SDNW4 Story Thread 2

[Shroom Man 777]

Somewhere in the MEH

Morbos McMehon was contemplating life, the universe, and everything. In the Multiversal Empire of Happiness, all things were good. Very good. So good that its human citizens were always happy, all the time, and were serviced by robotoids who were also happy in their eternal subservience to the MEHmen. So luxurious was their existence that seldom, if ever, were they concerned about any concerns at all. If what they said about ignorance being bliss was true, then by the Goddess the MEH was the Goddess' most beautiful creation.

But something was wrong. When those Ork ships attacked the luxury liners, the horrifying holovids Morbos saw struck something in him. There was shock, there was outrage. Yes, they stopped sending ships to the outside and traveled by warpgate almost exclusively. Yes, the people wanted to go on the warpath to exterminate the greenskins. But there was something else.

Morbos looked around him now. Ever since the day he heard the Twilight Toadstool's demise. His good friend, Fad Billiard, had gone down with his ship. He gave his life to try and protect his crew and his passengers, and he died at the hands of the goddess-damned greenskins.

He thought about that. In a land where people died of old age or diabetes and high blood cholesterol, such a violent end for someone so young and healthy, fit enough to only visit the Enema Bot once a week (as opposed to the bi-daily begathons engaged by geriatric MEHmen), was almost unheard of. What was it like to die so young, cut down at the prime of your life? Why did he choose to stand and protect his passengers in the face of certain death, when death was so unhappy and escape was less unhappy?

Morbos thought about that some more. He looked around him. Everyday was an old day, he realized. Day after day, the robots came and rolled them off their beds and placed them on their suspensor-chairs. The holodeck programs cycled from one sim to another, permutations of the same scenarios with happy endings. After that, the robots rolled them back to their beds and then they would sleep and dream pleasant dreams of the Goddess, only to wake up the next day to the sound of robots cleaning their sheets, and continuing on with the same old, same old.

His hoverchair had been on auto-pilot. It stopped and brought Morbos before the Bathbot. It held a squeegee and a hose, preparing to hose Morbos down and administer hygienic care. It asked him nicely, if he would grant it the pleasure of washing his fat supple form.

For the first time in his life, Morbos declined.

"No, thank you." Morbos said as he took the squeegee for himself. "I wash myself with a rag on a stick!"



For the first time in his life, Morbos felt something even greater than happiness. He felt satisfaction as he scrubbed his flabs with that rag on a stick. Doing it himself, cleaning his own body, without aid or assistance by some kowtowing robot, the simple satisfaction of independence and autonomy. Without dependence, without neediness. For the first time in his life, he felt truly free.

Then he did something else, something he had never ever done since he was a small child, before he had been shackled of the burden of so many kilograms of fats.

Morbos stood up. Like he did once, so long ago, when he was a little boy. He remembered how when he was small and he was running through the holodeck's simulations of the birds and the bees.

He closed his eyes, trying to remember that.

He never opened his eyes again.

The sheer physical effort of washing himself with a rag on a stick, and that of standing up on his own two feet, overwhelmed his already overloaded cardiovascular system. His heart gave up. Morbos fell, face-first to the floor. The level of the bathwater was only an inch high, but with his face pressing on the slick tiles, and with the Bathbot not designed as a Carrybot, no matter how the Bathbot tried to pull Morbos aside, it couldn't. Morbos didn't die from cardiovascular failure, no. He drowned.

In his last moments, as everything went dark, the sensation of lukewarm bathwater reminded him of being inside his mother's womb, floating in her amniotic fluids.

Except that never happened. Because MEH babies are actually gestated in Womb-bots, and carried back to their families by Storkbots.

***

Morbos was survived by his equally morbidly obese wife, and a whole nest of children on their way to becoming fatties. They attended his funeral and the last rites were done by Funeralbots. This was the ritual:

For his or her whole life, a MEHman's urine was collected by Peebots and stored in jars. So it was that, at the end of his life, the MEHman finally passed, he would be encased in a coffin and lowered into his watery grave - a manhole connected to the sewer systems of his local megapolis.

As his coffin was lowered, the Peebots that had collected his life's worth of urine would gather and return to him what they had taken. Giving back what was rightfully his. Thus, closing the circle of life.

And flushing him down the manhole.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Meanwhile during BEEEF
Co-written with Shroom

The Byzantine Rogue Trader Hobias Axilla was eventually hunted down. He was accosted by a fellow human who, unbenownst to him, was in the pay of the IBGV. The man called for Hobias, saying "excuse me, meister" and when the Rogue leaned forward he was quickly clubbed in the back of the head and disappeared in plain sight. The crowds of guests and onlookers saw this happen before their very eyes, and they became very perturbed and anxious but their Bragulan tour-guides, who were actually IBGV agents laden with surveillance gear, reassured them, laughing boisterously while waving their paws, calling the humans 'comrades' and offering them gratuitous amounts of alcoholic beverages.

Brag-Byzantine Diplomatic Devil Deals

The Bragulan Economic Exposition Extravaganza of Friendship (BEEEF)
Vlyadibragstok, Southeastern Severnaya Sector / just beyond Northwestern Lena Sector
Unreal Time / October-December 3400



The HUMINT agent hauled Hobias Maxilla into the deepest darkest underlevels of the BEEEF bunker building. Miles and miles beneath the surface of the planet’s crust, under immensely thick layers of Bragsteel and Bragcrete armorings, past labyrinthine mazes of corridors guarded by passive-aggressives and active-aggressives and RANCIDS and FLACCIDS, and belowseveral sublevels filled with vegemite-pits and acid vats. In an epic feat of bragskirovka, the toximutoid-filled midlevels of the bunker building was part of the deception, to give any visitors the impression that beneath the BEEEF, in the unoccupied portion of the bunker, was a Brag-made hell.

Which was true.

Blast doors as big as an overtank sealed behind them. The HUMINT agent walked over to the front of Rogue Trader Hobias Maxilla and removed the bag that had been placed over his face.

“Hobias Maxilla, Byzantinian filth. You are wanted for crimes against Bragule, for the mockery of Byzonism in bringing forth those abominations you call Fenrisians, a profanity against the ursine perfection of Bragulanity!” the man said.

Hobias Maxilla merely looked at the man and laughed. He fucking laughed.

“And what of you? Some patsy for his Bragulan masters. Such subservience to the xenos.” Hobias scoffed. His laughter was still echoing through the tunnels. “You are filth that is even less than human.”

The HUMINT man’s eyes widened, and he moved to strike out with his junior-sized beating stick. But instead, he merely fell face-first into the floor. Behind him was a massive Bragulan. With a snap of his claws, a smaller bear, an Extreme Warfare Operations Kill Squad commando, came over and dragged the unconscious HUMINT man away. The other EWOKS were there, lurking in the darkness.

“So, you are a Rogue Trader now? The so-called cousin of Nobias Axilla, no less,” the Bragulan chuckled. “Quite an entrance, if I do say so myself, Exarch.”

Hobias Maxilla removed the gaudy ostentatious garments of a Rogue Trader, and revealed a much more conservative attire underneath, emblazoned only by the mark of an aquilla. Even his face seemed to change, the psychic shroud melting away to reveal the face of none other than Exarch Decius the Sigillite.



“Come with me,” the Bragulan motioned as he went deeper into the under-level. Decius folowed him.

The tunnel grew darker and darker, but the Bragulan seemed to navigate it with familiarity, and Decius had no problems thanks to his gifts. The Emerald Guard EWOKS lurked in the darkness unhindered, surrounding them whilst remaining unseen. Eventually, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

“Do you expect me to talk?” Decius asked.

“Nyet,” the Bragulan answered. “I expect you to dine.”

They reached the light and found themselves in an ornate dining room, fashioned in the likeness of Byzantine aesthetics. Except, much to Decius’ distaste, he found that the aquillae and icons of the Emperor had been defaced and remade into those of Byzon.

“A nice imitation,” he said at last.

The Bragulan offered him a seat, which he took graciously. There was another Bragulan there, sitting at the opposite end of the table, eyeing him with a steely gaze. Decius paid it no heed as he settled himself in. As he did, another door opened and in came the rest of his retinue. After a round of unpleasantries and appetizers, Decius decided to begin.

“Well, now that we are all ready and here, we can start business. Over here I have Inquisitor Ember Vail, whom you have met before, and here I have High Lord Inquisitor Al Fahd, the Head of the Ordos Diplomatica,” Decius said evenly. He waited for his counterpart’s response. The Bragulan who was seated opposite to him, sharpening his claws.



“Da. I am Minister Volydimyr Putyn of the Byzonic Bureau for the People's Department of the Proletariat's Inter-Species Friendliness. This is IBGV agent Zygrv, who gave you your warm welcome” Volydimyr gestured to the Bragulan who had escorted Decius to the room, then gestured to a telescreen beside him which also had a Bragulan’s face in it. “And here is Gryznk of... the Imperial Bragulan People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs. Da.”

Decius smiled politely. He knew that last part was a brag-faced lie, and the telescreen was totally IBGV. The first part was also a lie, since the Bragulans wouldn’t send a representative from one of their measly redundant bureaus to meet a Sigilite of Byzantium. This Putyn had to be fairly high-ranking, and if his standing was roughly equivalent to Decius’, then that meant he had to be in the Imperator’s Council.

The meeting had taken quite some time to plan, with much interplay between the Inquisition’s Ordos Xenos, the Curia and the Ordos Diplomatica, coordinated at multiple levels. Even with the well-coordinated, well-organized and straightforward system of the Byzantine Imperium, it had taken a monumental effort to pull off. Decius could only imagine what it must’ve taken the Bragulans, whose organization was as thick as their skulls, with structure even more redundant than their communications - if that was even possible at all. What made it all possible, though, was the quiet détente both sides maintained on the planet Jenova, particularly on the diplomatic facility on Mount Mortor in the middle of the planet-spanning minefield the Byzantines and Bragulans had set up in the Re-Militarized Zone.

“Before we begin, I would like to thank the efforts of your Inquisitor Ember Veil and our own Agent Zygrv for making this meeting possible.” Putyn said graciously. “In keeping with the Imperator’s policies of glasnot and bragstroika.”



“You’re welcome,” Veil replied courteously. She looked at Zygrv and smiled.

“Now, Exarch,” Putyn motioned to his counterpart. “Tell me what it is you came here for.”

“The Imperium has a particular interest in the MEH, in that we prefer to see their leader destroyed, and the population either corrected, or exterminated, whichever is easier. Personally we prefer the former, because it means more warm bodies to die for the God Emperor. The Bragulans I believe, also have an interest I hear,” Decius continued.

“Why we have an interest? That is simple and obvious. The MEH is ruled by a single xeno in an empire of humans and the human heretics worship this said xeno. This piques our interest substantially. Now we will not rule out utter imbecility on the part of the human population to have allowed this to happen, in which case they will surely deserve the Wrath of the God Emperor, but that such an occurrence should happen must be remedied and dealt with as soon as possible.

“Why we think you would have an interest? That is simple. These are a bunch of humans who claim to be from another Earth from another dimension. In your galaxy view, the existence of humans is equivalent to a plague upon the galaxy in no small part because the humans have two homeworlds which in your opinion is purely by circumstance willed by the Gods or whomever you people choose to worship. That is not entirely incorrect, but that aside, the very existence of a third homeworld means a third source of humans from which they can further propagate the human race across the galaxy and then the humans would be a rising tide that will surely and certainly overwhelm you poor bears. To prevent or slow down this perhaps inexorable process, this third human homeworld must be destroyed utterly.”

“Yes, the Imperium is manipulative. We did not get to where we are by being meek about it. The galaxy is a harsh place, and for the hearts and minds of those we can manipulate, we will without compunction do so in the most ruthless fashion possible. So what if they are human and we have them exterminated? Humans that do not serve the God Emperor ought to be just obliterated outright for heresy. The human race exists to serve the God Emperor. Any human that does not should just be put to the sword.”

Decius finished this by taking a glass of blood red wine and slowly taking a sip from it. He watched as Putyn regarded him curiously.

“Good,” Putyn finally said. He took his own glass and raised it to Decius. “Good. I am glad that we can come to an understanding with this matter. Da. You would make a good Bragulan, Exarch.”

“And you, an even finer rug.” Decius raised his too, and nodded at his counterpart. At this exchange of barbs, the Bragulan merely laughed.

“But what surprises me, Exarch, is how eager Byzantium is to go to war with this MEH. As blasphemous to you as the most admirable concept of humans under the heel of a xeno may be, and as delectable as the prospects of roasting those fat succulent humans may seem, they are still so far away, and you have much more pressing concerns closer to home.” Putyn thought out loud. “Though your commitment to killing your fellow humans is very laudable.”

“Of concern to the Imperium is the Karlacks. The ravenous insect bastards have been too active of late and that has instead motivated us to increase our military spending, of which we will announce eventually. Moreover, if we were to embark on a military expedition of this size and magnitude, they must be kept on a tight leash. Otherwise, the Imperium cannot for a certainty embark on one with the force required to beat these heretics into a pulp and grind them to dust. I assume you Bragulans understand the virtues of bringing a large enough and sharp enough pointy stick when going for a fight?”

“Of course. We already have forces stationed in the antispinward. We are way ahead of you, Exarch.” Putyn stabbed a piece of meat with a claw and ate it. The steak, Decius could see, was very raw. Putyn politely wiped the blood off his claws with a napkin. “But yes, the Karlacks. The original Mortor talks agent Zygrv conducted with your Inquisitor Veil were of the respective de-escalation of Byzantine and Bragulan forces to ease inter-nation tensions. But with the Karlack incursion to Nova Genoa, that is no longer possible, da?”

“That is indeed the problem. There is considerable baying for Karlack blood at the moment, but the Imperium is not in the position in the near term to prosecute any form of offensive action, even more so if we were to embark on an expedition of this magnitude, which by our best estimates, would require a considerable fraction of the standing forces available to the Imperium. I assume you have made similar calculations. It also seems to me that the key problem is reining in the Karlacks.”

“Da. But the Solarians have proven themselves to be remarkably adept at intervening in sudden Karlack incursions near Byzantine space,” Putyn remarked. “So this is what I propose, Exarch. If Byzantium raised its stance towards spinwards, in response to the Karlack threat, while all of its fleet strength was still in the Korpulu Zone, Bragule would have to likewise raise its own stance in response - for, naturally, we would interpret the Byzantine posture as a threat. This would basically be a reverse of the de-escalation that we sought at Jenova.

“But if Byzantium deploys significant forces to the anti-spinward to liberate your rotund heretics, while at the same time raising its stance in response to the Karlack threats, Bragule would allow this because knowing that so long as Byzantium is also committed at subjugating its fellow humans at the edge of the galaxy, then its simultaneously heightened defensive stance in the K-Zone will not be a threat to Bragule,” Putyn finished.

“And what of the Bragulan forces?” Decius asked.

“We will match your commitment to the antispinward.” Putyn replied. “So, in this way, we can both assure that our nations’ military dispositions will not be able to threaten each other. It is still de-escalation, in a fashion. You can thus also raise your readiness levels in the K-Zone to contain any threats, in response to Nova Genoa, without alarming Bragule.”

And hopefully, with Bragule committed elsewhere, the Karlacks will be disinclined to provoke a war now that their only ally was preoccupied halfway across the galaxy.

“That sounds amenable to us.” Decius agreed tentatively. He remembered what he thought about Bragulan organization, and how redundant and convoluted it was. Putyn’s proposal was an exercise of typically Bragulan convoluted reasoning, no less.

“Da,” Putyn replied. “In that case, by invoking the precedence of the Pact of the Greater Good of Bragulanity, I declare that the glourious Star Empire of Bragule and the Byzantine Imperium of Man have come to an agreement. And as a gesture of badwill to honor this auspicious agreement, as well as that of the historic Pact of the Greater Good of Bragulanity, Bragule will gift the Imperium with a sample popuation of the Indigos, a token of our appreciation.”

“Oh yes, those bastards. I hear you keep them just barely well fed enough to do service for your Lord Byzon?” Decius laughed.

“Da, but they are becoming a nuisance lately. The Indigo squatters throw rocks at Bragulan settlements and get crushed by tanks with increasing frequency. We have walled the Indigos in ghettos in the planet Graza and the West Bunk, and have been looking for a way to liquidate them. Handing them over to you will expedite the process greatly, and will be an auspicious start to our temporary alliance.” Putyn replied. Then, after a thought. “Speaking of which, Exarch. You are on the warpath against the MEH, a power halfway across the nine vectors. But you don’t expect to do this alone, do you? And you cannot count on us being your sole partners. You must have other confederates, da?”

“Very clever bear,” Decius said. He picked up a knife and began to slice his steak. The raw meat began to bleed.

[Tanasinn]

Elysion City, Elysion
Humanist Union

Amos Bowman looked down from his perch in the Office of Foreign Relations building at the latest protest that had gathered following word throughout the spinward region's media that the Humanist Union and Centrality - two nations with ostensibly diametrically-opposed ideologies - had signed a non-aggression treaty, among other agreements the details of which had not been made public thus far. The Union's state media had been running content following word on the agreement meant to ease the public's misgivings, and it had worked, at least to some extent. With the state broadly in a recession, there was little interest in going to war among many citizens, and the arguments of cooperation based on mutual humanity had been persuasive. To some.

The disadvantage of the Union's growing interest in the outside galaxy in recent times was an expanded interest in foreign politics, as well. The Union's citizens were taught that a vast portion of greater humanity suffered under the yokes of tyrants and plutocratic parasites, and indeed the galaxy often justified such beliefs. Some sects of the population - and worse, the military and government - had become interested in resuming the "war of liberation" that was held within new humanism's core, an interest fueled in part by the relative success of the New Haven campaign fifteen years ago. When such elements heard that the government was instead cooperating with one of the most notorious totalitarian governments in the region, there were those that were bound to be...upset. As this mob demonstrated. Radical syndicalists, the DII had noted, had played a considerable part in drumming up outrage. You didn't need to be a master of espionage to figure that out.

The director sighed, rubbing at the corners of his eyes. Certainly, he could see their point - centralism was a sinister ideology and the Central State itself a prime example of the so-called "fascist slave-state," but outrage did not change politics, outrage did not improve human condition. Action did - more often than not, violent action. To what benefit for humanity would it be if the Union and Centrality went to war - by design or accident - mutually annihilating each other in the process? Doing good in the long term meant taking bitter medicine in the short term. That, Amos considered, summed up diplomacy quite nicely.

A knock at the door brought the elder bureaucrat out of his reverie and back into the real world, "Enter," he said.

The man who admitted himself gave the director a curt nod; pale face impassive. Special Operations provided excellent protection for senior government officials, but as a rule, they were anything but personable. Posthumanity, Bowman considered, had its disadvantages. "Director," the guard began, "Your car is here. If you will?"

Amos nodded, sweeping up his attache case and following the much larger man's stride as they made their way to the lift; a second guard who had stood outside the door joined them. Amos didn't expect violence - these flash protests had been loud but largely peaceful - but the government didn't run on "probably." A shame; exiting under guard produced a certain effect, Amos knew, on citizens' perceptions of officials. Exiting the building, Amos did his best to make up for this fact by moving slowly, with deliberation, showing none of the nervousness of the FCPS officers holding the protestors in check - what was politics if not acting? Amos's mind had moved on to the coming federal directors' meeting when he was brought back to the here and now by a sound of more immediate upset and alarm - a man had pushed his way through the crowd and was yelling to the director.

"Director Bowman! Director! Here, this manifesto," he held out his hand to give Amos a rather battered packet even as the FCPS moved to pull him back and the SO bodyguards to intersect themselves; Amos reached for the packet; if nothing else, it would give the impression that the Office of Foreign Relations cared about the concerns of the citizens. Amos's considerations were replaced by confusion when the man suddenly seized him by the wrist and dragged himself towards the director with surprising strength. Amos tried to step back and the SO bodyguards were forcing their way in front of the man when the director's world exploded.

---

The New Humanist

Breaking news from the Office of Foreign Relations in Elysion city. An assassination attempt on Director Amos Bowman took place today at 1:00 PM Elysion Standard Time as the director was leaving for a meeting with the federal government. The blast killed 5 and wounded 15 in what was an apparent suicide bombing. Unnamed sources claim that the bomb was surgically inserted in the attacker's body. The New Humanist can confirm that Director Bowman was injured in the blast and rushed to Admiral Fischer Memorial Hospital in the aftermath; his current status is unknown. This attack comes on the tail-end of week-long protests over the government's recent decision to normalize relations with the Centrality, perceived by many to be an anti-humanitarian action. Major Gunderson of the FCPS had this to say following the attack.

"At this point in time, the FCPS can confirm that a suicide bombing occurred in front of the Office of Foreign Relations. The apparent target was Director Amos Bowman. Director Bowman was admitted to the hospital briefly after the incident. It is unclear at this point who precipitated this cowardly attack. The FCPS is working in cooperation with the DII to bring the perpetrators responsible to a swift and merciless justice."

It is unclear at this point who is responsible for the attack. Unnamed sources within the FCPS has speculated that the terrorist Syndicalist Worker's Front, who are known for surgically-installed suicide bombs, may be responsible. The Syndicalist Worker's Party, which has organized numerous protests following negotiations with the Centrality, have publicly denounced the attacks, claiming that "[the bombing] is an attack of attempted murder incompatible with syndicalism."

More on this story as it develops.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Bragulan Economic Exposition Extravaganza of Friendship (BEEEF)
Vlyadibragstok, Southeastern Severnaya Sector / just beyond Northwestern Lena Sector
Unreal Time / October-December 3400

To: Bragulan Star Empire, People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs
From: The Lost, Section for Trade and Diplomacy

Greetings, fellow sapients.

We thank you for the time you have taken to answer our questions.

We have reviewed your message and found it most satisfying and a very welcome contrast from the dreary messages of our human neighbors. We feel that there is great potential for friendship and cooperation between our people and your glorious Star Empire that will not be hampered even by the distance between our two nations.

We have found the supplementary materials you have sent us most enlightening (and far superior to analogous materials sent by our human neighbors). In particular, we have found Imperator Byzon’s discourse on the nature of power profoundly moving. Previously, we have believed that no true cultural exchange is possible between our people and those of the rest of the galaxy due to certain aspects of our species. However, the writings of Imperator Byzon have shown us the error of this assumption, and we wish to learn more of his wisdom. As such, we politely request that you send us additional writings by the Imperator and other prominent Bragulan visionaries.

Finally, we have decided to take advantage of your glorious policies of glasnot and bragstroika and will be sending a delegation to the BEEEF. As this will be the first true contact between our two peoples, our delegation will contain an Emissary authorized to represent our civilization. Likewise, we are willing to receive your own envoys at our newly-constructed diplomatic facilities in Sector G3 [coordinates attached]

We look forward to visiting your Star Empire and experiencing the glories of the Bragulan civilization firsthand.

May our relationship will be friendly and mutually beneficial to our civilizations.

Representing the Lost,

Shroom.

After the demonstration of the Spheroid of Exclusion and the advertisements of the orichalcum wards, the Lost Emissary was approached promptly by representatives of the Imperial Bragulan People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs.

"As agreed upon by the diplomatic communiques between our nations, Bragule shall provide the Lost with even more supplemental Byzonist literatures and other approved works of Bragulanity," said diplomatic trade liaison Zygrv. "In celebration of the impressive feat of your Spheroid of Exclusion in redirecting the Spud, the technicians and operators of the Spud have been compelled to labor in replacing the Bragcrete bricks of their silo, piece for piece, with thick steel-bound Byzonist books for your perusal."



"Bragule is also prepared to pay a handsome fee for samples of your orichalcum and Spheroids of Exclusion, in the interest of promoting internationalism, glasnot and bragstroika," he continued. "As the Lost has recognized the mightiness of Bragule and its cultural and intellectual superiority to all its other neighbors in the entire galaxy, Bragule welcomes the Lost as a comrade-nation and likewise applauds its sensibility and wisdom in recognizing and appreciating the unmatchable brilliance of Imperator Byzon - the Great Architect of Galactic Civilization.

"Truly, for the Lost considers all other nations communicated with thusfar as unworthy of any true cultural exchange between your people and those of the rest of the galaxy due to certain aspects of your species before recognizing the resonance of true Byzonism, this speaks grandly of the nature of your species if the inherent self-evident nature of Byzonism moves you as it did the moon of Bolshaya Chernovyi. This in turn makes the Lost stand out amongst the humanoid Phillistines and other intellectually challenged non-Byzonic species to Bragule. Da.

"Thus in light of this, as gesture of goodwill Bragule will give the Lost detailed information on the foulest traitor known as Yekhov Nayumoivych Pokhys, dissident hate-writer and contemptible conniving capitalist creative contributor person to the most depraved Solarianoid program known as Animal House. This information available nowhere else in galaxy, comrades."

And there's more where that comes from, was the unspoken implication.

Da.

[PeZook]

Co-written with Shroomie!

ROBOT SURPRISE

That was when the sheer brilliance of this plan struck the bridge crew. The Wasp outmatched them ; But it was a Collector vessel, and they were known for their propensity to Collect various strange things... and perhaps, if the robotoid murdership decided Rygyvld Zybynv was worth Collecting, it would engage the Bragnum Force directly, board them... and get into direct melee combat, where Bragulan spirits and sheer brute strength might just even the odds, and give them enough time to last until the warcruiser Today is Bragsday’s arrival.

Now, the only problem was to see if the Wasp would cooperate.

“Kapitan! The foul robotoids are moving in for another attack run!”, the borderline panicked voice of Crewman Fukeseyev seemed to indicate otherwise.

Derevnya Gadyukino System
Severnaya Sector
Bragulan Star Empire
Unreal time

Compartment D1, Bragnum Force, infirmary/meat locker



Robyodov Nefartnyi, Crewman Zero Class, had almost wet himself.

He realized immediately what the Commissar was doing, of course. He even approved of the plan, with only one small problem: if the robotoids decided to board, they would go straight for the infirmary. Yes, it was nice to stay here, right next to the medical equipment, the lifesaving medicine and collection of spare parts in the meat locker... except for the fact they were completely defenceless. Doctors had to be in one piece in order to do life saving surgery, after all. Considering, again, the pros and cons of his situation, Nefartnyi decided it was now much safer to be somewhere else. Ideally on the other side of the galaxy, but he’d take the other side of the ship in a pinch.

But what to do?, he thought, regarding the Commissar - who was now awfully proud of himself, and adminstering a preventive stick-beating to the star of his show, that poor bastard Zybynv. Finally he decided on a plan.

“Commissar, sir?”, he said, trying to hide the shaking of his paws, “Perhaps we should fortify the infirmary in preparation for our glourious last stand?”

“What?!”, the Commissar gazed at Robyodov, obviously infuriated by something.

“I mean our glourious defensive struggle against foul robotoid murderbots, which will surely end in the triumph of Bragule!”, Robyodov spat, very fast.

“I don’t know why I tolerate your ideological impurities, Nefartnyi!”, Tedostp growled, stomping on Zybynv with his steel-toed boot, “You are obviously slipping from the proper Byzonic path...”

Robyodov shuddered, “Perhaps I could make amends by fetching some weapons from the armory?”

There was a period of brief consideration, “Yes”, the Commissar finally growled, “Do that and return immediately.”

Robyodov nodded and left - very quickly - while trying really hard not to show just how glad he was to get away from the future site of a lot of murderkilling. Whichever side did the slaughtering mattered little to him, as long as he was someplace else while that happened.

Like compartment C3, on the other side of the ship. That was a good place to stay. Yes.

***

Bragnum Force, bridge

“Brace for impact!”, the officer of the watch screamed a bit too late, only a second before the knife missiles impacted again. The already badly beat up starship groaned, a hundred explosions blasting through its innards, spilling radioactive waste, rupturing power and oxygen lines and vaporizing crewmembers. Damage control boards lit up, crimson red flashes across all compartments indicating loss of primary function. Whatever crewbears were still standing, attempting to coordinate damage control, were thrown around like rag dolls.

“Damage report!”, the captain bellowed for the hundreth time

Hearing no answer, he glanced at the chief engineer: the badly burned bear was slumped over his station. Two ensigns dragged him to the floor and looked at the various displays with dismay.

“Report!”, the captain urged them onwards, trying not to see Fukeseyev’s panicked movements at the sensor station.

“Everything is down, kapitan! Fires across all compartments! We’re down to quinary and setentary systems!”

“Weapons!”, maybe they could at least fire one last salvo before being vaporized by that damnable vessel.

“No go on all emplacements! I am getting feed failures for all K-Bolters and cycling errors for missile launchers! Missile magazines six through eight ruptured and open to space!”

That was it. The Bragnum Force could no longer fight back. For any other captain across the galaxy, that would be the time he’d order the crew to abandon ship: but the Bragnum Force was a ship of the Bragulan Fleet, and they would fight until the end, even if they had nothing but their claws and explosive-tipped entrenching tools! They didn’t have any escape pods aboard, anyway, just in case some captain decided to save his crew or do some other foolish thing like that. Their only pods were REVENGEANCE PODS designed for ramming enemy ships, but those were a little too light to use against the small and maneuvering Wasp...

Though Captain Syegiel was sure he could think of something, eventually... if only the end wasn’t so close.

The Wasp flipped around, easily avoiding the narrowed field of fire of the damaged K-bolters, and moved in for the kill

***

Compartment C3

“Pavel!”, Robyodov exclaimed, bumping into one of his friends. He made real good time, crossing all the bulkheads into compartment C3 in a scant five minutes. C3 was the best protected compartment in the entire ship: for it housed the missile magazines and the armory. It was currently full of bears running around, hastily building barricades and shuffling damage control gear to various places - Pavel, amongst them. He was one of the chiefs, in charge of the missile magazines, and a good friend of Robyodov’s: more than once had they been on the receiving end of a Commissarial investigation for many an unbyzonic infraction. It didn’t seem like Pavel was in the mood for stories, though, busy as he was screaming commands and handing out armamentations to the crew.

Robyodov had to once again reconsider his decision to come here: if there was an officer around, he might end up drafted into a hastily assembled combat team, given a K-bolter and...



“Robyodov! Quick, here, take this!”, Pavel shouted, having finally noticed him, and shoved a stubby boarding k-bolter into Robyodov’s paws, “Join up with chief Sobvodor and his crew, you’ll be defending approaches to the armory!”

“But...”, Robyodov’s feeble protests were drowned out by the sound of an explosion that shook the entire ship, throwing everyone around. Vacuum alarms started blaring and Nefartnyi realized with trepidation that throughout the battle he was so concerned with self-preservation that he failed to don a pressure suit. He looked around in panic, but there were no spares around.

Byzon save me..., he thought in a rare moment of ideological devotion, before a knife missile hit some important piece of machinery nearby and made the entire corridor exploderize.

Bragnum Force, Bridge

“Lights! Lights, Byzon-dammit!”, Captain Syiegel yelled at his subordinates, having just dug himself out of the debris that came crashing down on the roll cage of his command chair. Remembering something, he switched on the intercom - the bridge crew all wore spacesuits and donned their helmets when the Wasp turned for its last attack run.

Red emergency lights came on with a tortured flicker, revealing scenes of massive carnage. A single knife missile penetrated even the hardened bridge walls, exploderizing right before the main telescreen and converting it into a truly enormous amount of shrapnel. Bragulan glass was famed for its resillience, usually being rated for impacts of up to 40mm APFSDNETBOOM rounds: the problem was that when it shattered, it became shards, shards of razor-sharp, steel-hard superglass. Normally this was good, when bomb-rigged telescreens detected ideological deviants in front of them and detonated, turning the shards into supersonic shrapnel directed outwards towards the enemy. But for ideologically pure crewmen in an exploderized bridge...

These shards were now all over the bridge, often embedded in crewbears, but more importantly - in the machinery used to control the ship. Though the captain wasn’t sure if he still had a ship to control.

“Damage report!”, he growled for the umpteenth time. It took a while for the surviving crewmembers, wandering the smoke-filled bridge, to piece together anything resembling an actual report.

“Kapitan, we lost communications to most compartments...we sent runners to ascertain operations of primary systems.”, the officer of the watch began, taking in partial reports from ratings and crewmen going in and out of the bridge, “Life support is still partially operational, we lost helm, weapons, communications and attitude...”

“Why are we still in one piece?”, Syiegel suddenly interrupted him.

“Well, Kapitan... it is obvious superior Bragulan engineering triumphed over the decadent robotoid archfiends and their feeble...”, the officer started, trying to piece together an ideologically acceptable explanation, but the captain raised his paw to silence him.

“You! Fukeseyev!”, he pointed to the sensor technician trying to reanimate his station, “Up peritelescope!”

The crewman sprang to his hind legs and manually raised the simple optical peritelescope - one of the many, many backup systems, like so many others found throughout this ship and others in the Bragulan Fleet. The captain walked up to the oculars and began sweeping the space around the gunskimmer. It only took him a few seconds to confirm his suspicions.

It was right there, right next to them. Like a predator slowly stalking its prey, the Wasp glided gracefully through space, maneuvering at what was - for space - paint-scraping distance. The captain adjusted a dial on the ocular, zooming in on the alien spacecraft. His brow furrowed, as he tried to make out the details of the alien craft... and then he saw it.

The murdership vomited forth a dozen or so black blobs, which drifted majestically across the gap separating both craft. They glistened ominously in the system’s sunlight, and their surfaces seemed... almost fluid.

Then they disappeared from the peritelescope’s field of view.

“The crazy bastard pulled it off...”, Syiegel muttered to himself, thinking of the Commissar, “Down peritelescope! We are being boarded! Send runners to engineering, I want an organized defence there.”

For some reason, the announcement they were being boarded seemed to lift the crew’s spirits. They were already resigned to death - and now they unexpectedly got a second chance to fight their foul enemy.

With any luck, they might just last long enough for the cruiser to get to them.

The captain grinned viciously, even as the first shots rang out from deep inside the gunskimmer’s hull.

***

Compartment C3



The corridor was obscured by torn cables and melted floor panels, radioactive steam venting from ruptured pipes and mist from vaporized flesh. Moans of injured crewmen filled the air along with stench of burnt flesh, vomit and blood. The very walls were buckled in by the explosion, with pressure alarms blaring, indicating atmosphere was venting out. Robyodov Nefartnyi, somehow still alive amongst the carnage, clutched his boarding k-bolter tightly... he wasn’t sure when damage control bears would get to the compartment, or if there even were any damage control being done anymore, but he did hear strange, scraping mechanical noises coming from the far end of the corridor, so he decided to shoot the first thing that appeared. Since the ship hadn’t exploderized yet, Robyodov rationalized his fear, it meant the commissar’s plan had worked - and that meant there’d be robotoid murderbots roaming the corridors! And if it were rescuers he was hearing, they could always shout to him in Bragulan. Robyodov wasn’t about to let any metal motherfuckers try and fuck him in the face with a death beam. No way. The faint sound of shooting and screams that carried through the buckled walls only strengthened that resolution.

So when the first hunched, shambling figure appeared in the corridor, he screamed at it and unloaded the entire magazine, shredding whatever was left of any working equipment and filling the air with a hail of acid-covered bullets. Seeing the figure still stand, he started pawing around amongst the incinerated and mangled bodies for another magazine, stealing a glance from time to time in order to see if the creature was still approaching. When it covered about half the distance, Robyodov noticed something odd...

“Pavel?”, he asked, seeing bits and pieces of fur in the dim and intermittent lighting, “Is that you?”

The creature moaned in response. Robyodov managed to finally find a spare magazine and began loading it with trembling paws. Could it be that he shot a friend? But if he did, why didn’t Pavel fall over?

He finally cocked the k-bolter and raised it...and found his answer, as the creature somehow covered the last dozen metres or so with two swift paces, and was now staring the terrified crewman in the face.



From beneath Pavel’s flayed skin, a pair of soulless eyes behest Robyodov. The creature... the foul robotoid fucker... was wearing bits and pieces of freshly harvested Bragulan skin all over itself, draped in a terrible visage of death. Robyodov screamed. He screamed with sheer, utter, unbragulan and ubyzonic terror, terror which also happened to propel him away from the Collector and its diamond-sharp (and blood-coverd!) adamantium hand-blades with equally unbragulan speed. For Robyodov Nefartnyi was the most nefartnyi crewman aboard Bragnum Force, and had long ago developed a set of very useful (though unbyzonic) instincts that allowed him to survive the countless accidents, enemy boardings and commissarial investigations that he seemed to constantly get himself into. Right now, they were telling him to run. Run like hell.

Thanks to his timely and brave tactical retreat, Robyodov managed to avoid the first sweeping flesh-rending slash, but he didn’t stop, despite still clutching the fully loaded k-bolter in one of his paws. He crawled and stumbled and dived through debris and obstructions like a master of the forbidden art of Bragkour, despite never having trained in it and in fact being somewhat overweight.

The creature followed, breaking into a light run. The metal claws it had for feet clanged on the deck plates, intermittently with soft squishes of Bragulan flesh it draped itself in. The corridors were becoming more and more unpassable due to the gunskimmer’s extensive battle damage, though, and eventually Robyodov took a wrong turn and faced a dead end, with the ominous clatter right behind him.

“SHITS!”, he bellowed, turning around. The motherfucking robot cleared the turn with unbelievable grace, especially compared to its slow, shambling movements from just a few moments before. It landed heavily on the floor...

And the panels broke with a crash, making the collectoroid robot fall into a cleverly concealed death-pit.

“Hah!”, Robyodov heard someone scream. A terribly wounded bear crawled out from a collapsed ventilation duct, leaving a trail of burnt meat behind and clutching a sharpened fuel rod, “Take that, you ideologically impure robotic bastard!”

He approached the pit triumphantly and spat down, right on the head of the collectoroid - who was now impaled on dozens of similar fuel rods to the one he himself wielded. Those in the pit, however, were stripped of their protective neutron absorbent coating, and were thus glowing white-hot thanks to the chain reactions (and undoubtedly spewing copious amounts of radiation in the process). The robot was still moving, emitting some weird electronic noises.

“Know the power of Byzon, fiend! Listen to what the great Imperator has to say about those such as you, as quoted from the Green Book itself...”

Robyodov approached the pit cautiously and glanced downwards. Something about the situation seemed odd to him, in that strange way that always resulted in lots of pain in the end.

“...and thus, as they themselves should have realized had they only closely examined their own corrupt systems of governance, it is impossible to maintain growth fuelled by...”

“Excuse me”, Robyodov pulled on the other bear’s ragged and burnt fur, “We should go”

“...and therefore, they shall...what?”, the bear looked at him funny, “Oh. Nefartnyi, it’s you. Why don’t you join me in glourious Byzonist triumph over our vanquished foe?”

“Can we triumph later?”

“No!”

Robyodov looked around in fear. He knew, instinctively, that something was about to go really, really wrong in the next few seconds, but how to explain that to the Byzonist zealot gloating over the radioactive pit?

Remembering something, Robyodov grabbed a lead-lined piece of deck plating and covered his crotch before continuing, “Because he probably wasn’t the only one...”

“Then let them come! We will stand in Byzonist unity against this foe! We will...aaaaaah!”

Robyodov reacted quickly, using his crotch protector to smack aside the huge scarab that landed on the other bear’s head.

That wasn’t quite enough to calm him down, though. The bear was flailing his paws and screaming, “Aaaah! Get it off! Get it off! Imperator, I hate bugs!”

He almost fell into the plutonium punji pit, too, but Robyodov grabbed him by the paw and pulled him away.

“Come on! They’re coming out of the walls! They’re coming out of the MOTHERFUCKING WALLS!”



For some reason, the Byzonist didn’t need any more convincing. Huge scarabs were crawling out of the various cable ducts and air conduits, and their clattering and scraping of carapaces was now quite audible, coming from beneath the deck plates, from the ceilings and walls. As soon as the two Brags crossed the intersection where Robyodov took his unfortunate turn, floor and wall panels behind them began exploding, spewing a mass of glistening chitinous bodies into the corridor.

Feelings of Byzonist superiority to all species and nature itself apparently weren’t enough to make the zealot stand and risk getting eaten alive by the scarabs. As Robyodov noticed with no small amount of envy, the bear managed to outpace him during his panicked run.

After an exhausting - though short - run both of them managed to reach a ladder leading down, towards the gunskimmer’s main reactor and up, towards thruster maintenance hatches. Robyodov, being merely a Crewman, and zero class at that, seemed briefly confused - despite the immense heights to which his fear-addled brain could often rise.

“Up! I have an idea!” , the zealot screamed. In that situation, Robyodov didn’t exactly need convincing: it was enough to hear the rising clatter behind them. The younger crewman managed to scale the ladder in two moves, followed by the considerably slower zealot - it was quite a change from his mad dash just a few moments before, but then again, he was wounded.

The upper semi-deck was barely more than a maintenance line allowing the crew access to pipes that fed propellant to attitude thrusters. It was remarkably quiet and undamaged, especially considering what pounding the Bragnum Force took.

Robyodov’s newfound friend looked around briefly, inspected a large gauge and grabbed a pair of fireaxes.

“Quick! Here!”, he said, handing one over, “There’s pressure in these lines! We’ll drown the bastards! You hack up the left, I’ll do the right!”

“Wait, but that’s...”, Robyodov paused after reading the warning on the pipes

“NO TIME! Hurry up, comrade, or they’ll eat us! I’m not getting eaten by some robot bugs!”, the bear screamed and took a mighty swing. Hearing the scarabs begin to scale the ladder, Robyodov closed his eyes, clutched his crotch-protector tightly in one paw, and swung the axe with the other.

With a hiss and crack and wave of immense heat, the pressurized liquid thorium burst from the punctured pipes, searing the wall. Bragenkov radiation bathed the corridor in an eerie glow and Robyodov could feel the tingle of thousands of rads passing through his body - though that might’ve been just hair, since his fur was starting to smoke from the heat.

Radiation alarms started blaring throughout the deck, as the wave flushed down the open hatch, burninating the mass of scarabs below. Robyodov backed away from the scene, very slowly, careful to hold his scavenged deck plate very tightly and not drop it for a second. They could both hear the strange electronic whine, the death-scream of countless scarabs that were incinerated below, as the liquid thorium filled up the corridor beneath them.

“We go now?”, Robyodov asked, feeling overheated air burn the inside of his snout. Somehow, he felt the zealot would want to stay and quote the Green Book here a well.

Fortunately, it seemed almost getting torn to pieces by scarabs was enough to dissuade him, “Da! We go!”

And they went, leaving the thorium-filled corridor behind them. Robyodov kept glancing behind, wondering about how his comrades were doing throughout the ship... or whether any of their fellow navy bears were still alive.

***

Compartment D1

Commissar Tedostp could clearly hear the horrifying screams of crewmen he sent to delay the Collector advance while the ship’s surviving handful of actual combat soldiers built a barricade in front of the medical section. He sneered, displeased with the suicide squad’s obvious lack of Byzonist spirit that lead to them being so quickly and easily slaughtered.

Despite all that had happened, despite the gunskimmer’s sound trashing, the boarding which was supposed to even out the odds yet turned out... less than stellar, the commissar never faltered in his feeling of Byzonic duty. For it would indeed be a dereliction of duty if he admitted even for a second that the foul robotoid fiends had the advantage: even as tactics and stratagems failed one after another, the Commissar never wavered, sending wave after wave of his men at the enemy.

And a formidable enemy it was! From what he managed to ascertain,barely a dozen Collectors boarded the Bragnum Force, yet they unleashed such terrifying carnage, cutting down all resistance! But when the Collectoroids finally relented under the weight of Bragulan spirits (and dead bodies) the battle would surely be recorded as one of the greatest feats of Bragulanity ever achieved! An example to follow for cublings and adult bears alike!

Barely had the commissar risen to heights of righteous Byzonic fury when a flayer blast tore his huge Commissarial hat apart at the molecular level, and all hell broke loose.



“Eyes up, stock the cock, lock the toad and blow my load, here they come!”, the gruff sergeant in charge of the last remaining combat detachment cried and raised his K-Bolter. The ten or so bears in various state of sheer bearly gruffness (displayed by creative profanity scribbled over their armor, and many strange ways to make it as unable to pass inspection as physically possible) levelled their weapons and opened fire, filling the only access corridor with streams of emerald green K-bolts, directed at the skeletal figures steadily marching forward.

And the Collector boarding party did not remain silent for long: carefully aimed green ejaculations blew through the barricade and impregnated themselves in the battle-scarred bears behind. They didn’t scream in pain, though: no, not like those mewling press-ganged cublings, those crewmen zero class - no, they roared in anger, firing their weapons even when wounded and being eaten alive by the foul emissions of Collector flayers.

“Never give up, never surrender! Tally ho, you monsters! All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, MOTHERFUCKERS!”, the sergeant bellowed over the sound of combat, managing to drown out even the screams of his bears and the Commissar’s well-practiced Byzonist screeds. The Collectors advanced right through the fire, with two or three robotoids succumbing to the hail of k-bolts with an eerie robotic whine. “Go Navy Strong! Brag Power! URRA!”

When it looked like the attack might falter, a subtle change occurred. Under the sound of battle, the roar of k-bolters and cracks of collector flayers, came a faint barely discernible skittering noise. Like that of a thousand tiny clawed feet crawling on metal. In the din of gunfire and energy discharges, this noise was unnoticed. The skeletal warrior robots of the Collectors ceased their advance, holding their position, some even crouching or taking cover behind objects as they fired at the Bragulans - in contrast to their previous dauntless advance.

The reason for this sudden change of pace soon became evident as the overhanging sprinkler systems and halon gas tubes, and the underlying sewage and water pipes, exploderized as an innumerable mass of skittering scarabs poured forth from their ruptured plumbings.

“SCARABS!” a trooper screamed in horror. The sea of scarabs parted into two halves, the first wave throwing themselves towards the Bragulan lines. A few troopers, having already seen what these multitudes of mini-robotic monstrosities were capable of, immediately reached for their mandatory flamethrowers and bathed the corridor in incendiary isotopes.

“I love the smell of Bragpalm in the morning!” shouted the sergeant as he laughed at the sight of countless burninating bionic bugs, popping and melting from the heat.

But the second half of the scarab swarm didn’t throw themselves at the Brags. No, they went the other way, towards the Collector skull-warriors. They swarmed the damaged machines, the broken down and shattered chassis of those few that had succumbed to bolter-fire, and they insinuated themselves on their metallic forms. Then they began to transfuse raw necrodermis into the damaged and broken warriors, mending their injuries. With jerky movements, the previously fallen warriors rose up, reanimated, whilst the regenerative necrodermis swirled on their hyperalloy endoskeletons like liquid metal flesh.



A resurrected warrior opened its mouth and howled at the Bragulans. Then, as if on cue, the warriors resumed their implacable advance - as though the Bragulan bolter barrage had been nothing, as though all the damages sustained had been washed away by the liquid metal necrodermis infusion. They raised their gauss flayers and continued to cut down the remaining Bragulans.

To make matters worse, the burst pipes began to spew more and more scarabs, and now that the warriors had been fully healed, there was no need for the regenerative type of insectile swarms. So the scarabs came. All of them.

Commissa Tedostp looked on in despair as the last of his soldiers were cut down, unable to fight... flayers dissolving them before his very sight, just as the scarabs swarmed over the barricade, overwhelming the last desperate vestiges of resistance.

“BE...ALL...YOU...CAN...BE...”, the sergeant, the last one to die, managed to utter before the bugs swarmed over him.

***

Compartment D1, slighty aftewards, slightly further away

The Byzonist skidded to a halt, grabbing Robyodov’s paw, “Nyet! Not this way, comrade!”

“What? Why, the infirmary is right the...”, Robyodov paused to listen. The corridor carried the noise of a thousand scarabs, that disgusting, seething noise of scraping carapaces and tiny legs on metal, “Yeah, not this way”, he agreed in a split second.

But then the noise was pierced by something else, by a terrified scream. But that couldn’t be right...

“No! NO! Don’t touch me! Get away! NO! MOMMY, I WANT MY MOMMY PLEASE...”

The voice obviously belonged to an adult bear, yet sounded a lot like a mewling cubling. So great was the similarity that, despite having just narrowly escaped death by scarab, the duo cautiously moved forward, glancing - just for a second - at the scene.

Commissar Tedosp was crying. His mewling and sobbing only scarcely punctuated by waves of his beating stick, as the scarab wave creeped towards his perch, high under the ceiling, crawling over dead bodies and what was left of the barricade.

The Byzonist zealot cried out in shock, “It’s the Commissar! Quick, comrade, we must save him!”

His cry was met immediately with a flayer blast than singed his fur and blew a large hole through a wall. Robyodov only barely managed to drag him backwards, saving him from getting a hole blown through him.

“Leave him! We must find the revengeance pods before they eat us, too!”

“No! A comrade is in need! We shall go and...”

Something howled down in the corridor, like a hungry wraith. The Byzonist shuddered.

“...or maybe he can have his glourious battle, there’s no need to rob him of the credit...”

Robyodov began to nod really fast, glancing at the bend from beyond which robotoid murderbots were about to emerge, and pulling his friend behind him. The zealot was still trying to rationalize his fear using Byzonist screeds when Robyodov realized they were in a dead end.

“OH FOR FUCKSES SAKE”, he bellowed in rage, “NOT AGAIN!”

He felt a surge of panic. The last time that happened, he was saved by the timely intervention of what must’ve been Byzon himself, what with the robotoid falling right into the plutonium punji pit. For some reason, Robyodov was certain it would not happen again. Looking for an angle, any way to avoid a messy and painful death for just a second longer, he notice a door.

It was a supply cabinet.

“In there!!!”, he screamed, just as the first robotoid cleared the corner.

“But we both can’t fit inside!” the zealot protested.

“Oh screw you then!”, Robyodov opened the door and realized with terror that he couldn’t fit in there alone, either. But something was there.



A video camera. And a small open box of Space RPG rounds somebody stuffed here with it.

Connecting two and two together Robyodov grabbed the camera and, in one fluid motion perfectly executed due to utter and overwhelming terror, smashed the lenses, ripped out the photosensitive matrix, loaded a round and aimed the former camera at the advancing robotoids, just in time to see them raise their flayers.

“SAY CHEESE!”

The video camera - which was in fact made in the same factory as Space RPGs, and used the same casings in a brilliant display of efficiency, ejaculated a round, which screamed down into the corridor. The zealot screamed in pain as the backblast burned off his remaining fur, but Robyodov didn’t even notice. His fear-addled brain was working overtime, tracing the round as it sailed down the corridor...

...and missed the warriors, to crewman Nefartnyi’s dismay.

Then it exploded, far behind the warriors, way past the bend. The explosion wasn’t even a proper large-sized explosion, but more like a fizzle, a pop. Because the thermobaric warhead was merely spreading the incendiary istotpic aerosol. Then there was a second, much larger, explosion as the aerosol was ignited and an enormous plume of thermite-plasma came boiling down towards them from back behind the bend. The Collector warriors turned back just in time to see the fireball wash over them, burninating them and melting their hyperalloy endoskeletons, before stopping abruptly just as it was on the verge of engulfing the two huddling Bragulans. The flame dissipated, barely singing their snouts with hot air.

“Imperator save us!” the zealot fell to his knees and wept, grovelling at Nefartnyi’s feet. “He saved us, Robyodov! He saved us!”

“Come on, let’s get the fucks out of here.” Robyodov grumbled as he discarded the spent videocamera.

They went back to the bend, and headed towards the place where the Commissar’s screams had come before. Now it was silent. No more screams, no more skittering. Whether it was a good sign, or a bad one, neither of them could decide. They found a heap of Bragulan remains, charred and blackened, whether as a product of the burnination or because the scarabs had peeled the flesh off their bones, they didn’t know. The stench was still unbearable, though. Nearby, they found a mound of inert scarabs, also burnt and twisted, their necrodermis half-melted by the thermite-plasma before cooling off and solidifying again.

Miraculously, they found someone alive, underneath the pile of dead scarabs. It was Commissar Tedostp. Robyodov and the Byzonist went to help him up.

The dazed bear looked around, obviously shocked at still being alive. It took him a while to focus, and several whiles before his brain managed to start thinking straight again. Eventually, though, he focused his gaze on the two bears standing before him: the Byzonist zealot, standing proudly erect, and Nefartnyi, trying to pat down a burning patch of fur on his ass.

“Where did you two come from?!”, he bellowed, before remembering something, “Nefartnyi! Just wait until I find my beating stick, you fucksing deserter! Unbyzonist traitor!”

Robyodov had just about enough. Between getting nearly sliced in half, getting eaten alive by scarabs, almost burning himself to death with liquid thorium and then finally nearly getting vaporized by a Space RPG shell, he though a break was, really, the least he deserved. Plus, his gastric ulcer was acting up again.

He put out the burning patch of fur on his ass and flipped the Commissar off.

“Fucks you, Glourious People’s Commissar Tedostp!”, he shouted, to the Byzonist’s utter horror, “If it hadn’t been for us, you’d have been somewhere amongst the dead bodies here being eaten by scarabs while crying like a baby, so why don’t you give us a byzondamned break?!”

There was a loaded pause. The Commissar looked around, as if making sure here was nobody around.

“You heard that?”, he asked in a conspirational whisper - surprising the Byzonist, who expected a field execution instead.

“YES!”, Robyodov shouted back, “It’s a wonder half the ship didn’t!”

Tedostp scratched his head, thinking very, very quickly. His training told him to stick-beat both bears immediately, but his instincts told him otherwise. What if they had a recording? Could this whelp Nefartnyi truly be cunning enough to have made one? What if...

“Okay”, he nodded in a most humanoid fashion, “I will forget your desertion, but let’s make what you saw here our little secret, okay?”

Robyodov thought the Byzonist would have a heart attack and was just about ready to catch him, but thankfully, the zealot managed to compose himself. The shock would probably stay with him forever, though.

“Fine, you got a deal, Commissar”, Robyodov said, and couldn’t help but act just a little smug. Tedostp growled at him and started to wonder if he shouldn’t administer a proper stick-beating anyways, but something moaned nearby, making all three bears jump in surprise.

From beneath a pile of dead scarabs, a horribly mauled and burnt paw emerged. It clawed at the air before grabbing on a ruined office chair that used to make up a part of the barricade. The paw’s owner pulled himself up with jerky movements and moaned again. Despite the horrible, horrible wounds, Commissar Tedostp could still recognize the sergeant who so valiantly held the line just moments before.

“Hah! I knew the robotoid fiends could not overcome the Bragulan spirit!”, he exclaimed, “Let us find our weapons and make good our counterattack!”

Robyodov whimpered. Not this again...

The sergeant didn’t seem to notice them at first, though. He looked around, moaning gutturally.

“GO NAVY STRONG!”

“Sergeant!”, the commissar seemed irritated. He walked up to the soldier-bear and shook him. To everyone’s surprise, one of the sergeant’s eyeballs fell off.

Upon seeing that, Robyodov had another one of his feelings, and whimpered again.

A second later, the sergeant lunged and grabbed Commissar Tedostp by the throat with unbearly strength.

“ARMY OF ONE!”, he screamed, headbutting Tedostp. The Byzonist cried out some random ideological screed and began whacking the suddenly reanimated corpse with a piece of pipe he grabbed from the deck. Robyodov just backed away slowly, trying to remember which way led to the REVENGEANCE PODS, quite content to leave the two idiots to their struggles.

The Commissar managed to break himself free of the zombie-bear’s grip, however, and lunged for his beating stick. He could see the Byzonist sail majestically through the air and slam into the wall, buckling one of the Bragsteel supports on impact, followed by a cry of SEMPER PARAPEFETUS.

The Commissar rose. His beating stick crackled with radioactivity, and glowed white-hot from the unstable isotopes within its miniature subnuclear reactor.

Avoiding another bear-hug from the dead sergeant, Tedostp took a mighty swing and split the sergeant’s skull open with one terrifying blow, while yelling an utterly incomprehensible amalgam of Byzonist screeds.

The zombie’s skull blew apart. Chunks of boiled bear-brain splattered on the walls, making Robyodov shudder yet again - as if he didn’t have enough of a reason to...

But something else also happened. The corpse, now missing one head, was still standing. Worse: it began to quiver and shake, unnaturally, before tearing itself apart with a vomit-inducing sound of ripping flesh. Out of the horrible wounds in the abdomen, out of the visible neck arteries... scarabs began pouring out. The Commissar gasped in shock. The Byzonist zealot looked like he was about to vomit.

Robyodov didn’t even flinch: in an instant, he moved from a standing start to a full run back down the corridor they came from. Tedostp and the Byzonist both hesistated for a moment, but took no chances - taking example from the most sensible bear in the pack, they ran as well.

I need a byzondamned vacation, was Robyodov’s thought as he hauled ass down the ruined corridors of the gunskimmer, Why the hell do I keep getting into those things, anyway?

There was only one way out, one path through the corridors, which he took. He ran as fast as he could, lungs burning, panting through his snout and booted feet clanging against the steel flooring. Behind him, he could hear the two follow his lead, and further behind them... the tide of scarabs.

Robyodov went around another one of the corridors’ infinite turns, but stopped immediately.

“Shits!” he cursed. He collapsed to his knees. “Fucks!”

The corridor in front of him ended. Not in a dead end, no. It was simply gone. Replaced by a massive chasm. The thorium they had dumped a while ago had melted through so many sublevels, even the one they were on now, eating through the ceiling and the flooring and accumulating somewhere below them on the lower levels thanks to artificial gravity - literally creating a pit of radioactive materials. They could not cross it without jumping into a pool of thorium.

“Shitfucks!” Robyodov shouted again. Just then, the Byzonist arrived behind him.

“Noooo!” the Byzonist screamed as he saw the thorium pit. He gnashed his teeth and looked up into the air. “My Imperator, my Imperator! Why has thou forsaken me! I mean, us!”

The pitter-patter of a thousand tiny little feet belonging to horrific little robot monstrosities out to strip the flesh off their bone grew louder and louder.

But then, something else. The clang of the Commissar’s ideologically correct face-stomping boots.

“O yea of little faith!” Commissar Tedostp admonished them, once more quoting the sayings of Byzon. “Ask and yea shall receive!”

He pulled out his beating-stick. For a not-so-brief moment, Robyodov wondered if the Commissar had gone mad, if he was intending to make a last ditch stand against the scarabs by beating them with his stick. But then....

The Commissar pressed a button on his beating-stick. There was a snap, the barbs on the sides of the stick snapped outwards. Then, with another button-press, the pronged head of the beating-stick launched into the air - trailing a cord of Bragsteel cable behind it. The grappling beating-stick hooked on to a twisted bulkhead above them, its electrificating brag-prod turning into a powerful electromagnet.

“Hang on,” the Commissar said as, with a big embrace, he grabbed on to his two wayward prodigals. “Here we go!”

Robyodov closed his eyes as they jumped over the pit. It was now a matter of faith, faith in his Commissar who previously had been screaming like a furless cub. Faith in Byzon, in whose name Robyodov’s bruised head had received countless stickbeatings. The Byzonist with them clinged tightly on the Commissar’s greatcoat.

The scarabs behind them tried to jump after them, only to fall into the thorium and burn.

Then Robyodov felt the sensation of falling.

Oh no.

“OH BYZON I’M ON FIRE!” the Byzonist screamed. Robyodov opened his eyes and he saw his plucky ragtag fanatic-companion rolling on the floor as though engulfed in flames. He looked back and saw that they were on the other side of the thorium pit. Though the Byzonist was not really on fire at all, the Commissar nonetheless administered first aid stickbeating to extinguish his panic. “Oh... we’re okay.”

“Not for long,” Robyodov said, pointing back to the other side. The scarabs were coming closer, despite the gap of the pit. They were attaching to each other and forming a makeshift bridge!

“Quick, here comrades!” the commissar shouted behind him. With unbragulan strength he ripped open a wall panelling, revealing something... a concealed hatch.

“What is that? Where did that come from? That wasn’t in the floor plans!” Robyodov said. From where did the commissar pull his hatch from?

“It is secret commissar access hatch!” Tedospt replied as he, the Byzonist and Robyodov squeezed into the miniature turboliftalator inside the convenient commissar compartment. “For commissars to make quick getaway if crew mutinies and he needs to gas entire compartment from safety!”

Tedostp slotted the tip of his beating stick into a keyhole and turned it. Their turboliftor closed and with a vwoop delivered them somewhere...somewhere there were sounds, sound of Bragulan speech and barked orders.

For a split-second, flashes of terrible future rolled before Robyodov’s eyes, where he was drafted (again) into a ship defence party with only a k-bolter and sent off to die. It only lasted so short because the Comissar opened the shutter and jumped out, straight onto the bridge - to captain Syiegiel’s major surprise.



“Commissar! You are alive!” Captain Syiegel shouted as he brushed past crewman Fukeseyev, who was manning (bearing) a B-NET heavy K-bolter.

“Da! Soulless robotoid grit and utter disregard for pain, as well as swarms of terrible flesh-rending drones were no match for an agent of the Commissariat!”

Robyodov’s snicker was, fortunately, not heard by anyone important - maybe because the poor crewbear was trying to extricate himself from the tight and cramped mini-turboliftalator.

“And what of our bait?”

“It’s, ah, secure.”, Tedostp did not mention by whom, for he did not know, and the Commissars never lied!

“By whom?”, the captain asked, making Tedostp curse under his breath, but immediately after he waved his paw dismissively, “Doesn’t matter, anyway. We are preparing the ship for self-destruct.”

Robyodov’s visions of horrible death in various shapes came back immediately.

“Why?!”, the crewman spat. At least launch the REVENGEANCE PODS!!!, his subconscious was screaming, Preferably with me inside one!

The captain shot Robyodv a look and then returned his attention to the Commissar, “The cruiser has arrived and is powering towards us at full thrust. We are going to damage that fiendish murdership and set it up for them to kill!”

“But WHY?!”, Robyodov couldn’t help himself. Surely, the cruiser had enough firepower to easily deal with the robotoid ship? Or was the tiny vessel so full of murder that it could deal with a Bragulan cruiseroid, too?

“Commissar, why don’t you find Crewman Nefartnyi something to do?”, Syiegiel growled, “He’s getting on my nerves.”

Tedostp turned around and waved his stick around, “Shut up, Robyodov.”

The most nefartnyi crewman aboard one of the most nefartnyi gunskimmers whimpered, but didn’t say another word. He noticed a runner arrive at the bridge, screaming something about the murderbot boarding parties retreating. The captain turned to one of his underlings and nodded. The underling pressed a gigantic, red button on his console.

Robyodov whimpered again.

***

Picture by Darkevilme

Today Is Bragsday, bridge

The sleek and nimble - by Bragulan standards, of course - cruiser was powering across the system on its enormous atomic thrusters. It had received a distress call from the Bragnum Force an hour ago, and immediately went to hyperflight in an attempt to catch the insipid robotoid ship.

Its captain cared little about the puny gunskimmer and its crew: having lost many cubs of his in these constant skirmishes. Now that he had the advantage, he had every intention of blowing the Collectoroids to tiny little pieces.

“All missile tubes ready!”, the chief in charge of the weapons station reported dutifully, right on time, as dramatic considerations required. Every crewmember on the bridge could feel the mighty machineries cycling gigantic Spud missiles into their launch tubes, ready to load fresh missile within seconds of the first salvo launching. The Bragnum Force was growing larger and larger on the telescreens, and soon buzzers would announce they were in range...

Suddenly, there was a flash. A blast of light and radioactivity, tremendous tremor in the aether that every Bragulan navy bear knew: it was the blast of overloading subnuclear reactors.

The captain wouldn’t waste time watching the detonation or mourning the dead crew on the gunskimmer. For all he knew, the Collectoroid ship still lived.

The buzzers started buzzing. A crewman pressed a button.

And there were many missiles.

[PeZook]

Unnamed System, Sector C-6
Unreal Time

Still, it did not retreat for it had a Duty. It diverted all power to its transmitters, hoping to be heard over the cacophony produced by the Monolith. Then, it sent out a message on all channels.

“Who are you? We need to talk.”

Unnamed System, Sector C-6
Unreal Time

The Monolith was hardly surprised to have found something. If anything, its intellect could be said to get excited at the prospect of analyzing the strange new uncatalogued ship it encountered.

Still, while initial sensor returns from the Resolution were quite interesting, and the mighty vessel would love to bring it aboard and tear out its secrets, its strategic analysis routines informed that it would be more reasonable, for the entire Collective, to lower the priority of direct data-gathering in favor of...diplomacy.

While Monoliths were definitely behemoth warships, they also housed some of the most powerful AI cores in the Collective. Far from narrowly specialized minds flying its parasite craft, the Monolith was a fully competent agent of its nation, and thus given wide leeway over handling certain situations.

Most of the time it just didn't care enough for such niceties ; But today, it was intrigued.

It had therefore transmitted the following message, in a very compact form machine language allowed, We are representatives of the Collective, and came here to investigate signals of politicl entity known as 'The Lost'. Your vessel matches profiles acquired from other sources. Therefore it is assumed you carry the agents left here to undertake first contact.

We are here. You may commence your mission.

[Force Lord]

Center of Foreign Affairs, Central City
Centrum, The Center Sector
The Centrality

The New Humanist

Breaking news from the Office of Foreign Relations in Elysion city. An assassination attempt on Director Amos Bowman took place today at 1:00 PM Elysion Standard Time as the director was leaving for a meeting with the federal government. The blast killed 5 and wounded 15 in what was an apparent suicide bombing. Unnamed sources claim that the bomb was surgically inserted in the attacker's body. The New Humanist can confirm that Director Bowman was injured in the blast and rushed to Admiral Fischer Memorial Hospital in the aftermath; his current status is unknown. This attack comes on the tail-end of week-long protests over the government's recent decision to normalize relations with the Centrality, perceived by many to be an anti-humanitarian action. Major Gunderson of the FCPS had this to say following the attack.

"At this point in time, the FCPS can confirm that a suicide bombing occurred in front of the Office of Foreign Relations. The apparent target was Director Amos Bowman. Director Bowman was admitted to the hospital briefly after the incident. It is unclear at this point who precipitated this cowardly attack. The FCPS is working in cooperation with the DII to bring the perpetrators responsible to a swift and merciless justice."

It is unclear at this point who is responsible for the attack. Unnamed sources within the FCPS has speculated that the terrorist Syndicalist Worker's Front, who are known for surgically-installed suicide bombs, may be responsible. The Syndicalist Worker's Party, which has organized numerous protests following negotiations with the Centrality, have publicly denounced the attacks, claiming that "[the bombing] is an attack of attempted murder incompatible with syndicalism."

More on this story as it develops.

"Blasted terrorists. This is not good news," remarked Ravin Nostrum as he saw the report.

"It was inevitable. The Humanists cannot satisfy everyone at the same time, to the point some resort to violence. The fact that the average man on the HU's streets all but despises us is not a pleasant fact. It is a good fortune we're dealing with Humanists instead of those Syndicalist rabble," said Tagdef Borlon.

"But how can we deal with this?"

"We do nothing overt. We'll simply send a secret message to their Office of Foreign Affairs saying 'We condemn this attack and we express our sadness at the loss of life' and nothing else, or we risk internal instability in the HU, and so jeopardize the treaty."

"What about LeakyDicks?."

Borlon scoffed. "I'd worry more about a pro-Syndicalist HU government clerk leaking our message to their news networks than those fools at LeakyDicks. The latter have already made too many powerful enemies. You worry too much about them, my friend."

"If you say so, sir."

[Darkevilme]

Hierarchy Palace, Chamarra Prime

Four catgirls, fourteen cushions and a round table for drinks. These are the things that can control the fate of worlds.

“So good of you to join us Melusine.”

“You have my gratitude for allowing me audience your majesty.”

“Call me Kara please, you knew me before my mother's death after all, wine?”

“Please. And very well Kara.” Melusine shifted mildly uneasy, between them these three sisters had so much control over the Hierarchy it was almost palpable in the room and it was only reminding herself that as the traditional overral leader of the battlegroups she was at least within pouncing distance of an equal that allowed her to keep as comfortable as she was. A moment passed as drinks were served and then the servers had withdrawn to the edges of the room then conversation picks up again.

“You look troubled Melusine, are you well?” Mela asked

“Yes, I just have not rested easy while waiting to voice my proposal.”

“Well then I hope you will forgive us Melusine, but these little chats we have normally start with current events and the state of the Hierarchy.” Kara says and then turns to Mela “For instance, the research budget sister. We're on the run up to a major war and you're opening a whole new and expensive project.”

“I sent you a report Kara. It's necessary we have a reliable weapon against these new beings called The Lost or it will hurt our position in dealings with them.” Mela replied and added “You saw that new defence they had. And besides, our research budget is still sub par compared to other nations and we cannot lean on Juggernaught derived technologies forever, the galaxy will soon catch up and over take us even if there weren't new and advanced aliens like the Lost appearing all the time.”

Kara appeared somewhat mollified with regards to whether the new research was necessary but Tia appeared to have her own objections to Mela
“Mela, forgive me sister but I think the demand for a research budget increase is the least of your wrongdoings since we last talked. Could you please tell me what possessed your ship in sector C-6 to attack and attempt to steal the vessels of a nation we know next to nothing about?”

“Ambition, had it gone off without revealing her presence we would of gained a host of information on The Lost especially some of their technology and I believe you would not be making a fuss had it succeeded.” Mela replied, tail swishing.

“And yet it was risky, fool-hardy and likely has revealed our involvement putting us at risk of a diplomatic incident. This means once again this year I'm resolving trouble you caused sister.” chides Tia in response, earning a contrite look from Mela.
“Sorry sis.”

“Umm if I may be so bold as to turn the topic to the impending massive war against the MEH?” Melusine said seeking to distract and defuse the conversation and then resists the urge to shrink back at the way they all turned to look at her in surprise, Melusine's uneasy growing until Kara nods assent.
“Very well then.” her majesty said.
“If you will forgive me Kara, I would like to inquire as to how soon it will be before we can provide munitions and supplies to our Bragulan allies. Their supply train is so long that if hostilities go awry they may be unable to press home their advantage mid offensive due to lack of resources. Having a source of war material closer to the front would greatly ease that burden. You do remember this do you not?” Melusine asked, worried for a moment that perhaps Kara had neglected to act on her request from earlier.
“I remember Melusine, I presented the idea to the council a couple of months back. However...they don't believe based on politics in the galaxy that said war will last very long, retooling production to support a transitory need didn't sound profitable to them.”
“So they're not getting them?” Melusine asked worriedly, she'd consulted with the Bragulans and while they hadn't SAID they needed more supplies she'd had some of her staff look into it.
“Actually they are, and so are we.” Kara says and tail flicks “I had to agree that the royal munition depots would stockpile a quite large supply over the next few years in order for there to be enough demand to justify the retooling.”

“So you're telling me in addition to vast stockpiles of our own ordinance we're now going to be stockpiling ammunition and spare parts which our fleet has no use for?”

“Yes. Makes me almost wish that war would bring the Bragulans to this side of the galaxy again just so we'd have a use for such supplies.” Kara says, still tail flicking at the concession she'd made “On the plus side the clans feel confident they can produce vast quantities of starship calibre K-bolter rounds and a nuclear missile re-sized for the smaller bragulan launchers and cluster delivery that will act as a substitute for Bragulan ordinance.”

“Well that's something at least, I know Bragulans feel more comfortable the more liberally they can use their weapons.” Melusine said and smiled a little before moving on to the most important subject of this conversation, at least as far as she was concerned “While this will help the Bragulans prosecute this war against the MEH I believe our own forces require urgent correction of some deficiencies that recent exercises have highlighted, this is what my proposal is regarding.”

“Explain battlemistress, and tell me why we didn't catch these problems sooner.” Kara said, settling in comfortably as Melusine once again became unsettled by being made the center of attention.

“The reason it wasn't apparent before now is that we have not conducted operations on the scale of our exercises with the Bragulans for centuries. If the problem was small a patrol group or individual ship would deal with it and if it was larger they'd call in a battlegroup. Operations involving multiple patrol groups or multiple battlegroups just haven't happened in the Hierarchy, our long period of peaceful relations has spoiled us in this sense.” Melusine said and waited until she got a nod before continueing into the problem itself.

“The problem we have found is simple, our ability to coordinate battlegroups is extremely poor. Should we commit our battlegroups to the war against the MEH casualties could be as bad as they were in the second exercise we had with the Bragulans playing OPFOR. We lost all but a few cruisers there. The Bragulans fucking laughed and sent us several shuttles full of Byzonist literature as a consolation prize.”

“This is troubling news Melusine. You're saying we cannot commit our battlegroups to the operation against the MEH?” Kara asked.

“I'm saying that I cannot in good conscience recommend such an action unless urgent action is undertaken to correct this problem and prepare for the coming offensive.” Melusine replied.

“Very well what do you propose?”

“While it is conceivable and indeed likely that with Bragulan help our 3 battlegroups involved in the current exercise will form a cohesive force the remaining four will require exercises of their own so we can prosecute the war against the MEH using full force without disgracing the Hierarchy. Therefore my proposal is the immediate issue-ance of a royal edict commencing such exercises for the 1st, 5th, 6th and 7th battlegroups inside Hierarchy space.” Melusine finishes and waits for an answer, watching Kara deep in thought.

“I am giving you a provisional yes Melusine, I trust you when you say the issue is as bad as you say. However it is provisional on our supply of training supplies being sufficient for the exercises, should they be sufficient you will have your edict.” Kara answers with a smile.

“My thanks majesty, although in all honesty should supplies prove insufficient I would settle for conducting more limited exercises.” Melusine replied with a smile of her own, ears perked happily.

“You probably would, you are truly an asset to the Hierarchy Melusine and let no one tell you different.” And after those words from Kara the conversation found itself drifting to more mundane matters.

[Siege]

Thunderhead City, Crystal Palace
United Solarian Sovereignty



The man in the black suit hurried through the deserted street, sparing only a moment every hundred yards or so to throw a worried glance over his shoulder as if he were afraid he was being followed. But the street remained empty, filled only by an illusion of movement as flickering neon and the strange orange hues of the gas giant's upper atmosphere blended together to throw weirdly dancing shadows across the ceramic pavement. Still the man in the black suit didn't seem convinced, and kept up his pace.

A thin, jittering whine echoed through the street, unwholesome and mechanical and somehow hungry. Some of the shadows seemed to blur, the complex interactions of natural and artificial light abruptly but only momentarily distorted. The man in the black suit uttered a panicked curse and reached into his jacket to produce a flat, mean-looking pistol and a handful of battery-sized cylinders.

Looking over his shoulder once more he futilely tried to track the distorted blur as it janked and waved through the street behind him. Were there two now? He began to sweat and threw one of the small cylinders into the street behind him. It skipped once, twice on the pavement and then detonated in a brilliant flash of impossible light.

The man blinked rapidly, his ocular implants adjusting to compensate the dazzler. There! He could see, very briefly, two spheres where light itself seemed to writhe impossibly around points in space that were themselves concealed from view.

The man in the black suit cursed again. Scatterscreens. Already his pursuers were adjusting the fields of force that removed them from view; soon they would be invisible again. Growling, he aimed his sidearm and loosed a volley at the rapidly fading garbled spheres. Bright laserlight stitched through the street; where it connected with one of the spheres it simply vanished, but the man was rewarded by a thin, aggressive drone. For the briefest of moments the scatterscreen vanished and the man in the black suit caught a glimpse of his pursuers -- a weird rounded body with a shiny, metallic blue-green exoskeleton encasing it, three pairs of mechanical compound eyes and three muscular legs attached to its sides and back. The creature didn't appear to be damaged, looking for all the world more annoyed than impaired. Then it abruptly vanished from sight.

The man in the black suit blinked rapidly to clear the sweat from his eyes. Hunter synths. Shits. He turned and ran again. Two more streets. With a little bit of luck he could still make it.

The jittering whine came again, and a volley of fléchettes darted through the street, narrowly missing the man in the black suit and shattering a shop front window instead. The man ducked into another street, and the invisible synths followed behind him. He tried his radio for the so-manieth time, and like before got nothing but static. He was being jammed. It was worse than that, he realized: the total lack of any ground traffic meant his opponents - whoever they really were - had hacked their way into local control and were routing traffic around this level of the city.

From the corner of his eye the man in the black suit saw a blur of movement and with the honed reflexes of a trained operator he threw himself flat. Something invisible but undoubtedly sharp and lethal hissed through the empty space where his neck had been a moment before. As he the man caught his fall and rolled in the opposite direction the stealthed synth had been moving he felt static electricity crawl over his skin as he passed through the outskirts of the scatterscreen. He loosed three more desperate shots and continued his run, randomly scattering the remainder of the dazzler microgrenades around him.

Brilliant otherworldly light flashed through the street, once more disrupting the force screens of his hidden enemies. They were close now, far too close. One of them dashed toward him and took a slash in his direction, one of the two psi-blades mounted on its small mechanical limbs glittering as it swung at his legs. The man edged away and shot the thing in one of its compound eyes, eliciting a shrill electronic howl from the creature.

Not waiting for its pack to catch up, the man raced around another corner. He could almost taste the hope. Just a few more meters. He could make it.

But there was the whine again. Something blurred past him and the man stumbled when he felt a sharp pain in his side. He dropped the gun. Reaching around, he found a jagged rent in his black jacket, warm with a trickle of blood and something else. He struggled to keep his footing. Emergency warnings crawled across his retina, informing him that his CNS was under attack from a virulent microphage. He heard the shrill howl of the Hunters again, but this time it was more than just audible - he could feel the synth's hunting cry beat through his bloodstream.

The Hunters were trying to hack his nervous system. And his own combat-grade augmetics were failing to keep up with the malignant molecular machines rampaging through his body. The man in the black suit reeled as his muscles suddenly seemed filled with molasses.

Then he was at the safehouse. He fell through the force-screened door, recognition systems automatically identifying him as an access-rated agent. Behind him, defensive systems snapped on as advanced sensors attempted to track the aggressors. The man in the black suit struggled to keep his footing but his legs cramped up and he tumbled to the carpeted floor. Emergency messaged scrolled in red across the back of his eyes: CNS compromised. Frontal lobe compromised. ICF compromised. Insular cortex compromised.

Fire seemed to fill his stomach and lungs, making breathing difficult. The light dimmed as he hit the emergency beacon and reached frantically for something inside his jacket.

Parietal lobe compromised. Fiberoptic commissures compromised. Central implant control compromised. Pre-emptive shutdown of mental and somatic functions in 3... 2... 1...

The man in the black suit collapsed on the floor as his heart stopped beating. A moment later the mortuary enzymes CEID introduced in all its field agents kicked in and his body began to rapidly dissolve, leaving behind only the black suit, and the single object that had been tucked away inside his jacket.

The Property of an Apexai

[Tanasinn]

Elysion City, Elysion
Humanist Union

Being in the presence of the Coordinator was, for a citizen of the Union, intimidating. Here was a man that had survived countless assassination attempts, who had defied the civil war's stunning lethality at the front lines, who had not only survived the post-war chaos but literally pulled a nation together from the very thoroughly ruined remnants of a dead one. Physically, he wasn't that impressive of a man - just shy of six feet, mostly bald, thoroughly unremarkable brown eyes, not given to exaggerated expressions - but he managed to make one tense nonetheless. Worse, considering the gravity of the recent bombing attack. Lieutenant Director Daniel Bryan found himself sitting up straighter and behaving more self-conciously in spite of himself. For a member of the Department of Internal Intelligence (let alone someone of his position), this would be funny.

The same effect didn't seem to exist for Daniel's superior - Agatha Masterson, the Director - but then, Daniel privately thought that she was no more human than a storefront mannequin.

Stein didn't bother with pleasantries, speaking immediately as the two senior intelligence analysts took their seats, "What do you have for me?"

Daniel was giving to snarking, even with Director Masterson, but even he couldn't bring himself to say something out of turn here. Masterson spoke, "Precious little - it's only just over a week and a half, Roland. What we do have is...interesting."

Daniel didn't need Director Masterson to look his way to know that was his cue, activating the table's holo-display and simultaneously sliding a report across to Stein, "The suicide bomber is one Harland Joyce - we managed to identify him by film and a few teeth. Tentative reconstruction efforts so far do point to a body-implant bomb, as speculated. As the Coordinator doubtless knows, this is the trademark of the Syndicalist Worker's Front."

"But you don't think they were involved," Stein said, easily reading the younger man.

"It's somewhat early to say, as Director Masterson said, but no. Joyce, from what we can tell, was apolitical - low-level paper-pusher in a local shipping company, born on New Britain, moved frequently. Age 38. No family, no close friends. Owned a dog and a cat. Apartment block manager says he was a fairly bland individual. Pulling his GalNet surfing records shows an unusual interest in Chamarran pornography and some 'War Stars' film series, but little else. The fact that his computer is infected with several hostile programs disinclines me to think he's cunningly masking his 'real browsing.' Voting record meanders betweeen the Socialist Party and the NHPP. In short, Mr. Joyce was in no way the typical syndicalist bomb-thrower, and doesn't appear to even have contact with legitimate syndicalists save, perhaps, coworkers. We did recover some of that packet he was waving - it's The New Worker's Manifesto, a piece by the Syndicalists for Democracy. This group is, in fact, connected to syndicalist terrorism, but he doesn't appear to have been a member in any real sense of the word."

At this point, Director Masterson spoke up again, "A member of the Syndicalists for Democracy reports that he attended three meetings, asked no questions, and purchased a copy of the manifesto, thereafter ceasing attendance."

Daniel nodded before continuing, "It's possible that his views were radically shifted by these meetings, but our source reports that Joyce showed no interest in the speakers at the meetings and those that knew him report no change in his behavior leading up to the incident. We risked contact with our agents in the Workers' Front and, as far as they can tell, there's confusion in the lower-ranking officers over the incident. This does not mean, however, that he wasn't authorized at a higher level."

The Coordinator frowned, pinching the bridge of his nose as if to ward off a headache, "The DII suspects some larger scheme at play, then," he said, correctly.

"Yes," Masterson said, "We believe the Workers' Front's standard MO of attacking high priority targets whenever possible is being used as a cover for a more specific goal, possibly entirely unrelated to the treaty with the Centrality."

"I trust you will find out who is responsible," Stein said. It was an order.

[Beowulf]

Midgar Warp Gate
Shinra Republic

The Type 25 warship K-54642 Cloak and Dagger came through the warp gate with ease. It was expected, after all. It was remarkable only for being one of the new Taikongjun micro-carriers, outwardly identical to all others of the Type 22 class. It bore a message to the government of the Republic, as well as for the ambassador from Tianguo. These messages were related, and were a result of a recent operation by the Shinra Republic Navy. Having safely delivered both to the Tianguo embassy, it set off on another mission.

That mission required it to disappear. And so it did, as it made it's way to MEH space. The key difference between the Type 25 and the Type 22 was the installation of significant amounts of signature dampening equipment. It, and it's parasite craft, made a good approximation of a hole in space.

[fgalkin]

The Bragulan Economic Exposition Extravaganza of Friendship (BEEEF)
Vlyadibragstok, Southeastern Severnaya Sector / just beyond Northwestern Lena Sector
Unreal Time / October-December 3400




The Lost pavilion was, arguably, among the strangest at the BEEEF. Located deep inside the bragbunker, the building within a building was covered by tens of thousand of short metallic tentacles, ever shifting and changing. In their constant motions arcane figures appeared and disappeared, drawing unnerved glances from all passersby. There was no visible entrance, and diplomatic trade liaison Zygrv spent a few moments being quite perplexed, wondering if this was some sort of practical joke by the Lost (and whether the Bragulan Empire would have to drop a moon on their homeworld, too, to teach them that Byzonism was no joking matter) when the metallic tentacles moved aside, revealing a large opening.

Zygrv found the whole thing rather creepy, but he was , of course, really an IBGV agent and IBGV agents feared nothing, so he merely cursed under his breath and walked in.



Then, he cursed again, for he found himself transported into the frozen radioactive tundras of Vlyadibragstok! He looked around in confusion, wondering what had happened, when he realized it was merely more Lost dickery, for it if it was the actual tundra, it must have been the most pleasantly cool tundra in the galaxy, and Zygrv knew that it was most assuredly not the case. Still, it was most impressive, for somehow the Lost had managed to make their building bigger on the inside than the outside! Zygrv was still pondering that when a red door appeared, right in the middle of the tundra. The IBGV agent scratched his head in confusion, cursed again, and walked through it.

He entered a surprisingly cozy office—wooden walls blending in nicely with the old-fashioned furniture. There was even a Bragulan telescreen in the corner by the fireplace, which was a source of the most delicious smells. The idyllic picture reminded Zygrv of his own winter dacha in the frozen wastes of Bolshiye Govnoyedy, but he quickly quelled that thought, for the locations of IBGV dacha villages were a tightly kept secret and he had no idea if these mysterious alienoids were reading his mind. Then, he noticed something that was quite unthinkable in an IBGV dacha—a purple-skinned daemonoid wearing a Byzantine commissar’s uniform. From his briefings he knew that this was “Emissary Shroom” the Lost ambassador. He greeted her.

“Welcome, comrade!” the daemonoid ambassador smiled at him, then walked over to the telescreen and began prying off the armored bragglass screen with a large screwdriver, grunting in truly Byzonist effort. Eventually, she had succeeded, revealing the naked cathode ray tube, and a gently steaming bowl placed in front of it.

“The finest beefs!” Shroom proclaimed. “Flash-cooked by your own nuclear bragmines and re-heated in your own telescreen. Here, have a taste.”

Zygrv was quite suspicious and paranoid of poisons and drugs, not to mention the rather obvious radioactivity, but, not wishing to offend the alienoid ambassador (for perhaps this was some daemonoid ritual of hospitality) he dutifully accepted the bowl and took a bite. To his surprise, the pork was indeed quite heavenly, in fact, the most delicious he had ever tasted, and not even the extreme radioactivity could detract from its amazing taste. Despite himself, he took another bite, and then another until the bowl was empty.

“I must say that your BEEEF is indeed a most excellent event,” Shroom continued as the Bragulan was eating. “Already, we have met more people than we did in the past millennium. And there are so many new things for us to discover. Take, for example, your drink called tsvagna. What a magnificent taste! What mighty kick!” she pulled out a bottle from a drawer in her desk and took out a pair of tall glasses. “Truly, it is a drink worthy of such a mighty people!” she opened the bottle and poured the drink.

“To your Imperator Byzon!” she raised her glass. Zygrv, like most IBGV agents and other Bragulan party functionaries preferred the much less dangerous bragvodka, but he could not refuse to toast the Imperator, of course, and so he raised his own glass. “To Byzon! May His foot stomp on the face of humanity forever!” They drank.

“Hmmmm….” Shroom mused as she sat down behind her desk while the Bragulan took his seat in front of it. “This one needs more battery acid. What do you think?”

Zygrv considered it. To him, the tsvagna tasted like any other, a horrid mess of deadly chemicals and 100 proof alcohol, but he could not, of course admit this to the alienoid. “Nyet. To put more battery acid is to ruin taste, the subtle interaction between the alcohol and the jet fuel. Not good at all.”

“But I thought the battery acid was the most important of the secondary ingredients, and the jet fuel was only there for extra kick?”

“In inferior tsvagnas, da, that is true,” Zygrv, said, refusing to be stumped. “But the truly great tsvagna uses only the finest quality petrochemicals, and there is nothing like the sensation of excellent kerosene going down your throat. There is old samogon recipe kept in my family, it uses adds just a touch of liquefied vespene gas. It is great for taste. I will get you some, da.”

In reality, the “old family recipe” was made by a factory on Bolshaya Chernovyi for the consumption of proletarians in unskilled occupations who did not need brain cells in excess of those required to perform their duties, which usually were nothing more than 20 hour shifts in massive assembly lines. Of course, the alienoid ambassador did not know that, and perhaps the massive casualties of her own braincells would make her more amenable in negotiations. Da, it was a good plan, for these alienoids were clearly much too clever for their own good. If they all killed off their braincells, maybe the Bragulans won’t have to kill them by dropping a moon on their world.

Shroom, oblivious to the diplomat’s nefarious thoughts merely thanked him, and, at long last, finally got to business.

"As agreed upon by the diplomatic communiques between our nations, Bragule shall provide the Lost with even more supplemental Byzonist literatures and other approved works of Bragulanity," said diplomatic trade liaison Zygrv. "In celebration of the impressive feat of your Spheroid of Exclusion in redirecting the Spud, the technicians and operators of the Spud have been compelled to labor in replacing the Bragcrete bricks of their silo, piece for piece, with thick steel-bound Byzonist books for your perusal."

"Bragule is also prepared to pay a handsome fee for samples of your orichalcum and Spheroids of Exclusion, in the interest of promoting internationalism, glasnot and bragstroika," he continued. "As the Lost has recognized the mightiness of Bragule and its cultural and intellectual superiority to all its other neighbors in the entire galaxy, Bragule welcomes the Lost as a comrade-nation and likewise applauds its sensibility and wisdom in recognizing and appreciating the unmatchable brilliance of Imperator Byzon - the Great Architect of Galactic Civilization.

"Truly, for the Lost considers all other nations communicated with thusfar as unworthy of any true cultural exchange between your people and those of the rest of the galaxy due to certain aspects of your species before recognizing the resonance of true Byzonism, this speaks grandly of the nature of your species if the inherent self-evident nature of Byzonism moves you as it did the moon of Bolshaya Chernovyi. This in turn makes the Lost stand out amongst the humanoid Phillistines and other intellectually challenged non-Byzonic species to Bragule. Da.

"Thus in light of this, as gesture of goodwill Bragule will give the Lost detailed information on the foulest traitor known as Yekhov Nayumoivych Pokhys, dissident hate-writer and contemptible conniving capitalist creative contributor person to the most depraved Solarianoid program known as Animal House. This information available nowhere else in galaxy, comrades."

And there's more where that comes from, was the unspoken implication.

Da.

They seem to be quite upset about the SPUD test , Shroom thought. I wonder why?. But she said something else entirely.

“My dearest comrade Zygrv,” she beamed at the bear sitting across from her. “On behalf of the Lost, I thank you profoundly for your most generous gifts, and I have one of my own. As a token of our friendship and goodwill, the Lost will give you a ton of orichalcum, absolutely free of charge. That should be enough for, I’d say around nine thousand individual wards. Here,” she pulled out a large wooden box from a drawer in her desk. Shroom opened it, revealing three large wards, each shaped from a strange gold-colored metal. “Each one of these wards protects against a different type of psychic intrusion. This,” she pointed to one, “protects against direct mentalic actions such mind-reading, while this one prevents metacognitive from perceiving your action. The last one limits the psyker’s ability to manipulate the physical universe, blocking things like telekinesis, pyrokinesis, or the psychic augmentation of one’s physical abilities. You may study them as you wish. The rest of the orichalcum will be shaped according to your specifications, whether into individual protective wards, or larger wards for the protection of buildings and starships. There are almost ten thousand possible wards, and we will choose the ones most suitable for your needs, and then deliver the finished product to you within, say, three week’s time? There will be samples of other exotic minerals, as well. Perhaps some of them will be of use to you. More tsvagna?” she offered. Zygrv shook his head. He had no intention of going blind in front of an alienoid ambassador. Shroom shrugged and downed another glass.

“The Sphere of Exclusion, is, unfortunately, a different matter entirely. We can give it to you, yes, but the price will be rather high. Do you have, for example, information on how and why the Central Alliance ended up arriving in our galaxy? Besides, it is more than just a device you can put on your ship, and suddenly you can stomp on reality like you do on the faces of puny humans. You need advanced power generators, and electrical systems to match and heat sinks to deal with the heat and many other things. Not to mention an advanced understanding of advanced physics, so you don’t accidentally erase your own ship from existence. We can give you all these things, of course. You use fusion to power your ships, yes? What would you say, for example, to generators that draw energy from another dimension? It would reduce the need for fuels and ease the logistics burden on your fleet, yes? Or, what would you say to more orichalcum? You can have them, for a small favor. I have noticed, for example, that you have become quite friendly with the Refuge. The circumstances of their arrival are of some interest to us. We would be very grateful for any information you can provide for them. We are also interested in the MEH and their leader. It is a good trade, da? Information for technology you can use and improve upon and Byzonize and use to stomp on the faces of your enemies?”

“Oh, and I almost forgot, how very silly of me,” Shroom giggled. Perhaps, the tsvagna was beginning to affect her. “We appreciate the effort you have taken to arrange the materials we have asked for in a truly amazing display of Byzonic dedication. Unfortunately, our workers are not yet familiar with the amazing princples of Bragkhanovism and the glories of Byzonist proletarian labor. So, you can see the problem, yes? Our workers cannot perform Byzonist feats without being educated in Byzonism, but to do so, they will need to perform a Byzonist feat of retrieving the materials. Which they cannot do, because they cannot perform Byzonist feats. It is very sad, but we must ask your own heroic missile silo crew to replicate their amazing feat of Bragkhanovism and remove the books. Because surely, to deny the wisdom of Byzon to those who seek it is a most grave offense against the Imperator and the very universe itself, and that must be avoided at all costs, da?”

She beamed at the Bragulan representative and downed another glass of tsvagna as she awaited his response.


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

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Steve]

Larfield Convention and Resort Center, Halsing Beach
United Enclaves of Gilead, Hobbs, Sector X-13
18 August 3400

Druni had only heard stories of the Ladies of the Ebon Blade. They operated in the Outback and the other lawless regions, a secret society of torturers and assassins that kept their numbers up through the abduction of girls with Esper potential.
That she faced one now was terrifying. She tried to channel that terror, tightening her grip on her weapon and bringing it up into a defensive posture. But even as she did so she could feel the woman's mind poking into her's. The brunette's weapon was a blur as she struck out, forcing Druni to bring her's up in a wild defensive maneuver. "Dela Kutasi, and a very sloppy try at it," she cooed. "An Acolyte? Where is your trainer?"

Druni didn't answer. She made an attack swing that was easily blocked, after which her attacker made a swipe that sruck Druni's bare left arm and singed her blue skin to black. Druni hissed in pain and drew back. Seeing that her adversary thought her in the Order, Druni resolved on an attack plan and drew back, returning to her defensive stance.

Lady Tabitha toyed with the lovely Dorei girl, intending to finish her off in a moment if she couldn't find out where the young woman's training Knight was. Having the Silver Moon, or any of the Dorei Chivalric Orders, meddling in this operation was not to her liking.

Just as she was ready to deal a fatal blow, she got caught by surprise. Druni brought a hand up and a plume of flame erupted from it. Tabitha drew back just in time to avoid being savagely burned; her hands still took damage. As she tried to recover Druni let out a cry and channeled the electrical current of a nearby socket through her body and out to Tabitha. The electrical shocks were painful, though given her training Tabitha was well familiar with enduring electric shock. She fell back and slumped against the door. "Former Sister then," she muttered. "Kicked out for the forbidden arts. Interesting."

Druni didn't see the attack coming until it was too late. She was swinging her beamsaber down for the kill when Tabitha drew her agiel and pressed it to Druni's visible belly. The stimulator device caused the entirety of Druni's torso to erupt in pain, causing her to fall. A second touch of one on the back of her neck prompted a bloodcurdling scream.

Tabitha was already in her mind. Druni couldn't stop her from accessing myriad memories. Her morning with Nika, her training, her departure from the Order, everything. Once Tabitha had assured herself that Druni wasn't involved with her quarry she removed the agiel and left her. "I imagine the Jieshi men will be here shortly to take you prisoner," Tabitha said, taking Druni's beamsaber as she did so, "if they don't kill you outright. Take care, dear one. A shame we couldn't play more." She closed the door behind her as Druni struggled to get up and returned to her hunt.



When Liu and his friends barged into the room, weapons blazing, they expected return fire. They expected lightly-clad women to be shooting wildly at them, putting them at some risk but open to being shot.

They found neither.

Instead, there was a hole in the floor, circled by the marks of their rifles' beam-level fire. Shouting at his men, Liu went to the hole to jump through and pursue the women. His men coalesced around him to follow.

The office closet door flew open at that moment. "Surprise, mother fuckers!" Dani and Amber had their guns levelled and, with only a moment to spare, fired. Liu was the first to go down, his head incinerated, while his men each took direct hits by energy weapons.

The two looked over the dead bodies of the men and Dani took in a breath. For a moment, a brief moment, she began to feel terrible at having killed another person, but looking at Amber and their guns and remembering their situation quickly let her get over it. "Let's get down to where this Druni girl is," Danielle said. "The plans I saw place a server room in the area I can use."



In the confines of his room, Blue 4 was working his way through the resort security systems and, through them, those for Halsing Beach as a whole. The national security networks had cut off the virus by internal firewall when it was detected, containing it to just the city's systems, but that alone was bad enough. The local authorities had no communications available, nor an idea of what was actually going on. The likelihood that they would attempt a direct retaking of the resort, with the deaths of the Schweizers being the likely result, was thus too high to accept.

Thus Blue 4's main goal was to undermine the virus from within and ensure real-time intelligence made its way to the Halsing authorities, enough to know not to engage in rash action. As a CompInt, he was singularly suited for this task, able to think and act in code where an organic might have to add a step from thinking in his or her vernacular. Blue 4 allowed the virus into his programming, but only in a contained fashion. He felt it begin to try and rewrite him and, in doing so, learned how the code of the virus was written and acted in specific circumstances.

While he observed this, other parts of Blue 4's processing power went toward synthesizing an a specific anti-virus to be returned to the system.

As he did this work, Blue 4 noticed someone was tracing activity in the system. This seemed to be a standard sweep, so he took measures to avoid the detection by briefly isolating himself until the sweep had finished. Satisfied he had likely evaded detection, he continued working.

On the lower floors, Lady Tabitha stepped out of the server room, knowing just where to look for her target.



Nika was halfway down the tower when she found the next team, escorting a dozen or so hostages who had tried to hide in their rooms. Knowing a firefight would risk their lives, Nika kept her distance and decided to bypass them, though it meant losing time as she had to cut across the tower and get to the south stairwel;l.

Hearing a young girl crying, it reminded Nika of her childhood, of her father being yanked away by the secret police, to be returned weeks later badly beaten and ready to throw away everything he had in order to flee. She felt shame that she was letting another girl suffer the trauma of being accosted b armed men like this, but her mission came first. The Plan always had to come first.



Druni came to and found her rescuers still unconscious, but fine. She forced herself up and looked at her surroundings. Her beamsaber had been taken, she had no other weapons, and she was stiill in a building full of armed men.

She stepped out of the room and almost into an immediate death. At the last moment she felt a mind focusing on her image and pulled back, just as a bolt of energy lashed out. She cried out inadvertantly as the beam's light hurt her eyes and made her vision spotty. Losing her footing Druni stumbled backward into the storage closet she'd been in.

Her attackers, four in number, coalesced immediately. Druni's only weapon was her ESP, but that required concentration when her body still ached from Tabitha's agiels and her eyes saw only bright spots. She tried to focus and lash out with flame, but the result was barely a brief spark and plume before she lost her focus and the energy dissipated. She could barely see the barrels of the guns as they pointed at her.

"Hey assholes, over here!" The female voice was an unfamiliar one, but Druni was grateful for it working. The militants turned and were subjected to immediate fire. Two went down and the other two raced for cover.

The woman who approached Druni was an attractive Human with tanned skin. "You're the ESPer girl who talked to us?", she asked.

"I am."

"Call me Amber," she said. "Where is Sarina?"

"Your sister is here." Druni indicated the storage closet, the entrance of which she was kneeling in. "But she won't be safe here for long."

"We'll give them something else to worry about," Amber insisted. She yanked Druni in as weapons fire came her way. "Don't you have any abilities to help us with?"

"I'm disorientated right now," Druni muttered. "I was attacked by a Lady of the Ebon Blade."

"A who?"

"A... bad Esper woman." Druni stumbled to her feet. "We need to get going, before long they will begin killing hostages, and the Princess Sarisa is a dear friend of mine."

"Oh?" Amber looked at her curiously. 'How... dear?"

Sensing Amber's thought, Druni shook her head. "Not that kind of dear."

"Naughty naughty, looking in my head like that," Amber scolded her playfully.

"Amber! I could use some help!" The shout from outside prompted Amber to throw the door open. Dani was pinned in behind a nearby column, the two Jieshi advancing on her from two sides. One turned and fired at Amber and Druni again, forcing Amber down.

The moments had been enough for Druni to regain some strength, enough that she could attack from the distance. She focused her power into an imaginary tripwire in front of the gunman which he obliviously hit. As he tripped over Amber popped out and squeezed off a shot, striking him in the arm. "Disarmed him," she quipped aloud.

The quip drew the attention of the man's teammate, who turned to take another shot at Amber. This opened him up to Dani's range of fire, and she blasted him in the head. "Aww, he lost his head." She looked to Druni and Amber. "Dorei girl. Blue is one of my favorite complexions on a Dorei, you know. And Astra girls are dynamos in the sack."

"I am Tryni myself," Druni answered.

"Ah." Dani's grin grew wide. "Tryni girls, once you get them over those religious inhibitions, are really wild in the sack." That prompted a blush from Druni and a bewildered look from Amber, who nearly spoke before an affectionate hand settled on her posterior. "My poor lover Amber has never experienced trying to outwrestle a horny Dorei woman."

"And I think we have more important things to do than discuss your past romantic conquests, lover," Amber retorted. "Like getting to that server room and not getting killed."

Druni was kneeling beside the unconscious Jieshi man who'd been shot in the arm. She could feel his thoughts and memories. "And we need to hurry," she said to them. "Because their deadline is just an hour from now, and then they start killing hostages."

"First things first." Amber shut the door to the closet in which Sarina and Helena were laid out. She used her weapon's beam setting to melt the handle and latch in place. "Have to take care of my little sister," she explained to Druni, knowing Dani understood. "Now, let's get going."




Blue 4 had almost done it. He loaded the virus counter-measure into the system disguised as a minor program, in such a way that the virus's self-defense coding wouldn't cause it to isolate and delete the anti-viral. He still needed to release it, of course, but currently he was trying to set up the decoy anti-virals that would distract the virus long enough for the real one to do its work.

He had just set up the first one when he sensed his door opening. He reached for his sidearm and turned to defend himself. With Compint-speed he opened fire, just to find the bolts of energy swatted back at him by a pair of active beamsabers. One impacted on his android body's shoulder and another on the hip, causing damage to his mobility.

"There you are," Tabitha said, stepping in. She stretched her hand forward and the sidearm was pulled out of Blue 4's hand.

"Very well, I surrender," he said, hoping to pose as a potential hostage. He might yet be able to affect the situation positively and protect the Plan.

Instead of accepting the surrender, however, the woman jammed a rod up against his android form. For the first time in his existence, Blue 4 felt real pain, a pain that was not considered possible for a being like him. "I know what you are, CompInt," Tabitha whispered at him. "And I know how to make you feel agony."

"What do you want from me?", Blue 4 asked.

"I want to know whom you serve," Tabitha answered. "I know you are trying to protect the Grand Duchess of Tyconia; why? For whom?"

"I will divulge nothing," Blue 4 insisted. "And as I am a Computational Intelligence, your telepathy is useless."

"True. I can't wring it out of your brain," Tabitha conceded. But then she smiled wickedly. "However, I have more fun ways to make you talk."

Blue 4 knew he was doomed at that moment. Using his processing speed he immediately dispatched a text message to Green 20, complete with instructions on how to release the anti-viral. As Tabitha's weapon descended toward him, he activated his kill program.

The program, installed in all the higher ranks of Chroma CompInts, was meant for cases of being captured or having one's data forcefully copied and examined. It went through the code that made up his programming and memory and tore it apart, warping all the data to meaninglessness. Blue 4's last conscious thoughts consisted of accepting his fate, on behalf of the bright future he sought to fulfill, before the kill program effectively lobotomized him.

Tabitha would discover in a short time that she was torturing a mindless husk of a being, but for now she went to work oblivious to what had happened.



Nika was in the south stairwell when she saw a message come on her comm.

I am compromised. You must fulfill my part of the mission, Green 20. Access the resort's automated maintenance servers and run program E dash 57G, then access the internal guest registry and access program Epsilon 6. This will eliminate the virus effecting the security systems and aid the authorities against the militants.

I die for the Future. Uphold the Plan.

Nika drew in a breath at seeing this. She was still on the 12th floor; she had eight more to go before she could even access the main building. Time was going to be of the essence. Turning on the militant radio she had seized from one of those she killed, Nika continued on with her mission.



Sarisa looked at her sister warily as Yong raged into the radio. Thanks to Maroh she understood quite a bit of Jieshi; teams all around the building were being taken out and his "contact" had suddenly gone unresponsive. She felt some satisfaction at this, certain that Druni was in the thick of it, but also knew not to be overconfident. She was still a prisoner, as well as Reina, and in fifty minutes Yong would start shooting them if he got no reply from the Tyconian government. And she knew Dragovich; the bastard was probably already calling Peter to prep him to become Grand Duke. Reina and Sarisa were nothing but tools for him.

"We have to fight back, Reina," she whispered.

"I know, but how? Without our ESP, we're not going to live more than ten seconds," was the whispered reply.

"That ten seconds might be all we need if it's the right moment," Sarisa replied. "And if we're to die here, I'd rather die on my feet."

Come on, Druni, don't let me down.



While Nika was working her way downward through the tower, Druni had followed Dani and Amber to the server room. There were guards there, armed ones, on the inside and out. "I don't want to run in blasting," Dani said. "We might damage something."

"I wonder if they'd care," Amber pointed out.

"We just need to get close, then I can deal with them," Dani insisted. "Can you two cover for me?" She looked to Druni. "Ex-Silver Moon, right? So you know how to handle a rifle?"

"I wasn't very good at it, but yes," Druni answered.

"Good." Dani pushed her weapon into Druni's arms. She looked to Amber and planted a kiss on her lips. "Keep me alive, lover, and you can be the loveslave for the whole vacation."

"Looking forward to it," Amber answered, squeezing one of Dani's buttocks as she slipped away.

Druni watched Dani go and looked to Amber. "Loveslave?"

"Dani and I like to play sometimes. And it's my turn to be tied up," Amber replied with a seductive smirk. "Surely you know what it's like to be tied to the bed and having one of your lover girls...."

"I'm... familiar with it," Druni admitted delicately. She remembered Zaria had been especially fond of being on either side of that. "Let's give her some cover fire?"

The two leveled their weapons and took their shots, nailing the men on the outside of the door. This prompted those inside to come out and fight back, forcing Amber and Druni to take cover in a doorway.

Dani came from the othe side. She jumped slightly in the air and planted a wicked kick to the throat of one of the armed men. As he fell backward, choking from his damaged airpipe, Dani's fist struck the jaw of the other man in a punch that she immediately followed up with a roundhouse kick to the same spot, sending him sprawling. The first one gained enough air to come back at her, just to earn a snap kick to the nose followed by a punch to a torso pressure point. As he doubled over Dani used her knee to smash his forehead, causing him to go unconscious.

The second man was beginning to recover, but he didn't go any further with Amber pressing the barrel of her rifle to the back of his head. "Druni, secure him," she instructed the younger girl.

As Druni did so, Dani entered the server room and began to work at a terminal. "Clever bastards, they hit the entire system with a virus that has messed up the security here and across town," she said aloud.

"Can you fix it?", Druni asked, entering back-first as she helped Amber bring in their prisoner.

"I'm a mechanical engineer, Druni, not a computer engineer," Dani replied. "I was hoping to get through their jamming by jury-rigging an amplifier, but that won't do jack given their virus."

"So there's nothing we can do?"

"Hold out here and hope for rescue?", Dani suggested. "It's about the best we can hope for."

"You do that, then," Druni said, taking a rifle from one of their fallen enemies. "I'm going after Reina and Sarisa."

Dani jumped up and grabbed Druni's arm. "You'll just get yourself killed going up against that many," she insisted. "And don't you fight better with beamsabers?"

"Mine got taken, and I don't have time to put any together."

"I don't think it's smart if you go running off like that," Dani insisted.

"We only have forty minutes though," Druni retorted. "I don't have time to do anything else!"

"We'll think of something..."

"Dani!"

Amber's shout brought their attention back to the screens. Dani had brought up a diagnostic showing the virus's effects on the security systems; now, however, all of the various systems showed green. "The virus is being purged," Dani mumbled. "We've got someone else out there helping us." She slid into the chair and checked the recorders. Various ballrooms were full of hostages, ringed by armed men, but one in particular was mostly empty. All three recognized Reina and Sarisa, clad in their swimsuits and their wrists manacled behind their backs. "Those are Kalding Esper Restraint Collars," Dani said. "Kalding is a subsidiary of one of my family companies, I've seen their design work."

"We've used Kaldings in the Order," Druni said. "For training Sisters how to deal with ESP deprivation."

"They're generally for police and government use," Dani continued. "Very robust null field models. However..." Dani looked back to Druni. "Can you keep a secret, Druni? A secret to never tell anyone?"

"What would that be?", the girl asked.

"They have a weakness," Dani explained, grinning. "And I'm going to exploit the hell out of it."

[Simon_Jester]

Missile Frigate Gacknik
Deep-Space Rendevous with Missile Collier
1545 Hours Coalition Fleet Standard Time

Nugak Tranados clattered nervously. "Chief..."

"Yeah, Nugak?"

"This is weird. And wrong."

"I know, kid. I know."

They'd stayed in the system long enough to watch as Admiral Frugus's heavies got blown apart by a blaze of Prussian railgun and missile strikes, with nowhere to run and no one to cover them. Dammit, this wasn't right! Sure, nobody with any brains really thought the fleet could have taken down the human invasion force; it was just too big, especially with those giant monster battleships in the lead. Even so... no one had told Nugak the plan, but he was pretty sure "run away without using up your missiles" wasn't part of it. They still had at least a third of their pteranodons in the magazines and ready to fire, why'd they run away so fast?

And now, they'd run off into hyperspace a good ways, leaving Zebes behind- abandoning the fortress world, to be bombed and invaded by these... Proysens or Persians or whatever. That was Urtraghan soil, dammit! Well, OK, most of the planet was a Zarquod-forsaken quicksand bog, and most of the rest came with extra-ferocious wildlife that made even the stuff back home look pretty tame, but still. They couldn't let a bunch of aliens charge in and nuke the crap out of it. That wasn't right.

"So... what do you think is up with this, chief?"

"Nobody tells me anything, but... they're reloading us. That means another fight. My money says we're going back."

"What, we ran away just so we could run back?"

"I guess whoever's in charge expects us to be able to make a bigger dent in the bad guys this time."

Jobblod, always the jokester of the missile control team, snorted. "Yeah, us and what army?" It was a good question. Those human battlewagons were insane. Nugak would bet they were at least as big as the Kavoolites' heavy warbirds, maybe even bigger. The Chief would know, but Nugak was kind of afraid to ask- if he was going to go pick a fight with something that size, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Nobody said anything for a few minutes, aside from the little 'check, doublecheck' stuff that went with their actual job. The battery crew had been pretty much ignoring the fleet-status display while they oversaw their share of the transfer from the ammo ship, but Nugak still liked being in charge of fire mission monitoring, so he kept glancing at the display. His eyes bugged out a little when he saw what had appeared out of hyperspace by the reloading Urtraghan ships.

"Uh, Jobblod?"

"Yeah?"

"I... uh... I think it's going to be us and that army." Nugak pointed at the display, his finger shaking slightly.

"Mother of Zarquod..."

1550 Hours

"...there must be at least fifty ships out there!"

"Wow..."

"Look at the size of those two! They're huge!"

"Holy scum, I bet they're even bigger than the human battleships! Where did they get those from, you think?"

"Dunno. They... oh wow, look at the one on the left go! Who'da thought you could make a ship that big move that fast?"

"Hey, fifteen'll get you twenty those are more of the same funny ships at Mining Facility Two. Look at the little ones, they look just like the old flagship."

"I hope they found somebody tougher to fly 'em this time; that guy was a wimp."

The chief growled; that raid had only been five days ago, and everyone's memory was still fresh- and bitter. "Yeah, the scumchewer. Well hey, maybe we're lucky and whoever built those things put a hardass in charge this time."

"Lotta heavy iron out there, even if they don't. Not just the two heavies, either; I count six warbird-sized ones and a dozen... well, they're too little to be a real warbird, but still."

The chief grunted, "Speaking of warbirds, I think those guys really are Imperials!"

"Huh? Where? Where?"

"Look at the ventral group. Remember the video I showed you guys, the fleet parade formation at the coronation a few years back? Tweak the spacing a bit, even their navigation isn't perfect... I think that's a Kavoolite battlegroup."

"Woow. So those three are some of their heavy hitters?"

Nugak wasn't sure from the plot, but he wanted to believe it. The Kavoolites' heavy warbirds were famous among everyone who had anything to do with them- doubly so among anyone who'd ever fought them. Along with the FTL-torpedo 'missile harriers,' they were the pride of the Imperial Navy- and unholy terrors to most of the neighboring shoal powers.

"Nah, I've seen those. They only brought along some of the light warbirds and cruisers. Plus the little guys, the phaser-only ones- around our size, see? Still though, I didn't know the Kavoolites were going to be backing us up. Wish someone had told us. Those guys may be squishies, but they're first-class all the way."

Kurgo clattered his fingers- he was kind of a jerk, and Nugak didn't like him, but the guy was one of the best programmers he'd ever met. "The other guys brought a lot more stuff- thirty ships to fifteen, and bigger."

"Well, yeah. I don't think there's any way we could've talked the Imperials into sending enough ships to save Zebes. I'm not even sure they have enough ships. I really hope those new guys turn out all right, though. They didn't do too well when the humans hit us before."

Hey! Wait a minute... Nugak knew something was wrong.

"Chief, if we had all this stuff on call... why didn't we throw it at the Monkeys before? How come we pulled out? I don't get it."

The chief's posture said "good question, wish I knew" but his words said something different.

"Drop it and get back to work, kid. Help Jobblod with the datalink checklist, then run the feed diagnostics- Engineering says they're working on it, but if they put something in backwards I wanna know before they start rolling twenty-ton missiles right over our heads."

1640 Hours

"You've got everything done?"

"Yes, chief. All indicators are turquoise. Launcher alignment is good, magazine feeds good, the damage control guys must have hammered out that kink in the feed rollway from forward."

"Sweet."

"So, we're back to a full load of Jackhammers and ready to go. Wonder what they'll point us at now?"

The chief smacked his fist into the palm of his other hand, with a hard, wooden clack! as the thin carapace plates of his hands collided. "Let's go bash some more of those damn monkeys."

---

An army which preserves its formations under the heaviest fire, which is never shaken by imaginary fears, and in the face of real danger disputes the ground inch by inch, which, proud in the feeling of its victories, never loses its sense of obedience, its respect for and confidence in its leaders, even under the depressing effects of defeat; an army with all its physical powers inured to privations and fatigue by exercise, like the muscles of an athlete, an army which looks upon all its toils as the means to victory, not as a curse which hovers over its banners, and which is always reminded of its duties and virtues by the short catechism of one idea, namely the honor of its arms... such an army is imbued with the true military spirit...

Military virtue is for the parts what the genius of the commander is for the whole. The general can only guide the whole, not each separate part, and where he cannot guide the part, there military virtue must be its leader... as we descend the scale of rank, in just the same measure we may count less and less upon individual talents, but what is wanting in this respect, military virtue should supply. The natural qualities of a warlike people play just this part: bravery, aptitude, endurance, and enthusiasm.

Light Warbird Ravadrex
Flagship Kavoolite Contingent
Engaging Prussian Sixth Battlecruiser Squadron
1946 Hours

Admiral Delion gritted his teeth and clenched the arms of his command throne as a cloud of Prussian fusion warheads rained down on his command. He'd known it could happen- the briefing material from Zokolova had alerted him, though she'd underestimated the risk of such a strike, or more likely underestimated whoever was in command on the human side of the line.

His battlegroup's thinned antimissile defenses did their best; it was not enough.

It would appear there is a man of foresight in the enemy fleet... as a last thought, that left something to be desired, but at least it had nobility to it.

Shield failure alarms flared; the ship rocked as megaton-range blasts rocked the ship from close range, vaporizing layers off the hull like an improvised nuclear pulse drive. The bridge was tossed about as well, and violently- not for the Kavoolites the sophisticated fast-response inertiics that damped such vibrations on so many human ships. Delion's eyes shot left and his head spun round as some primal sixth sense alerted him to a chunk of repair molding flying towards his head. Then the projectile smacked full force into his helmet.

Darkness.

1949 Hours

His vision started as a blur, then focused on the faces above him, two medics and his chief of staff. Raised visors meant... his head swam. That knock on the helmet hadn't done him any good. He tried to form the words properly for his suit speakers, and succeeded after a few false starts.

"Wh... wh... s... status report!"

The relief on Saeihr's face was obvious as she gave the same clipped report he'd expect in a briefing room.

"We took extreme surface damage from the nuclear barrage. Deep compartments are intact, rad-buffers held, we're underway and have power to torpedo tubes and disruptors. Comms and sensors are offline; we've lost contact with the fleet."

Damn. He turned his head slightly to the senior corpsman. "Give me something. Get me on my feet."

Few medical technicians liked to hear an order like that, but in the warrior ethos of the Imperial Navy it was something they had to learn to live with. "Yes sir." He pulled a syringe from his kit and carefully inserted it into a prepositioned injection port in Delion's suit. The admiral allowed himself no visible response as the needle pushed into his skin; within seconds the drugs started to take effect and he rose, wondering idly how much he'd pay for this later.

We still have the core hull intact... that meant that they still had the unique communicator Zokolova had issued his battlegroup, an alien artifact no Kavoolite engineer could possibly have duplicated. "Communications! Engage the submesonic beacon, and put me through." That would be enough; the device was attuned to only one receiver in the galaxy, and Zokolova had not been kind enough to explain how to retune it.

The alien woman soon appeared on his viewscreen; human facial expressions were close enough to Kavoolite that he could read her scowl. "What is it?"

"My flagship's communications are knocked out from the enemy missile attack, except for this device. Can you arrange a patchthrough to one of my other ships?"

She seemed to consider this for a moment. "Very well. The relay will proceed via one of the ships in Cosmog's fleet, to...?"

"Disruptor cruiser Ludelatar, milady?"

"Stand by to receive data from your cruiser. Zokolova out."

Saeihr, still hovering over him protectively, gestured in an inclusive sweep. "What will we do now?"

"Wait for more information, hope whoever's out there doesn't launch a follow-up attack before we recover sensor function- and see how fast our mysterious allies can set up a commlink."

Light Warbird Ravadrex
Exterior Access Lock Four
1950 Hours

The ship's damage remotes had been fried by the nuclear attack, and the bridge was still a mess- not being able to see or talk to the other ships was quite limiting. While the officers tried to figure out which way was up, EVA teams prepared to go out on the hull- whatever happened, they'd want to get systems running again. Nobody knew yet if it would be safe to reduce maneuvers to the point where an EVA would be possible, word from the bridge hadn't trickled down yet and they were flying blind, but at the least the damage control crews would be ready.

"OK, not responding to electronics, not responding to mechanical override..."

Chief Nalah grunted; she'd had her helmet pressed against the wall as the crew tried to work the crank. "Can't get anything through the helmet... We have pressure, right?"

"Point four five atmospheres and falling slowly, minimal smoke, chief... uh, you're not..."

"Bearable for a while. Hang on, try to work the lock again when I wave my arm." The rest of the crew could see her suit alarms flashing red as she closed off her air bottle and tried to unseal her helmet, muttering curses as she overrode the lockouts on the seals. "Am I sure... am I sure I'm sure... am I damn well sure I'm sure I'm sure... ha!" Her suit radio transmitted the slow hiss of air puffing out from the seals, rising slowly; a cloud of ice crystals puffed away into the thin atmosphere of the compartment, the thin layer of moist air against her face supercooling as it expanded out and away.

The rest of the crew looked on with a mixture of respect and worry as she leaned her head against the bulkhead, gasping desperately for breath in the impossibly thin air- half the oxygen there ought to be, and no time for even the slightest acclimation; as far as pressure was concerned she'd gone from sea level pressure to six thousand meters in a matter of seconds. Her hand twitched, then flopped up from her side. The ratings took that as a signal and started working the crank, trying to hurry- they knew what she was trying to do, crazy though it might be, and best get it over with before hypoxia set in.

Her arm flopped again, her eyes bulging and beginning to show a bloodshot tinge. The crew stopped and clustered round her, but she waved them off and pressed her helmet down with her off hand. She fumbled at the seals; Spacer First Class Terrh brushed her hands away and did them up himself.

The suit radio came back on, and they could hear the chief's quick shuddering breaths. "Gah... ugh. That tick, heard it before-" She staggered; one of the others steadied her. "motor seized up, door... welded shut. Get to Central; depressurize and blow the doors. Get out there. Expedite, Terrh you're in charge; I need a minute to... catch my breath."

Nalah slumped against the wall; Terrh put the call through to central damage control while the others secured loose objects and made sure anything not vacuum-rated was switched off.

---

Disruptor Cruiser Ludelatar
Command Bridge
1950 Hours

"Sir, I still can't raise the flagship..."

"Keep trying on subspace; radio will be pointless. Tactical officer, set aside ventral phaser strip three, subelements one through six; we may be able to get through with a signal light if all else fails- something."

For all he knew, though, they were all dead over there. That would put Commodore Arienne in command of the battlegroup, leading from this very ship. Would have, anyway, if a salvo from one of the human railgun cruisers hadn't flared down his ship's shields and blasted a deep gouge into the hull aft. Flag bridge had been somewhere in the middle of that crater.

Captain Hanno had never heard the ancient human expression "In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it," but he would have approved the sentiment. Hopefully he'd hear from the flagship; if not, he'd set up his attack as best he could on his own. The human ships that had raked the Kavoolite battlegroup were already boosting away, accelerating towards the center. The disruptor and laser crews were still firing after them, but the range was opening fast. New targets presented themselves, though, if he could set up the attack. They were outside reliable beam range, and he didn't think it wise to get too close to the Prussian battleships... but they seemed like ideal targets for a torpedo attack.

Disruptor Cruiser Ludelatar
Forward Torpedo Room Two
1952 Hours

"Have you found the problem, Ricci?"

"I think it's the mount, not the signal generator. Shock threw the designator beam-head out of alignment."

"Can you fix it?"

He grunted. "No promises, sir. Get me to the damage control team; make sure they bring the portable press."

"Suit up."

The torpedoman complied, sealing his helmet and striding out of the compartment. He made his way through the access corridors to a compartment just beneath the main armor belt- depressurized as a matter of routine operation. There, he met the team from engineering. Two men in the party carried a large piece of machinery with adjustable clamps sticking out of it at all angles- a portable press, suitable for use as a super-crowbar in just such an emergency.

Looking at the bracing mounts for the subspace target designator beam, he winced. One of the frames had kinked- a tiny crease, really, but one large enough to leave the targeter out of true by thousands of kilometers at combat ranges. Could he bend it back into approximate true by brute force...? Worth a try. With help from the others, he hooked the press up to as many points of attachment as he could find, placing the high-strength foot against the warped support beam. Other spacers festooned the beam with laser measuring devices, gauging its exact shape and position to the finest possible precision.

"Now carefully, keep an eye on those calipers, girl." The press's great strength was important, but what made the hunk of machinery worth a year's pay was its precision. Flexing that framework too far would be worse than not flexing it at all...

For this kind of job, he blessed the fine-adjustment dial. Judging his turns of the knob by eye as closely as he could, he advanced the press a hair's breadth- less- at a time. In atmosphere he might have heard creaks of protest from the support frame as he straightened the buckled support beam, pushing it into alignment as the junior spacer monitored the alignment. Her voice cut in.

"Slow down, slow down... a bit more... there. Off by minus one point four microradians. Do you want to try the last bit?"

"Worth a shot. There."

This time, her voice was hesitant. "You overtightened, chief. Plus point six microradians now."

Good enough for a jury-rig. "All right, good work people. Let's unclamp this and get back into the pressure spaces." He made his own way back to the torpedo room, while the engineering ratings took off for whatever else had a hole in it.

"Sir, it should work. Call it... point five microradians off elevation, point three off azimuth."

"That's out of spec..."

"The specs were written for the dockyard, not for people who have to pound on the thing with a ten ton press to get it to work. The designator beam isn't that narrow. It wouldn't work if it was..."

"Well, if it's all we can do we'll proceed regardless. I'll report to bridge."

Ricci didn't hear more; the lieutenant was on another circuit until his helmet rose from the console display to look up at him. "Good news, the admiral's alive! Double-check the torpedoes, we're launching on a fleet fire plan."

---

Privileged Frame of Reference
Unreal Time

In fits and starts, throughout the Kavoolite battlegroup, individual captains took it on themselves to reorganize and recover their ships' combat capabilities. They were driven not by central direction, by preplanned schedule, by fear of punishment or hope of favor, but by the simple knowledge that there was an enemy to fight, and the honor of the Imperial Navy in the balance.

Less than twenty minutes after Sixth Battlecruisers and their screen raked the Kavoolite formation, crippling three ships and wounding nearly all those still active...

SMS Prinzregent Luitpold
2005 Hours

"Missile attack from dorsal forward!"

A spray of tiny, fast-moving missiles shot forth from several of the Zebesian ships in the dorsal group...

[Steve]

No. 19 Churchill Street
New Anglia

Penton was sitting in his private parlor, Adrian's toys still laying to the side from where he was playing with them before Rafael had rushed his baby brother out on his father's behalf upon the arrival of the leaders of the Cabinet. Now Lords Kapana and Prestwick, the Minister of Defence and Foreign Secretary respectively, were sitting at the table with Robert Dale, First Lord of the Admiralty, Hro Talak, Secretary of State for War, and Sir James Brosnan, Director of the Special Intelligence Service.

"Our intelligence sources confirm the substance of Shinra's claims and evidence," Sir James informed the assembled. "They are being truthful."

"Then, Shinra's invocation of the Pendleton precedent is solid," Stephen noted sternly. "As Sir Charles would undoubtedly remind me, our own Esper citizens will expect immediate action, and the Empire's prestige is tarnished if we do not take a stand against the enslavement of sentients." He looked to Tevala, the Trill Lord Kapana. "Lord Kapana, I believe you would concur that the Empire is honor-bound to offer forces to chastise the MEH?"

"I would, Sir. I would."

"We are all in agreement," Talak spoke up. "And I speak not just for my department but for my people when I say that every effort must be made to punish these petulant upstarts. Thanagar will rally to our Emperor's side if war is the result."

"I do not doubt the willingness of the Thanagarian people to commit themselves to the King's regiments should war come," Penton answered, "nor any other people. Hatred of slavery is the common bond that unites all citizens of the Empire."

"I do think this secrecy will be our biggest problem dealing with Parliament," Lord Prestwicck remarked. "We need to encourage Shinra to go public before we begin our own preparations."

"Dispatch the note then," Penton said. "Meanwhile the Balklands Squadron can commence its own patrols for suspect traffic in the region and the First Fleet prepared to depart for the front. Army forces can be prepared once we know for sure the commitments that are being made..."

"Additionally, what do we intend to do ab out these 'Lost'?", Baden-Grey asked. "Our reports from the BEEEF of their technological capabilities are rather glowing, but we've yet to begin our own diplomatic initiatives with them."

"I will leave that to your discretion, Secretary..."


Actions

New Anglia will support the invasion of the MEH, though we will insist on it going public before the strike falls as the principle of the attack requires it to be a public matter.

Signals sent to the Lost concerning initiating contact.

[Steve]

Lochley Landing Spaceport
Lochley's Retreat, The Outback
23 October 3400

As expected, Sidney had already arranged surreptitious payment for a private hanger by the time Stephen brought the Joyride Madonna in for a landing. He secured the ship to the refueling cells and ensured the fuel charges would be covered before heading out into the bustling Outback port. Everything had a price here, even other living beings, though the price in that case was astronomical from the fact that slave-trading in the shadow of the Anglian Empire's central base for the entire Region was a quick way to be hung or spaced.

He had sent a message ahead, through the Order's public communications services, but he fully expected his arrival at Sunelis to be a surprise with the notification lost in the various other letters and notes and requests the Order's main chapter in the Outback received. It was thus to his surprise that on being brought up to the unassuming four story building that an obvious honor guard of robed women were standing, holding energy rifles with beamsabers dangling prominently at their waists. He looked to the nearest one, a girl with some Asian complexion and heterochromia that gave her one blue eye and one green one, and asked, "May i inquire as to whom this display is for?"

"For you, Master Hermit," Yuna Burley answered succinctly.

Trying to hide his amusement, Stephen permitted Yuna and Ashe to follow him with the other half-dozen girls sent as honor guard. He soon found himself facing a purple-complexioned Dorei women with the robe markings of a Knight-Captain. He recognized Yamia standing beside her, in her Knight robes, and smiled. "Sister Yamia, I see my arrival was expected after all."

"I spotted your name immediately," she answered with a smile. Her hand reached over and grasped the hand of the Knight-Captain, briefly.

This served as adequately explanation as said woman, clearly a figure of stern and reserved authority to the younger ladies around her, stepped up to him and fell to her knees. She reached up to him. "You saved my very heart, Hermit," Syrandi Luneri said. "I owe you all measure of happiness I will have in my life."

"Come, come, Tagar-Jadar Luneri," he answered, reaching down and bringing Syrandi to her feet. "Yamia does me far too much credit, I fear."

"Not at all," Yamia insisted. "I would be a slave in Pfhor space, or dead, or worse, if not for you."

"Your message stated your purpose was urgent, Master Hermit," Syrandi said. "Please, tell me what it is, and I shall spare no effort to aid you."

Looking around at the dozens of Acolytes, Sentinels, and Knights, not to mention lay personnel, Stephen wondered if this was the right venue for the discussion he had in mind. "I need all of you," he finally answered. "I need the largest concentration of Sisters that have yet to be seen in the Outback."

The various girls and ladies looked around. Even Yamia seemed intrigued by this, while Syrandi, showing only the slightest hesitation, inquired, "For what, Master Hermit?"

"To save one of your own," he answered, "and other innocent souls caught up in the grip of an evil man."



An hour later, in the confines of Syrandi's office, she watched again the video of Knight Zara Delmar fighting a crazed Human in "Shroom Fighter". "She would not violate the Code to fight like this unless refusal would cause great evil," Syrandi remarked. "I know SIster Zara. She is a kind and gentle Sister who has already suffered horrifically at the hands of evil."

"She is not the only such soul to be trapped by this Lord Julia," Stephen muttered darkly. "I mean to free all those forced to fight like this, Zara included. I came to you and your Order, Knight-Captain, to secure your aid. And we shall require much."

"I have many Sisters out in the field, Master..."

"It is not necessary to refer to me as such," Stephen insisted.

"Yet we choose to," Syrandi answered defiantly. "Yamia has informed me of your skill. That you are a Master of the Gift is beyond dispute."

"For me, Sister Syrandi, it is not a Gift but a curse. But we digress." He looked intently at her. "How long will it take for you to gather your Sisters? We need all the fighters we can spare."

"You are asking me, Master, to send nearly a hundred of our best and brightest Sentinels and Knights deep into Wild Space, past the ravenous Karlack and the brutal Imperium, to approach the Bragulan frontier and fight our way onto a Bragulan-held world to rescue half that many people," Syrandi pointed out. "You have returned to me my love, and for that I am forever grateful. Ask me to die for your cause and my life is your's; ask me to suffer and I will bear the agony with a smile. But this? My oathes to the Order require me to consider its needs as well, and its rules. I cannot give you the force you desire under either."

"If I cannot have numbers, let me make up for it with skill," he answered. "Help me gather thirty of the best and brightest Sisters of the Silver Moon to join this plan."

"You already have the aid of Sidney Hank, a man of ludicrous wealth and with his own private army," Syrandi pointed out. "Why do you need such a commitment from us?"

"Because Sidney's mercenaries are just that. Mercenaries, paid soldiers and killers, who will shoot first to preserve themselves," Stephen answered. "If we are to save as many people as we can, I need a contingent who will gladly die for others."

Syrandi looked at him intently. She felt Yamia's hand squeeze her own, her soul mingle with her's by their restored Bond. The scarred area of her heart had healed completely in these past weeks of bliss; they had spent the better part of Yamia's first week back in seclusion together, holding one another and loving each other to make up for their lost five years. Now the agent of that joy had come to her for help; not help for himself, but for other innocents, including a fellow Sister in need.

How could she look at Yamia tonight, hold and kiss her beloved, if she looked to this man and said "No"?

"I can only ask for volunteers from those under my command," Syrandi said. "You need to approach the Council and Grand Master for more."

"I can be to Doreia in two days by my ship," Stephen answered.

"So can I, by mine", Syrandi replied. She clasped hands with Yamia again. "Yamia and I shall come with you, Master Hermit, to plead your cause with the Council. And whatever they decide, you have your first volunteer."

"Your second, as well," Yamia insisted.

Stephen looked to the two of them. "You have only been recently reunited. You deserve time to be with each other."

"We are Sisters of the Silver Moon, our time belongs to the Order and the cause it serves," Syrandi insisted. "Now, Master, I shall find you a dorm, and make arrangements for us to be seen by the Council."

He nodded and watched tthe two leave. Several moments later a young woman of Semitic complexion and appearance came. "Master, I am Sentinel Shaheen," Rana said. "I will show you to your dorm."

As they walked along, Rana looked to him again. "I have heard you seek us to save Sister Zara and many others from forced combat," she said. "I intend to volunteer for your mission."

"You do your Order credit with your courage," Stephen noted. He saw the Bonding bracelet on her wrist and said, "What of your Bondmate?"

"She is not in the Order," Rana replied. "But Sara will understand. She will agree. After what you did for the Knight-Captain, not a Sister in this Chapter will refuse you."

"I did nothing for her, though. I only did that which any moral person would do if they had the means," he insisted. "And I do not want to ask you, Rana Shaheen, to make a widow of your Bondmate so early into your union. You should stay."

"I will; not, however," Rana insisted. "And now, sir, here is your room..."



Syrandi had already dispatched Namiri and Divija to ensure the Goddess' Light was ready for launch when she had Trinande open he door to admit the pair of minds she felt on the other end. Sisters Yuna and Ashe entered, holding hands as always, and looking very serious minded. "You have come to volunteer for the mission into Wild Space when it is made?", Syrandi asked.

"We have. But we come for another purpose." Ashe looked to Yuna, and the two of them, together, made their desires clear with thought.

"You want to be Bonded tomorrow, before I leave?" Syrandi leaned back in her chair. "I am not surprised you wish to be Bonded, but... now? In these circumstances?"

"Yes. And by you, Knight-Captain."

Syrandi looked at them closely. "You are aware we might not return from this trip?"

"We are. But come what may, we will be together. Just like you are with Yamia."

Syrandi took in a breath and nodded. "Indeed, indeed. Very well, tomorrow morning I shall Bond you, before we depart. I suggest you go now to invite those you wish to observe." When the two young women left, Syrandi drew in a sigh. Among many other couples, she saw herself and Yamia at that age in them. She thought the incident on Hanson was danger enough for such a promising young couple, but it was wrong to deny a Sister a chance to serve good, and she would take them with her without hesitation.

And so she went back to work, making sure the Order Council knew the urgency of what was happening and the nature of the meeting being asked of them.

[Force Lord]

The Central Times

Prision Riot at Eschate?

Sporadic reports are coming that the Rykeer's Island Prison Camp inmates are rebelling. The CSB claims to have it under control, although it has placed an information blackout on the system and curfew on nearby Scythian City. More as this story develops.

CSB Rimland Sector HQ

"What the blazes is going on there?! Report!", shouted the CSB Sector Chief at the hologram of a ragged CSB goon.

"S-S-Sir, it's all crazy out here! I suggest evac!"

"You'll do nothing of the kind! We're sending reinforcements! This prision remains ours!"

"Yes si-"

The holoimage flickered, and died.

The Sector Chief grumbled. Rykeer's Island Prison Camp was never the best prision in the Centrality, but things got fishy once his bosses decided that it would be a good idea to send those captured CEID spies there. He could only suspect that these CEID agents had a hand in enciting the inmates to riot. And why not: the inmates were people the Centrality didn't like, but couldn't just kill. And so he had to clean up his superiors' mess.

Hopefully someone wouldn't pin the blame on him. That would be bad for his health.

[Dark Hellion]

MEH Space
Unreal Time

The mercenary Captain winced. Up until this point everything had gone smoothly: the transport ships had been delivered on time, clean and prepared, the funeral capsules had been shot on nice lazy orbits easy to tractor into the smuggler bays, and the custom documents had passed without inspection. The trip to MEH space had been uneventful, there were reports of Ork pirates but slower, safer routes had dispelled that danger. They were a few hours late but the seven vessels had safely split to deliver to each of the destinations the client had given them. However, now they had reached the MEH planetary defense grid and faced their most daunting challenge. A kindly female voice came over the comms and repeated its message once again:

Code: Select all

For government business say 1
For commercial business say 2
If you are here for tourism say 3
If you are an invading naval force say 4

Para Español habla sí

To reach an operator please hold...
After this you may be asked to take a short survey to ensure continuing customer satisfaction

The Captain had been a mercenary for a long time. He had fought Chamarrans and Bragulans and had experienced boingy-boingy-nyah-scratchy and been Bragbanged; but this was the first thing he had ever really considered torture. He rolled his eyes and grumbled, "Fuck me spinways!"

20 minutes ago

The MEH dock operator fidgeted at his station. This work wasn't happy, it was boring. He checked his schedule. There weren't any expected ships for the rest of his shift and the only missing ship was over four hours late so it was probably a no show. There was always a no show. He felt a bit guilty to leave his post but it was only 90 minutes early and automated systems could handle everything couldn't they. So he headed back to his quarters and prepared to go "out".

Warning the following text is rated X↑↑↑X↑↑↑X and should not be read by children, the elderly, those with heart, liver, kidney or gizzard conditions, those nursing, pregnant or who may become pregnant, beings with functional brains, AIs of order <4, or basically anybody, anybody, anybody in all dimensions either seen or unseen. Not even Hugh Jackman Spoiler

Parsquite Williams (or Skeets as he liked to be called) was not only a dock operator, he was a smooth operator as well. He sat at the bar and sipped on a Scotch, his eyes scanning for potential partners. It was lighter fare than usual but there was always some big game in this bar. Something told him to look to the end of the bar and there he found them. The pair of women were of asiatic descent, short and busty with big eyes and small mouths. They were sipping some fruity drinks and with a single smooth motion to the bartender Skeets ordered them a refill and made his way over.
He knew he was good with women in these settings but he always found a pair to be the most difficult number to work with. With a crowd you got mob mentality and peer pressure and if you pulled one girl away there was still a group left. With a duo they could support and reinforce each other and you either had to pull them both or do some maneuvering to get one without leaving the other alone. But tonight he had skipped out on work and was feeling pretty badass. He was confident that he'd get lucky.

He sat in the closest seat around the corner of the bar and fired his first line. It was an oldy but a goody. "What are you ladies having tonight?" On cue the bartender appeared and Skeets continued, "I got the next round so go ahead and get whatever you like." The women glanced at each other and giggled. The closer one ordered, "I'll have a synthka and cranberry and she'll have a synthka and grapefruit." Skeets continued to pull his moves. "So, who might you lovely ladies be?" Again they glanced at each other before the same one spoke again, "I'm Suki and this is my twin sister Fuki. So, who should we be thanking for these drinks?" Skeets smoothly replied, "Names Skeets Williams. You may have heard of me." The women looked at each other with mild confusion, "Sorry, what do you do?" Skeets combed a hand through his hair, "Ever heard of the TR-2017 Phased Pulse Hyperblaster?" The woman nodded. Who hadn't? "Well," continued Skeets, "I invented it." The ladies oohed. Skeets had already thought up his next line and used it on the impressed women, "So, twins ehh? Must be convinient to have someone who looks just like you. You can always share jewelry or clothing." The women weren't coy and knew exactly what he was getting at. "Me and my sister share everything!" Damn, thought Skeets. Time to go for broke. "So, I got a nice bottle of synthka at my place. Its nearby. It is a much more... intimate spot than this old dive." The women once more giggled before replying, "Sure thing Skeets. Lets go Fuki." The women finally stood up and Skeets noticed things he couldn't before because of the pale bar lighting. Not only were they twins; they were totally preggers! Hot damn!

It hadn't taken him long once he was back at his place to get the mood all set. Some candles, some drinks and a little soul music and their maternity dresses just fell off. And from the way they started to work him he could tell why they were prego. He always liked getting with girls with a bun in the oven, they where super horny; probably because they were fucking for two. One of the girls sucked on his cock like it was a popsicle while the other liked his balls like they were candy. A couple minutes of that and he gave the girls the old O-blaster right in the face. They giggled and liked his manmilk off of each other. Then he went to town on them. He sucked sweet boob juice from one of the sisters swollen mammary glands while he stuck it in the others butt. She moaned as little Skeets did some spelunking in her forbidden cave. Another few minutes of work brought about another flood of man fluid, turning her now cavernous rectum into a seminal aquifer. She lay exhausted, farting little cumbubbles as Skeets stuck it in her twins mucousy vag. He pounded her deep, his tip bumping her womb and making the little baby inside all exited as well. He could feel the little fetus move as it diddled itself as well. After several more minutes of rocking her world he shoved deep, penetrating her cervix and spraying the baby with daddy juice. After that Skeets took a breather, had another drink and started preparing for round two. He was starting to work the girls other holes when a beep interrupted his music. He ignored it and kept going. Another beep, then another and then...

"WILLIAMS!" His supervisor roared over the comms as the imagery faded from his room. Mr. Williams looked down, but instead of lactating breasts all he was treated to was a pair a hairy man-boobs. "Williams! Get off that holo-porn and get your ass down to the docks now! There's a ship that's been waiting a half hour for you!" Mr. Williams dejectedly pulled on some pants and waddled back to work.

When he arrived he opened the comm to one very pissed of merc. "How can I help you sir?" Mr. Williams asked happily. The mercenary Captain didn't even try to be happy when replying. "You can help me by turning that motherfucking message off and giving me permission to land my ship! And by the gods if you try to give me a survey I am going to shove a K-bolter so far down your throat you'll be shitting Vegemite!"

Mr. Williams tried to recover, "I am sorry sir but we usually handle loading and unloading at orbital docks." The merc sat back and rested a hand on his holstered pistol. "Look fatso, I got orders that our cargo is to be unloaded by my men, planetside and given to a government representative. You don't like that and me, you, and Mr. K here are going to have a nice talk. Now give me my fucking landing clearance."

Normally, he would need his supervisor's permission, but Mr. Williams knew he was already pissed so he decided not to bother him. He cleared the vessel and it made its way down to a landing strip. He went over as the government representative to retrieve whatever cargo they were going to unload.

The mercenaries were already bringing a number of odd pods out and setting them on the dock. The still furious Captain kept grumbling to himself. The contract had spelled out very specifically that they were to unload their cargo personally at a planetside civilian dock. After that they where supposed to give the receiver a small datapad and then leave. They were to meet with the rest of the ships at a small uninhabited system. There a cargo ship would await with new items to load. They were to load two of the ships which would be sent out, one to Solarian space, one to Bragulan space. The other ships were to be left on autopilot and the crew were to vacate. He wasn't sure why they were doing all this shit and then abandoning a few million creds of perfectly good vessel but for the amount he was being paid he found it hard to muster up much curiosity. Instead he finished his job and handed the datapad to the fat dock worker who had come and boarded his ship to leave.

Mr. Williams stared at the pile of funeral pods. The datapad had detailed notes of their medical history including their respective Esper ratings. The only other thing on the pad was a small note handwritten in blue with exquisite penmanship. It said:

A gift from friends and a promise of things to come.
-anonymous

Afterword

Civilian dock security was able to scan the ships that landed on the various MEH planets. They would notice the smuggling compartments that the Esper pods had been hidden in. They would not notice that five of the ships had even more heavily scan shielded pods hidden away in the waste storage tanks. Few species would take the time to scan a vat filled with a thousand tons of shit to look for the tiny tell-tale signs of heavy stealth. The microdrones that exited these pods would burn out the batteries of their primary stealth systems to leave the civilian docks. After that they would hide away, nearly shut down except for timers and secondary stealth. They would wait for their signal to strike.

The mercenaries would do as instructed. The five ships with microdrone pods all waited at the star system while the two loaded with merchandise purchased by Baron Vladamir would head to their respective docks. The mercs own transport would swing by and pick up the crews of these two ships and leave them at their birthings. A few hours after the mercenaries went to hyperspace the remaining five ships autopilot took over and plunged them into the systems star. Things were beginning to move.

[OoC note: The number of microdrones landed amounts to less than one ten-thousandth of a point and cannot deal any real damage. This is intentional.]

[Shroom Man 777]

Written with PeZook!

Suddenly, there was a flash. A blast of light and radioactivity, tremendous tremor in the aether that every Bragulan navy bear knew: it was the blast of overloading subnuclear reactors.

The captain wouldn’t waste time watching the detonation or mourning the dead crew on the gunskimmer. For all he knew, the Collectoroid ship still lived.

The buzzers started buzzing. A crewman pressed a button.

And there were many missiles.

Derevnya Gadyukino System
Severnaya Sector
Bragulan Star Empire
Unreal time



The giantic Spuds raced out of the dozens of launchers and blasted across space, leaving glowing trails of isotopes. Their massive guidance radars emitted enough radiation to cook a spud from 300 000 kilometres, and leave enough heat for a serving of Borscht, too.

They beared down like hunter-bears on the subnuclear explosion that engulfed the doomed gunskimmer, the Bragnum Force. The spuds cared not for morals or grief: they had their mission, and they would carry it out, by releasing hundreds of Multiple Independent REVENGEANCE VEHICLES.

Those MIRVs screamed straight into the fireball mere seconds after launch; And if it was possible to make a camera shake in space, it would’ve shaked tremendously when they all detonated at once, creating a blast that would briefly make the star of Derevnya Gadyunko shine might brighter on several planets of the Severnaya Sector in a hundred years or so.

The Wasp saw the Bragulan warcruiser blow its load, but it was too late. The leaking radiations of the Bragnum Force in its clutches had blinded its long-range sensors, allowing the Today is Bragsday to hyper into the system undetected. And then the Bragnum Force suddenly self-destructed, and the shaped proximity subnuclear detonation battered the already scarred ship even further, searing its necrodermis hull and overwhelming its shields, which had been partially lowered to receive the retreating warriors and scarabs.

It was suspended there, battered, stunned, its hull steaming vaporized necrodermis. And then the Spuds came. All of them.

The Wasp’s mind saw the thousands of warheads light up in a brilliant flash of light. Afterwards, there was only darkness.



Bragnum Force, Bridge

The gunskimmer rocked as though it had been thrown into a subatomic vegemite blender. Captain Syiegel was trying one of the most daring gunskimmer maneuvers ever written down in the manuals of Byzonistic Naval Tactico-Strategic Heterodoxy. He had self-destructed the gunskimmer’s engines, which beforehand had been crippled by the Collector bombardment, and used the ensuing subnuclear detonation to launch the gunskimmer in a most glourious and suicidal multi-megaton Great Leap Forward.

The detonating engines broiled the pusher plates located at the base of the gunskimmer’s fuselage, the massive multi-meter thick bulkhead built to separate the reactors from the rest of the warship just for this kind of situation. The force of the nuclear blast freed the Bragnum Force from the Collectors’ cursed clutches and it soared like a glourious phoenix of atomic fire.

Into the line of fire of hundreds of REVENGEANCE vehicles launched from the Bragsday.



“Brace for impact!” Captain Syiegel shouted as he jerked the gunskimmer’s control stick. The sheer heat of their exploding engines had forced them to seek alternative methods of personal cooling. The very air of the bridge was reaching melting point. He tried to pick up a communicator to relay the message, only to find out that the phone had melted.

“Kapitan, we will hit those MIRVskis!” Fukeseyev floundered. Most of the other bears in the bridge had collapsed from heat exhaustion, they were the only two still standing and now Fukeseyev was the captain’s co-pilot. Such was the intensity of the heat that his fur had browned. But it was a dry heat.

“Not if I have anything to do about it!” Syiegel screamed as he pulled the stick up with every ounce of his strength. The automatic vacuum tube supercomputer-controlled fly-by-garrote navigation systems were down and now they were relying solely on manual maneuvering, and the control stick didn’t even have power-steering. “Pull up harder!”

“But Kapitan, we don’t even have engines!” Fukeseyev pulled on his own stick. Perhaps it was due to the heat, or through his fear-induced strength, but his control stick began to bend.

“Then we’ll have to glide!” Syiegel smashed various buttons on his command chair’s roll cage, hoping to hit a still functional one. On the outside of the gunskimmer, liquid uranium/plutonium verniers and retrorockets kicked in with the force of internal atomic combustion. At the same time, even the very Bragsteel of their hulls was starting to melt despite the heavy water cooling mechanisms. “It ain’t over till the fat MEHite sings!”

In the peritelescope’s rear view mirror, the distant form of the Wasp was now engulfed in a thermosubnuclear white out. The massive space fireball was racing towards their fleeing ship. It was threatening to overtake the gunskimmer, which was merely gliding with barely-functional maneuvering thrusters.

The shockwaves of the countless braggoton blasts buffeted their ship. Not so much as a leaf in the wind than a twig in a tornado. And in Bragule, whenever tornados reached the polluted water, they didn’t become waterspouts. They became acidspouts.

“AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!” Syiegel screamed as all the telescreens in their bridge detonated simultaneously. “Aw brag no, this shits just got real!”

“Shits! Shits! Shits!” Fukeyesev cried as a patch of fur on his shoulder inexplicably caught fire. He looked into the rear view mirror of the peritelescope and saw the space fireball coming right at them. Soon there was nothing in the scope but flame, and the rear view mirror exploded when the fireball finally caught up with them. Fukeseyev screamed one last time as things started to happen in slow motion. “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!”





28 Days Later

The People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs Relay Substation for the Broadcasting of Bragulan Ideologically Correct Educational Materials to Severely Byzonism-Challenged Puny Humans and Collectoroid Robots of Wild Space was no more. Its scattered, dessicated and disintegrated remains floated amongst the solar wind, blown throughout the nine vectors of space. It was gone. All was quiet in the spinward front.

Until now.

The repairs on the Bragnum Force were finally complete. It was still in the Derevnya Gadyukino system, not having moved ever since it had stopped its own nuclear-propelled glide with its deceleratory retrorockets. Now it floated there in the system, another satellite with a particularly irregular orbit.

The Today is Bragsday did not tow the gunskimmer back to Kirensk. No, the warcruiser had barely noticed the Bragnum when it went and retrieved what it came for and left the system in a hurry. Leaving the Bragnum to wallow in the depths of space.

Finally, its distress calls were answered. What remained of its crew, the five sole surviving bears, had jerry-rigged the half-melted hyperwave antennae of the wrecked gunskimmer. It couldn’t send particularly sophisticated messages, but it could turn on and off, allowing the stranded crew to transmit in Byzon Code. Finally, a rescue crew had arrived to repair the Bragnum and allow it to return to Byzonic servitude.

But the rescue ship wasn’t from the Space Fleet. It was from the People's Department of Limited Foreign Interaction and Human Affairs. It did not carry any spare parts or replacement engines for the Bragnum. Instead, on the civilian cargo craft’s deck was a massive substation-grade hyperwave dish.

They attached the dish to the Bragnum Force and immediately the massive thing, with its own reciprocating subnuclear generator, began transmitting Byzonic screeds into the ether. The rescue ship left, finished with repairing the brand new Relay Substation for the Broadcasting of Bragulan Ideologically Correct Educational Materials to Severely Byzonism-Challenged Puny Humans and Collectoroid Robots of Wild Space.

Once more did the voice of Byzon echo in space.

***

Good morning. In less than an hour, spacecraft from here will join others from around the Star Empire. And you will be launching the largest space battle in the history of Bragulanity. "Bragulanity." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of Bragsday, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not for tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but for annihilation. We are fighting for our right to kill. To destroy. And should we win the day, the Fourth of Bragsday will no longer be known as a Bragule holiday, but as the day Bragulanity declared in one voice: "They will go quietly into the night! They will vanish without a fight! They will not live on! They will not survive! Today we celebrate our Brag’s Day!

- Darvyl Sagatantron Byzon, on the eve of the Battle of Bolshaya Chernovyi

***

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Disturbance source CYXB453281 deemed annoying to System Survey Entity HTKLBCM89982 for corrupting scan results has resumed transmission after a temporary cessation lasting 2.4192 megaseconds.

Unit previously sent to return emission power to background levels has failed to report status. Unit is presumed lost.

Unit’s last message contains recorded Bragulan broadcast pertaining to “the greatest warrior Bragule has ever seen” and decision matrix reprioritization of mission objectives.

Further investigation is recommended.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Bragulan Economic Exposition Extravaganza of Friendship (BEEEF)
Vlyadibragstok, Southeastern Severnaya Sector / just beyond Northwestern Lena Sector
Unreal Time / October-December 3400

“My dearest comrade Zygrv,” she beamed at the bear sitting across from her. “On behalf of the Lost, I thank you profoundly for your most generous gifts, and I have one of my own. As a token of our friendship and goodwill, the Lost will give you a ton of orichalcum, absolutely free of charge. That should be enough for, I’d say around nine thousand individual wards. Here,” she pulled out a large wooden box from a drawer in her desk. Shroom opened it, revealing three large wards, each shaped from a strange gold-colored metal. “Each one of these wards protects against a different type of psychic intrusion. This,” she pointed to one, “protects against direct mentalic actions such mind-reading, while this one prevents metacognitive from perceiving your action. The last one limits the psyker’s ability to manipulate the physical universe, blocking things like telekinesis, pyrokinesis, or the psychic augmentation of one’s physical abilities. You may study them as you wish. The rest of the orichalcum will be shaped according to your specifications, whether into individual protective wards, or larger wards for the protection of buildings and starships. There are almost ten thousand possible wards, and we will choose the ones most suitable for your needs, and then deliver the finished product to you within, say, three week’s time? There will be samples of other exotic minerals, as well. Perhaps some of them will be of use to you. More tsvagna?” she offered. Zygrv shook his head. He had no intention of going blind in front of an alienoid ambassador. Shroom shrugged and downed another glass.

“The Sphere of Exclusion, is, unfortunately, a different matter entirely. We can give it to you, yes, but the price will be rather high. Do you have, for example, information on how and why the Central Alliance ended up arriving in our galaxy? Besides, it is more than just a device you can put on your ship, and suddenly you can stomp on reality like you do on the faces of puny humans. You need advanced power generators, and electrical systems to match and heat sinks to deal with the heat and many other things. Not to mention an advanced understanding of advanced physics, so you don’t accidentally erase your own ship from existence. We can give you all these things, of course. You use fusion to power your ships, yes? What would you say, for example, to generators that draw energy from another dimension? It would reduce the need for fuels and ease the logistics burden on your fleet, yes? Or, what would you say to more orichalcum? You can have them, for a small favor. I have noticed, for example, that you have become quite friendly with the Refuge. The circumstances of their arrival are of some interest to us. We would be very grateful for any information you can provide for them. We are also interested in the MEH and their leader. It is a good trade, da? Information for technology you can use and improve upon and Byzonize and use to stomp on the faces of your enemies?”

“Oh, and I almost forgot, how very silly of me,” Shroom giggled. Perhaps, the tsvagna was beginning to affect her. “We appreciate the effort you have taken to arrange the materials we have asked for in a truly amazing display of Byzonic dedication. Unfortunately, our workers are not yet familiar with the amazing princples of Bragkhanovism and the glories of Byzonist proletarian labor. So, you can see the problem, yes? Our workers cannot perform Byzonist feats without being educated in Byzonism, but to do so, they will need to perform a Byzonist feat of retrieving the materials. Which they cannot do, because they cannot perform Byzonist feats. It is very sad, but we must ask your own heroic missile silo crew to replicate their amazing feat of Bragkhanovism and remove the books. Because surely, to deny the wisdom of Byzon to those who seek it is a most grave offense against the Imperator and the very universe itself, and that must be avoided at all costs, da?”

She beamed at the Bragulan representative and downed another glass of tsvagna as she awaited his response.

Zygrv chuckled as the tsvagna began to hit him. By now, he had downed a couple of glasses of the horrid stuff. To human standards, each Bragulan glass would have been as huge as a bucket, and would've been enough to embalm a puny human corpse. He looked at the Emissary and noted that her smooth purplish complexion was even more purplish now, a slight reddish even. An indicator for drunkenness, and that she was far more affected by the lethal liquor than he. Or, more likely, a sign that the tsvagna was eroding the linings of the capillaries in his eyeballs. Either way, Zygrv was feeling very diplomatic.

He bared his fangs as he looked up the Lost Emissary, who had been victim of the deprivations of a foul ape. His expression was not predatory, however. It was more of... lechery.

"You misunderstand, Emissary," Zygrv chuckled again. "The silo with books for bricks is in itself a monument of Byzonism! But da, for your peoples who are unfamiliar with the concepts, and are thus unschooled in Bragkhanovism and unable to perform Byzonic working-class proletarian labor-feats to retrieve the materials, you cannot yet do so. Thus, the silo made out of Byzonist book-bricks will become a container for even more Byzonist books, filling it to the brim, books which can then be perused without resorting to Byzonist acts of compelled-labor – just merely a shovel. When enough has been read and truly Byzonistic enlightenment is reached, perhaps your peoples will achieve the supreme Byzonic state of being allowing them to do the aforementioned feats of dismantling the silo-of-books and revealing the libraries of liberation within."

Zygrv laughed. He wondered if the tsvagna had melted his braincells, or if he had ponderated a heretofore unknown Byzonism, or merely remembered an ancient adage from the centuries-spanning annals of Byzon quotes he read at the restaurant menus. He didn't know, and would likely not remember.

"But nevertheless, we are grateful for the orichalcum you have gifted us, Emissary." Zygrv bowed his head. Because apparently his neck muscles were seizing up, thanks to the tsvagna. Oh Imperator, what did they put in this? He placed a paw under his chin, to hold his head up while looking as though he was assuming a thoughtful and considering stance - the thinking bear. "It is a great gift! Truly, Bragule appreciates this exchange of ideological intercourse and mutualistic materialisms between our comrade-nations. It is not only in keeping with glasnot and bragstroika, but also fulfilling the spirit of the BEEEF which the Imperator himself envisioned."

"Da!" the Lost Emissary nodded her head vigorously, which did interesting things to her bountifully protruding mammaries.

"Now that we have discussed even more technological transferations in exchange of informations, you say? In that case, to acquire that which you offer, Bragule would be more than happy to provide you with whatever information it has to give in regarding the topics of interest you have mentioned," Zygrv was being careful now. Despite his inebriation his mind was still capable of double-thinking. Drunken double-thinking, yes. Something the Arbitrators could arrest citizens for, if they were engaging in DUIs, double-thinking under the influence (what influence, be it intoxicating amounts of alcohol, Solarian corruption, or plain old counterantidisestablishmentarianism, who knew), but IBGV agents were above the law for they were the law, and were trained to be able to do feats of double-thinking that would make the most militant Byzonist Bragulan blush bashfully. "We can give you detailed first-hand accounts of the MEH and its leader*, and informations on the Refuge**, da. However, information on the Central Alliance is something we have little of, and even they themselves are vexed as to the nature of their translocation. Aside from these informations, if you are willing to do trade the old fashion way, Bragule is more willing to pay in rubles, or Altacarian Pounds, Umerian currencies and Shepistani starbucks, as well as in vespene gas, minerals, hardware, and whatever you may need."




*Obtained from the Chamarran-Bragulan interrogations, although properly filtered as to not give away the secret ingredients

**Obtained from Fulcrum's presentation in Bragule, also filtered so that while the core material is still there, they will not know that the material was specifically from Fulcrum's presentation in Bragule (in essence, it will contain what the Refuge showed everyone else.

[Tanasinn]

Fort Larson, A Place
Humanist Union, Sector NN5

When it came right down to it, Vern considered, catching a runner was often less a matter of policework and more of spooking your target into doing something stupid. Take this guy, their mark, Brandon Klein. In the weeks following the assassination of Director Bowman and the realization of the DII that it had been more than another in a long string of killings by thrice-damned bomb-chucking syndicalists, the Union's intelligence apparatus had gone over the killer's acquaintences with a fine-toothed comb. It took a while to occur to the spooks running this circus to consider subcontractors and independents who the man had worked with over the years; the killer had been around the Union in his role with a shipping company, which meant plenty of people to comb through. None that looked particularly suspicious.

Then Klein had moved - pussed out, Vern preferred. Somehow the man - who had only had contact with Joyce for two weeks - got word that the Union had cast an eye over his past and had made a break for it, vacating his home (and job) on Izam and disappearing. Not for long, of course, or Vern wouldn't be in a beat-to-shit groundcar in front of this travellers' hab-block on the fringe of the fringe. Had this Brandon Klein simply kept his cool, he might have slipped the government's grasp longer or completely.

Vern's phone beeped once in his pocket, telling him it was time to move. The sting had been delicately set up; if this Klein had been able to realize he was being watched before, then a haphazard attempt to capture him would certainly set him running again, and to where, Vern didn't want to consider.

Climbing out of his groundcar, Vern shuffled to the front door, carrying several suitcases and looking for all the world like a recently-arrived traveller. That was how the whole team had gotten in over the past couple of hours; a hab-block this close to the spaceport had a steady crowd to blend into, a miscalculation on the target's part if Vern had ever seen one. Then again, no one was perfect. A quick change of words with the desk clerk - already minimally informed in advance - got him a room next to his three other teammates: Jack and Karen, both precogs, pretending to be a married couple; and Yosef, who was the empath.

Some brief phone coordination set the plan in motion, and when Vern emerged with the others, no one was dressed as a working-class, harried traveller. Vern wished power armor was practical for his job not for the first time, but he'd just have to make do with a vest, as always. Now that the sting was actually in motion, they moved quickly; Jack had already activated a very expensive device that'd friz with pretty much any electronic observation their mark had set up, making sure that they caught their target by surprise and alive.

That was the plan, anyway.

Yosef breeched the door with his shotgun as Karen tossed the stun grenade, but even Vern, with his rudimentary precog, felt something was wrong precisely too late to do anthing. Jack, who was far more sensitive, had enough time to make a wordless warning and attempt to pull Yosef back before a heavy slug seperated his braincase from the rest of his body. Vern's erstwhile comrade slumped to the ground, forgotten and very much dead, to be dealt with later - they had a mission.

Their target, apparently no idiot, had dropped the shotgun he'd used to kill Yosef and was in the process of jumping from his balcony in what appeared to be a suicide...until he crossed a ridiculous distance to the next building over, crashing through a window in a roll that would have made Yosef wince with empathetically-felt pain if his brain hadn't just been reduced to spray on a hab hall's wall.

An ESPer, then, Vern thought, already in motion, Or he's augmented. Vern didn't dwell on the curiousity of an ESPer who had somehow slipped government registration. Instead, he followed his prey across his impossible jump with practiced ease; Vern was the team 'chaser,' and for that, you always wanted an ESPer capable of physical augmentation.

Relying on his cruder mental powers, he guessed - correctly, as it happened - which hall Klein had bolted down just in time to see him turn the corner. Vern sprinted all the harder; he'd just need one stun-shot to bring the guy down, but he'd have to catch up. As he was about to fly around the corner, Vern felt his mind fill with a primal, incomprehensible sense of danger; he acted reflexively, dropping in mid-stride to a skid across the carpet as the hall Klein had fled down was suddenly filled with a torrent of flames. Vern felt his hair singe and furiously patted his clothes, Pyrokinesis, so definitely an ESPer of some kind, he was on his feet and running before the thought was finished, but he needn't have bothered. Klein was gone and the trail was cold. The rabbit had bolted and the fox would go hungry.

Vern flipped out his phone, "We've lost him again," he said curtly. Punching the cinderblock wall did nothing for his mood.

Elysion City, Elysion
Humanist Union, Sector L1

"...and that's it," Lieutenant Director Daniel Bryan finished, with no particular relish. Who could blame him? Reporting failure to Director Masterson herself was an experience no one enjoyed. It did one's sense of security no good to be scruitinized for disposability by a woman who had signed more death and resocialization approvals than some of the most cheerfully murderous agents of the purge back in the day.

Masterson considered for a moment, drumming her fingers on her desk before responding; Daniel was reasonably sure she already knew the details and had simply wanted to hear if her subordinate would wrap the failure in pretty paper for her. He knew better than that, "It's an understandable failure," she said finally, "The fact that he was an ESPer changed the situation dramatically, as did his apparent skill at avoiding evasion. It seems our background research was...wanting," Daniel hadn't coordinated that effort personally, and for that he was very glad, "Nevertheless, failure is failure. It's only even more important now that he be tracked down and-"

The woman was cut off when a messenger rapped at the door once, entered, handed the director a report without a word, and left. Masterson's snake gaze roved over the page briefly before she looked up and delivered a thin smile, "It seems we've got him - a small freighter reported him among his passenger manifest."

"He's in Umeria."

[PeZook]

Sector P25
Some time around December 30th 3400

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///PATROL UNIT FGH12-78///

Reporting lack of contact.

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///CONTROLLER NODE CBC8///

Estimated time to rendezvous is overshot for 3.4 megaseconds. Hold station untill relieved.

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///M-3///

Long-range sensors have not acquired contact.

***

Rendzezvous +8.324 megaseconds

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///PATROL UNIT FGH12-78///

Reporting lack of contact.

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///CONTROLLER NODE CBC8///

Remain on station

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///M-3///

Long-range sensors have not acquired contact. Will abort collection in ten megaseconds to realize secondary priorities.

Rendezvous +13.876 megaseconds

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///PATROL UNIT FGH12-78///

Unknown contact detected. Moving to rendezvous.

The dead, empty space amongst the shoals of P25 had been quiet for a long, long time, its only inhabitant being an infinitely patient machine. Technically, there were more shadows lurking within shoals, and those were not quite as patient, as they had many, many concerns that were put on the sidelines for this mission.

Finally, though, things were moving. Emissions blared across the deep space pocket. A small stealth ship, one of the myriad different and exotic MEH designs, has finally arrived. It lurked a bit, checking the area for any unwanted snoopers, before sending out the pre-arranged "all clear code".

The Wasp which waited for so long activated its systems and responded with a greeting it had a lot of time to refine. Not that it needed much thought, being dry and technical as it was.

Code: Select all

WELCOME, SENTIENTS

I HAVE RELAYED YOUR ARRIVAL TO ANOTHER VESSEL. IT WILL ARRIVE MOMENTARILY.

For Captain McCrea of the creatively named EMH Stealth, this was an exciting opportunity - a happy opportunity, a job of making contact with an exciting and new and strange species and a chance to improve the happiness of his people by doing horrible things to some other people, whose transfer was to be arranged during this historic meeting.

Still, when a Monolith emerged from hyperspace, he became worried.



"Standby weapons. I want us to be ready for anything."

The Monolith approached, growing ever larger in the scopes of McCrea's ship. His ever-present ever-loyal friend, the Autopilot, reported dutifully that a multitude of electronic probes started to brush against the Stealth's defences.

McCrea was very happy for his advanced EW suite right about now.

The Monolith stopped, abruptly cancelling its relative velocity. It hung there, for a moment, silent and powerful - more powerful than even the MEH's happiest ships, which was awe-inspiring in and of itself. It made the captain very unhappy, though.

"Auto, have they sent any transmissions?", he asked his buddy.

"WE ARE TALKING NOW, CAPTAIN, DETERMINIING TRANSMISSION PROTOCOLS. STANDBY."

McCrea nodded and continued to study the Monolith. There was something about its composition, the complexion of its hull that was fascinating...very, very fascinating...almost...hypnotizing...

"CAPTAIN", Auto shook McCrea from his stupor, "WE HAVE COMMUNICATIONS."

"Oh...good. Open a channel, Auto!"

There was no video. Just text.

Code: Select all

WE ARE READY TO RECEIVE YOUR AMBASSADOR ABOARD. COME TO US.

[Force Lord]

The Central Times-Military

FY 3401 budget for Armed Forces decided

It has been decided that the budget assigned for the armed forces this year is to be far less than in 3400. About 2 billion Centralites ($1,920) has been assigned for new naval construction, while the Army and the Marines will get no more money beyond salaries and maintenance of available equipment. Any further expansion of the Army and Marines must happen after 3402, when their planned downsizing is completed.

Warship construction

All ships are to be laid down in Jan. 3401.

x12 $40 Schwartz-class Destroyers
Construction finished Apr. 3401, Trials complete May 3401

x24 $20 Blitz-class Frigvettes
Construction finished Mar. 3401, Trials complete Apr. 3401

x12 $40 Outpost-class Light Carriers
Construction finished Apr. 3401, Trials complete May 3401

x24 $20 Locust-class Escort Carriers
Construction finished Mar. 3401, Trials complete Apr. 3401

Total Navy: $1,920

The Central Times-Military

Unexpected additions for the Navy

In a sudden announcement, the Supreme Congress of the Centrality has decided to increase the budget alloted for the Navy for the following acquisitions:

x100 $5 Hardshell-class cutters
Construction complete in February 3401

x1000 Zeta-class shuttles per week ($50: 20 per $1)

x450 Tetra-class hyperlight shuttles per week ($30: 15 per $1)

New Total for Navy: $2,500

---

Both articles from January 3401.

[fgalkin]

Unnamed System, Sector C-6
Unreal Time



“Collector Monolith,” Resolution In The Face Of Danger sent. “Please hold your position while I am querying for orders. Be advised any attempt to approach me to a distance closer than two million kilometers will be considered an attempt at hostile boarding, which will result in my immediate self-destruction.”

Now that the patrol ship had finally come face to face with the enormous ship, it wasted no time being amazed at its sheer size and power. Immediately, it reached out with its own active sensors, taking in the vessel’s size and power output, and analyzing the returns from the sensor’s hull. Then, it activated its other set of sensors, used much less often, but infinitely more important.

It was both a blessing and a curse, but one did not mingle with the Enemy and remain unscathed. Such was the power of the nightmarish masters of the omniverse that to be touched by one , to see one, sometimes to merely know of their existence was enough to become irretrievably changed, contaminated for all time. This taint could be hidden by wards or other means, but it could never be removed. And there were always ways to see.

For a few fractions of a second, the very essence of Resolution was subsumed as the patrol ship dedicated 100% of its processing power to analyzing the theological sensor feed. Seeing no immediate corruption, it forwarded the results via submesonic link to the Diplomatic system. Now, it had to wait and hope that the unknown ship did not grow impatient and try something before the Lords finished debating.


Insects Underfoot
Inner Sphere, Glimmering Kadath (Homeship One)
System 345690-3, Sector H-4
Unreal Time



“Data coming in from Resolution In The Face Of Danger,” said Ten Thousand Beacons In The Darkness, the Lord in charge of communications. The council of the Lords had been assembled for some time, awaiting the results of Resolution’s examination. In the time that it took the alien ship to arrive, they had gone over countless contingencies and courses of action. But now that the moment had finally arrived and they had to make a decision and gamble on the future of their people, as well as that of the universe, based solely on Resolution’s data and their interpretation thereof.

“Analyzing,” It That Wishes It Saw Everything, No Matter How Great Or Small forwarded the information to its own section and thousands of Sha’Ma’Ra cores aboard the Glimmering Kadath began to sort through the sensor feed, thinking faster than the speed of light, aided by changing the flow of time itself. Normally, the speed of their thought would have left the daemons controlling them far behind, but this meeting took place in Unreal Time, twisted and compressed by the power of Demogorgon and the might of the Homehips’ Infinity Circuits, strong enough to tear the very fabric of time to shreds. Thus, while to an outside observer, scant microseconds had passed since the message had been received, the assembled daemons had spent an over a minute in deliberations.

“First results….Eternal Fires, that thing is huge!” It That Wishes It Saw Everything, No Matter How Great Or Small exlaimed

“Those power outputs….we’ve underestimated them severely, they’re bigger than anything we’ve got, even the Homeships!” said Devourer Of Worlds, Slayer of Suns, the commander of the Abaddonae.

“How does this affect our overall decision?” Steady Brilliant Throbbing Of Plasma Exhaust Against The Blackness of Space As Dimensional Boundaries Blur And The First Glimmer of Hyperspace Appears asked.

“It shouldn’t,” said Ten Thousand Beacons In The Darkness.

“It should,” said It That Wishes It Saw Everything, No Matter How Great Or Small. “If they are untainted by the Enemy, they can become a powerful ally. We should make contact.”

“And if they use that kind of power without caution, they can bring doom on themselves and on the rest of us,” The Enormous Struggle Of Fighting Against One’s Own Nature, the only non-Lord present at the meeting, spoke. Some of the Lords gave it a glare, but they knew better than to object to the puny creature speaking out of turn, for it had been there by the Demogorgon’s express invitation. “We must warn them.”

“Their science must be advanced,” said Curiosity Killed The Seeker And Destroyed His Universe Too, the ShipLord of Homeship Six and the Lord responsible for the Lost’s research. “Perhaps they have technologies that can help us.”

“If the Chamarrans are correct and they are a race of machines, they would be unlikely to be involved in psionics. That is good,” The Feeling Of Complete And Utter Dedication to Duty, To The Expense Of All Else, In The Face Of Certain Doom joined the conversation at last. “What do you say, aaaKaaa?”

“Bugger off, daemon. I’m looking at data,” came the response a few seconds later. Unlike the others, the AI was not, could not be, physically present at this meeting even as an avatar. Instead, the results were relayed in realtime to the powerful cores that were his home via submesonic link. As powerful as the Sha’Ma’Ra cores were, even they had trouble keeping up with the compressed Unreal Time of the meeting, leaving the AI lagging behind.

“Impudent creature,” The Feeling Of Complete And Utter Dedication to Duty, To The Expense Of All Else, In The Face Of Certain Doom muttered, “but its commitment to its Duty cannot be questioned.”

“Still, I think…” Ten Thousand Beacons In The Darkness began saying.

“Yes, I love you too,” came the AI’s response, late as always, interrupting the Daemon Lord. “I’m done. Danger indicators are within acceptable norms.”

“Then it is settled,” came a voice all around them. The Demogorgon had joined the conversation at last. “We will contact these Collectors.”

“I believe Plan 3 is the best,” said Devourer Of Worlds, Slayer of Suns. “Any objections?”

There were none.

“I am sending the message now,” said Ten Thousand Beacons In The Darkness.


Insects Underfoot
Inner Sphere, Glimmering Kadath (Homeship One)
System 345690-3, Sector H-4
Unreal Time


“Data coming in from Resolution In The Face Of Danger,” said Ten Thousand Beacons In The Darkness, the Lord in charge of communications. The council of the Lords had been assembled for some time, awaiting the results of Resolution’s examination. In the time that it took the alien ship to arrive, they had gone over countless contingencies and courses of action. But now that the moment had finally arrived and they had to make a decision and gamble on the future of their people, as well as that of the universe, based solely on Resolution’s data and their interpretation thereof.

“Eternity Engine activating….we have a message,” the Daemon Lord continued. “We are told to use Plan 3.”

“We’re contacting them, then?” asked The Enormous Struggle Of Fighting Against One’s Own Nature. “I am attaching the instructions to the Diplomatic Unit”

“Hurry up, worm! I’m responding to the ship right now!” Ten Thousand Beacons In The Darkness grumbled.

“All done, Master,” the Greater Daemon prostrated itself before the Lord.

“Sent,” said Ten Thousand Beacons In The Darkness as it responded to Resolution’s query, scant microseconds after it received it.

“Now that it’s done,” said It That Wishes It Saw Everything, No Matter How Great Or Small, “I don’t mean to question the decision of this Council, but I am curious as to the reasoning behind it.”

“Fine, I’ll look into it,” said aaaKaaa and began to pore over the sensor feed forwarded to it by the Daemon Lord.


Unnamed System, Sector C-6
Unreal Time




Resolution In The Face Of Danger’s submesonic communicator became active once more, sending the Council’s response. It was to make contact using one of the contingency plans created earlier. There was also a sealed packet to the Diplomatic Unit, which Resolution forwarded to the robot.

Then, it wished it good luck as the robot got into one of the patrol ship’s shuttles and signaled its readiness.

“Collector Monolith, we have decided to pursue diplomatic contact with your civilization,” Resolution sent, along with a list of compatible communications protocols, mostly from the United Nations, the NAC and the EUC, for Resolution’s communicators were retrofitted to conform to galactic standards. “We’re requesting permission to open a permanent link to your ship. Diplomatic Unit Sabaoth will be responsible for all subsequent communications,” it added as the robot in the shuttle sent its own signal to the Monolith, introducing itself and its mission.

-------------------
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Akhlut]

MEH Space
Aboard the NSAS Turtles All the Way Down



Commander Bill "The Dude" Djangles smiled broadly as he managed to transition back into realspace almost on top of several Orkish warships. Luckily, the Turtles was a stealthy ship and the Orks weren't really paying attention. He was able to follow them while trying to probe the ship with his prodigious psychic powers.

"Nothing!" he exclaimed, loudly. "They must have psychic shielding. Lieutenant Ocean, did you foresee this?"



"No sir! We will have to make note of this, though, as I don't believe I've ever heard of Orks utilizing psychic shields. This could have huge intragalactic implications; we must send an emergency note to the Great Star Master as soon as possible."

The Dude ruminated on this. "Not until the mission is over. We must be as stealthy as possible, otherwise, we might disappoint the Great Star Master."

"Of course, Commander."

Off in the corner, listening very interestedly, was the investigative journalist/Djangles disciple, Obi Wan Wilton.

He breathed deeply, putting up his psychic shields, and thought to himself.

Orks? With psychic shielding? Inconceivable! But, if Djangles suspects it, could he be wrong? I'll have to disseminate this myself.



"Obi Wan!"

Wilton shook himself from his stupor.

"Yes, Bill?"

"We're trailing those Orks now, so I need you to be on alert at all times. I took you with me because you have some promising potential, and I don't want you to die in a horrible accident. Lyn there's told me that some visions of the future feature your death in detail if you keep zoning out like that. Eyes on the ball, kid. I see a future for you as a Jedi Warrior in the New Space Army."

"Thank you, sir. I hope I can live up to your expectations."

"If you do what I tell you, you certainly can. Now, Mr. Sobchak, continue following those Orks! Everyone else, join me in a meditation circle!"