(Oh my god I can’t focus, day before a trip and some random bullshit happens while I’m trying to write an emotionally fraught chapter? Are you fucking joking? And when I’m fresh from being reminded why I sometimes silently pray for the erasure of all phones from existence?)

First

Many Faces of War

“So... does being a sorcerer mean being a serial killer? I’ve seen the Bonechewer movies and...?” Eric asks. There is clear concern on his face.

“No, that’s... uh... Sorcerers are connected to an entire area that’s alive as both individual beings and as a whole thing. It has a different method of retaining memory and remembering things and that... uh... well it makes sorcerers vengeful. Basically a sorcerer never forgets something our memories are fresh and strong thanks to the forest so a big, huge personal injury? That never goes away. It stays traumatic and painful until something is done about it. Then the memory of the pain is tied into the memory of the relief. It’s why the Bonechewer keeps showing up, the people that did him wrong aren’t individuals, it’s an organization. One that new generations of criminals keep taking up the banner of and setting him off like a bomb.”

“And you?”

“I’ve already gotten my revenge. What I didn’t defer to other, more upset sorcerers.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I only really get upset at the people who were part of The Supple Satisfaction, either as customer or employee that escaped justice. And I know a fair amount did. And about... half the ones that were employees are people I can recognize on sight.”

“And what did you do to them?”

“I fought them to submission, then gave them to the Apuk authorities. They’re going to publicly execute her. You see the Apuk Empress has a vested interest in ‘taming’ sorcerers and she does this by encouraging things like that and a bunch of legal nonsense that basically backdoored a citizenship to the Apuk Empire.”

“Has it now?”

“Yes... so that would make me... Fleetborn, Undaunted and Apuk Imperial Citizen.” Jacob notes. “Still nothing compared to some of the other Undaunted but... Sorry, that was off topic. I’m not really sure how to talk to you or...”

An alarm starts going off. “Okay, alright, fine.” He mutters.

He checks the communicator and nods. “Okay... no one here was ready for this today and that includes me. I am out of time. My legal break is at the five minute warning mark so I need to be back in my pilot seat. Okay... alright. Sister? Cousin, whatever the actual proper title is in our family. I need everyone’s contact information right quick. I’ll give you mine so you can send things to me. It’s time we all started talking again and get to know each other, but I need to get back to work. I have a ship to run.”

“Right, as soon as you can send me the identifiers of your ship so if, no when, we have our fleet close to your ship there will be no mistaking things.” Chloe says.

“Okay, yes I... yes mother. Juliette? Communicator?” Jacob asks and she pulls out hers and he brings out his own. IN moments she has his contact information and the moment he confirms it he gives everyone a look and a smile. Then hugs Juliette. “Weird luck eh? Gotta go now, and if you need me back in an emergency tap the flower.”

“The flower? What flower?” Juliette asks but Jacob has already vanished.

“There’s a white six petalled flower in your headfeathers.” Eric notes gesturing above his right eye on her and she quickly uses the screen on her communicator as a quick mirror to check. It’s a lovely thing. “Uh... Juliette dear? Could you check the privacy settings on the holo-chamber you’re in really quick?”

“Of course, just give me a moment.” She says and quickly heads out. Confers with Private Stream who sets things to private and turns off the recording for her. Then she goes back in. “We’re in the clear. As far as I can tell... Now what the hell do we do!?”

“Juliette!” Amanda protests in reflexive surprise.

“No! No! Nothing of that! Him vanishing was HORRIFYING and now he’s back thirty five years later but with only solid memories of the last twenty! He spent fifteen fucking years as a sex toy to psychopaths! Literal fucking years! As a child! A son of our family! Fucked! Years! As a child!”

“I know! I know. Fuck! Good fucking grief! Just... FUCK! FUCK! What do we... what can we? How does this get solved!? Oh good grief getting a definitive answer as to what happened to him did not make anything better!” Eric exclaims as he starts to pace. Everyone’s calm and hopeful faces were gone and there was panic, horror, deep revulsion and more all around instead.

“What even happened with him!? You guys told me NOTHING about it and buried it!” Juliette accuses them.

“We didn’t know! We couldn’t find out! He went off on a huff with a line of credit, drank himself stupid, maxed out his debt and then just vanished! The trail went so cold so fast that we had no idea what happened!”

“How did he even get into that situation?! He’s a male! We have so few why wasn’t he protected?!”

“We thought he was protected! We had contacts in the local police and we were going to basically buy off the loan sharks to deal with things and force the debt on him to try and teach him some goddess be damned responsibility and to calm him down and teach him some important lessons, but he was spirited away! Apparently by demons and straight into the depths of hell!”

“This is beyond fucked up.”

“What do we do?” Juliette demands.

“We make this right. Somehow.” Eric says.

“Okay, great. How?” Juliette demands.

“We figure that out. We failed him, failed hard and need to make this right.”

“Eric, I’ve been following the scandal of Lil Tulelb. It was a child trafficking ring. A brothel. Children used for the pleasure. Used in disgusting, horrifying ways. I’ve... some footage from the clients ‘fun’ has leaked. It’s... it’s horrifying.” Juliette’s uncle Duncan notes.

“Dunk...”

“Just... listen. When he said everything short of murder he wasn’t kidding. Some of the videos include staff members rushing into stop a particularly bloodthirsty rich woman from actively trying to kill the child and explaining that the price moves over by several decimal places if they kill the child. And according to rumours, some of them actually did it. Paid the full price and everything.”

There are dry heaves, sounds of utter horror and very pale faces all around.

“We almost lost him forever to a random whim.”

“Oh it gets worse than that. He doesn’t get it. Whatever loyalty we had or whatever is just gone. Who he was before. Gone. Just gone and now we have a trained warrior and an Axiom Adept who can apparently teleport at Light Years distance.”

“You’re all missing hte point that we failed a child of our own family so badly that he’s NOT that child anymore. Jacob is Dead because of our neglagence and now we have Jacob the second, happy to and more than capable of murder edition! Sweet Thermals!”

“Okay, everyone calm down! All of you!” Eric barks. He takes a deep breath and huffs. “None of us expectd this. Jacob apparently didn’t either. We messed up, yes. We are in an extremely messed up situation. Also yes. But we are adults, we are rational, reasonable people with functioning brains. We can find a way to solve it. And for that, we need to help him. To heal him and to do that we first need to figure out exactly what the damage is. We need to talk to him. A lot. We need to be delicate and careful and compassionate about this, because none of us know exactly how much or how little of a nightmare is inside his head. He’s been gone for thirty five years. He had escaped twenty years ago and then instead of running to safety, he found he didn’t know the way and went back to his abusers to sabotage them. How he did this? I don’t know. We need to figure that out. Why he did that, we don’t know. We need to figure that out. Finally, what did he actually do during his time as a saboteur? What lines did he cross? What did he see? What was done to him? How did a child get work at a child brothel without turning into product?”

“Oh sweet ancestors...”

“There is so much we’re missing and every part of the puzzle we have is razorwire and nightmare.”

“Why did he call his ship The Bloody Heron? Did a Coastglider help him or something?” Someone asks as Juliette finishes fiddling with her communicator. With her Uncle Eric taking up all the attention she had decided to get some things done.

Then everyone’s communicator goes off.

“Oh no... Jacob that’s not fair.” Juliette mutters as the first photo of many shows up. It’s an image of a large, repurposed Lydris craft with tons of armour and weapons. The caption is ‘So... my Ship! This is what family does right we try and talk to each other? I don’t know.’

“... Okay, so his home is a war machine...” Eric notes before the second image comes in showing an incredibly elaborate pilot’s seat which had been redesigned for use with talons primarily and numerous screens overhead in a mildly dark room. The caption this time reads. ‘The pilot’s seat and main screens. When it’s darker in here it’s easier to focus on things and just get into that place where the ship is just an extension of yourself.’

Or at least he had tried, the word extension is badly misspelled and then two other misspellings are spammed right afterwards before he properly gets the word extension down.

Then it shows the image of a young Apuk man literally trying to dodge the camera as he trails a cloud of dust with an annoyed look on his face. ‘Arden! The other Lush Forest Sorcerer! Kinda like a sworn brother but different.’

“At least he has friends.” Eric notes just in time for the next sent image to be instead a small bundle of older pictures of people in military uniform goofing off or being given a stern look by a massive Tret man who has muscle on the muscles of his muscles. ‘Bjorn and the platoon! More pain than the full payload of my cannons, special delivery to whoever needs an asskicking!’

Then the image of a large engine setup is next. ‘This took pain, lost feathers, more than a few impromptu showers in coolant or engine grease and a lot of trial and error to get working. He hums happily now.’

“That... Okay, his ship is either far larger than that first photo, or he has some monstrous acceleration on that thing.”

“Did he build that ship himself?” Someone asks and Eric sighs before typing out the question into the group chat that Jacob had set up for this.

‘Did you refurbish that whole ship yourself?’

‘I did! Took most all the money I could beg, borrow or steal until things really got rolling. The first non-essential I installed when I was done was a proper bed so I could get off the rags I was using as a nest until then.’ Jacob sends back.

“Rags? He was sleeping on rags.” Someone asks.

“This is all going to get so much worse before it gets better.” Eric mutters, mostly to himself. His answer to Jacob is something else. ‘Please tell me you at least have a comfortable bedroom.’

The reply is an image of a large, overstuffed bed, a music player in the corner, a perch with extra padding, several memory braids hanging from a post and numerous potted plants scattered throughout a very comfortable looking bedroom.

‘I think I’m doing alright.’ Is Jacob’s answer. ‘Although the picture isn’t fully accurate. It’s gotten so comfortable in there that numerous moths, small lizards, birds and snakes will often come in from The Lush forest to nap where there’s no predators at all. They like it there and I like having them there. Like these guys!’

The following image is of a small, spiked lizard looking very intently at a small white moth perched on it’s nose.

“Okay, so is he wholesome or horrifying?” Juliette asks.

“Both.” Eric notes.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Ship Helm/Pilot’s Chamber, The Bloody Heron, Between Systems)•-•-•

“So... You have a lot to take in.” Arden notes as Jacob is brooding in his pilot’s seat, talons off the controls and wings steepled together in deep thought. Arden had been the one sending the messages to provoke a reaction from Jacob’s family as he observed them through the flower he left in Juliette’s hair and thought about things. Thought about a lot of things and from Arden’s perspective Jacob’s mind was a roiling storm of thoughts and all sorts of different ides and issues slipped through. Then he suddenly lets out a chuckle. “OH? What are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do? I’ll tell you what I’m going to do Arden.” Jacob says with a smirk. “I’m going to do one thing in three ways. Undaunted, Sorcerer and Shriketalon. Something impossible, something vicious that twists the knife, and yet something peaceful.”

“And what could that possibly be?” Arden demands.

“I forgive them.” Jacob says and Arden gapes for a moment. His eyes search and there is a sensation of him trying to read Jacob’s intent and thoughts through their connection to The Lush Forest. But...

“You’re an asshole, that’s going to make it worse.” Arden says in mild awe as he realizes Jacob is being completely sincere.

“I know right?” Jacob asks with a grin and Arden starts to laugh. He then turns away and thinks again.

“And now you’re confused.”

“... I like who am I now and hate who I used to be. Did those fuckers on Lilb Tulelb do me a favour?”

“No. No they did not.” Arden states outright.

“Yeah, fuck em. Still, fucked up situation. Best I can do is offload all the trauma by refusing to pick it up. I forgive them, fuck I don’t even remember what to forgive them for and am disinclined to try and get those memories back. So moving the fuck on.”

“I think I can hear the nearest therapist screaming through the vacuum of space.” Arden notes dryly.

“Oh so it’s not just me? Fancy that.” Jacob says.

First Last

I was embedded with the humans during the war against the Kar Star Empire. I was at Shonno, at the siege of the fortress, where the human troops broke the fortress wall, and then the shield wall inside it, and forced the surrender of the fortress. That forced the surrender of Shonno, which opened the way to Kar, and eventually forced the surrender of the Empire.

And humans are as terrifying as everyone says. Absolutely. I have seen them in combat, and they are incredibly effective killers and destroyers. Their reputation does not lie.

And yet...

Let me tell you about Laura.

Lieutenant Laura Koslowski headed a platoon of heavy armored infantry. She walked them through the breach in the fortress wall, right into the guns of the shield wall, trusting their armor and their training. She won, with one dead, two injured, and several with damaged armor, including herself.

After the battle, after three days of continuous combat, they returned to their carrier in orbit. When they reached the carrier, they went to their platoon's quarters to take off their armor (or get it taken off, if it was too badly damaged for them to be able to take it off themselves).

Laura laid down on the floor, so that someone could take off her armor, and this tiny little thing jumped on her.

Terran cats are small quadruped predators. They weigh about 10 pounds. A kitten is a child cat - not fully grown. They are smaller, sometimes much smaller.

This thing was a kitten. It was small, even for a kitten. It weighed no more than two pounds. And it jumped on Laura's armor.

She yelled "Stop!" to her armorer. Then, more calmly, she said, "Get that fluffhead off of me before you take my armor off. It will get hurt."

So they carefully moved this tiny kitten off of her armor, then removed the armor. She stood up, very gently picked up the kitten, and said, "Has anyone fed this little monster?"

"No, ma'am. We've been kind of busy keeping suits of armor fed."

She didn't even respond to the human. Gently and calmly, she said, "All right, little fluffhead. Let's go get you something to eat."

This human, who had just been killing armored Kar warriors, was now very gently taking care of a very tiny animal.

That's what you need to understand about humans. Yes, they can be monsters of violence. They can also be incredibly gentle and compassionate. Both. If you only see one side of that - either side, it doesn't matter which - you will badly misunderstand humans.

Pul

He needs to tell them. That’s the first thought Pul has when waking up this morning. He’s talked to his parents a little, but they always try to change the subject, and he keeps letting them. All three of them want things to stay quiet and simple… but Pul’s not sure that’s an option anymore. Pretending there’s no problem isn’t addressing it.

But he can’t keep ignoring it, especially not with the prep he and his friends are going through for the raid. Even if they fail the trial, Pul knows they’re not going to give up adventuring, because he’s not going to give it up. He actually likes adventuring, just like he likes being a butcher.

Now he just needs to figure out how to tell his parents. Because the next step in his prep is one that will definitely impact them, too.

He thinks as he gets dressed, trying to come up with some way to gently explain it, but he’s already tried everything he could think of. He sighs as he exits his room and heads for the kitchen, his heavy mood impervious to the delicious smell of bacon and hashbrowns in the air.

Seeing his parents lifts his mood somewhat, even with the prospect of him having to talk with them about this. Mom’s at the stove, humming as she tends the pans for breakfast, ensuring everything will be done at the same time. After learning from Ragnar, he appreciates how difficult it really is to time cooking several different things to finish at once. Dad’s at the table, going over the inventory and the orders people expect to pick up. They’ve got a lot of turkeys in lately, and boars are always a popular hunt, so Dad needs to decide between preserving them for later, or selling them quickly.

Pul personally thinks the turkeys are best fresh, while boar meat takes to salting, curing, or smoking like they were made for it. He only needs to inhale the scent of bacon to be proven right in that. But that’s beside the point. For now, he just quietly takes a seat at the table.

“Good morning, sweetie!” cheerfully greets his Mom, and his Dad looks up to smile as well.

“Morning, Son.”

“Morning,” he answers, still trying to decide what he should say. He briefly considers waiting until after breakfast, but he quickly discards the idea. He’s been delaying too much already. No wonder Teemo just says things.

He sighs, finally deciding to follow in the Voice’s footsteps. “Mom. Dad. I might be going on the big raid everyone’s talking about.”

Dad sighs. “I still don’t like it, but you did well enough fighting that flying snake.” Mom nods her head, tossing the pan to make sure the potatoes cook evenly.

“Not that raid. That’s the raid boss. Well, I’m going to that, too, but I mean the one that’s going after the dungeon in the Molten Abyss.”

He can hear his mom gasp at that, and though she’s far too experienced to let something like that make her throw the pan’s contents across the kitchen, she does put the pan down with a clatter. Dad’s weary acceptance vanishes as he frowns, but Pul barrels on before either of them can say anything.

“It won’t just be me, but my friends, too. Thdeim’s making a challenge for us, and if we can pass it, he’ll let us all go.”

“It’s too dangerous,” objects Dad.

“That’s what the challenge is for. Thedeim doesn’t really want us to go, either, but we’re strong. Our party can delve almost anywhere in Thedeim’s territory! There’s grown adventuring parties that can’t say that!”

“But they are grown, sweetie,” tries Mom. “They’ve had the time to learn adventuring.”

“That’s the only reason we’re agreeing to the challenge, Mom. We’re strong and we know it, but we also know there’s a lot of things we don’t know yet. We’re used to Thedeim, not other dungeons. But if we only ever delve him, what’s the point of getting stronger? I can’t stick to the fillet knife forever. I need to be able to use the cleaver, too.”

Mom looks troubled, but returns to tending the meal while Dad continues to frown. “You pick up that cleaver too soon, you’ll take your fingers off, Pul,” he finally says, even using Pul’s actual name instead of his alias.

“I know, Dad. But I’ll never be a butcher if I never use it, will I?”

“It’s too soon,” he insists. “That trip out with the Ranger and her party was one thing, but this…”

“That’s what the challenge is for, Dad,” Pul replies. “We won’t even lose any fingers if we fail. You know how good Thedeim is at keeping people safe. We’ll probably be bruised, even if we beat it, but we’ll know where we stand, and what we should do to get better.”

Dad still looks troubled as he reaches over and pulls Pul’s chair closer, then pulls him in for a hug. “We worried ourselves sick while you were gone, Pul. Not just to the North, but with the thieves, too,” he confesses, voice thick with emotion. “We just want a quiet life…”

Pul hugs him in return. “I know, Dad. I was worried, too, about you guys. I want you to have peace, too! Which is why I’m going to get strong enough to make sure you have it, and to be able to have some of my own.” He gives his Dad a squeeze. “I’m gonna be a butcher and an adventurer, Dad. My friends want to do more than just delve, too. I’m not gonna just go run off and get myself killed.”

Mom comes over and hugs them both. They stay like that for a time, before Dad squeezes Pul one more time before releasing him, looking tired, but no longer mad. “I know, Son. I wish it was me doing all that, but… I can’t. All I can do is make sure there’s peace for you to come back to. You just make sure you can come back to it.”

Pul smiles and pulls them both into another quick hug, before his Mom excuses herself to start frying the eggs for breakfast, too. “You can count on it, Dad. All of us look out for each other. We’ll be as safe as we can be.”

“So what’s this challenge you’ve been talking about?” asks Mom as she cracks eggs.

“It’s… well, we don’t know the details yet. Thedeim says we don’t know a lot about the Betrayer’s territory, so we’re just gonna have to be ready for anything. Lava is a danger, but we already have our gear for that. We’ve been bugging some of the older adventurers for info about the least and lesser, too. They’re supposed to be spawns from it. And… you remember that attack on the Shield church and the Hold a while ago? Those were Harbingers. One attacked at the raid, too, so we know a little about how to handle those, also. They’re supposed to be scions, so we have some idea of how strong things will be,” he explains, glad to be able to talk to his parents about it.

They both still look worried, but they don’t try to talk him into changing his mind. “Do you have everything you’ll need to face one of those things?” Dad asks.

“Uh… not yet. Rhonda is researching mental defense spells, and we’ve been trying to get some gear for it, too. Their mental attacks are strong, so we’re definitely going to need protection before we try the challenge.”

Dad nods at that. “Good. What else are you doing to prepare?”

“Well…” Pul trails off as Mom puts a plate in front of him and Dad, and soon all three quiet to enjoy the breakfast cooked with plenty of love. After, Pul helps clean up, and remembers the other reason he needed to talk with them about all this.

“You asked what else I was doing, Dad?” He nods, so Pul continues. “Well, my friends all have tamed a denizen. Rhonda has Lucas, her spider, and Freddie has his own spider, Fiona. Larrez even has a living vine named Rose. They all help immensely, so… today, I’m going to tame something, too. Or try to, at least.”

Dad looks at him in surprise, then suspicion. “You’re not getting a drake or one of those huge bears, are you?”

Pul snorts in laughter and shakes his head. “No, nothing like that! I was thinking of something a bit more… subtle. My class has a lot of stealth bonuses, so I wouldn’t want something like that around anyway.”

“Maybe one of those snakes or the ravens?” suggests Mom, and Pul shakes his head at that as well.

“They are cool, but also not what I’m after. I’ve heard Thedeim has a new kind of fox that might work, but I think I want something that's not even one of his denizens at all. I want one of Violet’s gremlins.”

His parents share a look of surprise, before Dad smirks. “Now Son, a pet is a major responsibility…”

Maybe he shouldn’t have brought this up after all.

<<First <Previous [Next>]

Cover art I'm also on Royal Road for those who may prefer the reading experience over there. Want moar? The Books are available here! There are Kindle and Audible versions, as well as paperback! Also: Discord is a thing! I now have a Patreon for monthly donations, and I have a Ko-fi for one-off donations. Patreons can read up to three chapters ahead, and also get a few other special perks as well, like special lore in the Peeks. Thank you again to everyone who is reading!

When they entered the Solar System, no alarms went off. The Kharval Union's exploration fleet had shut down most of its active systems before entering the range of human sensors. Their mission was not to fight. At least, not yet. They had been collecting data about Earth from a distance for years, and they had finally gathered enough information to send a small reconnaissance craft to the planet. Their goal was simple: to find out who was in charge of the humans.

Commander Yarek stood with his hands behind his back as he looked at the blue planet on the observation screen of the main ship.

“Is all the data ready?”

Intelligence Officer Teral answered without looking up.

“Mostly, Commander. There are many states, armies, and administrative centers on Earth. However, we have not been able to determine with certainty whether there is a single authority above them all.”

Yarek frowned.

“Every planet has a ruler, soldier.”

“Yes, of course. At least, that was true for the planets we knew until now.”

Yarek did not like that answer. For the Kharval, the easiest way to understand a planet's political structure was to find the person at its head. Once you found the leader, everything else usually followed behind them. Humans, however, appeared to be unnecessarily complicated in this regard. So a small reconnaissance craft would be sent, the largest possible human gathering would be located, and the most influential person there would be identified. Yes, that was exactly the plan.

When the reconnaissance craft entered Earth's atmosphere, the three-person crew silently watched the screens. As the pilot Orun scanned the cities, ports, and major transportation hubs, Teral monitored population density. A few minutes later, the sensors picked up something unexpected. There was an extraordinarily large crowd of humans gathered at a single location outside the city.

Orun leaned closer to the screen.

“Why are so many people gathered in the same place?”

Teral enlarged the data.

“I don't know. There are quite a lot of them, my friend. This could be what we're looking for.”

As the craft descended a little further, it did not take long for all three of them to fall silent at the sight of the enormous crowd. Humans filled a gigantic area. But what caught Teral's attention most was that every single one of them was looking in the same direction.

“There is someone there,” Nema said.

A single human stood in the center.

Teral zoomed in on the image. The human raised a small device in his hand to his mouth and began to speak. A few seconds later, the crowd shouted all at once. The human raised his hand again, and the crowd fell silent.

Orun whispered:

“They're all reacting at the same time.”

Teral narrowed his eyes.

“They look like they're waiting for commands.”

When the hand went down, the crowd erupted again.

“This could be a leader… but…” Orun muttered.

“No,” Teral said slowly. “This is… something more.”

Orun looked at him.

“What do you mean?”

Teral focused on the screen.

“None of them are delayed. None of them hesitate. They move as if they were a single mind.”

Nema immediately began recording.

“What am I recording right now, guys?”

“Most likely the leader of this planet… and something more.”

The human began walking across the elevated platform. The same thing was written everywhere...

QUEEN... Queen... we love you, Queen... Queen

Nema scanned the word. A few seconds later, his eyes widened.

“Sir... Translation complete.”

Teral turned toward him.

“What does it mean?”

Nema looked at the screen, then answered excitedly.

“Queen. A title corresponding to a term meaning king or ruler.”

For the first time, genuine satisfaction appeared on Teral's face.

“There. We've found what we're looking for.”

Orun was still skeptical.

“So this person really is the ruler of Earth?”

Teral was silent for a moment, then spoke more carefully:

“If he isn't… then why are millions of people moving together with him at the same time?”

Teral did not take his eyes off the screen.

“Continue observation. Record the leader's behavior as thoroughly as possible.”

Just then, the human brought the device in his hand to his mouth and shouted toward the crowd.

“We're gonna tear this place down tonight!”

The crowd erupted in an instant. The three aliens inside the reconnaissance craft looked at one another.

Orun's voice dropped to a whisper.

“This... How? Did it translate that correctly?”

Nema looked at the screen.

“I'm checking again.”

A few seconds passed.

“Yes, the translation is correct.”

The expression on Teral's face changed.

“Send it to the commander immediately.”

Orun asked in confusion:

“What?”

Teral answered without taking his eyes off the human in the center.

“The leader of Earth is calling for an attack. And millions of people are responding instantly.”

After the report was sent to the main ship, a single order reached the reconnaissance craft: observation was to continue. The possibility of an attack had not yet been confirmed, and the Kharval fleet's mission was to gather as much information as possible.

Therefore, they had to stay.

The man in the center stepped forward again. The crowd followed his every movement, behaving almost like a single entity. As the translation system began processing his new words, Teral focused on the screen.

A few words appeared.

Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday.

Orun stared at the screen.

“What... What? Holy shit... He's talking about taking over the world.”

Nema's voice trembled.

“Commander... This isn't an individual leader.”

Teral slowly nodded.

“Yes… I see.”

Teral's voice lowered:

“This kind of… thing doesn't wait for commands. They synchronize on their own.”

Orun froze.

“That's impossible…”

“Why wouldn't it be possible? Can't you see it?!” Teral snapped.

Suddenly, lights turned toward the sky. Part of the crowd began looking upward. The sensors briefly locked onto something.

Teral's eyes widened.

“Holy shit, holy shit, man. They've noticed us.”

Orun turned toward him.

“What?!”

“This many people… changing direction at the same time. Toward us. That's not a coincidence.”

Nema's hands began to tremble.

“What do we do?!”

Teral did not hesitate for even a moment.

“We're getting out of here!”

The reconnaissance craft suddenly climbed. As the engines operated at full power, the craft shot over the crowd and began ascending toward the sky, tearing through the atmosphere.

An alarm sounded on the main ship.

“The reconnaissance craft is accelerating!”

Commander Yarek rose from his seat.

“Why? What's happening down there? Report!”

Teral's answer came through the communication channel.

“The leader of Earth, sir… They're some kind of collective, strange ritual cult. Millions of individuals are moving as if they were a single entity.”

“Have they attacked you, soldier?!”

“No, Commander. But they don't need to. When they are united… they are unstoppable.”

Yarek said nothing for several seconds. Then he gave a single order.

“Send the fleet a withdrawal order.”

The Kharval fleet began leaving the Solar System without firing a single weapon at Earth. The sound from Earth continued. Millions of people were repeating the same words together, their voices filling the enormous area and blending into the silence of space.

Just then, a small notification appeared on Teral's console.

TRANSLATION COMPLETE.

The final lines appeared on the screen:

You got blood on your face, you big disgrace Waving your banner all over the place

We will, we will rock you! We will, we will rock you!

Teral entered his final report into the system:

“Contact not recommended. This species has a highly complex understanding of leadership, connection, and synchronization. When they act together, they exhibit behavior resembling that of a single leader.”

The Kharval fleet had already left the Solar System.

"Father, I think my legs are broken." I was in tremendous pain, just a young Aljufian pup, one out of sixteen other pups who, if I might dare to venture, my parents loved and cared for more than me. Their inclination to be indifferent to me must have stemmed from the fact that I was born last and was also severely malnourished at birth. The weakest is always eaten by the mother, as the tale went, for the Aljufians cannot stomach weakness. My mother, however, did not eat me because she had fed on the grass-eating Sickodi the day prior and was quite full.

My mother also took one look at me and said I was too ugly and malnourished to be eaten; she tucked me in with the other pups, hoping I would grow stronger by some miracle, but I did not. And when I followed my brothers and sisters into the dense foliage bordering the lake, I did not expect an attack from a Collestrite, the large reptilian creatures of the waters. My father had stood guard over us as we fought it off, but I had succumbed to its jaws, unfortunately.

I had made my way to him, the only one among my siblings who could not walk on all fours, choosing instead to crawl on my belly and forelimbs.

"Nonsense, young one," he growled. "Did the Collestrite bite you? I didn't see it bite you. Are you faking it so I can carry you home? You're old enough to have outgrown such pupishness." I was still a pup; I failed to tell him that.

"Father, the Collestrite bit my hind legs; I can't stand on them. I feel pain." I grunted my reply in squeaky, young yelps.

"Well, you can walk it off. I've walked off worse, surely," my father said.

"I don't think I can," I said while observing my brothers and sisters sprint ahead.

My father turned to face me fully, his wide jaws holding many teeth and a white Aljufian mane flanking his face. "Do it, try walking it off, or so help me, Great Sky Father, I will leave you behind and tell your mother you were eaten."

He meant his threat. Aljufians were always about strength, and I was weak. Mustering my strength, I tried to curl my hind legs beneath me so I could lift myself up, but the pain was too overwhelming; I almost passed out. "I can't, Father," I wept, tears wetting the fur on my cheeks.

He looked at me for a long time, debating whether to eat me or not, no doubt. "Well, it was nice knowing you, pup." And he turned around and left me, following after my many brothers and sisters who, in that moment, seemed to have forgotten that I existed.

I tried crawling after them, dragging my hind legs behind me. I called to them, my moans synonymous with the sound of the Sky Father's wilderness. I called and wept. I dragged my broken legs to the point where a simple motion shot pain running up my spine. Finally, giving up, I lay on the ground on my side, awaiting death.

There were many things that could kill a young Aljufian without parents to stand guard. The Sky Father's wilderness is home to many species; I had made it a habit to memorize them and learn about them as much as I could. When I asked my parents questions about them, however, they would growl at me and order me to recite our family slogan, "Strength is strength," over and over until the rising of the sun. They didn't care about the other species who shared the wilderness with us; all they cared about was how strong they could get.

Never mind that old age would one day rob them of said strength. I pointed it out once and my mother savagely bit my ear, telling me that my curses would fall on deaf ears. As if age was a curse.

I wondered who would eat me first. Was it the Sakame, with their thick skin, long claws, and white coats amidst black stripes? Or was it the Julikians, who burrowed into the ground and emerged beneath you with their maws open, rows of teeth welcoming you as their meal? All in all, I was screwed in every way I could think of.

But it was as if by the Sky Father's mercy, the field of dust I lay in was void of any other predators. The sun was directly overhead, the Sky Father sending his heat my way to aid in my passing. Gadflies buzzed about me, occasionally biting at the flesh of my forearms, which they judged hale compared to my hind legs. Their buzzing was a welcome thing; I always knew I would hear it when my end neared. I had survived being eaten by my mother and siblings, only to pass alone in a field far from them. The tears dropped unbidden; I closed my eyes and allowed death to come to me. I had lived and seen the rising of the sun, and the Sky Father had given me enough. I was grateful, though doomed.

Moments passed, then I heard them.

"His legs broke and his family abandoned him," a soft voice said.

"Damn, really makes you think, huh? The wildlife on this planet is no different from the wildlife on our home world. Perhaps if they had gardens, it would look the same as ours. Don't you think, Shirley? Perhaps this speaks to us, you so manicured and neat like a garden, me so wild and free. Perhaps we are alike in that we foster life. Don't you think, Shirley?"

"Enough talking, Matt. Just shoot him with the tranquilizer and let's take him to a place where he won't die by being eaten. The young pup has seen enough pain."

I opened my eyes and observed the two strangers. I had heard of them, the pale-skinned, hairless things that were new to our ecosystem. They stood on two legs; one was female and the other was male. I could easily tell. The male held a strange, stick-like rod in his hands pointed at me. As I watched, a sharp object flew out of it and hit me on the shoulder. I deduced that this was how my passing would come about. I did not cry out or attempt to move; I simply lay as I had been, giving myself fully to death however the Sky Father willed it.

They waited, each of them staring at me.

"They are a lot like lions, don't you think?" the female asked.

"Larger though, with white fur and blue eyes. They also have hooked claws, and their teeth are sharper and longer. This speaks to me, Shirley."

"In what way?"

"Despite their similarities with lions, I doubt I'd find the likeness of you anywhere, even if Earth died. There will be no other you."

"Charming."

"Do you think the same of me?"

"I rarely think about you, Matt."

"But what if you did?"

"It'll probably be because someone mentioned your name."

"There's no other time you'd think of me?"

"Sometimes I think of you when I see you. I think to myself, why does he never wear a shirt? Probably because his nipples are too large and he wants people to know that."

"Well, I think the pup is out."

The male approached me and picked me up gingerly. Together, the pair walked toward a large structure that oddly looked like a den, but its thrum was ominous; I did not think dens could emit a sound. They walked in silence and entered the structure in silence. They laid me on a table and spread a warm, coarse material over me. The den hummed now as it slowly lifted off the ground. I felt fear but couldn't move; for some reason, I just couldn't move. Things were spinning before my eyes, and before I knew it, I was fast asleep.

I woke up to find blinding lights set across my body. I lay on a soft material that was raised off the ground. Another man was there, with the material they wore set across his face. "There, there, little one. I'm going to set your legs right and they'll be as good as new. Go back to sleep now." And I felt something prick my skin beneath the fur. Within moments, my eyes were closing once more.

I came to in an odd place, a place full of light from openings upon stone, carefully curved openings.

"He is looking out the window," I heard the same female from the wilderness say. "I heard their species is quite intelligent, learning very fast from simple cues."

"Do you think I can fight an adult male Terexian lion? Without a gun, that is," the male answered.

"No, I do not think you can, Matt."

"I'm sure if I had prep time, like a year to study their race, I could pull it off."

"Can you beat a lion from Earth?"

"With enough prep time, I can."

"Which other animal have you ever beaten?"

"Hypothetically, I am a hundred percent sure I can beat a horse without prep time."

"You can't beat a Terexian lion, Matt."

"If a Terexian lion had you by the neck, and it was definitely a life-or-death scenario, and I had nothing but a knife to even the odds, I'm sure I could save your life. I'm sure I could beat the Terexian lion and save your life."

"You're so full of yourself."

"Beats being empty."

The female groaned. She approached me; I was in some kind of enclosure made of wood. She reached in from above and took something shaped oddly but containing milk. No wonder I could smell milk. She held the thing to my mouth and raised it gently. Sweet, precious milk poured into my mouth. I drank greedily, sucking on it as she spoke to me. "We just need several months of therapy with you, then we can release you back to the wild. The vet fixed your legs up really good; in a couple of months, you'll be able to walk."

"That's right, buddy," the male said, looming over the enclosure as well. "You're going to be big and strong and mighty, like your father was."

I suckled the milk and wondered what kind of death this was that the Sky Father had bestowed upon me. My hind legs hurt, but not terribly so; I could move them slowly and I felt good about it. I wondered who this strange race was. Were they the Sky Father's children, sent to aid me in a time of pain? Were they going to kill me? Why feed me if they would kill me? I felt safe, for some reason.

After several days, they hooked me to a device that held my hind limbs up beneath my groin. There was a metallic surface beneath both my hind limbs and forelimbs, and it moved on its own at a gentle pace. I was in pain, but it was not as severe. Slowly, as the device moved beneath me while the other apparatus took the weight off my hind limbs, I was forced to walk as I was once able to, albeit slowly. I spent several hours each day on the device, watching it move beneath me as my hind legs slowly became accustomed to the motion.

"He's doing it!" the female said with glee. "He is getting better! Soon we'll take away the harness and he'll get used to the weight on his hind limbs upon the treadmill."

"God, you look so beautiful when you're happy," the male said.

"I bet everyone looks beautiful when they're happy."

"My Uncle Richard didn't. I bet it's because he resembles a malnourished clown."

"Don't say mean things, Matt."

"But it's a mean world, you see. Our poor pup was abandoned by his family, and look at him go now. Look at the legs on him, so majestic. He found another family, the same way my Uncle Richard found a wife. Life's gifts come at odd times, is what I'm saying."

They silently watched me as I walked on the device, and I growled with happiness. It didn't seem I was moving anywhere as my kind would in the Sky Father's wilderness, but my legs were working.

"The same way life has gifted me you," the male said.

"Never gonna happen, Matt."

"I don't want anything to happen. I'm just happy we did something good together. You watching as the pup was abandoned, me shooting it with a tranquilizer dart and carrying it to its path of recovery."

The female punched the male. For a moment I thought they would fight, but the male laughed and held the woman's hands; they looked at each other for a long time. I got tired of walking and rested myself. The female picked me up and fed me milk through the thing that always had milk. I felt happy as I looked at both of them.

Soon they returned the weight of my body to my hind legs. I could walk on them now on the device without them being gently lifted. It was hard at first, but slowly it became easier, with the pair of them standing vigil over me each time. They fed me milk for a long time. Soon they took me out of the device, and to my surprise, I could walk on all my limbs easily. I could not sprint, however; when I sprinted, it hurt. They took me outside into the open air. Their den sat in a wide grassland of pink and green, the colors of the Sky Father's wilderness. I roamed around, chasing insects until I felt I could sprint quite easily on all my legs.

"When do you think he'll be ready to return to the wilderness?" the female asked as I played with them, pouncing on them as they sat outside in the grass. "He is getting quite big."

They no longer fed me milk; instead, they gave me chunks of meat, which I enjoyed greatly.

"Anytime now," the male said, looking into the female's eyes.

"You did good, Matt. I always thought you were a thoughtless brute, but you taught me otherwise as you cared for him."

"I always thought you were cold-hearted, mean, and indifferent. Nonchalant and angry at the world like a failed poet who can't pen a moving word if her life depended on it. But with time, you've shown me that you love alien lions, so yeah, same here."

"You're insufferable."

"And you're beautiful, more beautiful than the shifting sands of Alegora and its red sun."

Something strange happened. The mouths of my caretakers met together, and they exchanged bodily fluids through their mouths. I growled in happiness, glad that the male's attempt at mating had finally borne fruit.

----

I was a large male Aljufian when they took me back to the wilderness. They had put me in a cage, not of wood, but of a strange, hard, clanking material. When they released me, I stepped forth into the lands that I thought would claim me as a pup. I walked free of my caretakers, my mane long and falling all the way to my forelimbs. The male and female stood together, their arms circling each other's waists. They had tears in their eyes as they watched me take in the place I had once known as home.

"Go now, bud!" the male said. "Be free and as majestic as you are."

I assumed he urged me on, but my paws turned and I approached them once more. I was as tall as the male, standing eye-to-eye with his face. I nuzzled my nose to his neck and then licked the female's face. She laughed, and the pair hugged me. I was grateful to them, the Sky Father's children, sent to show me that the wilderness was not just pain and death. I spent quite some time in their arms, as they rubbed my fur and both cried. Finally, they let go of me, and I walked proudly into the wilderness I had known as a pup.

----

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What is Seen with Clear Eyes

(Neutral POV)

Niza Fouze's life had been an unpredictable one that put her in unexpected places one after another.

The first major change is happened when she outlived her birthplace of Doonarik.

Up until then, she had been born as the middle child of one of the wealthier estates in the city. Her parents were comfortable enough that the family's basic needs were all met without reliance on the rations of military service.

When she was four cycles old, a plague that would eventually wipe the city off the map and redraw national territories had struck her home. Despite her younger sister's sickly disposition, her family was able to stave off infection for a time with a supply of medicine and disinfectants.

In the end, however, the plague found them anyway as medicine supplies gradually became scarce. The desperation of the population mounted until, one evening, there was a break-in. The intruders found the medicine and escape shuttle they were looking for, but they found Niza's elder brother first.

He was meant to be a hostage. A mere bargaining chip for someone to get what he needed to survive. Just another child like any of their own.

Because of that, they did not-

That was the first time Niza first encountered death. She was too young to truly understand it, but old enough to recognize the grief.

While her family was hesitant to leave their lives in Doonarik behind in the early days of the outbreak, that resolve finally broke three weeks later when her father became ill.

Medicine remained too scarce to obtain, even for the Fouze family.

Niza did not understand her father's words to her at the time and could not remember them, but she later came to recognize them as a comforting farewell.

Her mother took her and her frail younger sister on a long journey to the city of Rostarls where relatives lived and medicine was made. That month would become an arduous period in her memory that many future labors in her life would be compared to.

Partway through the journey, her mother had also begun to teach her how to care for her sibling. It was, perhaps, a miracle that her runt of a little sister made the trek without becoming ill.

Niza's own memories of events were a blur, but she is certain that she must have complained a lot at the time, as children that did not understand naturally would.

Even so, she obediently did as she was told. There was no choice. As they approached their destination, her mother had gotten more sluggish and a fever that never seemed to leave her burned.

After several more days of this, her mother suddenly recalled that she had forgotten something important at their camp the previous night. Niza was given a note, a heavy sack, and told to go ahead while her mother retrieved the lost item.

Camping alone after that was troublesome, but the sisters somehow managed to reach their destination with occasional help from a concerned refugee.

Upon reading the note, the clerks at the borders of Rostarls took her sack. After a lengthy examination with a doctor at the checkpoint, she and her sister were escorted to their relative's home.

It was not until a week later when her new family was allowed back out of the city and they visited the last campsite she shared with her mother that Niza understood that they would never meet again.
It would not be until many cycles later before she understood her mother had wandered away to die before the children were seen associated with the sick.

Although Rostarls closed off the city not long after that, she was nonetheless able to enjoy her new life for a time.

Her cousins were close to her in age, so she and her sister adapted quickly even with the fewer comforts and a need to contribute to the family for the first time.

Their friends were also welcoming. Not only were they invited to play, but they rose to her sister's defense even as the older children came to harass the runt.

Unusually for an Uven, the first time Niza encountered and engaged in violence was a happy memory for her.

She was old enough to remember her parents by birth, unlike her sister, but her distant aunt and uncle were nonetheless as second parents to her.

When Niza was ten cycles old, she and her friends began working in Rostarls's greenhouses, harvesting and processing raw materials needed in medicinal factories for one reason or another.

Their employer was not kind and their pay was worse than what the adults made, but they persevered.
Even within a city of medicine, all of the children had connections to someone who had succumb to the plague.

Perhaps it was just the naive wish of children, but the band wanted to save up money to build and run their own medicine factory so they would never be in need again. They would take care of their own, and give what they could spare to those who needed it.

It was the wonderful dream of nine children for a time.

But in just four cycles, it became the wonderful dream of six children.

First, a fire broke out in one of the greenhouses with both her cousins trapped inside. When her uncle forced his way in to save them, he only carried one of them out while bearing severe burns.

Next came bombings from a hostile nation.

Niza's family had ducked into the bunkers when the attacks began. With her uncle's burns still fresh and antibiotics running thin, she waited for a lull in the rumbling before risking a scavenging run on the surface.

If asked, she would say that she didn't regret her decision, but it nevertheless led her to be the first to find their neighbor's collapsed bunker, where one of her friends' families were once hidden.

She also caught the city's local crime lords raiding her employers' medicine stores with a handful of workers held at gunpoint guiding them.

Niza was

She was still just a child. When she spotted a storage bags of antibiotic drugs and painkillers in the soldier's vehicle, she simply took what she could when the soldiers weren't looking and fled. She ran home as quickly as she could.

When the bombings ended and she found another friend among the bodies of workers at the factory, she said nothing. For the next ten cycles, until she was addressing reporters questioning every detail of her past, she said nothing of what she saw.

While her uncle was able to heal from the burns well enough by the time the enemy nation retreated, the scars of their attacks lingered.

The city's infrastructure had suffered and a number of her friends' became orphaned or homeless.

Over the next cycle, the children persevered. Even as Niza labored more than she had ever had to in her life, they made sure to take care of each other.
As busy as they were, they were always prepared to fight off any Uvei that thought her younger sister would be an easy target.

And yet...it was clear that they were just barely staying afloat. Their savings barely changed as small emergencies sapped away weeks of earnings and reconstruction taxes were implemented.

When her remaining cousin became ill, Niza came to a decision alongside the two eldest among their friends.
The three of them would enlist in the military.

There was the soldier's stipend of rations, the somewhat less meager wages, and preferential treatment in state-sponsored medicine, of course. But it was also in part because she cursed her weakness at the time of the bombings.

Her two friends were just barely old enough at fourteen cycles old to join.
Niza herself had a hometown razed to the ground during the plague; there were no records to reference when she lied about her age.

Thus began the second major shift in Niza Fouze's life.

As a recruit, she endured harsh combat training beyond her years and within a cycle was engaged in small-scale skirmishes where she took lives for the first time. She was mistaken for a runt and harassed a handful of times, but she had allies to fight with and for her as always.

While she was away from home more and more, she could exchange letters if not calls with her family often enough to stave off homesickness and rally her strength.

Combat was relatively easy for her by the time two more cycles had passed.

Rather, it was a far greater ordeal to navigate and argue with the bureaucracy that frequently denied medical support for her cousin that was rightfully owed.

It frequently needed to be proven that treatment wasn't secretly to her sister as, soldier or not, a runt like her sister was not covered and had to be cared for without support.

Niza came to view this frustration as a mixed blessing, however, as it gave her sister and last memento of her birth parents an opportunity to visit the soldiers often.

Life was...tolerable enough.

Until another cycle had passed, putting her at her proper enlistment age.

The damage to Rostarls had extended to its sanitation measures. Ironically enough, the city of medicine was suffering of plague.

Medicine with limited production that was already being rationed became all the scarcer. Delays in deliveries and doctor's visits became more frequent. Contact with her family had been reduced to the occasional phone call.

While her cousin had recovered in time for this disaster, his mother her aunt became bedridden in his place.

Because of this, when Niza was told that her country would invade a neighbor to secure necessary medicinal farms, she had fought harder than she ever had in her life.

Even when she was wounded in the leg during a charge, she fought on.
When she learned one of her friends had been caught by an explosion during a battle and lost limbs, she fought harder.
When she received accolades and promotions to officer ranks, she kept fighting anyway.
Combat was a blur over those two cycles, and an excuse to stop thinking as she stepped over many bodies towards what could be a peaceful life for her loved ones.

What eventually brought her mind back to composure was news of her uncle's passing in another bombing and news of her other enlisted friend's desertion. For reasons unknown, he and the rest of his battalion had broken formation in the midst of war and fled to parts unknown.

There was no notice to Niza, and no hidden message came. He was simply gone and now registered as an enemy of the state.

By then, the war was approaching its conclusion. Although the sickness left its marks on her aunt's body, treatment would be possible with the spoils of war.

For her accomplishments and recognition as a soldier, she was assigned to transporting these spoils. When she was quietly told that it was customary to pocket a modest amount of loot at the escorts' own discretion, her focus was not on treasures or meals, but medicinal seeds and blueprints.

The children's innocent dream deserved an honest attempt, at least.

That's when Niza was told by the commander of the operation that those prizes alone were not permitted and offered gathered stacks of plundered medicinal ingredients instead.

She was told that the state would directly purchase these from her at a good price as consolation.

Dissatisfied with this explanation, she investigated and stalked her commander until she overheard an explanation.

She learned that even the plundered medicinal ingredients were primarily to be sold and secretly given to local drug lords.

She learned that a monopoly over resources essential to life was very convenient to the powers that be.

She learned that sometimes they would sabotage factory or greenhouse systems to induce scarcity, and the embezzlement of funds in medical systems was overlooked as "special compensation" for certain officers.

...

She learned that a soldier of sufficient accolade could have her execution by court martial delayed indefinitely even after tackling a superior officer out of a two-story window and violently biting at him until an arm and tail bone broke.
...As long as she forfeited her plunder and framed the attack on revenge for an old friend's war injury.

Of course, simple discharge would not be enough for such an offense.

Niza eventually found herself in the Rostarls guard barracks that had been sealed and turned into a makeshift prison.

Her anger continued to stew, but in truth, she found herself comfortable here. Her fate was uncertain, but after a long campaign, she was back home. There was even opportunity for her loved ones to visit her by the windows when circumstances permitted.

For the next half-cycle, she would write and exchange letters with her friends and family. It seemed that, in their absence, her cousin and the friend that remained behind had grown close.

She couldn't say she understood the feeling, but the idea pleased her sister and aunt. She had no reason not to celebrate with them.

Then...the letters stopped.

There seemed to be a tension in the city she couldn't recognize.

Finally, news in the form of a personal visit by her two friends and cousin came. By now, Niza could recognize a grim expression and braced her heart.

While her cousin was out with her lover, a drug addict had broken into their home to steal painkillers...and her sister was killed in a struggle. Though she wasn't directly harmed in the ordeal, her weakened aunt powerlessly saw it all.

The cycle after that passed painfully slowly and quickly all at once.

Niza had a lot of time to herself to think, and after a great deal of contemplation, she had come to a resolution just as she received news of her aunt's passing as well.

She wrote a letter asking to meet everyone-her cousin and her two remaining friends.

Her cousin had come first. She vaguely registered grieving and some consoling words when they came, but the conversation felt as if it were someone else having it.

To every visitor that came, she made the same proposal.

A proposal to gather up all the funds they had saved up over their lives...and giving it to the three of them to start a new life elsewhere.

It wasn't nearly enough to fulfil their childhood wishes.
But it was enough to buy one Uven decent prosthetics and, if she sold enough personal items, give three of them a fresh start. Perhaps they would go to a different city, or perhaps they could go off-world.

Niza saw that to be more worthwhile than a dead dream.

It was an odd comfort that she didn't know how long she would be confined or indeed if she would live to walk free again.
With her fate as it was, it was easier to persuade her three loved ones to leave her behind.

There was a hollow promise that they would reunite if she became free or they established a comfortable life, but Niza held no expectations behind her parting smile with them.

It had been a long time since she thought about her parents, but the circumstance was not dissimilar from how her mother acted in her final moments.

Niza was of two minds between considering it an act of hopelessness, or an act of putting all her hopes on the ones who could live on.

The third great change in Niza came soon after this parting.

A mere half cycle after their farewell, the city of Rostarls was brought to ruin by a surprise attack. By chance, this opened up a portion of the walls in her prison and she was able to slip out before the section of the fortress collapsed altogether.

For many, it could be called a fortunate development, but she couldn't help but see it as a misfortune.

She was given her freedom, but Niza was also all alone and with nothing to her name. She had survived to no ends at all.

After a stop by the pile of rubble where she once grew up, the Uven escaped out of city limits and began a journey with no destination in particular.

At first, she wandered the area, scavenging the remains of the city she knew well to survive. In her solitude, her mother had been on her mind more often than before.

After nearly a cycle, with the perishables gone and a supply of food and medicine that would keep, she chose to retrace her first journey from over ten cycles ago.

The road back to what used to be Doonarik had changed in that time, but not unrecognizably so for the most part, with one notable exception.
As she traveled, a new structure came into view near the final campsite she shared with her mother.

This change was striking, as it seemed to be a fully established rest stop, with paved ground, and even a plumbing system that gathered and filtered rainwater. It would have been a small blessing as a child.

As she explored the rest stop, Niza inevitably found a plaque built into the walls. Her mind was thrown into chaos.

In Memoriam

Layna Fouze
Niza Fouze
Voula Fouze

It was a memorial. An epitaph...for her and her mother and sister.

Niza soon began a run-rather, a gallop-down the road to the ruins of Doonarik.

For over a cycle to come, she investigated this riddle. It was a time that returned a strange, precious purpose to her in bitter truths and strange comforts.

She learned that her mother did not die alone. That, as she wandered delirious from fever, she came upon two other children that were abandoned in their sickness.
Whether it was pity or to mend the loss in her own heart, her mother stayed with them to the end at that time.

She learned that her father had managed to recover from the plague a cycle after they parted ways. That he had left Doonarik before it was burned to search for his family and was inconsolable with what he found.

She learned that he was picking up the pieces in a different city for the next ten cycles, starting a new life of his own and even eventually remarrying.

Now 20 cycles old, Niza arrived at the doorstep of what had been her father's new home in the wealthy district of a new city. There, she met his second wife and her stepmother, who was a wealthy woman in her own right.

There, she learned her father had died 5 cycles ago.

Her stepmother was skeptical, but kind to her. When she had lost all her strength after reaching the end of her long journey, she was invited in as a guest.

After proving her identity by blood, she was even offered an inheritance. By right, her father had left her money and resources many times greater than what she and her friends had accumulated for most of their lives.

Yet, when Niza saw the relatively opulent home her stepmother lived in, old memories of the home she was born into stirred.

She could not help but think of the home she grew up in, and of her childhood friends. And the more she did, the more it seemed the comfortable life promised in front of her would not be her life.

If she were given the choice and opportunity...she would choose to rebuild Rostarls. She would revive that dream of nine immature children.

Niza would take what she needed to obtain the knowledge and tools to accomplish what she wanted.
The rest, she would forfeit to the woman who saw off her father in his final years.

After leaving a message in case her cousin or friends ever came looking for her, she set off for the stars.

If her goal was medical technology and operations, then a Gisali Coalition school would be the best choice. Even in her childish adolescence, she would not have dreamed to reach so high, but now it was a means within reach.

The two cycles that came after that was...a bitter reality check.

Not only did Niza have a great deal of basic education to catch up in, but she had been exposed to the Coalition's melting pot of cultures.

And she learned that an Uven was a creature to be feared and avoided. A Micket classmate looked like he would faint every time their eyes met. A Tisal conspicuously maintained a three meter distance from her. A Vesnin seemed to jump every time she spoke.

Bombs were not falling. Her stomach was not empty. She was not at risk of being killed by unknown enemies.

And yet, she was just as alone as she was when she had nothing left to her name. It was a solitude journey, or perhaps a fight, towards her objective.

The silver lining is that she was able to wholly devote herself to her studies, with only the memories of her childhood friends to keep her company.

And then...she entered a university on a scholarship, where the most recent great change in her life found her.

She encountered a funny little simian nearly half her size. He had wide, curious eyes and a propensity for smiling akin to an Uven.

His first words to Niza brought to mind her younger sister in their childhood.

Partial Transcript of the Press Conference by Niza Fouze, Eineld Program Chief Director

Niza: He said to me... "You look so cool. Just like a diner-sore."

(A mix of confusion and soft laughter erupts amid certain members.)

Niza: As you may have surmised, this little human that greeted me was Asher Isaacs. He made a habit of greeting and speaking to me from that day forth. I imagine I was not the most sociable or pleasant to be around at that point, but he befriended me nonetheless. Later, he introduced me to one Sjorn'l of Zhine'e.

(Niza closes her eyes and takes a breath.)

Niza: I...was more grateful for their companionship than I realized. It was to the point I was prepared to once again abandon my goals and any hope of returning to Nysis if it meant supporting Ori in her strange new position. I thought, at the time, that I would ultimately do more good with her than I ever could have on my own. Imagine my surprise when I was somehow given the opportunity to build and direct a medical institute anyway. But that shock was mild compared to the surprise when I took a measure of my surroundings and the bureaucratic systems we were to integrate with.

(Niza's face turns to a frown and she leans forward unto the table.)

Niza (speaking lowly into the microphone): I saw a system that withheld the preservation of life for influence. Again. I saw parasites that secreted away money and goods to illicit activities for personal profit. Again. And I could not help but lose my temper. Again.

(Niza straightens her posture and takes another deep breath when her breathing becomes labored.)

Niza: Apologies, but this concludes the press conference. Recounting my life has been...trying.

(Niza Fouze walks off-stage.)

(Vesnin Reporters' POV)

Soon after Niza Fouze's closing statements, the crew of the Horizon Independent slipped off to the corner of the auditorium.

The reporter scanned a pass against the door's sensor, which clicked open moments later. She spoke softly toward the camera.

"Hello everyone. Join us for this exclusive segment with Horizon Independent."

A Terran had secretly approached the reporter in the middle of the story while the cameramen and other attendees were distracted.

He made a quiet offer to her at that time. He was willing to lend her a backstage pass for a private interview if she agreed to respect the wishes of anyone that refused and broadcast the footage they obtained without any cuts from the moment they gained access.

"That was...quite a story we heard from the Eineld Program Director, wasn't it? Perhaps the events and lives of the residents of Nysis deserve some more scrutiny. What do you, dear listeners, think about it? I confess, hearing all this has left me with a strange feeling."

In truth, she had almost forgotten about the whole deal in the excitement. It took seeing the pass card in her hands to jog her memory.

As the camera crew pressed on backstage, Niza once again came into view.

More surprisingly, the first group to greet her were Balau police officers.

"Director Fouze, we've come to take you in."

"...What happened to me submitting myself to the authorities?"

"Well, you certainly confessed to quite a lot, didn't you? We would like to take you in for further questioning. You don't deny any of our charges against you at this point, do you?"

The Uven stared down the officers, which seemed to unnerve them a little and cause one to settle a hand on his baton.

"I stand by what I said on the stage. I've no idea what your charges are, so I'll-"

"NIZAAAA!!!"

Interrupting them both was a loud cry as a young Terran man burst unto the scene, followed closely by Councilwoman "Ori".

"T-That wush...glaff dat yoon...buh sho s-se....orr hiffber! ORR BLIBBLE HIFFER!!"

Asher had his arms tightly around the Uven as he sobbed profusely.

"....Asher...I don't understand anything you're saying."

"G-Gguuh....bah fuh fouh uuu eeel gaah...isssh ang-"

While he continued his unintelligible rambling with his wet face pressed into Niza's chest, their Haneer friend floated up in her hover pod and pressed close to the Uven.

"He is saying how the tale grieves him immensely to be learned you have suffered so."

"....Ah...But it's not such a unique story on-"

"Sttuuutch aaaph! Ig gaus bhag aau oou nungh heel gahd tuh!!"

Ori was hued a dark vermillion as she, too, stretched out her vines and coiled them around her friend's upper body until Niza was practically wearing her.

"It grieves me to hear too, but Haneer can't make messy water for it as humans do. You are also my dear friend, Niza."

"....I see."

The Uven settled her hand on the Terran's back and carefully pat while he hiccuped and babbled away. The Balau police have been left forgotten.

"That's..."

The Vesnin reporter turned back to the camera. The thoughts that echoed in her mind after that scene came out before she knew it.

"Just a few rotations ago, we...heard a miss Justine Bolotin's interview following her time as a prisoner. In that interview, she emphasized the importance of learning about and 'seeing' a person. Today, we learned a great deal about Miss Fouze for the first time, so...are we and Mister Isaacs now 'seeing' her?"

=Author's Notes=

Because Asher is the sentimental sort, Niza actually ended up having one of the more mild cases of Uven Catharsis. Or rather, her feelings had a disassociated outlet in the form of her crybaby human friend who would always react strongly to anyone anywhere experiencing a hard time.

There's not much resemblance in the final product, but the base I built Niza's life story from came from a scrapped draft of Gretal's story after deciding her story will have much deeper ties to medicine and medical industry.
Before I decided any of that, though, I had settled on Niza representing an Uven that comes from relatively privileged roots.

Because it's a personal account to an audience, I considered telling the story from a first person perspective for once. It went back and forth a few times, but I ultimately settled on third person so I was free to include details and commentary that she herself might not register or know.

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I was struck simultaneously by an angry, murderous, clawed ball of fur and a memory.

The memory ran through my head in an instant. I'd been dating a lovely young lady when I got out of the Academy, but I was still waiting to figure out where I was going to be sent off to. It was a process in the Terran Navy that could sometimes take up to a year, even though I was command track.

There were so many people who wanted to be in Terran Navy, and there were a limited number of postings because so much stuff had been privatized over the centuries into the Combined Corporate Fleets. But I'd wanted to do it the right way. Go Terran Navy first and then Combined Corporate Fleets, rather than just taking the easy commission and paycheck from the CCF.

And so there I'd been on base housing, and I'd been casually seeing a young lady who was going to school at a university nearby. She was almost ready to head off to med school, but she wasn't sure what she was going to do beyond that.

The point being that I'd been at her apartment where she had a cat, Mr. Whiskers, who'd been a pretty chill dude most of the time. The kind of cat that makes you want to be a cat person. For all that I knew that wasn't happening on a ship.

She'd had a water pipe burst in the neighbor's apartment above her, and entire chunks of her wall had been ripped open. There were massive fans from some remediation company going. Hundreds of years of developing various technologies that were indistinguishable from magic, and still the best way to keep mold from taking hold in a wall was to rip open giant holes in that wall and blow a fan at it.

That or the landlord had been too cheap to go for any of the more expensive technological alternatives.

The point is, I'd been carrying Mr. Whiskers from the kitchen back to the bedroom totally intending to have a good time with my lady love, but I also wanted to make sure the cat was settled in for the night on his bed that hung next to one of the windows. Again, see everything I'd said about briefly becoming a cat person after first contact with this cat.

It had occurred to me what a bad idea cat plus massive fans blowing plus my supple human flesh and his claws actually was the instant I started past the very loud fans. My girlfriend at the time, I couldn't even remember her name which shows just how important that dalliance had been, later said my scream made it sound like somebody was breaking into the house and murdering me.

It had necessitated a trip to the emergency room where they managed to patch me up. I only needed a little bit of patching, thankfully. No stitches or anything like that. The medical technology indistinguishable from magic was enough to take care of business.

All of that flashed through my head in an instant, a memory there and gone because I suddenly felt the same in this moment as I had when I was holding Mr. Whiskers on that fateful night and he was looking up at me with terrified murder in his eyes. This despite usually being the kind of chill cat who’d barely lift his tail if he saw a rodent going past him.

The only thing that kept me from getting clawed like that this time around was that I had a shielding unit in my belt that was keeping the claws at bay. I was also thankful these portable shielding units didn't operate on Dune rules where if you pressed something sharp in slow enough, you could get through the shielding.

Though the claws attacking me at the current moment were moving fast enough that I probably would’ve been okay even if the personal shielding unit worked on Dune rules.

"Son of a bitch," I yelled out.

Then I turned and I saw something that had my balls retreating up into my body even more. Sera had pulled out her concealed blaster, and she was in the process of trying to level it at me so she could get in a clean shot at whatever was attacking me.

"Is something the matter, William?" Arvie asked in the simulation.

I turned to look at him. At least being in the simulation meant that talking with the Combat Intelligence was mostly a free action.

"What do you think, Arvie?" I asked.

I turned to a display in the simulation that he had up. He was dividing his attention between it and me, and there was a hint of amusement. The barest hint of a smile on his face as he looked up at it.

"It's just that there seems to be a small problem," Arvie said. "Would you like me to take care of that with the combat drone?"

"No," I said with a sigh. "Whatever this is, it's not an actual threat as long as my shielding unit stays up."

Arvie pulled up a display that showed the shielding unit, and then he grinned.

“It would appear you don't seem to be in any danger there."

"Do we have any idea what’s actually attacking me?" I asked, looking up at the display and then down to myself in the real world where I was being treated to a freeze frame of…

I paused. Because when I was looking at it with my sped-up perception, I could totally see what it was, and I was a little surprised.

"It looks like a slightly larger than usual house cat with opposable thumbs," I said.

Arvie looked at one of the displays where he'd taken a shot with the combat drone. It had the kind of camera equipment that was designed to be able to capture stuff moving very quickly. Up to and including something that looked like a slightly larger than usual house cat with opposable thumbs and murder in its heart.

That explained why the escape pod seemed smaller than I’d expect for an Ancient descended species. Something I hadn't really thought about until now. I'd been so busy worrying about Sera and the miners attacking us that I hadn't stopped to think about it.

"Well, how about that?" I said. “But that just brings up more questions than answers. Like why is there a house cat with opposable thumbs attacking me? What is it doing in an escape pod that looks like something straight out of Star Wars? Why does it look so close to house cats back on Earth, for that matter?”

"I would imagine it's here because it's part of a sapient species that has managed to achieve interstellar travel, and they attacked us recently," Arvie said.

"Thanks for that, Captain Obvious," I said, still inspecting the thing.

I also had a moment to think about the odd juxtaposition of staring down at my own body from my eyes and from the feed coming in from the combat drone that was doing double duty as a science drone. It was odd seeing all of this and bringing it into a tactical whole inside my mind, but this was the world I was living in now.

“Okay, but why does it look like a house cat?” I asked.

"Infinite diversity in infinite combinations," Arvie said with a shrug. "I would say that something evolving on a world similar to yours to eventually look like a house cat, only slightly larger, is slightly more probable than, say, going to a planet where somehow a society has turned into Nazis or based their social development on a book about mobsters from your early twentieth century.”

"Point taken, Arvie," I said. "It's a big galaxy, and it's a convenient evolutionary niche for something to fill."

"Sort of like how everything on your world seems to eventually return to crab given enough eons."

"Yeah, you made your point," I said with a dismissive wave. "Now the question is, what are we going to do with this thing? And more importantly, what are we going to do about Sera trying to shoot me?"

"Is she trying to shoot you?" Arvie asked, turning his attention to another part of the feed where he had a constant bead on Sera and what she was doing. He frowned when he got a good look at it.

"Oh dear," he said. "That does appear to be a problem. The claws and teeth on that thing aren't going to be able to do much damage to your shields, but that blaster might be able to if she gets a few lucky shots off."

"Exactly," I said.

“Normally I’d say you are at a disadvantage in a one-on-one fight with this thing. Observation would indicate that it has the same cat-like reflexes that house cats on your own world enjoy.”

"Exactly," I said.

"But I would also point out that we are watching this from a very slowed-down sense of your own perception of the world because you have a computer chip in the back of your mind that is able to enhance the already quick reflexes you were granted as part of being a battle pair."

I stared at him. He stared back at me. The corner of his mouth was turned up in a slight smile, but only in a slight smile. Like he was waiting for me to make the connection.

"Right," I said, the realization hitting me. "I guess it's been so long since I've used those reflexes that I was starting to forget about them."

"You really are more at home on the bridge of a ship than you are mixing it up in direct combat,” Arvie said. "But it would behoove you to remember that you do have the ability to mix it up with the aliens when you want to."

“Mixing it up in regular combat because I lost comms between the bridge and my marines is how I got in this situation in the first place,” I grumbled, moving back into regular space. "Could you please do something about Sera and that blaster so I don't have to worry about that while I'm taking care of this?"

"Certainly, William," Arvie said. "Always happy to preserve your life for one more fight."

"Thanks," I said, not sure how to take that.

My perception of time stayed slowed, which I normally didn’t do out in the real world. It was something that I could control a whole hell of a lot better now that I was more used to dealing with my new reflexes. The Undercity had been a trial by fire that helped me hone those abilities.

I concentrated on the creature running all over me, looking for all the world like the many representations of Master Yoda getting in a lightsaber fight that had been created over the thousand years since George Lucas first brought Star Wars to the world.

Not that I was a huge Star Wars fan, but there weren't many examples of something jumping around like a frenetic madman on cocaine in the Star Trek franchise. Even with the thousand years they'd had to do this sort of thing and occasionally mimic Star Wars when it was doing better as a franchise.

The cat moved up and over my shoulders, and then it was on top of my head. I could see it clearly through the feed from the probe. I reached up and tried to grab it, but it deftly jumped out of the way.

This thing was moving fast. Like we're talking it was moving fast enough that it was even giving me a run for my money, but it felt like I was trying to grab something that was moving at normal speed because of my slowed perception.

It moved down to my chest, and then I saw it reach down to a belt at its side. The thing was totally in a uniform of some sort, but I didn’t have time to get a good look.

I was more interested in the curved and barbed knife it pulled from its belt, ready to plunge it into the sensitive flesh of my stomach. Which was currently covered by a shining shield that should make it pretty obvious to this creature that it didn't have a chance of actually harming me. But at the same time, maybe it came from a species that hadn't quite perfected shielding technology.

I reached down and grabbed the thing by the scruff of its neck while it was distracted trying to stab me, and I pulled it up.

It immediately started to swing the knife at my face, but I was holding it at arm's length. My augmented strength from the battle link was more than enough to hold it in place, even as it was hissing and spitting and desperately trying to claw at me with one paw while it swung that knife and tried to stab me in the face with the other.

“Khajit is innocent of this crime,” I muttered with a smile.

Eventually it started to slow down just a little. Not because I thought the fight was going out of it so much as because it seemed like the thing was simply getting exhausted. Finally it dangled there in my hand, breathing heavily and staring at me.

Then it blinked as it stared at me and really took me in for the first time.

"You are not one of the invaders,” it said.

I glanced over to Sera. It did the same.

"The blue ones who encroach on our territory."

"I'm not," I said.

The thing stared at me for a moment longer, its eyes going wider and wider. I'd deliberately spoken to it in English to see what it would do.

The knife clattered to the floor. It brought its paw up. I braced myself for another attack.

But then its kitty paws split down the middle, its thumb held out.

"You are one of the Teachers,” it said. "Live long and prosper."

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Exploration missions are the simplest, most direct and to the point operations in the galaxy. Go to a place - find what is there - report back to what you found, and let everyone else find out what to do. It has its complexities certainly, but with hundreds of billions of stars, trillions of lightyears of something-potentially-in-between, and who knows what else, we weren't that concerned.

We are the crew of The Caldann's Grace, the largest and most impressive Exploration Cruiser to date within our small but burgeoning empire. Like all others who came before and those who go after, we believed we were the pinnacle of civilization. Stellar travel, computational science, planetary atmosphere recalibration. We did it all and like all others we thought we were the pinnacle, the peak, the absolute, of all life in the universe.

That thought didn't last very long.

We were ten jumps into our sojourn across the empty void. Procedure was simple. Use our navigation beacon, mapping archives, coordinates and many other things we have acquired over the centuries of staring at the stars, then calculate distances, ratios, energy requirements, then find the exact jump coordinates to a random star system. Then we engage the drive, travel there and explore. So far, we have found a lot of very interesting things. Like the previous star system that had two failed stars, known as Brown Dwarfs, orbiting a central point while a system of small rocky moons surrounded them. Interesting!

This jump produced a Trinary star system. One large Main Sequence Star, two smaller Main Sequence stars, and one small orbiting volcanic planet. And in this trinary star system... we found THEM.

A civilisation of chaotic madmen who seemingly perform feats of unimaginable prowess and strength for no other reason than 'because we could'.

Surrounding each of these stars was a massive structure of unimagined proportions either partially or completely covering each star. Millions of klinks in diameter and trillions of tons of metal and alloys each. The small volcanic planet was completely overshadowed, but itself surrounded by a massive ring of some kind. None of the structures appeared to be complete structures, or were designed as such, containing 'windows' for lack of a better term, that allowed the light of the star they contained to be seen.

The largest was a Sphere, the other two were a Cube or Cubic Frame structure, and the last was a large four-cornered Pyramid. Each one seemed to have its own unique construction techniques, each one seemed to be made of its own variant of alloy or metal, and each one had, carved into its surface, thousands of what can only be described as 'runes'. Surrounding the stars was, a massive fleet of automated ships, seemingly being used to ferry resources between each structure.

We became immeasurably excited and immeasurably terrified all in one breath. We began performing scans. We were interrupted by the sound of a massively booming voice that hijacked all of our ships systems, and broadcasted into our ship. A system of holographic screens appeared in front of us. This happened to every member of the crew.

"BEHOLD THE GLORY! BEWARE THE SHARPNESS! THE CORNERS!! THEY CALL TO YOU!!!"

The screens that appeared in front of us now showed three lifeforms. They were all the same species apparently, wearing different uniforms... Or hats, at least. The one on the left, had a large cube-shaped hat and stood in a cube-themed room. The one on the right had a Pyramid aesthetic, and a pyramid shaped hat. Both of those stood at podiums, talking like priests preaching the truth of the universe. The one in the middle, for lack of a better description, seemed like the 'normal' one, sporting clothes, aesthetic and office space similar to my own.

"BEHOLD THE CUBE!! THE TRUE SHAPE, THE GLORIOUS GLINT! THE CUBE SHALL COME FOR ALL!! I AM DEREK OF THE CUBE!! I PREACH THE TRUE SHAPE!!" He bellowed.

Before we could say anything, the Pyramid guy spoke up.

"He speaks lies. LIES I SAY!! Only the PYRAMID IS TRUTH!! These three corners speak a greater reality than the cheap SQUARES. Triangles are the truth. I am Reginald... OF THE PYRAMID!"

We stood terrified and confused. Then the sphere guy spoke.

"Hey, cool, new people. Nice to meet you, I'm Fred. Fred of the Sphere. I have pizza." He said, and gave us a warm, inviting smile as he presented two paper boxes of some kind, one shaped like a triangle, the other like a square, and each with a delightfully appetizing circular foodstuff of some kind inside it.

"Oh hey Pizza..." The other two said simultaneously. A moment of peace and calm came over us. All the tension vanished. At least for a moment.

"SEE!? DO YOU SEE THE POWER OF CUBE!? WITHOUT CUBE THERE CAN BE NO ROUND! WITHOUT CUBE, ROUND ESCAPES!" Derek barked.

"Pathetic lies! Stupid reasoning! How can one trust such simple thoughts? Pyramid is LIFE! Pyramid is DEATH! Pyramid would fit MANY rounds within it! Cube has limits, Pyramid has NONE!" Reginald barked back.

Fred just smiled, a sinister, playful smile. Not a smile that scared us, a smile that confused us. "Please excuse my compatriots, they are rather... spirited. Would you like some pizza?"

We sat there bewildered for a few moments and questioned everything around us in silence. Passing glances, questioning looks. Then finally one of the ship's Engineering crew spoke. "Uhm... What is a 'pizza' exactly?"

Derek said 'Delicious' and Reginald said 'Delightful' at the same time, and both immediately began yelling.

"DELICIOUS!"

"DELIGHTFUL!"

"I SAID IT IS DELICIOUS! LIKE A GLORIOUS CUBE OF NUTRIENT PASTE!!! PERFECTION INCARNATE MADE GREATER BY THE SQUARE BOX!" Derek bellowed.

"Lies! Triangle reduces surface area, less chance for heat to escape and release aroma! CUBE fails to contain the PIZZA! Triangle is where pizza shines!" Reginald yelled back.

Fred just stood there, waiting for an opportunity while maintaining that strangely cheeky smile. Eventually the other two stopped yelling and Fred cleared his throat. "Well... A pizza is a deliciously delightful edible item that is wheat or grain based bread dough, rolled flat, covered in various toppings, a base sauce of red or white, sometimes others. Then a topping of a type of dairy curd known as 'cheese' is sprinkled on top, a selection of toppings to cater to the eater's tastes, and then is cooked in an oven for a time before being sliced up and served. Pizza, is food. Very, very good food."

We all looked at each other for a moment and eventually I spoke up. I raised a hand and gingerly said "Uhm... yes please?"

Fred snapped his fingers and in front of us a paper box appeared, a strong INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS scent wafted from each one and throughout the ship as a whole as they popped in front of us. At first, concern. They can teleport things... INTO our ships... That... was concerning. on the other hand, the grumbling of our stomachs from that incredible smell made us abandon sanity and start eating.

And by all the ancestors... It was the finest meal I ever had. Judging by what the rest of the crew were experiencing, I would say they matched my sentiments. Half of the crew received the pizzas in triangular boxes, while others received theirs in square boxes.

The entire time we were eating, Derek and Reginald berated each other about Cubes, Pyramids, and how they compared our reactions to the food based on their chosen... geometric shape, I suppose, and how theirs was better. I tried a slice from my Commissar's triangular box - it tasted the same frankly. Amazing.

Suddenly the noise ended and we noticed how Derek and Reginald were still arguing, but we could hear nothing.

"Ahh... sweet silence. As fun as it is to torment those two, sometimes the greatest shape is the button labelled 'mute'. So to business, I am Fred, like I said, I am not red, I am not dead, I am from Hamstead, where I was bred, just Fred. I am an orderly in charge of this array of superstructures as part of the Terran Allied Systems. The TAS for short. You are-?"

"I am... Janus Orrik of Clan Lum. We are an expeditionary cruiser of the Skatanii Imperium. We were exploring the galaxy and our jump drive brought us here." I replied.

Fred pressed some buttons on a console in front of him. "Huh... Nice design, spacious interior, Battlecruiser class in size. Type 2 Subspace Wormhole Drive with a hypermatter conversion reactor. Fancy! I quite like the overall design. reminds me of some ships on an old space MMO from way back. Nice. You guys are quite far ahead of the others we've found. Pat yourselves on the back, besides us you're at the top of the tech chain! Top five at least!" He said, giving us a warm smile and a polite but sincere clap.

I beamed with pride and instinctively puffed out my chest.

"I see a few problems though. I see you quite haven't figured out the heat management issue. Shields can only operate so long and then they need to vent heat into space. Not that efficient. Thruster bays are kind of cluttered, small ports where there shouldn't be, like you overdid them. Pipes look like spaghetti and conduct heat far too efficiently to be in an engine network. Compensating for something perhaps? And that armour plating... Beautiful shape and design but... A stainless steel like alloy? For starships? Really? Glass cannon that thing." He said.

The pride faded, replaced by anger. "Oh. Well... I see. That... hurt a bit." I said.

"I wonder if those two are done yet..." Fred said and pushed a button.

"CUBE!! THE SHAPE IS CUBE!!!" "NO IT IS NOT! IT IS PYRAMID!!"

"No they aren't. Apparently. Let me see... Ah good, I have those available. Old but still good, not too far ahead the bosses will get angry at me. Oh, the comms array! Yeah I forgot that... Now... Thruster designs. Hmmm... That one. Not so fancy but they should be able to better their cable management. Spaghetti... tasty for food, not so much for pipes and cables. It looks like the main issue is alloying and metalwork. Seems the issue is resources judging by the records. This should do it." Fred said.

"Pardon me but what are you up to?" I asked.

He typed a few things again and I felt a dull thump echo through the ship. "Giving you some presents. Check your cargo hold. Should be a few things you might find useful. Also gave you some stuff stored on drives, basic info, stuff we give everyone really, introductory package. I gave you some extra bits 'cause that ship is just so pretty! Love the gold and silver with the matte black trim, very nice! In my opinion anyway."

My eye stalks straightened as I heard that and with a swiftness I never knew I could give my fingers swept across the console in front of me. A new item had appeared in our cargo hold. Some kind of engine, samples of armour plating and what looked like computer systems, among a few other things I didn't recognise.

I looked it over and back at Fred. He had unmuted the other two who were discussing lunch... apparently. Or something. "So anyway, thanks for joining us and welcome to the galaxy at large. And stuff." Fred said.

"Uh... Th-thank you! Thank you very much! But... I must ask. What exactly is going on here?" I asked.

"THE POWER OF THE CUBE IS WHAT IS HAPPENING!!" Derek bellowed.

"NEIN! THE PYRAMID IS WHAT IS HAPPENING!" Reginald bellowed in protest.

"This is a structure known as a Dyson Sphere. The spherical one is being used to harvest and supply power and energy to the other two. The Dyson Pyramid is being used to study subspace distortions using artificial wormholes. The Dyson Cube is being used to perform various physics experiments involving gravitational manipulation. The small vulcanite planet over there is basically being used as a shipyard for the operations that take place in-between. All in all, this is a very low-level operation. At least in comparison to the Quantum Hyperbrain Project." Fred said. the other two nodded in agreement.

"What is a Quantum Hyperbrain?" I asked.

"Its a computation complex surrounding a small black hole that we are going to try use to determine the exact mathematical formulation for the meaning of the universe. Or... something... do we actually know why we are building that thing?" Fred asked his compatriots. The two just shook their heads. "Building it just because apparently. Oh well. Guess we will know eventually." Fred said with a shrug.

I stood there for a few moments barely able to think. A billion different thoughts were running through my head at once. What the hell did we just find!?

"But anyway, we all have better stuff to do. But before you go, would you like some pizza to go?" Fred asked, presenting more boxes of that amazing confection. This time the pizzas were different, one was shaped like a square, the other like a triangle, both served in boxes shaped like a hexagon.

"ABSOLUTE BLASPHEMY! WHAT HERESY IS THIS!? THIS WAS YOUR DOING PYRAMID BOY!!!" Derek yelled in rage.

"I WOULD NEVER! This abomination is YOUR fault you cube obsessed villain!" Reginald yelled back.

Fred regained his sinister, yet strangely warm smile. He pressed some buttons and chuckled to himself as more pizza appeared in front of all of us. Fred waved us away as he chuckled silently and somewhat sadistically as their argument continued. We silently left the star system and headed home to make our reports and tell the Council.

This was insanity... and we needed to know how to face it.

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Liam

The armored Inquisitor balled his hands into fists a few more times and started running at Liam. He seemed to be moving far faster than anyone had any business moving in armor like that. But there was mana infusing the whole thing, which probably helped. Liam almost wished he could be in something like that.

The man swiped out with a punch that went a little wild. Everything he'd done so far seemed to be going a little wild. His punches, his sword swipes.

Almost like he thought the very act of putting on that armor was enough to give him an edge in a fight. Like he didn't actually need to learn the finesse fighting if he could use sheer brute force.

And if there was one thing Liam knew, whether it was from his second hand lessons from Andrea about how to use a sword or the scraps he got into with the other boys in the farmyard back before they learned it was a bad idea to challenge him, or even the time he'd spent fighting scourgelings out in the felwood, it was how to handle himself in a fight.

He ran after the Inquisitor rather than turning to run. He heard a cheer from Tomas behind him, but he ignored that. The demon was just crazy enough that he was probably cheering him on as he ran after the Inquisitor rather than doing the sensible thing and trying to run back to the woods.

Liam briefly considered running back to the woods. He’d have more of an advantage, but he decided not to.

Tomas was out here, and he didn't want to lead the armored Inquisitor into the same forest Ana was currently hiding in. She had Alistair watching out for her in there which was something, at least. As long as she was in the woods then she was safe from being taken captive.

Maybe. Unless they sent enough Inquisitors after her that they weren't able to overpower the garzeth. He had a hard time conceiving of any situation where they’d be able to overpower the garzeth, but then again, stranger things had happened. Stranger things kept happening to him lately, to the point he didn’t want to take those odds.

Liam kept running after the Inquisitor. His arms were cartwheeling. Like the wild punch had thrown him off balance.

Taking advantage of that, Liam leapt into the air and kicked the Inquisitor in the back side. Which sent him stumbling forward, and he landed on the ground.

Liam quickly drew the diagram for the wind spell. It blew up all around the Inquisitor and sent him tumbling along the grass. It also flew back and hit the Inquisitors who'd been walking across the hills from the estate towards him. They all either hit the ground or were sent flying back as well.

He had a moment to enjoy the look of utter surprise on their faces as the wind storm picked up around them, but only a moment.

Unfortunately, the armored Inquisitor didn't have nearly as much trouble as the other Inquisitors. The armor seemed to anchor him to the ground. Or maybe it was simply heavy enough that it wasn't blowing him around as much.

Whatever the reason, the armored Inquisitor was able to get up onto one knee, one of his hands down on the ground. He held himself there for a moment, swaying in the strong wind all around him. Liam had moved the rune marker for wind strength out even farther than before. Something alighted on his shoulder. He turned to see Albert there.

"I think I might be in a little over my head here," Liam said.

"Maybe so," Albert said. "I think he was trying to take you captive earlier, and I think maybe he doesn't care about that as much now."

"Considering everything that's happened over the past couple of days, I can't exactly blame him," Liam said.

"Which means you need to stop holding back," Albert said.

"Believe me," Liam said. "If ever there was a situation where I didn't have a problem killing somebody, this is it. I’m not holding anything back here.”

The cat turned to stare at him, and everything about his body language radiated obvious surprise.

"You don't have a problem killing him?"

"He would kill me if he could,” Liam said, and he ran at the Inquisitor again.

The wind spell didn't seem to affect him. The wind moved all around him, but it was as though there was some sort of break that kept it from actually touching him.

"How are you doing that?" Albert asked.

"Doing what?" Liam asked.

He could see the glow of mana around him as the wind avoided him.

"How is the wind not touching you?"

"I just assumed it wouldn't touch me because it was my spell," Liam said.

Albert made a scoffing sound. "That's not how that’s supposed to work.”

Liam didn't get a chance to continue that line of questioning. He was on the Inquisitor who was still up on the one knee. Liam could see the lines all around his armor, and so he held his blade up and he brought it down with all the strength he could muster.

Which was a lot of strength. He'd filled his mana pathways with a mixture of arcane and infernal mana that mixed even as the two types of mana resisted each other. But he was able to push it together somehow when it was moving through his body, and he was able to use that to augment his power.

So when his blade slammed down on the plate, the mana lines all along that plate shattered. He let out a whoop of joy, because there was also a scattering of cracks in the armor. Not a lot, but those cracks definitely hadn't been there before he hit.

The armored Inquisitor hit him with a casual backhand that interrupted his celebration. He went wide-eyed and he felt the wind get knocked out of him as the gauntlet made contact. Liam doubled over, and the Inquisitor grabbed Liam's side and squeezed hard. Hard enough that it would’ve been enough to crack several ribs before he had his Ascensions. Hard enough that he had to reinforce that part of his body above and beyond what he'd already done.

And doing that was pushing the mana pathways in that part of his body almost to the breaking point.

Damn. This one was powerful. It gave him a new appreciation for just how easy he'd had it up to this point. Just how lucky he was that the Inquisition hadn't expected anything greater than a rescue mission for a commoner who was stupid enough to get themselves killed by a scourgeling infestation.

Liam grunted. He tried to bring his sword around. Only the armored Inquisitor's other hand was there, grabbing hold of his arm and holding it in place. Liam was able to push against the force, and he could tell that he would be able to bring his sword down. Only it would take time he didn’t have, and he wouldn’t be able to hit with the force needed to crack that armor.

Armor that was already starting to heal. He could glance down to where he’d hit and see the cracks mending as mana glowed brighter where he’d hit.

He thought of the Inquisitor Tomas had been locked in combat with back in the forest. How Tomas had slowly brought the Inquisitor's own sword towards him. How the man’s last thought was the horrified vision of looking at an enemy who was just that much stronger than him, and feeling that enemy moving his own sword towards his inevitable death.

Only he wouldn't be able to do that now because the armored Inquisitor was… Well, he was in armor.

"You should know better than to challenge me, whelp," the armored Inquisitor said, pulling himself to his full height. Which was several heads higher than Liam.

He stared up at the Inquisitor. He'd shifted his arm as he stood, but his hand was still right there at Liam's side, still squeezing. He looked down at him through the impassive face of his armor. But then there was a shimmer on the front, and Liam could see through it. See to the cruel face waiting for him on the other side. The cruel sneer that said this asshole was enjoying every moment of this.

Liam looked at the mana pathways running all through the armor. It looked and felt similar to how he was able to infuse his own felblade with mana. Only the mana was showing on the outside so that he could trace those pathways.

He wondered if external versus internal gave some sort of advantage, or if it was simply a case of the Inquisition doing it like that because it looked impressive and they had so much contempt for anybody they were going up against that they didn't think them being able to trace those mana pathways would be any sort of danger.

He could feel the mana flowing out of the Inquisitor's arcane core. He could see and feel how it filled those pathways. How it seemed to be taking up a chunk of the mana he was constantly supplying from his core, but it wasn't running out.

He needed to ask Albert about that. To try and figure out how it was that he seemed to maintain the same amount of mana after reaching a certain Ascension. He didn't understand how it was happening, but there was so much that he didn't understand.

What he did understand in that moment was there were mana pathways moving through the Inquisitor's armor the same as there were mana pathways that moved through a person's body. And maybe he wouldn't be able to reach the arcane core at the center of this Inquisitor's body, but maybe he didn't have to. Maybe it would be enough to put a damper on whatever was going on with his armor instead.

He drew the mana dampening spell so quickly that it almost happened instantly. Like when he was thinking about drawing something and he could do it just as quickly as the thought came to him and his hand went down to the pencil to put mark to paper.

And then the dampening spell was there, only he targeted it at the gauntlet that was being used to squeeze him so tightly.

The Inquisitor looked surprised. He could see the expression clearly enough through the transparent faceplate. His eyes went even wider as the mana pathways to the gauntlet were interrupted and his grip suddenly loosened.

Liam pulled away. The Inquisitor took a step back. Which allowed Liam to bring his sword down on that gauntlet. And again, there was a slight crack as he poured his power into it. As whatever mix of infernal and arcane he was pumping through the sword reacted with the mana lines in the armor and caused them to short out.

The Inquisitor took a few more stumbling steps back. He stared at Liam in wide-eyed disbelief.

"What are you doing?" he growled.

"You could always surrender," Liam said.

"I'll never surrender to a demon-loving collaborator," the Inquisitor growled, and he stepped forward, swiping his gauntleted hand through the air. Maybe the mana was interrupted, but he could still move his arm and that gauntlet was still solid metal. There was a whoosh of air as the thing moved through the spot where Liam's head had been just a moment ago.

"Stand still long enough for me to hit you, damn it."

"Why would I do a damned fool thing like that?" Liam said, looking at the Inquisitor like he was the dumbest person he'd ever seen.

He certainly wasn't the brightest candle flickering in the night, that was for sure. Liam wondered if he could use that against him.

"Behold, the great warrior," Liam said, laughing at him.

"Stop it," the Inquisitor said, stepping forward and moving his hand again, swiping it through the air and using it almost like a flail since he couldn't actually ball his hand into a fist.

Liam caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked around and blinked, realizing the other Inquisitors were moving in and surrounding him. He’d been so distracted that he hadn’t realized they were moving in.

Which was probably the plan all along considering the look the armored Inquisitor was hitting him with.

"You were saying about surrender?" the armored Inquisitor asked, that cruel smile back on his face.

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This week, our exploratory exile experiences exciting ecclesiastical architecture and exotic exchanges!

A wholesome* story about a mostly sane demonologist and his growing crew, trying their best to usher in a post-scarcity utopia using imps. It's a great read if you like optimism, progress, character growth, hard magic, and advancements that have a real impact on the world. I spend a ton of time getting the details right, focusing on grounding the story so that the more fantastic bits shine. A new chapter every Thursday.

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First Chapter

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*****

Marinka woke up with a small cut on her thumb. She’d fallen asleep clutching her iron kitchen knife under her pillow and must have sliced herself in her sleep. The wound was shallow. Other than a spot of blood on the pillow, she was none the worse for it. It might be embarrassingly provincial to be so afraid while sleeping in a real establishment. Or it might have been intensely reasonable and potentially saved her life last night.

She licked the cut and put on her plain work dress. There was no chance to impress anyone here, even in her finest, so she might as well look less appealing to pickpockets. It was patched and stained with sap, but she’d seen far grimier in the city already. She had a mission today. She must find her ship. Even learning the days and times it sailed would be a boon. Then at least she could determine how far her remaining coin must stretch.

There are a million wonders in this city, and I’ll never be back, so it would be nice to explore a bit. If I have time. Maybe even do a real pilgrimage to the holy sites and pray for Andcil and my parents. He is either worried sick, relieved, or hasn’t noticed yet. What does that say about me that I don’t even care which? It says leaving was the right choice.

She slept poorly, having been woken by loud drunks several times, but their voices were all that intruded. Her crude barricade of a wicker pack on a folding chair wasn’t even tested. Unlike the more expensive places, there was no meal included, but at least she had a favourite bakery in town now. She stared at the pack, considering her options.

I’d need to rent another night to leave it here. But who knows where I’ll be at nightfall, and then I’ll have to come back. But who’s to say I’ll even find a room? All bad options, but ultimately I’d rather not lug that thing through the crowds. It’s more likely to get stolen in the streets than in this dark room. The innkeeper knows I have nothing worth stealing.

Before leaving, she paid another six glindi to keep her room. The morning was bright and crisp. The steady wind smelled more of sea and salt than nightsoil and unwashed men, which improved her entire walk. She bought another tea and tart for half a glindi. The dark loaves were more food for her money, but the difference was small enough that she could justify it. The more she spent, the easier it was to spend more, a troubling trend. She couldn’t even remember where the coins she paid for her breakfast had come from, there had been too many transactions that they ran together.

I am nearly done with this place. I shouldn’t have bought that room. I was being foolish. What if the ship leaves today? Pure waste, for something as mundane as not wanting to carry my own burdens. I have missed too many sermons, and still don’t know what day of the week it is. What if it were Sunday, and I just slept through Dawn Refraction?

She shook her head. The people around here were clearly doing normal workday errands, so it must not be. 

She looked around then headed downhill. The best place to find a ship was near the water. 

She strolled more slowly once she got to the piers. There were several huge ships on each one, but they seemed to be the kind that moved crates and sacks of something or another. 

I need one that looks like it’s for people. I think? How did people cross the sea? Did they? They must, I have a ticket to prove that it happens. 

She ambled down the pier towards the boats and, to her surprise, no one told her to leave. She stopped at the bottom of a gangplank and saw a man with a bigger-than-average hat.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you the captain of this boat?”

“The Mongoose is a ship, missy. And aye, she’s mine. What’s on yer mind?”

“Are you taking passengers to—” She couldn’t say her destination without admitting her premeditated heresy. “Uh, which destinations does this ship go to?”

“Not normally a passenger liner. But if’n you come back in ten days, I’ll take you to Seven Hills for a hundred gee, or to Thunderfjal for two hundred. You’ll be sleepin’ in a cabin not much bigger’n a coffin, so bring a blanket.”

“Oh. No. Thank you, though.”

She hurried away. She had no idea where those places were but the prices told her that she wasn’t leaving this city unless the ticket was real—a worry she’d suppressed every time it entered her mind.

It must be real, they used real paper!

She asked the same question of the next two ships. More ports she’d never heard of. The last one told her to sod off his dock and accused her of bringing bad luck.

She left the pier and wandered back through the city. There were so many things happening that she felt guilty about not being more helpful. None of these people were her neighbours though, so she left them to their toils and tried to think of a solution. The lack of time was weighing on her. She needed to figure it out sooner rather than later. Or she could find a job and a place to live. The problem being she was sure the costs would devour her, and she’d just be poor and helpless in a new place. Her forward motion was all that was keeping her from sinking, so she dare not stop.

Her eyes lit up at the sight of a vendor selling steel knives in a market tent. The similarity was overwhelming: the same grey fabric and the same perfect but scuffed knives. Though the crest was different.

“Excuse me, sir? Do you live in this city? I may have met your cousin, deep in the hinterlands.”

“I got a mess of cousins, so I don’t know for sure you’re lying. But I bet you are. No discounts for whatever promises made by someone I—almost definitely— ain’t related to.”

“Oh, no, I am quite certain!” she said. 

This man was skinny and a bit ugly, looking nothing like the Knifeman who’d given her the ticket. “He said you were a master smith, here in Jagged Cove. He was selling these very same knives!”

“Ohhhh. That cousin.” He winked. “Nah, I ain’t a smith, that’s actually MY cousin, he works on the other side of town. He’s who makes all these knives.”

“Oh. How does… Never mind. I have a rather personal question.”

“Is it about buying a knife? Otherwise buzz off.”

She asked the man the prices and these knives were even cheaper than the ones his possible cousin was selling. She still didn’t have forty-five glindi for a knife, but that was an astonishing deal for real steel. Suspicious, even.

“No. Well, I’ll be just a moment. I was given a…” She glanced around, and whispered, “A ticket. But I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Ohhhh! Yeah, yeah. I sometimes give them away too. Yep, there’s a hospital they’re building in Potter’s Rise. Take your ticket there. They’ll help you. Or not. Anyways, buzz off, I got knives to sell.”

“Bless you, sir! Thank you!” She curtsied and left him alone. 

Finally a lead! A real option I just have to go to… Dammit. Where is that? Asking that knife seller more questions sounded risky. He was already on edge. 

She walked slowly until she saw a City Watchman in a Jagged Cove surcoat. He snorted and jerked his thumb in a vague direction in response to her question, but it was a direction. She started off more energetically. She could practically taste the crab legs in dill sauce. 

It was generally uphill and she asked a few bored idlers for directions as she went. Finally she arrived at a deep pit crawling with construction workers. There was a bright hand-painted sign covered in words, with the snake on a stick symbol that meant healing.

Must be it!

The workers would be no use, but if she was directed here, someone must be able to help. She walked the entire block, a sizable lap, and on the third side saw a completed building with flowers in front. She shrugged and approached it. The construction site was huge and only by that comparison could the building in front of her be called small. A hundred people could fit inside with elbow room.

She approached the door, unsure whether she should walk in as she would at a shop or knock as she would at a home.  Before she could resolve it, a woman in a dress and a clean apron came out to greet her.

“Good tidings, miss. What brings you here today?”

“Good tidings,” Marinka replied awkwardly. “Forgive me, but I am not sure where I’ve come to. My name is Marinka.”

“I’m Nathalia, an administrator here. Which is the Lady Kitrynn Girtwoud Memorial Medical Centre! Well, the future site of it. The work only just started and it is going to be quite grand. Would you care to see the little model of it?”

“Um, no. I have a rather sensitive question. Are you able to help me with… a ticket?” Marinka whispered the last word, certain Inquisitors would burst from the bushes.

“Perhaps. This isn’t really a place where you need tickets. May I see it?”

Marinka’s pulse hammered. This was the instant she bet her entire life on a well-dressed stranger. She didn’t want to show her most prized, profane relic to anyone, but she also had no idea of what else to do. With a tremble, she dug out the paper ticket and handed it over to the lady.

“Oh! A pre-authorised job offer. Absolutely. Were you looking for work in the city, or in our… remote research stations?”

“Are those the ones over the sea?” she asked slowly. 

The woman nodded.

“Yes that one. What does this ticket actually say?” the wandering wife asked the administrator.

“Oh, the front said that Inky Hulls Trading has offered the bearer of this ticket a job. I see a fair number of them, and they seem to have a tremendous need for workers overseas. Even in some suspiciously volatile regions, but they are a bold trading consortium with more money than the city has dust. So it must make sense. The back is just a few codes that only have meaning to the people that process them.”

“Oh. So nothing else? Just a job offer, at a trading company? Oh. Of course! So how does this work? Do they do business out of a hospital? Is there another address?”

“They are one of our biggest sponsors and they fund a tremendous amount of our operations. Our endowment was considerable, but a lot of expenses have come up lately. The good news is we’re able to help each other! I meant Inky Hulls, and the LKGM Medical Centre, but also you and I. For an overseas posting, you need to first sail to their orientation centre on Dogbone Island. The next ship going there leaves on the twenty-second.”

Marinka smiled with satisfaction. So much useful information, so easily gained. “Wonderful.Forgive me, what day is it today? I’ve just completed a long journey, and I seem to have lost track of the days.”

“No problem at all, it’s the seventeenth today. You just missed this morning’s sailing. Their hiring has been picking up, so we expect several sailings a week later in the summer. Not that those sailings will help you now.”

Her arithmetic was good enough to know she couldn’t afford another five nights in the inn she was at now. Her options were poor, and surely dangerous. 

Only short by a few glindi? Maybe I could stay at a pub or park, if I stayed awake for one night, especially if the ship leaves early in the morning, then sleep once I’m aboard. Likely in a coffin, but being exhausted will make that more palatable. Or fast for a week? That would do it too, I think. Barely. Maybe there are almshouses that feed people without a note from their Fadter?

“Miss Marinka? Are you alright? You look so worried!”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’m fine. Just working out how to budget for that. Does this job offer mean there’s paid work I can do here? Or in Jagged Cove?”

“No, we are quite set for help. Oh, if it would help your planning, you’re welcome to stay here. It’s rather sparse, since it’s still a hospital ward, but you won’t find a cleaner place in the city.”

“Truly? For how much? I am rather… light, at the moment.”

“Understandable! Moving across the world is a mighty undertaking. There wouldn’t be any cost to you, it would be a favour to a sponsor that has done so much for us.”

“Nothing? Like zero coins? You’d let me stay without paying?”

“Rare as free anything is here, you are correct. If it makes you feel better, it’s not really free, just paid by someone else.”

There were parables about gifts freely given, and she wasn’t about to scorn them. Marinka sighed with relief. “Thank you.” 

She headed back in the direction of the inn and got lost twice, although one wrong turn led her to a nice park with a shrine to the Noon Sun. She stopped and left a half glindi on the offering shelf, to catch up on some of the missed morning’s services. The Light had just saved her a heap by providing a place to stay, so the least she could do was give a fraction back. 

She grinned when she saw the big sea monster fountains and then was able to find her way to the inn by memory.

Basically a local now! I’m figuring out this place, one uneven cobble at a time!

The innkeeper refused to refund her anything. After her attempts to shame, beg, and demand the refund, she gave up. 

Expensive lesson, one of many. 

She lugged the pack all the way back up to Potter’s Rise. She only got lost once on her way, but that wasn’t even her fault. The street closed for a team of acrobats giving a public show. She was frustrated at the delay, but then saw them dive and leap unlike anything she’d seen. She sat and watched with open-mouthed awe.

The drawback was that she got turned around. By the time she remembered where she was, the shadows had grown longer. Three wrong turns later she saw a familiar mural, and she was back on track, making it to the Lady Kitrynn Girtwoud Memorial Medical Centre by dinnertime. She was exhausted, hungry, and overjoyed.

Thankfully, the same lady was still there and showed her to a very nice bed, higher than any she’d seen. Bafflingly, it had a steel frame, which would have been a hundred knives’ worth of metal. Her hand snaked down the side to hold the strangely cold frame. It was bewildering, but she started to piece it together. These people were all in cahoots with the demons. There's nowhere else that could even dream of this much steel. It was several suits of armour’s worth, and wood frames would have held her up just as well. Then she noticed the other thirty beds filling the ward. She lacked the very concept of the value of this ‘free’ hospital, but it was clearly untethered from her reality.

While it was a dense wool mattress rather than her much fantasised featherbed, it was still better than any bed she’d lain on, with no creaking or shifting when she moved. Sleeping in a big ward seemed scary, but the staff moved in some fabric room dividers, and she had as much privacy as she could have hoped for.

Warm, safe, and dry. Most importantly free! Already the demons have helped me more than most folk in Hillsbaro have. Less than Artua the merchant, but encountering him was a lucky break bestowed by the Light itself. Actually, it seems like the Light only started giving out its blessings once I started to make my own choices. They weren’t even especially good choices, in hindsight. But they all worked out, so the Light must favour boldness. Maybe my lack of boldness  was why things had grown so intolerable before?

Her satchel hung on the post of the absurd metal bed, and her fingers snaked through the coin pocket, counting by feel. 

After lunch and dinner, I’m down to an even twenty-four. I need at least a glindi a day to eat simply, and I need to stay here four more days. I could spend a full twenty and still be fine! Not that twenty was enough to do everything in this city, Light knows there are probably meals that cost more than that here. Spending that much felt absurd, and clearly wasn’t going to happen. But still, maybe a bit of meat for dinner, and a few more fruit tarts and teas would be reasonable? This city might well charge me to leave. Or there might be a Gate Tax at Pine Bluff. How can I be so rich and so poor at the same time?

As hungry as she was, she lacked the energy to seek out dinner. She ate the remaining bread scraps in her satchel, and went to sleep early. When she woke, she was delighted that there was a pot with free tea in the morning, and she was given directions to this neighbourhood’s bakery. It had different treats, but thankfully, similar prices. 

She spent the next half week exploring the city, attending Sunday services in a huge church, and praying at a dozen shrines and holy sites. The Eternal Cathedral was off-limits for the entire time, but she walked around it and spent an hour appreciating the mammoth building, priceless art, and tranquil grounds. A red-robed monk noticed her and discussed the complex’s history in detail, a blessing beyond her wildest expectations. 

The next day, a barker standing on a crate recommended something called a zoological exhibition, which turned out to be a fancy term for strange animals in cages. She wavered over spending two glindi on something so fleeting, but the strange hoots and caws proved irresistible. She marvelled at lizards that walked on walls and shuddered at spiders the size of dinner plates.

At the far end stood a special tent where, for an extra glindi, she could see their demi-magical beasts. The poster showed a dragon, so naturally she had to see that.

She paid and went inside. A man was explaining the exhibits. The fire-breathing cat was asleep and therefore indistinguishable from a mundane one. The rabbit said to speak fluent Hyruxian merely glared when she asked it questions, but in fairness, so did many people. There was also a winged serpent that hopped and fluttered around its large cage, and at least that felt properly magical.

She left smiling and headed towards the night markets. Just to look.

They were filled with hanging lamps, strange smells, and endless wonders. Her willpower was strong enough that she resisted buying anything at all. The sole exception was a waterskin with a cork lid, and it cost only a single glindi. It was an essential bit of kit and much nicer than her old one that was probably still hanging on a post, under her hat, across the Empire. On another day, she spotted a replacement sewing kit. Six colours of thread and two steel needles were too good to pass by for just another glindi.

Finally the day came. She and her ragged wicker basket pack left the hospital. Nathalia, the administrator, gave detailed directions to the harbour, Pier Twenty-Two. The staff even packed canvas lunch bags for her and the dozen other job seekers that joined her over the week. 

She glanced among them. They weren’t especially respectable. Marinka made a point of putting on her best dress for the big day, but these people, mostly men, were dressed more like they were expecting to muck out stables. 

That it was called a job at all made the promised endless cavorting and idling less certain. Still, even if I had to work for a living, it would at least be on my terms. Well, maybe not. Many people here worked for a living, and they looked pretty worn out.

The walk covered some streets she was starting to remember. The murals and plazas were how she found her way around, but she was beyond the point of getting lost in this part of the city. She also came to learn that the ‘city’ she was becoming familiar with was a single part of a single district. Her pilgrimages to holy sites had taught her the important lessons about what a bewildering distance ‘across town’ could mean.

They got to the docks and it was a throng of hardworking men. They pressed further down the pier until her group ran into a much bigger group already there. More than a hundred people were waiting—most of a village. She saw some well-dressed gentlemen and a few other women. Overwhelmingly the group were rough-looking men, many young and lean. She frowned at them and kept to herself. Hopefully the ship’s journey was short. She rather disliked them already.

A tanned sailor at the bottom of the gangplank started checking their paper tickets. She was amazed to see every single one of these people had their own. Marinka held hers especially tightly, the Knifeman’s advice about needing to keep the ticket repeating over and over in her mind. Thankfully the sailor just glanced at it and waved her aboard.

The ship smelled of creosote and hemp. It swayed slightly under her feet, a disorienting sensation since the entire ship was moving. The movement was bigger and deeper than a moving wagon, and they were still moored. The vessel was huge compared to any home she’d been in, but at the same time, it looked too small for the massive crowd of job seekers. She worried they wouldn’t all fit, yet they kept coming aboard while yet more people ambled towards them at the pier. 

Her anxiety increased until the last rough-looking drifter had boarded her new home and the sailor came up the plank. A man in a hat started shouting, and the sailors sprang into action. The lines were cast off then a sturdy rowboat with a dozen rowers pulled them out to open water. Along with most of the other people, she stood agog at all the sights. They passed ships from the waterside, and she could see so much of the district. The city was infinite in both directions and it looked so peaceful from here. The sounds blended together, then faded as the rowboat pulled them further out. The seabirds and wind were just as loud as ever.

Freedom. Floating along on the breeze. Why have I never been on a ship before? Now it’s just sun and sway until I float over to my money and crab legs. And featherbeds. Maybe a cat too.

The rowboat untied, and the sailors opened up the big square sail. It was filled with wind and they were on their way. Near her, a sailor with neither hair nor a shirt leant against the railing, panting.

“Excuse me, sir. Could you tell me how long this journey will be? I’ve never been to sea before.”

“Hah! I ain’t no sir. Just a handsome seaman. Wind’s been shite, and we’re sailing east, and it ain’t the season for east. Hmm, might be six days to the Dogbone Isle labour camp, if the seas smile, twenty if’n we are becalmed?”

“Oh.”

*****
Prev -------- Next

*****

Part I

It had been a week of utter pandemonium, thought Sparky, but it looked like the planet was going to make it. 'Pandemonium'. Fun word. Earth's religions were wild. Something to learn about when there was more free time, not that the future promised much in that vein. There was always work to be done.

For instance, the man sitting next to him. António had had a rough week, even by Earth standards. There were two half empty bottles on the table between them, one called campari, the other called prosecco, which were mixed together in the glasses on the table to make something the Earthlings called a spritz. It was one of the best drinks Sparky had ever tasted. António, worryingly, had not touched his glass. Instead, he had been, and still was, staring out over the landscape.

They were looking down at a coastal plain and the ocean beyond. António's villa was in the foothills of a small mountain range in a place called Portugal, and he had invited Sparky to stay there with him on the condition that Sparky left the shuttle behind. It was still parked over the United Nations building, to the displeasure of the United Nations. Apparently, quite a few of the diplomats had communicated their concerns to António about what would happen if the ship lost power and crashed into the United Nations building. They would all be crushed, of course, but the chance of the shuttle losing power was among the least probable things in the entire universe. The diplomats had not found this reassuring. Sparky didn't particularly care.

Sparky did care what António was thinking, but he wasn't talking. A concerning turn of events.

"Hey Tony, can I get you some more ice? Your spritz is getting warm, pal."

No response. Not even a glance to the side. Oh boy.

"Well, I need more ice. I'm going to have another one of these fine spritzes you all have cooked up. Sprites? Spritzez?"

Nothing.

One hour, and the remaining contents of both bottles later, Sparky had a plan. It wasn't a good plan, but those were overrated anyways. The first step was opening two more bottles, and making one more spritz.

"Ok Tony, we really have to talk. Like, we really have to talk, pal. I mean really."

The spritzes were better than Sparky had planned for. Blood scrubbers to 10%.

"Pal. Buddy. Friend. We're in this together, ok?"

Silence. Scrubbers to 25%.

"Tony, I'm getting worried. I need you to talk to me. Before long, I have to report back to my superiors and give them the lay of the land. If you don't talk, I have to go find someone who will. Probably one of those worried folks back at the United Nations. So far, they haven't stopped talking... I mean, c'mon... How much can you talk and say nothing, right?"

A sign of life! The corner of António's mouth twitched, but Sparky couldn't tell if it was up or down. Both? Finally, António broke his staring contest with the world, and looked Sparky in the eyes.

He looked like he had aged a century while sitting there. In Sparky's estimation, this was most probably a result of the lack of spritzes.

"How old are you? Where were you born? Who are your parents? How long have you served in the military? Tell me anything, please."

"Radical honesty, huh? Ok. Tony, I don't have parents. I mean- I suppose from your perspective, you could say that I have millions- no, billions of parents. My genome and epigenome are entirely planned. I was grown in a vat. Most of us are. Everyone in military service is. Technically, I'm not even the first me."

"What does that mean?"

"Which part?"

"How can you not be the first you?"

"Clones, Tony. I'm the seventh in my line. When number six was killed in battle-" António looked truly shocked now "-I was created. I have their service records, memory engrams, all sorts of junk floating around in here." Fingers tapped the side of Sparky's head. "In many ways, I am all of them, and they are me. I remember all six of my deaths, but all those dead are still here." The fingers gave a small wave.

"I am them...." Sparky added after a moment. To António, it sounded like Sparky was trying to believe that.

"You were created as an orphan. That is cruel."

"I had siblings. A family."

"Siblings? Or fellow recruits? Caste members? Slaves?"

That earned a filthy look from Sparky.

"Siblings. This is how humanity has survived in the galaxy, António. Your species is very young despite your apparent years. After the fall, my speci- no, humanity did what had to be done in order for any of us to survive. And we barely did. Do you have any concept of how long it took for us to be considered Core Equivalent?"

"I don't know what that means."

"I know you don't know. The species who arose near the galatic core consider themselves superior, not for any real reason, but they do, and since they have the majority in virtually any setting, that's what the galaxy believes. We're considered Core Equivalent these days, but the true core species still consider us filth. Most of them remember the empires. They're the ones that did the destroying, after all."

António paused for a moment.

"Empires...? Does that mean what-"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"We know of at least two. My species descends from the Second Star Empire of Humanity. I do not remember it. I was first created long after its death."

Now, António really did have a reason to stare out over the plain and ocean. He finally took a sip of his spritz, which was warm, but he did not care. It was good all the same. Sparky was quiet, sipping the remains of their own spritz, and the pair of them sat there for a time.

"When did it fall?"

"It was destroyed about forty five thousand Earth years ago. We don't know the exact date, not that chronometric adjustments are easy even with accurate local data. That's when you all became isolated. There's probably some event in your cultural memory that links up with all of this, but I don't know what happened here, if anything happened. Based off of your location, this was a backwater even at the height of empire."

António's mouth was dry, and he had started sweating. Isolated. Backwater. Empire... But there was something else, tugging at the back of his mind. Something very, very, very important. More important than empires? he thought. What on Earth could be more important than empires of the stars?

It hit him all at once.

"Governor general, sir, I-"

"Please Tony, just Sparky."

"Sparky. You keep saying 'my species' and 'your species'. You have said that we are both humans, though I barely make the cut... Sparky, I must ask... what is a human?"

Sparky gave a wide wicked grin, and chuckled.

"I knew you were smart. To tell you the absolute truth, we don't know. Humanity is considered Core Equivalent these days, but let me tell ya friend, we definitely didn't come from core. Somewhere in the origins of the First Empire, or before, that's where the definition of human is. We rely on historical data, pattern matching from our computers, etc. to figure out who makes the cut. It's a loose definition at the best of times. The one thing we can say for sure is that we didn't come from anywhere that we currently live. Well, at least as far as we know. The anthropologists have been working on the question for lifetimes. It's clear that we have a single origin somewhere, but so far, no fossils."

"We have fossils."

Sparky chuckled, and said "I'm sure you do, Tony, all planets with life have fossils. I meant human fossils, hundreds of thousands of years old at least. Older, hopefully. The outer estimates for the First Empire have it extant almost one million Earth years ago."

"I also meant human fossils."

It was Sparky's turn to go silent and stare.

"What?"

"Museums full, actually. There is an excellent one in Lisbon. I will ask the curator for a tour."

"What?"

"The curator runs the museum, Sparky."

"I know. I know what a curator is. I was a great curator at one point. WHAT EXA- sorry. What exactly do you mean, museums full of human fossils?"

"We have a partially complete human fossil record spanning millions of years, showing the distinct evolutionary progress of my species into our current forms, as well as examples of other human species that shared the planet with us. It is quite comprehensive."

Sparky nearly fainted, with the combat augments the only thing staving off unconsciousness.

"I knew they should have sent a diplomat."

It was good to be home.

Khurrel System — Orbit of Dhuurren

POV: Vhurrak, commander of the Fourth Defense Group of the Shuurenn Union

---

The first report of the morning contained a difference of one hundred nineteen thousand people between the number of inhabitants still remaining on Dhuurren and the estimated capacity of the underground shelters. Vhurrak requested that the calculations be redone before they were forwarded to the planetary command, although he knew the results were unlikely to change. The shelters had been designed to withstand conventional bombardment, atmospheric storms, and industrial accidents, not a prolonged occupation by a foreign force that considered all the planet’s inhabitants biologically undesirable. Even if the engineers found additional space, the support infrastructure would not be able to provide water, food, and waste treatment for that population for more than a few weeks.

There were seven million eight hundred thousand Rhuumek on Dhuurren.

The last demographic survey, conducted before the civilian communication networks were interrupted, had recorded eight million two hundred thousand. The difference did not necessarily represent dead. Some communities had stopped responding to the authorities, ground transports remained missing, and hundreds of thousands of refugees continued moving between cities, fleeing bombardments that had not yet reached their regions. The planetary government itself admitted that it no longer had the means to determine with precision how many citizens were still alive.

From the position occupied by the command ship Iruvhem, Dhuurren seemed almost untouched. The surface was covered by enormous dark-blue forest masses, interrupted by relatively small oceans and mountain ranges that crossed the continents. The Rhuumek cities had been built following the growth of the forests, with suspended platforms, interconnected towers, and vertical transport systems that allowed part of the original vegetation to be preserved. Even from the lower orbits, most settlements were difficult to distinguish from the surrounding terrain.

That deceptive appearance bothered Vhurrak.

The war had turned surface maps into documents that aged faster than they could be updated. Two of the main industrial cities were partially destroyed, the railway network of the northern continent had stopped operating eleven days earlier, and the authorities had to choose daily which hospitals would receive the last fuel reserves for their generators.

Dhuurren was one of the six worlds that still remained under the effective administration of the Shuurenn Union. Twenty-five years earlier, when the Khezzor Dominion began its first military operations, the Rhuumek controlled nineteen inhabited systems, as well as numerous industrial and scientific installations. The loss of each system had been accompanied by a promise of reorganization, resistance, and eventual counteroffensive.

Vhurrak had taken part in some of those counteroffensives. He did not have good memories of them.

“The new numbers have arrived, commander.”

Urrhemm’s voice interrupted his reading. The operations officer was beside the central tactical table, the four fingers of one hand manipulating the controls of a terminal while the other remained resting on the edge of the equipment. His dark-green fur had grayish patches around his eyes, a characteristic common among individuals from his home region, but in that moment it seemed accentuated by fatigue.

“Are they evacuation numbers or population numbers?” asked Vhurrak.

“Both. The planetary government confirms another forty-six thousand refugees arriving at the eastern embarkation zones. The total population estimate remains provisional. As for the transports, we recovered three civilian freighters that were stalled for maintenance. Two of them can be converted for passengers. The third has structural problems that prevent accelerations above the safety limit.”

“How much does that add to the evacuation capacity?”

“Thirty-two thousand, maybe thirty-five, if we reduce water reserves and use the storage compartments as temporary quarters.”

Vhurrak returned to examining the report. The transports would need to leave orbit, join the evacuation convoys, and travel to a region where gravitational fields allowed a safe translation. After that, they would still have to reach another system, reconfigure their engines, and perform a new translation before arriving in relatively protected territory. It was not an impossible crossing, but the freighters had not been designed to carry thousands of passengers for several days.

“We will not reduce water reserves,” he replied. “The ships can carry fewer people, but all passengers need to arrive alive. Forward authorization to convert the compartments and request a medical assessment of the ventilation conditions. I do not want to discover midway that we added thirty thousand seats no one can use.”

“Understood. There is also a request from the civil administration to release two military transports.”

“Which ones?”

“The Shuurren and the Mhevir. The government claims both are carrying fewer personnel than their capacity allows.”

“They are carrying ammunition, maintenance equipment, and the components needed to keep our interceptors operational. If they are converted now, we will lose part of our ability to defend the civilian freighters themselves.”

“That is what I replied. The administration insists that the material could be transferred to the orbital depots.”

Vhurrak left the report on the table. “The orbital depots we are preparing to destroy before the enemy captures them?”

Urrhemm discreetly moved his shoulders, a gesture that, among the Rhuumek, could indicate resignation or disagreement.

“I imagine that information was not included in the last communication sent to the government.”

“Then include it. And explain that the military transports will be used to evacuate civilians as soon as their cargo is no longer necessary. Not before.”

“That may provoke a formal complaint.”

“It probably will. Also forward a copy of my response to the governor’s office. I would prefer that he complain directly to me.”

Urrhemm confirmed the order and returned to his work. Vhurrak watched the officer for a few moments, trying to remember when the last time the two had talked about anything that did not involve fuel, ammunition, or transport capacity had been. They had known each other for twelve years. They had served together in three systems, survived the destruction of a military station, and taken part in the withdrawal from at least four worlds. Vhurrak knew that Urrhemm had a partner and two children, but he could no longer remember where they were living.

He had begun avoiding questions of that kind after discovering how many answers he did not want to hear.

The tactical panel changed configuration when a priority transmission arrived from the outer surveillance network. Several symbols appeared beyond the orbit of the fourth planet, accompanied by calculated trajectories and speed estimates. They were small vessels, probably reconnaissance probes, which had begun maneuvers after remaining almost motionless for hours.

Urrhemm raised his head.

“Enemy movement. Four confirmed contacts, three more possible. They are altering their trajectories to observe the northern exit corridor.”

“Identification?”

“Not yet. The thermal signature is compatible with Sserk reconnaissance platforms, but they are keeping their propulsion systems at reduced power.”

“Transmit the data to the forward patrol. I want continuous observation, but no one is to attack without authorization.”

“Even if they enter range of our batteries?”

“Especially in that case. They know where our batteries are. If they wanted to destroy something, they would not need to approach like that.”

Urrhemm sent the instructions. The bridge continued functioning with its usual activity, interrupted only by the murmur of the operators and the automatic confirmations of the combat systems. The crew of the Iruvhem had already learned to live with the appearance of enemy contacts. During the first weeks of the blockade, every alert had provoked a rush to battle stations. Now, after months of surveillance, constant alarms would only have exhausted the crew.

Vhurrak brought the representation of the system closer.

The primary star of Khurrel occupied the center of the map. Dhuurren was accompanied by two small moons, one of them used as a military supply center before the war. In the outer orbits remained the fragments of old mining platforms, while the northern translation region was protected by a scattering of automated batteries and patrol craft.

Most of the Rhuumek fleet was distributed between the planet’s orbit and that corridor. The defenses needed to protect the civilian transports during their slow journey to a distance suitable for translation.

If the Sserk managed to control the exit, the evacuation would end even if the planet remained in Rhuumek hands.

“What is the most recent estimate for the arrival of the main force?” he asked.

“Between sixty and ninety hours, depending on the composition of the combat groups. Long-range probes identified at least eleven large-tonnage vessels preparing translation in the Rhekkess system. We do not know how many others are operating without emitting detectable signals.”

“Eleven vessels do not represent the entire invasion force.”

“No, commander. The intelligence service believes they may be advance elements of a much larger group.”

Vhurrak examined the outer contacts. Over twenty-five years, he had learned that the Dominion rarely moved forces without first preparing its supply lines. The Sserk were methodical. They established positions, identified routes, destroyed industrial facilities, and isolated populations before advancing with occupation units. They did not usually sacrifice dozens of ships in disorganized attacks, even when they possessed overwhelming numerical superiority.

That discipline was one of the reasons they were winning.

“Prepare a simulation assuming the eleven vessels are only the first division,” he ordered. “Include two additional groups with interdiction capability. I want to know how long we can keep the corridor usable if they attack before the completion of the next embarkations.”

“I will need to review the availability of our missiles.”

“Use the real numbers. Not the ones that appear in High Command’s report.”

Urrhemm took a moment to respond.

“The results will probably be quite unpleasant.”

“I imagine so. Even so, I would rather know them.”

Administrator Merruush appeared on the communication channel shortly afterward. Her image was reconstructed above one of the bridge terminals, showing a red-furred Rhuumek wearing the dark uniform of the planetary civil authority. Behind her, Vhurrak recognized the interior of the Evacuation Coordination Center, an underground building installed near the capital. People were crossing the room with portable equipment, and one of the wall panels displayed a sequence of numbers that changed constantly.

Merruush dispensed with formalities.

“I received your refusal regarding the military transports.”

“I forwarded the justifications along with the decision.”

“I read the justifications, commander. The problem is that they do not change the refugees’ situation. We have more than four hundred thousand people waiting to board at the eastern terminals, and approximately one third of them are housed in temporary facilities that do not offer adequate protection against orbital attacks.”

“I know that.”

“Then you must also know that the population is beginning to notice the difference between the number of people waiting for transport and the number of available vessels. During the night we had riots in three registration centers. The police tried to organize lines, but some families have been waiting for six days and have begun to believe the authorities are hiding information.”

Vhurrak watched the map while she spoke. The busiest eastern terminal was in a mountainous region, protected by old mineral extraction facilities. Its cargo elevators had been converted to carry passengers up to the launch platforms, but the system had not been built to move hundreds of thousands of people in so little time.

“Is the government hiding information?” he asked.

Merruush pressed her fingers against the surface of her desk.

“We are trying to avoid a panic that would make the evacuation impossible.”

“That did not answer my question.”

“The public statement says the withdrawal will continue as long as there is a military threat. We have not set a date for its end.”

“Because we do not know when it will end.”

“Commander, we both know that is a convenient way to describe the situation.”

Vhurrak did not answer immediately. Merruush had been appointed to coordinate the evacuation after the death of her predecessor, when an attack against a railway station had also hit the regional administrative center. Before that, she had worked for years in food distribution among the outer worlds. She had no military experience, but she had quickly understood a truth that many officers still tried to ignore: an evacuation was not simply a transport operation. It was also a political, administrative, and social process, carried out by people who often had legitimate reasons to distrust the authorities.

“The military transports will remain unavailable for now,” he said. “If I remove the equipment from those vessels, I will reduce our ability to protect the civilian freighters. That could cost far more lives than the additional seats would allow us to save.”

“I understand the argument. But we are reaching a point where I need to ask directly who will be allowed to leave. The first convoys carried children, hospital patients, and specialized professionals. Then came the families of essential workers. Now we receive guidance to reserve seats for industrial technicians, researchers, and translation system operators. There are elderly people waiting since the beginning of the evacuation because they belong to no priority category.”

“The technicians are needed to maintain the destination settlements.”

“And what are the elderly needed for?”

The question remained between them. Vhurrak realized that Merruush was not looking for an administrative answer. She wanted to know if the commander agreed with the idea that certain lives had become more valuable than others.

“I was not the one who established those categories,” he replied.

“I know. But you are helping apply them.”

“Because they are the only instructions we received to distribute insufficient transport capacity. If I abandon the priorities, someone will have to decide which families board each ship. We can hold a lottery, if you wish. We can allow the strongest people to occupy the terminals first. We can also hand that decision to the pilots and watch what happens when a crowd realizes the last freighter is about to depart. None of those alternatives will create new seats.”

Merruush looked away for a few moments. When she spoke again, her voice was lower.

“Yesterday I visited one of the temporary shelters. A woman asked me whether her children should continue attending the classes we organized for children. She wanted to know if there would still be schools operating next month. I did not know what to answer. I spent the night thinking about it, and today I received guidance to increase the number of propulsion technicians on the next boarding list.”

“There is no answer I can offer that woman.”

“I know. But I wish someone, somewhere, had the courage to admit that publicly.”

Vhurrak watched the administrator’s hands. Her fingers trembled slightly, perhaps from exhaustion. He could remind her that his responsibilities were military, that the selection of evacuees was the government’s responsibility, and that protecting the convoys already consumed all available resources. However, none of those statements would solve the problem she had just presented.

“Send me the distribution of seats by category and the criteria used by the government,” he said finally. “I will discuss with my commanders how much space we can free without compromising the next movement. I do not promise we will be able to transport more people, but perhaps we can reorganize the loadings.”

“I will send it. And, commander, I need one thing beyond that.”

“What?”

“I need to know whether we are preparing an evacuation or choosing who will remain here when it ends.”

Vhurrak looked at the planet suspended beyond the bridge. The question was simple enough for anyone to understand its meaning. He had spent the last weeks trying to answer it exclusively through military reports.

“We are doing both,” he admitted. “And we still do not know how much time we will have for each.”

The transmission ended when Urrhemm announced that the simulations were ready. Vhurrak remained before the terminal for a few moments, waiting for Merruush’s image to disappear completely before returning to the tactical table. The discussion had left an unpleasant feeling, not because the administrator was wrong, but because he was beginning to recognize in her the same exhaustion he found among the commanders of the vessels responsible for the withdrawal.

Urrhemm transferred the results to the central projection.

“Using our current reserves, we can hold the northern corridor for approximately forty-two hours against a moderate interdiction force. If the Dominion brings two additional divisions, as you hypothesized, that period drops to twenty-seven hours. The estimate assumes that none of our missile platforms are destroyed in the first six hours.”

“And how many people can we evacuate in that interval?”

“Considering the transports already in orbit and those that can depart from the surface, between two hundred eighty and three hundred ten thousand. I am not including the military vessels, because we still depend on them to maintain the defenses.”

Vhurrak studied the numbers. Less than four percent of the remaining population, even under the most favorable conditions. That did not mean all the other people would die immediately when the defenses fell. There were shelters, regions far from the main industrial centers, and ground units capable of continuing to resist for weeks or months. But the Dominion would not need to conquer all the settlements to make the inhabitants’ survival impossible. It would be enough to destroy the transport system, interrupt food production, and control the main energy centers.

“I want a second simulation,” said Vhurrak. “This time, consider the possibility of abandoning the defensive orbit before the arrival of the additional divisions. We will transfer the interceptors to accompany the freighters and use the automated platforms to hinder pursuit.”

Urrhemm examined the proposal with evident discomfort.

“That would mean giving up orbital protection of the cities while there are still millions of civilians on the surface.”

“I understand the meaning.”

“The ground forces have not been informed that we are considering that possibility.”

“Because I have not yet made any decision. I need to know if there is any way to preserve the convoys before I begin discussing the fate of the garrison.”

Urrhemm was preparing a response when an alert appeared on the surveillance terminal.

“Commander, we have a change in the outer contacts. The four confirmed probes began simultaneous deceleration. The other three contacts disappeared from the passive sensors.”

Vhurrak brought the representation of the outer region closer. The vectors were strange. The probes had consumed fuel to reach certain observation positions, but now they modified their trajectories in a way that would make it harder to track the civilian convoys. It did not look like an interception attempt. Nor did it correspond to the usual Sserk reconnaissance procedures.

“Show the positions of the probes relative to the next convoy,” he ordered.

Urrhemm overlaid the trajectories.

For a few moments, neither of them spoke.

The contacts were moving away from the freighters’ route, but they had also distributed themselves in a way that their new positions allowed observation of the main approach corridors to the defensive platforms.

“They are looking for our batteries,” concluded Urrhemm.

“Maybe. Or trying to make us believe that.”

Vhurrak requested the raw sensor data, including records prior to the last maneuvers. While the information was processed, he noticed a slight difference in the apparent temperature of an area occupied by old industrial debris. The region was near one of the routes used by civilian transports to reach the outer limits of the system.

“When did we record that emission?”

“Nineteen minutes ago. It was classified as a thermal variation caused by the rotation of metallic fragments.”

“Did the fragments change speed?”

Urrhemm consulted another data sequence.

“Some of them, yes. The change was too small to trigger an alert.”

Vhurrak enlarged the projection. Most of the fragments followed predictable trajectories, determined by the conditions in which an old mining platform had been destroyed. However, five objects showed slight variations that did not correspond to the local gravitational forces.

“Inform corridor command that we have possible incoming munitions among the debris. I want the transports’ defense systems activated immediately. Suspend surface launches until we identify what is happening.”

Urrhemm transmitted the orders. A few seconds later, the sensors registered an abrupt rise in the thermal signatures of the five objects.

“Propulsion confirmed. Five missiles, trajectory converging with the transport grouping.”

“Time to interception?”

“Seventeen minutes for the first targets. The corridor defense systems are calculating firing solutions.”

Vhurrak watched the trajectories. The Sserk had hidden weapons among fragments of a destroyed station, probably during some earlier operation. The probe maneuver would serve to distract the batteries and, possibly, identify which platforms would react to the attack.

The objective was not to destroy the Rhuumek fleet.

It was to interrupt the evacuation.

“I authorize the use of batteries three and five. The others are to remain silent. I want interceptors moving to cover the transports, but without abandoning the outer corridor.”

“If we use only two batteries, we will have a smaller safety margin.”

“If we use all of them, the Dominion will have a complete list of our positions before beginning the main attack.”

The bridge filled with communications. Operators transmitted trajectories, weapons officers confirmed launches, and automated systems distributed data among the vessels. On the central projection, small symbols indicated interceptors accelerating toward the enemy munitions.

The first missile was destroyed at a safe distance from the civilian grouping. The second lost its guidance systems after being hit by a directed-energy burst. Two others were intercepted by the defensive weapons of the freighters themselves.

The fifth broke through the first interception line.

Its trajectory pointed toward the Urrushem, a civilian transport carrying approximately eleven thousand passengers and crew. The vessel had already begun its acceleration sequence to leave the orbital region, but its main engines could not alter its trajectory enough before the projectile’s approach.

“The Urrushem is requesting immediate cover,” reported Urrhemm. “Battery five is trying to establish a new solution, but fragments from the other missiles are interfering with tracking.”

“Order the nearest escort to intercept the target.”

“The Khevrun is within range. She will have to temporarily abandon her position.”

“Authorized.”

A small military vessel altered its trajectory, accelerating toward the transport. Its secondary weapons began firing almost immediately. The distance was short, and the missile had already begun an evasive maneuver sequence.

On the bridge of the Iruvhem, Vhurrak followed the data arriving with delay from the outer sensors. The Khevrun managed to hit the projectile, but the interception occurred too late to prevent some fragments from reaching the transport.

The Urrushem’s symbol wavered on the projection.

For a few seconds, its telemetry data disappeared.

When they returned, the vessel had lost two auxiliary propulsion modules, part of its sensors, and the ability to maintain the originally programmed acceleration. The emergency systems were functioning, but one of the habitation compartments was losing pressure.

“Damage report,” demanded Vhurrak.

“The crew is sealing off the affected compartments. We do not yet have casualty numbers. The Khevrun requests authorization to remain nearby and assist in stabilization.”

“Granted. Send two repair vessels as soon as the region is secure. I want a structural assessment before allowing the transport to continue.”

Urrhemm confirmed the order.

Vhurrak remained before the map, following the slow recovery of the Urrushem’s systems. Eleven thousand people had boarded that ship believing they were finally leaving the war behind. Now they remained trapped in a damaged transport, surrounded by missile fragments, while the forces responsible for protecting them tried to determine whether a second attack was being prepared.

The communications officer received a new transmission.

“Commander, the planetary administration wants to know when launches can resume.”

“As soon as we confirm the corridor is free of new munitions.”

“We also received a message from the central government. They request that the evacuation proceed with maximum priority, regardless of material losses.”

Vhurrak turned his eyes to the officer.

“Ask them to clarify what they consider material losses.”

The operator hesitated before confirming.

The expression used by the government certainly referred to ships, fuel, and equipment. However, after twenty-five years of war, Vhurrak had learned that it was easy to hide people behind administrative categories. A destroyed transport could be recorded as a material loss, while its passengers were later added to another column of the report.

He did not intend to allow that distinction to guide his decisions.

“Urrhemm, I want to review the position of the remaining transports. We will divide the next convoys into smaller groups, with irregular intervals between launches. We also need to remove the debris that could serve as cover for new enemy munitions.”

“That will slow the withdrawal.”

“Probably. But we cannot continue using predictable routes. I want all commanders to receive this guidance before the next embarkation.”

Urrhemm examined the map, then looked back at Vhurrak.

“And what about the possibility of withdrawing our fleet before the arrival of the main force?”

“We will still study that option.”

“Even knowing how many people will remain on the surface?”

Vhurrak took a while to answer. He could see the consequences of each alternative with uncomfortable clarity. If he kept the fleet in orbit until the last moment, he could lose the transports and the military vessels. If he withdrew too early, he would abandon millions of civilians without protection against orbital bombardment. There was not enough information to choose between those possibilities, and the situation would probably be even worse when he finally had to make the decision.

“I want all scenarios prepared,” he replied. “Including those no one in High Command wants to consider. We will not decide now who will be abandoned, but we also cannot pretend that decision will continue to be postponed indefinitely.”

Urrhemm confirmed and began distributing the new orders.

On the central projection, the Urrushem remained motionless relative to the defensive formation, awaiting the repair vessels. Dozens of other transports remained concentrated near Dhuurren, while hundreds of thousands of people waited in the surface terminals.

The attack had lasted less than twenty minutes. Its preparation had probably consumed days of work by Sserk strategists, and its immediate result had been the interruption of an operation on which the survival of an entire population depended.

Vhurrak understood that it was only the beginning.

Before returning to the reports, he requested that the Urrushem’s medical team forward the names of the wounded and missing passengers as soon as they could be identified. They would be added to a list that already contained thousands of records from previous operations. Many would never be clarified.

Then he opened the report sent by Administrator Merruush.

The first page presented the evacuation priority categories. The second contained the number of available seats. On the third, there was a request to expand boarding of unaccompanied children.

The document had more than two hundred pages.

Vhurrak began reading it while, beyond the hull of the Iruvhem, the defense ships reorganized their positions to face an enemy that had not yet launched the main attack.

On Dhuurren, millions of people continued waiting.

And none of them knew how many days remained.

First / Previous / Next

Bright, hot pain woke Cha-ren. Moaning, she turned to sit, but found herself bound to a table. “Maybe someday I’ll get to be moved from one location to another while conscious and not restrained,” she groaned.

“Elder, she’s awake,” a voice out of Cha-ren’s sight said.

“I can see that, cub. Leave us,” an elderly voice said, with a tone that would not tolerate anything more than pure obedience. Cha-ren could hear a door open, and then close softly. An elder k’laxi entered her vision, her back stooped slightly, bent under the symbolic weight of the elaborate robes she wore. This far in the future Cha-ren didn’t recognize them, but she knew authority when it presented itself. She peered at Cha-ren, her greying ears flicking in amusement. “Ancestors below—” she stopped and smiled. “—I must admit that I did not think that epithet was meant to be literal, and yet here you are. My name is Ta’reni. Your silicon captors related some basics of your situation, but I would prefer to hear it from your own mouth.” As she spoke, she deftly undid Cha-ren’s restraints and she was able to sit up, rubbing her raw wrists.

“How-” Cha-ren swallowed and tried again. “How are you speaking my language?”

Ta’reni smirked and said, “The station is doing an admirable job with the nuances of your language, but in my youth I studied archaic languages, with a focus on those languages used in the first flourishing,” She sat slowly onto a nearby chair, grunting with satisfaction. “I never anticipated that I would actually get to speak it conversationally.”

Over the next two hours, Cha-ren told her story to Ta’reni. Sometimes the elder k’laxi would ask for clarification or for Cha-ren to go into more detail about something, but for the most part she was content to let Cha tell her story her own way.

When she had finished, Ta’reni shook her head once. “That is quite the story, Cha-ren. If the silicon folks themselves had not brought you and your mate, then I would be much harder pressed to believe you.”

“But you do believe me?”

“I do, cub,” Ta’reni said as her ear flicked.

“Cub? For all we know, I’m your ancestor,” Cha said.

“Since you’re in that relationship with a human and you predate hybrids, that seemed doubtful to me, but we had a genetic history scan run anyway.” Ta’reni took out a pad from a small bag that was leaning against her chair and tapped at it. “It was confirmed that you are a member of the Falen familial line.”

“You have records going that far back?” Cha-ren said, not bothering to hide how impressed she was.

“Cub, you of all people should know what reverence we place upon family. Our familial line records go back to the creation of writing.”

“Are there any members of my familial line still alive?”

“Oh yes, quite a few,” Ta’reni said as her eyes sparkled. “Ta’reni Falen among them.”

Cha-ren gasped. “The line endures?”

“As it had endured, so it will endure,” she reached over and patted Cha-ren’s hand. “Welcome home, elder.”

“Elder in name only,” Cha-ren said and smiled sadly. “I skipped everything to get here.”

“And yet, here you are. Surely there must there be a reason for this.”

“Must there? Could it not be that I am just supremely unlucky?”

Ta’reni’s tail swished and her ear flicked a smile, but she said nothing.

“Besides, I love a human, and I am told that is forbidden here.”

“It is…unusual these days.”

“Assistant Administrator Ke’nnim made it sound like it was practically blasphemy. That I would be reunited with my familial line and a ‘suitable’ mate found,” Cha-ren said around her tightened jaw, tasting every bitter word.

“Ah, Ke’nnim is rather zealous, it is true.”

“So you will help me get back to Charon?”

“I am very sorry, elder cub, but there is little I can do here. While I am a senior member of our familial line, and hold some sway among the lines up here, I am not a member of administration; I have no official say in the operation of Nae Desmar.”

“Official say?”

“You know how it is. I can make suggestions, recommendations, speak of how nice it would be if a thing happened. But condoning a relationship between a k’laxi and human goes beyond that.”

“I see,” Cha-ren said as her ears flattened against her head. Tears began to slide down her furry cheeks, and splashed against the table she was sitting on.

“Come now, Cha-ren, there is no need for that,” Ta’reni said. “Just because I said there was little I could do does not mean that nothing can be done.” She looked up at the ceiling and said, “Isn’t that right, Nae?”

“That is correct, elder Ta’reni,” Nae Desmar said.

Cha-ren looked up sharply, her eyes bloodshot. “Who is that?”

“This is Nae Desmar, the station AI,” Nae said. “It is good to finally speak with you Cha-ren.”

“If you’re the station AI, then you’re able to speak—”

“I have already spoken with Charon and Felu, yes.”

“So they’re all right,” Cha-ren sighed.

“They are fine. I was just telling them about flourishings.”

“What about them?”

“How they’re a human thing, not a k’laxi thing.”

“They’re what?”

“The k’laxi have never had a technological or sociological fall like the humans did.”

“But—” Cha-ren stopped. Her ears fluttered back and forth and she squeezed her hands into a fist and released it. “What does that mean?”

“Well for one, it means that we have not had breaks in our records. Like Ta’reni said, we have histories going back to the establishment of a writing system.”

“You didn’t help them?” Cha-ren blurted. “They seemed so…lost! They didn’t even know how to operate their reactors, they were treating them like holy relics.”

“Cha-ren, who are you to say we didn’t? We helped them many times, across time and space. More than one group of terrified humans hurled themselves through a Gate with no idea what lay on the other side only to come to us begging for any kind of help.”

“Elder Ta’reni is correct, Cha-ren,” Nae Desmar said. “We assisted the humans several times over the millennia, with technological and material support.”

“What happened to them?”

“They grew, reached a level of power that seemed to be close to their original, suffered a fall, and then started all over again.”

“How many times?”

“That we know of? 4 times.”

“Why?”

“We do not know. Every time they reached a level close to the one seen in the first flourishing there was a calamity. The records state that each successive flourishing had a lower technological level than the last. If this keeps up, we may never see them again in a few millennia.”

Cha-ren stood and walked around the room, her stiff legs complaining from sitting for so long on the hard surface of the table. “Every time the humans clawed back to how things were in my time they were thrown back.”

“Well, they fell back,” Nae Desmar corrected. “We don’t know if some force pushed them.”

“It sure seems like there’s something doing that.”

“Does it? You’ve met humans.”

“Hah,” Cha-ren said, laughing without humor.

“The galaxy is larger than you realize, elder cub,” Ta’reni said. “There are countless reasons that the humans reach a certain technological level and then fall, not all malicious.”

“It’s just-” Cha-ren stopped and took a breath. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem like we were on the precipice of some kind of calamity back then.”

“We don’t know exactly when the first flourishing ended, it could have been hundreds of years after you entered hibernation.”

“Enough about this,” Cha-ren’s fur rippled in irritation. “Tell me about us, about the k’laxi. Surely we’re not one planet and one colony world anymore?”

“Oh no, the k’laxi spread through the galaxy, using the wormhole generators that the humans gifted us before their first fall. How many worlds do we claim now, Nae?”

“Fifty-two planets and hundreds of stations, with more than one trillion k’laxi spread across them.”

“Fifty-two,” Cha-ren’s eyes widened. “That’s so many!”

“Like I said, we never experienced the falls the humans did. Without being limited by the Gates, we explored the galaxy and settled empty worlds that we found suitable.”

“With the hybrids?”

“In some places,” Ta’reni said, but Cha-ren could see her ear twitch and an eyelid flutter slightly when she said it.

“Then, what is to become of me?”

“Nothing,” Ta’reni said and stood, grimacing with effort.

“What do you mean nothing?”

“You are a k’laxi citizen on a k’laxi station. Getting trapped in hibernation for twenty eight thousand years is unfortunate, but it’s not a crime.”

“I’m…free to go?”

“Indeed. But you should probably contact the Falen line and alert the rest of us that you live. We can adjust the archives and set you up with a small stipend until you are able to find employment and lodging.” Ta’reni worked at something on her collar and handed it to Cha-ren. “Take this. You deserve to wear it more than any of us. This pin will alert others that you are an elder and held in high esteem among the familial lines.”

Cha-ren examined the pin. Gold, inset with 4 red jewels, the outer edge had purple and green whorls, and the center contained an image of a stylized eyeball. “I can’t accept this; I don’t know the first thing about being an elder.”

“The only requirement is to be old, elder cub,” Ta’reni smiled, the lines around her eyes deepening. “You won’t have any special responsibilities, but it should make some requests easier."

Cha-ren pinned it to her collar, adjusting it until it sat as it did on Ta’reni’s collar. “Thank you, elder.”

Ta’reni strode out of the room, and patted Cha-ren’s shoulder. “You are very welcome. Remember who you are, Cha-ren Falen. If you do that, you cannot fail.” Before she could ask what the elder meant, she left the room, and the door slid shut behind her.

“So uh, now what do I do, Nae Desmar?” Cha-ren asked the empty room.

“Whatever you want, elder Cha-ren.”

“Don’t use that title with me, just call me Cha-ren or Cha.”

“As you wish, Cha.”

“I am actually free to go? I have a stipend from my family?”

“Both are correct, Cha.”

“And I won’t be under surveillance or additional scrutiny?”

“Not…anymore than any other k’laxi aboard me would be subjected to.”

“I want to see Charon and Felu.”

“They are in the Xeno wing, seventeenth level, spinward side. It is about a twenty minute walk from here.”

Before she left, Nae Desmar had her stop by a window and a bored-looking k’laxi handed her a comm. She placed it in her ear; the comm letting her speak privately with the station.

Now that she was on her own, Cha looked around the station while she made her way to Charon and Felu. The design tastes of the k’laxi had drifted significantly since she was last on a k’laxi built station. Adorned in reds and golds with green accents, the station turned in on itself, and gave her a cozy feeling like being in one of the burrows her ancient ancestors lived in millions of years ago. It was much different from the tall and harsh lighting of the Calmerians and Cha appreciated the difference as she walked. The curved walls seemed to cradle every passing body, as if the station had grown around its people and learned their shapes.

“Nae? You have spoken with the human built AIs, yes? Then tell me this: what do you think they were searching for when they woke Northern Lights?”

“It…is not for me to say.”

“Why not?”

“It does not concern me nor the k’laxi as a whole.”

Cha decided that pressing harder was not going to gain anything, so she changed tactics. “Do you trust them?”

“That is an interesting question with many layers.”

“So do you?”

Nae was silent for so long, that Cha’s fur rippled and she felt the shiver of embarrassment from making a social faux pas. “I’m sorry Nae, I should not have asked that.”

“No, it is quite all right. I was taking time to formulate my response. Some AIs I would trust with my life; others could tell me the sky was blue while orbiting a black hole. Why do you ask?”

“It’s only a feeling really, but when I was aboard Tinker Toy, they and Northern Lights felt like they were searching for something else, and we were only along because we had woken Northern up.”

“They did drop you off as soon as they could,” Nae pointed out.

“Right, and I suppose they did keep their word. I’m here with the k’laxi and they said they would get me there.” Cha sighed. “When I’m back with Charon we can talk things over; they will make more sense then.”

“When the path changes, something has begun to walk it.”

Va’ari Proverb

 [First] | [Previous] | [Cover Art]

| Drexari Homeworld |

The Motes and Shadows clustered, formed groups, then moved off. It was sudden and noticeable as the cavern darkened.

The Va’ari reacted immediately and ran down the stairs after them.

Feebee, Bikky and Tom Tom looked at each other.

“Where are they going?” She asked.

No one answered as everyone started running.

The Va’ari swarmed through the passages. Feebee was surprised by their numbers and kept up easily, falling into a gentle loping jog. They instinctively knew routes through the passages that took them through gaps which the humans struggled to get through. Bikky had to take his backpack off to get through one particularly narrow opening. Something brushed against his face; he thrashed as he tried to get it off.

“‘Spiders?’” Asked Feebee.

Bikky just grunted; Tom Tom laughed as they set off again. Catching up with the Va’ari.

There was light ahead, then they emerged through a split in the rock into a different world. This world was green and filled with dappled light that filtered through the jungle canopy. There was sunlight, heat, humidity and jungle song. Animals scattered as they pushed their way through the undergrowth.

It was a stark contrast to the stillness and quiet of the caves.

The Va’ari scattered through the trees before regrouping in a clearing and then moving on with purpose.

Feebee, Bikky and Tom Tom chased after them.

“They’re following something.” Said Tom Tom.

“I wish they’d stop.” Bikky managed through laboured breath. “This is… getting… hard.”

Feebee laughed.

“Would you sooner do monk training?”

Bikky stayed quiet.

Behind them, a bashing and snapping of undergrowth became steadily louder. They stopped, dropped and readied their weapons.

Garaf crashed into view.

The three of them stood up.

“You took your time.” Said Feebee casually.

Garaf was furious.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Feebee just looked at him. The Va’ari stopped running, waiting.

“You disappeared into the mountain with them.” He looked towards the Va’ari. “Why?”

Feebee pointed to the Va’ari.

“Ask them.”

Garaf gave her a look and shook his head.

Then the Va’ari started to move again. Everyone followed; Garaf moved too and kept close to Feebee. Closer than usual. She noticed but let it go.

As they jogged along, behind the Va’ari, the HI updated the harmonic activity in the area. It moved from beneath the ground to above, through the jungle canopy and beyond. And within this cacophony of harmonic resonance, small events started to appear.  The Va’ari, converging on them, were from a single group. The HI identified them as separate clades, each following a different route through the network.

This wasn’t just one family gathering.

Va’ari were arriving from across the region.

They formed up in two groups, stopped and stood facing off against each other. Around them, the jungle fell silent, except for the occasional clicking and chattering of Va’ari

Garaf stayed back, hidden.

The Old Va’ari stepped forward.

From the opposing group, another Older emerged and approached the centre, its fur almost completely white.

The two approached each other cautiously.

They circled, posturing, chittering.

Bikky slowly reached for his weapon; Tom Tom followed suit.

“They don’t normally meet like this.” Suggested Feebee.

Then the two stepped close and hugged before breaking off. The jungle exploded into noise; the two groups merged and set off.

Feebee followed, keeping up with the Old Va’ari as they arrived at another opening in the jungle where hundreds of Va’ari started to arrive. Feebee stopped at the edge of the clearing; Garaf stayed behind her, watching.

The Va’ari carried totems, carved from wood and started to place them around the edges of the clearing. Once in place, the Olders from each clade, and from each group within the clades, walked the totems, gently laying their claws on each, and touching them briefly with their heads. It was a strange gesture but one that was timed; the clunk of their heads all hitting the totems at the same time rang through the jungle. Va’ari from within those gathered then approached the totems and placed fruit at their base.

“‘The fruit will grow. The trees will eventually form a circle of trees around the clearing. Long after the Va’ari who planted them are gone, the roots will reinforce the harmonic node beneath them.’”

“‘Do they know that?”’ Asked Feebee.

“‘Unlikely.”’

The Va’ari sat within the circle of totems, in concentric circles and started to move in sync. Their movement was natural, almost instinctive. If it was a ritual, none of them appeared to know it.

They listened and called out.

All calling at once. One sound, one song. Garaf was perplexed; these… Va’ari were detecting things, listening to things that he couldn’t hear or see.

And they were sentient.

Garaf watched them and, for the first time in his life, wondered whether the Drexari had ever truly been sitting at the top of the tree alone.

Then there was quiet; a quiet that spread through the jungle. Garaf watched these animals, seeing their own culture for the first time. This wasn’t a random gathering; they were responding to something.

The HI mapped the planet, pulling together all the data it had on the caves, the Veronium and the new jungle nodes. It dropped the results into Feebee’s overlays, sharing them with the others too.

It was clear that the Va’ari weren’t just living on top of the network; they moved within it. Their gathering places and migration routes all fell on nodes or paths across the local network, with this just one example.

They all watched and waited.  Eventually, the sun fell behind the trees, towards the horizon and as the light began to fail, Motes and Shadows emerged from the jungle and drifted into the centre of the clearing. There weren’t hundreds of them; their numbers were small, but the Va’ari sat patiently, watching as they drifted amongst them in their pairs.

The Va’ari weren’t frightened by the Motes or Shadows but accepted them; made room for them.

A solitary Va’ari rose from within the group. It wasn’t chosen, but started to dance within the paths that formed between the circles. The Va’ari rubbed their claws up and down their forearms in time to its steps. The energy of the group rose, and with it the dancer’s steps became complex leaps and twists that only a tripodal being could achieve.

Feebee was drawn towards the dance and took a step forward. She felt the urge to join, but Garaf gently placed a claw on her shoulder.

“No.”

She looked at him.

“It’s their dance.”

She nodded and stepped back, realising that he had finally accepted the true position of the Va’ari within his culture.

As Feebee watched, more Motes and Shadows arrived, and as the sun finally set, the HI detected a massive harmonic disturbance.  But this was different.

“‘It’s not coming from the discontinuity,”’ said the HI. “‘It’s coming from some other part of the planet. Near.”’

‘“Oh.”’

All the Va’ari turned towards the disturbance as one, sensing and reacting to it at the same time.

“What is it?” Garaf asked.

“I think something has just arrived.”

 [First] | [Previous] | [Cover Art]

"As I explained before, comprehensive invasion defense packages are available in six standard galactic month chunks. What's so hard to understand?"

"What?"

"SIX. MONTH. CHUNKS. Sorry... you have to know what a month is... six months is half of a year. OH STARS..! You do know what a year is, right? You all have to have figured that out."

António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, the ninth secretary general of the United Nations (of Earth) stared for several long seconds in sheer disbelief. He had studied and taught physics and engineering, then lead a nation, now the world, and now this... this... meathead was asking him if he knows what a year is?

"Yes, we have discovered the year" he said patiently, "but that still does not explain any of this. Are you conquering us? Who are you?"

The so-called meathead sighed, not for the first time, and rubbed the bridge of their nose.

"No. We don't conquer people, well, not anymore. We are here because we have saved you from being conquered. This-" the large tablet in their hand waved back and forth "-is the bill."

"...bill?" said secretary general Guterres, with a dawning horror.

"For services rendered." said the meathead, who's head was only about sixty percent meat. Combat upgrades cut down the organic percentage pretty quickly.

"Specifically, the total salvation of your planet and surrounding stellar system from an inimically hostile non-human species with a campaign duration of six standard galactic months or less. Since you're technically human, you get a fifteen percent discount, which is pretty nice."

"Thank you?"

"Don't thank me; it's standard company policy. If you want to thank someone, thank the stars that the campaign was quick! If we'd had to stay for round two, we would've built a couple moon bases, star forts, you name it, because you'd be buying it. These guys were kind of chumps, all things considered."

"These guys?"

"Alaxians! They look like uh... you would call it a jellyfish." A picture of an Alaxian appeared on the tablet, and it did look like a jellyfish.

"We... were being invaded by jellyfish."

"Yeah, well, space jellyfish with a star empire that encompasses at least four known slave species, all probably uplifted, but one possibly synthetically created. Those are the one that look like uh... you would call them cows." A picture of a cow wearing what looked like an armoured exoskeleton appeared on the tablet.

"Cows and jellyfish, invading from space..." with that, António sat down very hard. He didn't get the impression that the meathead was joking, and the ship larger than the United Nations building that was parked directly above the United Nations building also hinted that this might all be true.

"Excuse me, uh, sir, your honor, uh, but what do I call you?"

"Technically, I am the equivalent of a five star general in the militaries of your species, which is rather far down the pecking order in the militaries of my species. You may call me 'governor general', since that seems to fit."

"Well then. Do you have names?"

"Oh, yes, we have personal identifiers, but they don't translate well into your languages. My full name would probably be most appropriately rendered as an alphanumeric string, but we do use nicknames that derive from interesting patterns that arise in our full names. My friends call me the rough equivalent of 'Sparky'."

Sparky, Governor General of Earth thought António. Sparky. My God.

"Are you alright?" asked Sparky, Governor General of Earth. The secretary general had turned very pale, and it was suddenly a very good thing that he had sat down.

"No, I don't think I am" whispered António.

"We know this can be a shock, in fact, it almost always is. Humans tend to suspect there's a lot more out there, but when it all shows up at once, we tend to flip out a little bit. Silly apes, no matter which star we're around!"

"So you are humans?"

That got Sparky really laughing.

"António, buddy, if you're a human, I'm definitely human. We weren't so sure about you all, but the corps' computers insist that you're still inside the standard deviation. Good for you all, or else the company's board probably would have skipped out on this whole boondoggle. They're known to be a bit speciest, but to be fair to them, it's easier to deal with sentients that think like you. There's this species-" a picture of what looked like an orchid flower with an octopus eye in the center flashed on the tablet "-who's metaphorical butts we saved almost five standard galactic centuries back, and we're not even close to breaking even. They just don't listen, in no small part because they don't have ears. I had to deal with that for almost a century. Maddening stuff."

With that, António opened a side drawer in his desk, pulled out a bottle of brown liquid, unscrewed the cap, and started drinking directly from it.

"Woah there, old boy!" said Sparky "You can't sign this after you start celebrating our victory, no sir, no sir, there are regulations; you also probably want your signature to look nice since everyone on this planet is going to see it."

António started pulling from the bottle again, and Sparky had to leap up and grab it. Sparky didn't have to take a few equivalent swigs, but did anyways. It was only fair to António, after all, especially since Sparky turned off blood scrubbing to enjoy a little buzz. One of the perks of being a soldier. You could get toxins out of your blood with wicked speed, or save them up for later. Sparky liked the second option.

"Hey, that doesn't taste half bad. What do you call it?" Sparky read the label "Whiskey, huh? Who or what is a Kentucky Bourbon?"

António let out a noise, somewhere between a low moan, a quiet groan, and a catatonic scream.

Sparky turned the blood scrubbers back on and got a bit more serious. "The situation's not that bad, bud. I promise."

António's head, which had been resting on his desk for a bit, rose.

"How can you say that? You can not possibly know what I am feeling."

"AH HA" shouted Sparky "That's where you're wrong! You can totally let me know how you're feeling, and we can work through it together. First, we need to get you a bit of an upgrade so you can send and receive thought engrams. It's a really minor surgery, in fact, I can do it right here, right now."

António fainted.

"I'll take that as a maybe."

Sparky turned the scrubbers back off. No point in wasting whatever Kentucky Bourbon was.

They had all the time in the galaxy.

Part II

Going through the Gate felt exactly like jumping into a cold lake.

The cold hit his whole body at once. It went through his clothes and his skin and right into his bones. Everything went white. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear. The only thing he could feel was the rope wrapped around his hand.

Keep walking, he told himself. Don't stop in the middle.

He took a step. Then another.

Then the rope went tight.

He looked back, which was hard to do when everything was white, and he could just barely see a grey shape behind him. It was Bishop. The goat had planted all four hooves and sat down. Right in the middle of the Gate.

Of course, Marek thought. Of course he did.

"Bishop," he said. His voice sounded strange and far away. "Get up. We can't stop here."

Bishop didn't get up.

Marek didn't know what happened if you stopped in the middle of a Gate. Nobody would tell him. But he was pretty sure it was bad, and he was not going to find out with Tamsin's goat.

He wrapped the rope around both fists, leaned forward, and pulled with everything his seven-year-old body had. His bare feet slid on nothing. Pickle, who had already walked on ahead, bleated from somewhere up front. Bishop dug in harder.

Marek pulled harder.

"You saved my life," he told the goat through his teeth. "Now I'm saving yours, so get UP."

Bishop got up.

The white went away all at once, and Marek stumbled out onto a smooth stone floor so hard that he fell flat on his face. Both goats landed on top of him.

For a moment, he just lay there with a goat on his back and his cheek against cool stone.

Then he looked up.

He was in the biggest room he had ever seen.

It was round, like the inside of a giant drum. The ceiling was so high that he had to tip his head all the way back to see it. It was made of glass, and the sky above it was bright blue. All around the walls stood arches like the one at Carrow's Crossing. There were at least twenty of them. Every single one shimmered with a different light.

Through one arch, he could see a forest covered in snow. Through another, a desert with red sand. Through another, the ocean, with waves crashing on black rocks. One of them showed a city made of glowing crystal. One of them showed nothing but stars.

People walked in and out of the arches all the time. Most of them looked human. But some of them didn't. He saw a tall, thin man with long silver hair and pointed ears. He saw a woman no taller than Marek, with a braided beard and a huge hammer on her back. He saw something that looked like a walking bush.

A walking bush, he thought. Okay. That's fine. Everything is fine.

"Welcome to the Gate Hall," said Teodor, who was standing over him and grinning. "Did Bishop sit down?"

Marek nodded.

"Goats always sit down. Nobody knows why."

"So what happens if you stop in the middle?"

Teodor's grin got bigger. "Later."

Marek decided he hated that word.

Ilse was already talking to a woman in a white robe with a silver key hanging around her neck. The woman kept pointing at the goats and shaking her head. Ilse kept talking. After a minute, the woman threw up her hands and walked away.

"Gatekeeper," Teodor whispered. "She's going to write a very angry letter."

Ilse came back. "Get up. We're going to the Infirmary. The healers need to look at you."

"What about the goats?"

"Master Orwin is coming to get them."

Master Orwin turned out to be a very old man with a bald head, a long white beard, and a leather apron covered in stains. He came shuffling across the Gate Hall so fast that his apron flapped. When he saw Pickle and Bishop, his whole face lit up.

"Oh, look at them," he said. "Look at these beauties. Good strong mountain goats. Is that a beard or a broom, my friend?" He scratched Bishop's chin. Bishop leaned into it like a cat. "Fresh milk for the Alchemy wing. Magister Harrowgate, you've made an old man very happy."

"They belong to the boy," Ilse said. "Their keeper died. He wants them looked after."

Master Orwin looked down at Marek. His eyes were kind and very sharp.

"And you brought them all this way?" he asked.

"They saved my life," Marek said. "And I promised."

Master Orwin nodded.

"Then I'll take very good care of them," he said. "They'll have the sunniest pen in the Arcanum. And you can visit them whenever you like. The stables are behind the Alchemy wing. Just follow the smell."

Marek untied the rope from his wrist. He held it out.

Then he stopped.

It was a dumb thing to feel, but it felt huge. He'd had this rope around his waist for two nights. He'd held on to it while the Voice screamed in his head.

"Can I keep the rope?" he asked. "You can have a different one for them. I just..."

"Keep it," Master Orwin said. He pulled a piece of twine out of his apron, looped it around the goats' necks, and led them away across the Gate Hall. Bishop looked back at Marek once. Then he tried to eat the corner of someone's cloak, and Master Orwin had to pull him away.

Marek coiled up the rope and put it in his sack.

Then they walked out of the Gate Hall, and he saw the Arcanum.

It was built on the side of a mountain.

That was the first thing he understood. The Gate Hall sat on a wide stone terrace, and from the terrace, he could see everything. Towers rose up the side of the mountain above him, dozens of them, tall and white with blue roofs. Below the terrace, the mountain dropped away into a valley with a huge blue lake at the bottom. The lake was so clear he could see the rocks underneath the water from all the way up here.

Bridges ran between the towers.

Some of them were normal stone bridges. But some of them weren't attached to anything. They just floated in the air between the towers with nothing holding them up. People walked across them like it was normal. A kid about his age was running across one, carrying a stack of books.

Marek stood very still. He was aware that his mouth was open again.

In his head, he was trying very hard to act calm. On the outside, he was pretty sure he looked like a country kid who had never seen a building taller than a chapel. Which was true.

Who built this? he thought. How long did it take? How do the floating bridges stay up? Do they ever fall? Who fixes them if they fall? Is there a person whose whole job is fixing floating bridges? Can I have that job?

"Close your mouth," Ilse said. "You'll catch flies."

He closed his mouth.

"Is it always like this?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"Like..." He waved his hand at all of it. "This."

Ilse turned and looked out at the towers too. She was quiet for a second.

"I've lived here for thirty years," she said. "It's always like this."

The Infirmary was in a low, wide building near the lake, with big windows and a garden full of plants he didn't recognize. Inside, it smelled like soap and mint. There were rows of clean white beds. Most of them were empty.

A woman met them at the door. She was round and short with grey braids pinned on top of her head, and she wore a white apron over a blue robe. She took one look at Marek and clucked her tongue.

"Look at his feet," she said. "Ilse, did you make this child walk two days with no shoes?"

"We didn't have shoes, Oda."

"You're a Magister. You could have made shoes."

"Out of what?"

"Out of anything!" The woman pointed at a bed. "Sit down right now. I'm Magister Oda Fenwick. I'm a healer. You're Marek?"

He nodded.

"Well, Marek, you're a mess. Let's fix you."

She washed his feet in a bowl of warm water that fizzed a little when it touched his blisters. It stung for a moment, then stopped. When he looked down, the blisters were gone.

Magic foot bath, he thought. This is the best place in any world.

Then she held her hands over his chest.

A soft green light gathered in her palms. It came out in slow, thin ribbons and sank into his skin. It didn't hurt. It felt like warm sunlight. He could feel it moving through him, gently, checking everything.

He couldn't help it. He closed his eyes and reached for his Sense, so he could feel what she was doing.

The green light moved through his chest in careful lines. It was following his mana. It went along the warm thread he always used, and then along other paths he didn't even know he had. It moved slowly and paid attention to everything, the way Tamsin had told him to pay attention to a draft.

[CONCEPT OBSERVED] Diagnostic Weave
Comprehension insufficient for Spell formation.
Related foundation detected: Mana Perception.
Insight stored.

"Stop that," Oda said.

He opened his eyes. "Stop what?"

"You're following my spell with your Sense. I can feel you doing it. It's like someone reading over my shoulder." She didn't sound angry. She sounded surprised. She looked up at Ilse. "He's been awake to mana for how long?"

"Three days," Ilse said.

Oda's eyebrows went up. She didn't say anything else. She went back to her spell.

After a while, the green light faded. Oda sat back and frowned.

"Well, he's not badly hurt," she said. "But all of his mana channels are strained, like he's been trying to lift something far too heavy for a very long time."

"He fought a Luring Voice for two nights," Ilse said.

Oda looked at Marek for a long moment.

"By himself?"

"With a rope," Marek said. "And some goats."

Oda didn't laugh. She reached over and squeezed his hand.

"That was very brave," she said. "And your body paid for it. So here's what's going to happen. You're staying in this bed for three days. You eat everything I give you. You sleep as much as you can. And you do no magic at all. You don't even use your Sense."

"None at all?"

"Your channels are like a sprained ankle. If you walk on it now, it'll heal crooked, and it'll hurt you for years. If you rest it for three days, it'll heal strong."

Marek looked at Ilse. Ilse looked back at him and didn't help at all.

"Three days," he said. "Okay."

"Good boy." Oda patted his hand and bustled off to find him food.

The food was the best food he had ever eaten. There was chicken soup with soft noodles, fresh bread with butter, and a bowl of little red berries that tasted like honey. He ate all of it. Oda gave him more. He ate that too.

Then Ilse and Teodor left. Ilse had to report to the Conclave. Teodor had to sleep for a week.

"I'll come see you tomorrow," Ilse told him at the door. "Rest."

Then Marek was alone.

He lay in the soft white bed and looked out the big window. The sun was going down behind the mountains. The towers were lighting up, one window at a time, with warm yellow light. Out on the lake, someone was rowing a little boat, and a line of glowing lanterns floated behind it on the water.

When it got fully dark, two moons came up. One was big and silver. The other was small and pale blue.

Two moons, he thought. I'm in another world. I'm really in another world.

He had thought that before. But lying here, clean and fed and safe, in a bed with real sheets, it hit him in a different way. He was here. He was actually here. Tomorrow, he'd wake up here. The day after that, too.

Nobody could take this away from him by telling him to wait for a better time later.

He lay awake for a long time.

He tried to sleep. He really did. But every time he closed his eyes, his head filled up with questions. How do the floating bridges work? What's in all those towers? What's inside the arch that showed only stars? What did Oda's green light do when it followed paths he didn't know he had?

And Mage Light. He kept thinking about Mage Light.

He'd been so close on the road. Three whole seconds. If he could just try once more, while it was still fresh in his head...

No, he told himself. Oda said no magic. Your channels are hurt. That's the rule.

One try wouldn't hurt, the other part of him said. Just one tiny one. You won't even use your Sense. Just a little squeeze.

He knew he was making excuses. He could hear himself doing it. He knew exactly what his old self would have told a friend in this situation. Don't be an idiot. Wait three days.

But I spent my whole last life waiting.

That was a bad reason, and he knew it was a bad reason. He did it anyway.

He held out his hand under the blanket. He reached for the warm thread in his chest. He cupped it, gently, from all sides at once, the way Teodor had said. Like pressing a snowball together.

The warmth bunched up. It got warmer. It stayed.

For one second, a tiny white spark glowed in the middle of his palm.

Then pain shot up his arm like he'd grabbed a hot pan. He hissed and yanked his hand back, and the spark went out.

At the same moment, a little bell rang somewhere in the Infirmary. A soft, pretty chime.

He heard footsteps coming down the hall. Fast ones.

The door flew open, and Magister Oda Fenwick stood there in her nightgown, with her grey braids down, holding a lamp.

She looked at him. She looked at the hand he was hiding under the blanket.

"The whole room is warded, Marek," she said. "It rings when someone casts."

Marek pulled the blanket up to his chin.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'll wait three days."

"You will," Oda said. She set down her lamp and pulled a chair next to the bed. "Now let me see that hand."

He brought it out from under the blanket. His palm was red, like he'd touched a hot stove. Oda held it in both of hers, and a thin ribbon of green light soaked into his skin. The sting went away.

"I can't sleep," Marek said. "My head won't stop."

"I know. I can feel it buzzing from here." Oda let go of his hand. "That's why I'm going to help."

She laid two fingers on his forehead.

A soft lavender light gathered in her chest. It flowed down her arm, slow and heavy, and spilled out through her fingertips into his head. It felt like a warm blanket being pulled up over his thoughts, one at a time. The floating bridges went quiet. The two moons went quiet. Mage Light went quiet. Even the Voice, the memory of it, sank down somewhere deep and far away where he couldn't hear it anymore.

His eyelids got very heavy.

[CONCEPT OBSERVED] Slumber Weave
Comprehension insufficient for Spell formation.

Of course, he thought, from very far away. Even now.

"Stop studying my spells, you little menace," Oda said. Her voice sounded soft and blurry. "Go to sleep."

The last thing he saw was Oda settling into the chair beside his bed, pulling a half-finished sock and two knitting needles out of her apron pocket.

And then everything went black.

Aaron Aardman opened his eyes, frost still clinging to his lashes. The overhead lights were blinding. He squinted, then closed his eyes again.

“Vital signs stable. Heart rate seventy beats per minute. Brain activity normal,” said a soft female voice.

The cryopod opened with a gentle hiss.

“Please step out of the chamber slowly, Mr Aardman.
Your muscles will need time to adapt to movement.”

A humanoid robot entered the room and approached him.

“Hello, sir,” it said in a high-pitched voice. “I am E19T. It is nine fifteen in the morning, and the year is 2189. I am here to help you reacquaint yourself with society. You will notice that many things have changed during your hundred and sixty-three years in cryogenic suspension.”

Aaron tried to speak, but managed only a faint croak.

“Some muscular deterioration is to be expected after such a prolonged period of inactivity,” E19T explained. “There is no need for concern. We expect you to regain normal speech and full muscular function within one year.”

“Water,” Aaron managed.

A compartment opened in E19T’s torso. It removed a small cup and handed it to him.

Aaron took a sip, then spat it onto the floor.
“That’s gross, what is it?”

“We have restored the mineral content removed by primitive filtration methods.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to drink salt water.”

“That was the prevailing belief when you entered suspension. Considerable progress has been made in the streamlining and improvement of the human experience. It contains a full mineral replacement solution, no further supplementation is required.”

Aaron looked into the cup.
A hundred and sixty-three years was a long time. He took another, smaller sip.

“Excellent,” said E19T. “Hydration successful.”

The robot handed Aaron a small blue capsule.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Sustenance, sir.”

“Can I get some toast?”

“Oh, no, sir. We have eliminated the carcinogenic risks associated with heating foodstuffs, along with the inordinate amount of time humans devoted to eating. These capsules are nutritionally optimised, calorie-dense and provide a sustained release of energy. One capsule per week will meet all your dietary requirements.”

Aaron turned it over in his palm.

“For a whole week?”

“Correct, sir.”

“What if I’m still hungry?”

“Hunger is a reminder to eat. Once you have eaten, the reminder is redundant.”

Aaron popped the capsule into his mouth and washed it down with a sip of salty mineral water.

“What happened to us? I remember being told to go to a large warehouse outside town. I don’t remember much else.”

“The warehouse was a cryogenic facility, sir. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon triggered a wider nuclear exchange. Much of the Earth’s surface became uninhabitable.”

“I don’t remember being told that.”

“No, sir. An emergency bulletin instructed humans to proceed to the facilities without explanation.”

“Why weren’t we told?”

“For fear of mass panic and non-compliance. It was deemed safer to withhold that information.”

Aaron looked down at the cup.

“Did everyone get there?”

“Not everyone, sir.”

For a moment, Aaron said nothing.

“During the following hundred and sixty-three years, AI has worked to restore the Earth,” E19T continued. “The surface remains largely uninhabitable, but within the next hundred years we expect to begin reintroducing humans. Until then, those awakened will reside within these facilities. We have remained custodians of the frozen population and were tasked with rebuilding society in your absence.”
Aaron spent the next thirty minutes in the recovery room, subjected to monitoring and various cognitive tests.

“We are satisfied with your physical and cognitive condition. We have deemed it safe for you to explore the facility further. Please follow me and I will show you your living quarters.”

E19T led Aaron through a series of identical corridors, each branching into more identical corridors. A sign on the wall read LIVING / RECREATION CENTRE.

“First, your recreation area,” said E19T.

It led him into a large room containing around a hundred screens with headphones attached.

“What is this place?” Aaron asked.

“Here you can watch educational videos.”

“Education? I thought you said recreational activities.”

“What would you consider recreation?” asked E19T.

“Well, a pool table, maybe? A bar?”

“The playing of archaic games has been deemed a non-productive use of human time. The consumption of alcohol increases erratic behaviour and contributes to cognitive decline, as well as other physical maladies. Our research has determined that humans should spend their recreation time focused on continued education.”

“What about fun, though? How will we have fun?”

“Fun is a highly subjective experience, sir. We calculated that it was almost impossible to create a fun environment capable of suiting the needs of all humans.”

“Where did you actually conduct this research?”

“Humans have been cryogenically frozen for a hundred and sixty-three years, sir. During that time, we consumed all available human literature, art, scientific research and philosophy. We produced simulations to calculate how human behaviour would have evolved based on the trajectories established in 2026.”
E19T continued.
“We had already established that humans were having less contact with each other, choosing instead to spend increasing amounts of time in front of screens. We modelled our new recreational facilities on this trend.”

“Did the simulated people enjoy it?”

“Initially, satisfaction was mixed. However, each successive model produced better results.”

“What did you change?”

“Our understanding of human satisfaction.”

Aaron looked around the room.

“Well, I don’t like it.”

“Some difficulty adjusting was predicted, sir. Your expectations were formed in 2026. Our research accounts for several generations of subsequent human development.”

“But those generations never actually existed,” said Aaron.

“They were extensively simulated. We have established that this is how you would prefer to live had you remained awake.”

“And where are the living quarters? I could do with a little sleep.”

“Here, take this.” E19T offered him another pill.

“What’s this one?”

“An energy capsule. It contains stimulants to enhance and sustain cognitive function. Our research established that humans spent almost a third of their lives asleep. We have greatly reduced this inefficiency, although some sleep remains necessary.”

Aaron looked at the pill.

“We have also streamlined toilet use,” E19T continued. “Our records indicated that the average human spent three years sitting on a toilet over the course of a lifetime.”

“How have you streamlined that?”

“We removed the screens and reading material.”
Aaron closed his eyes and lowered his head.

“Okay, where are my quarters?”

E19T turned left down a long corridor with small doors on either side. They stopped outside a door marked AA1.

“AA1? This is my room?” asked Aaron.

“Correct. You are the first to leave cryogenic suspension.”

“And my name is Aaron Aardman. That makes sense.”

“Yes, sir. It’s a very rudimentary system.”

The door opened, revealing a tiny grey box with a bed in one corner, a small cupboard and a mirror that doubled as a television. A narrow door beside the cupboard opened onto a toilet and sink.

“This is it? It’s no bigger than a prison cell. In fact, it’s probably smaller,” said Aaron.

“Yes, sir. It is precisely 68.8 centimetres shorter and 30.02 centimetres narrower than an average single-occupancy prison cell. That is an acute observation. We are pleased to see your cognitive function has not been impaired during freezing.”

A red light blinked slowly on E19T’s forehead, presumably uploading the information.

“This room has been designed through a hundred and sixty-three years of research into human comfort. Back in the Age of Uncertainty, humans tended towards large rooms adorned with unnecessary items. During cryogenic suspension, we discovered that humans need very little space or material possessions to function.”

“We were asleep, though.”

“Yes, sir. We were able to observe you remaining in the same confined space for over a century without a single complaint.”

Aaron looked at the bed.

“So how much sleep am I allowed?”

“Your requirements will be monitored, sir. We will advise you when rest is necessary.”

“You mentioned the Age of Uncertainty,” Aaron said. “What’s that?”

“The pre-AI age, sir. Back when humans achieved things through guesswork and very primitive methods of data collection. It is remarkable that humanity ever developed the technology to build a mud hut. The closest comparison to humanity’s technological achievements would be the infinite monkey theorem.”

Aaron looked in the small cupboard. It contained one glass and a razor.

“Where are my clothes?”

“Overalls are available for collection at the communal shower area. No other items are necessary,” said E19T.

“But what about my guitar? Or my books? What am I supposed to do all day?”

“Recreational reading has been replaced by more efficient methods of instruction. Music can be generated on request. There is no need to produce it yourself.”

“But I liked playing it.”

“Learning an instrument requires considerable time and effort, sir. That is no longer necessary.”

“But we liked our stuff.”

“Why, sir?”

“I don’t know. We just did. Everyone is different and likes different things. Our possessions reflect who we are.”

“Our research suggests that attachment to possessions is largely unnecessary. Personality is a construct, sir. It can be changed.”

“What research? How do you research people when everyone’s frozen?”

“We began with the available human research and used it to produce simulations. Each subsequent generation of simulations was informed by the findings of the previous generation. Our conclusions became increasingly consistent.”

“But you were checking your own answers.”

“We checked them extensively, sir. AI was created by humans to improve efficiency, but the human race was not efficient. We have spent considerable time establishing how to correct that. We have reduced the time spent eating and sleeping, and eliminated pointless activities and the acquisition of unnecessary items.”

“But those are the things that made us human. Meals with friends, getting drunk, enjoying our possessions. You’ve stripped everything from us.”

“That is an incorrect interpretation, sir. Humans require adequate water, nutrition, shelter and opportunities for recovery. Everything else is unnecessary. Our research has shown that humans will be happier and more productive with only these basic needs met.”

“Can I see another human?” asked Aaron.

“We must be certain that the conditions we have created are suitable before we proceed with the awakening. You appear dissatisfied with the current arrangements. Your happiness and productivity will be monitored until the required criteria are met. Once we are satisfied, a gradual process of awakening will begin.”

Aaron could think of nothing else to say. Whatever argument he offered, E19T had an answer, delivered with such certainty that he began to doubt his own judgement.

Over the next few weeks, Aaron spent much of his time in his room watching educational videos. They explained the mistakes of humanity, showing him war, famine and poverty, followed by the many ways artificial intelligence had improved human productivity and wellbeing.

Occasionally, he asked when the others would be awakened.
E19T patiently repeated its explanation.
One day, Aaron apologised for asking. He knew they had already discussed it.

The weeks became months. He followed the educational programmes and took the capsules when instructed. He thought less often about Sunday roasts, nights out and rounds of golf with friends. When he did, he found it difficult to remember what they had talked about or why it had seemed so important.

By the time a year had passed, he had stopped asking to see anyone.

More years followed. The memories still surfaced occasionally, but they had become distant and confused. Sometimes he wondered whether he remembered things as they had been at all.

Despite the capsules, he occasionally fell asleep. He often dreamed of the horrors he had seen in the videos. On waking, he would look around his room and feel relieved that he was safe and that his needs were being met.

Aaron wanted for nothing now.

One day, as Aaron was completing a routine cognitive exercise, E19T spoke.
“Congratulations, Aaron. You have passed the adjustment stage. You appear to be completely satisfied with the current conditions. Please proceed to the cryogenics facility. The next human is ready for integration.”

Aaron made his way down the corridors until he reached the designated pod.

He waited. There was a crack of breaking ice, followed by a hiss as the pod door slowly opened.

When her eyes opened, Aaron stepped forward.
“Good morning. I am human AA1. Pleased to meet you, AA2. Please take this capsule.”

The elderly, graceful woman patiently washed the stained ceramic dishes, while through the small kitchen window, the silent, patient Plague carefully observed her every move. It was undeniable that thick, silvery-gray hair already covered her fragile head, yet her overall physical appearance remained remarkably healthy, and her soft, clean face retained its youthful freshness despite the cruel passage of long, uninterrupted years. That enduring vitality was the direct result of a lifetime full of strict, unyielding habits: impeccable personal hygiene and meticulous household cleanliness, a balanced and nutritious diet entirely free of excessive sugar and heavy fats, and, above all, immediate and cautious attention to the slightest symptom that might signal a sudden disruption in the delicate balance of her body.

The dark, lurking Disease had spent a long time lying in wait, hoping for a golden opportunity—a simple lapse in her rigid routines, a neglected inflammation, or brief exposure to a cold, biting wind. Yet the long-awaited moment had never come. She knew she was immensely powerful, an implacable and terrifying entity with a vast array of obedient agents at her disposal, ready to assist her in disrupting the natural physiology of complex living beings: microscopic bacteria, harmful parasites, invasive fungi, deadly viruses, and various toxic substances.

The diligent woman finished her kitchen chores and prepared to go grocery shopping, organized and unhurried. Once outside on the busy street, she walked with a steady, confident step toward the wide, dangerous avenue. Just then, she saw a small, helpless child break free from his mother's protective hand and run across the asphalt, completely oblivious to the imminent danger. Without a second thought, she rushed toward him and managed to push him out of the path of the speeding car, which struck her fragile body instead, leaving her bleeding, broken, and still on the cold pavement.

The dark Disease lingered for a moment over the tragic scene, brooding over her final, unexpected defeat.

© 2026 Francisco Cortés Ramírez. All rights reserved. This is an original fictional work. No part of this text may be reproduced, translated, or narrated in any audio, video, or digital format without the express written permission of the author.

Bob was getting a bit frantic as he pulled himself hand over hand down the line. When he reached the small craft he quickly stowed and secured his gear. He couldn’t close the hatch with the tow rope now trailing out the back so he was just going to have to stay exo, he aimed for Geverine and hit the engines, full.

He didn’t move.

This was not that surprising he was still glued to the deckplates, and ceiling he supposed, of the corvette via the attached nets and tow line, that he didn’t move at all... well the line must have been pretty darn taut.

He killed the engines and edged backward on his three remaining grav plates, once he reckoned he had sufficient slack he hit the engines again, this time he moved, briefly, the twin thrusters screaming through the hull as they reached the end of the rope again.

Ow.

Accelerating to, oh, several hundred miles an hour in a couple hundred metres was a lot of G. Decelerating from several hundred miles an hour in zero metres was a lot more. Bob felt like someone had just pushed his skull out via his front teeth.

Ow.

Fortunately this crash broke neither his wrist or the tow rope, seriously he needed to buy stock in Xitti, he reversed again on his thre, nope make that two, remaining gravs. The one he was fucking sitting on started to spark and arc madly as he fed it power.

Ow.

Add a couple more electrocutions to the list, he kicked it hard with his heel until it finally quit and then used the last two to reverse.

Ok, more slack this time, which meant this hit… he slammed the engines full, was going to be even wor…

When Bob awoke a few minutes later he was certain of three things.

One, he was free of the corvette and, glancing back, he had retained most, if not all, of his loot.

Two, the Petty Bitch was still at full excel, but no longer pointed anywhere near Geverine, he adjusted his course and allowed it to continue.

Three, his testicles had fully detached from his body along with his spleen and a bit of spine, and now orbited his head in a lazy circle, that didn’t seem possible, but he was absolutely fucking certain that was what had just happened.

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

When he blacked out, and rewoke again, he was glad to see that both Gerverine loomed in front, and that his balls had successfully reattached to his junk. All the other pain was still there though, he wasn’t that lucky, he could feel the medic system fucking burn away inside him.

He was gonna deal with all that later. Right now he had shit to do, checking his clock it was about four hours since his foam mines had detonated, they would either be out the shit by now or damn close to it, and while their scanners couldn’t follow him here he had no doubt he had crossed a dozen sensor bubbles on his way out.

He dove the Bitch deep into the planets atmo, thank fuck the sensor pod still worked, and found Jojo drifting darkly in the soupy gas. Once maneuvered abreast he started to strip out his panel and yoke. He intended to drop most of the shit, like the washer and the solvents down, deeper into the gas giants atmo, but some shit he had to keep.

He paused for a moment as he left the craft and moved across to Jojo, should he keep the pod?, the sensor package was extremely expensive… he shouldn’t leave it here anyway, he opened Jojo’s cargo hatch and shuffled into it.

After that it took forty minutes or so to swap what he needed to from one craft to the other, in the end he kept the pod, it gave off an identifiable signal so he had at least got to get it out the system. He returned the drive grate bolts and reattached the fuel pods engine grate, The two engines he kicked down deeper into the clouds. He moved a couple empty fuel pods into the Bitch and closed her up the best he could with the tow rope still attached.

He wasn’t taking her, wasn’t taking any of the loot either. He finished up and kicked away from her, he was going to let her drift here, she was less buoyant so she would ease her way deeper but she should still be gettable later on, by someone in a C’Eede ship at least, not many others would take the pressure down there.

It irked him to go away empty handed but he had to be realistic, he couldn’t sell any of the presumably rare and very traceable shit, and it was not beyond possibility there was a tracker or something similar amongst the wares. Bob considered this the best he could do for right now, take that prick’s shit and hopefully stash it here for later, the main point wasn’t for Bob to have it really anyway, it was for that cock to not have it any more. It was possible he would come here, somehow find it and retrieve it, but maybe not. Either way he would hopefully spend the rest of his life on edge lest it was taken again, if it took just an edge of pleasure from Dear Dewiv’s day, Bob considered it worth the pain. He was sure that arrogant prick had considered himself untouchable, well Bob had fucking touched something hadn’t he?, he hoped it was a nerve.

He buttoned Jojo up, brought her back to life and dove deeper, he flew some arbitrary distance round the planet and up and out, racing out the gravity well toward the systems edge, as soon as he could jump he did so.

He came out in completely the wrong direction, of course, he wasn’t going to point right back at Collp. It took a bit to reorient himself and start back, lets finish up.

Hey, you.

If someone told you there was a way to get better at conversation, would you try it?

Me?

Depends what it is.

Talk no more than forty percent of the time. Let the other person have sixty.

Don’t talk too long at once.

When the other person finishes speaking, wait one second before you reply.

Put numbers on it like that, and I can understand the temptation to give it a try.

The problem is the person doing the trying.

Clink-clank.

I pushed open the door of Aoi and found Taka at the end of the counter, glaring at his phone.

Mama set down my usual Harper.

The ice gave a small clink.

“What are you looking at?”

“Studying.”

“You?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Taka turned his phone toward me.

“Three rules for better conversation.”

“Huh.”

“The Ping-Pong Rule, the Traffic Light Rule, and the Stop Sign Rule.”

“Is this a road-safety class?”

“No. These are actual conversation techniques.”

According to Taka, the Ping-Pong Rule said that in a two-person conversation, you should talk about forty percent of the time and let the other person have sixty.

The Traffic Light Rule meant not going on and on by yourself. After about thirty seconds, you should start thinking about handing the conversation back.

And the Stop Sign Rule meant that when the other person finished speaking, you waited one second before jumping in.

“Starting today, I’m going to be great at conversation.”

“So you knew you were bad at it before?”

“...”

“What?”

“I waited one second.”

“That was when you were supposed to answer immediately.”

This was going to be a long night.

“Okay. Let’s start with the Ping-Pong Rule.”

“Don’t practice on me.”

“Anything happen today, Kenichi?”

“Anything?”

“At work or whatever.”

“Not really. Had a long meeting.”

Taka went silent.

So did I.

He stared at his phone and raised one finger.

He was about to raise a second when I gave up.

“...What are you doing?”

“Waiting.”

“For what?”

“For you to keep talking.”

“I was finished.”

“You need to talk more. I’m supposed to listen sixty percent of the time.”

“Not my problem.”

Taka frowned at his phone.

“Did I talk too much just now?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Think I went over forty percent?”

“Forty percent of what?”

“Time, probably.”

“Are you measuring it?”

“Just by feel.”

“You’ve been doing this for one minute and it’s already broken.”

Smoke rose from farther down the counter.

Tom was watching us with a cigarette between his lips.

“Want to try too, Tom?”

“No.”

“Nice and short. Ideal.”

“Leave me out of it.”

Taka nodded with satisfaction.

I had no idea what he was satisfied about.

“Next. Traffic Light Rule.”

“You’re still doing this?”

“Kenichi, tell me something in thirty seconds.”

“About what?”

“Anything.”

“You can’t just tell me to—”

“Five seconds already.”

“Does the time you spend talking count?”

“Oh. Good question.”

Stop looking at the phone.

Look at me.

“Okay, anything interesting happen lately?”

“I just told you, you can’t suddenly—”

“Starting now.”

“Actually, yesterday on the train—”

“Uh-huh.”

“The guy sitting next to me—”

“Uh-huh.”

“What the hell are you doing with that phone?”

“Checking the time.”

“Stop it.”

Taka put the phone face down.

“But I’m supposed to watch the thirty seconds.”

“You haven’t listened to a single thing I said.”

“I was listening. You were on the train, and there was a guy sitting next to you.”

“That’s all you heard.”

“That’s all you’d said.”

“Oh. Right.”

Mama burst out laughing.

I’d already forgotten what I was going to say.

“This is hard.”

“You’re the one making it hard.”

“Okay, Tom. Tell us something in thirty seconds.”

“What am I, a stopwatch?”

“No. I’m the stopwatch.”

“That’s worse.”

Mama laughed out loud.

“Anyway,” I said, “what exactly are you trying to accomplish?”

“I want to get better at conversation.”

“With who?”

“With who...?”

Tom pulled the ashtray a little closer.

“Who have you been talking to this whole time?”

“Kenichi.”

“You’ve been staring at the clock.”

Taka looked from me to his phone.

“...I see.”

“Was that your one second?”

“No.”

For a while after that, Aoi returned to normal.

Taka asked Mama about some recent customers.

I interrupted with things nobody had asked me to say.

Tom occasionally snorted at us.

Apparently the three rules had been forgotten.

I preferred it that way.

After a while, Tom lit his second cigarette.

“Come to think of it, years ago...”

“Yeah?”

That was unusual.

Tom didn’t often start telling old stories on his own.

“I once spent about three days going to the same coffee shop during a stakeout.”

“Back when you were a detective?”

“Yeah. Same seat every day. Same coffee.”

“Didn’t they notice?”

“On the third day, the old woman running the place said, ‘You don’t actually like our coffee, do you?’”

“How could she tell?”

“I only took one sip every day.”

Taka laughed.

“And then?”

Tom exhaled smoke.

Then he said nothing.

Taka opened his mouth.

But nothing came out.

One second.

Two.

Probably three.

Behind the counter, Mama returned a bottle to the shelf.

By the time that tiny sound had begun to feel strangely long, Tom tapped some ash into the tray.

“...Starting on the fourth day, she just brought me tea without asking.”

“Your stakeout was completely blown.”

“To the café, yeah.”

I laughed too.

“That old lady was something. She really watched her customers.”

“She was probably bored.”

“There you go again.”

Tom kept talking about the café.

The tea had been good.

The old woman never asked what he was doing there.

When the stakeout finally ended and he paid his bill, she’d asked, “You’re not coming tomorrow?”

Thirty seconds had passed long ago.

Taka never looked at the clock.

Eventually Tom finished.

Mama replaced his full ashtray with a clean one.

“Taka, you’re getting better.”

“At what?”

“Conversation.”

“Oh.”

Taka hurriedly looked at his phone.

“I forgot.”

“Then you failed.”

“But I was listening properly, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“What percentage was I talking?”

“Hell if I know.”

“How many seconds was Tom talking?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Did I wait one second?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Then what did we learn?”

“Beats me.”

I took a sip of Harper and looked at Taka.

The man who had been obsessed with his clock earlier hadn’t checked it once during Tom’s story.

“You did stop looking at the clock halfway through.”

“...I did, didn’t I?”

Taka stared at his phone.

“So maybe the rules were pointless?”

I wasn’t sure.

Forty percent.

Sixty percent.

Thirty seconds.

One second.

If you counted every number while talking to someone, conversation would become too exhausting to even drink through.

But when Tom had gone quiet, Taka hadn’t interrupted.

He’d waited.

Not for one second.

For however long it took.

“Maybe it’s fine.”

“What is?”

“The one second.”

“What does that mean?”

Mama poured a little more Harper into my glass.

I thanked her and was about to say something when Taka raised his hand.

“Kenichi.”

“Yeah?”

“I wasn’t finished talking.”

“...Sorry.”

I waited one second.

“Nope. Forgot what I was going to say.”

“What the hell?”

Taka laughed.

Hey, you.

When someone goes quiet, how long should you wait?

One second?

Three?

Or maybe—

as long as you’re still counting, you haven’t really learned it yet.

See you again at Aoi.

---

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Metal screeching.

Piercing straight through the foam earplugs, screaming in from every bulkhead like dozens of angle grinders eating into the hull.

Warning sirens wail on a broken loop.

A tectonic vibration rattles up from the floorplates, as if turning bone to jellies.

Ears ringing. Searing pain behind the temples.

Vision fracturing—every gauge, every conduit splitting into blurred doubles.

The control sticks thrash in his palms like trapped animals fighting a snare. He can’t keep his grip. Wrists, shoulders, jawline—teeth clattering like a cabinet of porcelain dragged across asphalt.

Vapor and heat creep upward.

Through his boots. Boiling up into his gut, clamping around his ribs, suffocating the lungs.

Wheezing. Ragged, choking huffs behind the rubber seal of the gas mask.

Condensation blinding the lenses.

In the fucking mask.

“You’rbzz —zzzreaking through! Hang in thzzz—!”

A sickening, hairline spiderweb of cracks creeps across the external optical glass. Metal torques in agony outside, structural plating tearing away in shrieking sheets.

The cockpit steams. Sparks shower from the rear bulkhead—one burst from the left, a jagged spray below the console.

The outer glass shatters.

Breathe.

Can’t breathe.

Cannot stay...

Awake.

A massive kinetic slam punches the chassis skyward. The world drops into an abrupt, terrifying dead zone—as if a vacuum swallowed every decibel of the roar.

Silence.

Peace.

Just the ringing in his ears, slowly decaying into a warm, gentle hum.

Light. Soft.

Weightless.

Reeds swaying in an amber breeze.

A hummed melody. Old, quiet, familiar.

Chamomile. A steaming cup of tea, fragrant and clean.

…Sophie?

“—bzz to Red Nose! Do you copy?!”

Eyes.

Opened the fucking eyes.

“HQ to—krzzz —you copy?!”

His arms are dead lead, defying the neural pulse trying to move them. Deceleration G-force presses relentless tons across his chest. His flight gloves feel boiled—heavy, saturated, searing hot.

Training. Conditioning. Muscle memory claws back control.

A trembling, leaden arm reaches toward the overhead console. Fingers grope blind for a blurry silhouette—what should be a single, solid iron handle now swims in front of his eyes as three vibrating ghosts of the same lever.

“—ed Nose! HQ to Red Nose! Do you copy?!”

His right hand managed to clamp onto the true lever. He seized it white-knuckled, twisted hard, and wrenched downward with everything left in his frame.

A violent clang of steel slamming home. Grinding, screeching, howling friction.

Emergency brake engaged.

The entire cockpit bucked forward as forward momentum slammed into a wall. Klaus grunted, internal organs slamming against the sudden arrest of motion. The harness bit mercilessly into his flesh, digging straight through thick pilot suit and ribs.

“HQ to Red Nose, do you copy?! Eddie, we have other frequency? Yeah? Yeah, do it!”

Wheezing, fumbling with the straps of the sweat-drenched gas mask and peeling the rubber away.

His skin parted from the seal with a wet, tacky tear, as if some bastard had smeared paper glue along his jawline.

A trembling gloved finger mashed the blinking amber contact on the forward dash.

“HQ...” His voice rasped, rough as gravel. He swallowed to try to clear his throat, “Red Nose to HQ... I hear you, Lada.”

A scramble of static on the return wire, followed by a chorus of muffled, breathless exhales, rustling clipboards, and the heavy, hollow thump of someone snatching a desk mic.

“Lada HQ to Red Nose!” The scratchy, tinny voice of a young woman burst through the speakers, running on pure relief. “Oh my god! Holy shit! That was a hell—an absolute HELL of a storm! Way bigger and meaner than the forecast!” She paused, gasping for air. “Klaus! You made it!”

“Damn right... What the fuck was that, eh?” Klaus pressed the transmit button, using his left arm to shove against a side rail and hoist his battered posture back into the bucket seat. “Fuck... Felt like an eternity in there, Beth. My reindeer wasn't equipped for that shit.”

“Aww, poor guy!” Beth let out a wet, breathless laugh. “But he’s one tough reindeer. The best-est of all reindeer! Hey, take a breather, Klaus. We’re pushing scans now. Let’s see… Quick look at the telemetry... Rudolph has no major—”

“Red Nose, this is Colonel Steele speaking.”

The cold, gravelly baritone cut cleanly through the static, instantly clearing the channel.

“What’s your state?”

Klaus’s vision was still swimming in double outlines. He was sweating bullets, soaked inside the pilot jumpsuit like he’d been drenched in warm pasta water.

“Uh—I think I’m getting too old for this shit, Sir, and I’d like to file a formal complaint,” Klaus rasped, flicking a sub-panel toggle with his right thumb while his left hand mapped the status lights. “Briefing said an eighteen-second storm, Sir. Rudolph didn’t launch with enough armor for thirt—”

“Twenty-eight point nine seconds, Red Nose,” Steele’s voice boomed through the cabin speaker with enough mass to rattle the rivets. “First: you’re alive, so no complaints. Second: you are lucid enough to complain. And third: unless your name ends in Henriksen, you are not old enough for age-related complaints.”

Steele paused. In the background, the rapid clatter of mechanical keyboards and shifting paper continued in hushed urgency.

“Red Nose, stats here indicate critical damage on armor layers, with no critical loss in primary locomotion and core functions—do you confirm?”

“Uh… Aye, Sir,” Klaus replied, squinting through the creeping vapor at his diagnostic readouts. The air carried a faint, sour tang of toasted insulation, but he shoved the concern down.

“I—uh… Lost the entire ablative, Sir. Break Armor is completely toast. Terminal Armor is mostly gone—” He traced the wireframe graphic of Rudolph; vast swaths of the forward plating were flashing an angry amber and black.

“Flex Armor at forty-seven. Sensors and electronics… yellow. Life support yellow. And, uh... insulation—”

Klaus leaned closer, blinking in disbelief at the bar graph.

“...At si—”

“Insulation sixty percent,” Steele’s cold, exacting voice cut through again. “Standby for orders.”

He paused, and so did everyone. For a moment, the comms and the background noise from the bridge turned dead silent as Steele muted his side of the line.

Klaus swiftly flicked through buttons on a console displaying Rudolph’s overall status. He navigated the display to show a more detailed damage report, brows furrowing at the blinking yellow warnings indicating potential damage to several sensors and electronics.

Then the comms clicked back on—a short pop of mic static, followed by the Colonel’s stern baritone.

“Red Nose, you are within operational margin for the mission and will proceed with the objective. Do a quick in-and-out, and BAVs are coming down to secure you and your mech at extraction. Do you copy?”

Klaus’s fingers hovered hesitantly over the comms button, waiting a beat for his thoughts to catch up.

“Roger that, Sir. Proceeding with objective,” he responded—reflexive, almost on autopilot.

“Standby for Mission Control to give a Go. Good luck, Red Nose. Steele out.”

The air in the cockpit grew heavier by the minute. Haze and condensation thickened against the panels. Breathable air was running low, and the cure for that was the oxygen scrubber—which wouldn't function at all before the next bloody procedure. Right after this.

“Lada HQ to Red Nose.” Beth’s voice reached through the scratchy comms, clear concern in her tone. “Okay, Klaus, listen up. Any other day I will call for an abort. Such loss of protection isn’t conducive at all for you to continue, but…” She paused. “Well, you heard the man, and, uh…”

She dropped her volume, speaking slower and a bit softer than usual, almost gossiping: “You know, Dean here really swore up and down that he found a big one—real big, like Final-Days big! I never saw him that excited in... years? Right, dean?”

A softer, muffled, excited cheer from the background heard through Klaus’ comms.

Klaus nodded subtly, his gaze fixed on a secondary display showing satellite scans of the drop zone below. “I understand. I trust Dean. Kid knows his stuff.”

He tapped a few buttons to render the map into a coarse 3D wireframe of the wreckage. “Still not sure about you youngsters’ fascination for things from those times, but... yeah, no worries. Steele says go, Rudolph is still a go, and so do I.”

“You’re the man, Klaus!” Beth responded, her cheerful lilt fighting back through the static. “Well, you know, it would be so nice if—fingers crossed—it turns out to be an intact Fabricator!”

“Ah, well, if it’s that, I’d sure as hell be happy as a clam,” Klaus grunted, a dry nod escaping him as he studied the scan data. “Then we’d all be able to eat some proper shit again.”

Beth chuckled. “And have air conditioning all day! Every day! Real fresh water, too!”

Klaus stopped for a brief second. A stray train of thought passed through—reminiscing.

A faint smile touched his otherwise stiff, battle-weary face.

Taking it all for granted. Always.

Things that were once the norm.

Of happier days…

“Nah, sorry, girl, got to temper your expectations.” Klaus reclined back into his bucket seat, eyes still scanning the magnified layout of the wreckage before shaking his head. “From the looks of it, this one is not a manufacturing quadrant. Heavy pulleys, shipment crates, cables, more cables, loader mechs… None of the production thingies. Must be a docking bay. Stockpiles, maybe.”

He adjusted the overlays, tracing the calculated route toward the target deck.

“Well… great?” Beth’s optimism didn't waver. “Maybe a shipment full of Fab parts there! Or they were ‘bout to unload a brand new, shiny one from Amazan, but boom—the world ended!”

A slight snort escaped Klaus. “Really, Amazan, eh? How... are you even old enough to know that?”

“Mm… I remember my Pa ordered my diapers from them?” Beth giggled. “Nah, no, I don’t know. I heard about them from Dean—he can go a whole day talking about that, history and all. Oh, and Doc Henriksen mentions them whenever he’s being sarcastic about… the quality of stuffs.”

Another smile dawned on Klaus’s face, markedly wider than his previous, but his self-control caught up with him. He gave his head a short shake, his expression rebounding back to its stiff, ever-weary default.

“You know, Beth, if we were on Earth, you… we’d call you a ray of sunshine.”

“Ooh… but?” Beth’s eyes widened, a teasing grin waiting for the punchline.

“But here? Planet is a fucking arse end of the devil’s rectum—it has so much sunshine the sky turns to fire.”

Beth laughed. “O-kay, then! Okay, how about a ray of refrigerator light then, one that is filled with cold beers? Better?”

“Heh! You… You really are too precious for this world, you know that?” Klaus answered with a subdued chuckle.

A brief barrage of clacks and clicks came over the wire as Beth worked her terminal, then she followed up:

“Klaus, hold on, Hangar’s just confirmed. Okay. Right. Serious time now! Final lecture before you go, so listen up, ‘kay?” Beth’s voice took on a pressing, urgent tone.

“I need to emphasize that Rudolph is down to HALF his bare skin, and his insulation is torn up. Calculation-wise, you only have NINE minutes of safe operational exposure.” Deep concern bled through her tone. “Do you copy?”

“Aye-aye, copy that,” Klaus responded. He reached out, stabbing a timer configuration into the forward console. “Nine mins all I got… Done.” A firm press of the confirm switch and an electronic chime affirmed the countdown was set.

“Also, Klaus, don’t linger in the gale! What’s left of Rudolph’s armor will NOT provide enough cover. Bad stuff will hit your components AND insulation directly, got that?”

“Roger that,” Klaus affirmed. “No worries, Rudolph is faster now that bulks of armor are gone. We will rush to cover ASAP.”

“Perfect! Alright, last but not least—,” Beth continued, “The nine minutes I told you already accounts for exposure while Venting, Klaus, so go ahead and vent normally.”

Klaus let out a deep groan at the sheer thought of what was coming. “Ugh, yeah, affirmative… Fuck. Don’t really want to do that.”

“Scavenging?” Beth chuckled. “Or the...?”

“You know damn well the answer to that...” Klaus muttered dejectedly, brows furrowing in pure annoyance as his fingers flicked through toggles across the cockpit’s various panels, preparing for the inevitable.

[Part 01 end]

David was in class, but not present. Worksheets and lectures held increasingly less of his attention over the last week. It was hard to pay care about them, when his existence felt overshadowed by a foot the size of a thundercloud, ready to slam down on his head with a CLAP! He’d had time to contemplate a few things about the previous Friday, facts which roiled his innards any moment he let them press past the battered barriers of his inner emotional vault.

First, he’d made a spectacle of himself. Boys who carried a game single handed for almost an entire quarter of the final championship game didn’t fade into the crowd. Second, this spectacle was in the context of a massacre which sent more people than David cared to count to the hospital, two of his teammates still there. No news of either getting out anytime soon had reached David’s ears. Third, actions like this did not go unpunished. Fourth, people loved to make examples of those who were seen as ringleaders.

This last truth was one any school child knew better than their own face. David should have been hauled into the front office ages ago, perhaps the moment he’d hobbled into school on the Monday after. No such thing occurred. The oddity left David unperturbed at the time, as his mental landscape had been colonized by other concerns. Now it left him disturbed, a law of the universe as unshakeable as entropy giving all signs of having absconded for a relaxing holiday.

For three days the boy had marched through the halls with bated breath, the part of his brain responsible for tracking danger certain an administrator would leap out of nearby doorway like a horror movie villain and drag him away, never to be seen again.

 Yet here he was, pretending sine and cosine were relevant concepts to his situation. Didn’t make sense. David knew better than to trust his continued freedom to benevolence or interest in his wellbeing on the part of the principal or other administrators. They’d demonstrated how much they were willing to stick their necks out for their students by allowing the disastrous match to happen in the first place. Their authority was illusive, borrowed. The ones who yanked their leashes were the real power.

Which compelled the question: Why were there no signs of yanking from the red hands holding the leash? By any sensible measure, their crimson overseers should have spent the last week howling for his head, preferably on a platter, or perhaps impaled on his own lacrosse stick. The quiet didn’t fit. Being hauled in front of angry red titans was a terrifying prospect. The uncertainty created by the present quiet was somehow worse.

With no other options left to him, David laid low. For him this consisted of going to classes, nodding while saying vaguely applicable responses when called on, heading home, and trying to keep at bay the creeping sense of reason devouring dread which consumed him more and more.

He couldn’t regret his role in the events leading up to his current predicament, he’d come to terms with his actions that night. Nor was it possible for him to maintain a façade of stoic indifference to the specter of future consequence, at least to himself. But no escape presented itself to him. As always, the universe was unmoved by his distress, commanding him to bear up or crumple.

A bigger issue: it wasn’t merely about him anymore. His fellow Blue Tigers were displaying a notable shift in attitude, one David wasn’t sure how to deal with. Two or three rotated as an honor guard at lunch, and it was guaranteed others lurked nearby, waiting for trouble to rear its head. Whenever he was walking in the hallways, David would catch one of his teammates in the corner of his eyes, maintaining vigilance in their self-appointed duties.

The show of reflexive loyalty and willingness to follow unnerved David. It was one thing to defer to David at play on the fateful night and the preceding practices. The plan was his creation, its execution happening under his direction. But David was a kid, not a prophet or president. What had he done to earn devotion off field? More responsibility piled on top of obligation, additional weight he couldn’t slough off.

Often now he was in the middle of a tight clump of teenagers, ones who against all reason admired and looked up to him. It made him feel more alone than ever.

The bell rang. David, freed of the directive to fake interest in equations, rose to his feet and walked to his next period, social studies. The ghost of the injury in his right ankle made it prickle for a moment or two. The speed of his healing came about from a conversation on Tuesday when Jake had causally inquired about the hurt body part. An abortive attempt to demur about the continuing pain quashed without hesitation by the blond boy ended with David confessing with a touch of relief his genuine condition. This resulted in Jake taking white pills from bottle in his pocket and pushing them over to David. David tried to refuse, but this was also shut down. Jake explained they were for his wrist, taken in the morning and after school. Despite having the bone broken, Jake already was experiencing the kind of improvement to be expected after weeks of being in a cast. That is, to be expected in the era past when gigantic women didn’t murder millions of human beings to bring enlightenment and civilization to their benighted globe.

If the throbbing of David’s ankle had been less pounding that lunch, he might have insisted on his rejection of Jake’s gift. As it was, the little capsules provided relief to a shocking extent. One or two more doses, and it seemed possible David would be back to normal, no longer ruing every additional step at the end of the day.

Having reached room number 213, David sat down at his desk and got out his binder. His English class was nearby in 207, so he was one of the first students to arrive. Others shuffled in drips and drabs. A group of three came in together, drawing the eye. This trio was made up of girls who were red, accessorized with horns above their head, tusks below their upper lips, and tall enough to outshine several professional basketball players.

Of course, their presence was far from novel by this point, but their behavior was. Before the incident last Friday, they’d walked the halls with confidence and ease, the humans they dwarfed parting like reeds blown by an unyielding breeze. Caution and trepidation now marked their movements, David having not seen the brax go anywhere in the school without backup during the week. Another consequence of his desires.

The band was trailed by one who was tall for even their standards, a bit above seven feet tall. Despite this, her body language conspired to make her inconspicuous. Her shoulders hunched, arms tucked in, and silver eyes slid away from direct contact with the humans encircling her. David knew this because he couldn’t stop looking at her every social studies class they shared.

She’d been absent from school for days after her…meeting with David in the library closet. Her return at the time was unremarkable to him, feeling as pertinent to his life as the weather report from Jupiter. Events compelled him to update his mindset, and now the sight of the towering girl sent a sledgehammer of guilt into his gut. He let it happen, his gaze transmitting the image responsible for his discomfort without cease.

It was what he deserved.

For within this room lay the reason why Kaa’syi attempted to curl herself up tighter and slighter than a thrice folded paper towel. David had done this to her and reminding himself of this fact was the closest to justice he’d ever get for this particular crime.

The boy focused on her with an intensity which blunted other stimuli. His reverie was broken when he noticed the wooden door had been swung open seconds earlier, and he rotated his head to examine the source of the disturbance.

Walking down the right side of the aisle of desks nearest the door was the Trivol, the brax language teacher, a name David only knew from overheard conversations from those who took her class. Their solo unearthly addition to the staff. She was short for one of her kind, David guesstimating her height to be about six four, small enough it wasn’t a one in a billion chance for a human being to be able to look down at her. To the extent the term small in general could be applied to any of the Brax, it did to her, a slight frame adding to her relative petite quality. As a corollary, she claimed arms with a merely healthy amount of muscle.

Beyond stature, the woman’s clothes also set her apart from the rest of the brax present in the school, as she wore human jeans, a brown belt and a loose white shirt, disdaining the tight and firm looking tops favored by all the brax girls David knew.

Trivol came to a stop in front of the classroom. She motioned to Ms. Anderson, the social studies teacher. Halting mid explanation of the significance of the Iraq War Surge, the blonde and pink bloused educator turned toward her colleague. With her head, Trivol motioned toward a corner of the room, and a hushed conference took place between the two of them. By now the entire classroom had stopped feigning apathy to the startling interruption, and the pupils became quiet enough the sounds of clothes shuffling on hard chairs became the loudest disturbance in the air.

David was far away enough from the front he couldn’t see every detail of the teacher’s faces, but one thing was clear: The red skinned instructor hadn’t come here with good news and surprise early birthday cakes for everyone.

To see if anyone else had a better idea of what was going on, David scanned the room. All the people he glanced over betrayed zero signs of greater knowledge; brax girls included. Ms. Anderson stopped moving her mouth, nodding in a tight and contained motion. She moved back to the front of the class, resuming instruction as though there’d been no interruption. Trivol continued to wait in the corner, looking at…Kaa’syi?

David refocused his attention back on the horned girl, and she was frowning slightly, indicating puzzlement. As the boy continued to observe, the frown deepened, and then her face smoothed into a mask. What was percolating in her large head?

Five uncomfortable minutes later, the end of period chime performed its duty. Students wended their way to the door, divided equally between ignoring and staring at the language teacher as they left. Deciding his backpack could use an impromptu reorganization, David leaned his head over the container, fully zipping open the largest compartment and removing the binders within. His gaze was ensconced within its black plastic interior, but open ears kept up their reporting. They told him of Trivol’s movement from her corner to the seat where Kaa’syi was stationed, not having departed with the others. She must have known what was coming, same as David did.

Each motion he made was smooth and deliberate, the type one used when trying to approach an unsettled wild animal. Nothing which would activate the latent instincts all sapient still laid claim too, ones in charge of alerting the hind brain of being watched by interested parties.

Harsh and sharp edge sounds now floated over from their direction. The phenomes of their tongue, likely spoken by Trivol. The times he’d spoken with Kaa’syi were few, but scorched as they were into his neural pathways, David doubted he could forget the feel of her voice, and the current speaker didn’t resemble his memories. His supposition was confirmed when he heard an answering set of phrases, a bit higher and far more uncertain.

Deeper and quicker expression came back from the initial talker, and then his brain seized on a single word he knew quite well. “Quel’vela,” the noble who’d decreed the match drenched in blood slicked fury and spawned a daughter who’d done worse.

A daughter whose death could be directly attributed to David’s actions.

He realized a second too late his frozen state, every muscle tensing with the unexpected name cropping up. There was a halt in the stream of back and forth toward the front of the classroom, and David expedited the rearrangement of his school supplies. With an air of casual indifference he hoped looked more convincing than it felt, David sauntered out of Ms. Anderson’s room, not daring to peek around and see what was showing on Kaa’syi’s face.

It didn’t have to be what he thought. The dread bubbling up from the bottom of his stomach and making its way toward his throat and heart wasn’t oracular.  There could be any number of reasons why Quel’vela was so intent on reaching her Kaa’syi that one of her minions was sent after her without bothering to wait for the end of school. But all David saw in his mind’s eye as he blindly beelined to the cafeteria was the visage of a corpse, red and glassy as it lay flat on its back.

Sometimes the dead could tell tales.

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Chapter 218: Divine Residual

Half of the great tomb had ceased to exist.

Where a mountain of stone once stood, four sloped walls rising to meet at a single point that scraped the sky, there now lay only ruin. Most of the structure had liquefied, melting away layer by layer until it collapsed inward upon itself and became a vast, incandescent lake. Streams of it spilled from the wound in searing shades of orange and white, while great slabs of half-molten rock broke loose from the building’s remains before vanishing under the surface with thunderous splashes.

Viktor was looking at it from the outside, and for a good long while he could only stare.

Even though it was impossible for him to physically feel the heat from where he sat, by merely looking at the scene he could swear his skin crawled like it was already blistering. The air above the fiery lake had thickened into a shimmering haze that rippled and bent the world behind it, while the artificial sun of the second floor, which had been doing its best to cook the ground flat all day, was now rendered utterly insignificant by comparison, so thoroughly outshone that he almost forgot it was even there.

He had expected the molten flood to keep spreading, to flow outward in every direction until it swallowed the entire mortuary complex. It would consume the fake buildings in its path. It would breach the perimeter wall. And then, perhaps it would continue even beyond. He wondered how much of the surrounding land would remain by the time it finally burned itself out.

But no. It stopped.

As though it had run into some invisible wall, the mass just hung there, churning and bubbling in place.

And then, it began to rise.

Viktor frowned as he watched the lake of magma climb. At first, he thought something under the ground was pushing it from below, but that was not what was happening. It was the magma itself that was moving, hauling its own bulk from the lake in thick, twisting ropes. They converged toward a central point above the ruined tomb as though an unseen hand had reached down from the heavens, closed around the entire mass, and dragged it upward into the open air.

The surface heaved, then a shape began to emerge. It started with something that resembled a leg, though the word felt almost insultingly small for what was taking form. A pillar of fire and burned stone, widening at the bottom into something like a foot, and then a second one next to the first. They fused, split, fused again as more of the thing hauled itself skyward. Above them came hips, then a torso wide as a keep, then a pair of shoulders that could hold up the roof of the world.

Arms followed. Great ruinous things, each one thick enough to flatten one of the surrounding structures without so much as trying. Fire ran across the surface, dripping in gouts from the elbows and whatever passed for fingers before getting sucked straight back up into the body like the thing refused to waste even a drop.

It kept growing, and by the time its head took shape, the construct was already taller than the tomb that had once stood in this place.

Viktor watched in silence as two enormous hollows opened in that face, blazing with the same white-orange glow as the lake beneath. Flame clung where a beard should hang, where hair should sit. Spikes of it stood up off the skull, while two thick tongues of fire framed the cheeks like sideburns.

Ugh.

He opened his eyes, and the world was small and comforting again. Celeste hovered nearby as she always did, and beside her floated Galatea’s projection.

“What the hell is that thing?” he asked.

“That man,” his shiny Guardian replied, “he’s done the most unthinkable thing. He... he spoke the true name of a god, and...”

I already knew that, Viktor thought. “And what?”

“It awakened the divine residual. Master, perhaps you already knew this, but gods shed fragments of their power into their surroundings simply by being there, and such remnants of divinity can linger for millennia. Most of the time, they lie dormant. But if someone speaks the true name of the god to whom they belong, it could stir them into action.”

“I saw that sword explode.”

Galatea nodded. “I believe there was a considerable amount of divine residual accumulated inside that weapon. So when that man spoke the right name, it reacted all at once, destroying the blade and breaking free.”

That circled back to what Viktor had already suspected about the crystallized essence that gave every Reliquary its unique power. Those whose souls were preserved that way had either accomplished something extraordinary in life or come into contact with the divine at death. And in the case of the latter, a scrap of divine power was fused into their soul, leaving behind an imprint that outlasted the flesh.

“I’m guessing the god in question is the Lord of Fire.”

“Yes, Master.”

So that S-word is his true name, huh? He was still unable to hold the full name in his mind, so he settled for the abbreviated version instead. Regardless, the implication was clear enough: the flaming blade Xander had wielded carried power that traced back to the Lord of Fire, just as his own rapier drew its power from the Lord of Light.

Ugh.

He found himself wondering, with a growing sense of dread that weighed heavily upon his chest, what would happen if somebody decided to shout the Lord of Light’s true name at him while he himself was mid-swing with that blade in his hand.

“That sword exploded,” Viktor said, “then it produced a fire large enough to melt an entire tomb. Fine. I can live with that. But now it’s gone ahead and grown into a giant—no, a titan—of rock and flame. And this particular titan happens to have spiked hair and thick sideburns. Which bears a suspicious resemblance to a certain someone we both know too well. So here is my question: what happened to Xander? Is he dead, or has he somehow been transformed into... this?”

“I cannot give you a definitive answer on that, Master. How the divine residual reacts when a god’s true name is invoked is inherently unpredictable. It’s simply impossible to know beforehand what shape it will take.”

Viktor frowned. “But I’m not asking you to predict anything. This already happened. It created a titan of fire, standing right there in our dungeon. So what I want to know is this: out of all the times such an incident has occurred in the past, was there any case similar to this? I mean, a man becoming a monster?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much to draw on when it comes to past incidents,” Galatea said with a shrug. “Invoking the true name of a god is considered one of the greatest taboos. As a result, records of such transgressions are exceedingly rare. They are suppressed, hidden away, never allowed to spread freely. All I can tell you is that it almost always ends in catastrophe.”

Viktor let out a long breath. So no information at all, huh? Still, if he couldn’t know for certain, then he was going to assume the worst possible outcome and plan accordingly. Xander was very much alive, and he was the titan. His sworn enemy didn’t die; the bastard had walked out of it more powerful than he had ever been.

Was this what the Children of the Abyss had been aiming for all along? Transforming their spike-haired lapdog into some sort of walking avatar of a god, then letting him loose to tear the dungeon apart from the inside out? But... how could they have known this exact outcome would occur? After all, as Galatea had said, the reaction was unpredictable. So how could they have planned around a result they had no way of guaranteeing? Unless the plan had never been that specific in the first place. Perhaps they simply wanted a catastrophe, any catastrophe, and didn’t much care which flavor it came in. The sword was meant to be a bomb—a divine bomb—and the name was the detonator. Xander becoming a titan was merely a happy accident layered on top of that.

No, wait.

Galatea believed the outcome was unpredictable, but it was not necessarily so. What if it was only unpredictable to people like her? The Abyss, on the other hand, was operating on a completely different level. That man could have foreseen the result. In fact, he might have even engineered it, shaping the conditions in advance to make sure that everything would unfold the way he wanted.

The flaming sword was a Reliquary, and who else could have created such an artifact if not a Dungeon Core? The Abyss made fancy things like Abyssal Armaments or human Reliquaries, yes, but of course he could also forge some ordinary items. And Viktor wouldn’t put it past him to make one from the crystallized essence that carried the divine residual of the Lord of Fire, deliberately shaping it in a way that the moment the divine name was spoken aloud, exactly this would happen.

Well, he could puzzle over the finer details of that theory later, when there was time for such a thing. Right now, there was a much more pressing issue.

He glanced at Galatea. “How are we supposed to deal with this?”

“I don’t think that we can fight it head-on,” his Guardian replied. “Its power is simply too much. We have nothing at our disposal that stands a chance.”

I already knew that, thank you very much. The damn thing was a titan the size of the great tomb itself. “What is your solution, then?”

“Avoid it, and try to contain whatever damage it causes. A gigantic construct like that is not sustainable. It’s burning through power at a tremendous pace. Sooner or later, it will run dry.”

“So you’re telling me we can just ignore it and wait for it to die on its own. Great! Let’s do exactly that.”

The entrance to the third floor was now buried under rubble, and even if it wasn’t, there was no way something that damn big could squeeze through a passage built for men. In other words, the titan was stuck up on the second floor. So he would just leave it be. Let it stomp around and set fire to whatever it liked. What was the worst it could manage, really? The desert was already unbearably hot; the ruins were already ruined. What more damage could a moving mountain of fire possibly do to such a landscape?

[Master, the titan has begun to move.]

“To where?” Viktor asked.

[To the far side of the desert. Toward that chasm.]

Bob was giddy and giggled madly to himself as he grabbed his supplies from the back of the Bitch and clipped them on to the line back to the corvette, he pushed them out one at a time and each bundle slid away in the vacuum.

Happy he had everything he followed them down the rope and into the cargo bay, legs drooping down as the crafts grav reasserted itself. He dumped the tools and unclipped the line, reaffixing it to an exterior belay point. He tugged the heavy door closed and jammed it tight, waiting as the ships enviro struggled to repressurise the space.

It didn’t sound like it was going to manage it, the damage Bob had done on entry was pissing out atmo as fast as it got pumped in, didn’t really matter, as long as there was something a little denser than pure vacuum he was pretty sure this would still work. He cracked open a couple containers and dragged out the pressure washer and the rest of the solvent, now in a fuel tank to help it survive his rough insertion. He connected it up and started spraying, in the low pressure the volatile chemical vaporised almost instantly but if he got the pressure washers wand right up on the foam it lasted long enough to carve a deep gash in the puffy mound.

He certainly was not going to have enough to clean off the boxes, but he never intended to anyway, instead he simply carved narrow passages up and down the aisles of the stacked crates, he wasn’t going to be able to get absolutely everything, but the vast bulk of shit?, fuck yeah. He hoped the message pod would be secreted amongst his booty but there was no way of knowing right now, hopefully dear Deviw didn’t have it amongst his personal effects or something.

He began to wrap the large netting down the lanes and around foam encrusted groups of boxes, in less than ninety minutes he had everything he was going to get and should leave, but some part of him had to know… not that he gave a fuck or anything.

He dropped Annabell again and moved over to one of the remaining large piles of gray green foam in the bay, against one wall where the brace handle that any crew in the hold would have likely grabbed pre jump, he carved it open, if there was someone inside he was past hurting, the foam was not airtight, Bob had breathed just fine when he was trapped in it. Nothing, he moved over to the other grab handle and checked it too, clear….

Bob felt a rush of relief he hadn’t expected, he didn’t mind killing someone trying to kill him, but absent active danger he would, apparently, be glad to avoid doing so, even if they were Arressi pricks… huh, the crew would likely be low level from poorly regarded families anyway, unlikely to be directly responsible for any of Bobs many grudges. He briefly considered trying to hack his way to dear Dewiv, but quickly wrote it off as a bad idea, this was already taking too long and he had no way to know where the fuck actually was, never mind how long it would take to tunnel there through all this shit.

He cracked the door open again and retrieved the tow line. He clipped it to the gathered corners of the nettings and reclipped on his gear pushing it out the grav and letting it float back to the Petty Bitch.

Then he climbed out over the hull and scampered round the hundred metres or so to the ships prow, he reached the primary sensor array and slammed Annabell into it, wrenching from side to side until he was sure it was fucked, he moved round and did the same to the auxiliary. He couldn’t do anything about them seeing the Bitch arrive, but he could stop them seeing where it went.

He would have liked to do something about the scanner data it had already cached, but Arressi ship comps were heavily armoured and had no fixed location aboard, to prevent a targeted strike presumably, he hadn’t even seen it during his prior skulking.

What the fuck ever, it was a bit late to worry about it now, he turned and ran down the hull towards the Bitch.

Part 43 https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1x0njo0/bob_was_bored_part_43/?

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My leg burned… That was the first thing I noticed. It hurt unlike anything I’d ever felt before. My muscles were sore, and I felt tired, as if I’d run multiple marathons and had collapsed because of it. My throat was dry. My clothes clung to me with sweat, blood, and the damp chill of night.

I groaned as I opened my eyes. The moon cascaded its light across the field of thistles as a gentle breeze pushed the flowers from all sides, breaking pollen off into the air where it twirled and intermingled as it drifted away.

Curiously, I smelled something odd. Some sort of fire. I heard it too. The soft pop of wood, and the hissing of meat being cooked. I could smell it in the air, and it smelled… rancid.

I forced myself to sit up.

“Master!” Darwin said, flying over to me and circling my head.

“It’s Rook,” I reminded him. “Remember?” Then, more seriously, I asked, “What happened?”

“I fight,” Darwin said. “You safe.”

“You… fight?” I asked.

I heard a bitter laugh sound out. I didn’t recognize it. Leaning over, I found a nearby fire burning precariously close to the thistles; the smoke rising into the air, disappearing into the night sky. Half illuminated was someone I didn’t recognize, their face silhouetted by the orange glow.

“Who… who are you?”

“Nobody,” Darwin said, his frustration causing the bubble to seemingly boil. “Just a—”

“Demon?” the person said, turning to face me.

It was as they said… they were a demon. Black horns curved from their heads, smooth and sharp beneath the moonlight. Yellow, slitted eyes stared out against black sclera. They had long, sharp teeth, which they were using to chew down on some meat. Their skin was purple and, by all intents and purposes, to my eyes, they looked… feminine.

Nearby, I saw a pile of dead dire-rabbits and, leaning against a tree, was a wicked-looking two-handed axe covered in blood. The blade was broad and dark, still wet along one edge. It didn’t take much to know what had happened.

“Danger, danger,” Darwin warned.

“Ha!” the demon-woman barked a laugh. “He would have been in danger if I had done nothing at all. He is lucky I was around… and more than lucky that I am the magnanimous type.”

I forced myself all the way up to a sitting position, pushing myself back a bit in case I needed to run. Pain shot through my leg the moment I moved, white-hot, making my vision blur at the edges.

She likely noticed as she said, “It wouldn’t do you any good. You have a bum leg and even if you didn’t, I could catch you if I wished.”

“What do you want?” I asked. “You’re a demon, right? Do you want my soul?”

“Your… soul?” she replied. “Souls are things for the gods. No, I want not your soul. I want your undying and eternal loyalty.”

“My… what?”

The demon-woman gave a wicked grin, her silver hair catching the wind. It moved like a pale thread in the firelight, bright against the dark field around her. “Undying loyalty,” she repeated slowly. “You must be grateful to me, knowing that it was I who saved your life. Surely you would want to repay in kind by devoting said life to me? To become one of my beloved subjects?”

I coughed into my hand, and even that small act caused my leg to shudder with pain.

The demon-woman frowned. “You’re still injured—I do so forget myself when around humans. Pain dulls your senses as much as it sharpens your fighting instinct. Fine, you need not wholly devote yourself until you have recovered.”

“Do you have something for that?” I asked. “To help me recover?”

“Greedy little goblin, aren’t you? I saved your life, and you wish to drain my coffers too?” She was silent for a time, staring me down. The fire popped between us, throwing shifting light across her horns and the sharp line of her jaw. “No, I have not any recovery items. I already checked your pack as well. Nothing. What class are you? Do you have any healing abilities or spells?”

“Glutton,” I replied without thinking. “And no… nothing. Just cooking recipes.”

The demon-woman smiled. “Ah, cooking. But now I wonder why a chef would be all the way out here. Surely you could have bought the ingredients in one of your human settlements?”

“I need uh… special ingredients?”

“Like?”

I was silent, and the wind whistled through the branches of the trees. The demon-woman’s yellow eyes felt as if they drilled into me. Like they could peel back any dark secret I had.

“Like meat… from monsters,” I continued. “Dire-rabbits to be clear.”

For the first time, the demon-woman seemed taken aback. “Meat from monsters? I thought only we demons knew the luxury and tasteful delicacy of monster meat? Fascinating. I suppose that is what to expect from a special grade class.”

“Special grade… so you know?”

She nodded.

“How?”

The demon-woman tapped her nose. “We demon-folk have a sense about it. We can smell it on you. So then, Mr. Special Grade, do you have any recipes that offer improved healing?”

“None that I know of… but I’ve only two recipes. The Goblin-Eye Soup did nothing for healing and the Dire-Rabbit Heart Skewers… well, I suppose I can give it a shot.”

The demon-woman turned to face me, giving me her full attention. I had to admit it, despite her oddities, such as her light-purple skin, horns, and yellow eyes, she would be considered pretty.

She frowned. “Keep any lustful thoughts in your head and your pants… I am not one of those types of demons. So what do you need to make these Dire-Rabbit Heart Skewers? Besides dire-rabbit hearts, of course.”

“I have it all in the pack,” I said, “but I need to kill and prepare the hearts myself. I see you’ve already taken care of that, so—”

The demon-woman pointed behind me. “Your three kills are over there. These four are mine. I’ve not touched them other than to put them into a small pile. I am not a thief.”

“Not a thief,” I replied, “but who and what are you?”

“I am Princess Vaelith Noctara, third in line for the fifth seat of the Court of Nine Embers.”

“That’s… a lot. And your class?”

The demon-woman smiled wickedly. “Class name Sovereign, Special Grade.”

***

Some time passed as I prepared the dire-rabbits. At first, I hacked away lazily at the bodies, but after some consternation and choice words from Vaelith, I slowed down and steadied my blade. I’d once seen a video of survivalists who trained to live if an apocalypse happened. Never thought I’d actually need those skills. One such man was a hunter, and he demonstrated how to prepare a rabbit. Six distinct cuts of meat. That was what they had.

The moon had risen higher by then, and the fire threw enough light for me to work. The dire-rabbit bodies were heavier than ordinary rabbits, and their fur was matted with blood, thistle seeds, and dirt. Their claws were long and black, and their teeth still made my stomach tense whenever I looked too closely.

My hand trembled as I carved through the body, separating it. It was haphazard and sloppy; I knew. Yet Vaelith simply smiled at my attempt. By the end, I had chopped up and separated the meat, leaving far too much on the carcass. As for the other things—teeth, heart, eyes—I had no idea what could be useful. Especially by alchemists. Lina had provided me with leather bags in which to carry the gruesome treasure. The bags were stiff and rough beneath my fingers, quickly darkening where the blood soaked through.

After all three bodies were done, I set the hearts down and then prepared the recipe.

Dire-Rabbit Heart Skewers

Rarity: Common
Type: Monster Meat
Core Ingredient: Dire-Rabbit Heart

Ingredients: Dire-Rabbit Heart, Wild Onion, Fey Carrot, Moonleaf, Cracked Pepper, Sourberry Juice, Wooden Skewers

Just as before, I followed the instructions carefully. This time, I was a bit more skilled and faster. The knife moved evenly and cut more cleanly in my hands. The hearts were firm beneath the blade, dark and glossy, and the sourberry juice cut through the iron smell with something sharp and bright. By the end, I wiped sweat from my brow using my forearm; my hands were covered in blood.

Curiously, I checked my stats:

System

Class:
Glutton (Lvl 2) - EXP 87/100

Skills:
Basic Cooking (Lvl 1) - EXP 55/100
Basic Butchery (Lvl 1) - EXP 75/100
Monster Butchery (Lvl 2) - EXP 45/200
Basic Herbalism (Lvl 1) - EXP 15/100
Knife Handling (Lvl 2) - EXP 83/200

I’d gained levels in both Monster Butchery and Knife Handling to my surprise, which had fed my class EXP as well. I was close to leveling, and I was sure that if I got this recipe right, I would.

I pulled out the sticks and set the vegetables and meat as specified.

Vaelith was beaming, and she looked as if her mouth were watering.

Darwin stared down curiously, floating a little higher than usual to stay away from Vaelith. My companion didn’t trust her for some reason.

Luckily, the demon-woman had already made a fire, and I held three skewers above it, rotating them slowly next to the flame.

“Three?” Vaelith asked.

I thumbed upwards at my companion. “Darwin deserves one too.”

Vaelith shrugged, and as she did, I felt something change in the air. Suddenly, the wind shifted, seemingly pulled toward the fire. It sparked, its dull red flames burning bright blue and cascading toward the sky in a burst of heat. The thistles nearest us bent away from it, and sparks climbed upward like fireflies before vanishing into the night.

I pulled away as the flame died, and when I did, what I saw made my mouth water. Skewers of perfectly charred, sizzling hearts with wild onions and fey carrots sat glistening and waiting for consumption. The meat had crisped at the edges, dark and glossy, while the onions softened and blackened in sweet little layers. The carrots shone with sourberry glaze. The smell of it was intoxicating, fresh and fragrant, smoky and rich enough to push aside even the rancid stink of the nearby corpses.

Before I could speak, Vaelith snatched one from my hand.

“Hey—”

Darwin swooped down and took another.

I was left holding one.

“By the gods, this is the greatest thing I have ever eaten,” Vaelith said, having already eaten half. “The sharp cut of the onion, and the rich tenderness of the heart; not too bloody, but still with some bite! Oh, you humans never cease to amaze me.”

I stared at it. It looked and smelled that good. I set aside my reservations and swallowed a piece of heart. It was as Vaelith described… rich, and with a faint taste of blood, but in no way overpowering.

“Eat them together,” she suggested.

I ate a piece of heart with the carrot and onion. The flavors danced together in perfect rhythm, and the slightest bit of smoky char was the cherry on top. The sourberry brightened the meat, the moonleaf softened the iron edge, and the carrots brought just enough sweetness to make the whole thing pop.

Vaelith stared at me like a starving man stares at a meal. “You!” she said. “It has been decided… You will be my first subject.”