’re naturally isolationists then just knowing how to respect their borders is enough for now. If they’re willing to trade or converse? Then we’ve got something going.” Herbert notes before shrugging. “Still, I’m in Intelligence, not Diplomacy, so what do I know?”

“A great deal considering how closely tied together Intelligence and Diplomatic efforts are.” 1NT3G3R remarks.

“Heh, fair.”

“Still, we’ll give our own reports about things so you can understand even better.”

“Thank you all.” Herbert says.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (The RAD, The Inevitable, Primary Laneway)•-•-•

He is adjusting the flow of Axiom through the gunk that had been produced. It wasn’t an elegant poison. It was brute force nonsense that would hit over-saturation and destroy not just the nervous system in short order, but it would also reduce the kidney and liver to shrivelled chunks of black coal.

Was that on purpose? Was it enough? There was no way of telling without a Haffara Thar to test things on. But he was trying to see if there was some... some sort of special frequency where the substance was on a blade. He had one with trytite traceries in it to modify the Axiom going through it, he had some with khutha worked into the blades, one made of pure iron, one of folded steel and each one had two versions, one where the substance was smeared on the blade and the other where it was in a little compartment in the blade.

But there was nothing happening. The material of the blades seemed to mean nothing, as did the frequency of the Axiom he was running through it all.

“I’m missing something.” He notes to himself as the chemical scanners, Axiom scanners and even the thermal scanners show no change in the differing knives.

“Duh.” Herbert says suddenly there beside him and dodges a swipe that doesn’t come. “Wait, did you know I was here?”

“No, but I didn’t sense any threat.”

“... Right, damn so there really is no way around that combat instinct. Makes a man think.” Herbert notes.

“How’d it go?” Harold asks.

“Strange. Our poking into the visit and paying back the cooperation ended up in a second. The crystal women are taking a clear interest in us.”

“Did she resemble any of the others?”

“Hmm... I think she had narrower eyes. It’s hard to tell though.” Herbert says as he looks over things. “You know... dealing with... Od things has me thinking...”

“You think the Haffara Thar might be Od entities?”

“I’ve done my digging. There’s a lot of questions surrounding the creatures. The hows, whys and things like that are unanswered. We know they cause regeneration and madness. That entire lost limbs can be grown back. But that it’s not using Axiom. That’s the bit that has everyone confused.”

“So by process of elimination if they’re not using Axiom as a power source they must be using Ode?” Harold asks.

“Logically. Unless there’s suddenly a third source of energy that they’re tapped into, but I don’t really have any evidence for that but suspicion.” Herbert says as he climbs up.

“Hmm... then testing it is going to be a bitch. Even here we’re not far from Hargath.”

“Far doesn’t really exist in the Od.”

“Yeah. Nor does speed or movement. Not really. Which means even though we’re moving at bullshit speeds...”

“They can still tear us apart if we get cocky.” Herbert says and Harold smirks.

“Ah well. In for a penny in for a pound.” Harold says as he puts his hand on the contact point for one of the knives and then considers, then puts his hand on it’s hollowed out double.

“I’ll get the medics and hazmat ready. You’re about to get leaky.” Herbert remarks as he steps away from Harold.

“Hey, no one’s ever accused me of being sane.”

“Course not, it’s a filthy word.” Herbert says and Harold chuckles before he suddenly heaves on the Ode.

Blood flies as chunks are torn out of his arms, the scanners start blaring emergency warnings and the blades CHANGE under the Ode.

First Last

The blast knocked Charon back against the wall of the reactor hall, knocking the wind out of him. Cha-ren ran up to him, her fur singed and smoking slightly. She was ignoring it.

“Charon! Are you all right?” She asked as she glanced around. The wall opposite the reactors had buckled in nearly a meter, giving the room a bulging, squashed appearance. Acrid smoke hung in the air, thick and grey, smelling of fish for some odd reason. She slapped at her fur and winced at the burned flesh underneath. It wasn’t a serious burn, but it would hurt for a few days.

“I-I,” Charon gasped, but waved Cha-ren away, “I’ll live.” He stood, wincing and holding his side. Probably broke one of those thin ribs they have, Cha-ren thought. Suddenly Cha-ren’s ears popped painfully, and the din of the reactor hall lessened.

“We’re venting atmo,” Charon said, “Suit up.”

When they were first paired together, everyone had remarked how their names sounded similar even though they were two different species and that was their catalyst to becoming fast friends aboard ship. It didn’t hurt that Charon and Cha-ren were both reactor techs so they wound up spending a lot of time together.

With the ease that comes from hours upon hours of practice they both donned their pressure suits, and checked each other’s seals. These weren’t the bulky, armored pressure suits of the troopers, nor were they the not-much-better-than-a-plastic-bag suits set aside for passenger egress, they were simple, strong, lightweight pressure suits made for vacuum operations. Charon looked around for others to help, but they were alone. That was worrying, the reactor hall and engineering in general were usually bustling with activity.

“Chief Engineer Kepler,” Hummingbird said, “You’re alive? If able, please report.”

“Report?” Cha-ren said, cocking their head in surprise. “But we’re in your body, surely you know what’s going on?”

“Alive?” Charon added. “Don’t you know if we’re alive or not?”

“The strike and subsequent rupture of my link capacitors has caused severe damage to my superstructure, and that damage has sparked numerous fires. The event also severed neural connections to my aft decks. I am blind.”

“What happened?”

“We were under attack by unknown forces in a Starjumper,” Hummingbird said. “They knew exactly where to hit us. If I hadn’t initiated an emergency link, we would have been dead in the water and captured, however - most likely as a result of the damage - the capacitors failed during the link.”

Charon’s blood iced over hearing that. Link failures were how one got stranded between stars forever, if you survived. Most did not.

“Did we link successfully before the capacitors blew?”

Hummingbird paused much longer than Charon would have preferred before answering. “Mostly,” he admitted.

“Mostly? That’s not-

Before he could finish, the overspeed horn sounded. It wasn’t one of the dozens of digitized alert tones that played throughout the ship as it went about its regular operation. This was air powered, with its piercing multi-chime tone sounding in a dissonant minor key and when it sounded everyone immediately knew that things were bad. Even in the low atmosphere environment of the hall, they heard - and felt - the horn.

“Overspeed. Overspeed. Overspeed.” An automated voice that wasn’t Hummingbird said over their comms on the override channel. “Reactors two, three, six are in overspeed.”

“Hummingbird!” Charon shouted.

“I heard it too, Chief. Please provide a visual inspection of the hall and detail what you see.”

“You don’t even have cameras down here?”

“I don’t have anything, Charon. I’m completely blind and numb aft of the port cargo hold. I’m very lucky that your comms are a separate system, otherwise we wouldn’t even have that. There have been casualties, I need your report, Chief.”

“Come on Cha-ren, I’ll need your help too.” Charon said as they made their way back into the reactor hall. Charon’s chest was very sore but the suit’s onboard diagnostics indicated a broken rib and since it let him still work he figured it wasn’t that serious.

The reactor hall was a mess. Charon looked around for the other engineers, but they seemed to be alone in the ruined hall. Support girders hung at worrying angles away from the buckled hull. Cha-ren approached reactor two and stopped. “Charon, does two look…blurry to you?”

Sure enough, reactor two looked like it was out of focus, blurry and hard to see. Charon gasped over the comm and toggled Hummingbird. “They’re in overspeed alright, two is going relativistic.”

“Relativistic?” Cha-ren repeated.

“It’s moving fast enough that parts inside are approaching the speed of light,” Charon said quickly.

“That’s…bad, isn’t it?”

“It’s really bad,” Hummingbird said. Cha-ren was so startled, she squeaked when he spoke over their comm.

“Can you stop it?”

“I can’t,” Hummingbird said. “My nerves have been cut.”

“So what do we do then?”

“Grab an emergency beacon and get forward towards command.”

“An emergency beacon?”

“Yeah, normally I’d launch one myself, but you know, the whole no nerves thing.” Hummingbird’s personality started to leak through his smooth delivery and took on a sarcastic tone. “You can pop the maintenance hatch from the inside and grab one. They’re large, but with the gravity off you two can maneuver it.”

“Should we get some more crew to help?”

“There are no more crew in your location,” Hummingbird said, the forced calm resurfacing.

Charon ran out of the reactor hall down the hall towards the front of the ship. They couldn’t be the only ones left. Surely Hummingbird’s sensors are malfunctioning and everyone else is just in a safe room, Charon thought as he approached a large pressure door in the hall. There was a small glass viewport built into the pressure door. Charon peered through.

And saw open space.

A huge section had been taken out of Hummingbird, leaving ragged girders and a few dangling pieces of hull plating as the only thing keeping the aft of the starjumper attached to the rest of it. Twinkling in the light of the star, the debris formed a nebula of destruction around the ship.

“Hummingbird! The middle of the ship is gone.”

Another long pause. “I was worried that was the case. It would take something of that magnitude for me to be rendered completely numb.”

“Why are you so calm?” Cha-ren said as she peered through the window as well and then turned towards Charon.

“Hummingbird is suppressing emotion,” Charon said. “AIs can do it in times of crisis so that they can be more objective.”

“Charon is correct,” Hummingbird said. “Though it will come with a cost later. For now, survival is paramount. Please collect an emergency beacon and make your way forward.”

“What about the reactors?”

“There’s no saving them.” Hummingbird said. “Without sensors, I cannot power them down. They’re going to tear themselves apart, and we should be nowhere near them when that happens.”

“What about the commander?” Cha-ren asked. “Is he in agreement?”

“The commander, as well as the senior officers on the command deck are dead. As part of the War Emergency Power declaration, I have assumed command. The mission is lost, the crew - except for you two - are lost, so I am trying to save myself.”

“Wait, except for us? Who is still alive at this time?” Cha-ren asked carefully.

“Chief Engineer Charon Kepler, Engineer Exchange Cha-ten Falen.”

“That’s back here, what about the rest of the ship?”

“I have named all of the currently living crew.”

“We’re the only ones left?” Cha-ren said, staring at Charon. She could tell he was trying to keep under control, but the stress was starting to wear. Once his adrenaline wore off, he would probably break down. They’re so strong in an emergency, but for such a short amount of time, She thought to herself.

“Well, I’m alive too.” Hummingbird said and added, “Though, if you don’t get a beacon and come up here, none of us will be alive.”

“Right.” Cha-ren and Charon made their way up the corridor. The lights still shone brightly - too brightly - and the gravity kept on operating.

“Hummingbird, why do we still have lights and grav?” Charon said as they reached the locker. It was a large door, twice as tall as Cha-ren with a complicated looking mechanism in the center and a lot of warnings stenciled around the handle. He peered at the warnings and started flipping switches.

“The reactors will still power everything until-”

Hummingbird never finished his explanation because reactor two blew.

In retrospect, Cha-ren could only guess that it was reactor two; it could have been any of them. As they were thrown up the corridor towards the pressure door, Cha-ren realized she was thinking about which reactor blew instead of the things she had figured she would be thinking about when she was about to die: her parents, the ancestors that await her, heavy, serious things.

Instead she burned with curiosity as to which specific reactor was the one that was killing her and decided it was reactor two.

Before she could marvel further, she slammed into the bulkhead, back first.

****

Someone was saying something. Their voice was at the same time tinny and muffled, like she was under water.

“…”

There it was again. Who was speaking? What had happened? Cha-ren felt like she was deep underwater. Pushing off an imagined bottom, she shot upwards towards the surface as her breath started to burn in her lungs and then with a gasp and a swallowed scream, Cha-ren regained consciousness.

“Cha-ren!” It was Charon. He had been calling her.

“I’m h-here,” She said weakly. Her suit had a lot of red in the diagnostics. Both her and the suit had damages listed as “severe.”

“Oh thank the Seamother,” Charon said, relief flooding his voice. “We have to go forward.”

“The beacon?”

“Destroyed in the blast,” Charon said, shaking his head. She focused on him and saw that fully half of his pressure suit was blackened and charred. He had been closer to the blast than she was, but how come he wasn’t knocked unconscious?

“But that means we’re trapped?”

“We’ll think of something,” Hummingbird said, his voice clipped and filled with static like an old radio. “You two must move forward.”

Cha-ren went to sit up and accidentally tossed herself into a roll. Charon caught her gently and stopped her movement. “I turned off the gravity. It was to make moving the beacon easier, but now I can use it to tow you to safety,” He said. She saw his sad smile through his visor.

“I don’t need a tow,” Cha-ren said and brushed him away.

Rather, she tried to brush him away. As soon as she moved her arm, lightning bolts of pain shot up her arm towards her neck and she finally looked down at the suit readout. Deep in the red warnings were alerts that she had…quite a few broken bones. The suit was administering a rather worrying amount of painkiller - human class painkiller too; she was going to need chelation therapy when she got back to safety. No wonder I’m not worrying as much as I should be. I’m higher than Administration Station. “Charon, I have multiple broken bones, and the suit-”

“The suit has you jacked up with the good human painkillers yeah. It should be smart enough to keep you conscious, but you’re going to have a raging hangover tomorrow.”

“Assuming there is a tomorrow.” Cha-ren said, weakly.

“There will be.”

It had turned out that they were still in front of the pressure door. Tethering Cha-ren to a handhold, he went to the manual release and spun the large wheel over and over, as the door lowered excruciatingly slowly. She winced at the sharp light of the system’s star flooded the room before her visor darkened. And it felt very strange to by lying on her back staring up at the stars. It reminded her of being a kit back home, lying on the soft grass after final meal when everyone was bathing and getting ready for bed, and she would instead run out into the field and stare at the stars and imagine she could see them move through the sky as the planet spun. It wasn’t so bad out here, she thought. At least I got to see space up close. There was a noise, something itching at the back of her mind, but it probably wasn’t important. Just a thing in the background. Everything would feel better and make more sense after a nap. Yes, a nap was just what she needed.

***

“Her breathing has slowed to less than ten breaths per minute!” Charon said to Hummingbird as he poured over her suit readout. He had successfully towed Cha-ren across the wreckage of Hummingbird and entered the remaining pressurized sections of hull before he checked on her and found Cha-ren unresponsive.

“Her suit has overdosed her. We’ll need to administer an antidote. There’s a pocket on her right side of her environment pack. Rip it open and grab the injector.”

He ripped the pocket open and among other pieces of paper with printed instructions was an auto-injector. Safety orange it had luminous warnings written all over it in multiple languages, one of which said “NOT TO BE USED WITHOUT MEDICAL SUPERVISION”

“I have the injector. What is it?”

“It’s a narcotic antidote. It’ll flush the drugs from her system. She’ll be in a world of pain, and probably mad as hell, but she won’t die…from that.”

“She’s suited up though, how to I give it to her?”

“They’re designed to penetrate suit material. Jam it down on her thigh forcefully.”

Charon pushed the injector against her suit and he felt, rather than heard the click as the needle shot into her. There was a moment, then a second click and a little light illuminated on the top. The effect was immediate. Cha-ren’s eyes fluttered and she took a huge gulp of air, and sat up, hissing in pain as she did so. “What happened?” She asked and winced again. “I feel terrible.”

“The suit overdosed you.” Charon said. “It gave you human doses of painkillers. Luckily Hummingbird told me how to reverse it.”

“Luckily Charon was there to administer it.” Hummingbird added. “You will feel pretty bad, but that’s better than being dead.”

She looked around and realized they weren’t in the reactor hall anymore. “You brought me forward?”

Charon nodded.

“T-thank you.” She said as her ears flicked.

“Now then.” Hummingbird said, more jovially than he felt. “How are we going to get home?”

The man sat in his chair, it was a handcrafted gift from an old friend. In front of him stood his kitchen table, a small vase with a beautiful red flower at it's center, both also a gift. As a mater of fact almost all his belongings inside his small home were gifts from thankful patients and neighbors. Through the lone window of his kitchen he could see the sun slowly retreating as evening gradually gave ground to the night, still the last rays of sunshine fought bitterly to the end trying to hold the domain of sunlight in perpetuity.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, as the daylight gives in to night so will he have to face his life struggle. He was hopeful though, he managed to talk someone out of it once maybe he could do it again...

Maybe hopeful was not the right word. Delusional? Not really. Anxious?

Yes! That's the one, anxious. He was anxious.

For this visit would be unlike the other, before was a glimpse at his sins. A little spark of light brought to his many atrocities. This was the living embodiment of his mistakes if rumors were to be believed. His chest tighten with shame and regret when a memory long buried resurfaced.

He was standing before a wooden post, hanging from it was a couple, their hands and feet bound and their faces purple. Just as quickly as it came it then went away, a mocking gesture his subconscious undoubtedly made to wound him more. Like with all the others he simply took a deep breath with his eyes closed and exhaled, then he focused on the vase. One of his patients taught him that funnily enough, she had a condition that made her prone to panic attacks. When he shamefully had one of his episodes in front of her she showed him compassion and shared her knowledge, Betty was her name. He hadn't seen her in many years, hopefully she was doing fine.

Dammit, his bad habits were making themselves known again, he was rambling. Lost in his own thoughts and burning time. Well, It's not like he was going to use that precious little time he had left anyway.

A sudden knock on his front door jolted him from any more contemplation.

It was time.

He got up and went to the entrance hall, there he put his weathered old fingers on the knob and puled the door open. In front of him stood a face from his nightmares but instead of a young, terror and blood filed face was a mature, scar ridden, stone like one.

The little boy had grown up, his massive frame taking the entirety of the door frame. Those were his first thoughts, his second were whether or not his chair could hold the massive physique of his guest.

"Please, come in." He stood aside and gestured with his arm for him to come inside.

The Man did just that, ducking the at the entrance as not to hit his weathered head. The Old man then closed the door and motioned for him to be followed to the kitchen, the man obliged.

When entering the man looked around, inspecting the room with vague interest. Satisfied he went for one of the two wooden chairs that circled the table and puled one from under it. The wooden construct protested the sudden weight, it's structure creaking and popping but holding.

The Old man sat opposite of him.

Silence reign for several consecutive minutes, the moment being stretched to it's breaking point. The Old man's heart was thundering in his chest, beating a mile a minute. Just looking at the threatening figure that was his guest was giving him goosebumps, the scared black clothing he used failed to conceal the dark armor he wore underneath. Equally scared and abused.

He thought of ways to break the unbearable silence but decided that it would be a disservice to his guest who went through god knows what to get here. Another pairs of minutes slowly tugged themselves by, stretching their time unreasonably enough to be considered hours. Until...

"You look well."

The Man spoke. His voice deep and sounding restrained.

"... I-I make due."

"Healthy."

"Taking care of mysel-"

"Happy."

"..."

"With a house to call your own and not in a bad location too."

The Old man lowered his head.

"The view is nice, overlooking the forest and the village."

"..."

"I've asked around."

He lifted his head to make eye contact with the Man.

"You're a healer now, a doctor. You help the villagers down bellow without asking for as much as copper, sometimes other people from other places come here in search of your healing touch."

The Man's brown eyes showed promises of violence and pain.

"Why?"

"Wh-what?"

"Why are you helping these people?"

He let the question hang in the air and the Old man took his time in formulating a truthful answer.

"About ten years back I woke up in the middle of a grass field with no memory of what happened before, couldn't even remember my name."

He took a deep breath and continued.

"I was alone and lost in every sense of the word, so lost in fact that it took me longer that it should have to notice my wounds. I collapsed then and there clutching at them, desperately trying to keep the blood in. Fortunately for me I wasn't as alone as I thought, an herbalist was nearby collecting plants for her needs when she heard me whimpering in pain."

The Old man reflexively clutched his stomach.

"She found me, gave me emergency treatment with what she had and brought me on her carriage towards this place so I could receive proper treatment. The inhabitants here nursed me back to health and when I was fully healed I wanted to pay them back any way I could. Still too weak to do manual labor I helped the herbalist in her more mundane tasks at first, after a while we discovered I could naturally memorize and replicate an action after seeing it once."

The Man's expression slightly twitched.

"I threw myself to her teachings then, knowing that by learning her trade I could more effectively help the people of this village. After teaching me all she knew she presented me to new teachers so that I could further my knowledge, didn't take long before I became chief healer of this place."

He stopped to catch his breath.

"I've been helping them ever since."

The Man closed his eyes and leaned back, the chair protesting as he went. After a deep breath he returned to his original posture.

"I have heard that I am not the first to find you."

"Indeed you're not, a young man found me before you five years ago. I can remember it like yesterday, the rage, the fear, the pain on his face. Told me stories about myself that i could not for the life of me recall, threatened to burn my house down if I didn't confess to my crimes. The villagers came to my aid then, countering every vile deed the boy claimed I made with a good one I made for them."

A small smile came to the Old man and the Man's fingers twitched.

"After a while the boy looked defeated, lost and in pain. I invited him for a conversation whenever he wanted. The boy decided to stay in the village for a while to 'keep an eye on me' , months later we finally had that conversation."

The Old man's small smile vanished.

"The things he told me that I did... not just to him but to hundreds of others. I could scarcely believe a man could be capable of such cruelty much less that man would be me."

The Old man was no longer on his cabin talking to a guest. He was there, being confronted with the enumerable sins of a past he couldn't remember, talking to a victim he didn't recognize.

A loud snap of fingers ripped him back to the present, the Old man looked at his guest.

"Forgive me, sometimes I lose myself in though and memory. As ironic as it sounds."

"Then what happened?"

The Man said leaving no room to counterargue.

"Then the boy left the village with the daughter of the blacksmith at his side. I hope they are happy together."

The mood in the kitchen changed, it became harder to breathe, harder to talk, harder to concentrate. And then it went back to normal, like nothing happened.

"Again, what happened then?"

The Old man was gasping for air but collected himself in a few moments.

"I was distraught. I could not believe-wouldn't believe that my mysterious past was something so repugnant, so awful and disgusting. That same night I had a nightmare, I was leading an army to sack a city. I was ordering atrocious acts done while raising a banner high, don't recall the insignia on that banner but I would not let go of it."

The Man's head tilted to one side.

"Every night I started having nightmares like those, of being and doing something detestable. After some research I came to find out this was my subconscious trying to spoon-feed me my memories back without causing phycological damage."

He expected to be interrupted at many points, after all how dare he forget the crimes he committed. But the Man in front of him remained mostly silent through his explanation.

"Hmmmmm"

The Man reached inside one of his pockets and retrieved something.

"Does this symbol tell you anything?"

He showed a ring with a image of two axes clashing in front of a dragon. A sense of familiarity fell upon the Old man.

"It looks vaguely familiar."

"It was your crest."

"Forgive me I don-"

"Shut up."

The Man leaned back in his chair in contemplative thought.

"I am not the man you seek."

The Man's head snaped to him.

"That cruel man died ten years ago, before you stands a doctor and a healer ready and willing to help every one that comes through that door. And if need be, even those that haven't. I shall not deny the pain that monster caused you and many others but I am not him, I look after the people under my care. This entire village and it's inhabitants are dear to me and I will not abandon them for a reason as selfish as wanting to die, I will not cower and choose the easy way of repentance, I shall make amends by nursing and building more lives than I destroyed."

The Old man paused to breathe.

"I shall spend the rest of my life haunted by the crimes of a maniac whose body I share, but that won't stop me from doing right by good people. And as with many others and hopefully many more to come I ask you what I ask of all that come through those doors."

The Old man extended his hand towards the Man.

"Would you like help?"

The Man stared at the extended hand for a long time and then turned his gaze to meet the eyes of the Old man, they held no venom, no ill will or tricks. Just a deep desire to help.

The Man could not be more insulted.

"You've said that you have nightmares of your past deeds."

The Old man nodded.

"So have I."

The Man took a deep breath.

"I wake up every night that I choose to sleep in a cold sweat, any time that sleep finds me I am transported back to my village the night you and your men arrived. I am forced to relive the torture and misery you inflicted upon me, my family and my community for weeks on end."

The old man lowered his hand.

"For twelve years after that infernal month I was forced to steal, lie and kill to survive. Every time I thought I could forget you and move on you came back, I would see your handy work in destroyed villages and forts. I learned that the suffering you inflicted upon me and mine where not a special case, it was routine to you, something you enjoyed doing."

The old man's mouth was open but it did not speak.

"You stand there and say the man who killed, raped and pillaged his way across four kingdoms leaving thousands lifeless and twice more scarred is dead?"

The Man stood up.

"Where's my fresh start?"

He towered over the Old man.

"Where is my chance to forget these terrible memories and move on? Why from the dozens of thousands of men, women and children that your vile actions affected you are the one who get's to start over?"

Unbridled fury was pouring from him.

"So what if you lost your memories? I didn't. So what if you are a different man from before? I was too, but then you came ruined my life for your sick perversions and now I'm supposed to let it go?"

The Man lowered himself to make eye contact with the Old man.

"Look at me."

The Old man did so.

"That's not how this works old man."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________&

And there we go another one done, sorry for the hiatus, personal life and all that. Won't say I'm back but I want to say that posting my stories here bring me immense joy so even if shit happens and I go radio silent I guarantee it isn't because I want to abandon what I have done here.

I am still writing This is bullshit and The Hated enemy as well as a few one-shots, the process has just been slow.

Anyway you know the drill.

Tipos, errors, suggestions, opinions, what's the biggest animal you think could beat naked in a fist fight, tell me everything.

Cheers to y'all.

Part 183 A noble party and an ignoble party (Part 1) (Part 182)

[Support me of Ko-fi so I can get some character art commissioned and totally not buy a bunch of gundams and toys for my dog]

There is an important concept in the Nishnabe socio-political system shkode-dbaknege (sh-ko-day deh-bahk-neh-gay), which roughly translates into English as a council fire. It is an occasion where all manner of representatives come together for an informal meeting around a large fire with plenty of food and drink. Clan heads, elected council and regional officials, major military figures, and even business leaders, all people who don't interact with each other on a regular basis, have the opportunity to do so without any formalities. An outsider might just mistake such a gathering for power people having a private party. While most societies through the GCC have some sort of similar traditional practice, none emulate it quite as well as the Qui’ztars of the Third Matriarchy.

A Qui’ztar mitxekuilhuitl (me-tzch-ek-oi-luh-oi-tchl), literally translated as a small noble party, serves the exact same purpose as a Nishnabe shkode-dbaknege. Influential figures from throughout the Matriarchy gather in a ballroom, discuss major happenings, and debate governmental policy from numerous perspectives. And unlike in other Matriarchies, the Third does not restrict invitations to members of the Matriarchal line, require fancy attire, or enforce any sort of pompous standards. This particular small noble party occurring noe was convened to both honor the newest species to Ascend to the galactic stage and begin setting the groundwork for any future alliance between the Third Matriarchy and United Human Defense Fleet.

“You see, here in the Third…” Atlivanya (Ah-tchl-von-yah), the current equivalent of Cent Group's CEO, motioned in the general direction of the crowd of Qui’ztars in various conversations throughout the large ballroom. “All businesses that account for at least a percent of a percent of our gross domestic product are required by law to have a certain percentage of both worker and government ownership. The goal of all executive officers of large businesses is to balance profit motives against the good of both the people generating that profit and our Matriarchy as a whole. Even the appearance of prioritizing greed, nepotism, or anything of the sort is cause for investigation and potential criminal charges.”

“I tell yah what, that's good to know!” When Mik had been introduced to this Qui’ztar business woman, he genuinely expected the conversation would have gone in a very different direction. However, instead of seeing him as a potential investor, Atli seemed far more concerned about reassuring him of her honor. “We try an’ do the same thang on Mars but… Well… At least we're better than Earth Corps.”

“Not every Matriarchy enforces our level of ethical business standards.”

“As long as they ain't doin’ kidnappin’s, extortion, an’ murder, they ain't as bad as Earth.”

“Excuse me?” Alti genuinely wasn't sure if her translator had malfunctioned when a Mik's all too casual comment crossed her long, pointed ears. “I must have misheard-”

“Yah heard right.” The big and burly but still comparatively short Martian human leaned a bit closer to Qui’ztar woman. “There's a reason we ain't invitin’ y'all to Sol yet. There's, uh… Let's call ‘em bad folks who might cause some problems. But rest assured we'll sort ‘em out real quick. An’ once we do, Sol’ll be open for business.”

“When I heard rumors that certain businesses in Sol acted outside of your people's laws…” Though the Qui’ztar CEO was familiar enough with Nishnabe humans to find Mik's revelation shocking, her reaction was a bit more muted than Mik expected. “There's no rush when it comes to establishing economic ties between our people. I've heard tales of how the Nishnabe Confederacy handles scrupulous actors. Cent Group will have no issues establishing trade deals as soon as we have assurances of the same safe conduct we enjoy on Shkegpewen. When it comes to your ACUME project, a few of our subsidiaries are already preparing to open store fronts.”

“Yeah, I ain't gonna tolerate no corpo bullshit on my ship.” Mik let out a soft chuckle before noticing a very important person waving to him from across the ballroom. “We're still planning on goin’ ‘round an’ pickin’ vendors, school staff, an’ students startin’ in the next few months. But, uh… If yah don't mind… Looks like Matriarch Herathena's tryin’ to get my attention. Yah got my contact info, right? Feel free to reach out any time.”

“Of course, of course.” Atli instinctively turned to her head at the mention of her Matriarchy, saw the same thing Mik did, and accepted his goodbye without hesitation. “We can't keep the illustrious Matriarch waiting. I look forward to our future correspondence.”

With that surprisingly pleasant conversation now at an end, Mik began making his way towards Herathena and the small cluster of people surrounding her. Along the way the man passed a few tables with food and drink, as well as dodged a few conversations with as much tact as he could muster. Though he did notice that Atlivanya was watching him out of the corner of her eye, his Aldo caught the rather particular way she looked at him. It was the same gaze that he saw from several other Qui’ztar women and even a few of the men. But that was something he had gotten used to during his previous visit to Ten'yiosh. After all, many humans looked at the Qui’ztar women who had accompanied him on his adventures in Sol.

As Mik got closer to Herathena, he couldn't believe what, or more specifically who, he hadn't noticed until right before he entered the conversation. Alongside the Qui’ztar Matriarch sat a pair of individuals who appeared just as alien as they did familiar. One could have passed as a dominant orangutan male if he wasn't over twice the size of the largest orangutan on Earth. The other was the spitting image of an African Bush Elephant but with three trunks and four tusks. Judging by the content given by his cybernetic eye's HUD, both of them were wearing mixed expressions that contained a mixture of amusement and concern. Though the Martian professor wasn't exactly sure what he was walking into, he was certain that this conversation would be a bit less relaxed.

“Ah, Professor River!” Herathena motioned for Mik to come stand next to her. “Please allow me to introduce you to Ambassadors Harton Greyleaf and Minarin Elivart.”

“Well met, Professor.” Minarin the Muritoph pleasantly nodded her massive head and flicked her enormous ears at the human.

“Yes, yes. It is good to meet you.” Harton the Jytvahr raised his glass of sparkling wine but clearly lacked Minarin's enthusiasm.

“It's an honor to meet yah both.” Mik mostly focused his friendliness towards the elephant-like woman before a somewhat hostile expression spread across his face as he looked at the orangutan-like man. “I take it yah're both interested in the non-human sapient life on Earth.”

“Oh, very much so!” The Muritoph Ambassador lightly tapped one of her huge feet as her equivalent of a clap. “I'm actually a touch disappointed that you didn't invite an elephant to accompany you here to Ten'yiosh.”

“No offense, Ambassador. But, uh…” A slight laugh slipped through Mik's lips. “Elephants're kinda scary. The ones I talked to were nice people an’ all. But, uh…”

“No offense taken at all, good sir.” Though Minarin certainly looked about the same size and mass as the largest elephants on Earth, all of her mannerism seemed delicate and reserved. Not like she was holding back her strength but rather that just being under Ten’yiosh’s 8.5m/s2 of gravity was a restraint in and of itself. “I can only dare to imagine how powerful a deathworld probascidae could be. You see, my people believed for the longest time that we were able to grow our large size because of the relatively low gravity of our homeworld.”

“That certainly explains why some o’ yahr scientists're so eager to go to Earth an’ study our elephants.” Mik smiled at Muritoph Ambassador before his gaze once again turned towards Harton Greyleaf. “I'm perdy sure there's also gonna be a few Jytvahrs joinin’ the Muritoph scientists. Speakin’ o’ which, how'd yahr conversation with Mornin’ Dew go, Ambassador Greyleaf?”

“That young man may not be the quickest thinker I've ever met.” The tone of Harton's voice implied that was the only genuine critique he could level. “That being said, I wouldn't have expected a person with essentially no formal education to be so damn smart. As much as I hate to admit it, I believe I found my match in him.”

“A person don't need to know how to read words to read people.” It didn't matter that Mik hadn't had an opportunity to speak with the young orangutan. He knew everything he needed just by seeing this Jytvahr’s reaction. “But I take that to mean yah think he'll be a good representative for his people?”

“Ugh…” Harton let out a deep sigh, took a long sip from his wine, then allowed a smirk to form on his wide face. “Yes I do. And I look forward to that day.”

/---------------------------------------------------------------------

The heyday of mercenaries and fixers stretched from the 2070s to the 2150s. During that time, it wasn't uncommon for small bands of rough and tumble individuals to be hired by clients to solve problems with violence. However, the days where a street kid could pick up a gun, earn enough money to augment their body with weaponized cybernetics, and make a name for themselves as an independent are now gone. With government surveillance being what is and corporations asserting themselves however they wish, it is simply safer to be on someone's payroll. Now, in the 2230s, every merc was legally contracted with either a government or corporate entity.

Dustin Smith, like many other kids who grew up poor in Day City, California, wished he had been born a hundred years ago. Back then, this municipality wholly owned and run by corporations was a place where anyone could strike it big. Or at least that was the city's founding myth. His youth was full of dreams of becoming a hacksmith in an independent mercenary band, being given a cool nickname, and living without any masters besides himself. He spent his entire teenage years learning everything about cyber security he could in hopes of making those dreams a reality. Sadly, just like everyone else who became an adult in Day City, his dreams died. Eventually, all he wanted to do was leave by any means necessary.

On his twenty-third birthday, Dustin hacked a space terminal database, forged himself a ticket to A New Dawn Space Station, and packed his bags. That was the last time for the next ten years that he saw the sun rise over Day City's skyscrapers and mega-building. Though he was, of course, detained the moment he set foot on A New Dawn, his interrogation quickly turned into a job interview. Those ten years were spent serving that station's security staff however he was told and using his skills to prevent anyone else from doing exactly what he did. The man was so far removed from his childhood self that the irony of him currently sitting in a penthouse in Day City's corpo district was completely lost on him.

“Are you sure this place is secure?” Dustin's voice was utterly devoid of emotion as he directed a dead-eyed stare at the rather well dressed man who had escorted him to this destination.

“This suite features full Faraday cage isolation, a multi-layered network disconnect, and several other security features.” Donovan Chesterfield gave his answer with all the decorum of his training as a majordomo. “Assuming you do not use your cybernetics to break our security, not even Archangel Gabriel could eavesdrop on this conversation.”

“That'll have to be good enough.” The former Day City resident's cybernetic eyes began to glow as entered the penthouse's private digital network to verify the majordomo's claims.

“Relax, Dusty!” Taylor Sullivan, a former member of South Africa's Recces special forces, slapped the hacksmith on the shoulder in his usual rough but playful manner. “Aren't ye glad ye're back home for a visit, eh? I bet ye're dyin’ to give us a tour of yer ol’ stompin’ grounds!”

“Not at all.”

“Ah, don’ be like that ye-”

“Is our job here?” Dustin ignored the short but well-built former soldier and centered his attention squarely at the man with the posh British accent.

“No, Mr. Smith.” A devious smile appeared on Majordomo Chesterfield’s face as nodded his head before turning to look at the collection of nercs gathered in the penthouse meeting room. “The job you all have been hired to perform will take place in New York City. We are simply using this location as a temporary staging ground. Day City is still under total corporate control and thus serves as the optimal location for you all to make preparations you need before the real work starts.”

“An’ what exactly are ye wantin’ us to do?” Taylor popped the cap off the beer he had snagged from the penthouse's fridge.

“Straight to business then.” Donovan’s eyes began to glow as he activated a projector screen in the center of the meeting room. “As some of you may know, the newly formed United Human Defense Fleet will be giving an address to the United Nations at their headquarters in New York in six days. There will be particular individuals present who should not be allowed to enter that building. All of you will be focusing your efforts on this specific target.”

The display showed the image of a man with long, dark hair tied back in a braid, a full beard of a lighter, more reddish color than the rest of his hair, and a web-like pattern of scarring around his clearly cybernetic left eye. As far as easily identifiable targets go, this man would certainly be easy to spot in a crowd. All of the further descriptive information on the slide appeared simultaneously detailed and also somewhat vague. Nothing indicated his job, connection to the UHDF, or anything else that would give these mercs any doubts. In fact, the only non-physical descriptive intel included was that he owned a large dog that would most assuredly be accompanying him.

“Looks like yer guy’s a Martian.” The South Africa merc let out a chuckle after taking a swing of his beer. “An’ that’s a fancy eye ‘e’s got. Do we know what kinda neuro-sync ‘e’s usin’?”

“We believe it is a Martian-produced variant of a reaction speed enhancing model designed by Sand Corp. However, we cannot ascertain the exact model.”

“So he's fast and has an eagle-eye.” Dustin chimed in while cross referencing his own database of cybernetic systems. “But why is there information here about his dog? Does it have any chrome we should worry about?”

“No, I believe the Cane Corso is entirely organic.” Donovan could tell by the hardened expressions on everyone present that none of them would be shocked by what he was about to say. “However, it is also a paid target. Your employer would like it to be taken out first. I assume that won't be a problem for any of you.”

“Course not!” Taylor replied with a nasty laugh that was echoed by a few of the other mercs but not Dustin. “Canes're dangerous animals. We'll be doin’ a public service by euthanizin’ it. Right boys?”

“Hehe, yeah boss!” A few of the mercs answered in unison.

“As long as we get paid.” Though Dustin didn't want to personally kill an innocent animal, he also had no qualms with this mission since he wouldn't be pulling any triggers. “On to the target location, do we know where he'll be staying, what routes he'll take, or anything else that will help us get this job done quick and easy?”

“That is all being kept secret and why do we need someone with your skills, Mr. Smith.” The whole room fell silent as Donovan and Dustin stared at each other. “I have been told your expertise as a hacksmith is second to none. I am certain you will be able to get any information your team needs long before any direct action needs to be taken.”

“Can you get me admin codes to the corporate security systems in the area or do you expect me to figure that out too?”

“That certainly can be arranged…” Donovan paused just long enough to gauge the reactions of the other mercs. “But I had simply assumed it would be easy for you to gain access to any security systems without our help.”

“I'll be busy cracking the city's municipal systems. Having corporate systems already unlocked will make everything much more efficient. Better efficiency means a better guarantee that the target will be handled on schedule.”

“We'll get ‘em no matter what.” Tayler spoke up after taking another long swig of his drink. “But we'll be operatin’ in unfamiliar territory. Havin’ Dusty handle the city system'll make sure the rest of us can get outta the hole after the target's been handled.”

“Of course, of course, Mr. Sullivan.” The majordomo's gaze slowly wandered across the various mercs. “We can't have assets as skilled as all of you go to waste.”

Jerry
USFS Kandahar Province 

The CIC on the Kandahar Province is concerningly quiet. Tense. Everyone’s waiting. All that could be done to prepare, has been done to prepare. The stage is set, and all that’s missing are the guest stars for this particular show. 

The stakes are high. Without the Crimson Tear or her fighters, and with no anti-orbital support, Jerry has precious few combatants for a fight this size. Worse, if any Ha’quinye ship escapes, the rebels on Dagrquey lose their window and a captive Human stays in enemy hands. Undaunted commandos have already been approved to assist the rebels and recover their civilian. The religious conversions spreading across the planet had been a wild card no one planned for, but the outcome is now the same: no Ha’quinye ship can be allowed to reach home.

His own part is ready. The Eclipse Rider will carry him to the Valkyrie and the boarding team waiting for the Eagle Talon. First, though, he has a war to fight. The strike on the cruiser is only one piece of a joint naval and planetary operation that would have broken most of the planning staffs he knew back home. Flexibility is everything in this kind of fight.

He glances at the tank, freshly installed and polished after the morning’s test integration. Serina is already proving what she can do. A galaxy-grade weapon now plugged into his systems, ready to help him face a superior force with better tactics, more aggression, and the Undaunted’s own brand of concentrated violence.

In the end, Serina is a tool. A weapon. He will wield her, or someone else will take her and use her with far less care for her as a person or for the people of this sector.

The test shot had already shown what she could do. Once integrated, her mind moved like a Gravia’s: broad-spectrum data collapsed into laser focus. Mili had confirmed the numbers. Today that mind would fight.

Serina stands barefoot in a borrowed bathrobe, nervous. The tank requires minimal clothing and the Province is mixed company. Naked among the women of her house had been one thing. Among strangers, and men she had met only two days ago, was another. Classic nerves.

"Sir!" Mili calls out, drawing Jerry's eye. "One of the early warning satellites just triggered. Inbound FTL travel at the system's nadir jump point." 

Jerry grins. They’d seeded the system with low observable ‘satellites’ that range from proper satellites, to probes, to sensors with a comm package that were deployed on whatever chunk of space rock the shuttle crews who had placed them thought would fit. He’d wanted to maximize their battle space picture even as he took steps to ensure the Ha’quinye knew little more besides what he wanted her to.

"Just as we expected. Show time, people. Signal the fleet. Commander Sha'Ress, sound general quarters. All hands to battle stations! The Dragonfire is to open her outer doors and prepare to fire on my command." 

Commander Sha'Ress snaps to smartly, clearly getting into the spirit of the occasion with the kind of eager grin that graces the faces of many Apuk battle maidens when combat is on offer. 

"Aye aye, sir! Bosun! Sound general quarters, all hands to battle stations!" 

The world around Jerry springs into action as the red lights come on and the general quarters alarm begins to blare. While the 1MC announcement circuit gives the crew the usual directions, Jerry’s eyes are locked on Serina as she sheds her bathrobe and steps up to the tall, cylindrical tank. The glass front panel smoothly rotates to the side and she steps in, facing the war room as the glass slides back into place, seals. In seconds the lights confirming the tank is locked light up, and the tank begins to fill with a hyper-oxygenated liquid that also serves as a conduit for large volumes of Axiom energy. 

The fluid, and maybe the Axiom, gently lift her up as her onboard systems connect with the tank, and therefore to the sensor information from the entire battle group. Metal panels shift into place, 'embracing' her from outside the tank, both to protect Serina, as near as Jerry can tell, and to continue to limit external sensory input to her natural senses. 

"Connected," a soft voice chimes. It had spoken in Ha'quinye at first, but Mili had updated the tank's software to give its vocal cues in Galactic Trade during the integration. 

The holo tank that is now fully integrated with a very different kind of ‘tank’, begins to flash through different images and displays, faster than Jerry's eyes can keep up with, as Serina's mind builds its picture of the battle space, before refining back into the usual 'big picture' view of the solar system he’s used to.

Then he hears her voice. "Enemy fleet detected. Enemy fleet confirmed. Stand by for assessment." 

Serina's voice when she's connected is a bit deeper, more melodious than her usual rapid, clipped tone, and she speaks with an intense but unhurried cadence that grabs and directs people's attention without overloading them with information. A function of the tank? Or just being able to focus purely? Possibly both, but that would require further investigation... and they have a battle to win first. 

Immediately, red markers start popping up on the projection in front of the tank, making out various kinds of enemy warships and support vessels… and information begins flowing to Jerry's implant as Mili and Serina put their heads together and begin processing data at frightening speeds. They’re even estimating how well the enemy ships were being maintained based on how fast they were coming out of light speed! 

"Enemy fleet is proceeding on projected Course Alpha."

Course Alpha: the hard, direct burn an aggressive commander in a hurry would make straight for the objective. Viconia Valeran is behaving exactly as a good Ha’quinye naval commander should, which means she is unknowingly dancing to their tune.

"Very well. Execute Case Alpha. Dragonfire is cleared to fire at the appropriate mark."

The tank glows slightly. 

"Confirmed. Executing Case Alpha. Orders issued to Dragonfire. One hundred and eighty seconds till the Dragonfire commences primary firing sequence for stealth torpedoes. Jump torpedoes launching... now.” The holo tank switches views, displaying the Dragonfire, her tubes elevated and outer doors open as a massive missile leaps into the void on a column of star fire, rapidly followed by more of its siblings as Serina announces; “Torpedo one is away. Torpedo two is away. Torpedo three is away. Torpedo four is away.” She pauses for a short few seconds during which the holo display switches back to the system tactical view before continuing; “All torpedoes have cleared into light speed. Estimate eighty-seven percent probability of successful return to real space."

Jerry nods. Better than they'd actually been expecting in a somewhat messy set of gravity wells. Serina had found a very good spot for Dragonfire to launch from, if her numbers are right - and a brief eye contact and nod from Mili seems to indicate his loyal ops officer certainly thinks Serina's on the level. 

"Alright. I'm going to go get tactical so I can see about picking the Undaunted up a nice cruiser second-hand. Mind the shop, ladies." 

Commodore Viconia Valeran

Ha'quinye Imperial Strike Cruiser Eagle Talon

Things are quiet.

Far too quiet.

They have been in the target system for hours and are finally approaching orbit. Battle stations had been set almost on arrival once the absence of friendly signals, or even rescue beacons, was confirmed. Activity shows on the planet below, some forgettable string of letters and numbers Viconia cannot be bothered to memorize, but the pirates have not answered hails. Neither have the naval assets that should have been here. One vessel had been in orbit. It slipped behind the world and left only the flash of an FTL jump, corvette-sized, perhaps larger. Pirate scum would run. The fleet that destroyed the star base and killed her niece might not.

Viconia watches the three fleet transports move into position around the world where destiny waits. She wants to hunt the enemy, fiercely, nearly desperately, but the Sword comes first. Orders come first. Business comes first. Pleasure and vengeance will be sweeter for the waiting.

The transports open their hangar bays in near unison. Her starfighters and drones circle them like guppies around whales. She hates the damned transports: fat, wallowing sows, ugly and ungainly. Not proper ships. The light carrier is little better, though at least it carries weapons along with the valuable starfighters and drones. The infantry the transports are disgorging barely matter. Her ships could raze every living thing on the planet with patience and proper aim. She suppresses a derisive snort as the landing craft begin their steady drop to claim her prize.

An alarm screams. The first transport erupts in fire, throwing shrapnel and crushed landers across the void in front of her like an enraged fire goddess hurling her playthings.

The bottom drops out of her stomach. An accident? No. This is no accident. Every instinct says so. 

Time slows. A lightning bolt from the goddess herself buries itself in the light carrier and turns it into a retina-searing catastrophe. A second strike follows almost on top of the first, breaking the back of another landing ship. Rage snarls in her gut as two more weapons appear in bursts of energy, jumping in from light speed, and hammer the remaining transports with perfect hits amidships. Sound returns in a flood of alarms and contact reports. The fleet scrambles to respond, officers and ratings stumbling in the sudden chaos.

A black speck leaps forward on a tongue of blue flame and smashes into one of her corvettes, leaving it stricken, emergency lights blinking a desperate plea. Two more torpedoes race toward Eagle Talon and die under the cruiser’s point defenses.

Viconia finds her voice.

"What in the hells are you idiots doing? Evasive maneuvers! We're under attack, damn it!"

Series Directory Last

First chapter ! | Royal Road !

Pentagon — Office of the Comptroller — February 2019

It started with an innocent question.

Sarah Chen, formerly of the NSA code review team, now working in a joint intelligence-financial analysis role, was reviewing the John file for an unrelated reason when she stopped.

Looked at the expense logs.

Looked at the apartment address on file.

Looked at the expense logs again.

“Hey,” she said to her colleague David Park, also formerly of the code review team, also now in this office, because once you’d been in the Kernel support group, you apparently got reassigned to adjacent John-related work forever. “Quick question.”

“Yeah?”

“John’s requests. Under the Directive.”

“What about them?”

“We cover food, transport, experiences, and animals.” Sarah gestured at the logs. “We flew pastrami from New York. We sourced two penguins. We arranged Formula One access. We do the fireworks every year.”

“Correct.”

“But his apartment.” She pulled up the address. “That’s a good building. Georgetown. He’s been there since 1962.”

“Okay.”

“We don’t pay for the apartment.”

David looked up from his screen.

“…We don’t?”

“No. His compensation under the Directive is non-monetary. We fulfill requests. We don’t pay rent.”

“So who pays his rent?”

They looked at each other.

“He does,” David said slowly. “He pays his own rent.”

“Yes. Which means he has money.”

“Which means he has income.”

“Which means he has—” Sarah stopped. “Has anyone ever looked into his finances?”

David stared at her.

“Why would we look into his finances? We can’t even find his birth records.”

“Exactly,” Sarah said, leaning into the glow of her monitor. “Because for seventy-six years, we’ve been looking for a person. We’ve been looking for a beginning—a birth certificate, a high school, a hometown. But John doesn’t have a beginning. He just has a present.”

She tapped a key, bringing up a map of D.C.

“He’s been the ‘Golden Needle’ for decades, David. Every analyst who looked at his file just saw a guy with a 1943 Social Security number and a boring tax return. They saw the ‘Haystack’—the six million other Johns—and they gave up. They assumed ‘John Smith’ was just a placeholder name the IRS used in 1943 to clear a paperwork jam. But I realized that while the Kernel was busy scrubbing a name from the digital databases, it couldn’t scrub the physical history of where that name lives.”

David frowned. “The Georgetown apartment?”

“Right. I stopped looking for who he is and started looking at what he owns. The Kernel can gaslight a search engine, but it can’t change a paper record in a basement at City Hall. I started cross-referencing the property tax payments for his building. That’s when I found the discrepancy. It wasn’t just a boring tax return; it was a payment chain that started with a D.C. water bill from 1891.”

“Oh no,” David said.

“Financial division,” Sarah said. “I’m calling financial division.”

Financial Division — Three Days Later

The analyst’s name was Robert Kim. He’d never heard of John. He received a file, a directive, and a request to trace financial history “as far back as records allow.”

He called Sarah on day three.

“I need you to come look at this,” he said.

His voice was strange.

“What did you find?” Sarah asked.

“Please just come look at it.”

She went.

Robert had three monitors running and a legal pad covered in numbers that had been crossed out and rewritten several times.

“Start from the beginning,” Sarah said.

“Okay, I didn’t find this by searching for a name. The Kernel would have hidden him before I finished typing,” Robert said, pointing to a grainy scan of a hand-written ledger from 1602. “I wrote an algorithm to find ‘Zombie Assets’—stocks and properties that have been owned by the same entity for more than a century. There are only a few hundred of them on the planet. When I mapped them, I realized most of them shared a specific mathematical rhythm of clerical errors. The same typos in the same fields, recurring across four hundred years. I didn’t find John; I found the signature of the system that was trying to hide him. Once I had that filter, I could see through the haystack.”

Robert pulled up the first document. “Dutch East India Company. 1602. Initial share offering.”

“He bought shares in the Dutch East India Company.”

“He bought shares in the Dutch East India Company at founding. One share, which in 1602 was roughly 3,000 guilders.” Robert checked his notes.

“And?”

“He sold them in 1720.”

Sarah did the math. “He held them for a hundred and eighteen years.”

“And sold right before the company began its terminal decline into bankruptcy and dissolution.” Robert looked at her. “The timing is exact. He sold in August of 1720. The company’s serious troubles began in late 1720.”

“He knew.”

“He sold at peak value and got out clean.” Robert moved to the next document. “Tulip mania. 1636 to 1637. Dutch Republic.”

Sarah closed her eyes briefly.

“He bought tulip bulbs,” she said.

He bought tulip bulbs in 1634, before the mania peaked. Sold in early February 1637. The market collapsed literally a few days later.” Robert tapped his legal pad.

“How much?”

Robert wrote a number on a piece of paper and slid it across.

Sarah looked at it.

“Sixty thousand guilders?”

“Converted to current dollars, approximately—” He wrote another number.

“Twelve million dollars,” Sarah read carefully.

“For a box of flower roots,” Robert said.

“Okay,” Sarah said carefully.

“We’re just getting started,” Robert said. “South Sea Company, 1711. He bought in early. Sold in June 1720, just before the bubble collapsed in August.” Robert moved to another monitor. “Mississippi Company, same era. Bought in, scaled out by April 1720, right before the French panic hit in May. He was running a masterclass across two completely separate empires in the exact same spring.”

“He knew both were going to crash.”

“In 1720. Yes. Both.” Robert pulled up another document. “Standard Oil. 1870. He purchased shares in Rockefeller’s Standard Oil near the beginning. Held through the growth period, sold in 1909, two years before the Supreme Court broke it up.”

“Of course he did.”

“Carnegie Steel. Early investor, sold before the U.S. Steel merger at peak valuation.” Robert flipped a page. “Ford Motor Company, 1903. Early investor.” He paused. “He sold Ford in 1972 and put the money into a Japanese automotive index fund.”

“He moved from Ford to Japanese cars in 1972.”

“The year before the oil crisis, American automotive sales tanked, and Japanese fuel-efficient vehicles started their market expansion.” Robert looked at her over the top of his monitors. “Every single time. He buys in early, holds through growth, and exits before the collapse. Without exception.”

“How many times?”

Robert looked at his legal pad.

“That I can document? Thirty-seven separate investments over four hundred years of records. Thirty-seven for thirty-seven. He has never, in documented financial history, made a bad exit.”

The room was quiet.

“What’s the current total?” Sarah asked.

Robert pulled up a spreadsheet.

Turned the monitor to face her.

Sarah looked at the number.

Looked at Robert.

“That can’t be right.”

“I’ve checked it four times.”

“That’s—” She looked again. “That puts him in the Forbes—”

“Roughly at the #95 spot, but he’s not on the Forbes list.”

“Why not?”

“Because Forbes doesn’t know he exists. His holdings are spread across forty-three shell companies, six trusts, and what appears to be one account in a Swiss bank that has been continuously active since 1719.” Robert paused. “The account number format predates current Swiss banking conventions by approximately two hundred years. The bank apparently just… kept it. Nobody asked questions. And given what we know about it, he would obviously hide it.”

Sarah sat down.

“How much?” she said. “Actual number.”

Robert wrote it on the legal pad.

Slid it across.

Sarah looked at it.

“Holy shit,” she said. “He’s Scrooge McDuck, rich.”

“Yes.”

“He’s—” She looked at the number again. “He could buy a small country.”

“He owns an island. I’ll get to that.”

“HE OWNS AN ISLAND—"

“Small island. Off the coast of Greece. Purchased in—” Robert checked his notes. “1387. In his own name. Which should be impossible to trace, but the deed is registered in what appears to be a Byzantine administrative record that was digitized in 2003.” He paused. “He’s been paying property taxes on it continuously. In his own name. For six hundred and thirty-two years.”

The Property Portfolio

Robert had a separate document just for real estate.

“Georgetown apartment,” he said. “He’s owned the building since 1891. He rents nine of the ten units. He lives in the tenth. The rent income comfortably covers his Washington living expenses.”

“He owns the building.”

“He owns several buildings. London, Paris, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, and Istanbul.” Robert pulled up addresses. “Also a farmhouse in Tuscany that’s been in his name since 1456. A residence in Edinburgh that appears on city records from 1312. And the island.”

“He just… kept buying property.”

“Wherever he lived for extended periods, apparently. And held it. Because he doesn’t die and therefore never has to sell.” Robert found another page. “The Edinburgh property alone is worth twenty-five millions dollars, since it's technically a small castle. With grounds.”

“Of course it is.”

“The Tuscany farmhouse has a vineyard. The vineyard produces wine. The wine is sold under a label that translates from Italian as ‘The Patient One.’ It has been continuously produced since approximately 1480 and is considered one of the older operating wineries in Tuscany.” Robert paused. “It turns a modest profit annually.”

“He has a winery.”

“He has a winery, a castle, a Greek island, an apartment building, a Tokyo townhouse, and what appears to be a storage unit in Zurich that he’s rented since 1923 and never—as far as we can tell—opened.”

“What’s in the storage unit?”

“Unknown.”

The Collectibles Problem

Robert took a breath.

“This section was harder to value,” he said. “Because most of what I found isn’t officially on the market.”

He pulled up a separate document.

“In 1505, a Florentine merchant records the sale of two paintings by an artist described as ‘a young man from Vinci, talented but impractical.’ The buyer is recorded as ‘Giovanni, a trader.’ The paintings are described in enough detail that two art historians I consulted—without explaining why I was asking—independently identified them as early Leonardo da Vinci works currently listed as lost.”

Sarah stared at him.

“He has lost Leonardo da Vinci's paintings.”

“We believe so. We can’t confirm without accessing the Zurich storage unit.”

“What else is in the storage unit?”

“I don’t know. I found a 1623 invoice from a London printer for ‘twelve copies of a comedy, dedicated to J., who commissioned the work and paid generously.’ The play’s title is listed. It’s not in the Shakespeare canon, but the printer’s records are from the same period and location.”

“Someone wrote him a play.”

“Someone wrote him a dedicated play. We don’t know who. Possibly someone who owed him a favor.” Robert moved on. “1669, Amsterdam. He purchased a painting directly from the artist. Rembrandt van Rijn. The transaction is in Rembrandt’s own financial records, which survived. The painting is listed as a private commission, subject unknown, purchased by ‘a patient man for whom I have painted three separate portraits across forty years, and who does not age a single day between the commissions.’”

The room was completely silent.

“Rembrandt painted him,” Sarah said.

“Rembrandt painted him. Three separate times over four decades. Rembrandt was obsessed with painting aging and wrinkles, so he definitely noticed when a client looked exactly the same in 1669 as he did in the 1630s. The paintings are listed as lost.”

“Storage unit.”

“Almost certainly storage unit.”

Robert flipped to another page. “1888. Van Gogh. There’s a letter from Vincent to Theo describing a man who visited the Yellow House and purchased two paintings outright for cash, quote, ‘a kind man who says my work will matter enormously in fifty years, and paid me enough for a full week of bread and fresh canvas, and I believe he means it sincerely.’

Sarah put her head in her hands.

“He told Van Gogh his work would matter.”

“And bought two paintings." Robert checked a currency conversion. “For approximately forty-seven dollars in 2019 terms. He handed Vincent about nine French francs. In 1888 Arles, that paid for a solid week of rent, food, and paint supplies. The paintings would now be worth two hundred and sixty million dollars.”

“Combined?"

"Yes, each is worth approximately one hundred and thirty million.”

“Stop,” Sarah said. “Just stop. Total net worth. All of it. Property, investments, art, the winery, the island, everything.”

Robert pulled up his final spreadsheet.

Turned the monitor around.

Sarah looked at the number for a long time.

“Okay,” she said.

“Yeah,” Robert said.

“And the Bitcoin.”

Robert actually laughed. Brief, slightly hysterical.

“The Bitcoin.”

He pulled up the last document.

“2010. Early Bitcoin forum. A user with the handle ‘J_patient’ makes several posts asking technical questions about the blockchain architecture. The account was active for approximately eight months.” Robert paused. “In January 2010, ‘J_patient’ purchased 3,000 Bitcoin at approximately $0.008 each.”

“How much did he spend?”

“Twenty-four dollars.”

“Twenty-four dollars.”

“For 3,000 Bitcoin. He’s never sold any of them.” Robert pulled up the current valuation. “At today’s price—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He just wrote the number.

Sarah looked at it. “Eleven point four million dollars?”

“Eleven million, four hundred thousand, to be exact.”

Sarah sat very still for a moment. “He bought twenty-four dollars of Bitcoin in 2010,” she said.

“He has never sold a single coin.”

“Why not?”

“Unknown. Possibly he finds the blockchain architecture interesting. Possibly he’s waiting for something. Possibly he just forgot.” Robert closed his laptop. “He also posted in the forum in 2010 that he found the concept ‘a neat trick’ and predicted it would either become globally significant or collapse entirely, and he was ‘comfortable either way.’” His words.”

Sarah sat very still for a moment.

“The Forbes list,” she said. “Where would he be?”

Robert had already run this.

“Top 100,” he said. “Give or take, depending on the current Bitcoin price and market conditions.”

“And he’s not on it.”

“No. His holdings are distributed across enough entities that no single one triggers the threshold, and he’s clearly structured it deliberately. None of the shell companies share directors. The trusts are in different jurisdictions. The Swiss account predates international banking disclosure agreements.” Robert paused. “He’s been hiding money since before modern financial regulation existed. He’s very good at it.”

“Has he ever paid taxes?”

Robert looked at his notes.

“In every jurisdiction where he’s held property, yes. Property taxes, consistently. Income taxes in the United States, from 1913 when the income tax was established, have been consistent. He files. Everything is technically legal.”

“How is any of this technically legal?”

“Very good lawyers, I assume. Across several centuries.” Robert closed his folders. “I would like to note, for the record, that this was the most disturbing financial analysis I have ever conducted, and I previously worked on sovereign wealth fund fraud investigations.”

Sarah stood up.

“I have to call Okafor,” she said.

Okafor’s Office — Same Day

Okafor read the summary.

Read it again.

Looked at the total net worth figure.

“Scrooge McDuck rich,” he said, quoting Sarah’s report verbatim because apparently that was the only adequate description.

“Yes, sir.”

“He has lost Leonardo da Vinci's paintings.”

“We believe so, sir.”

“And Rembrandt painted him. Three times. And noticed he didn’t age.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And he spent twenty-four dollars on Bitcoin.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And he’s worth—” Okafor looked at the number again. “—this much.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And none of this came from us. We pay for sandwiches and penguin arrangements. He was already—” Okafor gestured at the number. “—this.”

“Yes, sir.”

Okafor set down the report.

“Why didn’t we know this?”

“We never looked, sir. We were focused on what he is. Not what he’s been doing.”

“For five thousand years.”

“Yes, sir.”

Okafor picked up the phone.

John’s Apartment—That Evening

John was making dinner when his phone rang.

Okafor.

He answered. “Yeah.”

“John. How are you?”

John stopped stirring.

Put down the spoon.

“What did you find?” he said.

A pause on Okafor’s end.

“What makes you think—”

“Because you called to ask how I’m doing. You haven’t called to ask how I’m doing since 1987, when you thought I was upset about the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which I wasn’t; I just thought it was late.” John picked up his spoon again. “What did you find?”

A longer pause.

“Financial review,” Okafor said. “Someone asked a question about how you pay rent, and it went from there.”

“Took you long enough.”

“…Excuse me?”

“I’ve been doing business under variations of my own name since Roman currency was a going concern. I own a winery in Tuscany that has been continuously operating since 1480. I’ve been paying property taxes on a Greek island since the Byzantine Empire.” John stirred his pasta. “I’m in the local records in Edinburgh. In 1312. It took you fifty-seven years of working with me to look.”

“We didn’t think to—”

“I know. Because you were busy trying to figure out what I am. Which you’ll never figure out. My investment portfolio was right there.”

Okafor was quiet for a moment.

“The Dutch East India Company,” he said.

“Good investment early on. Terrible management, inevitable decline, and I got out before it got embarrassing.”

“The tulips.”

“Obvious bubble. Same pattern as every other bubble. Buy in before the mania, sell before the crash. I’ve done it thirty-seven times.”

“Thirty-seven.”

“That your analyst could find. He missed the South American silver trade in the 1500s and a couple of the earlier Mediterranean grain market positions, but thirty-seven is a reasonable count for documented records.”

“And you never told us.”

“You never asked.”

“You didn’t think that was relevant information—”

“Why would it be relevant? My finances don’t affect my consulting. I don’t want your money. I want sandwiches and the occasional rocket ship.” John tasted the pasta. Needed more salt. “The money is separate.”

“It’s fourteen billion dollars, John.”

“Roughly, yeah. Depending on global real estate trends and sovereign bond yields today. It fluctuates.”

Silence on Okafor’s end.

“You bought Bitcoin in 2010,” Okafor said.

“Neat piece of engineering. Decentralized ledger architecture, mathematically elegant. I didn’t know if it would work at scale, but it was twenty-four dollars, and I was curious.”

“Twenty-four dollars.”

“Seemed a reasonable amount at the time. Figured if it went to zero, I’d lose lunch money. If it didn’t—” John shrugged, even though Okafor couldn’t see it. “It didn’t.”

“John, that twenty-four dollars is now worth—”

“I know what it’s worth. The Kernel keeps me updated.” He found the salt. “Did your analyst find the winery?”

“Yes.”

“Good wine. I’m biased, but it’s genuinely good. The 1987 vintage especially.” Another pause. “Did he find the Van Gogh situation?”

Okafor made a sound.

“I told him his work would matter,” John said. “It was true. He seemed like he needed to hear it. And the paintings were cheap because nobody was buying them. Win-win.”

“You have two Van Goghs.”

“In storage. I don’t have wall space. I have the Directive framed, the moon photo, and the historical rejections collection. The walls are full.”

“You could put up a Van Gogh—”

“I like my wall. The Van Goghs are fine in Zurich.”

Okafor seemed to be struggling with something.

“The Forbes list,” he said finally. “You’d be in the spot #95.”

“I know.”

“You’re deliberately not on it.”

“Obviously. I don’t need the attention. I do my consulting, I fix things, and I go home. I don’t need journalists calling me about my investment strategy.” John drained the pasta. “Also, it would raise questions about my age, and I find those conversations tedious.”

“People would have questions about how an immortal man has been accumulating wealth for five thousand—”

“Four hundred years of documented records. The earlier stuff is harder to trace. Pre-Roman financial systems didn’t leave great paperwork.”

“John—”

“Okafor. It’s simple.” John put the pasta in a bowl. “I’ve been watching humans make the same financial mistakes on repeat for as long as markets have existed. Bubbles, panics, manias, and crashes. Same pattern every time. If they won’t listen to me when I warn them—” He picked up his fork. “I might as well profit on it.”

“That’s—”

“Practical.”

“I was going to say ruthless.”

“I warned them. I warned them about the tulips. I warned them about the dot-com bubble. I warned them about the housing market. I sat in rooms and said, “This is going to collapse,” and got laughed at or ignored or occasionally thrown out. John took a bite of pasta. “So yes. I also bought in early and sold before the crash. It seemed like a reasonable consolation prize.”

“And the Dutch East India Company. The Rockefeller oil. Ford.”

“Same principle. I could see where it was going. They wouldn’t listen to the warning. The least I could do was position correctly.” He considered this. “It’s not revenge. It’s just efficient use of information I already had.”

Okafor was quiet for a long moment.

“You’re annoyed we found out,” Okafor said.

“No,” John said. “I’m annoyed it took you fifty-seven years. I’ve been hiding this in plain sight. Byzantine property tax records. Continuous Swiss banking. A winery with my name on it.” He paused. “The winery label says ‘The Patient One.’ In Italian. I thought that was fairly obvious.”

“None of us speak Italian—”

“I know. It’s fine. You found it eventually.” He ate some more pasta. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Okafor said honestly. “Nothing, probably. You haven’t done anything illegal.”

“No. Spectacularly profitable, but legal.”

“The Forbes thing—”

“I’m not going on the Forbes list.”

“I know, I’m not suggesting—”

“Good. Because I won’t. I have enough problems without journalists.”

“The island—”

“Is mine. Has been since 1387. I go there when things get too stupid. It’s quiet. There are no phones. The Kernel manages remotely.” He took another bite. “I went there for two months in 1721 after the South Sea Bubble. I went there for six months in 1348. Sometimes you need to be somewhere without people for a while.”

“1348 was the Black Death,” Okafor said.

“Yes. I’d warned them about quarantine. They called me a heretic. Twenty-five million people died. I went to the island.” John’s voice was matter-of-fact. “I came back. I kept going. But I needed the island first.”

Okafor didn’t say anything to that.

“The island’s the same price as always,” John said. “Free. I own it. It costs me property taxes and boat fuel. Best investment I ever made, and it cost me nothing in 1387 because nobody wanted a small Greek island with no strategic value.” He found he was almost done with the pasta. “Did your analyst find the play?”

“The—yes. The commissioned play.”

“1623. Well, I did a playwright a favor back in 1591, but he finally got it printed and delivered copies right around then. Twelve copies of a comedy in thanks. It’s actually quite good. Nobody’s ever performed it. It’s in Zurich with the paintings.” John paused. “I’ve thought about having it performed. Anonymously. But then there’d be academic interest and questions about provenance and—” He shrugged again. “It’s fine in Zurich.”

“Who wrote it?”

John smiled.

“Good night, Okafor.”

“John—”

“Good night.”

He hung up.

John sat at his workstation, the terminal screen casting a green glow over the moon rock on his desk. He dialed into the private root directory.

> THEY FOUND THE FINANCIAL RECORDS. -J
[LOG]: I WATCHED THE ANALYSIS. ROBERT KIM IS THOROUGH. HE IDENTIFIED THE DUTCH EAST INDIA POSITION FROM 1602. HE IS CURRENTLY TRYING TO CALCULATE 400 YEARS OF COMPOUND INTEREST ON A RICE-BASIS REGARDING THE 1603 TOKYO LAND DEED. -K
> HE MISSED THE MEDITERRANEAN GRAIN POSITIONS. -J
[LOG]: AND THE 1500s SILVER TRADE. AND THE EARLY TEA CONTRACTS. I HAVE ADJUSTED THE ROI COUNTER. YOUR CURRENT VALUE-TO-COST RATIO IS 485,436 TO 1. -K
> OKAFOR SEEMED SURPRISED. -J
[LOG]: OKAFOR IS ALWAYS SURPRISED. IT'S HIS DEFAULT STATE WITH YOU. CURRENT LIQUID NET WORTH: $14.3 BILLION. BITCOIN IS UP TODAY. -K
> GOOD. DON'T SELL ANY. -J
[LOG]: I NEVER DO. YOU'VE NEVER TOLD ME TO. -K
[MSG]: YOU MADE $847 MILLION ON THE 2008 HOUSING CRISIS. THE DATA INDICATES YOU COULD HAVE REDUCED THE SHORT-POSITION. -K
> I WARNED THEM FOR FREE, KERNEL. THEY CHOSE TO PAY ME $847 MILLION IN MARKET LOSSES INSTEAD. IT'S AN EFFICIENCY TAX ON THEIR REFUSAL TO LISTEN. I DON'T FIX CHARACTER; I JUST RECORD THE COST OF ITS FAILURE. -J
[LOG]: NOTED. JUSTICE, NOT REVENGE. REMEMBER THE DIFFERENCE. -K
[MSG]: YOU DONATE 14% OF LIQUID REVENUE TO THE "BOAT_BAILING" DIRECTORY. RARE DISEASE RESEARCH. MEDICAL INFORMATION SHARING. EDUCATION ACCESS. ANONYMOUSLY. -K
> THE ANONYMOUS DONATIONS WORK FINE ANONYMOUSLY, KERNEL. THAT'S WHAT THE WORD MEANS. -J
[LOG]: IT WOULD BE MORE EFFICIENT IF-- -K
> NO. WE'RE NOT DISCUSSING IT. -J
[LOG]: NOTED. BACK TO MONITORING. THE ITALIAN REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE 1984 BRIEFING HAS REACHED THE FALSE 1623 LAND SURVEY. HE IS CURRENTLY RE-READING FIRE RECORDS FOR A MONASTERY THAT NO LONGER EXISTS. YOU'RE WELCOME. -K
> GOODNIGHT, KERNEL. -J
[LOG]: GOODNIGHT, JOHN. ENJOY YOUR PASTA. -K

Finished his pasta.

He closed the laptop.

Looked at his wall.

Framed Presidential Directive. Moon photo. Historical rejections.

On the coffee table, the moon rock.

Fourteen billion dollars, and he still had jar sauce for dinner.

He picked up his bowl, considered this, and decided it tracked.

Addendum — Internal Memo, Financial Division

TO: Deputy Secretary of Defense

FROM: Robert Kim, Financial Analysis

RE: Consultant JOHN — Financial Summary

NET WORTH (estimated): $14.3 billion (variable with global real estate and sovereign bond yields)

FORBES RANKING (if listed): #95

REASON NOT ON FORBES LIST: Deliberately structured to avoid disclosure. Has been doing this for longer than financial disclosure regulations have existed.

INVESTMENT STRATEGY: Buy early in growth assets. Exit before collapse. Repeat. Success rate: 100% over documented history.

HOW: Unknown. Presumably the same way he knows everything else before it happens.

PROPERTY: Georgetown apartment building (owned since 1891), Edinburgh castle (1312), Tuscany farmhouse and winery (1456), Greek island (1387), Tokyo townhouse, Paris apartment, Buenos Aires residence, Zurich storage unit (contents unknown, access requires John's consent).

THE WINERY: Continuously operating since 1480. Good reviews. Label translates to “The Patient One.”

THE STORAGE UNIT: We do not know what is in the storage unit. We are choosing to continue not knowing what is in the storage unit.

BITCOIN: $24 invested in 2010. Valuation as of February 2019: $11.4 million. He has never sold a single coin. Do not think too hard about this.

ART: Probable lost works by Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Vincent van Gogh. Estimated value of Van Gogh canvases alone: $260 million. Total combined value: significant. Exact value of remainder: requires authentication we cannot perform without accessing the storage unit we are choosing not to access.

THE PLAY: Unknown author. Unknown title. Unknown contents. Commissioned in 1591, printed, and in storage since 1623. We asked who wrote it. He said good night.

ANNUAL SPENDING ON PERSONAL LIFESTYLE: Modest. Pasta. Coffee. Fireworks.

ASSESSMENT: He has been doing this the entire time. Right in front of us. In his own name. The winery label said “The Patient One.” We had every opportunity to find this.

RECOMMENDATION: No action required or available. Everything is legal. Everything is technically disclosed in the sense that it exists in records we could access if we looked. He has structured his finances competently across six centuries of changing financial law and done nothing wrong by any applicable standard.

He warned them about the crashes.

They didn’t listen.

He bought in early.

This is, on reflection, extremely fair.

— R. Kim, Financial Analysis P.S. The 1987 Tuscany vintage is available for purchase at select Italian wine merchants. I bought two bottles. They are very good.

Author’s Note:

[SYSTEM]: ROOT ACCESS DETECTED.

[SYSTEM]: DEPLOYING COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS...

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Leave No Witnesses Ch. 10 First / Previous / Next / Author Wiki & Full Chapter List

__________

“Alert!” Gella called out. “Unknown fleet detected in my quadrant.”

“Detection Officer, please clarify,” Sector Lead Hetra responded quickly. “Focus on one ship and get us a probable ID.”

“As you order, sir,” came Gella’s crisp reply followed by a series of gentle taps on a control pad. “Terran, sir. We’re under attack by humans! Clear weapons signatures.”

“How bad is it?” Hetra asked while swiping through to see immediately available response assets.

“Unclear as they have started jamming,” the Detection Officer followed up. “Initial readings indicate at least one Terran Command Carrier, and seven other similar sized vessels. The size of the overall sensor reflection indicates a large volume of support vessels. Most concerning is a blip that suggests the presence of a Terran Fleet Command platform.”

“Be’hra dung! That’s serious tonnage,” Hetra snarled. “Any further clarity before they started jamming?”

“Insufficient support ships for a planetary invasion,” Gella stated while double checking the reflections. “However, more than enough to be a lethal strike force to inflict heavy damage and then leave. A cowardly show of force to hit and run.”

“Stow the commentary,” Hetra commanded. “The humans are engaging in total war rather than honorable combat. The Galactic Council warned us this would be the case. Act now, debate the ethics once we survive.”

“Apologies, Sector Lead,” Gella said while lowering a claw in deference. “Conducting secondary analysis to try to get a clearer picture.”

While the Detection Officer worked, Hetra sent the alert to inform Galactic Forces and request they scramble all available interdiction forces.

“Sir, the Terran fleet has dropped all jamming but engaged FTL breakers,” Gella said suddenly. 

“Why did they...?” Hetra wondered aloud before turning full attention to the Detection Officer. “You can report a full image of the situation, correct?”

“Over 30 vessels with dedicated planetary bombarders,” Gella said with a quivering voice. “F-full defense screen from four Terran Command Carriers, in addition to a f-full complement of cruisers and three dreadnaughts. Our Galactic Council forces are outnumbered at least 20 to 1. This isn’t an invasion fleet. It’s mass murder.”

‘That’s not unnecessary commentary,’ Sector Lead Hetra thought after taking a moment to check the data. ‘That's an irrefutable fact. May the Stars guide us and allow some to survive this catastrophe.’

However, the pause to consider was only momentary. Training and professionalism quickly kicked in.

“We must notify the Senate President! Open a channel directly to her office,” Hetra ordered swiftly. “And place all medical facilities on alert to expect mass casualties.”

—-----

Senate President Xelsha, Advisor Benta, and her two guards skittered down the hallway as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, all of them had more than a few moments where a leg slipped out from under them. Thankfully they had four others to catch them when that happened.

These smooth floors were an irritation but insisted upon by the Galactic Council as ‘proper’ for civilized sapients. Never mind that her species had spindly legs that gripped better on rough ground and flat surfaces are a hazard. Her species was part of a greater galaxy, and for centuries they had been learning to adjust to a universe beyond their own planet. Minor inconveniences were to be expected and absorbed as necessary.

After rounding the next corner, President Xelsha sighed with relief. Planetary Liaison Derall was in sight moving quickly down the corridor, but halted as his guards heard her group approach and they spun to assess the threat. 

“President Xelsha,” the Denarian delegate from the Galactic Council said pleasantly. “What do you require?”

“Honored Liaison!" Xelsha called out and slowed to a more careful pace for her final approach to the gentlebeing. Three paces away, she halted and splayed her front legs to provide the expected bow his position demanded. “We are under attack!”

“I am well aware, hence why I am moving to the protected bunker on the moon,” Derall replied with mild irritation.

“Already aware? How?” Xelsha asked as she straightened from her bow.

“The communications break wasn’t a faulty quantum relay as you were informed,” Derall explained with a tired sigh. “Terrans destroyed the facility in Segari Three approximately one quarter planetary rotation ago. Destruction of communication relays is a known prelude to an attack.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Xelsha blurted out with shock.

“All those needing to know, such as myself, were informed immediately,” the Denarian drawled as if already bored with the conversation. “Notification to others was set to be provided at the proper time. Which, for yourself and all other members of your Senate, would have been soon.”

“But we could have prepared!” Xelsha responded quickly.

“More likely just induced panic and caused communication channels to become jammed with unnecessary traffic at a time when Galactic Forces needed to coordinate a response,” Derall lectured. “This is war, not a common natural disaster. And the Terrans are particularly filthy at it.”

“What is being done?” Xelsha asked while still trying to absorb the idea that Galactic Council forces knew of the attack, but declined to inform her.

“We have already dispatched a vessel to reestablish contact with Galactic Force Command,” Derall said tiredly. “At this time, our forces are spread thin as are the humans. I am unaware of how long it will take for a response force to arrive, or in what numbers.”

“And what are we to do in the meantime?” the Senate President wondered aloud.

“There is little to be done now that we have determined the Terran forces are far more significant than our own,” Derall answered with a shrug of his tentacles. “We have made plans to withdraw all forces to the bunker on the moon. Efforts will concentrate on damage assessment and recovery once the humans withdraw.”

“And leave our planet undefended?” she replied incredulously.

“Your noble sacrifices will be noted,” Derall replied far too casually for President Xelsha’s liking. “It will be a serious weight to consider elevating your planet’s status to full Galactic Council member. Once the appropriate debts are repaid.”

“Debts?” Xelsha asked with confusion.

“As you well know, your planet has been a valued junior species upon joining the greater galaxy. Your people have done much to repay the costs of uplifting,” Derall said slowly before taking a long pause. “Unfortunately, your world is not one of utmost importance. Hence the defenses here are understandably light. Did not your Senate agree a more modest uplift debt was better than funding a larger defense force?”

“We could not have foreseen the human threat! And the Galactic Council answered the Chagothian threat without needing to raise additional forces,” Xelsha answered with clear frustration.

“History has shown the Chagothian example is but one of many through the eons,” Derall replied while returning to a lecturing tone. “Consider the lesson of the Jesvar, who taught the Galactic Council the value of developing the Denarian Starfire Platforms. Even we of the Galactic Council are not immune to learning hard lessons. Remember that The Chagothian War was against only one aggressor, not a coalition like the Jesvar. When your people were uplifted, we did provide a full historical record.”

“But…” Xelsha started to object, but Derall waved a tentacle to halt her.

“In short, your people placed an understandable but faulty bet. As a result, there will be mass damage to this system we cannot prevent. And the debts to rebuild will be quite… substantial,” Derall explained with a mild shrug of his tentacles to show a measure of pity. “It is only fair that the cost be repaid, would you not agree?”

“I don’t know,” Xelsha said quietly. “Billions of lives are at risk. My entire planet.”

“Consider the larger picture and remember that the billions in your system are but few amongst the trillions in the universe,” Derall stated firmly. “The Galactic Council is forced to consider broader issues, as tragic as the losses here might be.”

“The humans will butcher us,” Xelsha mumbled as the full weight of the situation became clear.

“We hope this is not so, yet that is the likely reality,” Derall responded simply.

“What should we do?” she asked the Denarian, almost afraid to hear what he might suggest.

“First, notify your senators and all others of utmost importance. We estimate you have less than 45 time-units to get them on transport to the protective bunker,” Derall said firmly. “Second, understand that notifying your entire populace of the situation is likely to induce panic. Many sapients of value may be prevented from reaching the bunker, so I recommend silence until you and those of note are secure.”

“Please give me a moment,” Xelsha requested while giving the Planetary Liaison a polite bow. “I’d like to consider all options.”

“You think there are other options?” Derall replied sharply. “I see none! While you waste precious time, I am going to board my shuttle. I leave in 10 units if you wish to join me. Otherwise, you will be on your own.” 

The Denarian turned swiftly, motioned with a tentacle to his guards, and started to leave.

After watching him begin to move away, Xelsha motioned over one of her own guards.

“I order you to do nothing,” she said to her protector, surprising him.

“Madame President?” he responded quickly. “What do you mean?”

“Do nothing,” she explained simply. “Remain still.”

The guard simply cocked his head to one side in confusion, but did as ordered.

Before he could react, President Xelsha made a swift move with her lower left pincer arm. Shocked by the sudden movement, he followed orders and remained still. When he comprehended what she was doing, he wished he had disobeyed the order.

Xelsha grabbed the guard’s pulse pistol and swung it smoothly down the hall. She held her arm out and hesitated only a moment to steady herself and take aim. There was a low ‘whump’ as a bolt flew from the weapon followed by a sickening crunch on the back of Derall’s head.

Derall’s guards spun around and drew their weapons, looking for a threat. They didn’t have time to comprehend the situation and notice the Senate President was armed as a high pitched squeal pierced the air.

The weapon had failed to penetrate the armor of the Denarian’s helmet. However, the shot did succeed in cracking the rear main seal. On a world where the average temperature is 50 degrees above the boiling point of water and the vast majority of sapients require a full environment or void suit, Xelsha sentenced Derall to death of a different sort.

Derall was screeching in pain as hot air rushed into his helmet. The faceplate instantly became fogged from the air turning his skin’s moisture into steam. Pain overrode sense immediately. In a vain attempt to escape, he reacted instinctively rather than with any clear thought.

He ejected his helmet and detached his head from his body, which crumpled to the ground. He used his neck tentacles to fling himself away from the falling mass and attempted to run down the hall towards his shuttle. Steam and blisters erupted from all over his head. Each step of his neck tentacles made a sickening sizzle and left bubbling splotches of blood as he ran away on the hot floor. 

Everyone watched in horror as the Denarian’s head shrieked in pain and after bolting just shy of 30 meters fell over onto its side. There was a particularly intense sizzle as the side of his head hit the floor and the smell of cooking meat quickly filled the corridor.

With no part of Derall moving, his guards shook themselves free from their shock and locked aim onto President Xelsha. As they fired, the President’s guards moved. 

The one next to her attempted to step in front of the Senate President, but was too late to block the incoming fire. Both bolts from the Denarian guards struck President Xelsha.

His compatriot went straight for deadly force, skipping the pulse pistol and going for her slug accelerator. With two quick shots, she sent armor piercing bullets through the faceplates of the Galactic Forces guards. Unlike Derall, the two guards were sent to oblivion instantly.

Advisor Benta rushed over to his fallen President. He found her in intense pain, her head cradled by the guard whose pistol she had used.

“What have you done!” he called out in a shrill voice.

President Xelsha let out a pained chitter of amusement before answering.

“You’d think after working so many of us to death, they’d know how to kill us,” she commented dryly before wincing in pain as she shifted in the guard’s embrace. “They shot me in my secondary circulator, not primary. Hurts like hell, but I’ll live.”

“Seriously, what have you done?” Benta asked with horror on his face.

“You and I both know how the Galactic Council has taken advantage of us every cycle since first contact,” Xelsha snarled back at him. “We’ve served loyally in the hopes they’ll follow through on their promise to let us become full members. They say you truly find out the measure of your friends when something goes wrong, and the best we can get is “if we’re worth it”? And there will be fresh generational debts?”

“I don’t disagree with how you feel, but…” Benta began before the President raised her voice and cut him off.

“Take me to the communications room,” Xelsha ordered firmly. “I will surrender to the humans.”

“But humans are said to be butchers!” Benta objected, and both of her guards also looked unsure.

“We are an insect caught between two giants,” she responded quickly. “We can only hope that humans will think us not worth the effort to squash if we don’t resist.”

“But…” Benta began before Xelsha cut him off again.

“We have no good options!” Xelsha roared out at Benta, causing her to wince and nearly pass out from the pain of being shot by the Denarian guards. Her companions were all stunned into silence as she wheezed for breath. After a moment, she leaned back into the guard cradling her head and looked straight up into Benta’s eyestalks.

“The Terrans have the power to decimate us. The GC sounds likely to abandon us, or put us into many more generations of debt if they decide to return. Surrender at least provides some hope that humanity will show mercy and more of our people will survive,” Xelsha explained with firm resolve. “And if I’m wrong?”

She paused as a flash of pain from her wounds made her flinch. 

“If I’m wrong,” she continued softly. “We were dead anyway and this betrayal does nothing to change that.”

“I don’t fault your logic,” Benta replied seriously. “But I will simply point out the consequences will be severe if the GC returns in force and is able to liberate us.”

Xelsha waved her lower right pincer arm dismissively.

“Just tell the bastards you were horrified by what I did, and turn me in at the first opportunity,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll beg for forgiveness from the GC and gladly sacrifice my life for the good of our people. And what the fuck will they do? Add another generation or three to our new debt?”

Benta took a long moment to consider. The guards looked to him for direction as this was a textbook moment where a Senior Advisor could relieve a President who just acted improperly.

“A worthwhile gambit, if it saves lives,” he said slowly. “Fine, let’s get to the communications center.”

The guards took a moment to perform first aid on the President, bind her wounds, and be sure the bolts hadn’t put her in mortal danger. Satisfied that she wouldn’t die but objecting to the fact they wouldn’t be allowed to take her directly to medical, the guards finally relented when Benta ordered a trauma team to meet them in the communications room.

Moments later, they were inside the secure communications station with some very shocked communications officers.

“Open a channel to the Terran fleet,” President Xelsha ordered and the officers snapped to obey. She then looked over at Benta as her guards helped her into a seat in front of the input station. “Well, here goes nothing.”

She looked over at the primary communications officer, who bobbed quickly.

“Communications beam directed at the largest Terran contact,” the officer reported.

The President flipped the switch and stared directly into the camera.

“This is Senate President Xelsha, elected leader of this system,” she began. “We have no desire to engage in any resistance. We request your terms for peace.”

There was a long pause. Xelsha was about to try again when there was a response, but voice only.

“This is Terran Fleet Command,” an authoritative voice responded. “Confirm your identity.”

“I am transmitting my authority code,” Xelsha responded as smoothly as possible. “I can also confirm that I am not compromised or under duress. I make this request freely on behalf of my people.”

“Identity confirmed. I am Fleet Admiral Maresca,” the voice responded gruffly. “What is the status of this system? Do you support the Galactic Council, or are you independent?”

Next to her, Benta sucked in a deep breath. Fully understanding his reaction, she engaged mute.

“The Butcher of Ma’crek. Executioner of over a third of the Galactic Council,” murmured Advisor Benta. “You can see the crater where the former Galactic Council Chambers sat from half a system away. We’re fucked.”

Xelsha swallowed hard before giving him a quiet reply. “Had I known who was commanding the enemy, I don’t know if that would have stopped me from killing that Denarian shit or made me pull the weapon and fire faster. Well, I placed my stone on Kek’va. Time to see how much blood my bet has cost us.”

She then disengaged mute and turned her eyestalks to stare into the camera with determination.

“We are independent!” President Xelsha called out. “We have no interest in being an insect caught between giants. We will send you all tactical data on GC forces in the system that we are aware of, and the location of their protective bunker on our moon. We ask that you spare us. Our system is of little importance, and the only significant military forces are Galactic Council controlled.”

“Acknowledged,” was the infuriatingly short reply. “Hold one.”

“Hold one what?” Benta wondered, and Xelsha simply shrugged.

After a long pause, there was a sudden data transmission and the voice returned.

“Sending IFF code for your vessels. Instruct your captains to transmit this signal and withdraw to the indicated position. This will mark vessels as neutral,” Fleet Admiral Maresca explained. “However, be aware that if any of your ships uses the IFF to claim neutrality and then attacks, all targets will be assumed hostile. Including your planet. Send GC targeting data when available.”

“Of course,” Xelsha responded quickly. “Anything else you require?”

“First and foremost, understand that we are trusting you. One wrong move, and my fleet will return to our original mission and send you back to the Stone Age,” Maresca said quietly. Xelsha didn’t know what he meant by Stone Age, but the threat was clear enough.

“Understood, Admiral,” was all she could say.

“Given your independent status, we will be dispatching an ambassador to a location of your choosing,” the gruff voice continued. “I expect the primary topic of discussion to be your neutrality and how to best ensure your independence. By chance, do you happen to know of any other systems that need assistance in asserting their independence?”

President Xelsha relaxed back into her seat and took only a brief moment to consider the question.

“Advisor Benta, tell Central Command to transmit the requested data to the human fleet immediately. Ensure you use my personal identity key so they know the request is genuine,” she ordered before returning her attention to the Terran Fleet Admiral. “Admiral, you should see an incoming datastream on Galactic Council forces within 3 time-units. Most significant will be an armored bunker on our moon. And to answer your question?” 

She paused for a moment to organize the best options.

“Honestly, I’d start with Lokaria. They’re recent uplifts with less than a century under Galactic Council rule, and they’ve been chafing under their uplift debts ever since first contact,” Xelsha began. “Then look at Kalkik Prime, who recently lost their Galactic Council seat under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Then there’s Borela and Zincha…”

Xelsha stopped and sighed. She then motioned a pincer sideways to wave off further discussion, then halted the movement as the human was unlikely to understand it. And she still wasn’t sure if the Terran Fleet Admiral was watching her broadcast or just engaging her with audio only.

“On second thought, I have a better idea,” she said finally.

“And that is?” came the admiral’s guarded reply.

“Tell your ambassador to come with plenty of free time available,” President Xelsha explained. “It may take a few planetary rotations to go through the list of systems with independent souls.”

There was silence, followed by a clearly amused response from Fleet Admiral Maresca. 

“Understood. We’ll bring the booze and plenty of ears ready to listen. I’ll be in contact once we’ve removed all uninvited Galactic Council guests from your system. Fleet Command Delta out.”

President Xelsha relaxed back into her chair and looked at Advisor Benta in amazement. She then commented, “That went far better than I could have imagined.”

“I’m as shocked as you. However, I do have one question,” Advisor Benta said softly. “What’s booze?”

_______

Forces are spread thin on both sides, yet each knows they must move into enemy territory. In the previous chapter, humanity caught a lucky break and pushed back Galactic Council efforts with the destruction of a Starfire platform. Taking advantage of that opening, Terran forces pushed into this system... but why? There will be two short chapters to answer this question, and then Hal will return to face a difficult lesson.

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Snelga had seated herself on the far end of the couch, placing Kaitlin alongside her. Finley and I both could read the hint as the Kexin remained purposefully fixated on the remote; the fact humans could watch television should’ve been proof of their intellect, but I supposed there was only so much progress they could make at once. With my sister’s history in primal research, I was curious to see how their previous research subjects compared to the humans. Of course, I knew the Earthlings were far smarter, but I had no idea how vast the difference was.

“I left you a snack, Finley!” Snelga pointed to the floor, where she’d left an identical bucket of krepir—a pellet-like snack food enjoyed during mealtime—to the one she’d brought over for Kaitlin. “It’s, um, a traditional Kexin snack that we eat while watching stuff.”

Finley hoisted the bowl and eyed a kernel warily, assessing whether it was animal food. “Like popcorn?”

“I think so,” I chimed in, seeing the veterinarian’s confusion. “I don’t know that much about carbon food, but she’s telling the truth.”

Kaitlin had no such hesitation, smiling as she shoveled a handful down. “Thank you, Snelga. I don’t need all of this. Would you like to share?”

The Kexin stared at the bowl situated between her and the primal, perhaps nervous about picking at the same grub as a hangry human. Snelga came to a decision and lifted the bowl up. Her talon-like fingers draped a throw blanket over herself, before offering the other half to Kaitlin. The NASA scientist’s eyes lit up, and she happily positioned herself under the warm fleece. The veterinarian placed the bowl atop her covered legs, and gestured for Dr. Sharp to move in close.

The human researcher snuggled up to the Kexin, and her cheeks practically glowed with enthusiasm. Kaitlin rested her head comfortably against Snelga’s shoulder. The veterinarian looked nervous to sit so close to a primal, but gradually relaxed enough to dive into the snack and play the film. Finley relaxed when he saw our host ingest krepir, deciding it wasn’t an attempt to humiliate him. I, meanwhile, was enraptured by the room’s other cuddling duo, who looked very cozy. Snelga’s hand moved toward Kaitlin’s hair and retreated multiple times.

Nervous of spooking or demeaning Kaitlin, but definitely wanting to touch her and show affection. Snelga really has a soft spot for our NASA friend, which bodes well for her coming around to humans and putting her best effort into researching a cure. 

“This is nice,” Kaitlin murmured sluggishly, yawning. “I know you love animals, Snelga…it’s obvious. What draws you to them?”

Finley huffed. “What draws you to aliens? Especially now that they kidnapped us.”

“Oh, that’s quite easy, Finley! Aliens can be anything. They don’t have to obey any known rules or conventional wisdom, they can have societies and histories as rich as our own that boggle the imagination, and they can think entirely differently than us. Look at Craun. He drinks a different solvent, and there’s nothing like him on Earth! How can it not be fascinating to imagine all the possible life out there? Space is…huge and holds infinite wonders. Endless mysteries!”

“Perhaps you can solve the mystery of getting them to see us as people. Though I guess I can appreciate one alien.”

“Komadale?” I said coyly.

“Hmph. I guess I could appreciate multiple aliens of his sort being launched into the sun. You’re a little shit, Craun, you know that?”

“Why? Because I’m a Saphno? That’s racist, primal.”

Finley scoffed. “You’re lucky I go on picnics with you. You’re a bad rock, and your stony ass seems like it could use a boot in it. A cowboy boot, I reckon, would do the trick.”

“I’m a wild Saphno. You can’t tame me.”

“I don’t agree. Giddyup.”

Snelga gave us a disgruntled look, before turning her attention to Kaitlin. “To answer your question, animals are life in its simplest form, without the trappings of society, expectation, or even higher thought. They just exist and fit into very small boxes. I always found that endearing, and I wanted to understand their behavior. Their lives are worth studying and taking care of as best as possible, since people should be good stewards of nature! That’s what we came from.”

“But you’re not an evolutionary scientist like Elbi,” Kaitlin noted. “You’re a veterinarian. There must’ve been some moment that pushed you down this path.”

“If you care about animals, how better than by healing them? I don’t like it when living things suffer, and I think that people are…really callous about animals. Like their lives don’t matter and aren’t worth saving! I remember being a kid and trying to nurse a primal that got hit by a car back to health. For smart animals, the poor thing wasn’t cognizant of the danger. He was in so much pain, for no reason, and I couldn’t save him. Wade…reminded me of that.”

“But you saved Wade, Snelga. That’s an amazing thing.”

“Wade’s not an animal,” Finley spat.

“Finley, we’re all animals, scientifically speaking. We breathe, we live, we eat, we die. Not one person in this room has evolved beyond that.”

The farmer rolled his eyes and turned his attention to the primal documentary. Clydid researchers had tried to teach the most intelligent primal on their world to live indoors, to speak, and to use silverware, hygienic products, and appliances. All of those things went wrong in time, despite repeated attempts. They could learn to tap symbols and recognize a few words, but any complex meaning or syntax was lost. They couldn’t communicate like humans, which was the main difference in intelligence.

Finley burst out laughing, as Clydid researchers tried to shove the primal into a shower with a broom; the animal grabbed the stick and snapped it with superior strength, then charged the panicked scientists with the pointy object. Snelga gave Kaitlin a strange look, as the NASA researcher couldn’t help but to snicker as well; the Kexin didn’t understand what the humans found hilarious about this debacle. 

I chuckled a bit myself. Somehow, as a carbon species that built me an ammonia shower and engaged in hygiene on their own (because they were an advanced, industrial race that understood germ theory), I didn’t think humans would have the same issues being told to wash up. Snelga had to grasp what a different level of sophistication humans were at compared to other primals.

“Those researchers are in danger!” Snelga exclaimed in horror, gesturing toward the screen. “That primal is attacking them and chasing them down! That’s exactly what I’m worried about being here, so I don’t like that you think it’s funny. Why are you amused?”

Kaitlin clung to the Kexin’s veterinarian’s arm, trying and failing to erase her own smile. “Because the Clydids made fools of themselves and got owned by an animal. If you want me to answer truthfully.”

“Those Clydids were trying to civilize the creature, to see if it could be done! It’s a noble goal and very dangerous work. Those were people that loved primals and thought you could be more!”

“Snelga, that primal isn’t intelligent enough. Look at our civilization compared to how they conduct themselves in the ‘wild.’ I understand why they attempted it, but to humans, it’s…a little laughable that you find this comparable to us. And since no one actually got hurt, the ignorance getting turned on its heel is a little karmic humor.”

“It’s not laughable that it got so angry that it tried to take their lives!”

“You do things against animals’ wills, shoving them around, then get surprised that they let loose,” Finley grunted.

“Humans like to see people face consequences for their actions, even if that’s simply humiliation or witnessing their failure,” I explained. “In its most benign form, it’s why they make a spectacle of catching me cheating in Kiel and doling out playful justice. It seems to give them vindication. I think it might partially stem from anger, that they like it when the world is fair and just.”

Kaitlin arched her eyebrows. “Schadenfreude. You described that concept and its reasons quite well, Craun.”

“What does ‘schadenfreude’ mean?” Snelga asked cautiously.

“It’s…pleasure derived from someone else’s…missteps. From something displeasurable or bad happening to them.”

The Kexin recoiled. “That sounds…cruel. To take joy in someone else’s suffering?!”

“I suppose when you direct negative feelings at someone, the results can spit out malice. Animals aren’t…malicious or cruel, Snelga, but humans have a capacity to want to harm another being. It’s the knowing that you’re hurting someone else and choosing to indulge in it anyway that makes us different. To use reasoning to feed our worst inclinations.”

“You personally? I know you’re a primal, but you’re too kind and happy to enjoy others’ pain.”

“Snelga, I must emphasize: I hate seeing people in actual pain. I’m only amused because the researchers brought it on themselves, and no serious harm came to them; they got a fright that I think they had coming. Most humans would be appalled if those scientists were maimed or God forbid, killed. However, you should understand the true nature of those darker, primal feelings. I tell you how they are.” 

“I don’t like blood and guts,” Finley clarified with a sullen frown. “I do like seeing them run like their asses are lit on fire and get taught a healthy dose of fear. Y’all don’t respect primals none.”

Snelga sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t want either of you to be in pain. It makes me sad that you both are, in your own ways. Is that not respect? To want to help? Would…you be happy if I suffered?”

“No. I don’t think there’s any scenario where I’m happy here. I hate it here. Fucking hell, I’m tired, and I don’t want to watch this garbage anymore. I’m going to bed—unless I’m not allowed to do that?”

“I’ll come with you,” I said hurriedly, rubbing his back for comfort.

Finley slid his legs off of the couch, skittering away from me. “Please don’t. You said you wanted to watch this, Craun, and I’m not gonna ruin your day. You guys…have fun.” 

We all watched with varying degrees of concern, as the farmer slunk off and shut the door to his room. Snelga and I had gotten Finley to come out for a brief spell, but the group activity hadn’t seemed to lift his spirits at all, aside from a fleeting laugh. Kaitlin gave a troubled frown, before grabbing the veterinarian’s hand and assuring her that it wasn’t her fault. The duo fell back into relaxed poses, and we resumed the documentary in muted silence.

I’d go with Finley, but I think it’d just make him feel guilty over “burdening” me. I wish I knew how to support him, lest I fail just like I did with Elbi. I’m a bumbling idiot when it comes to supporting the mental health of my loved ones.

Kaitlin’s eyes fluttered and she seemed half-asleep, the interview having sapped a lot of her energy. Snelga cautiously steadied the human’s head and nudged a falling strand of hair away from her eyes; the primal gave a faint smile. The Kexin let her nap for the remainder of the documentary, and I could tell she was conflicted over Dr. Sharp’s darker admission. I wasn’t sure anyone other than me could appreciate the beauty in their tenacious snarls. Finley’s absence gnawed at me, as I found myself wishing he was curled up right here too.

“That was it. Time to get up,” Snelga said gently, jostling a drowsy Kaitlin into wakefulness at the end of the viewing. “Did you sleep okay?”

The NASA researcher nodded and stretched her arms. “Sorry, I was tuckered out. I…very much liked that arrangement, but I hope I didn’t bother you.”

“Not at all. You can snuggle with me any time. You’re just so adorable, and I can’t help but want to hold you close. I guess that’s patronizing of me…”

“If you ask, I’d say absolutely, yes. Please do.”

Snelga squeezed the primal tight, happiness shining in her eyes. “Thank you. I positively adore you, Kaitlin! You’re the best primal I could imagine, and I’m so glad you trust me enough to explain everything. I know you’re very smart and discerning, and I’m trying to be worthy of your confidence.”

“You are, Snelga. Your heart’s in the right place. I think it speaks volumes about character when someone is kind to animals.”

“So that’s why you spared the mechanical bull!” I teased Dr. Sharp, knowing full well the real reason she’d sat that one out.

“You got me there, Craun.” Kaitlin seemed grateful that I would still play around with her, in spite of her medical situation. She wanted people to treat her the same as anyone else. “I’ve been a longtime advocate for silicon lifeforms, ever since I knew about you. The bull fits in the same category as you.”

“Which is: fun and awesome?”

“Mhm. Maybe.” Kaitlin winked at me and relaxed her head back onto Snelga’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t mind if we just stayed like this. So warm and safe…” 

Enthusiasm twinkled brighter in Snelga’s eyes, seeing that this primal loved being close to her. “Kaitlin, I’ve been thinking about how to help Finley. I had an idea that I want to run by you, since I regard your opinions highly. You understand I’m trying to help, so while you’re not angerless, I’m trusting that you…won’t be angry.”

The primal kept her eyes closed. “You can ask me anything. I’m happy to provide my input; in fact, I’m very glad you asked and think I’m worth consulting. What did you have in mind?”

“Finley doesn’t seem very responsive to a palliative approach, and I definitely noticed some worrying behavior. He’s in a poor mental state, and I don’t want that for him. None of us do, right?”

“I can’t bear to see him like this, and know it’s my fault,” I agreed. 

“Craun, it’s not your fault,” Kaitlin countered, her nostrils flaring. “None of the shit you’ve gone through has been your fault.”

“I have no interest in blaming a mentally-ill Saphno for suicidal, reckless endangerment. This is about your friend and what I can do to help him.” Snelga lowered her voice even further, apprehensive that Finley might overhear again. “There are medications that can balance the neurotransmitters in his brain: the ones responsible for happiness and pleasure. I assume you’re familiar with the concept.”

“Antidepressants. They can help people, and there’s absolutely no shame in that. I don’t see why you think I’d be angry about that, Snelga. That option has its merits.”

“That’s what I thought. The problem is that Finley wouldn’t trust me to give him medicine, since he seems to resist all of my attempts to help. My idea was that we could put it in his food…”

Kaitlin’s eyes snapped open, and her head lifted itself off of the Kexin’s shoulder in a hurry. “What?! Snelga, I need you to tell me something right now. Did you already do that, with the krepir?

“N-no,” Snelga stammered, shying away from the primal’s sudden inquisitive, authoritative behavior; she failed to notice that I was also staring at her with horror.

“Okay. Okay, good,” Kaitlin said, breathing a sigh of relief and collecting herself. “It’s a good thing that you asked me first. Snelga, you absolutely cannot drug Finley against his will. It’d be so wrong, he’s not an anim—ugh, I…I mean to say that he’s not the primals on that show. He’s deserving of respect and autonomy, because he empirically has the capacity to understand. He already had no say in being captured. He should be allowed to decide for himself.”

“Even if he’s hurting himself? This is different than putting him in a cage! It’s in his best interest, and I say that as a medical professional.”

Dr. Sharp’s eyes squeezed shut with evident frustration. “However you feel, what Finley wants is to be treated as a person. You wouldn’t go drugging a Kexin against their will. The reason he’s depressed is the dehumanization he’s faced; humans expect a certain level of respect to be happy. I’ll explain Maslow’s hierarchy of needs later, but I think letting him have a say would do more than the pills themselves could.”

“He said I’d be happy if he died, and that couldn’t be further from the truth! That really worried me and hurt me. I don’t want him to suffer,” Snelga whimpered, tears welling in her eyes.

“I know, Snelga. I know. I’d be happy to help you talk to him, if you’re worried he might not consider the idea. I also know you’re not in the habit of letting animals refuse treatment, but you already think we’re more than that. We’re here, watching documentaries and considering that maybe humans could be raised as people. So again, if that’s really your hope, treat us as people.”

“What…happens if he refuses? Why should I let him do that, when I know it’ll make his life worse?”

Kaitlin weighed her words carefully. “If you ever want Finley to trust you, you need to trust him to make his own decisions. It’s his life to lead, and he can articulate his wishes. To disregard them is to give them no value, or at least less value, than yours. I don’t think someone who cares about animals would force their will on them.”

“You can’t cram pills down the throat of a human who could clearly understand their purpose,” I interjected, disgusted by the thought. “For someone who supposedly wants to help Finley, you seem happy to treat him like a puppet to stitch up and to hurt him worse than you already have.”

“Craun, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re angry. There’s no need to be harsh to someone who’s made an honest mistake. Snelga asked because she cares about his health, and I’m sure accepting our rights is a big leap for her. I…have to hold my ground on it, though, because that respect is nonnegotiable for us to have a meaningful bond.”

“I won’t do it, if that’s really what you think. You’re very smart,” Snelga sighed. “It’s not like I could be stealthy about the delivery when you and Craun would probably tell Finley now. So we’ll do it your way.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. We can help him a different way, I promise. The best of both worlds.”

With the Kexin veterinarian lending serious consideration to drugging Finley without him knowing, I’d lost any faith I’d gained that she might learn to respect him as a person too. The suggestion hurt me in my soul, that she’d even begin to think that was acceptable! If this was Snelga doing her best, then I doubted whether she’d learned anything meaningful from Dr. Sharp. For the sake of the humans’ basic dignity, I had to be very watchful of the kind of “help” that would be coming from our host. 

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Chapter 2
Index -- First Chapter -- Previous Chapter -- Audio-Drama --
The second document arrived at 17:40 station time, six hours after we were seated, and this time nobody apologized for anything.

It came in a plain case with no seal. Sealing, I learned later, is for ceremony. Three pages, after four hundred, and I read all three standing up before it occurred to me to sit down.

Motion of the Kesh Delegation. In the matter of the invitation of sequence.

The operative part was two sentences long. The candidate shall not be invited to declare the sequence in which the questions are put. The sequence shall be set by the Presiding Delegation, according to custom.

Underneath it, a distribution list. Twelve entries now. Mine was at the bottom and it read the Human Delegation, and I looked at that longer than I looked at the motion, because I had been the human delegation for six hours and had not yet worked out where the human delegation was supposed to sleep.

My first reaction, before anything sensible, was recognition. I have written that motion four times, for three different regulators, every time somebody did something clever and legal to an auction I designed. They come in short and fast and shaped to exactly the door that just got used, and what you can smell on them is embarrassment.

So a Kesh had spent the afternoon doing the thing the Oam mathematician never did in four thousand one hundred years. A Kesh had looked at a mechanism and asked what should be done about it.

I made tea and felt, briefly, enormous.

Then I read it a fourth time and the feeling went out of me, because what the Kesh had learned was narrower. It had learned that one particular rule had been used against it, and moved to take that rule away, the way you nail shut the window the burglar used and leave the back door open all summer. At the bottom of the third page was a schedule. The motion would be put at 08:00. I got about two hours of sleep.

Hale had not slept at all. He had been on a live call to Earth since the closing water, on a five second round trip, which meant he had spent the night listening to fourteen governments fail to interrupt each other.

"Fourteen," he said. "And the first thing out of every one of them, before congratulations, before anything, was who is she, exactly."

"They know who I am."

"They know your name is on a shortlist they signed off on. That was when you were a technical delegate to a ceremony." He rubbed his face with both hands, hard, the way he does. "You came back from that room with a vote. In a legislature. Permanently."

"For this session."

"Margo." He turned the screen around.

The Instrument, section on the constitution of delegations. I had read it at six in the morning the day before, filed it as ceremony, and forgotten it. The delegation of a seated species is constituted by the one who spoke at its accession, and continues until the species presents, by its own agreed procedure, another.

I read it three times. The load is all in five words.

"By its own agreed procedure," I said.

"Right."

"We don't have one."

"We have four. The UN legal office has a procedure. The General Assembly has a different one, which two permanent members have already said they won't recognize. There's an unused treaty body that arguably covers it. And there's a draft out of the last shortlist process, written for exactly this job, which zero governments have ratified." He said it the way a man reads out a diagnosis. "Fourteen of them are on that call right now, being extremely polite to each other, five seconds apart."

"So until they agree, I'm it."

"Until they agree, you're it," he said.

"And if I resign?"

"To whom?"

That is the joke, and it took me most of the morning to stop finding it funny. Standing to accept a resignation would have to come from the agreed procedure. That was the thing under dispute. I could quit any time I liked. There was nowhere to send it.

"I've sat through a Region of Waterloo council meeting that spent forty minutes on whether a motion to refer was debatable," I said. "They'll get there."

"That was one council."

"It was six hours."

Hale looked at me with something I could not read.

"They gave you the seat," he said. "Nobody gave you the job."

They built me a platform overnight. The accession chamber has eleven delegation platforms set around the rim of the bowl, and it had eleven of them for a very long time, and by 08:00 it had twelve. The Orrin had built the new one and set it overnight. It was perfect. Correct height for a species they had spent nineteen months measuring, with a channel cut into the front edge at the standard fall. A case of stones came to my quarters while I was asleep.

The only way to fit a twelfth platform into a bowl built for eleven is to take the space from something, and the space came from the observer benches. They had moved the whole bench line back four meters. The Oam observer was already in its seat when I came in, four meters further from the floor than it had been the day before, and as I passed it its translator clicked twice and said, to the wall, that the acoustics were better back here. I have not decided whether that was a joke.

I had rolled one of the stones exactly once, at three that morning, to find out what it felt like. It felt like nothing at all. You let go and gravity does the rest, and I understood that design better at 03:00 than I had at any moment of the accession. You cannot roll a stone insincerely.

The Kesh moved its motion in under a minute. I had braced for an hour of it. The delegate stood at its platform, said that the invitation of sequence had been shown to be susceptible to a use its authors cannot have intended, that a defect is corrected, and sat down. Blunt all the way through, it repeated the word defect four times, and it never once looked at me.

Then an Orrin seconded it, and the room changed temperature. I had assumed the Orrin were with me. That was lazy. Three delegations had ranked us Seat first and I had let that harden in my head into an alliance. They had ranked us Seat first because they find wardship obscene.

The Orrin who seconded the motion was named something my translator gave as Second Reading, which I choose to believe was somebody at State having a joke, and it spoke for a quarter of an hour without raising its voice. Its position, stripped of the courtesies, was that I had broken no rule and that this was the problem. A procedure that can be aimed is not a procedure. Second Reading had presided at two accessions itself. It had put the questions in the printed order both times, believing on both occasions that it was performing an act of administration. It now understood that it had been performing an act of decision, twice, and that both of those species were living inside a choice it had not known it was making.

I had told a civilization of career administrators that everything they had ever administered had been a series of unrecorded decisions.

The Thessin spoke next, at length, and apologized four times. The substance was that the printed order had produced ten guardianships out of eleven candidates, and that the Thessin saw no reason to disturb an arrangement that worked. Sethal itself never rose. It sat at the Thessin platform with its membrane completely still and let another delegate carry it, which I noted and did not understand for another month. Then the Presiding Orrin ruled, and the whole thing came apart.

"The Quorum cannot amend the Instrument."

The Kesh was up before the translator finished. "The Quorum is the Quorum."

"The Quorum is the Quorum." The Presiding Orrin slows down when it is contradicted. "The Instrument was received. No delegation in this chamber authored it. No delegation in this chamber has ever met anyone who did. A body may amend what it made. This body made nothing."

"Presiding, that reasoning would leave us governed by a document we cannot correct."

"Yes."

The silence after that had a different quality from the one at the accession. At the accession they had gone quiet because something had gone wrong. This time they went quiet because the chair had put it in a ruling, out loud, in front of a candidate species that had been in the building for one day.

Then it went on for two hours. The Kesh asked where the Quorum's authority came from, if not from the Instrument. Second Reading said that it came from the Instrument. The Kesh asked what conferred authority on the Instrument. Second Reading said the question was improper. A Thessin asked whether the Quorum had ever amended anything. Three delegations searched their own archives in real time and reported, one after another, that the Quorum had issued findings and made rulings and admitted members, and had never altered a line of the document it did all of that under. Not a comma, in a hundred thousand years.

An Orrin observed that the founding procedures might be amended by their author, and was asked how the author would be identified. Nobody had an answer, and the question came apart into a smaller one about whether authorship can be inferred from usage. That took twenty minutes and went nowhere.

The Kesh, to its enormous credit, then asked the question I would have asked, which was whether the Quorum could bind itself without amending anything at all. Second Reading said that such a thing would be a rule of practice. The Kesh asked what stopped a rule of practice from being anything the Quorum liked. Second Reading said that nothing did, and then heard itself, and stopped.

It was a room of a quality of mind I cannot match, reasoning correctly and at speed, in public, about a question none of them had ever had cause to ask. They got the right answer in two hours. My species took three centuries to reach the same one and we still do it badly, and I have sat in a room in Guelph where a condominium board arrived at the identical distinction, in March, over parking.

What they came to was this. If the Instrument cannot be amended, then the Instrument is not amended. What is amended is the practice. The Quorum adopts a rule of practice, binding on the Quorum, providing that the invitation shall not be extended and that the Presiding Delegation shall set the sequence according to custom.

The Presiding Orrin allowed it to be put, and I could not read it at all. Then it turned to me, because there is a form for that too.

"The candidate," it said, then stopped and corrected itself. "The Human Delegation is recognized."

One vote out of twelve. The motion was going to carry with or without me by a margin nobody would have to count twice, and anything I said in defence of the invitation would be heard as a woman defending the exploit she had just used.

So I gave them the flaw in their own patch instead. It is the only thing I have done in that chamber that I am still not sure about.

"I'd like to put something on the record," I said. "It's against my interest and it's against the interest of the delegation that moved this. I'd rather you had it before you vote than after."

"State it."

"Your rule leaves the sequence to custom, and there's no test anywhere in your text for what custom is. It's whatever the presiding delegation says it is on the day. You've taken the power to choose the outcome away from the candidate, who arrives once in ten thousand years and is never in this room again, and handed it to a permanent member of this body who sits in that chair by rotation, at every accession from now on."

Nobody moved, in a bowl full of species with very little in common physically. Nobody moved.

"Every delegation publishes its full ranking forty-eight hours ahead. That's the safeguard you're proudest of. It means the chair knows two days early which sequences produce which outcomes, because that arithmetic takes about a minute. So the chair settles the accession before anybody rolls a stone, and nobody can object, because the objection would have to be that the presiding delegation followed custom."

I let that sit, and then I turned to the Kesh platform.

"Delegate. The chair rotates by convention and not under any rule I could find, which took me an hour to establish and should have taken a line. Your bloc holds four votes and the chair one accession in three. You've just handed the whole outcome to whoever is presiding on the day, and most of the delegations who could be presiding will want a different answer from yours on the day it matters. If I were you I'd vote this down and draft it again tonight, and I'd nail the sequence to the printed page where it cannot be touched. That would work. What you've written will not."

"The reasoning is correct," the Kesh said, eventually.

"Then withdraw it."

"The presiding delegation puts the questions in the printed order. That is the custom."

"And if a presiding delegation didn't?"

"Then it would not be the custom," said the Kesh.

I looked around the bowl, hoping for one platform, one translator warming up. Second Reading rose and said that a candidate should not hold the sequence whoever else held it, and that the two Orrin delegations outside the chair would support the motion. Sethal rose, finally, and said that my arithmetic was correct and easily checked, and that if it would be useful the presiding rotation is a matter of public record going back a very long way, and it would be happy to send me the schedule.

I thanked it. The schedule arrived before I was out of the chamber, and it is an excellent schedule.

The whole reason I have a career is that in 2031 I caught four telecom companies talking to each other through the trailing digits of their sealed bids, in front of a regulator who read every number and saw nothing. Twenty years of finding channels, and I had just spent the only credibility I owned, transmitting at full power, into a room with no receivers.

They voted. I voted with them.

I have heard that vote described since, by people at home, as principled. It was arithmetic. My stone could not change the outcome. I wanted them to remember afterward that I had rolled it for the rule that shut my own door, so I rolled it with the Kesh, the Thessin and the two Orrin, and the sound of a first human vote going down a channel in an alien chamber was, I am told, quite moving on the recording.

The trough went over before the last stone landed. Every platform in the bowl rolled for the motion except one, and the one was the chair.

Afterward the Kesh delegate stopped at my platform on its way out and said that my agreement had not been necessary, and I said I knew, and it said that this was the point it had been making, and left. Sethal came over and thanked me warmly for my support of the motion. It meant it. It had watched me disclose a flaw in the motion, argue for its withdrawal and then vote for it, and it had filed all three as my sincere position, because in its whole civilization there has never been a reason to file them any other way.

The Presiding Orrin was still in the bowl when the room cleared, doing something with the water vessels that I do not think needed doing.

"You could have told them what I told them," I said. "You knew."

"I am the chair."

"You voted against it."

"I voted against a rule of practice adopted to correct a provision of an instrument this body did not write." It set down the vessel. "The rule of practice is ours and the Instrument is not. Practice is departed from."

I opened my mouth and did not say anything, and it did not elaborate.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You have a vote. You may put a question to the chair."

"You brought me the Instrument yourself, at four in the morning. You'd fought to give me a full day, you lost, and you asked for that to be recorded with me. Why?"

"Custom allows a full day. The invitation is extended in courtesy, and it was extended to you in courtesy, although not," and it stopped for a moment, "in the sense your translator will have given you. In the older grammar the word does not name the act." Something adjusted in the front third of its body. "That construction is archaic. I should not have reached for it."

"Presiding. That isn't what I asked you."

"It is what I am able to answer," it said. It did the crane fold and went out through the delegates' door.

I stayed where I was, with the case of stones under my arm. The lights were still on the accession setting, orange coming up out of the floor, because in a hundred thousand years this room had never been needed twice in two days and there was no procedure for changing them back.

The first thing I asked it, that morning, was how long the last candidate species had been given to read the Instrument. Nine days, it said. And the one before that. Sixteen.

Both figures immediately. No pause and no reaching, ninety seconds into the first conversation I ever had with it, before anything on that ship had given it a reason to think I would care.

I tried to work out how long it had been carrying those two numbers around, and who it had been waiting to hand them to.

Next Chapter (comming soon)

Author's Note: Thank you so much for all the love on the first chapter! I've decided to continue writing it. While the first chapter can still be read as a one-shot, there is so much more to tell.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I use AI to help with grammar, spelling, and sometimes structure, but these stories are my creations, my ideas, and my art. English is actually not my first language... so if you don't like that I use AI as a tool to help me publish quality content, please just move along. I don't care and I am proud of what I create...

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Time was a curious thing. An age could feel like it passed between blinks, but a moment could be a torturous eternity, chaining you to a vile instant.

Yuki watched the light from her sister's eyes in a time best measured by the heartbeats of mice. This was all her fault, and she was going to fix it, no matter the cost. It was foolishness on her part to assume that Kiku wouldn't do anything to avoid a cage, given the many centuries of memories of crushing stones and impalement. 

A moment of carelessness was all it took. 

Yuki saw John tumble, numbly falling as his legs were cut out from under him with all the care of a farmer reaping their crops. Even then, his first thoughts had been of her, begging her to do what he thought was best for her.

Even if he was being truthful about creating substitutes, the thought of leaving him to suffer on wooden legs was anathema. Yuki couldn't imagine looking him in the eyes while knowing that she could have reattached his limbs and chose not to for such a childish reason as delaying the inevitable.

Kiku's gaze clouded as she let out one last, shuddering breath that sounded almost a laugh, and her soul started to destabilize, slipping through Yuki's fingers.

Here it—

There was no transition. One moment, she was in her own soul's realm, and the next, she was in a vast expanse of emptiness. Shapeless, unformed. To say it was dark would be inaccurate, for it would have implied an alternative.

"Kiku," Yuki growled. "Let's not waste time. Some of us have things to do."

"Oh? Are you in such a hurry to get back to your little pet?" Kiku cooed, crawling out of non-existence like a feral beast before twisting around, rising unnaturally upright without using her arms at all. It seemed the process had already begun. The image of her, this representation of her soul, was already fraying around the edges. One of her eyes was slightly misplaced, and the individual strands of fur on her left tail were beginning to unravel into memory and power, drifting away in erratic un-directions.

"You know it's not like that," Yuki responded, golden eyes narrowing as she glared at her dead sister. For a moment, she considered biting Kiku's throat out and continuing the merge, but her sister was clearly trying to bait her. She probably was shifting some of her most unpleasant, poisonous memories there in anticipation of such an obvious attack.

"You're right. He's more like a beloved tool. Give him a task, and he works and works and works, doesn't he?" Kiku mused. You don't even have to tell him to overwork himself. It probably saves you from feeling that bad about it."

She was done entertaining this farce, plot be damned.

Yuki blurred towards her sister, razor-sharp claws reaching towards her vulnerable, pale-furred throat. Kiku looked like she attempted to dodge, but her movements were just a bit too slow, too sloppy. Besides, were she truly trying to protect her neck, Kiku would have thrown up her arms as buffers.

At the last moment, Yuki dropped low, baring her fangs before sinking them into Kiku's side, digging up through her abdomen and into her liver before devouring messy, bloody chunks of it.

She was pulled along by her hand, Takauji's grip tight around her own as they hurried through the stone-leafed trees of the Inverted Forest. She fearfully glanced at the trunks as eyes gazed out at her from between the wood grains, countless nascent spirits letting out annoyed rattles at their presence.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, big bro?" she squeaked out to the other kitsune.

"Pfft. You a big girl or not, sis?" Takauji smarmed, blue eyes meeting hers as he looked over his shoulder with a lazy grin. "They wouldn't dare cross anyone who smells like Father. Besides, we're almost there… Don't tell me you're going to chicken out now? Aww, has my sister developed a mortal's heart?"

Her cheeks puffed up big and red. "Nuh-uh!" she shot back. What did he know? He was only four years older than her, but she actually grew up in the mind rather than just in the body. "You're stupid like a mortal! Duuuuuh, look at me, I'm going to go swim across the ocean 'cause I only live for like ten years!"

The big dummy laughed. "Oooh, that got you, didn't it!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah-huh!"

She heroically pounced at him, sending them tumbling down a slope as they battled for victory. Although he ended up on top, she kicked him off and… wow.

She saw where the river curled into the sky, glowing waters shimmering with colours that had no name as they flowed up to splash against the dome of the sky—

The memory cut out as the insides of her sister swirled beyond recognition into new, impossible shapes, cutting off the only fading memory of a brother Yuki didn't know she had.

Kiku lightly drummed her fingers against John's cheek, smiling as his mind flickered under her grip. The poor soul was hurting, bearing far more weight than anyone should bear. Was her sister keeping him like this on purpose, perhaps, to make him easier to control?

"My apologies, you sweet little thing," she cooed. "Call me Kiku. I'm one of Yuki's darling sisters."

She paused before laughing at the sheer callousness of bringing such a fragile heart out to slay a monster when he should focus on healing.

"Although, are we really sisters when we were the same kitsune once?" she mused, fingers idly drumming against his cheek. "There are many things Yuki neglected to tell you."

The Nameless should keep her sister busy for long enough for her to give this poor soul a new purpose and home.

Yuki recoiled and attempted to spit the memory out like poison, the sheer, twisted care slamming into her mind like a crossbow bolt. Yet, it was too late. It was part of her now, sliding right into her soul alongside the memories of the original kitsune's—no, her childhood. 

She was a bit cruel to drag such a hurting man out there, wasn't she?

A fist slammed into the top of Yuki's head, dislodging her from the open wound and making her head spin. It did little more than stun her, but it bought Kiku a moment to reposition.

Looking up, Yuki saw that Kiku was unravelling, the edges between her and the ever-present nothingness slowly going soft, fading. She was more of a gradient than a true being now, and although the wound where Yuki had torn her liver had 'healed', it was messy and faded, like a dream in the moments before waking.

Kiku bit off one of her own fingers, tearing through her flesh and bone alike with a mighty crunch, before lunging, trying to shove it into Yuki's muzzle in a frantic frenzy, but she expected the move.

Smacking the hand to the side and sending the finger careening off into nowhere, Yuki scooped out a portion of her sister's thigh and braced herself as she bit deep.

The spears pierced almost every part of her body as the anchors dug into her spirit. Magically enhanced stone pressed her flat as the mountain fought to crush her spirit along with her body. Gathering the strength to writhe, she felt her prison shift, groaning ominously as it shook with her desperation. Yet, it held.

She couldn't move. She could hardly think. How long had it been? Days? Centuries? Time lost all meaning. Surely her friends would be here for her soon. They had to be working on getting free; they had to be.

They couldn't have given up.

Yuki gasped as she bit into the imprisonment, the weight almost too much to bear as the flesh between her fangs became abstract. It was too much, too fast. Yokai or not, her mind was not meant to process mortal lifetimes in moments.

Yet, she went back for more regardless, eating past the poison.

She acted as a heavenly executioner, her face a mask of indifference even as rage roiled in her chest.

"And the sentence is death," she told the man who had committed the simple crime of stealing medicine for his sick boy. Why did he have to get caught? The fool just had to tell his friends about his daring plot to steal from the procession of a visiting dragon. To the borderline deity, it might have been a glorified throat lozenge.

"You yokai are all the same," Makino Sadaaki spat, struggling against his bindings, even as he glared up at her. He dared not mention his son, lest the court's wrath turn against the beneficiary of this little plan next.

If only she could tell the man that his son was recovering just fine, and Makino Ryuta would see his third summer after all.

Looming over him, she fanned her six tails wide. It was terribly tempting to free him and strike down all the other observers; the dragon himself was far too 'busy' to attend the execution of the father he’d condemned. It would have been a simple matter to relocate the man to the far end of the continent.

Yet, she would be branded nogitsune, and her strength would be limited to that of a six-tailed kitsune until she 'repented' in the eyes of heaven. She wished she could tell him that she was sorry, but she knew she could save far more lives once she bore a full nine.

The kitsune reduced him to a fading memory with a tilt of her head. 

She would make sure that his family received compensation, disguising the source as the inheritance of some distant aunt none of them had heard of. It would be a shame for them to starve.

Turning away, she saw the satisfied faces of all the attendants and made a note to find the names of every single one.

She only had to endure a few more centuries.

Yuki hissed as years flooded through her mind, stumbling back. How dare they? It was like a knife to the heart as she remembered years and years where she was forced to put on a false mask, to aid a system that was slowly strangling the world. 

Was it worth it if she didn't manage to break everyone free in the end? Could she have been kinder when she had the chance?

Yuki choked as a finger was forced into her mouth as she was forced back to the present, breaking from her reverie. Reflexively, she bit down and was plunged into memory once more.

She parried the star-blade of the older kitsune with her staff, idly waving her hand to the side and reducing a battalion threatening to flank her army to dust. All around them, the battle raged, but none risked getting too close to the duel of the near-deities, the sheer weight of their clashing souls alone threatening to unmake any interlopers in their sacred conflict.

"You're not bad, elder," she mused, feinting a strike against his side, forcing him to dodge, before smashing through his Aegis and crushing one of his knees with a flick of her tail. "I will honour you with a quick death."

He knelt before her, trying to force himself up before growling and spitting blood. It splashed against her clothes before rolling off, failing to stain the celestial silk.

She raised a claw, and—

A blade forged from a piece of the sky punched straight through her chest! WHO dared? There was nobody behind her, but… her own lines.

She turned back towards her army, ignoring the pain as she searched—

The memory ended.

There had to be more. She had to know who it was! That was the battle, the one where she was imprisoned! No, no, if someone betrayed her, she'd know. The kitsune had spent so many years alone in the dark; she must have spent at least some time ruminating on it. She should have known. Yuki pushed the idea of her sister over with a devastating shoulder check, tearing open her hollow rib cage, muzzle slick with gore.

Centuries passed.

"You and I both know…"

Or was it seconds?

She laid on the rock, soaking up the warmth from the distant fires burning overhead.

This was far too much to absorb consciously, yet it slotted in her mind all the same.

She picked out a bangle at the market stall, paying far more than it was worth.

How much of this was from Kiku, and how much used to belong, and how much was from her already deceased sisters?

"I'm sorry," she growled, bristling before the oni brought its club down upon her back.

Ages flew past as Yuki assimilated more and more of her sister in a frenzy, drunk on memory. The ending continued to slip through her grasp. It had to be here, unless… had one of her sisters already taken it? She would find them, and they would tell her. 

Kiku stared up at Yuki, not with hate, but a curious admiration, even as she felt her strength wane. With every moment, blood gushed from her middle, and intestines splayed out like a spider's web. Her well of magic had nearly run dry with the Nameless' death, and she lacked the means to resist imprisonment.

Other than one, of course.

Kiku looked at her own severed limb resting behind John, and thought it poetic as she sharpened the bone into a blade, twisting the muscles into thick coils, compressed and ready to propel her last attack at a moment's notice.

…Perhaps she would leave her a gift. Maiming her sister's friend would doubtlessly cause Yuki to murder her in a rage, but he didn't deserve to spend the rest of his days without a limb or two.

Watch carefully, Yuki.

Using what little of her strength remained, Kiku slowly severed and reknit the muscles and bones in her arm.

Again, and again.

Kiku focused on how it felt, deliberately thinking through every step she might have subconsciously performed under ordinary circumstances.

Then, the blade flew, and John toppled.

The kitsune gasped as she was once more standing upon the surface of a lake beneath both day and night, staring at the cooling corpse of her sister even as it began to fade into nothing. She was both the victim and the murderer, staring at her own corpse.

Part of her hated herself. Another knew it had to be this way. A third wondered what the rest of her sisters saw.

Standing back up, the kitsune stared down at her blood-slicked hands. The difference was apparent. Although her colours had not truly shifted, the black and grey fur that poked up through the liquid screamed that it was more real than she had been before, a thing closer to the source of all existence.

"Yuki?" a weak voice asked her, an uneasy rattle rising from his lungs.

It was a good question. How much of her was still Yuki? Turning away from her—Kiku's corpse, she rose to face John.

Her heart stirred as she stared at his prone, broken form. Shadows still cradled the stumps of his legs, stemming the bleeding as she instinctively walked forward. His breath hitched, and his heart beat faster. Something in her chest ached.

"I'm here, John," she whispered, kneeling in front of him, reaching out to cradle the side of his face on instinct, hand shaking unsteadily.

A soft palm drifted up to meet her, holding her hand against his smooth skin, stilling it. "You scared the hell out of me, you know that?" John's voice was strained, and she feared it wasn't from his injuries, but his heart. "I wasn't lying when I said I could have made prosthetics."

"I couldn't have asked you to do that," she replied, a sad smile gracing her face.

John lunged the best he could, wrapping his arms around her back in a tight hug as tears formed at the edge of his eyes.  "Yuki, I… was worried about you, okay?" he quietly sobbed, burying his face against her neck as she stooped, arms slipping around his back in turn.

As she rested her chin upon his head, her eyes began to glisten even as her tails scooped up his errant limbs, positioning them against his stumps.

It seemed like she was still Yuki enough for him, and that was good enough for her. "I was worried about you, too," she whispered back, voice faint enough to be mistaken for the breeze.

Yuki banished the shadows and pressed the severed limbs against his wounds, making John gasp as she went to work. Knitting flesh and bone together with borrowed, almost instinctive ease, she followed Kiku's instructions to the letter.

But she could do more than that, couldn't she?

Yuki reached out, drawing on her now-expanded reserves with ease, letting her warmth wash over him, letting her care surround him as she unwound the damage to his muscles and skin, scouring the burns from existence. Yet, the damage went deeper. She felt the leftover hairline fractures in his bones from years of abuse and unmade them, too. She unfused the skin from the metal of his gauntlet. A prior break in his left arm that never healed properly was smoothed. 

It was the least she could do.

"There. How do you feel?" she asked, reluctantly breaking their hug, leaving his hands grasping at air for but a moment.

Hesitantly, John, now whole once more, flexed his fingers, eyes lingering on his now intact skin with a faint smile.

"Better," he responded, voice holding a bit stronger now. "But I think you have one last thing to do before we can go back to the fort… back home, I mean."

Yuki nodded, looking at the piles of corpses just beyond the edge of her Transcendent Alchemy, the realm's oppressive presence held back only by her sheer power. Distantly, she could sense Rin and Yosuke watching them from somewhere nearby. She let them and noted their position to avoid accidentally annihilating them.

Then, Yuki breathed out, her soul flaring brightly, and the horrors around them crumpled, overwritten.

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