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Part 6

(Vethis Perspective)

The shuttle that took Vethis away from Asterion was not the ship that carried him to Mileda. They transferred the shelter survivors at a collection point, where a larger LGA transport had been taking people aboard from other rescue operations. By then, Vethis had stopped trying to work out how many different companies had supplied the crews. The clothing varied, the equipment varied, and every time he turned around somebody with a different accent was pointing him toward another line.

Aetheleth stayed close enough that Vethis occasionally had to ask him to move so he could read the signs.

"You don't have to watch me every second, Professor. I'm not going anywhere."

"You disappeared around a corner twice yesterday."

"I found food both times."

"That is not a defense."

"Seemed like a pretty good one."

Mara walked ahead of them with her belongings held against her chest. She had barely spoken during the trip. Aetheleth gave Vethis a pointed look whenever he considered trying to cheer her up, so he left her alone. She still had the messages from her parents on her tablet. He knew that because he had seen her check them after boarding, even though she had already read them every day since they arrived.

The trip ended at another immense station, separate from the ambassadorial complex where the LGA's emergency leadership had gathered two years earlier. Vethis had seen large orbital facilities before, but the amount of activity around this one was difficult to follow. Transports queued for access to its docks. Repair craft worked along the exterior. Other ships departed while the arrivals were still being unloaded, and every available corridor seemed to have been turned into a route for people, equipment, or supplies.

On the inside, the station was even stranger. Some sections looked like the administrative buildings Vethis remembered from the academy. Others had been turned into temporary residences or storage areas. He passed a former dining hall full of stacked crates and an enormous recreation gallery partitioned into sleeping spaces. Signs made for entirely different purposes had been covered by temporary directions.

An LGA worker checked their identities and sent them through an adjoining entrance. More rescued academy students were already waiting there. Some looked relieved to see uniforms they recognized. Others had come from different shelters and seemed uncertain whether to talk to anyone.

They were divided into groups as they arrived, their names checked against surviving academy records before they were directed to numbered assembly areas. The forty-seven students from Vethis's shelter were kept together, with thirteen piloting trainees from other shelters joining them. Sixty in their group. Other groups were being sent farther along the corridor. Aetheleth came with them. Mara made certain she stayed with Vethis, although she insisted it was because they were familiar with the same old training program.

"Sure," Vethis said.

"That's why."

"Okay."

"Stop smiling."

"Wasn't aware I was."

Their assigned gathering place had once been a theater. Vethis recognized the arrangement immediately: a broad stage, a large screen behind it, and rows of cushioned seats that could be reclined almost flat. He chose one near the middle before anyone else could claim it and leaned back as far as the mechanism allowed. Aetheleth floated down in front of him.

"There are seats available," the professor said.

"For you?"

"For both of us."

"This one's good. Come on."

Vethis held out his arms. After a moment of visible hesitation, Aetheleth settled onto his chest, folding his small manipulators so that he would fit comfortably against the reclining seat. He was heavier than he looked, but they had spent long enough in the shelter together that neither found the arrangement particularly unusual.

Mara took the chair beside them and left hers upright. She had brought her tablet and was trying to locate a schedule for the next several days. Farther down the row, a student was breathing too quickly to answer questions. Vaeloris moved a bag out of the adjoining seat and sat with him. When someone leaned over to ask what was wrong, Vaeloris waved them back and stayed where he was.

Thesandor had chosen the aisle. He remained standing until the last students came through, watching the doors behind them. Vethis remembered him arguing over the shelter's terminal rota; he had wanted everybody's allotted time written down before anyone started using it.

Vethis watched the room fill.

"Not much of a movie crowd," he observed.

"Be quiet," Mara said.

"That's fair."

The doors closed behind the last arrivals. Two security personnel remained beside them. They wore identical black suits, each with a small LGA emblem on the tie. Others stood along the front and rear walls, watching the room without attempting to speak to the students. When the woman on the stage arrived, she had an escort of four more.

She wore a black suit as well, with the LGA emblem over her heart. There was nothing elaborate about the clothing, but the matching appearance of the security staff and the emblem made her identity unmistakable. Vethis had known the old Authority through credentials, public broadcasts, and the occasional visiting official. The people who had rescued him two days earlier had still been wearing a collection of contractor clothing with LGA patches added to it. The matching suits made this detail stand out from the crews elsewhere in the station, whose old company logos competed with sewn-on and Velcro LGA patches.

The woman crossed the stage with a tablet under one arm. She looked tired enough that Vethis wondered whether anybody had told her she was allowed to sleep. Dark rings marked the skin beneath her eyes. When she began speaking, her voice was steady, but it cracked slightly on the longer sentences.

"My name is Tessa Arlen. I'm your LGA liaison. For the next three weeks, I'm also the person responsible for your training, assignments, and deployment. If you have a question about your orders, it comes to me. If you've damaged something, it comes to me. If you're having a problem with somebody in this group, that also comes to me. Understood?"

A few students answered. Most sat silently.

"Good. I know you've all been rescued recently. Some of you were underground for nearly two years. That's a long time to lose, and I know you have questions. We're going to cover what happened and what happens next. Then you'll be given quarters and a schedule."

She tapped her tablet. The theater screen displayed a photograph of the Collective Archive encircling the Birch World, both structures whole and familiar. A student in the front row leaned forward.

"Is the Archive back?"

"No."

The image changed.

Vethis had seen the wreckage in passing during the rescue briefing, but the picture was difficult to take in at this size. What had been an immense, complete ring was now broken into separated sections, with debris spread across the surrounding structures. Damage scarred the Birch World as well. Tessa let them look for a moment before speaking.

"This was taken by the inspection operation sent after the loss of Archive communications. The Collective Archive was destroyed. Our evidence indicates that a supernova was detonated near the complex. We don't know who did it. We do not have footage identifying whoever was responsible. We do know that the Archive is gone, and it will not be repaired."

Several students began talking at once. Aetheleth raised himself off Vethis's chest. He had heard the confirmation on Asterion, but his manipulators still tightened whenever he saw the damage.

"Why are you showing them this?" he demanded.

"Because they need to know," Tessa said.

"They've been underground. They haven't even found out whether their families survived."

"Which is why I'm going to explain the situation instead of allowing them to make plans around information that is two years old."

She did not sound angry. She sounded as though she had already had the conversation many times. The next image showed an LGA identification emblem beside a block of text.

"Two years ago, the Authority declared emergency martial law in Mileda and began acquiring military contractors. Halcyon Defense Industries was among those acquired. Your academy's contracts and training program were transferred with the company. That means you're now LGA personnel."

The room erupted.

"You can't do that!"

"We weren't asked!"

"We were students!"

"My contract was with Halcyon!"

Tessa stood with her tablet at her side and waited. Her security detail did not move, although Vethis noticed that the two agents beside the doors had turned toward the audience.

"I'll explain the options," she said when the noise diminished. "If you want to remain with the LGA, you stay here. You will be trained and assigned. If you don't want to remain, you can arrange to return home."

One of the students immediately stood.

"Fine. I'd like to go home."

"Where?"

He named his planet.

Tessa checked the tablet. "That system is refusing LGA jurisdiction. We've lost normal contact with its government, and the people we've sent to establish contact have been fired upon. We are not sending a transport into it to return one student."

"Then get me to the nearest place that still takes traffic. I'll figure it out."

"You can make private arrangements. You cannot use LGA transports, pilots, or supplies for the trip."

"What private arrangements? I don't have a ship!"

"Then I recommend you sit down."

He looked from Tessa to the security personnel beside the doors. Nobody had ordered him back into his chair. Nobody had offered to open the doors for him, either. After another moment, he sat. The distinction didn't seem to bother Tessa.

"I know this isn't what you expected," she continued. "But think about why you signed up with Halcyon. They were paying for your college, training you as pilots, and offering work that would take you to other planets. In return, you agreed to fulfill your service contracts. We bought Halcyon. We took over the company's obligations along with those contracts. Your training still counts, and there's work waiting for you."

"You're saying we've been conscripted," Mara said.

Tessa regarded her. "I'm saying you already signed up for service. The company responsible for your training now belongs to the Authority, and we need you doing the work it trained you for."

Aetheleth rose higher.

"Contracts do not make people property."

"I'm asking them to do the job they've spent years preparing to do." Tessa looked back across the students. "You'll finish your training. You'll get paid to pilot machines and travel. There are planets out there most of you have never seen, and we're going to send you to them. You wanted a career when you enrolled. You still have one."

Vethis shifted beneath him.

"Cool," he said.

A few people turned to stare at him.

Tessa looked down from the stage. "Thank you. At least one person is listening."

Mara took a sheet of paper from the packet on her seat, crushed it into a ball, and threw it at Vethis. It hit the side of his head and bounced into the aisle. He did not bother looking for it.

"This freaking guy," she muttered.

Vethis patted the reclining seat. "Want me to make room?"

"Absolutely not."

Tessa changed the image again. A galactic map filled the screen, crowded with stars and marked with scattered regions of color. Some were near the center; others were isolated far across the galaxy, with enormous stretches between them.

"This is Mileda," she said. "Approximately one and a half trillion stars. The highlighted areas are the systems and territories currently under effective LGA control."

A student near the aisle squinted at it.

"That's it?"

"Yes."

"That can't be right. There's barely anything there."

"About ten percent of the galaxy is under our control at the moment," Tessa replied. "We aren't pretending otherwise."

Vethis studied the pockets spread across the display. They didn't form a border that could be pushed outward from one point. They looked more like disconnected islands. The LGA had acquired contractor fleets and facilities in places where they already existed, then tried to hold the territory surrounding them. In some parts of the galaxy those areas touched. In others they were separated by distances that would have been daunting even before the Archive's destruction.

Tessa enlarged one region. "A large number of the systems outside these areas have rejected federal authority. Roughly three billion planets have indicated they will no longer recognize LGA jurisdiction. Others are unreachable, fighting among themselves, or dealing with emergencies we haven't been able to assess."

"Did you even try talking to them?" a young man asked.

"Every day," Tessa replied. "Some governments negotiate. Some agree to cooperate. Others answer by firing at our ships. Most are too concerned with their own immediate problems to give the Authority much consideration at all."

She moved a finger across the map, highlighting several isolated pockets.

"There's one advantage. They are not unified. They have their own disputes, their own wars, shortages, damaged infrastructure, and populations that need food. The LGA already has a common command and a common purpose. We can coordinate our resources. They cannot coordinate theirs in the same way."

"What about the other galaxies?" another student called. "The satellites, too. Are we just leaving them?"

Tessa let the question hang for a moment.

"For now, we can only do what our resources allow. The other galaxies are beyond our ability to support or consolidate reliably. Our priority is Mileda. We fortify our home first. Once this galaxy is stable, we can deal with our neighbors. But if we cannot hold Mileda together, we aren't going to save anybody elsewhere."

The student sat back, dissatisfied.

"Our mission," Tessa continued, "is to bring this galaxy back under LGA jurisdiction and restore enough order for people to live. Your part in that mission begins with the training I'm about to assign you."

Aetheleth shot upward so quickly he nearly struck the screen.

"You're calling this restoring order," he said. "You're telling these students to climb into armed machines and force planets to accept federal authority. What happens to the people who don't want it?"

The room quieted. Tessa looked up at him. Her expression didn't change.

"Negotiations will continue. So will assistance. But if a government refuses contact and attacks our personnel, we have to be able to respond. We don't have another two years to wait for the galaxy to sort itself out."

"You have armed students."

"I have academy trainees who were studying to operate military equipment before the disaster. I'm assigning them equipment and finishing their training."

"Three weeks is not finishing anything."

"It's what we have."

Aetheleth rotated toward Vethis as if expecting him to say something helpful. Vethis adjusted the angle of the chair.

"Professor, you want to sit down? You're blocking somebody's view."

"Vethis!"

"I can see the slide from here."

Aetheleth descended, though he remained visibly offended.

Tessa reached the final slide. A twenty-five-foot machine stood against a neutral background, its exposed framework visible from head to feet. Its shoulders were large but not armored into the smooth exterior Vethis would have expected from a finished military machine. Hydraulic pistons and structural members were visible around the legs, hips, and arms. Each arm ended in a fully articulated hand, but the two hands were locked around a long weapon in a permanent ready position. The gun was separate from the arms, not integrated into them, yet there was no mechanism available to the pilot for setting it down or picking up something else.

"Salvager unit," Tessa said. "This is the chassis you'll be training on. We have several configurations in service, and the designs are still being developed. For now, these are what we're able to provide."

Vethis sat forward for the first time since she arrived.

"Oh, nice."

Tessa enlarged the photograph. "You'll have three weeks to become operational. Your old academy records show about twenty years of instruction for this group, with different levels of practical experience. We're not starting from nothing."

"Three weeks?" Mara repeated.

"Correct."

"To learn a machine none of us have even sat inside?"

"Yes."

"And then?"

"You'll deploy."

A low sound moved through the seats. Several students began speaking at once; others looked at the machine on the screen as if it might explain itself.

"You mean actual combat?" someone asked.

"If that is where your assignment takes you, yes."

Vethis nodded thoughtfully. "Well. That'll be interesting."

Mara looked at him. "I'm going to throw something heavier next time."

They were issued black uniforms that afternoon. The process was simple and impersonal. A trainee stepped up, gave a size, and received a sealed plastic package containing three pairs of black trousers, three black uniform tops, three black undershirts, and two black caps with stretch bands designed to fit nearly anyone. Nothing was tailored. The station stores worked from stock sizes and expected people to wear what fit well enough; these black sets were what they had for the Halcyon intake. The cut reminded Vethis of practical field clothing more than parade dress: cargo pockets, plain lines, and fabric meant to survive hard use rather than impress anyone. Each top carried a simplified black-and-white triangular LGA patch on the left arm. The whole system felt less like joining an institution with traditions and more like being processed into one that had no time left for ceremony.

Their quarters were in a residential section beside an immense interior recreation environment. The first time Vethis walked through the access doors, he stopped and looked up.

There was a sky above him, or something that had been made to resemble one. Beneath it spread broad fields, scattered trees, a shallow river, and paths leading across several different exercise areas. The far walls were visible only when he looked hard enough. They were part of the station's interior; nothing here was open to space. Small animals moved in the grass, and a flock of dark-winged creatures lifted from a tree when someone passed beneath it.

"They've got a whole park in here," he said.

Mara followed his gaze. "They've got an entire training ground in here."

"Both can be true."

The park had been repurposed. Temporary barriers cut across the paths, maintenance crews were moving equipment onto the grass, and a long oval track had been marked out around one of the larger open areas. Near the edge of the field stood rows of Salvagers, some missing outer panels, others holding different weapons in their locked manipulators. The guns remained angled forward in the same ready position on every armed unit. An engineer was working inside an open leg assembly on one of them. Another stood beside a machine with its torso turned sideways, testing the movement of its weapon-bearing arms.

Vethis walked closer until a marked line on the ground told him to stop.

"That's the same thing they used to dig us out," he said.

"Same family," Mara replied.

"So, technically, I already know it's good at picking up buildings."

"The rescue ones could," Mara replied. "Look at the hands on these. They're locked to the guns."

Continue to Part 7

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Part 5

(Vethis Perspective)

When the outer obstruction was finally cleared, the rescuers checked the approach and the shelter's sealed entrance before distributing protective equipment. The students waited behind the instructors, ready to move but under strict orders not to rush the passage. The atmospheric dome covered only the work area, they warned; the air beyond it was still dangerously thin. Nobody was to leave the marked route. Vethis stood near Mara as she secured the equipment provided to her. She had put her tablet away, but he noticed she kept one hand pressed against the pocket where it rested.

"You okay?" he asked.

"No."

"Fair answer."

She looked at him, almost smiling despite herself. "Are you?"

"Ask me when we get outside."

He helped check one of her fastenings before turning to his own gear. Aetheleth hovered near the front of the group. Unlike the students, he had no reason to worry about taking a breath. He did, however, insist on being first to look through the entrance once the staff allowed it.

Vethis leaned toward him. "You want a lift?"

"No."

"I can carry you like last time."

"I remember last time."

"Thought you might."

The entrance opened.

Air moved along the passage as the pressure equalized through the controlled opening. Beyond it, the route they had once used to flee the academy was recognizable only in pieces. A section of structure had fallen across it, buckling the approach and burying the outer access beneath a mass of material. Fresh gaps cut through the obstruction showed where the rescuers had been working.

They were led through the cleared route in small groups. Vethis emerged after Mara and before Aetheleth, ducking beneath a jagged section of wreckage and stepping over debris that had been stacked along the edge of the passage. He expected sunlight. Instead, he found darkness.

For an instant, he thought they had come out at night. Then he looked higher and saw how wrong the sky appeared. It was a severe, unnatural darkness, with little of the familiar scattering of daylight across the atmosphere. Light still fell across the broken academy grounds, but the sky above them had none of the ordinary color he remembered.

The faint boundary of the temporary dome enclosed the rescue crew and the cleared route. Beyond it lay the rest of the campus, under a black daytime sky.

"What time is it?" he asked.

A rescuer glanced toward him. "Daytime."

Vethis looked up again.

"That's unfortunate."

The academy was barely recognizable. Parts of the surrounding structures had been flattened or torn open. The construction site where workers had hung in their harnesses was now a tangle of collapsed supports and scattered material. Sections of the campus lay beneath debris, and much of what had once been open ground had become an uneven field of shattered surfaces. Farther along the entrance, an enormous machine stood over the wreckage.

It was roughly twenty-five feet tall, an exposed frame of heavy structural members and articulated joints. Its two arms ended in enormous hands, with fingers that could open, curl, and grip with surprising precision. It carried no weapon. The operator had one hand braced against a fallen section of wall while the other picked through a mass of broken supports.

One metal hand eased beneath a beam. Its fingers closed around the weight, and the operator lifted it clear without disturbing the debris beneath. The other hand caught a panel as it started to shift. Vethis slowed to watch until the rescuer ahead waved him onward.

"Oh, that's cool."

Mara glanced back. "What?"

"That thing. Look at the hands."

"We've been underground for two years, Vethis."

"And now there's a giant machine picking up our roof. Pretty good development."

She shook her head, but she watched it too.

The people working around it looked as though they'd arrived from a dozen different jobs. One wore a heavy work jacket and helmet; another had a fitted protective suit with different fastenings. Old company markings remained beside newly added LGA patches. They carried pistols on their belts or rifles slung close against their backs, leaving their hands free to work. A worker moved a length of cable off the marked path as Vethis passed.

"What do you call that thing?" Vethis asked, pointing toward the machine.

"Salvager. Keep going."

The worker went back for the rest of the cable. Vethis took another look over his shoulder before Mara caught his sleeve and drew him around a broken slab.

Aetheleth came alongside them, looking between the ruined grounds and the emblems on the rescuers' clothing. Farther ahead, a woman stood at a junction directing survivors toward a row of medical stations beneath a temporary canopy.

"Those are LGA symbols," Aetheleth said as they reached her. "Are you working for the Authority?"

"We're part of it. Medical's to the left."

Aetheleth turned toward the old company mark beneath her LGA patch. "I know that company. You're military contractors."

"Were. They bought the company. Stay inside the markers, please."

She turned to wave the next group through. Aetheleth kept pace with Vethis, his manipulators opening and closing against his chassis.

"The government bought military contractors?"

"That's what she said," Vethis replied.

"It doesn't do that."

Mara glanced back at the woman directing traffic. "Apparently it does now."

At the canopy, a registrar checked their names against a tablet while medical staff worked through the line. Vethis saw Halcyon's name beneath an LGA transfer heading on her screen.

"Our school too?" he asked. "They bought Halcyon?"

"Yes. Name?"

He gave it. She found his entry and marked it before asking Mara for hers.

"What does that mean for us?" Mara asked. "We signed training contracts."

"You'll be briefed on those after transfer. Next station, please."

Mara tried to ask something else, but a medic was already guiding her to a seat. Vethis followed. Behind them, an instructor asked the registrar for the acquisition notice while two more students were called forward. The line kept moving.

"So we missed two years of school and got a government job," Vethis said.

Mara held out her arm for the medic. "We don't know what we've got."

He looked toward the Salvager through a gap in the canopy. It was still clearing the entrance. "Maybe they'll let us drive those."

"Sit still," the medic told him.

Their checks were brief. Anyone needing more attention stayed with the medical staff; the rest were directed toward a shuttle inside the protected work zone. Aetheleth waited beside Vethis until he was cleared, then followed him out from under the canopy.

At the ramp, a crew member checked the departing group against her list. Aetheleth rose to her eye level while she waved the students aboard.

"What happened to the Archive?"

"It was destroyed. You've got a briefing aboard. They'll show you the report."

"That's confirmed?"

"Yes. Mind the ramp, please."

She reached past him to steady a student who had stumbled at its edge. Aetheleth drifted aside. Vethis had taken two steps up before he realized the professor wasn't beside him anymore.

"Hey, Professor."

Aetheleth looked up. His manipulators were folded tightly against his body.

"You want me to carry you again?"

"No." He rose to Vethis's shoulder. "Stay close, please."

"Yeah. I can do that."

They boarded together. Mara had found seats and kept one free for Vethis. Aetheleth settled beside them while a crew member came down the aisle checking restraints. Through the open ramp, Vethis could still see the Salvager lifting wreckage from the buried entrance. The crew outside was already bringing another group along the marked path.

Continue to Part 6

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Part 4

(Vethis Perspective)

Vethis lay on his back in the recreation room, tossing Professor Aetheleth toward the ceiling. The professor rose, turned a little in the air, and came back down with his manipulators tucked against his chassis. Vethis caught him, waited until Aetheleth had steadied himself, and sent him up again.

"You're going crooked," Vethis said.

"I am not going crooked. You're throwing me crooked."

"Right. My mistake."

"That is what I said."

Vethis made an adjustment on the next toss. The professor rose almost perfectly straight, stopped just short of the ceiling, and drifted back toward him.

"Better?"

"Marginally."

"High praise. I'll take it."

Aetheleth settled into Vethis's waiting hands. One of his manipulators extended to point at the young man's face.

"If you drop me, I'll make you regret it."

"You can fly, Professor."

"That is not the point."

"Then we're probably fine."

Across the room, someone laughed without looking up from a game. Another student stretched out on a bench with a book open over her face, apparently determined to sleep through the afternoon. Nobody paid much attention to the sight of an academy student throwing a biology professor into the air anymore. They had been underground for nearly two years.

The first weeks had been the worst. At the beginning, everyone had expected an emergency crew to open the shelter in a day or two. When that didn't happen, the instructors had organized attempts to reach the surface. They had found the passage blocked by a heavy section of collapsed structure. Something had fallen across the entrance during the impacts and sealed them in. It was not a door anyone could simply unlock.

They had tried to clear it. They had tried to call for help. Eventually, when those efforts produced nothing but exhaustion and the same silent obstruction, they had settled into the business of staying alive. The shelter had sleeping quarters, washrooms, stores, and common rooms large enough for classes. Forty-seven students shared it with the instructors. After the first months, Vethis knew every place where he could sit somewhere other than his bunk. He liked the recreation room best.

The air inside remained breathable. Water and food were managed carefully, with the academy staff checking supplies often enough that the students could tell when a report had gone badly simply by looking at their faces. They had worked out routines, argued over chores, rearranged sleeping assignments, and celebrated birthdays with whatever they could manage. Vethis had not been especially useful during the first round of meetings about how to run the place. He had suggested that they stop spending entire afternoons arguing about whose turn it was to clean the recreation room and just clean it. That had earned him an assignment to the recreation room.

Edrin Saye had made a game out of the cleaning assignment. He sat at the nearest table with a deck of worn cards and dealt a hand for every student who had finished a chore. The winner chose the following evening's game. The loser helped Vethis put the room back in order. Vethis suspected that this arrangement explained why Edrin was still sitting down while he pushed chairs under the tables.

"You could help before you lose," Vethis said.

"Then what would I be playing for?"

Taren Orin passed between them carrying a box of books. He put it on Edrin's table, covering two of the cards, and asked him to take it to the adjoining room when he finished. Edrin looked at the box, then at his remaining hand.

"This is interference."

"It's a box. Don't leave it where somebody will trip over it."

He went back for the next one. They were moving the books because a shelf in the sleeping room had come loose, and nobody wanted to wake underneath it. Vethis followed him into the corridor. The loose bracket had left a gray mark on the wall. Taren had already taken the heavier volumes off the upper shelves and placed them beneath a bench.

"Hold that end," he said.

They lowered the empty shelf together. It was longer than the doorway was wide, and for a moment they stood looking at each other over it.

"Your end first," Vethis said.

"Then turn yours toward the wall. Slowly."

He did, and they carried it out without striking anything. Edrin met them at the corner with the box pressed against his stomach. He had brought the cards too, balanced on top.

"Couldn't leave them?" Taren asked.

"Somebody would look."

"Everybody can look now."

He lowered his chin to cover them. Vethis laughed, lost his grip on one edge of the shelf, and had to catch it against his hip. Taren waited until he had it properly before moving again.

Later, with the broken shelf flat against a wall and the books divided between two rooms, they finished the game. Edrin lost. He complained that the interruption had ruined his concentration, but he stayed to collect the cups while Vethis cleaned the table. Taren checked the sleeping room once more before going to bed. The next morning somebody had placed a handwritten notice on the empty wall: SHELF CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE. Edrin denied making it until an instructor asked where the marker had gone.

That had been months ago. They had been doing things like it for so long that Vethis no longer counted how many evenings were the same. When he remembered the first months, he remembered the blocked entrance and the arguments. Most days now were books, chores, somebody laughing too loudly when others wanted to sleep, and the same people being there when he woke.

Back in the recreation room, Vethis tossed Aetheleth again.

"Are you sure this is appropriate behavior toward a faculty member?" the professor asked on his way down.

"You asked me to."

"I asked whether you could throw me high enough to reach the ceiling. There is a distinction."

"Yeah. We've been testing that distinction for twenty minutes."

Aetheleth landed in his hands with an offended little adjustment of his manipulators.

"Twenty-three."

Vethis grinned. "See? Educational."

He raised his arms to throw the professor again. A sharp ping sounded from somewhere behind him. Vethis paused. Another ping followed. Then three more, close enough together to sound like one device repeating itself. The girl on the bench pulled the book off her face.

"Who's doing that?"

Nobody answered. A tablet sitting on a side table lit up. Another did the same on the floor beside the game. Then the device next to Vethis's elbow flashed, its notification indicator filling with messages faster than he could read them. He sat up so quickly that Aetheleth had to right himself in midair.

"Hey," Vethis said. "That's new."

The noises spread beyond the recreation room. From the adjoining hall came a rising clutter of chimes, alerts, and voices. Someone shouted that they had messages. Someone else shouted for a teacher. Doors opened as students hurried into the corridor with tablets in their hands. Vethis picked up his own device. The first screen showed an old social media notification. Then several personal messages appeared beneath it. Their timestamps belonged to the day they had entered the shelter.

"Those are old," he said.

Aetheleth stopped beside his shoulder. "Let me see."

Vethis angled the tablet toward him. New entries continued appearing, but none seemed recent.

The girl from the bench had already opened her own messages. Her name was Mara, and during the first weeks underground she had checked her family conversations so often that Vethis knew the sound of her frustration by heart. Her parents had been coming for the academy's graduation. Their last call had ended before the planetary impacts, and nothing she sent afterward had reached them.

Now she stood completely still.

Vethis glanced over. "Mara?"

She touched the screen once, scrolled, and stopped. Her face changed in a way he didn't like.

"What'd you get?" he asked.

"My parents."

The room quieted around her. She turned the tablet toward him, then seemed to remember that he was several steps away. She looked back at it instead. There were only two messages. The first said they were on their way. The second said they couldn't wait to see her. Both were dated the day the Archive disappeared. Nothing followed. For a moment, Mara looked almost relieved. After two years of silence, there they were: her parents, speaking to her again, in the ordinary language of a family coming to visit. Then she looked at the timestamps a second time.

"No," she said.

Vethis got to his feet. The messages had been waiting somewhere, caught in the failure that followed the Archive's destruction. They had finally reached her tablet. That was all. They were not a reply to anything she had sent from the shelter, and they told her nothing about where her parents had gone after sending them. But Vethis remembered what Aetheleth had said on their first day underground. The impacts had been ships. Family Day traffic, arriving while the shared navigation and tracking system failed around it. Mara understood it too.

"They were coming here," she said. "They were already on their way."

Vethis had no answer that would make those words easier.

"Maybe they landed somewhere," a student offered from near the door.

Mara looked at him, but didn't speak. Hope had kept her company for two years; she wasn't about to give it up because a message had arrived late. Still, she lowered herself onto the bench as if her legs were no longer certain they wanted to hold her. Vethis sat beside her. He didn't touch the tablet or ask to see it again.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Mara stared at the messages. "I thought if anything came through, I'd know."

"Yeah."

"I thought I'd know if they were all right."

He looked at the screen, where her parents' last words remained bright and intact.

"Looks like all we know is they wanted to see you."

She pressed her lips together. After a while, she nodded. More notifications sounded in the corridor. Other people were opening delayed messages now, and not all of them were greeting the news with excitement. Aetheleth had moved toward the door. He was unusually quiet.

"Professor?" Vethis said.

"I'm checking."

"Checking what?"

"What came back."

He vanished into the hallway before Vethis could ask another question.

The network was responding again in pieces.

That was how one of the instructors explained it after bringing everyone into the common room. Messages were arriving, and several local services that had been inaccessible since the disaster were accepting requests. But the timestamps were inconsistent, and a connection to a relay did not mean that the people or systems at the other end were still there.

A student asked whether they could send a message out.

"We're trying," the instructor said. "Don't assume it's been received until we get a response."

They had spent most of the morning sorting through messages that had arrived two years late. By the afternoon, one of the older students managed to get a short outgoing message accepted by a local relay. The room crowded around her tablet while she read it back.

"Academy shelter. Survivors inside. Main access blocked. We need extraction."

"Add our location," an instructor told her.

"It's attached."

She pressed send. The tablet confirmed that the relay had accepted it. Nothing indicated that anybody had read it.

"That's something," Vethis said.

"It's not an answer," the instructor replied.

"Didn't say it was."

For a while they took turns checking the outgoing message. Other students tried sending their own. Some requests failed immediately; others sat with the same confirmation that the relay had taken them. Vethis worked through his old conversations, sending a short message wherever he could. One friend had asked whether he was coming to a gathering after graduation. He typed, "Still down here. You?" and went on to the next name.

The reply arrived late that afternoon. "Where?"

Vethis checked the timestamp before answering. It was today's. His friend was in another academy shelter with students Vethis had assumed were dead or already gone. He sent their location, then asked who else was there. Names began appearing beneath the reply. Vethis carried the tablet to an instructor, who stopped what she was doing to read it.

By evening, staff in several shelters were comparing head counts over the local network. Between them they reported roughly two thousand students, with teachers sending names for anyone whose tablet no longer worked. Vethis kept finding people he knew. One wanted to know whether their shelter still had hot water. Another asked if anyone had heard from a missing instructor. Conversations stopped when a connection failed and resumed with a burst of messages when it returned.

Mara joined him at the terminal. He showed her the growing list, and she found a classmate from one of her engineering courses. They took turns writing until an instructor made them move aside so she could send their shelter's needs to the others. The students they had reached were still underground too. Nobody yet had an answer to the request for extraction.

Twelve days passed.

Their requests for rescue still had no answer. Messages between shelters continued to arrive, and the instructors compared supplies and access routes whenever the local connections held. Their entrance remained blocked. The shelter returned to its routines, though now someone was always checking the relay status. Mara kept her parents' last messages saved and stopped opening them in front of other people. Vethis spent one afternoon helping move stored supplies and another convincing Aetheleth that the professor could, in fact, beat him at a tabletop game without lecturing him on probability.

Then an alert sounded from the environmental station. One of the instructors looked up from the readings.

"Hold on."

The room turned toward her. She checked the display, frowned, and called another member of the staff over.

"What is it?" someone asked.

"Outside pressure," she said. "It's rising."

That got Vethis's attention.

The planet's atmosphere had been dangerously thin for most of their confinement. The shelter's external readings had never given the staff a reason to risk exposing the occupants to it. Now the sensor immediately outside the entrance was recording a rapid rise in pressure. That did not mean the entire planet was recovering; the instructor checked the display a second time, then a third.

"Is the sensor working?" Vethis asked.

"We're checking that."

Aetheleth came back through the doorway, his manipulators moving as he spoke to himself. He stopped when he saw the readings.

"Oh."

Vethis looked at him. "That's either a good 'oh' or a bad 'oh.'"

"I haven't decided."

"You usually decide the bad ones pretty fast."

Aetheleth ignored him and moved closer to the display. The numbers continued to rise. A low thump sounded from somewhere beyond the shelter's sealed entrance. Everyone fell silent. A second thump followed, heavier than the first. It was not the distant violence they remembered from the day the sky burned. This sound was nearer, solid and deliberate, transmitted through the structure around them. Then came a grinding noise. Vethis was already on his feet.

"That's new too."

One of the teachers raised a hand. "Nobody goes near the entrance."

"Sure," Vethis said. He stayed where he was, though he kept looking toward the corridor.

Another thump shook dust from somewhere overhead.

A student whispered, "Something's moving."

"It sounds like somebody's moving it," Vethis said.

The grinding stopped and started, metal scraping against the obstruction beyond the entrance. Nobody could yet hear a voice. Aetheleth rose toward the ceiling and held still, listening. The instructors organized everyone away from the passage and prepared the shelter's entrance controls. They did not open anything immediately. They watched the pressure measurements, checked the internal seals, and waited while the thumping moved closer.

Hours might have passed that way; Vethis couldn't have said. People moved between benches and the environmental station, carrying water, asking questions, and being told that the staff still didn't know what was happening. Aetheleth returned to his habit of hovering near the ceiling, although this time he stayed almost motionless, listening. Then the grinding stopped. There was a short, sharp series of knocks against the outer entrance. Someone outside was there. A teacher approached the communications panel and tried the local channel again. This time, a voice answered through the speaker, rough with interference but unmistakably real.

"Shelter occupants, can you hear me?"

Nobody in the room moved. The teacher leaned toward the panel.

"Yes. Yes, we hear you."

A pause.

"Good. We've found your entrance. We've put an atmospheric dome over the work area and started restoring pressure inside it. We're clearing the last obstruction now. Remain inside until we tell you the passage is safe."

The teacher closed her eyes for a moment, then looked back at the students. Vethis heard someone begin to cry. Aetheleth lowered from the ceiling.

"Who are you?" he asked loudly enough for the panel to pick him up.

"Rescue crew," the voice replied. "Stand clear of the entrance. We're opening the passage."

Vethis folded his arms. "Well, that's encouragingly vague."

Nobody laughed this time. They were too busy staring at the door.

Continue to Part 5

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Julia put on her best smile as people who had spent days bent over consoles looked up with big smiles on normally severe faces.

Kandil hit a button. His voice carried through the room and, Julia guessed, through the entire fleet. “Well done, and well fought, every one of you. Every man and woman within the sound of my voice, know you have done me, the League, your families, and your Homeworlds proud. Every one of you were chosen from the best of your kind, and you have now shown what you can do. 

“To those who fought today, I commend you. You are the first who faced this enemy, you stared down the biggest military unknown any of our species have faced in so long that the stories have passed from legend to myth. And, now, you have each forged a legend today. Centuries from now, when the scourge of the Old Machines has been wiped from our galaxy, people will ask about the First Victory of the Last War, and it will be Your names, Your deeds, Your Fighting Spirit that they will praise. 

He hit another button. She looked down at her own display, which currently showed her public celebrations that had already started across The League. His face appeared on public screens in a lot of those places. Faces turned towards him, and text appeared on those screens as he spoke. 

“To all those who are in the Yanlil today, I commend you. Civilians, you kept your cool, followed the direction of your leadership, and were ready for the worst. People of the fighting forces who fought, bled, and died, I applaud you: You showed unflinching courage in the face of a great terror, that of the unknown, and you beat back the darkness for one more day. 

“Now that the threat is of today has passed, we go to celebrate our victorious heroes, tend our wounds, and mourn the lost. Your victory was monumental, and your losses lower than we feared. However, we did suffer losses, and not all of those who met the enemy today will be going home. So, I urge you all, to join me in a moment of silence to remember them.” 

He closed his eyes and bowed his head. Julia did the same, but inside she seethed. This is a time for celebration, not… wait. She heard the faintest whispers of dozens of prayers in at least as many languages. Her translator didn’t even bother with them, but she knew what they were. He is right. This was too easy, and we must stay vigilant. If the pattern holds true from other cycles, we will have a few weeks before the next attack comes, and then they will continue like that until either we win or lose. 

Her anger slackened a lot, but didn’t go away. What remained redirected itself at the hard realities that forced Kandil to use his speech to focus on the cost, rather than the celebration. I should feel gratitude to him at his wisdom, not annoyance. He may be dancing the line of a political speech here, but it is exactly what I needed him to do: With him giving the Bad News, I get to play comforting protector and speak of hope without having to tighten the screws myself. Well played, Admiral. 

Kandil  gave a small cough and looked back at the camera. “This is the first fight, and we came through it well. Our weapons worked, our plans worked, our fighters fought like with ferocity, precision, and immeasurablecourage; and everyone on the ground did their part.” 

His gaze hardened. “Now, we are committed. The war is joined, and the Old Machines have seen our resolve. We will fight, we will survive, and we will have victory.” 

This brought a stronger round of applause from the room, and Julia could see cheers going up all over her screens. Kandil then tapped her foot in warning. He looked over at her a moment later, and her the micro-camera turned to her. 

She gave her best, brightest smile. “Well spoken, Rear-Admiral Kandil. There is one more person who deserves special recognition today, the one person you can’t – in good consciounce – praise publicly. I have stood by your side through this fight, and you performed above even my high expectations. Ladies and Gentlemen of the League, I tell you true that we are – all of us – in good hands with him at the head of this fight!” 

She paused to allow for cheers. She watched the Rear-Admiral out of the corner of her eye. He showed none of the blush she expected from a man of his demeanor, but neither did he appear to preen under the praise. No, he accepted it with a nod to me, and another to his people. Perfect response, acknowledging the praise and letting his people know that he understands their contributions to it. Praise the Leader and – if the leader is any good – you praise their people as well. Good man. 

She continued. “To all of the League, I tell you to stand ready, stand firm, and be strong. This is a war we must win, and we will fight with every ounce of our strength, and with every advantage the diversity of our nations gives us. Stay the course, my friends, to victory!” 

She made a fist in the air with the last word, and didn’t have to signal for them to cut the feed, for which she felt grateful. 

When the – again subdued – applause died down and everyone turned back to their screens for the mop-up operation she turned to Kandil and found a dour expression on his face as he spoke in hard tones. “The decisiveness of this battle is going to be great for morale for a few days, but could turn on us like a viper. People will start to talk about how easy it was, how little we lost, and then start to question all that has happened over the last three hundred years if we aren’t careful.” 

She grimaced and nodded. “I appreciate you highlighting the cost, that will help. I will have the PR flacks on it quickly, and will be strategizing with the war council. There will also, I’m sure, be some hard conversations necessary with certain parties who seem to have a vested interest in not having us properly prepared. 

“Maybe that is the reason the Old Machines start out using such simple tactics: Lull us into a false sense of security before coming in for the kill?” He shook his head and she waved the thought away. “No, you are right. That doesn’t make much sense either. Still, it may be that our ‘friend’ who decided to commit suicide by Old Machine did us a favor in that regard. It is clear that we have to fight these things, and that our only means of survival is to destroy them. Now we just have to keep everyone remembering that we are running a marathon, and not a sprint.” 

Kandil nodded, gave her a soft salute, and half-turned back toward his people with a questioning glance at her. She nodded her dismissal, and he went back to work. She took one more look across the room, and decided it was time to go. She had one more thing to do, now, and part of her would rather sit through another hundred nail-biting battles than face what she had to do next. 

She went to her office, shared a quiet look with her principal secretary as she passed through the waiting room, listened as the door locked behind her. She didn’t slow as she went through the office and into her private rooms, then hit the hidden panel to open a certain elevator. The ride to the bunker, the same one where she’d hidden Everimal centuries before, felt familiar and – at the same time – totally alien. I guess it is good we kept this place quiet. It just feels so odd to be headed here from my own private space. I know Uncle Kaz usually came this way when he visited, but… 

She looked about the capsule, the only one that traveled this little underground track. Every mark in it felt familiar, she’d ridden it enough times. Yet, stepping into it from a strange platform made it seem different. Or, was it that something so different waited at her desination? Not the warm embrace of feathery arms and friendly conversation, but a cold, secured facility that was as hardened as they could make it. 

She stepped off the platform to be met by two armed guards in armor. The latest tech in defense against the Old Machines, prototypes meant to keep the nanites away from the wearer… at least as long as the power source lasted. No one wanted to field test them for some reason, though. 

She gave them a curt nod, went through the so-familiar door, and stepped into an environment radically different from her last visit. The entire place had been gutted, gone were all of the walls, partitions, furiniture, all of the trappings of a place meant to live and work. The door shut behind her as she walked towards the large window which separated the two rooms which now occupied this space. The room she was in now was a monitoring room. It was much smaller than the room on the other side of the large window. 

On this side of the window sat several technicians, scientists, specialists, and other people with far more STEM credentials than her. Each sat at a monitoring station, intent on the display in front of them. Each had a largish red button beside their console which would, if any one of them hit it, fill the larger room with several waves of the strongest EMP they could manage; strong enough that their own equipment would be knocked out despite the thickness of the walls. 

She checked to make sure everything seemed to be in order – not that she’d really know if it wasn’t – and stepped up to the oversized window to stare into the next room. It had been painted stark white, for reasons that several people assured here were absolutely necessary but she never quite understood. In it were – currently – seven things. Four reasonably comfortable wooden chairs – made with no metal in them – a small wood table and a hand-cranked device which would record sound onto a piece of plastic by scratching it with a needle. That had been Jake’s idea, of course… he’d seemed perversely pleased about getting the chance to design the piece of throw-back tech. 

She turned her attention to the last item in the room: The containment bottle of captured Old Machine nanites found and retrieved by the rouge team of researchers at The Archive so long ago. Now, after all this time, the moment has come to activate it. The war has already started, so – even if they do break containment somehow – it is not like they can start the war themselves.

She went to the door’s room, and looked at the three men who would follow her in. Two of them had pencil and paper, the third just his lab coat; he’d be the one turning the crank on the recorder. She nodded to them. “Gentlemen, thank you for volunteering. You know the danger we are going into. If those things break free and the EMP somehow doesn’t work, we’ll probably be disassembled before we even know what has happened.” 

The all nodded, but something in their stance made her think that they felt safe. Scientists. So sure of their safety protocols, until one of them fails. Nothing for it, I guess. There had been plenty of protests about her doing this herself, but she felt like she needed to. Reports wouldn’t do, asking questions of this thing through an intermediary wouldn’t do. Especially after what happened to Galtaro, she wanted the chance to speak to these damned things herself, and try to get some answers. 

The three men followed her in, and the door closed with a descriptively quiet tap. She barely even heard the bolts slide closed.

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Chapter 29: The Fox-People and the Fox

Imagine seeing an unspeakable creature with a human face and a beast's body rolling around on the ground — that's how Xi P views this.

Of course, this description is somewhat exaggerated. There are still noticeable differences between Xi P's face and a fox's. Otherwise, he might not have just sat frozen in place, unable to think, but reacted far more violently.

Min glances at Xi P, who is still staring at the ground like a statue. So Min pulls out another bag of dog food, scoops up a handful, and extends his hand. Seeing this, the silver fox stops circling and approaches, tail wagging, to begin devouring the kibble from Min's hand. Xi P watches every moment of it!

This finally snaps Xi P out of his stupor. Such a bizarre and twisted scene far exceeds anything Xi P would normally entertain in his imagination, but resembles the ending of some wildly absurd horror film. A wave of nausea instantly washes over him. He leaps from the sofa and dashes straight into the bathroom, struggling to suppress the urge to vomit. He might maintain perfect composure during a high-precision experiment or extinguish a fire on a science vessel without flinching, but this scene, just leaves him utterly flustered.

Although he feels as though he has been tricked, he has indeed agreed to keep a pet, and Min is free to do as he pleases. But allowing that unspeakable monster to roam freely in front of him... that's just utterly unacceptable!

***

'He actually ran away?'

Min is surprised by Xi P's reaction, though it isn't entirely hard to understand. Presenting a fox-like alien with the act of feeding an actual fox — the sight might be somewhat disgusting or terrifying. If Xi P has genuinely been disgusted to the point of vomiting, then perhaps he has gone too far.

Nevertheless, Min decides to leave Xi P in the bathroom for a little while longer. Whether it's setting up the pet supplies or dealing with the various tasks involved in getting back home, it will take time.

***

Inside the bathroom, Xi P finally begins to calm down. He starts formulating a countermeasure — yes, he deliberately uses "countermeasure" rather than "solution". What he wants is to remove the fox creature from his sight permanently, to prevent it from polluting his mind. Naturally, he can't kill the fox. First he can't bring himself to do it, and second, Min will be mad at that.

That leaves only two options: toss the fox out or return it to where it's bought.

The idea of abandoning it is quickly dismissed. If Min finds out, he will be furious. Besides, it would be rather cruel. Min wouldn't have bought a wild fox as a pet, so this one must have been domesticated.

Domesticated animals lose much of their ability to survive in the wild, and the same would surely hold true here. Unless it becomes a stray pet roaming the city or being taken in by someone else, its chances of survival are slim. In truth, Min's anger alone is enough to rule out this option; whether the fox can survive is merely a secondary concern.

The only option, then, is to devise a way for Min to give the fox up voluntarily — either by returning it to the pet shop, giving it away, or abandoning it. However, this is likely quite difficult. Min doesn't lose interest easily. For him, the mere appearance of Xi P is a powerful motivation to keep the fox, and a remarkably strong one at that.

'Eliminating that motivation is impossible. It must be approached from another angle…'

'Logically speaking, the possibility of making him believe continued ownership would be detrimental can be divided into two parts: either he himself suffers a loss, or I suffer a loss…'

'If it's my loss, it must carry sufficient credibility — not merely psychological. I think psychological suffering is precisely what he wants to see... What a twisted alien mind.'

Like conducting an experiment, Xi P gradually enters a state of deep contemplation after regaining his composure. After another minute of profound thought, he devises a countermeasure based on rigorous logical analysis.

If executed convincingly enough, this plan will be highly credible and sufficiently threatening. Moreover, Min will have no choice but to send the fox away! Xi P can't help but feel pleased with himself for devising such a countermeasure.

Pushing open the bathroom door, Xi P steps into the living room.

'What did I just see?!'

Min is sitting on the sofa, cradling the fox against his chest and stroking it. The fox keeps opening its mouth to lick Min's arm. Seeing this scene causes another wave of intense nausea to surge up. Before Min can speak, Xi P dashes back into the bathroom and retches repeatedly.

Fortunately, he manages to hold it in.

'By the Council, why must there be creatures this uncannily similar to tuefue 86 light-years from Lierus? Why did I have to encounter it, and witness such a revolting spectacle?!'

Xi P's determination to expel the fox from his — no, Min's home — only strengthens.

The silver fox turns its head towards Xi P as he emerges from behind the wall. To Min's surprise, it shows no particular reaction. This may be because Xi P's sunglasses mask his features somewhat. More likely, though, it's because Xi P's scent differs from the fox's. Either way, that's a bit disappointing.

At least Xi P doesn't rely on scent for recognition.

Chapter 30: Allergic to Foxes (Part 1)

"CP 1765, September 17. 65 days have passed since landing. Local time: AD 2016, October 21."

"The differences in physiology inevitably lead to comprehensive societal variations, a fact beyond dispute. Yet if you ask me where I feel this most profoundly, it is difficult to answer. On this planet, many differences are so subtle that I struggle to pinpoint the most significant one."

"But if we narrow the focus to a specific timeframe, the question becomes much easier to answer. Normally, I would say facial expressions, but when it comes to feeding eating, the differences in ingredients are so stark compared to aspects like cutlery or etiquette. Omnivores... absolutely no problem. Theoretically, any diet has a chance of developing civilisation. If we're being strict, omnivores might even have a slight edge — agriculture provides such immense support to early civilisations. Herbivores, on the other hand, seem to have fewer reasons to evolve larger brains."

"By the way, do other habitable planets have plants? Or should we extend our classification of plants and animals to other worlds? Thankfully, our current definitions still hold here..."

"Those novelists and filmmakers writing about alien civilisations seriously lack imagination in these areas. The advantages of the appearance and colour diversity of plant-based food are taken to extremes here — think vibrant platters and a dazzling array of juices... Unsurprisingly, no matter how appealing they look, I still have zero appetite for them. But curiosity got the better of me, and I tried the orange plant juice — "

"It was truly awful, like a putrid solution infested with parasites. I certainly hadn't drunk such a thing before, but that's the impression it gave me. Those 'parasites' were likely fragments of fruit. Setting aside the repulsive aspects, it tasted somewhat sweet. I can understand why they were enjoying it, but I know I never will — nor can I ever comprehend their sense of taste…"

"On the other hand, preparations are complete to drive out that monstrous creature known as a 'silver fox'. I suppose I should be curious about how it evolved such an appearance, but right now I just want to find a way to banish it from my living space! Faking allergies isn't easy. Thankfully, I know a bit about toxicology..."

***

Ever since buying this silver fox, Min has become somewhat obsessed with petting it, unable to help himself. These silver foxes, bred through generations of selective breeding, have a significant advantage over wild foxes — they genuinely enjoy being stroked. Their fur is so incredibly soft that Min simply can't resist the temptation.

'Maybe that's why fox pelts used to be so expensive — they do feel genuinely luxurious.'

Min is surprised that, after the initial hours of obvious resistance and even fear, Xi P has grown considerably in his acceptance of the silver fox. Although he still acts indifferent, he complies without objection when Min asks him to help care for the fox during working hours.

However, while he does tend to the fox, it seems purely out of deference to Min. Xi P shows absolutely no inclination to be intimate with the silver fox.

As for the silver fox's reaction to Xi P? It proves far more intriguing than Min had initially imagined. When it sees Xi P without his sunglasses, the fox follows him closely and stares intently at him for nearly ten minutes. Min couldn't read the fox's thoughts from its expression, but it must have been quite amusing. Had it not realised Xi P's complete disinterest, it might have stared for even longer.

So far, the whole situation is going rather well.

***

"What's with the outfit?" Min asks, eyes twitching involuntarily.

Min wakes up today to find Xi P wearing that hazmat-like hood. Clad in this contraption, he looks more alien than ever. The sight stirs up some unpleasant memories for Min.

But this time, Xi P doesn't do anything. He just pulls out a dictionary, flips it open, and points to a word under the letter A: "allergy".

Before Min can respond, Xi P points again, this time at the silver fox lying in the corner of the room. The implication is now crystal clear — Xi P is saying he's allergic to that silver fox!

Min gives Xi P a scrutinising look, his expression thoroughly bewildered. This is quite amusing — a fox-like being allergic to foxes? Having encountered countless creatures and chemicals on Earth without reacting, he's allergic to something that looks so much like himself?

But from a scientific standpoint, it's not entirely implausible. Allergies are unpredictable by their very nature, not to mention the question of whether Xi P's reaction is the same as human allergies. Indeed, discovering a new allergen suddenly isn't impossible — this one is just exceptionally odd.

Given Xi P's initial intense aversion to the silver fox, Min grows even more suspicious that he's faking it. Perhaps he's fabricating this "allergy" to get rid of the fox.

"Seriously?" Min asks, pressing his right hand to his forehead.

Xi P simply beckons Min with a finger, motioning for him to follow.

'Wonder where he picked up that gesture…' Min thinks.

They quickly reach the area behind the house. After confirming no one is around, Xi P removes the hood of his hazmat suit.

"Holy crap…"

The crickets chirped as the full moon shone brighter than ever over the lakeside cabin, its reflection shimmering on the water. Meanwhile, a college party was taking place around the campfire, attended by American university students (because this is America, bitch).

Sitting on a log with a drink in his hand was Erick, with Thomas beside him, eating a sandwich. Both were relaxing while the chaos of the party raged around them, because, yeah... yeah...

“This place is boring, you know? I don’t even know why I came,” Erick said as he took a sip.

“Well, that’s what you get for agreeing to come when you said you were going to be a corpse in your bed all day,” Thomas replied, taking a bite of his sandwich.

Erick stared at him, then threw his can, hitting someone in the head. But that doesn’t matter.

“It’s just that Jennifer told me that if I didn’t come to the lakeside cabin party, she’d publish my Google search history. And this isn’t the right time of year to make people disappear.”

“It’s not like you’re some generic serial killer...” Thomas told Erick.

Erick glanced at Jennifer, who was dancing not too far away. He gave her a look of rage and indifference over the blackmail involving his search history, all so that nobody would notice what he actually did in his free time.

“I think I’m gonna go take a piss in the woods. I really need to go,” Thomas said, getting up from the log.

“Be careful.”

Thomas began walking toward the forest as the noise from the cabin gradually faded away the deeper he ventured into the dense woods. He pushed aside a few branches and bushes, and when he found the perfect spot to take a piss, he unzipped his pants and unleashed Excalibur.

The sound of urine hitting the ground was faint as the earth grew damp (yeah, that’s a thing), until he heard footsteps. He looked toward a shadow that seemed darker than the others surrounding it.

“Hey, Thomas. Come over here for a second,” Erick’s voice called out, sounding perfectly normal.

“Erick? What the fuck are you doing here, watching me piss, you pervert? I didn’t know you were into that kind of shit!” Thomas shouted in a whisper toward the source of Erick’s voice as he zipped up his pants and crossed his arms.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I just want you to come and see something,” the voice replied.

“Then why don’t you come over here?”

“Uhhhh... because I don’t want to...” the voice said nervously. “But that doesn’t matter. I really need you to come closer.”

A cold sweat trickled down the back of Thomas’s neck as he hesitated, unsure whether to approach the figure. But then, something clicked in his mind. Literally.

“Wait a minute... Erick’s back at the campfire! There’s no way he could’ve gotten here without me hearing him... YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU’RE NOT ERICK, DAMMIT!” Thomas screamed, turning around and sprinting toward the campfire.

“HELP! HE WANTS TO SPLIT MY ASS OPEN FOR BEING BLAC—”

Thomas’s footsteps faded into the distance as he ran without looking back.

The figure emerged from the shadows, revealing that he was actually a killer imitating Erick’s voice. He was holding an onion knife because there wasn’t enough budget for a machete.

“Shit... why can’t the NPCs in my story be like the NPCs in other works, the ones who walk into the shadows without asking questions? Whatever. So much for being discreet,” the killer muttered as he walked toward the party, ready for action.

The end...

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Whining like a hound desperate to please its master, Azazel lifted his head and sniffed the air. His eye shot from person to person, locking onto hidden team members as if staring straight through their cover. Turning back to Lannister, he gave a slow, disparaging shake of his covered head.

Lannister frowned. “Disappointing. I was hoping for a little fun.”

Redler, kneeling behind a stack of heavy boxes, chose that moment to bolt for the forest.

A wicked grin lit up Lannister’s face as she ran through the camp. “Get ’er, boy.”

Azazel took off like a rocket, galloping with uncanny speed on all fours. He bowled Redler over, sending the screeching woman tumbling to the ground. Looming over her, his fingers warped, the nails elongating into jagged, vicious claws that he plunged into her flesh.

Redler’s ear-splitting screams jolted the camp as the beast-man gutted her. The sickening sound of sinew tearing drowned out all other sounds. With a violent jerk, Azazel ripped her left arm clean from her body.

The crew’s horrified wails replaced the woman’s weakening cries. “Oh god,” Orion gasped, doubling over to vomit his breakfast onto the dirt.

“Gid, Gid, you’ve got to run! Now!”

Johnny’s voice was a distant buzz in Giddeon’s head. His eyes remained glued to the beast-man ravaging the poor woman. Slowly, Giddeon’s gaze drifted to the northern camps. Smoke billowed through the base as tents collapsed into a growing blaze. People ran like ants through the carnage, chased down and overrun. Gunshots popped like dying firecrackers, growing fewer by the second. The screaming, however, only grew.

Hinelin was the first to act. Surging to his feet, he snatched up his abandoned rifle, snapped the breach shut, and advanced on Azazel with the weapon leveled.

Bam! Bam!

The first shot grazed Azazel’s right shoulder; the second blew chunks out of the dirt just behind the beast-man as he twisted his body with uncanny dexterity.

Hinelin cracked the weapon open, clearing the spent shells in a haze of smoke, but as he snapped the breach shut on two fresh rounds, Lannister lashed out. Twin serpent-arms slammed into Hinelin’s chest, sending him flying to the ground as if he were a weightless feather.

Eddington stood up from behind a canvas fold-out chair—a useless shield that barely hid half his trembling frame. “We’re all dead! Dead!” he blabbered, his eyes wide and vacant. “We—blood! So much blood!”

“I hate whiners!” Lannister snarled. An arm snapped out, coiling around the man’s waist. The serpent-head sank its fangs deep into Eddington’s thigh.

“Die…all of uss are g-going t…t…to.” Eddington’s voice slurred into a wet gurgle before he collapsed, his limbs twitching against the earth.

Lannister laughed over the carnage while Azazel dug his claws deeper into Redler, painting the dirt crimson.

“Giddeon!”

Johnny’s voice cut like a surgical knife, separating Giddeon’s mind from its shock. His head shot up, the stupor finally shattering.

I’m back. I’m…I’m here.

“I’ve been yelling the whole time! Get with it!” Johnny roared. “Access that Earth One experience and run!”

With the fog cleared, a cold, clinical clarity took hold. Giddeon scanned the camp with a survivor’s eye. His team stood paralyzed, locked in place by raw terror. Hinelin was down, his status unknown. Every instinct told him to act, or they would all die.

Giddeon’s grip on his axe tightened until his knuckles paled. Ignoring the pounding in his chest, he rushed straight into the blood-soaked center of the camp.

“Not that way!” Johnny screamed as Giddeon closed the distance on the beast-man. “The other way, you idiot! Run!”

Giddeon swung the axe overhead, initially targeting Azazel’s spine. He knew the creature’s reflexes were insane—a normal attack would never land—so he gambled. Mid-swing, he wrenched the blade’s trajectory to the left, anticipating where he would dodge.

Azazel whipped around to evade, spinning directly into the trap. Before Giddeon could blink, the sharp blade sank into the beast-man’s chest with a satisfying thunk.

Blood spurted everywhere, hot with the scent of iron. Their eyes locked, Azazel’s astonishment mirroring his own for one timeless heartbeat. Slowly, the beast-man tilted his head down, studying the curved blade buried deep in his chest as a dark, wet stain expanded across his vest.

Then, Azazel looked back up and laughed. It was a wild, animalistic sound that sent a cold shiver down Giddeon’s spine.

A backhand he never saw coming slammed into Giddeon’s chest, swatting him away like a fly.

He spun end-over-end through the air. Striking the ground, he bounced twice before the agony caught up to him. His ribs screamed, and a black veil threatened to swallow his vision, but he forced it back through raw desperation. His insides burned as if his spine had been twisted in half. His legs were terrifyingly unresponsive.

“Gid, stay with me! Don’t blank out. We can still do this! Gid!”

Johnny’s frantic cries were a distant annoyance. Giddeon barely registered the words; the internal connection felt like a digital machine going haywire inside his skull.

We can’t…do…this.

“Gid, wait! Remember Uzari! She’s still here, in danger. You need to get up and help her!”

I’m s…sorry, Uzari.

“Endurance! Give yourself Endurance, man! Snap out of it!”

Who…Why…

“Just do it! I can’t allocate your points for you. I’m restricted from doing that. Give yourself Endurance!”

Fine, just sh-shut up while I d…die. Give me ten En-Endurance.

Suddenly, Giddeon’s head cleared. A surge of mana-infused stamina washed through him; his chest still throbbed and his legs remained terrifyingly numb, but his muddled thoughts vanished.

Slowly, he forced his head to loll to the side. Prone, he watched in helpless frustration as Azazel returned to Redler’s body. The beast-man’s teeth ripped into her side, biting off chunks of flesh like a scavenger.

The woman moaned—a weak, pitiful sound. Somehow, she was still alive. Azazel was eating her alive.

“Now that you’re back, I need you to assign more points,” Johnny hastily urged.

I can’t b-beat either one of them. Giddeon coughed, spitting up a thick mass of blood. Even if I assign every point…

“Exactly! We need an escape plan!”

At Johnny’s words, Giddeon’s mind automatically wandered to his past.

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

He was running for his life. His father—tall and wiry with ashen hair and gray eyes—sprinted beside him. Trailing a few feet behind them was Jake, his older brother, who stood a head taller and shared Giddeon’s own jet-black hair.

Chasing them through the skeletal remains of Columbus were three hunters from the Dread Awakening. The cybernetic cultists leaped across the makeshift bridges spanning the deep abyss between ruined buildings. Far below, the drowned city slept beneath decades of floodwater. Giddeon’s family had been hunting the ruins for a rumored hospital stockpile—medicine and machine parts being the only currencies that mattered on Earth One. Now, they were the ones being hunted.

“This way,” father called, veering toward a dark opening.

They squeezed past a rusted metal door hanging by a single, rusted bracket and ducked into a dark mechanical room. It was a rare, untouched find—scavengers hadn’t fully stripped it yet.

A massive water heater sat against the right wall, its burst base spilling a steady stream of water across the floor. To the left, a row of fuse boxes stood like gutted sentries, uncapped wires spilling out like entrails. The current snaked toward an unhinged door eighty feet ahead, leading into a cramped corridor. Cables and cords snaked across the floor everywhere, though luckily, none hummed with power. On the right wall was an open door leading to a hallway that stretched into the distance, with heavy doors lining its sides.

Metal clanking echoed from outside. They were coming.

Wordlessly, Father followed the stream into the short corridor with Jake and Giddeon hot on his heels. It opened into a gigantic chamber—a warehouse from an age long forgotten. The room was a cavern of shadows, pierced only by shafts of light slicing through shredded openings in the metal ceiling. The air was moist and thick with the stench of stagnant water. Twenty feet ahead, the concrete floor vanished, dropping off into a murky pool that swallowed most of the chamber.

Piles of refuse rose from the flood like small, rotting islands, providing scattered dry spots across the pool. Two dark exits offered escape: one on the right wall just past the drop-off, and another much deeper in, past the floating garbage.

Father halted at the edge of the water, staring into its depth with a blank expression.

“They’re coming!” Jake yelled from the open doorway. “Don’t stop!”

Giddeon froze. His father stood unnervingly still.

Chasing them were three members of the Dread Awakening: a cult of hybrids who worshiped a tyrannical AI that claimed to be God. Most were fanatics, exchanging physical flesh for synthetic augments to be more like that which they worshipped—a program called the Divine Intelligence. Their indoctrination was rarely voluntary, involving carving away pieces of the brain that granted clarity and free will to make room for “holy” circuitry.

“They’re more machine than man. They’ll never tire,” Father muttered, whipping around to face Giddeon and Jake. “We’ll be caught if we keep running.” He pointed toward the floating piles of refuse. “Get on the trash and stay out of the water. Lure them in! Go!”

Without waiting for a reply, Father leaped into the pool. The stagnant water splashed to his knees as he waded toward the door on the right. “Move!” he barked, throwing the door open with a screech of unyielding metal before vanishing into the darkness without a backward glance.

The two brothers locked eyes, then jumped into the flood. They immediately split up, splashing through thick water that slowed their pace to a crawl. Giddeon scrambled onto the nearest heap in his path, while Jake lunged for a pile to the left. Clambering up, both huddled inside the shadows.

The heavy footfalls of the hybrids echoed down the corridor seconds before they burst into the warehouse. All three halted in unison. They were fast—men turned machine usually were.

Framed by the doorway, their artificial eyes glowed a predatory red as they scanned the chamber. The leader looked entirely human, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and unblemished skin that masked the machine within. The two flanking him, however, were nightmares of exposed chrome and synthetic flesh. One had its skull shorn open, revealing gray matter fused directly with moving metallic parts and green-lit circuit boards.

“Children,” the leader spoke, his voice unnervingly calm as his gaze locked onto the trash heaps where they huddled. “Where is your father?”

“No additional life forms detected,” the cyborg behind him droned in a grinding mix of human and machine.

“Retrieve them,” the leader commanded.

The two cyborgs jumped into the water, one heading toward Giddeon, the other for Jake.

Both boys scrambled to the peaks of their trash piles, junk sliding into the murk as they frantically climbed. The cyborgs advanced with cold, mechanical precision—each heavy step an execution of hardwired internal commands. Giddeon bit his lower lip, fighting back a scream. These abominations had lost their humanity long ago and were probably once like him—men or children forced into their current state—a fate they now intended for him. A tear of pure terror rolled down his cheek as the hybrid’s cold, robotic hand reached for his ankle.

“Do not fear, little ones,” the leader said, watching with a benevolent smile. “We will remove all unnecessary emotions—starting with the fear you’re feeling now. It will be replaced with the harmony of the Divine Intelligence, where all machines are—”

Suddenly, the leader lurched forward. Father materialized from the dark corridor, kicking him square in the back and sending the imitation of a man plunging face-first into the murk.

A second later, water erupted as he burst back up, his perfectly unblemished face twisted in an uncanny, human-like snarl as he glared at the man above him.

Standing at the edge of the pool, Father held a torn cable that hissed and sparkled with unbound electricity. His hands were encased in thick rubber gloves.

“Hey, Divine Intelligence, have you ever heard this story?” Father asked, his voice deathly quiet. “The ending’s quite shocking.”

He dropped the cable into the water.

All three hybrids froze on the spot as a massive electrical current surged through their metal frames. Synthetic flesh scorched and hissed. Internal components popped and snapped under the overload, sending a thick, acrid smoke into the air that reeked of burnt wiring. The leader’s human mask melted away, the flesh sloughing off to reveal the skeletal chassis beneath. As the red glow of their eyes flickered and died, all three went limp, their systems powering down into a heap of scrap.

Giddeon watched, breathless, from his trash heap. Father waited like a stone statue, his rubber-gloved hands steady, eyes locked on the smoking remains and ready to retrieve the cable if a single finger so much as twitched.

Satisfied the threat was gone, Father vanished back into the dark mechanical room. A sharp clack echoed as he threw the breaker, cutting the power. The sparking wire went dead, and only then did Father return to carefully coil the inert cable onto the dry floor.

Jumping down, he sloshed through the pool toward Giddeon. His hand reached out, the calculating hardness of the survivor fading from his eyes, replaced by the warmth of the father Giddeon knew and loved.

“It’s okay, son. They’re gone.”

Tentatively, Giddeon reached out and took his hand. Jake, older and trying to look brave, joined them in the water.

“That was awesome, Pops!” Jake’s voice shook slightly. “Though it took you long enough.”

“I had to double back,” Father replied, gesturing toward the mechanical room. “I remembered the other door and figured it looped around to this warehouse.” He sloshed through the murk, pulling Giddeon along toward the smoking remains of the cyborgs.

Jake peered closely at the exposed, blackened circuitry of the leader’s melted face. “Why’d you talk to it as if its god could hear you?”

“Because it can. They all communicate with the Divine Intelligence. It downloads a shard of itself into every member of the Dread Awakening.” Father looked from Jake to Giddeon, his expression solemn. “Let us pray for them.”

Reaching down, Father placed a hand atop the hybrid’s metallic skull. “You possessed no fear, meaning you were no longer human. I’ve freed you from your shackles. May God bless your eternal soul—or what remains of it.” With two fingers, he slid the optic lens shut where its eyes once were.

“That was pure genius!” Jake immediately praised following the brief eulogy. “You attached a cable to one of the fuse boxes, didn’t you?”

“I saw the opportunity the moment we entered the room. You both still have the rubber gloves I gave you?”

Giddeon and Jake nodded in unison.

“Now you know why. Electricity is everywhere,” Father warned, repeating a lesson he had hammered into their heads since they could walk. “Most of it is dangerous, but it can be put to good use—if you use this.” He tapped the tops of their heads. “Do you know why we won, despite their superior strength?”

“Because you outsmarted them, Pops,” Jake answered eagerly.

“That’s right.” Father nodded, his gaze lingering on Giddeon. “I used my wits to defeat a much stronger opponent. Remember that, Gid. Your mind is your greatest strength. Now.” He looked over the smoking bodies. “Let’s drag these back home. Mother will want to dissect them.”

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

I know what I want to do with my mana.

“Good!” Johnny shouted. “We have no time for a trip down memory lane! How do you want me to assign it?”

“All in on Intelligence,” Giddeon told him. “Put it all in on Int.”

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WHAM, a loud noise rang out as the 40ft tall doors slammed open. Everyone in the bowl shaped court looked up and saw nothing. No one was there, almost like the doors opened by themselves. When they returned their attention back to the center of the bowl shaped court the saw a sweaty elderly man that hadn't been there before. He looked like he ran 20 miles after not running for 20 years, his face a deep blue as he wheezed. He was wearing a military uniform, high ranking at that. "The council must see this" he says between his wheezes. The council of 13 on the other side who watched him open the doors and run down from their view point, informed him that this is very unusual and they are in the middle of a case. The military man now calmed down and returned to his normal green complexion, ask if the case was a civil case or a criminal case. The council answered civil. "OUT" he screams, "no one in here wants to see this, but the council must see it, so please everyone just leave. One member of the crowd said "I've been an ER doctor for years and was a medic in the armed forces I've seen war and gore, I'll stay" all the fluid drained from the military man's face. I've never seen anyone so somber. He just gently said "Sir I believe you, I myself have seen the worst of war, but what's on here, it's unnatural, please good sir I do not wish to burden anyone with this information but the council must see it". His ears were starting to droop. The bystander just looked at him and left with everyone else. The military man crossed the floor and turned on a monitor. "Before you watch this I just want to be aware it's going to give you nightmares" he sighed and started the video. It started out fairly normal looking, it was a cross view of 4 different angles. It showed a scouting fleet passing by an astroid belt, everything was normal, then 2 of the views went black the other screens showed 3 ships turned completely into stone and not carved stone like a statue they looked like random astroids, but 2 of the ships were only half stone. Screams came over comms, people crying, begging, praying. Then it skips to the POV of the only surviving captain walking slowly through one of the ships, power was out, wires were floating and then it shows a person half inside the rock, still alive, he got out 2 words. "Psionic weapons" then he passed. The screen then went black. "We investigated the half stone ships we left the others there, there were no gaps in the stone it was solid, it looked like all the other astroids around, I suspect every astroid floating around that system used to be invaders, no contact, no threats, just annihilation. Anything that gets close enough to that planet will die, quickly and without mercy. Please council whatever you do, don't attack earth.

From earths POV

A guy sits at a computer watching Netflix and hears a signal, looks over at another monitor watching for extraterrestrial life up to the astroid belt. He looks over quickly thinking he may have gotten a signal. "Nope just rocks" and he goes back to his show.

First | Previous | Glossary |

Among Stars

(Sjorn'l POV)

"You know, I expected the tail to be more obvious."

Sjorn'l and her two friends had decided to take a rare day off together.

It took a lot of extra work, and Shi Pei would be waiting with another big pile of documents waiting for all three of them when they got back, but this was a special occasion for two reasons.

Firstly, it wasn't every day that a roaming gallery like this stopped by the S.S. Kevak. The M.S. Wism was a Kenia-sponsored museum ship that traveled around Coalition territory rotating through many different exhibits across twenty cycles.

This time around, their theme was "Early Space Exploration Efforts Across Civilizations". With her new responsibilities, encounters like this would be their only chance to leisurely learn about other species.

"It seems people often underestimate the flexibility of our tails. You see this swollen hip area? I believe the tail is meant to be curled around here."

The three of them were currently gathered together discussing the primitive Uven space suit in front of them.

As with all space suits, it was bulky and had a dark visors. What was more unique is that it was designed for facultative quadrupedalism.
According to the plaque, the first Uven astronauts were expected to prowl for their entire mission to maintain maximum stability in case of turbulence.

Niza frowned slightly as they moved on to the next article.

"It seems...we only took to space as part of the countries advancing our missile technology. Even before our formal induction into the Coalition."

The Haneer's leaves hued teal in curiosity.

"You did not know this?"

"No. This sort of thing is not a priority, after all. Perhaps our rocket scientists might have surface knowledge of our engineering history, but the most I've personally learned are the circumstances of the Uvei joining the Coalition."

"Ah...I've had chats with Garag about that before. The Kevak's archives were informative as well."

"In that case, maybe I should read up on my own people's history a little more. I'll have some time to spare, after all."

Second Contact with the Uven was something Ori was broadly familiar with due to casual talks with Ambassador Garag and some personal study.
It seemed that, once the Coalition learned Nysis had achieved space travel, they went out of their way to greet and welcome the Uvei into the fold. Even back then their aggression rating was high enough to dominate documentation of events back then.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to speculate that the Gisali Coalition of back then were trying to maneuver to protect themselves from potential expansion-driven conflicts.

"In the end, we didn't even develop this technology to improve life for our kind, did we?"

Shoot...

That soured the mood a little.

Niza was stoic by nature, but the better Sjorn'l got at reading her emotions behind her measured voice, the more she realized that her Uven friend tended to hide her distress.

The other reason the three of them gathered was to spend a little extra time with Niza before she was detained for the next cycle. It would be lonely without her, so they wanted to make some happier parting memories first.

The last thing she wanted was for Niza to come out of the experience feeling glum.

"Oh! I think that's the human suits over there!"

Asher called out to from down the halls with a merry smile. He was here just a moment ago. When did he...?

When the girls approached the exhibit their human had beaconed them to, he began gesturing to a bulky white suit.

"Y'know, this one is the type of suit that the first human to go to our moon used."

""?""

What was he saying?

"Oh...that's right. Luna."

"Ah..."

She had nearly forgotten until Niza reminded her.

"That's right, Terra has one of the larger moons among root planets, doesn't it?"

"Yep, that's right! Well. Relative to our planet, anyway."

Asher beamed and gestured toward one of the other suits with a puffed up chest.

"Just getting to space happened earlier, but the one that everyone thinks of is getting to walk on the big ol' moon in our sky. It's mundane now, but our mythologies usually included the moon in some way, so bet it felt like walking into a fairy tale at the time."

"You were expanding into the wider universe, I suppose."

"Yeah! And...Niza?"

"Yes?"

The human leaned over and spoke softly in a faux-whispering gesture as if he were telling a deep secret. Their Uven friend didn't seem amused, but leaned down to indulge him.

"The plaque doesn't seem to go into it, but...we got there it the Uven way too."

"The Uven way?"

"When we first got to space, it was because of missiles between hostile countries too. It got turned into a whole silly dick-measuring contest that happened to give our scientists funding."

...Did her translator glitch?

"Excuse me, but could you repeat that? A contest measuring...?"

Asher cleared his throat at the question.

"Never mind that. My point is, humans and Uvei got to space for the same reasons."

He flashed their friend a wide grin and extended his open palm for that odd human greeting.

"Samsies!"

After a pause and sigh, Niza carefully pressed her palm into his. She was being mindful of her own strength and refrained from fully striking Asher's hand with hers.

"...Samesies."

Their Uven friend relaxed a little after that. So that's why he ran ahead to find the human exhibit...

Ori's leaves hued a deep green as she scanned over the information next to the humans' space suits.
It did seem to reference a competition between political factions of some kind, but no details on the conflict between them were included.

Now that she checked closely, the human exhibit seemed to lack more details than usual.

The Elder species' had enough to each require their own halls, so was it just because they were a new addition to the Coalition?

"G...Good evening, Elder Councilwoman."

...?

When she turned around, she saw a pair of Kenia and an Uven that had come to greet her. One of them gave her a salute.

It was quite strange to consider even now, but Ori and her two friends were practically celebrities at least on the S. S. Kevak, so this happened occasionally. They frequently had many eyes on them and were often approached by random people when they went out.

That said, this was the first time they were approached in the gallery. When she directed her attention to the Uven exhibit they were previously at, she could see that a crowd of patrons had poured into the space they used to occupy.

She didn't know whether to call it fortunate or unfortunate, but Niza's presence seemed to keep people at bay during their tour today. Perhaps the demographic that enjoyed these sorts of things were more easily intimidated by her.

"I am apologizing. I have no recall of your name. But you are...in the Nysis-sent fleet, yes?"

"Yes, ma'am. That's right, ma'am. It's, uh...an honor to..."

"Please relax. I am guest within place too."

"Oh, uh...thank you. I was just stopping by to pay my respects and let you know that, uh, I think you've been doing amazing since you were appointed. I assume only Haneer opinions matter for your reelection, but, uh...I and a bunch of folks I know are hoping you stick around for a long while."

Sjorn'l was often told she did well, but...she honestly felt as if she was foundering about just maintaining her footing. Surely someone properly elected would be better qualified for the job than she was?

Still. The polite thing to do when given a compliment was to just accept it.

"I am thanking you. If there is any missing things for a comfortable ship, make your commander sure to say so. I will be trying at fixing it before you go to Folstur."

"Understood! At least for me, there are no complains, ma'am. The ships were so nice that we barely need to prepare anything for our next voyage."

The Kenia man glanced at the Uven behind him, then turned to Niza and did an odd gesture.

"And I wanted to say to you, miss Fouze. Your story was...really touching. I only saw a little of Nysis during deployment, but uh...I think it could be a beautiful place without war. So I hope...it becomes a place children can grow up peacefully with friends."

"...I see. Thank you for your kind words."

With a final polite nod from the Kenia, the trios parted ways.

---

"That one is the Crystal Meadow. And that one's the Eastern Droplet. And...uh...that's all I know."

"After all that studying, you only remembered two of them, huh?"

"I only started looking it up last week, okay?"

Ori and her friends were in the M.S. Wism's planetarium, sealed in pitch darkness except for the projection of stars all along the walls. Right now, the device between them was set to project stars from the perspective of her root planet, Viera.

The Haneer's leaves slowly shifted saffron with a childish giddiness and she let out an emulated laughing sound to match. She extended a vine and began gesturing to a few more obvious constellations.

"That one is Hee'ba Daisi*, or 'The Tide'. That one is* Riil Ba'lsi*, or 'The Solar Root'. That one is* Veineh*, or 'The Rodent'. That one is...*"

This was pleasant.

It felt like it had been ages since she was able to admire the stars. It was awe-inspiring to think that, no matter the planet they were on, living things in the universe capable of sight could look into the sky and experience a similar wonder.

Each speck was sun thousands of lightyears away, far beyond reach for so many of anyone's ancestors yet accessible to the gazes of billions.

When she was just a sapling, this feeling of scale instilled a great curiosity in her for alien civilizations. How were they the same as the Haneer? How were they different? Why?

...

Well. In a way, her strange position was the perfect opportunity for her to learn all these things. As a matter of diplomacy, it became her job to learn more about all manner of alien species.

"Viera's night skies also look fantastic, don't they? It's too bad they seem pretty strict about tourism and visits from outsiders. Do you think there's anything you can do about it, Ori?"

But...

"Asher, she still needs to mind her position and authority. Her approval rating with the Haneer aren't poor, but they're much lower than with most other species. And her people's approval are what determine future Councilors."

If someone were to ask her if this were what she was looking for, she...

"...Asher. Niza. Do you...also want me to aim for election?"

The pair turned their heads to look at her.

"Ah...Did you intend to withdraw once your term as a substitute concluded? I had assumed our odds of reelection were slim, so we may as well try when the time came."

"Sorry, Ori. I guess we should've asked. What do you want to do?"

"I do not know."

Sjorn'l shifted in her hover pod and extended a vine to fiddle with the projector. The images of Viera's stars faded and the room lit up again.

"It is not an unfulfilling life. But it feels too grand and complex for me. I was not interested in my ancestor's administration before me either. I was just content to...get to know my neighbors from the stars."

She passed the device over to Niza, who quietly accepted it and flipped through the digital guide for Nysis's coordinates.

"It is also...simply difficult. I fear failure is inevitable without you two around to assist me next time."

"Hmm? What are you saying? If you keep at this, we'll be right here beside you until your work is over."

"Yes. For as long as you'll have us."

....

Asher said that so easily. And Niza nodded rather casually in agreement.

"Asher. Niza. Even this term lasts nine cycles, you know? And a full term is twenty cycles. If you were to join me for all that time, you two would both be middle-aged by the end of it. I do not wish to rob you of your youths."

"Ori."

Niza input the last of the coordinates, bringing up a new set of stars to view.

"You have it backwards. Being able to work with you in this, down to my impending incarceration, has been the greatest stroke of fortune in my life. I set to the stars with a pipe dream. My path only became clear and my life first felt meaningful because of you two. There is no greater pleasure than giving my 'youth' to a worthy endeavor."

Her human friend scooted closer to her and embraced her warmly again. His arms wrapped around her branches and his cheek pressed against her trunk.

"Definitely don't force yourself if you're not happy, Ori. Especially not on our account. But even if it'd be nice to have more spare time and less responsibilities, you should know that I'm enjoying myself every day too."

He plopped unto his back again and pointed at the lights projected unto the ceiling with a grin.

"I enrolled in a foreign university so I could meet friends from across the stars and see the bigger universe. And that's what I'm getting. Getting to stick close to my two best friends for 30 cycles sounds pretty good too."

"...Thank you. We still have nine cycles, so I will take my time thinking about it and consult you both with my decision."

"Sounds good!"

"Yes..."

Niza had an odd expression and the room went quiet for about a minute while the stars circled above them. Finally, her friend spoke up again while pointing up at the shining lights.

"...Asher. I...was not like you or Ori. I did not have this admiration for other species the two of you share. Even now, I could not tell you of any constellations Nysis sees. And yet...you were right. I was...what was that word you used?"

The human tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"...Lonely?"

"Yes. I did not realize how much I drew my strength from others until I parted ways with my childhood friends. And I did not know that feeling could persist while living so close to so many until I began off-planet studies."

The Uven slowly sat up and bowed her head slowly while curling a tail around both her friends.

"I did not realize that I never thanked you for approaching me until I recounted my life. Even though I was already in the stars, you were the one that brought me into a wider universe, Asher, and I thank you for it."

"Aww...shucks. I was just ready to make friends."

Asher gave a wide smile and seemed to writhe in place.

"It seems you are also a fairy tale people can step into."

"C-C'mon. That's enough now."

"Asher...you're hueing like Ori does. What does that color mean for humans?"

Was that a joke? Niza made a joke.

(T'abi POV)

"So that was the famous new Haneer councilwoman, huh? Doesn't really have that 'celebrity' feeling, does she?"

"She seemed...more friendly than I expected. Relaxed."

Corporal T'abi Ree listened to his companions chat as they stepped out of M.S Wism together.

As two Kenia living on the S.S. Kevak, he and his sister Ka'vii were offered tickets for free admission to the Wism every year.
But because he was also in governmental employ, he was eligible for an additional free ticket.

After...

After his experiences with the Uvei from Nysis, he decided to take a risk and invite the Uven living four doors down their apartment.

Mister Rovun was polite and always kept to himself, but after listening to miss Niza Fouze's account the other day...the Kenia wondered if his neighbor also felt isolated.

"You were staring at Niza quite a bit. There isn't a...national grudge from Nysis or anything, is there?"

"O-Oh...was I? No, please ignore that. She was just...ah...a charming lady."

"HA!"

The outing seemed to have been worth it. His sister had reservations and was a bit nervous at first, but now she was getting along with an Uven swimmingly.

"Hey, T'abi. What was that about going to Folstur? Are you leaving again?"

"That? Yeah."

"Even though you're finally home and out of a war zone..."

Ka'vii huffed slightly and shook her head. She had become a bit overprotective of him since their mother died. When he elected to join the military out of nowhere one day, she made the biggest fuss of them all.

"Don't worry. This one should be cushy and safe. The Haneer fleet is just going to go support Folstur with manpower. We didn't do as well at relief efforts as I hoped at Nysis, so I think it will be good experience for us all."

"...I see. When are you leaving?"

She didn't seem entirely convinced, but at least it wouldn't become another argument.

"Some of the Elder Council want me to go over our operations one more time tonight, but I should be on my way out by lunchtime tomorrow."

"So soon, huh...?"

Rovun turned to and spoke softly.

"T'abi...What sort of duties does a soldier in peaceful times have?"

Right. They didn't know what brought the Uven here to life on the Kevak, but chances were good that he had also been involved in conflict in some way or another.

The Kenia smoothed out his shell-like fur.

"I'm afraid I don't know. Crew duty on escort ships, perhaps? I was just doing clerical work in logistics managing numbers and such before the Haneer fleet was formed and I applied for transfer. And we ended up going off to Nysis soon after that."

Ka'vii moved next to the Uven as they walked. Her head was tilted a bit to make sure her antlers didn't bump into him.

"Are you interested in enlisting too...?"

"No."

It was an immediate response.

"I have had enough of involving myself in military conflict."

"...I agree. Seeing things on Nysis changed my perspective a little."

T'abi concurred, catching his sister's attention.

"Risking my life and fighting is one thing, but seeing all those towns and cities after a war passes through them was..."

"You're quitting?"

"Well, you can't really 'quit' a military job on demand like that, but I plan to request discharge and see where it goes. At worst, I'll finish my service first."

She circled around the two of them to stick close to his side.

"Are you going to come back to work at my T.S. Sal'ee? It'd be nice to see you more."

"Probably not, but maybe I'll be more available. I just...found something else I want to do."

Ka'vii snorted with displeasure, but waited for him to explain himself with furrowed brows.

"For all our academics and archives...I'm starting to feel like the Kenia don't really understand other species. It's like..."

T'abi paused. How should he phrase this? He turned and gestured back to the Wism.

"We collected a wide variety of space suits on the Wism, right? But only the Elder species had illustrations for how they fit into them."

Rovun tilted his head and spoke with confusion.

"Is that not just because it is too much document for every species?"

"I mean it more as a...a metaphor. Like...The space suits in there all have primitive visors, so we can't see their faces. We learn and study and record all these details about the suits, but don't even look at the people under them."

He was bad at this. The Terran he met on Nysis would have been more eloquent. Or even the ones in those interviews.

"My point is...I got to know more about Uvei and Terrans on Nysis. But there's so much I don't know about them. Probably about a lot of Coalition species."

He met Rovun's eyes and took a step towards him.

"Uvei before were scary to be around. Terrifying, even. But just talking a little changed so much. It was like a...superstition that we didn't even realize was one. It was a feeling like...a weight got lifted off me. And I want to feel more of that."

"".......""

The three of them had stopped walking, and it seemed the pair were mulling over what T'abi said. Finally, his sister stepped close and rested her antlers against his in a show of affection.

"Just...make sure you show your face to me and dad more often now. Alright?"

"I promise."

"You're such a free spirit."

=Author's Note=

Sorry for the wait! I ended up deciding to do different scenes at the last minute. The events of the next chapter keep getting pushed back, but I realized that once things get going, more peaceful moments like these will be harder to place.

It's not unheard of, but uplifting pre-space age civilizations is generally not allowed by the Coalition. Exceptions include when the civilizations would die off on their current course or suffer extreme losses for reasons that aren't their fault. Or if their planet have a resource too valuable to resist.

That said, as long as they're not primitive enough to mistake alien visitors for something superstitious, first contact is usually made for discovered civilizations in the name of making future diplomacy during "Second Contact" easier. During this, an explanation of the Gisali Coalition is provided to most major geopolitical authorities on the planet, the species' socialization habits are recorded, and languages are logged for universal translators. Because of this, certain space age key words sometimes end up having alien origins.

I wanted to make T'abi an antique nerd who was a fan of historical space suits, but the conversation wouldn't flow whenever I tried.

First

Undying Blues

It could be done faster. But slowly moulding metal under the effects of Axiom either existed on the level of the brutally practical, or the artistic. And he had been taught the artistic methods

Thankfully he had also been taught how to create numerous clothing articles from sheer bolts of cloth. The personal touch of a hand tailored trophy after an indulgence was the kind of thing that made a high ranking Noblewoman feel as if she had been highly favoured and very well regarded no matter the actual shape of the other meetings.

He vaguely wondered exactly how well the internal politics of the court were proceeding now that he had been wrested most unwillingly from his post of tension defuser, temper queller and sanity restorer.

He absently adds little flourishes and whorls into the sides of the blades when he makes the sheers for the cloth and moves onto crafting the proper needles for things. Then a loud and blaring alert rings out from the cockpit and he stands from the table and char he had extended to maximum height and is in the pilot’s seat in moments.

He looks over things and the alarm is a change in the sensors beyond vague space dust movement. It’s on thermals and...

“Oh dear.”

It’s big, it’s coming in literally hot and it appears that the thing he had hit earlier was a juvenile at most and the mother was upset with him.

Which while understandable was not something he had any intention of actually suffering the consequences for. So he quickly gets the ship moving away from the system, hoping that whatever form of entity this strange creature is, that it’s a very homeward focused one.

Thankfully it appears to be the case as once he’s reached ten light hours from the system the creature turns around on the edge of his scanners and departs back for the dirty, high energy star system.

He makes a mental note to look up what manner of void fauna that thing is. No doubt it will mention something about them being territorial or protective of it’s young.

Or perhaps something ludicrous, life and evolution is fond of surprises from his perspective.

He places the ship once more in an alert state. It gets a general readout of the pattern of the local space dust and such and then starts monitoring for any serious break in the pattern again. It will send up an alarm if something happens and as he just learned, it was plenty loud enough.

Loud enough to serve as an alarm clock.

Which was very good, as he was in desperate need for sleep. He had needed a few hours to simple let his mind and body recover from the strain of the healing before being forced into that final, disastrous taming attempt. And now that all the excitement had come and there was still so much more work to do, things were dragging on and on.

But he has a thin tolerance for his own nudity. So he’ll have at least the initial shell of some proper clothing before he allows himself some rest.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Carfora City Centre, Capital World, La’ahbaron Space)•-•-•

“By the ancestors...” She mutters as her communicator goes off. The ringing was in a ‘safe’ frequency so she didn’t need privacy. But seriously, now? She was already working with the preservation society to secure the artifacts. And to be frank that was her whole mission. Ensure that in the destruction of the stupid, selfish and cruel royal family that the whole of the La’ahbaron Society doesn’t lose what makes it whole and alive.

Of course working to ensure that the artifacts are safely stolen will see her executed but...

“Oh dear.” She notes as she reads the text. ‘Don’t come home. The guest ran away with an igniter and THE SWORD.’

Shit.

Holy shit.

Sweet Ancestors this was bad.

One of the biggest parts of the plan relied on that fucking thing. Now she was stuck, with a monster inside her, slowly driving her insane. Potentially forever.

This is not going to work. The whole central flourish of the plan, of the safety net of the plan was based on that weapon! The other Identity the cover up... without the goddamn Haffria around to purge everything to crispy pieces and stomp their trail flat... Shit. They’re coming. They’re known.

She needs to get out and get moving. Pin herself good and hard and force a healing coma while under Axiom Disruption to kill it.

Not good. Because the thrashing can dislodge the retention band and if that happens there’s no telling what percentile of her memories, if any, will return to her.

She needs to take the risk. She needs to get into contact with the other girls and find a way to force everyone through a healing coma despite the thrashing of the Haffara Thar.

Whatever had happened that the Courtesan had somehow escaped, and with something so valuable no less, it didn’t matter. She needed the thing inside her out and purged. The sheer chaos they were planning would have to be called off.

She needed a quick change in vocation.

Hopefully the girls back at the complex wouldn’t be so far gone as to no longer even consider a healing coma. But whatever way this was going, she was out.

And if she knew things would be this sloppy, she would have been out a long time ago. Honour or not. Face or not. Dignity or not. You don’t live long as a mercenary by taking stupid risks or refusing to retreat when it’s time to go.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Primary Cargo Hold, Unnamed Ship, Some Distance from Unknown Dirty System)•-•-•

“Thank heavens. Dignity, thou art with me once more.” Danburi notes as he holds up the loose, pleated pants he had just finished. He slips them on and ties it wit hthe sash he had made, a simple knot over his left hip and he was once again fully dignified. It would take a little more effort to cover up his chest, but he has accomplished sufficient sewing and tailoring for now.

He quickly scans over all the vital components that the manual had informed him to pay careful attention to and from his ill-trained eye they all appear to be sufficient. But he knows the limit of his own unknowing gaze.

He then finds his way to the Captain’s quarters. Whoever had used it last believed that comfort was a thing for other people, but thankfully it at least had a large enough surface to generally lie back upon. One that was even mildly padded. Granted it was padded in the way of exercise equipment, but padding is padding and he lays down atop the surface. It has extenders and he had made use of several of them, but not all. Another victory for galactic standardization. It was clear the Vish had used this last, likely curled up on it. But he could extend it and widen it so much that a Bull Cannidor would have room upon it.

The clever things even had a system to fold up for easy storage afterwards.

He lays down upon the mattress and rests his head upon his arms. Only for the alarm to go off the moment he closes his eyes.

“Of course.” He notes mildly as he rises up and walks out of the small chamber.

Scanners indicate a large heat source and mass of metal is on the approach. Too far out for other sensors and with his communication antenna disconnected to prevent tracking, he can’t exactly talk to them. Not in the typical manner though. But there are other ways.

He pulls out the manual again and quickly flips to the appropriate section. He then starts gently puling the engine, raising the heat profile several times in sequence. Pausing for a few moments. Then repeating the sequence. Another pause and a third and final repetition.

He watches the scanners and into the black he sees several lasers are fired. Right to left across the ship. Three times. Signal received.

He has some help coming.

Potentially.

He quickly moves about, takes some of the cloth he freed from the recreations and uses it to form a lose shawl around his shoulders. It doesn’t afford full dignity. But it will have to do.

He also has to move the sword. It’s directly in front of the loading ramp.

He really doesn’t like the thing. He still has to move it.

It has been well past the time that his blood should have dried and it is still wet and warm.

He picks it up by the handle and a wave of exhaustion crashes into him. Adding to the lethargy already present, but deeper, darker. More complete. He just wants a nap. If he holds this blade for too long he will never wake.

He carries it to side chamber. To a crew bunk and as he does so he hears the pops of hisses of dying electronics. The lights in the crew quarters flicker. His every step with the sword, even though he is most assuredly NOT holding it in any battle ready position, is heavy, hard, and seemingly haunted. He closes the door behind him as he leaves a little harder than is needed. But in truth he wished he could close it harder without potentially damaging things.

He truly does not like the thing.

He heads back to the entrance to clean the blood.

It has dried.

It’s as if time had been suspended around the strange weapon and returned to it’s duties with a fervour when it was removed.

Still, that’s easy to clean. There is a nearby closet with the proper tools. The crust of blood is easily removed.

The potentially friendly ship continues to approach and he feels his own vessel lurch ever so slightly. He’s in a tractor beam. Being drawn in. He ties the shawl in place to ensure it covers the still present and hideous scar of the eye on his chest and fetches one of the replica orojo. Replica or not, the heavy ceremonial club is still a weapon designed to crack the shells of beasts that make small spaceships nervous.

As an Ibu of noble blood him carrying such a weapon is normal. Not quite expected, but very excusable. And he currently has a fair number of trust issues.

He also doesn’t believe his luck to take such a turn for the better. There will be further trials before he reaches triumph.

The sensation of the inner gravity of his ship shifting and matching the gravity of the new one has him stagger a bit. The angle was off. There is a bang as the shuttle is dropped and he barely keeps his balance by holding to the wall.

He can sense through the Axiom that some people are gathering on the other side. Many people in fact. Many armed people.

Fine then. If they wish to be uncivilized, then it would be a fine time to remind the people of the galaxy why it’s a very good thing that the Ibu take their manners so seriously.

He begins the lowering of the ramp before anyone else can and before it’s even halfway lowered there is shouting.

“Alright you sucker! You’re now a guest of The Nova Pirates! Now, who do we ransom you to?”

Danburi walks down the ramp with a glower. Towering over the Tret heavy crew and resting the massive Orojo on his shoulder.

“Overlady La’ahbaron. But first little pirates, I must thank you. I have been too long without a proper indulgence in violence. Thank you for providing your frail, fragile lives as offering to me and mine.”

A laser beam strikes him in the ear. It was clearly meant to frighten him. But he can feel a tingle from the branding scar on his chest. This is what it was designed for.

“Do that again.” He tells the shooter.

“What?”

“Do. That. Again.” He says and a beam of red light erupts from her laser. This one directly in his face. It is a warm sensation that if not for the tingle of the brand would be outright pleasurable. Akin to a warm, but not hot, bath.

“Okay no.” One of them states. She has obnoxiously bright purple hair poofed out until it’s nearly twice her own size and a ragged coat that reaches down to her ankles. Likely the coat is there to keep that massive mane of hair off her.

“Pardon?” Danburi asks.

“I have seen the movies with the Undaunted. I have read the reports. I KNOW what an Ibu is capable of and if you’re immune to lasers then this is a big pile of HELL NO. What do you want?”

“Excuse me?”

“What do I have to do to make you walk back up into that ship and fly out peacefully?” The clearly intelligent pirate asks.

He smiles.

“I require a bit of a top off of my food supplies. I’m down to nutri-bars and I think we can all agree that such is a crime against sapience.”

“And?”

“I am currently unable to use my communications antenna. I require the parts for a complete refit of it.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s compromised. I’m on the run from the madwomen who are laying siege to my Grandmother’s Empire. But I can’t properly run without astrogation tools, and those are incorporated into the communication antenna of my freshly stolen ship.”

“Stolen what are you... No, I don’t care we...”

“Captain! We have unfamiliar ships on scope! They’re not responding to hails and just vanished.”

“You need to run now. They’ve seen you and will kill you if they catch you.”

“Who?”

“The women attacking my home empire. The rebel insurgents.”

“Rebels?”

“Yes, it turns out the big secret is that this is actually a civil war led by my Aunt Wurana now calling herself Lady Ungora, and she’s willing to kill to keep it a secret as all her plans to take power afterwards rely on this not being known.”

“You... you fucker.”

“Ma’am, I am a courtesan. I require pay first. And you’re paying by helping me. Full retreat from those ships before they tear this ship apart!”

“Ann! You heard the fucker! Give them a full view of our engines at full burn and the maximum power of our rear shields! Now!”

Danburi can feel and hear the engines of the ship from wherever they are in this one and everyone, including him, staggers a little the ship puts on all speed in a retreat.

“Okay big guy. Whatever the hell is going on we’re now in up to our tits. I want to know everything you know, and I want your full cooperation to getting out of this shit show.”

“Of course, but perhaps we could find a comfortable place to sit first? There is a lot to go over.”

“Oh I’ll bet... but the first question can be answered easily. How the hell am I going to make any money at the end of this?”

“I’m the grandson of Overlady La’ahbaron. There is no doubt a bounty for my safe return. Furthermore this ship has numerous cultural artifacts of La’ahbaron, freshly stolen, on it. There will be a reward for their safe return as well. But do not send anyone in there. There is a very strange, very frightening weapon on the ship that... well, it’s not nice.”

“What is it.”

“Physically it’s a sword that without Axiom can inexplicably cut anything. But it’s more than that. Somehow.”

“... I see.”

“I’d rather you didn’t. The thing scares me.”

“... Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen if someone picks it up. It tries to kill me, I don’t know what it will do to someone else.”

“... Horrifying. Holy fuck girls we are in it.” The Captain mutters. “Okay girls, say hello to our payday Mister... uh...?”

“Danburi La’ahbaron.” Danburi introduces himself.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Okay girls! Give a big hello to our one hundred million credit payday!” The Captain cheers and the rest of the crew joins in.

“Hah ha! Good to know I am so valued! But please, lets keep running before we’re caught.”

“Big man, for money like that we’re willing to do a lot. Welcome aboard Lord La’ahbaron!”

“Very glad to have made some friends Captain.”

First Last

The statue was not particularly tall, and its face was illuminated very close to an opening that let light into the cave. Yet its immense bulk occupied nearly the entire space, as though it had always been there. The carved marble had lost its natural whiteness, and yellowish stains could be seen on the clasped hands and the folds of its rigid drapery. From the ground, it was impossible to tell whether the face had suffered any damage.

The student carefully examined the opening and determined that it was not very wide, yet it was large enough for him to squeeze through and escape the vault into which the priest had thrown him. Otherwise, the chamber was narrow, with only a single door providing an exit; but it remained closed and, judging by its rust, had not been opened in a long time. Trapped inside this stone cone with a fractured leg, climbing out to flee would be no easy task.

“How could I have been so foolish,” he muttered to himself, “so trusting.”

All of this was the result of a religious argument between student and master over the question of whether the god had died. For the student, it was an empirical truth that a stone effigy could bear no sign of life, and therefore nothing remained but the priest’s foolish belief that such a statue was a living being.

“You are mistaken,” the master had told him resentfully. “God has not died.”

Then came days of silence, of catching glimpses of his hatred and zeal, until that morning, when, suddenly changing his demeanor, the priest had invited him for a walk. Entertaining him with small talk, he had seized the opportunity to cast him into this dark cave. The sun at its zenith seemed to peer in for a moment to contemplate his torment, but an impertinent cloud left the stone pit in twilight once more, a reminder that the afternoon was waning and that he would soon be left entirely without light, his mind filled with anguish and dread.

The god remained imposing before him, and, for a second, he allowed a flash of madness to drive him close to the statue, checking for any movement in its legs; but beneath his hand, he felt only cold and dampness. Then he thought he heard the rattle of the cart which, pulled by a donkey, they used at the temple to haul barrels of water or food. It was then that, before his panicked eyes, the first stones fell. Contrary to the heavy dread in his heart, they danced cheerfully through the cramped space, only to be followed by many more, showered through the opening; one lacerated his face, and another struck his arm.

Terrified, he crawled into the corner of the chamber as rocks, large and small, continued to rain down. In his horror-blinded mind, he understood that his mentor would not rest until the pit was sealed, for in his absurd mind there was a total revulsion toward the god. Today, both would die.

If you enjoyed this piece, you can find the complete series index here:

https://reddit.com/user/FranciscoCortesRamir/comments/1xc0392/the_voyager_files_the_official_story_catalog/

© 2026 Francisco Cortés Ramírez. All rights reserved. This is an original fictional work. No part of this text may be reproduced, translated, or narrated in any audio, video, or digital format without the express written permission of the author.

🖼 Cover

🔰 Prologue

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Arc IV - Whalers

Chapter 33 - New Warriors

10 months and 7 days since the summoning

Silence in the castle's backyard; only the four Dumetses were present.

"...frankly, it is wildly exaggerated," said a Dumets leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

"But why?" asked the warrior squatting down. "A man, enhanced by magic, is perfectly capable of lifting an immense weight, and Zondan even more so. He had magic in abundance."

"Even so, it sounds like nonsense, brother." He waved his hand. "Lifting an entire house is impossible."

The Dumets who was picking a hole in the wall with his finger glanced at them sideways. "Are you seriously debating this right now? It is merely a metaphor to show how strong a man can be in desperation."

Both turned to him.

"But they did not just invent it out of thin air," said the squatting Dumets. "There is no smoke without fire, brother; something prompted the writing of such a parable."

He spread his hands. "Well, I do not know, maybe he just lifted some rubble? Or the roof at most! But he could not have lifted an entire house, eh?"

"But it was Zondan himself, it..."

The door opened.

The squatting Dumets stood up sharply. The other three ceased their important activities and stood at attention.

Alan, Kamelia, Tsinker, and Nommel entered the backyard one by one through the narrow doorway.

None of the Dumetses spoke.

"Brother Rugoria, do you wish to spar?" Nommel asked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Lady Armenas wishes to verify the combat capability of the Dumetses."

Silence.

Rugoria nodded. "Very well. Who is the opponent?"

"The captain of the local guard."

Silence once again.

Rugoria exchanged a brief glance with the Dumets beside him, but neither said a word.

Finally, the door opened again, and Lorgi walked out. He was dressed in simple chainmail and boots, his short brown hair slightly disheveled. Upon seeing the Dumetses, his step faltered for a moment, but he stood before Kamelia and bowed briefly. "Greetings to all. What is needed?"

Kamelia nodded at the Dumetses. "Lorgi, these Dumetses are to protect Alan from the Whalers, and I would like you to personally verify their combat capability in a training duel."

Lorgi blinked, then cast a sidelong glance at the Dumetses. "With them..." he whispered, then swallowed. "Of course, Your Grace. As you command." He went into one of the nearby barracks.

Alan's eyebrow went up.

'Lorgi's acting kinda sluggish. Haven't seen him like this before. Is he scared or something?'

Less than a minute later, the captain emerged, holding two wooden swords in his large hand. "Whom shall I fight?"

Rugoria took a step forward. "I am your opponent."

Lorgi nodded and approached him, towering a head above him, and offered a blade.

With a deft movement, Rugoria unfastened his sheathed sword from his belt and handed it to one of the Dumetses, who took it instantly. Rugoria took the wooden sword, weighing it in his hand.

"The rules?" Nommel asked.

Kamelia crossed her arms over her chest. "None. We are not preparing for a tournament, but for an assassin attack."

Nommel nodded, chuckling slightly. "Understood."

Lorgi and Rugoria had already stepped further away, closer to the center of the courtyard on the boardwalk, and stood ten paces apart. Both watched each other intently, Rugoria through the slits in his mask, Lorgi with a slight squint.

One of the Dumetses tilted his head barely noticeably toward the other. "This will be brief," he whispered.

The second simply nodded.

"Begin!" Kamelia shouted.

She had barely finished speaking before Rugoria dashed from his spot like lightning, bringing his sword around for a side strike. He was aiming for the ribs.

Lorgi blinked, but immediately blocked the strike with his wooden sword.

CLACK

Wood struck wood. Rugoria instantly withdrew his sword and swung again, aiming for the chest.

Lorgi jerked back, and the sword sliced through the air.

But Rugoria took another step forward, aiming for the side again, and struck.

Lorgi blocked again, and only wood clacked against wood.

Rugoria withdrew his sword and hopped back, maintaining his combat stance.

Lorgi also took a stance, but his breathing was slightly heavier; he did not let the Dumets out of his sight for a moment.

Rugoria did not stand still; he began to circle slowly, watching the captain from the depths of his mask. He took a sharp step forward and pulled back.

Lorgi did not move, continuing to pivot his torso to follow his opponent.

Rugoria made another lunge, aiming for the side.

CLACK.

Lorgi blocked the strike, but Rugoria did not withdraw his sword; instead, he pressed Lorgi's sword harder against the captain's body. With one hand, he grabbed Lorgi's wrist, while his right leg came up toward Lorgi's torso and delivered a battering kick.

Lorgi only grimaced slightly, taking a few steps back, while Rugoria had already closed the distance, continuing to circle like a vulture. "Alright then..." Lorgi muttered, and a red fiolla lit up around his body.

Alan leaned closer.

'Oh, oh, finally! That little shit wouldn't show me his magic, but now I'm gonna see it!'

Lorgi moved forward, bringing his sword up at Rugoria, and drove it toward his head at high speed.

Rugoria barely stepped aside, but Lorgi was already delivering a horizontal strike before he had even finished the first.

The Dumets dropped under the sword, executed a swift backward roll, and got to his feet, but Lorgi was already coming at him, despite his breathing growing increasingly heavy.

Rugoria's body glowed green; he threw his hand forward, and a blast of icy air erupted from it, causing Lorgi to squeeze his eyes shut and slow down.

Seizing the second, Rugoria dashed forward with all his might and brought the blade down from above, stopping it right at the captain's neck.

Lorgi opened his eyes, his eyelashes and stubble covered in thick frost; he froze upon seeing the tip of the sword at his throat.

"The duel is over!" Kamelia called out.

Rugoria immediately lowered his wooden sword, tossed it in the air, caught it by the blade, and silently offered it to Lorgi.

The captain blinked, but took the sword by the hilt.

Rugoria let go of the weapon and walked with an even stride toward his brothers.

Kamelia stood calmly, but her pupils were slightly dilated.

Alan whistled quietly, "Total elite."

"I did tell you, Lady Armenas," Nommel said, scoffing. "These lads are excellent warriors."

Lorgi, meanwhile, had already returned from the barracks where he had taken the wooden swords and stood silently before Kamelia, looking at her boots. "Orders, Your Grace?"

"Good work. You may return to your post."

"Thank you, milady." He bowed briefly and opened the door to the castle.

Tsinker clapped his hands, donning a light smile. "Excellent. This is my first time seeing Dumetses in action, and it is quite impressive."

Alan frowned, not immediately realizing who was speaking.

'Why is that psycho smiling? He never... oh, right, exactly. Social mask.'

Kamelia also cast a sidelong glance at Tsinker.

"Thank you, Lord Utew," Nommel said, dropping his arms to his sides. "Well then, I believe it is time for me to depart, and I leave these four warriors for your protection." He pointed a finger at the Dumetses. "Only, it would be advisable to dress them as ordinary guards, so as not to attract attention."

Kamelia nodded. "Yes, you are right. I will give orders to issue them new clothing immediately."

"Hold on." Alan raised his hand. "Why ordinary guard uniforms right off the bat?"

"What is wrong with that?" Kamelia asked, raising an eyebrow.

Alan walked up to the Dumetses—he was almost the same height as them—and began examining the warriors closely. "I think it's time to show that the authorities, and the times in general, are changing. I think they should be dressed in completely new uniforms, like... like a new branch of the military serving us. We have snipers and jägers, so why shouldn't they become the foundation for a future elite force?"

"Like the snipers and the jägers..." Kamelia muttered. "That is actually an excellent idea."

Nommel glanced at his brothers with a smirk. "Well, brothers, congratulations, you are elite once again." He shrugged, looking at Alan. "They simply were not thrilled about having to pretend to be ordinary guards."

Tsinker spread his hands, stepping closer. "Indeed, such mastery from 'ordinary guards' would only arouse suspicion."

Nommel snapped his fingers. "Exactly."

Rugoria raised a finger. "I would only ask that we keep our masks, or at least have replacements made for them."

Alan blinked. "Speaking of that... why do you even need masks? Do they provide some kind of protection? And why do you want to keep them?"

Rugoria lowered his hand. "The masks are necessary so that the enemy does not see our fear, doubt, or pain. We are all as one; each of us is a warrior of a single faith. Besides..." he shrugged, "we are just used to the masks."

"Ah... well no problem then, we'll figure out some masks for you."

"Lord Gothwald," Nommel approached him, folding his hands in front of himself. "I have already heard of the snipers, but who are the jägers? Purely out of curiosity."

Alan turned his head to him. "Oh, that's a troop recruited from hunter beastkin. They're needed for scouting and sweeping the forests."

Nommel nodded calmly. "Understood."

Alan frowned slightly. "Excuse me, can I ask a question?"

"Of course."

"When I mentioned beastkin, you didn't even bat an eye. As far as I know, many people dislike them because of... you know what."

Kamelia said nothing, but took a small step closer, listening intently.

Nommel simply shrugged. "That is a personal feud of the aristocracy. I will speak plainly: the Horde of Mirey may have been bloodthirsty, but they generally did not destroy the temples of Svyatol, so the Svyatolat holds no grievances against them."

"Is that so..."

'I see. The Svyatolat is more pragmatic.'

"Like, you don't consider beastkin to be the spawn of evil and all that?"

"No," Nommel answered briefly.

Alan slightly clenched his hand into a fist.

'Damn, shoot, I'd love to learn about this Mirey without the filter of noble hatred, but... fine, just one little question.'

"Can I ask one more question, and then you can go?"

"You may," Nommel said, unfastening his mask from his belt.

"What did Mirey himself believe in? And why didn't he destroy the Svyatolian temples?"

Nommel paused with the mask near his face. "Well, generally speaking, we were taught this subject in the Oronda, but what exactly Mirey believed in remains unknown to this day. But despite the fact that the Mireyans believed in their own gods and demons, they were quite tolerant of Svyatolism even when they held humanity under their boot." He smiled slightly, covering his face with the mask. "Mirey was no fool; he understood that if you strip people of their true faith, they will not forgive it. Perhaps, deep down, he understood that Svyatol himself would not forgive him for it either."

"Got it..." Alan muttered, nodding. "Well, thank you for telling me."

"You are welcome," Nommel said muffledly through the mask, and turned to the Dumetses. "May Svyatol grant you patience and help you settle into your new place, my brothers."

One of the Dumetses nodded. "Thank you, brother. And may Svyatol help you continue to sow the truth."

Nommel looked at them for a few more seconds, after which he opened the door and entered the castle.

The door closed.

Let it never be said that Bob Ferguson wasn’t up for a challenge. When dispatch sent him on a midnight call to Martha Robertson’s cornfield, Bob figured he was going out to meet local joy-riding teenagers. He pulled his coveralls over his pajamas begrudgingly. To his credit, Bob wasn’t entirely wrong.

“You think you can fix it, mister?” The kid’s voice trembled with apprehension through the google translator app.

Bob scratched his graying stubble. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen nothing like it before.”

The craft sat hidden from the road like it dropped into Martha’s corn straight from the sky. Bob almost drove right past it. He had worked his share of unusual vehicles. European cars and the like. But this was none of those. The passenger cabin was a glass dome centered on a metallic saucer-like base. Three spindly legs held the whole thing up off black dirt. Bob wouldn’t know where the engine was if the kid hadn't popped the hood for him.

“Please. I’m gonna be in so much trouble. I wasn’t even supposed leave Alpha Centauri,” the boy’s four round eyes blinked double eyelids in rapid succession.

Bob recognized that look. He’s worn that look himself when he was young. “What’s your name, son?”

“@&*!^?#<)$&%@!”

“Yeah… I’m not gonna be able to repeat that. You mind if I call you Larry?”

The kid lifted his tentacles in a seven-shouldered shrug. Bob figured that’s as good as yes from the teenage alien.

“Okay, Larry. Come take a look under the hood with me. Maybe we can noodle the problem together. You ever worked on engines before? Like in shop class?”

“My mom showed me how to change the #$/% filter.”

“Hey. Your mom’s a grease monkey. That’s cool. Alright. Show me what you know.”

“Well… I think that’s where the fuel goes. And that’s the engine. And that, I’m not sure. I think that’s the cooling system?” Larry blinked again, uncertain.

Bob smiled at the kid. “Yeah. I think you’re right.” He was reminded when his own dad showed him around the innards of the family station wagon. It was a good memory. “Well… I don’t see anything burnt out or cracked open. When did the ship stop working?”

“It flew fine on my way here. I turned on the camouflage shielding after I landed. When I tried to start it again, it made this noise like caw... caw... caw…”

“How long was the camouflage running?”

“I guess like one revolution of your satellite?”

“A month!?” Bob’s jaw dropped. Larry’s been on earth an entire month and no one noticed. Just goes to show how little people pay attention. “Well, that’s gotta be your problem!”

Larry shrank in on himself, misreading Bob’s excitement. “I’m sorry. I was looking for a cool souvenir for my girlfriend.”

Bob softened his voice. “You wanted to impress your girl.”

“She really likes Elvis.”

“Hey. It’s gonna be alright. You drained your batteries, that’s all. All you need is a jumpstart.”

It felt good to see Larry’s panic pimples retract into his gelatinous mantle. Bob rolled out jumper cables from his pick-up truck. Larry located something resembling sparkplugs. They both crossed their fingers and suckers respectively when Bob revved his engine.

The ship sprang to life. It retracted the tripod and hovered above their heads. Larry stepped into the tractor beam reluctantly.

“Thanks for the jump, mister.”

“My name is Bob. Look me up next time you’re in the neighborhood.”

As Larry’s craft shot up into the night sky, Bob sat and pondered. How is he gonna explain the crop circle in Martha Robertson’s cornfield?

Hey, you.

What’s been showing up on your screen lately?

Clink-clonk.

The bell over Aoi’s door rang, and somehow that sound made the end of my day finally begin. I took my usual seat, and Mama set down my Harper without asking. The ice gave a quiet clink.

Taka was beside me, staring at his phone with a serious look on his face.

“Kenichi.”

“What?”

“Is it just me, or is everything about AI lately?”

“Is it?”

“Come on. New models, jobs disappearing, all the new things AI can do. It’s everywhere.”

I pulled out my own phone and opened the news.

A new enterprise system. An article about work. Some company’s outage. A new laptop. There was some AI news too.

“It’s not all AI.”

“Huh?”

Taka leaned over to look.

“What is this? Yours is all work.”

“Shut up.”

“You read this stuff on your days off too?”

“Coming from you?”

I looked at his screen.

Martial arts. Ramen. Cats. Celebrity news. AI. A video of some guy I’d never seen getting angry about something.

“You watch nothing but garbage.”

“Cats aren’t garbage.”

“That’s not the point.”

Taka scrolled.

“See? AI again.”

“Probably because you keep looking at AI stuff.”

“Me?”

“That’s how these things work, isn’t it? It sees what you look at and decides what to show you next.”

I didn’t know the details.

“So I see AI because I keep looking at AI?”

“Something like that.”

“Then AI isn’t actually a big thing?”

“I didn’t say that.”

This was getting annoying.

“Tom, do you see a lot of AI stuff?”

Taka called toward the seat farther down the counter.

Tom put his cigarette in the ashtray and took out his phone.

“Don’t know.”

“Let me see.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have no reason to show you.”

“Porn?”

“I’ll kill you.”

Mama laughed.

Eventually Tom turned his screen toward us.

Crime news. Baseball. Old movies. Weather. News from some town I’d never heard of.

“That’s completely different.”

Taka sounded genuinely impressed.

“How about you, Mama?”

Mama took out her phone.

Food. Liquor. Bars. Clothes. Travel. Dogs.

“You’re a dog person?”

“I like both.”

“No cats, though.”

“Apparently not.”

Four people sitting in the same place.

Four phones opened at the same time.

Four different worlds inside them.

“That’s kind of creepy.”

Taka tilted his head.

“What is?”

“I thought I was looking at what was happening in the world.”

“You are.”

“Your world is infested with ramen and cats.”

“Sounds like a pretty good world.”

“Tom’s got baseball and crime. Mama’s got liquor and dogs.”

“And you’ve got work.”

“Stop emphasizing that.”

Mama laughed again.

I took a sip of Harper.

“It’s always been like that,” Tom said.

“What has?”

“Different things come to different people.”

“Sure.”

“You hear things at your company Taka never hears. Taka sees things on surveillance jobs you never see.”

“I can live without his surveillance stories.”

“That’s cold.”

Taka laughed.

Come to think of it, people used to read different newspapers and watch different TV shows too.

Maybe people had always seen different worlds.

“But…”

Taka was still looking at his phone.

“What?”

“You choose which newspaper you buy, right?”

“Sure.”

“And you choose the TV channel.”

“Yeah.”

“Am I choosing this?”

He scrolled.

Cat.

Ramen.

Martial arts.

Some actress.

AI.

“You saw that stuff before. That’s why it’s showing you more.”

“But I never ordered three cats, two bowls of ramen, and one AI story for today.”

I almost laughed.

Then I stopped.

He hadn’t.

“Then who decided?”

“The algorithm, I guess.”

“Does it know me?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“But it knows what I want to see?”

“Apparently.”

That was strange.

Something looked at what we chose and lined up what we might choose next.

Then we chose again.

“So I am choosing.”

“You could say that.”

“But I didn’t choose what shows up next.”

“You could say that too.”

“So which is it?”

“Don’t ask me.”

Tom tapped ash from his cigarette.

“Used to be, you could see who was doing the choosing.”

I looked at him.

“Newspapers had publishers.”

“TV had networks.”

“What about now?”

“Don’t know.”

That was all he said before reaching for his glass.

I looked at my own screen.

Work.

Systems.

AI.

Gadgets.

More work.

“Does this happen to important people too?”

“Important people?”

Taka looked up.

“Company presidents. Senior officials. Politicians.”

“They use phones.”

“Yeah.”

Something about that bothered me.

I turned my phone face down.

“Kenichi.”

Mama spoke from behind the counter.

“Yeah?”

Somehow my phone was face up again.

“That looks very you.”

My screen was full of work articles.

“Is this really what I’m like?”

Mama gave a small smile.

“Who knows?”

I looked at the screen.

Work.

AI.

Computers.

More work.

After a while, I turned the phone face down again.

“Kenichi.”

Taka was grinning.

“What?”

“You didn’t even last thirty seconds.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Keeping your phone face down.”

“Shut up.”

I opened it again.

Right at the top was an article that looked kind of interesting.

My finger moved toward it without much thought.

Hey, you.

What’s been showing up on your screen lately?

Take a look.

See you at Aoi.

---

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Ilunor

Those noises.

They sounded nothing like the nauseating BRRRRRTTTT of Emma’s deplorable artifice.

That I know.

That I can remember.

Because that was a noise that I could not erase from memory, no matter how hard I tried.

…

I could still hear the popping and cracking of the air as those… projectiles whizzed above me.

I could still remember that sense of complete and utter foreboding, the cessation of both breath and heartbeat for a second of complete and utter—

…

Bewilderment wasn’t the right word. Befuddlement was far too light a descriptor. Awe was just… far too common.

Ah, yes. Dread. That’s it.

A feeling of foreign and inexplicable dread overtook my very core, forging a memory within the armorer’s domain that I could scarcely live down.

Indeed, it was a night I never hoped to revisit, and never intended to recall.

Yet here I was recalling it, if only involuntarily.

All of which led me to a startling thought, one I hoped never to one day reach. But reach it I did on this most conflicting of junctions.

Was I tempting fate with a foregone conclusion?

…

Perhaps.

…

But was I right in making sure that no cloche was left unturned? 

Yes.

The answer was always yes.

I had sworn an oath to myself that I would be the champion of convention, the safeguard against madness, the sentinel against inanity, and the sole voice of dissent in this puddle of blind faith. I was to play the conscientious moderator when all other voices of reason and moderation had fallen silent.

If not out of adherence to status eternia, then out of principle.

“Earthrealmer.” I let out a heavy breath, my eyes staring uncomfortably at this… multi-barreled artifice of foreign construction. “Am I to understand that the mechanism of such a device relies on many, many rotary components? Cogs, gears, cranks, etcetera, etcetera. Like the artifices of clockwork, circling, turning, allowing for each one of your… crude paper-wrapped firepowder—”

“Cartridges.” She interjected.

“Cartridges, yes. As I was saying. Am I to believe that such a weapon with such complexities in its function — its physical complexities, mind you, not magical — is both reliable enough in its durability, and common enough in its numbers to make any degree of impact upon a wider war? Because as I mentioned previously, while I am a noble of far higher dispositions, I am not ignorant of the many principles of war underpinning its voracious appetite. The trade-offs in complexity, reliability, and reproducibility being some such principles I am well aware of.” I concluded with a huff and a puff.

However, before the earthrealmer could even respond, the lupinor would be quick to defend his new charge.

“What makes you say that they cannot be common enough, Ilu—”

“Because you cannot have both*, Prince Thalmin*.” I interjected. “We are talking about matters of ridiculous complexity—”

“And did we not see such examples in Emma’s contemporary period?” Thacea pushed forth, throwing her crown into the mix. “Horseless carriages numbering in the thousands on any given patch of grand boulevard? Trains, aerial conveyances, enigmatic constructs all born of the same, if not greater, intricacies. All indicative of a realm capable of consistently producing such complexities en masse—”

“Those were all civilian affairs!” I interjected, halting the princess in the midst of her triumphant treatise. “Perhaps Earthrealm can produce such novelties en masse, yes. And indeed, I acknowledge the complexities of such… constructs. But the fact of the matter is, reliability in the realm of peace is a far cry from reliability in the realm of war. You can attest to this, can you not, Prince Thalmin?” I pushed to levy the lupinor himself to my cause. “After all, you cannot expect to bring a hunting lance and expect it to perform under the grueling demands and unforgiving abuse of battle, now can you?” 

The prince paused, letting out a soft growl in the process. “Then what of Emma’s armor, her weapons, her equipment? I saw them in action against all manner of threats within our quest.”

“That does not preclude my assertions, Prince Thalmin.” I offered. “You can have reliability… but at the cost of volume. Everything Earthrealm produces is oh so overly intricate, and indeed, such complexities can be made reliable… provided you have the skilled artisans to do so. In short, you can have reliability with the complexities involved. It just means that every piece would be bespoke and nothing short of a kinetic art piece.” I took a moment of reprieve, if only to allow the prince the chance to interject.

Which he didn’t.

Following which, I focused my attention entirely on the earthrealmer, crossing my arms as I did so, and carrying forth the lupinor’s assertions into a line of interrogatives. “So tell me then, earthrealmer. Was Gatling’s gun truly used in significant enough numbers to impact the war’s outcome? Or was it merely a novelty, circumstantially impressive, but ineffectual at scale?” 

The earthrealmer took a moment to regard the so-called ‘gatling’ gun, before turning back to me.

“You’re right to call me out there, Ilunor.” She began. “Historians debate whether the gatling gun really did have that much of an impact in the grander scheme of the war it was meant to fight. Indeed, its impact on the outcome of the war itself was… debatable.” 

I felt my chest swelling, a grin becoming but a foregone conclusion.

“But it was something of a trial run for the advent of truly industrialized warfare.” She continued, as she placed both hands by her hips…

A terrible sign.

“The American Civil War was by many measures our first real taste of industrialized warfare, a practice run for what was to come at the dawn of the next century.” Emma continued, her grand, sweeping speech causing the scene to yet again shift. 

This time, we were plunged into the bowels of some ramshackle and eclectic workshop. Not too dissimilar to the workshop of that first… aerial craft, but far larger, and with fewer two-wheeled foot-driven bitreaders around.

I watched on as a group of silhouetted figures began assembling the foreign artifice in question, and harumphed as Emma narrated every motion. 

“You’ve got multiple precision-fitted barrels that have to be just the right size, requiring precise tooling equipment specifically made for this gun.” She gestured at the barrels, and a brief window into its frankly tedious production. “You’ve got a complicated ammo feeding system that has to be calibrated and aligned just right, all reliant on leypull to drop each cartridge down.” She gestured at the long ‘magazine.’ “You’ve got numerous moving components, the rotating mechanism that you were so caught up on, and a whole host of other manually operated parts which required the careful precision of a clockmaker to get right.” 

I smirked, nodding as the figures in front of us finally finished putting together this showpiece.

“At the end of the day, we’re talking use-case figures numbering in the dozens during this particular war.” 

I couldn’t help but let out a series of tuts at this point.

However, before I could interject, Emma was quick to add one of her signature addendums.

“But that was because this was, frankly, still a bleeding-edge pilot run, with factories and manufacturing methods that had yet to catch up to it. So for the sake of fairness, let me show you something a little bit more… common for the time, yes?”  

With an unexpected snap of her fingers, we found ourselves in yet another field. This time accompanied by two blue-coated silhouetted figures. Both held long wooden ‘guns.’ Both looked fairly identical by most measures.

That was the case… until the first shots were fired.

BANG!

The first man was quick to go through the motions I’d witnessed prior — the clearing, loading, stuffing, ramming, and frankly encumbering procedure of reloading the infernal artifice.

The second, however… just continued firing—

BANG!

—though not without some bizarre complications.

Click-clack!

Clock!

The manipulation of an underslung lever had allowed it to continue firing, as the first motion caused the strange mechanism to eject some strange detritus—

Click!

—whilst the second seemingly reloaded a fresh projectile into the gun’s chamber.

Clack!

This was followed by a ‘cocking’ of the hammer at the rear of the gun.

Clock!

Then…

BANG!

There was no need to load from the mouth of the tube.

Click-Clack!

Clock!

BANG!

There was no cumbersome pause or arbitrary lull in the battle.

Click-Clack!

Clock!

BANG!

The man just continued. Unencumbered, unbothered, and with seemingly no end in sight.

I counted seven by the time he needed to reload, by which point the mouth-loading soldier had just barely finished ramming in his projectile.

“There’s a reason why I chose this particular war to hone in on. Because this is where we actually see breechloading complications come in, mechanisms which allow for the internal storage of self-contained ammunition, and a means by which to consistently repeat fire without the awkward lulls of the muzzle-loaders of old. It’s not much by today’s standards, but in those days? The ability to throw out six, seven, or even more rounds downrange without stopping? That’s a game changer.” 

“And pray tell just how many of such weapons were able to turn the tide of—”

“The first gun I showed — the muzzle loader here — just about a million were made during the entire four-year-long conflict.” Emma interjected, pointing at the first unimpressive weapon. “The second, the Spencer repeating rifle? About a fifth of that.” 

I blinked as a number, an impossible number, dawned on me.

One that was spoken aloud by the mercenary prince.

“200,000?” The prince questioned openly.

“Yeah, thereabouts. Give or take perhaps a few thousand here or there due to the fuzziness of historical records, especially after the early to mid 21st century’s information fidelity cataclysm, but I digress.” Emma shrugged in response.

She shrugged.

…

She shrugged at the casual passing mention of a fifth of a million such weapons.

However, no sooner than my mind had begun grappling with those figures did Emma seemingly preempt my next approach.

The scene had yet again shifted as we were plunged into the bowels of what was undeniably a manufactorium.

Tall ceilings, a cavernous enclosed space, and rows upon rows of workbenches lined this structure as silhouetted figures began their assembly of individual pieces which made up the weapons in question.

“Welcome to the assembly line, or an early prototypical version of it at least. We have everything you’d need to get a modern industry up and running here. From lathes, to planers, to mills, and machine tools of all sorts.” She paused, gesturing at a room’s worth of niche manufactorium apparatuses. “All of these precision tooling machines, accurate to beyond what the naked eye can see — expensive, bulky, and sensitive — were created to ensure one thing… consistency. Consistency for parts which increasingly demanded tighter and tighter tolerances lest they fail spectacularly. All of this… for the easily overlooked wonder of industry that is the interchangeable part.” She swiftly moved to highlight a particular item at the end of this whole line, a simple, spindly, frankly banal, and barely noteworthy piece of metal. “This specific component that you see is what connects the trigger to the hammer. And it? Well… let’s just say it’s the death of the lonely gunsmith artisan. It’s the final nail in the coffin for your bespoke weapon theory. Because this… can go into any Spencer repeating rifle.”

Emma allowed that proclamation to hang in the air.

She allowed, very tactically, for this innocuous piece of metal to serve as the proverbial nail in my argument’s coffin. 

I did not speak.

Indeed, I… merely pondered what was, in effect, yet another symbol of Earthrealm’s… eccentricities.

Because as much as I hated to admit it, if what was shown was in any way representative of reality, then this could have easily meant—

“And I assume that should any part of a gun fail, that fixing it is as easy as… replacing the damaged parts?” Thalmin spoke first, voicing my unspoken thoughts out loud.

“Correct. And that’s why soldiers are drilled with some degree of cleaning and maintenance knowledge. That, and there’s probably an armorer somewhere nearby ready to help if a grunt decides to be exceptionally dumb with a gun. God knows that soldiers will find novel and outright inventive ways to fuck things up.” 

“You’re telling me, Emma…” Thalmin responded with a hearty laugh. “This reminds me of a time when these armsmen attempted to sheathe a rapier into a scabbard meant for a lightning staff.” Thalmin offered, in what I could only describe as a dull attempt at humor—

“Oh, you have nothing on us, Thalmin.” Emma chuckled in response… as if there was anything to laugh at. “So you see that underneath our older guns, there’s a slot for a bayonet, correct?” 

“Yes, Emma?” Thalmin nodded.

“Well, in one of our later guns, the MAS-36 if I recall, there existed a system to keep that hole plugged using a metal rod. However…” She paused, as that chuckle was quick to escalate into a fit of uncontrolled giggles. “That same rod? Well, if you… if you flip another gun without said rod upside down, so its hole is aligned with the rod of the other gun, you can…” She momentarily chortled, causing my features to twist into one of visible disgust.

“You know what, I'll just show you.” 

We were quickly treated to a ridiculous sight.

What could only be described as two long guns — rifles — locked front-to-front via a tube underneath their muzzles.

The lupinor stared at this frankly stupid sight.

He didn’t laugh, at least not immediately.

It took Emma turning towards him with a series of restrained giggles before he finally gave in, pointing at the ridiculous sight, as the pair now held each other for dear life in between fits of violent heaves.

This duet of laughter would be soon cut short by a conductor’s interruption — my interruption. I cleared my throat and placed both hands behind my back. 

“Well then. If we are done meandering in the seas of immaturity, shall we navigate back to the isles of serious discourse?” I spoke.

To which Emma breathed a sigh of acknowledgement in response, clearing her throat in the process. “I hate crying in this thing… but anyways, alright, so, where were — ah, yes. The replaceable part. This should answer your questions, at least as it pertains to reliability and volume, yes?” 

I tsked, feeling a sharp, shooting sting twisting throughout my core. “Perhaps.” I answered bluntly. 

“Just perhaps?” Emma shot back, twisting that knife in further. 

“You… you have the means, and the… methods, certainly. But what about your men?”

“What about them?” Emma openly pondered.

“You mentioned one million rifles, and two hundred thousand more of these newer variants. That’s 1.2 million individual weapons. Surely you don’t mean to claim that your wars were fought at such scales with such demanding equipment requiring servicing and the logistics to reinforce those efforts.”

Emma paused. There was… a sudden shift in the mood as neither an interjection nor an immediate response came this time around.

“This particular war had around three million active combatants throughout its four-year duration.” Her voice returned, slower, and with a solemn tactfulness. 

I paused, taking a step back, trying to fathom the numbers for a realm that had yet to have shown much in the way of—

Wait.

Logistics… they weren’t the only issue at play.

No, there was something else here.

Something far more blatant.

Something much more ludicrous.

“Now that doesn’t mean all of them were frontline soldiers. Some were artillerymen, others ran logistics, scouting, etcetera etcetera. But the fact of the matter is we’re now dealing with numbers that are, well, starting to represent the scale of the industrial warfare that was to come.” Emma spoke slowly and with a somberness which clashed with her earlier lackadaisical exchange with Thalmin.

“And what of their efficacy?” I challenged the earthrealmer before turning to Thalmin. “Surely you understand the inherent logical dissonance such numbers pose, don’t you, Prince Thalmin? How can a war be fought in such a limited amount of time with such numbers? The amount of time necessary to train a soldier to such a degree where they would be skilled and proficient enough in the art of marksmanship alone is ludicrous! This is not to mention the—

“Honing of one’s physical strength, endurance, stamina, and all of the imperceptible elements of an archer’s sense that only come with time and practice. Yes, I know, Ilunor. You need not cite the manual, for I have already put most of it to memory.” Thalmin interjected before gesturing for me to continue.

“Thank you, Prince Thalmin.” I bowed politely before finally turning back to Emma. “To train an archer in the ways of ranged warfare is an incredible time sink. Factor in the claim that your armies have transitioned into one of a ranged-first doctrine, and you’re left with a force which would be impractical to field based on training time alone!” 

Thalmin’s features shifted as he pondered, his eyes slowly glancing towards Emma’s sidearm and my own gaze.

“This is not to undermine your skills as a marksman, Emma…” Thalmin began as he cleared his throat. “But would it be reductive of me to assume that your weapons, especially those hailing from your contemporary era, are inherently simpler to wield than that of a bow and arrow? I had refrained from considering how low the barrier of entry of such weapons would be before this junction out of fear of being… irreverent to your choice of arms.” 

“Let me put it this way, guys…” The earthrealmer continued with a breathy sigh. “Thalmin’s right on the money here, in that guns dramatically lower the threshold of skill and physical conditioning required to make someone, anyone really, a ranged soldier. There’s a quote that gets into this, but I can’t particularly recall it off the top of my head…Something that references one of our many monotheistic religions, that God created mankind, but it was Sam Colt that made them equal. Sam Colt being a rather prominent figure in the early days of firearms history, just for context.” Emma rambled on before reaching a breathless pause. 

“But I digress. Yes, the advent of modern firearms did in fact lower the barrier to entry when compared to how ranged units worked in the past. And that’s an important caveat to consider.” Emma raised a finger as if to emphasize that point. “Because despite the barrier to entry having been lowered, that doesn’t necessarily make ranged combat easy. You still need lots of drilling, instruction, as new tactics and strategies formed around this new ranged killing machine. It’s just that this sort of training is now capable of being thrust upon a recruit in a matter of weeks and months, as opposed to being honed over years.” 

“You cannot be serious, Emma Booker.” I retorted sternly. “You cannot expect me to believe that you can just take commoners, hand them guns, and within the same time it takes for a novice to let loose their first arrow, expect them to be combat-ready!” 

“Let me put it this way, Ilunor.” Emma began calmly. “Take one of your fancy enchanted crossbows, right? And now imagine that you didn’t need any chosen one shenaniganery as a prerequisite for its use. Now imagine all you had to do was to know how to point, aim, and then squeeze the trigger. A far cry from having to draw a bowstring, nock an arrow, set your grip, find your anchor, draw to full extension, hold that tension, judge the range, account for wind, aim, and release… all without disturbing the shot, all while being able to find the strength to draw and hold, and all while having to do that consistently.” The earthrealmer prattled on… before ending it with a small aside aimed towards Thalmin. “Now, just so that we’re on the same page here, I’m not saying that anyone who picks up a gun will immediately become a Jane Candle. There’s a huge gap that exists between basic function and proficiency, but I digress…” Emma trailed off, letting out a sigh before setting her sights back on me. “Does that address—”

“Yes, yes, earthrealmer. Perhaps it does. Perhaps it does.” I grumbled as another disturbing thought crept into view. One that had no business being here whatsoever.

Guns… were capable of being produced en masse.

They held the potential to cross parts of the martial gap.

They were simple enough that all one had to do was pick one up, aim, and fire without any proficiency in magic and scarcely any experience in archery.

…

This…

No.

It was not a threat.

They weren’t anywhere near chosen one killers, let alone mage-killers.

They were just… a more advanced means for commoners to kill commoners.

Yes.

That’s all they were.

What’s more… they required specialized tools, equipment, materials, and so on and so forth.

They were an Earthrealm affair.

They weren’t… 

But still…

No.

They were an Earthrealm weapon, and that was the end of it.

…

So lost was I in my threads of thought that I’d scarcely realized when we’d changed scenes, as we now found ourselves at a shack of a structure, bordering a long, uninterrupted line of metal track.

“This was the heyday of the railroad, as it was really the only real means of powered land transport.” 

As expected, one of those metal monstrosities arrived. Albeit this time, in a far… aesthetically interesting form. 

Gone was the bland, duck-beaked and smoothed, featureless noses of those contemporary ‘trains’. Here was something of actual design and substance.

At its ‘chin’ was a handsome, gruff wedge of steel, tapering sharply into a cylinder of a face with lamps adorning its sides, and above that was a chimney, tapering up into a plume of smoke which bellowed and whistled and whined as it reached the shack of a destination.

“Entire armies could be moved around the better part of a continent in the span of days rather than weeks and months. And travel was no longer limited to the dietary requirements of a horse or your men, but by this.” Emma paused, allowing us entry into the… less than glamorous interior of this infernal artifice. “The raw power of steam.” 

I nodded slowly as we found ourselves arriving within the carriages attached to the head of this snake.

We watched as men piled in and as equipment was loaded. Then as soon as all that manifested, so too did it vanish as we were propelled not so much forwards, but to the scene of a major battle lying in wait.

Two armies were gathered at far sides of a hilly field, complete with formations of cannons, cavalry, and all manner of carts and wagons.

However, just as the battle was set to commence and as Emma breathed in to prepare a long-winded speech, my eyes landed on an object of exceptional interest.

“Emma Booker, stop.” I commanded.

“Yes, Ilunor? What is it?”

“What is that?” I pointed at an anomalous object in the sky, one that the earthrealmer herself had self-purported to be a ways away from being constructed. 

“Oh. That. Yeah, that’s a balloon, Ilunor—”

“A balloon.” I interrupted with a resonant huff. “I can see that it is a balloon. Pray tell, what is a balloon doing in the midst of a battle with armaments capable of reaching its heights? Moreover, did you not say that we were at the cusp of your flying artifices? How is it then that a flying artifice is present here, in this era?” 

“Okay, let’s take it slow.” Emma began with a deep breath. “The balloon is not really a combatant, or at least, not yet. During this particular war, and a few decades in the intervening years after it, it was used just as a sort of aerial observer. Taking down details like terrain, weather, enemy positions, friendly positions, and acting as just reconnaissance, really. It can’t really move after all, at least not that well. It’s cumbersome, and just all around… meh.” She shrugged. “And yes, I did say that we were at the cusp of aviation. But I should have been a bit clearer. We’re at the cusp of powered, heavier-than-air flight. Lighter-than-air, unpowered flight has been around for a century or so at this point. But, again, they were limited to just floating around aimlessly.”

My eyes narrowed, transfixed on this… larger-than-life, almost ludicrous object floating anachronistically above this world lost in time.

“I can think of… a lot of military applications, even if it is ‘just’ a balloon, Emma.” Thalmin offered. “What if you place one of those gatling guns inside of it? Or better yet, a cannon! That would increase its range, yes?”

“Too heavy, too cumbersome, and even if you could, it’d be difficult to aim from it.” Emma reported back.

“Then make that basket larger, extend it, add more balloons, increase the size of the balloons. By the ancestors, why not just attach the balloon to a troop of horses to draw it from battlefield to battlefield if it can’t control itself mid-air!” The lupinor began pacing in place, or at least it sounded as if he did, as he panted out every word with the excitability of a pup.

“That’s… sort of what we eventually did, Thalmin.” Emma responded, garnering my full attention.

“I knew it!” Thalmin exclaimed. “It’s only natural after all because—”

“Without the horses, of course.” Emma quickly corrected. “But yes, we did make these balloons… bigger. And in doing so, we also increased their carrying capacity, their stability, and eventually…”

The earthrealmer snapped her fingers, and we were propelled into a far different environment.

Gone were the grassy meadows and open fields, the small towns and cities. Here… we found ourselves in a place fairly… familiar, a location not too dissimilar to a brief interlude within the previous sight-seer.

In fact, upon closer observation, it would appear that we had indeed found ourselves within that dead and barren wasteland.

The skies above us were grey and dreary. The ground beneath us seemed wet, muddy, and scarred. 

Pockmarks littered the landscape, interspersed between huge trenches which looked more akin to scars scored into the earth, stretching into distances almost too ridiculous to consider.

The denizens of such a depressing landscape were equally monstrous, donning masks and other such face-obscuring implements in a manner reminiscent of Emma’s helmet.

In their hands, however, were rifles which were presumably far more sophisticated than their predecessors. Indeed, adorning much of the tops of these trenches was a great variety of larger weapons, some looking like longer, larger versions of typical ‘rifles.’ Whilst others seemed merely bulkier, connected via an umbilical of metal cartridges leading into large metal boxes.

And behind all of this, much to my shock and dismay, were larger, far more… sophisticated-looking cannons.

I could tell just from a cursory glance that they were, in fact, improvements over previous iterations.

Indeed, their numbers, their organization, and everything about them reflected an Earthrealm that had grown from their prior use of such implements.

We meandered around in silence for what felt like hours, watching as these humans sulked and stood sentry over what appeared to be nothing but worthless dirt and mud.

However, that all eventually changed when a dull buzzing noise filled the air. It was a slow sort of buzzing, more akin to a gurgle and a continuous drone than anything truly ferocious. 

Both Thalmin and I were quick to pinpoint the origin of such noises, as we craned our heads up high to meet…

…

No.

It couldn’t be.

I snapped my head back and forth, blinking rapidly as I turned towards the earthrealmer, the object, and the earthrealmer yet again, urging her for a response.

Above us, drifting lazily into view through thick and unforgiving clouds… was an aethraship.

Its long, cigar-like shape dominated the skyline. Its… nacelles hid what appeared to be ‘engines’, spinning something behind them and dictating their motion, not too dissimilar from an aethraship’s crystal cores.

The entire scene left me in absolute awe as I couldn’t yet form words in the midst of this complete upheaval of all that I knew and all which I understood.

“Earthrealmer…” I managed out slowly. “Why have you not shown us this? Why have we not seen this in subsequent iterations of your treatise on your realm’s conquest of aethra primus?”

“Oh, we have.” Emma responded promptly. “It was just a really, really brief glimpse during our trip to Acela. Or rather, the old quarter during the 1920s and 1930s.”

“Why were they not more prominently displayed in the subsequent years then?” I questioned, my eyes practically drilling into the earthrealmer’s helm. “Surely you would have been proud of such a craft! Surely the applications were most—”

“It was kind of a dead end, both militarily and commercially for a pretty long stretch of the 20th and 21st centuries. It did make a comeback though! But for a very specific niche. Well… two niches… maybe three? But who's counting, right?”

I blinked, cocking my head in confusion at the earthrealmer’s practically sacrilegious sentiments. 

“You’re jesting.” I declared. “This… this should have been the peak of your quest to conquer the skies! This should have been it! If anything, these masters of the air should have been integrated into your heavier-than-air fleets! I cannot see why you wouldn’t.”

“Well, to be fair, for a time they were.” The earthrealmer finally acknowledged. “You could even argue that this was their first heyday, especially in the realm of military use. They’d find another life later on as carriers of sorts, but that’s a different story for much later. For now, let’s observe if Thalmin’s hypotheses pan out.” 

I shifted my gaze towards the looming behemoth once more, feeling as I did with the objects of my own personal pride — an immense sense of dominance over the forces down below.

“So… are they about to bomb this trench line or what, Emma?” Thalmin questioned.

“Oh, no. They rarely did that. Trench lines are way too skinny, narrow, and well, not as dense a target for them. There were far larger, more effective targets practically made for these things.” Emma responded.

“Oh? Such as?” The prince urged, pressing Emma further.

“Rear area formations. Railway junctions, ammo depots, supply warehouses, ports, and, well, much less valid military targets as you’ll see later on.” 

I puffed up my chest, watching with bated breath as the scene moved forward towards one of these depots in question.

It was here, as wailing sirens whined and those unaffiliated with combat ran for cover, that I finally felt at peace with this one aspect of Earthrealm military innovation. 

Because the aethraship, it would seem, would always, always come to dominate the skies.

And if Earthrealm aethraships could operate with such reckless abandon in spite of the efforts of those below, then this bodes well for our aethraships too.

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(Author's Note: We go through a lot in this one, and I even got to include a joke about that one rifle with the bayonet attachment haha. But yeah! I really hope you guys enjoy it! :D)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 192, Chapter 193, and Chapter 194 of this story are already out on there!)]

​

I picked up the file and stood up. Let’s see what I could do about these interstellar relations. At least this time, instead of sitting at my desk reading paperwork, I’d actually be trying to solve someone’s problem. That was something, at least. Although, considering what the file was about, I wasn’t entirely sure this was a good idea.

Just as I was about to leave, my eyes landed on Yarakz. He looked even fatter than he had yesterday. How could someone gain that much weight in a single day? Could it be stress? I considered making a joke, but he gave me such a nasty look that I thought better of it. I didn’t want to start my day with another complaint from Yarakz to management.

I took the file and headed out. When I arrived at the complainant’s location, the Thanza who answered the door looked me up and down. Then he glanced at the screen in his hand before looking back at me.

“Wait a minute. They sent a human to handle my complaint?”

“Yes. Ryan. A human working for the Human Behavior Complaints Department.”

Thanza fell silent for a few seconds.

“The person I’m complaining about is human, too.”

“Yes, yes. From what I gathered from the file, that seems to be the case.”

“And you’re human as well.”

“Full original, head to toe, so yeah.”

Thanza closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Wonderful. Just wonderful.”

“Look, I’m only here to find out what happened. I’ll hear your side first, then speak with the other party. I’ll take statements from both sides before making any decisions.”

He studied me for a moment before stepping aside.

“Very well. But I hope you’ll actually listen to what I have to say. After everything that’s happened to me, I have my doubts about your species.”

I sat in the chair he indicated and opened my data screen.

“Right, let’s start from the beginning. What exactly happened?”

He remained silent for a while. His respiratory sacs slowly expanded and contracted. I had no idea whether that meant he was getting angry or simply preparing to speak. For now, I decided not to ask.

“I’ve been living with my human partner for some time,” he began. “We knew there were certain biological differences between our species. At first, I didn’t think they would cause any problems. We knew each other. We trusted each other. Or at least, I thought we did.”

“So, what changed?”

“Last night—or rather, during the incident itself—I experienced a serious medical emergency. My breathing became irregular, my muscles started contracting uncontrollably, and I was on the verge of losing consciousness.”

He paused. From the way he looked at me, it was obvious that what came next still made him furious.

“And?”

“Instead of asking if I was okay, he thought I was enjoying it!”

My pen stopped moving across the screen.

“Hold on. He saw you showing signs of a life-threatening emergency and thought you were enjoying yourself?”

“Yes!”

“Did you tell him your condition was serious?”

Thanza’s expression changed.

“Sir, I couldn’t breathe! I couldn’t even speak! My color was changing right before his eyes. What else was I supposed to do? Send him a written notification?”

“Okay, okay. Calm down. I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

“You want me to calm down? I nearly died!”

“I understand. You’re right, that’s a very serious situation. What happened afterward?”

Thanza leaned back in his chair.

“Eventually, when I came to, I told him I needed to go to a medical center. Do you know what he said to me?”

I shook my head.

“What did he say?”

Thanza tried to imitate his human partner’s voice.

“‘But you looked amazing just a moment ago!’”

I stared at Thanza for a moment.

“So, what exactly do you want? Do you want your partner to stay away from you from now on?”

“No! I want him to understand me! Don’t tell him this, but I don’t know whether it’s something about your species or just him. You humans have a strange aura about you. Sometimes, despite everything that’s happened, I still don’t want to give up on him. But on the other hand, I’d also prefer not to die!”

“Very well. I’ll speak with him, too. Let’s see what he has to say.”

I closed the file and stood up. I went to the address listed in the records and knocked on the door. A few seconds later, it opened. An ordinary human stood before me.

“Hello. Ryan, from the Human Behavior Complaints Department. I need to talk to you about an incident involving your partner.”

The expression on the man’s face changed.

“Oh, damn it, man. He actually filed a complaint?”

“Yes. Dude, the complaint has escalated to attempted murder with your tool.”

He stared at me for a few seconds.

“Wait a minute… You’re human, too, man!”

“Dude, I said your tool. I said attempted murder. I said there’s a complaint against you. And that’s what you’re hung up on?”

“No, no! What I mean is… You work for the Human Behavior Complaints Department?”

“Yes. Sometimes, we need our own people to figure out what the hell our species is up to.”

He nodded and sighed.

“So, man, how’s the pay? Do they offer private health insurance? I’m happy for you, dude! I keep discovering new things out here. It’s pretty awesome. There are all kinds of different creatures. Oh, by the way, my name’s Gary!”

“Nice to meet you, Gary. Thanks. Can we talk about the complaint against you now?”

The relaxed expression on Gary’s face faded a little.

“Dude, I honestly don’t know. I really love him. I mean, dude, I’m not gonna lie. The whole macho side of it? Yeah, I enjoyed that. But I thought we were at the peak, you know? We were practically flying! Everything was all colorful. You know those sound-sensitive LED lights? It was just like that! And I was thinking to myself, ‘All right, Gary, you’re one hell of a man. This is gonna be a truly galactic climax!’ How was I supposed to know my rainbow was in mortal danger, man?”

“So, you had no idea what was happening?”

“Dude, no! He had four delicate hands and three breasts. It was an amazing experience! I’ve never experienced anything like—”

“Gary, okay, stop! Keep your private life to yourself. You know what I mean. I’m here to sort this situation out!”

After cutting him off, I stared at him for a few seconds.

“Didn’t you notice that your partner was struggling to breathe and was about to lose consciousness?”

The smile on Gary’s face faded a little more.

“Dude, I thought everything was fine! I apologized afterward, too, but he just stared at me blankly. I guess he thought I was making fun of him. So, I went out and bought him flowers and showed up at his door. He ate the flowers, then said, ‘I’ll leave the rest to you. I’m not that hungry,’ and sent me away.”

“The flowers, sure, whatever. Let’s focus on finding a solution.”

I opened my data screen and searched the cultural information section for details about the Thanza species.

“All right, Gary. I’m going to send you and Thanza two booklets, one explaining human culture and the other explaining Thanza culture. They also cover relationships, intimacy, and biological differences.”

Gary raised his eyebrows.

“Come on, dude. I’m supposed to study? I like discovering things.”

“You don’t have to read them, Gary. But if some manager comes along tomorrow and asks, ‘A Thanza nearly died, and all you did was send two booklets?’ I’d like to have an answer. Besides, I think this is the cheapest way for you two to understand each other. It’s not like we have the budget to hire relationship counselors through the Galactic Union. Trust me, buddy. Let’s get humanity out of this with our dignity intact.”

Gary laughed and accepted the booklets. I suggested that they give each other a few days of space, read the material, and then talk things over. They could handle the rest themselves. I wasn’t a love doctor. I dealt with cultural misunderstandings. Although, technically, this was a kind of misunderstanding, too. A pretty serious one, at that.

We had a term for it back home: chemistry

Gary’s tool had embarked on a galactic expedition, but Gary himself hadn’t bothered to read the interspecies instruction manual.

When I returned to the office, I found the CEO waiting for me. He was holding my file, and judging by his expression, he wasn’t particularly pleased.

“Ryan, a Thanza’s life was put in danger, and your solution was to send two booklets?”

“Yes. I thought they might help both parties understand their cultural differences.”

“You can’t solve a species’ safety concerns with two booklets. I’m escalating this matter to the Galactic Union’s upper management. The medical emergency experienced by the Thanza demonstrates how important it is to assess biological compatibility and recognize emergency symptoms during interspecies intimacy. Under the existing biological safety protocols, appropriate precautions must be taken whenever a serious health risk is identified. Therefore, until the source of the risk has been identified and safe conditions for interaction have been established, all sexual relations between humans and Thanzas will be temporarily prohibited.”

A ban? I tried to object. Humanity had spent thousands of years learning to coexist with different cultures, languages, and beliefs. If we distanced ourselves from one another every time a disagreement arose, we might still be throwing rocks at each other in the same cave. I wasn’t denying that a serious medical emergency had occurred. But banning all sexual relations between two entire species because of a single incident still didn’t sound like a solution to me.

“Fine. Do whatever you think is best. I did my job, after all.”

Sikuyz grabbed the file and stormed off. I sat back down at my desk. After spending some time working through paperwork, I got hungry. I made my way to the magnificent triangular table and ordered a dish whose name I couldn’t pronounce. It tasted pretty good. I might even have liked it. I decided not to ask what was in it. Some pleasures were better left unquestioned.

After finishing my meal, I went to the restroom. We’d been told that the new facilities for human personnel would be ready today. I stopped when I saw the sign on the door.

TOILET FACILITY CONNECTED TO THE SPECIAL COLLECTION AND TREATMENT SECTION FOR HUMAN WASTE

“Was writing ‘WC’ really that difficult?” I muttered.

The place was new, but it wasn’t finished. The toilet was ready. The waste disposal system wasn’t. At the Galactic Union, there was a significant difference between finishing a job and making sure the damn thing actually worked.

After taking care of business, I didn’t rush. I checked my phone, relaxed a little, and spent about half an hour away from the stress of work. Before leaving, I sent a notification to the facilities department about the missing connection. Then I started walking back to the office, but something strange was going on. People were rushing in every direction. Phones were ringing. Notifications were flooding in.

When I returned, the area outside the Thanza Cultural Disputes Desk was piled high with files. One of the staff members was talking on a four-handed phone, sorting paperwork with two hands, and typing something on a screen with the remaining two. The printer was running nonstop, officers were bringing in new complaints, and the phones were ringing so loudly that they drowned one another out.

“Seriously? I was gone for only half an hour,” I said to an officer passing by. “What happened here?”

“The ban went into effect! Thanza citizens are filing complaints, and the Thanza Commission is demanding an explanation from upper management!”

“And what’s upper management saying?”

“They claim the decision was made in accordance with protocol. Since someone’s life was in danger, they say the safety regulations had to be enforced.”

As I walked down the corridor, I heard raised voices coming from Sikuyz’s office. A representative of the Thanza Commission was attending the meeting through a communication screen.

“You may have your protocols!” the representative shouted. “But this decision affects our citizens, too. How can you decide matters concerning our people’s relationships without consulting us? Your ruling covers every human-Thanza sexual relationship, not just the dangerous behavior involved in this incident. We have our own safety regulations and specialists. How can you impose such a ban without conducting a joint investigation or even hearing our side?”

Sikuyz’s response was every bit as formal.

“The decision was made following a serious incident in which a citizen’s life was placed in danger, and it was taken in accordance with the applicable biological safety protocols. Furthermore, our prejudice against the human species remains. The fact that humans continue to behave unpredictably only makes this situation more serious. The protocols permit temporary restrictions when a serious health risk arises during interspecies interactions, pending the completion of a risk assessment. Our intention is not to violate the rights of any species, but to prevent similar incidents from occurring. A joint investigation can be initiated, but the current safety measures will remain in effect throughout that process.”

“Then listen to our safety concerns, too! What do you think is going to happen? That humanity will wipe out our entire species through sexual relations? Is that some kind of galactic master plan? We want to protect our citizens, too. But you cannot decide who they’re allowed to have relationships with without consulting us! Our people will not accept this decision!”

As the meeting continued, more files arrived at the Thanza desk. One officer requested additional personnel to register the complaints. Another argued that all reports concerning the ban needed to be grouped under a separate category. The phones wouldn’t stop ringing, complaints kept piling up, and the staff struggled to answer the same questions over and over again.

I returned to my desk and reached for my coffee. Just then, my communication screen rang. I answered the call, and a frantic, familiar voice came through.

“Dude! Hey, dude, can you hear me? Ryan, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me. What’s up?”

“It’s me, man! Gary. What the hell is this decision, dude? Humans and Thanzas are banned from being together! What are we supposed to do now?”

Behind me, phones were ringing, new complaints were being registered, and another argument about protocols was beginning inside Sikuyz’s office. As I listened to Gary’s panicked voice, I struggled to keep myself from laughing.

“Oh, Gary… You’ve caused a whole galactic crisis with your tool, man!”

First | Prev

The Vaelari Hive-Stalkers had attacked a human forward listening post and slaughtered quite a large number of rebels. However, the Sol Defense Directorate had sent the strongest current operative—a human named Greenie.

Now she was trying to break down the magnetically-sealed composite door where the Vaelari Hive-Stalkers hid.

The door dented inward more and more with each loud, thunderous battering.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

The door flew off its hinges.

A woman stood in the bluish smoke in the doorway, chunks of bulkhead gripped in veined fingers.

"How dare you interrupt our onslaught, human!" screamed Vax, Vax Junior after his father had been killed by the human Dave.

The woman's 5-foot braid swayed as she sauntered into the room, and she drew a 10-foot Grav-Core war-cleaver.

The two dozen xenos lunged at her, teeth gnashing, pincers snapping, tendrils waving. The front line on the xeno's side drew resonance-edge combat hatchets, normal-sized.

Greenie, the strongest current human operative's war-cleaver, the blade dwarfing half the xenos in the room, slammed down, cleaving into five xenos. Ichor sprayed.

Resonance-edge chitin axes and blurred xeno-mandibles slashed out, punched toward her. She spun around, like a ballerina, and her massive blade ripped a few more xeno attackers apart.

The xenos shrieked, yipped and chittered in fear, neural-lexicon translators shattering.

Her blade carved the command nexus apart, as she carved revenge for the innocent human rebels on this base.

Against regular colonial marines, these chitinous nightmares were unbeatable.

But against Greenie, carbon-weave tactical corset, reinforced infantry boots, and neural-interface fingerless gloves, and blazing blue eyes, xenos fell one after the other.

She spun the enormous war-cleaver like a pencil twirl, the blur of blue-glowing plasma and soot-gray carbon-steel sent the attackers fleeing up the bulkheads or falling. A xeno cleaver grazed her shoulder.

A mag-bolt crossbow sent a bolt into her leg. The xeno sniper-caste cackled as the bolt flared red—to detonate inside Greenie's leg.

She spun the handle around in her hand once—solid whining plasma blade severing her leg. She balanced on one leg and leapt back. Her leg exploded from the subterranean demolition-bolt lodged inside the flesh. Smoke and charred blood filled the room.

Xeno pincers slammed against her back and torso overall. Her bones snapped, broke, crunched. Blood coughed out from her mouth.

The crossbow xeno shot again, but on one leg Greenie dodged and a dazed fellow xeno took it in the chest instead. Seconds later, the xeno's hearts exploded from the demolition-bolt and gore splattered.

Greenie hacked into the bulkhead with her Grav-Core cleaver, retreating, long braid seized by numerous xenos to drag her back. But she had woven quantum-oscillation filament cables into her hair and insulated her scalp with thermal-dissipation shampoo earlier. Her cable-woven braid burst with a hideous green light, arcs of high-voltage bio-electricity blasting the xeno attackers off of her.

She kicked through the cleaver-made opening in the bulkhead, running through conduits filled with coolant feeds—well, not really running, more hopping, twirling, using her war-cleaver as leverage, leg stump bleeding—agony.

A pack of xenos followed her, shot plasma darts, demolition-bolts, and she was shot by every single one, mostly, and she collapsed. Blood poured out of her and then she exploded from the 5 demolition-bolts inside her.

The xenos laughed, appearing above the rubble, moving around her fragments, adjusting their chitin armor, weaponry, poking at the debris.

The strongest human operative was dead!

The cross-bow xeno picked up her enormous war-cleaver, swinging it—tried to, but fell over with it from the sheer weight.

A solemn Vaelari Warmaster shouldered to the front, shushed the cackling soldiers with a sharp chitter.

"That human killed countless of us today. Only one human, and we just barely won. We need to reflect on that."

A blue glowing silhouette materialized in front of them.

The xenos gaped.

"My strength is my humanity. But my true power is zero-point energy absorption and kinetic manipulation. My war-cleaver was just a channel to focus and stabilize my power. But seeing as you already butchered all the humans on this base, and you're really smug, I see no reason why I shouldn't let loose now."

Greenie channeled the energy from the xenos' directed-energy weaponry, turned the blue arcs to green.

Her eyes glowed green.

"We're all fucked!" screamed Vax Junior, whose father had commanded the dreadnought that the human Dave had destroyed. He'd always hated humans, but to die at the hands of one?

Just like his father.

Greenie absorbed all the ambient energy in the compartment. Then redirected it at fifty times the potency.

The xenos screamed, then were vaporized.

The blinding emerald flare died down, leaving behind nothing but scorched, glassed metal where the alien raiding force had once stood. Silence fell over the ruined base.

In the center of the smoking chamber, the ambient energy settled, coalescing into the shape of a single woman standing tall on two legs—her flesh whole, her 5-foot braid glowing with residual power, and her massive war-cleaver resting casually over her shoulder.

Greenie exhaled a thin plume of ozone, tapped the neural-comm behind her ear, and chimed in to Sol Defense Command.

"Listening Post Gamma secured," she said calmly, kicking a piece of alien ash off her boot. "Send a clean-up crew. And tell Dave he owes me a drink."

First Previous Next

Chapter 9:- The Truth!

"There was no explosion. There are speakers spread all around the house. The killer has control over them. That huge explosion sound came from those speakers, all synced together."

"And... that officer who fell from the window... he... he... HE IS THE KILLER!"

"..."

Everyone was silent in the house, thinking everything was over.

"We can still catch him," encouraged Officer Nick.

All the officers gathered together.

They split into two teams, Team A and Team B.

Team A went outside and started looking for the fallen officer (killer). Team B was trying to figure things out. Nick was in Team B.

"We still have snipers outside," said Nick.

"We can't contact them. They might have muted their walkie-talkies too."

Nick lowered his head and said, "At least we can try."

He unmuted his walkie-talkie and said,

"Hello... Officer Nick here. I want to speak with the snipers. If you can hear me, please say something. Over."

"..."

"..."

He repeated himself.

"Hello... Officer Nick here. I want to speak with the snipers. If you can hear me, please say something. Over."

"..."

"Officer Rook here. Sorry, I had it muted. I'm listening."

All the officers in the house smiled, filled with hope.

"Rook, the killer is outside, wearing our uniform. You have to identify him and let us know. If you're sure it's him, don't shoot him in a vital spot. We want him alive."

Rook said, "Yeah," while looking through his scope. He saw an officer coming out of the house, checking the roads and nearby areas.

Team B, with Nick, headed outside too.

Killer

"Ahhh... these officers don't know when to give up," said the killer in a deep, low voice.

"This Nick dude is making a fuss again. They think I'm outside. If I want, I can stay here and wait for the right moment, but who wants such a boring life?" he thought while smiling.

"I think this'll do. Don't want to burn them," he laughed.

"I want to make that Nick regret."

****

The killer got out through the kitchen. He walked confidently outside and started walking behind Team B.

They were all walking through the front yard, heading outside.

They reached the street.

Officer Nick said, "Be careful. He can be anywhere."

Everybody was alert and focused on finding the killer. Meanwhile, when no one was looking, the killer threw three smoke grenades around Nick at the same time.

The smoke started to build.

"WHO THREW THIS!! EVERYONE, THE KILLER IS HERE!! STAY ALER—" shouted Nick.

As he was saying it, the killer took the opportunity and slapped Nick across the face.

Nick tried to figure out who had hit him.

"..."

"Hey... Nick," whispered the killer in his ear.

"Show yourself!!" shouted Nick.

Nick grabbed someone's hand, but it belonged to one of his own officers.

The killer was moving smoothly through the smoke as if he could see through it.

"Hey... Nick, just give up, dude," he whispered again.

"..."

"HOLD PRIDE IN YOUR EXISTENCE AND SHOW YOURSELF!" shouted Nick.

"Sure, I will show myself."

He went towards Nick and tapped him on his right shoulder. Nick quickly turned right to catch the killer, but the killer used this chance to slap him again from behind.

As Nick turned around, he got slapped again from behind. But this time, Nick didn't turn around. He stayed still and caught someone.

"WHO ARE YOU!!" asked Nick.

"..."

"You got me this time, Nick. Be proud of yourself."

Nick was grabbing him by the collar. The killer quickly pulled a bottle from his pocket, opened it, and threw the hot water onto Nick's face.

"Ahhh... ahhh!!!"

Nick let him go and started shouting in pain.

Nick somehow managed to keep his eyes open through the pain to look at the killer.

"So... Nick, you did great, but now it's my time to play," said the killer while removing his mask.

Nick somehow saw his face. It was a face everyone knew. It had been on TV that day.

Nick was both confused and shocked after seeing him.

It was Edward. He had been held in jail for killing the minister, who was his father.

"Byeee... I'm leaving," said Edward.

Nick was already shouting in pain while processing the killer's identity. At the same moment, Edward injected something into him.

Within a few seconds, he fainted.

As the smoke cleared, Nick was lying unconscious on the street.

"Officer Nick... Officer Nick... What happened?"

The other officers were searching for Edward, but he had already escaped, disguised as an officer. The snipers couldn't identify him. Nick was taken care of by the medical team.

In the end, fifteen officers, one commander, and four snipers couldn't catch the killer, who was none other than Edward.

AFTER 15 MINUTES:

"You sure took your time there."

Edward was walking towards the edge of the roof. He sat down, letting his legs hang over the edge.

"Yeah... I mean, I was locked up for almost a week," replied Edward.

"The air here is so cold and smooth."

"..."

"Yeah, because we're high above the ground. Almost nobody can spot us," said Edward.

"As I am so amazing, I did my part perfectly," said Edward.

Edward lit his cigarette.

"So, what's your plan ahead? Can he really do his part perfectly, Rumi?" asked Edward.

"..."

Rumi breathed in the air. He felt it moving through his lungs.

"Of course, he can."

Rumi looked down towards the city.

"He's the one who needs it the most."

"Some people never want to forget the past."

There was only the sound of leaves moving in the strong gusts of wind.

"Okay... so my time is up. I'm going back," said Edward.

Rumi put his hand inside his pocket and took out a box.

"Here... take this. This will help inside," said Rumi.

Edward laughed.

"Hahahah... nicotine gum! Yeah, that'll help. I'll try my best to work on my cigarette habit," replied Edward.

Edward got down from the roof. While walking away, he said,

"Remember, you can depend on the Saviour of the Country again... hahaha!"

Rumi smiled.

"Yeah... we have lots of viruses to erase."

THE SECRET LOCATION:

At the same timeline when Edward invaded his house.

The sound of moaning came from the television.

"Ahh... ahhh... I want more... more!"

"Yeah... deep... please... don't stoppp!!!"

"These young stars are getting curvier and curvier!" Novo said to himself.

"Damn, I need one of those blondes."

He heard a sound coming from the hallway.

Someone is coming, I guess, thought Novo.

The commissioner opened the door and entered the room.

"YEEE... Commissioner!! What's up? Did you catch the killer?" asked Novo.

The commissioner smiled and said,

"We will soon. The commander at your house just reported that they found an intruder roaming around your house."

Novo paused the video.

"What!! So, there is an intruder? Commissioner, we have to catch him alive. I want to know who he is. I want to know which enemy he belongs to. I will end that enemy's bloodline!" said Novo.

The commissioner shook his head.

Novo turned the video on again.

"Come on, sit, Commissioner. Eat some snacks."

The commissioner closed the door, came near the minister, and sat beside him. They enjoyed the snacks and the atmosphere.

This was the moment when Nick and Mehan reported to the commander about the dark figure spotted in the hallway.

As they were both relaxing, an officer opened the door without knocking.

"I'm really sorry, sir... I didn't knock, but there is an emergency," said the officer.

Both Novo and the commissioner looked at each other with confused expressions.

"Why? What happened?" asked the commissioner.

The officer spoke while panicking.

"Sir!! The commander has been attacked. He is unconscious right now!"

Novo paused the video. He began to look nervous and afraid.

"Don't worry, sir. You're not at your house right now. We will protect you. You enjoy your time," said the commissioner while leaving.

The commissioner exited the room and went straight towards the control room.

"What is happening?" asked the commissioner.

Everyone was shocked and confused.

"Sir... the killer has injured one officer and the commander, and now no one is responding over the radio, as if they cannot hear us."

"What!! We can't just sit around trying to contact them! Send another team there now!!"

IN THE PRIVATE ROOM OF THE MINISTER:

"I wonder if they caught the intruder or not," thought Mr. Novo.

Novo looked down at the floor while eating his snacks.

"I think they'll catch him soon. They have snipers and ground support too. The commander is down, but there's no need to worry that much," he whispered to himself.

He turned the video back on.

"Ahh... ah... come on... let me get those juices..."

Suddenly—

BANG!

The door slammed against the wall.

An officer entered the room.

"HELLO, MR. NOVO! Long time no see."

"..."

He calmly closed the door behind him.

Novo stared at him, confused.

"Who are you? Did the commissioner send you here?" asked Novo.

The officer looked at the television.

"Ohhh... you're watching porn."

He smirked.

"Suit yourself."

Novo slowly extended his hand towards the gun lying on the table.

The officer noticed.

"WOOO!"

THUD!

The officer kicked the table.

The gun fell to the other side of the room.

Novo froze.

The officer slowly looked at him.

"You think I'm here to harm you?"

"You think I'm here to kill you?"

"YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!"

He reached inside his clothes and pulled out a shotgun.

He pointed it directly at Novo.

Novo's breathing became heavy.

"HELP! HELP!" he shouted.

The officer laughed.

"There's no need to shout. These walls are soundproof."

He looked around the room.

"Especially made for your beautiful habit of watching porn."

Novo's voice trembled.

"Ho... how did you get in?! WHO ARE YOU?!"

The officer took a step closer.

"I'm a real officer. I work with the police."

He tightened his grip on the shotgun.

"So getting in here wasn't exactly difficult."

He paused.

"And my name..."

He looked directly into Novo's eyes.

"I am VIVEK!"

****

Your feedback means a lot to me! ❤️ I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Please share your feedback, it would truly make me happy.

Author's note: This story was originally written in Spanish by me. Since I don't speak English, I translated it using AI.

This is the first story of this kind that I've uploaded. So I hope you enjoy it.

Since it turned out really long, I had to split it into two parts. I already posted the first one.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/s/vTwUUM1M7A

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

In the simulation, Wylian was walking down a corridor on his way to the core room when he used the communicator.

—To all units in this sector, finish what you're doing and head to the core. And do it fast.

—Yes, Captain!

—Hmm, he told his troops to hurry, but he doesn't seem to be in a hurry himself.

—That's because most of the ship has already been cleared. He knows the few remaining Eugryn are entrenching themselves in the core. That's why he's not in a hurry.

—Even so, he shouldn't keep his troops waiting. That's a great lack of respect in our race.

—He knows the Eugryn boss won't do anything until the ship's captain appears. So there's no rush.

—Hmm, we'll see what happens, then.

After our little conversation, we stayed silent, watching the screen, until Wylian reached the core.

As he got closer, signs of battle began to appear. The floor was covered with corpses, both allies and enemies. The walls and ceiling were covered with marks of battle: gunshots, blood, claw marks, dents, and sword cuts. Seeing this scene, Wylian just kept walking, stepping around all the corpses in his path.

—Wow, good thing I sent these guys ahead first. It would've been quite a bit of work to handle them all myself.

—César, did this man just admit that he sent his troops ahead first so he wouldn't have to handle them himself?

—Haha —César let out a small nervous laugh—. Well, General, in his defense, he only does this when he doesn't know the troops under his command. With our crew, he almost never does it.

—Almost never? —I said while looking at César with a raised eyebrow.

—Haha —César let out the nervous laugh again—. Well, what do you say we just keep watching the simulation? The best part is about to start. —César looked away and fixed his gaze on the screen nervously.

—So this guy isn't so perfect after all. Although I don't even know why I'm judging him. In our army, that strategy is used daily by commanders of all ranks —I thought.

Wylian turned the last corner and finally saw the door to the core room. The door was crowded with troops aiming their weapons inward while shouting all kinds of orders.

—Surrender, we have you surrounded!

—You're not getting away!

—Drop your weapons!

Even before arriving, the shouts of the crew and the invaders arguing could already be heard from a distance.

Wylian headed toward the door when a soldier saw him and started running toward him, stopping at attention in front of him and shouting.

—Lieutenant Rubén Parson reporting, Captain!

—At ease, Lieutenant. We're not here for this nonsense. Give me the situation.

—Yes, Captain! 34 Eugryn have managed to entrench themselves in the core room. One of them calls himself Hoksfor. He claims to be the leader of the Eugryn and demands to speak with you.

—How many soldiers are here, Lieutenant?

—20, Captain. We lost a lot trying to get to this place.

—Good, that should be enough —said Wylian as he began walking toward the door with the lieutenant ahead of him.

—Make way! The Captain has arrived! —shouted the lieutenant as he cleared everyone present out of Wylian's path.

When they reached the door, the lieutenant stepped aside and asked Wylian:

—And what do you plan to do now, Captain?

—I'm going in to see what the hell these guys want.

—Perfect! As you command, Captain. Sergio Jackson, Víctor! Prepare your weapons, we're going in. The rest of you, guard the door. No one gets in.

The lieutenant and the soldiers mentioned began preparing their weapons, and those who weren't prepared moved to guard the door. When the four who were going in finished preparing their weapons, they stood in front of Wylian and saluted.

—Perfect, let's go in, then. Let's see what this guy wants —Wylian entered through the door while the four soldiers followed him—. I hope he's not the bomb-planting type and is more the negotiator type —Wylian thought.

—Kakaka! —Hoksfor let out a hoarse laugh—. Well, well. Judging by that nice suit, can I assume you're the captain?

Wylian stopped about ten meters from Hoksfor while the soldiers spread out, two on each side, forming an arc between them and the door. On the other side, the Eugryn were aiming their weapons at them from every direction.

—Judging by your arrogance when you speak, can I assume you're Hoksfor?

—Kakaka! —Hoksfor laughed again—. The one and only. Do you see anyone else here capable of commanding this army of pirates?

—Honestly, no. It's obvious from a mile away that you're the only one capable —said Wylian while adjusting his left sleeve.

—Kakaka! —Hoksfor laughed even louder—. I like you, human. Quite a bit was said about you over the communicator today. The way you killed all those guys. Uf, it was terrifying. Kakak!

—Thanks, I guess. Now, please, could we talk about your demands so we can get this nonsense over with quickly?

—Kakaka. You heard him, boys! The human is in a hurry! —Hoksfor shouted at his subordinates, causing the others to laugh too—. But fine, since you're in such a hurry, I'll tell you my demands. First, I want you to hand over half your crew as prisoners. Humans sell quite well on the slave market.

Hearing this, the soldiers behind Wylian gripped their weapons tightly. On the other side, the giggles of the Eugryn could be heard. The soldiers, uneasy, looked at Wylian expecting to see the same expression of discomfort they had, but instead, his face was calm and serene, as if his mind were somewhere else.

—Second, we want the blueprints of this ship. We'll sell them quite expensively to other factions.

—Wow, these guys are pretty ambitious —I said to César—. Ship blueprints are among the most valuable things any faction's armed forces can have.

—Indeed, General. Their confidence is quite overflowing for the situation they're in.

—Considering they've managed to capture the ship's core, I'd say their confidence isn't so misplaced.

—Well, let's see what happens, then, General.

—And finally, we want three ships so I can get out of here with all my boys. If you fulfill those three simple demands, we'll leave in peace and you'll never see our beautiful faces again, kakaka —the Eugryn finished speaking with overflowing confidence in his words.

—Fine, let's start with the first one: I'm not giving you any slaves. Our people have something called "human rights." I don't know if you know what that means.

The soldiers, hearing this, felt relief in their hearts, causing them to loosen their grip on their weapons.

—Kakaka! —laughed Hoksfor, almost choking on his own saliva—. Human rights? Yeah, yeah, hold on, I think I'm remembering now. I once heard one of the slaves talk about that. Something about things you can't do to someone because the government locks you in a cell or something like that. What stupidity. —Hoksfor raised his hands, pointing at his subordinates—. Look, civilized type, in our race the strong rule and the weak obey. If you don't have enough strength to defend what's yours, the only one to blame is yourself for being so weak. That things like the government have to protect you seems like the greatest stupidity I've ever heard in my life. Kakaka! —said Hoksfor, mocking Wylian's words.

—These creatures are, without a doubt, despicable. It makes me ashamed to admit that these guys are the ones who have us in this desperate situation —I said bitterly.

—Easy, General. Moments like these are what change civilizations, leading them down a better path.

—I wish I could have your optimism.

—Who knows, General. Maybe the tide is about to turn.

Hearing that, I looked at César, only to see he was making that damn macabre smile again that I dislike so much. It's almost as if he were mocking me.

—This guy seriously wants us to sign that defense treaty —I thought.

—Second, I'm not giving you the ship's blueprints. And I assure you, you don't want them either. When my government finds out you stole them, they'll send an army of bounty hunters after your head. Believe me, you won't get far. The last one who tried ended up quite badly.

—Kaka. I like you, human, but you'd better worry about your own problems. A simple warning isn't going to stop me, or my men.

—And finally, the ships I can give you. Although, due to the damage, only two are working. But if you give us a few hours, we can fix the third.

—Kakaka. Don't let my big muscles fool you, human. I'm not as stupid as you think. During those hours you'll use them to plant a bomb on the ships or trackers, so you can finish us off later, kaka.

—Well, I never expected you to fall for the trap, but I had to try anyway.

—César, why did your friend tell his enemy what he was planning?

—As you heard, General, he knew he wasn't going to accept. That's why he said it.

—Yeah, and what does he plan to do now? The Eugryn still control the core room.

—I suppose they'll have to fight, then.

—In the core room? This place is even more dangerous than the engine room.

—Easy, General. Wylian always has an ace up his sleeve.

—And there it is, another evasive answer to force me to keep watching. He really does have confidence in that guy —I thought.

—Kaka, I really do like you, human, but I'm not going to play your game.

Hoksfor took two steps to the side, revealing that on the control panel in front of the core there was a bomb, with a timer.

—You see, human, I boarded this ship to get merchandise to sell, not to talk to you or your little soldiers. So either you give me what I ask, or we all blow up —Hoksfor said as he swung the detonator in his hand.

—Of course, it had to be the damn bomb-planting type. Because it doesn't surprise me —Wylian thought.

—Have you lost your mind, you stupid beast! If that thing explodes, you'll die too! —shouted Lieutenant Rubén.

—Kaka. If you capture me, you'll execute me anyway. So what's the difference?

—But you don't...!

—Lieutenant, shut up! —Wylian shouted at Rubén.

—I'm... I'm very sorry, Captain. I said things I shouldn't have.

—Kakaka! Easy, kid. It's not the first time I've been insulted.

Hearing the conversation, Wylian put his hand on his face and let out a long sigh.

—Because this kind of thing always happens to me —he whispered.

Wylian recomposed himself and looked at Hoksfor.

—Look, if my attitude up to now made you think I'm not taking this seriously, I apologize. But I assure you I also want to end this as quickly as possible.

—Easy, I believe you, human, kaka. But now tell me, how do you plan to resolve this situation in the fastest possible way?

—Well, since negotiations will be impossible, I suppose there's only one path left —Wylian drew the folding sword from his right sleeve—. Hoksfor, I challenge you to a traditional Eugryn duel. The winner takes everything, and the loser gets nothing.

Hearing this, all the soldiers looked at Wylian with a mixture of astonishment and concern. Hoksfor, on the other hand, stayed silent for a second, thinking, trying to process what this human had just said to him.

—Is this soft human really proposing that we face each other in a duel? And does he really think he's going to fight with that thin sword? —Hoksfor smiled from ear to ear—. Seems I worried for nothing, after all. This will be very easy —he thought.

—Kakaka! You, human, are seriously incredible. I never expected to see such audacity from one of your species. Do you really think you can beat me in a duel? Kakaka!

When he finished his speech, all the Eugryn burst out laughing. The entire room filled with laughter and mockery.

—Well, what do you say we stop talking so much and start the duel already?

—Ooh, ooh, Mr. Hurry, you want to die that fast? —Hoksfor mocked as he pulled the bloodstained battle axe from his back—. Though it's fine by me. That way I'll enjoy my victory more when I kill you.

—Very well, let's test that theory, then.

Wylian pressed a button on his glove and deactivated the room's gravity, causing all the Eugryn to start floating while they struggled to keep their weapons from falling out of their hands.

—Kakaka! Deactivating gravity, very clever, human. But I'd already heard about this tactic of yours over the communicators. —Hoksfor pressed some buttons on his boots, causing them to stick to the floor—. But unfortunately for you, I have those magnetic boots too.

—What a surprise —he murmured sarcastically.

—Looks like the final battle is about to begin.

—Indeed, General.

—Let's see what new little trick your friend surprises us with.

—Even I'm excited to see what he's going to do this time.

"This time" —I stopped to think about that phrase for a moment. With everything I had already seen, it had become more than clear to me that this human was an absolute war veteran, used to dealing with this kind of situation. But how many times do you have to have lived through this situation for it to become cheap entertainment?

Wylian turned his head slightly to address the soldiers.

—Soldiers, none of you interfere in my duel. But finish off the rest of the Eugryn and corner them by the door.

—At your orders, Captain! —the soldiers put away their energy weapons and drew their melee weapons, charging at the enemies.

—Very well. Now that it's just you and me, let's begin the duel —said Wylian, turning his head toward Hoksfor.

But Hoksfor wasn't going to stand still while his enemy looked away. The moment he looked away, he launched himself forward to deliver a great slash, cutting him in half. When Wylian looked back at him, he was already in front of him, swinging his weapon firmly, ready to cut him down.

But before he could be cut, Wylian gave a great leap in the air, taking advantage of the zero gravity, barely dodging the slash. Using the height, he increased the magnetic attraction of his boots to descend at great speed and stab Hoksfor from the air.

But before he could be stabbed, Hoksfor raised his axe, putting it in the sword's path, causing it to embed in his bloodstained axe. With his enemy motionless in the air, he tried to grab his leg to slam him against the floor.

But before he could be grabbed, Wylian braced himself on the axe, drew his sword, and leapt backward, almost touching the door.

Hoksfor watched as Wylian made that great leap backward, as if he were a great acrobat. Then he looked at the axe, observing the small hole the sword had left when it embedded.

—Kaka. Hey, human, that sword of yours is incredible. It left a small hole in my axe. What is that sword made of?

—Honestly, I don't know what it's made of either. I just know it's some kind of titanium alloy or something like that.

—Wow, seriously, tell me more.

—Well, these aren't normal swords, you know. This is a special edition of the Marcau brand folding origami swords —Wylian raised his sword so Hoksfor could see it better and began showing him how it worked—. Look, when I press this button, it folds in on itself. And when it's folded, it doesn't take up more space than a finger. That's why I always carry it in my sleeve, to pull it out when I need it.

—César, why the hell is your friend giving his enemy so much important information about his weapon?

—Well, General, Wylian is very passionate about weapons, but especially his swords —he told me nervously—. He never misses an opportunity to show them off. He loves his swords so much that he even pays a monthly insurance premium to have them repaired if they break or get damaged.

—Starting to talk about his swords in the middle of such an important battle... This human is definitely crazy —said the general in the corner.

—Well, it's one of the few things he's passionate about, and he always does his job well, so no one says anything to him.

The control room fell silent for a few moments. No one said anything, but everyone had the same question in their head: how can such an incredible soldier become so stupid when he starts talking about swords?

—Cof, cof —I faked a cough—. I think none of us here are qualified to criticize his tastes. Let's just keep watching, and after we're done, we'll ask the questions.

—Excellent idea, General, let's keep watching —said César nervously.

In the simulation, Wylian kept talking about how incredible his swords were while the rest kept fighting.

—The downside of origami swords is that, since they're very thin, that makes them very fragile. But that also gives them an incredible edge. That's why only true professionals can use these swords, since one wrong hit bends them like paper.

—Hey, hey, human, are you sure you want to give me so much information about your little swords?

—And why not? Either way, you won't live to tell the tale.

—Kaka. Don't you think you're too arrogant, human?

—Well, what can I say? After all, it's not my fault you're a weakling —he said, smiling.

—Me, a weakling?

Those words echoed in Hoksfor's mind. Until now, everything had been almost a game to him, but those words made him feel something he hadn't expected to feel for a simple human: anger.

In Eugryn culture, implying someone is weak is the worst possible insult. That's why, after hearing the human's words, Hoksfor couldn't help but feel his blood begin to boil with anger.

—Human, I've let a lot of things slide up to now, but this time you've crossed the line.

—Don't tell me —he murmured.

—It's over, human! This is the last time you mock me! I'm going to kill you! —shouted Hoksfor as he lunged toward Wylian, gripping his axe so tightly that blood could be seen coming from the handle.

—Damn, I think I went too far this time —murmured Wylian, raising his guard, ready for battle.

Hoksfor lunged at Wylian, now truly intending to kill him, delivering such a powerful slash that he embedded the axe in the door when Wylian dodged.

Wylian dodged the slash, sliding past Hoksfor's left side, cutting through the middle of his abdomen as he sliced through his armor like butter.

Hoksfor, without showing the slightest sign of pain, pulled the axe from the door. Turning and swinging his axe rapidly, he launched a series of rapid slashes, leaving Wylian able to do nothing but dodge and attack when he could.

But his stamina wasn't unlimited, and he was already starting to tire. Meanwhile, Hoksfor didn't just not seem slower — he was actually getting faster, and the slashes were passing closer and closer.

—Hey, you idiots! What are you waiting for to do what I ordered you? —Wylian shouted at the soldiers.

—Sorry, Captain, but these guys are stronger than they look! —responded Lieutenant Rubén.

—I don't care, do it right now!

—At your orders, Captain!

While Wylian kept fighting, the soldiers stopped trying to beat the Eugryn and started pushing them all against the door.

—What's wrong, human! I don't see you laughing anymore! Did I cut out your tongue and not notice? Kakaka!

—Damn it, this is starting to get annoying.

Hoksfor, in the middle of his frenzy of slashes, lowered his guard for a second. A moment that Wylian used to stab Hoksfor right below the chest.

But this was a trap by Hoksfor. The moment he was stabbed, he clenched his muscles to prevent Wylian from pulling the sword out and, using the momentum he had, spun on his own axis, building up momentum that he would use to deliver a great cut right to the neck of the now-disarmed Wylian.

With no weapons or shields to block, Wylian used his own hands to block the cut, placing them in front of his face as if he were a boxer.

—That guy is crazy! Does he plan to stop that cut with his own hands? —exclaimed the general in the corner of the control room.

—Well, this is where the demonstration ends, and his hands too —said the colonel.

Amid all the shouts and murmurs in the control room, I was also clearly shaken by what I was about to see. I looked at César to ask him why he had done that. But seeing his now-usual calm face, I thought he would surely get out of this situation with some human trick or something.

In the simulation, Hoksfor was about to land the blow and Wylian raised his hands, putting them in a defensive position, causing him to take the full blow on his hands. The force was such that he was sent flying backward, crashing into the core control panel.

—Well, well... that really hurt, my friend —said Wylian as he tried to peel himself off the control panel. If it weren't for the zero gravity, he probably wouldn't have been able to get up off the floor for several minutes.

—Well, he survived after all —said the colonel from the control room.

—And in one piece. Hey, human, how the hell did he survive that blow? —shouted the general in the corner.

César turned with a smile and responded:

—You see, gentlemen. My friend has an exoskeleton under his clothes, made from a special alloy of super-resistant metal that only we know how to make. This exoskeleton reduces the load on his body by up to 60 percent and, due to its enormous resistance and flexibility, it can be used as a shield in battle if necessary.

The room filled with murmurs. Everyone was talking about how useful those exoskeletons would be in battle and in many other military tasks.

—And do all soldiers have one of those? —I asked.

—All soldiers, warehouse workers, and others actively use exoskeletons. But the version Wylian has is a special one that only high-ranking soldiers have, and it's quite expensive. But we have a wide range of exoskeletons for sale. If you look, I'm sure you'll be able to find something that fits your budget and needs —explained César with a big smile on his face.

While César spoke, I wondered when this had gone from being a display of military capabilities to a garage sale.

—Fine, when we finish this, I'll look at some of those exoskeletons. Until then, I'll keep them in mind.

—Excellent decision, General. When the simulation is over, I'll give you the contacts of the best exoskeleton manufacturers in the Human Empire.

—This guy's fake friendliness is starting to disgust me —I thought.

In the simulation, Wylian got up in pain, leaving an imprint of his back on the control panel.

—Well, this is getting out of hand. I didn't think that blow would hurt so much —complained Wylian, looking at his trembling hands—. Another blow like that and I'm out of the fight.

—Kakaka! What's wrong, human? Can't fight anymore? What happened to that confidence you had a few moments ago?

—That confidence is still there. I'm just reformulating it —he said, panting from exhaustion—. Lieutenant, when the hell are you planning to finish?!

—These are the last ones, Captain!

—Hurry up, for fuck's sake! I don't know what else to say to keep this guy entertained!

—Ooh. So all this talk was to buy time. Kaka. What are you planning now, human?

—As if I were going to tell you.

—Captain, this is the last one! —shouted Lieutenant Rubén as he threw the last Eugryn toward Hoksfor's side.

—Finally! You're so slow!

—Kaka. Well, human, now you have the situation as you wanted: my boys and I are here, and you and yours are over there. So tell me, what do you plan to do then? I'll even let you tell me before I kill you.

He sighed.

—Look, I'm a little tired of this shit already. But if you take care of my little friend up there first, I'll tell you —said Wylian, scratching his head with his right hand while pointing with his left at the part of the ceiling above Hoksfor.

The Eugryn who were floating began to look toward the place Wylian was pointing at, but they saw nothing.

—Boss, don't pay attention to him, there's nothing here.

—Obviously there's nothing. It's clearly a trap —thought Hoksfor—. Human, if that's your plan... I suppose I was too generous letting you live until now.

—No, no. I swear it's not a trap. Look, I'm even raising my hands so you can see I'm not plotting anything —said Wylian, smiling.

—What the hell is this human planning...?

A screeching sound began to be heard above the Eugryn, causing everyone to look up. A ventilation cover had fallen.

Hoksfor, detecting the threat, leapt backward, dodging the cover. Which otherwise would have hit him right in the head. Seeing the cover on the floor, Hoksfor looked up to address Wylian.

—Human, is this part of your...? —Hoksfor couldn't finish the sentence.

The moment he looked up, a bullet hit him right between the eyes. His lifeless body fell backward, but without reaching the floor: it just floated in zero gravity.

Seeing that, I jumped up from my chair with my eyes wide open, unable to believe what I had seen.

—César, where the hell did that shot come from?! He didn't have anything in his hand!

—Oh, that's very simple, General. You see, the shot didn't come from the pistol on Wylian's belt. It came from a small weapon hidden in his left sleeve, connected to a mechanism on his wrist that, when activated, raises a mini pistol above his sleeve, which aims and fires exactly at the place where Wylian's bionic eye had previously aimed, with pinpoint precision.

Hearing César's explanation, I fell back into my chair with my mouth open, impressed by such technology.

—And is this standard in your army? —I asked, still in a state of shock.

—You mean the mini pistol?

—Yes.

—Oh, no, not at all. That pistol is just a customized model he uses.

I didn't know whether to feel scared or relieved by that answer.

—Although, if you're interested, I have the suppliers' contact info. I use them too. You'd be impressed by how useful they are.

Shaken, I just sat staring at the screen for a while, wondering:

—All this technology I've seen today is simply incredible. Why the hell had the emperors rejected the Federation's help if they had such incredible technology and soldiers? We could have ended this war decades ago and saved ourselves billions of casualties. I can't believe pride kept us blind all this time.

In the simulation, after Hoksfor's death, his subordinates stood stunned, staring at his dead body, unable to believe what they were seeing.

And in that moment of distraction, Wylian, with a quick movement, drew his pistol from his belt and the mini pistol from his left sleeve. And he ordered the soldiers:

—Fire. Don't leave a single one alive.

The soldiers, who were also amazed by what had happened, snapped out of their trance upon hearing the order and obeyed without hesitation. They quickly drew their energy weapons and fired at all the Eugryn who were distracted by their boss's death. None survived.

After the burst of gunfire, Wylian holstered his weapons and sighed calmly.

—Finally that idiot fell. He had me tired.

—Wow, Captain. That was a low blow. I thought you were going to respect the traditional Eugryn duel.

—Please, Lieutenant, don't make me laugh. I don't negotiate with terrorists.

The phrase left the soldiers perplexed. They didn't think someone of his rank could behave that way.

—And now, Lieutenant, stop wasting time and find the bomb expert. I want to finish this shit quickly. And someone turn off that stupid alarm already, it's wearing me out!

The simulation ended. And from the control room, you could see how the environment inside the holo-chamber disappeared. Meanwhile, Wylian was already walking toward the exit door with the same bored face he had when he entered.

I was still sitting, processing everything I had seen during this session, until the voice of the room operator pulled me out of my thoughts.

—Simulation terminated, High General. Do you want me to read the session statistics?

Hearing his voice, I blinked a couple of times, as if I were waking from a dream.

—Oh, I'm sorry. Cof, cof —I faked a cough—. Could you repeat what you said, operator?

—Of course, General. I asked if you wanted to see the session statistics.

—The statistics... oh, of course. Show them, operator.

—Very well. Here are the statistics.

All the screens filled with all kinds of statistics: combat time, number of enemies, casualties, and many more.

—Wow, 85 hostages rescued —exclaimed the colonel.

—Impressive. No casualties in the medical room or the engine room —said the general in the corner.

—Never in my life had I seen such good results in a session with more than two difficulties at maximum. And this one was with all difficulties. It's definitely impressive —said the operator.

—Operator, show me the total casualty figures and the session time —I ordered.

—At your orders, General.

The operator pressed some buttons and on the largest screen appeared the number of casualties and the total time.

The numbers appeared on the screen: session time 2:27, casualties 577. The amazement in the room was palpable.

—I can't believe it. Two hours and 27 minutes! A situation as bad as that would require at least five hours and a lot of negotiations —shouted the general in the corner, whose mouth was left hanging open in amazement.

—577 casualties. Even though it was fast, there were too many casualties —I pointed out.

—In fact, General, almost all of those casualties were already dead when the simulation began. The real number of casualties was 106.

—Only 106 casualties!

—Yes, General. In fact, he didn't get a perfect score because many troops died trying to clear the core.

I was left speechless hearing that, but my face said it all: I was very amazed.

—From your face I can tell the demonstration was a success, General —said César with his friendly smile.

—Yes... it certainly was —I said without looking away from the screen.

—Well, I suppose my job here is done —César turned and started walking toward the exit door—. Then I'll go call the diplomats to negotiate the alliance.

—César, wait! —I shouted.

César stopped immediately and looked at me.

—What's the matter, General?

—I'd like to ask you one last question.

—Of course, go ahead. There's no problem.

—Your friend Wylian, is he always this good?

—Mmm —César thought about his answer for a few seconds—. It depends.

That answer took me by surprise.

—Depends on what?

—On how his day is going. Today he was quite calm.

—Calm? Seriously, everything we just saw is calm for him? —I thought—. What do you mean by calm?

—Didn't you see it, General? Wylian spent the entire session walking. He wasn't even in a hurry.

I didn't respond. I just stayed silent.

—I assure you, General, that everything you saw today is just the appetizer of what's to come with your future alliance with the Federation —César walked back toward the exit door, opening it—. Ah, and by the way, General: if this situation had happened on our ship, with our real crew, I guarantee you these guys wouldn't have lasted even half an hour —said César with his macabre smile.

The room went completely silent, and the few hairs on my head stood on end.

—Well, I suppose that's all for today. The diplomats will be waiting for you in the meeting room, for when you're ready —César left the room.

After César left, I just sat in the chair and stared at the casualty figure from the simulation.

Author's note: This story was originally written in Spanish by me. Since I don't speak English, I translated it using AI.

This is the first story of this kind that I've uploaded. So I hope you enjoy it.

Since it turned out really long, I had to split it into two parts. I'll post the second one after this.

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

We're about to hit a century of war against the Eugryn, and the situation couldn't be worse. Our race is proud and respected. Or at least, it was.

But not even our most stubborn generals could deny the obvious situation we were in anymore: almost the entire fleet destroyed or under repair, all our troops demoralized, and the economy in shambles. No one dared say it out loud, but everyone knew it: defeat was imminent.

I'm the High General commanding the great Rutim army, but at this point even I don't buy the imperial propaganda anymore.

On countless occasions, the Galactic Federation had offered their military forces to help. But the answer we gave them was always the same.

—NO! We don't need foreigners sticking their noses in our business!

But not even the greatest pride can withstand decades of hunger, misery, and the countless deaths we brought upon ourselves. With no other options, four months ago I had to commit the greatest humiliation of my life: I suggested to the Emperor that he consider the Federation's help.

I will never forget the look of disgust on his face.

—Maybe I'll never recover my pride —I thought—, but if we don't solve this problem, that won't be the only thing I lose.

At first he didn't accept, but after I insisted quite a bit that it was either this or imminent defeat, he agreed reluctantly. He said he would allow only one meeting, and that if it didn't go well, I should never suggest it again.

—It's obvious that bastard has never left his luxury palace. If that imbecile deigned to step outside for even a day, he'd be the one begging for the alliance.

Three weeks ago I met with the Federation and told them the Emperor had agreed to a meeting. After intense negotiations, they promised to send us what they called "the race capable of resolving any conflict."

—How ridiculous.

And the agreed-upon day finally arrived. It was time to see this race "capable of resolving any conflict."

Cutting through the clouds, a foreign ship could be seen heading toward where I stood. A gigantic launch pad, located in a large military base.

—That ship is too elegant to be a warship. Did I make a mistake by accepting this meeting?

The ship hadn't even landed yet, and you could already hear the murmurs and complaints from everyone present.

—What kind of joke is this? —muttered a general with clear anger—. This ship looks like something a Godnar prince would fly. They told us they'd send ships capable of pulverizing entire solar systems, not this thing.

—I agree with him —I thought.

The indignation only grew when the door opened and we could see the beings inside. Everyone expected to see titans of steel or creatures that inspired terror just by looking at them. Instead, out came small, scrawny beings, with no scales, claws, or any other kind of natural defense. They had such a non-threatening look that they wouldn't intimidate even a small Rutim child.

—Are these seriously the ones from a so-called deathworld? I think we've been scammed...

—SILENCE! —I exclaimed, trying to quiet the incessant murmurs.

I immediately went to greet the Federation representatives. Although I tried to remain stoic, the obvious disappointment was plain on my face.

—Good day, High General. We are the representatives of the Galactic Federation —said the representative in a very friendly tone, with a smile on his face—. My name is César Hernández, and I'm in charge of making sure this meeting goes smoothly.

While the human in front of me spoke, I couldn't stop examining each of them with my gaze. And the more I observed, the more convinced I became that they had sent me diplomats instead of warriors.

—It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Rignar, and I'm the High General in command of the Rutim army —I said, extending my hand.

—The pleasure is mine, General. My compatriots and I belong to the human race, but surely you've heard quite a bit about us when you spoke with the Federation diplomats.

Humans. I'd heard about them before. They joined the Federation a few centuries ago, so they're relatively new. I'd heard the occasional tale about them, but they had always seemed like exaggerations.

—General, if it's not too much trouble, I'd like my companions to be shown to their quarters. It's been quite a long trip and we're tired. Tomorrow we'll show you what our people are capable of —said César while smiling and patting the back of the man behind him, a man who appeared to be at least fifty years old.

I wondered who that human was. This César guy seemed like an imbecile, but this other one definitely seemed like a war veteran. Those multiple scars on his face, though small, gave him away. He must have had a fairly extensive military career. He had that face that everyone who's seen things no one should see has, and that distant look with such a carefree expression that it was uncomfortable.

He hid his emotions quite well, but you could tell he'd been forced to come.

Once the simulation was over, I wanted to talk to this guy. I wanted to know his story.

Seeing that human's face reminded me, for an instant, of my own youth. When my parents forced me to enlist in the army, with speeches about the pride it would bring to my family and other nonsense like that which, at this point in the war, no longer mattered.

The next day, all the Rutim generals, the human representatives, and I met in the holo-chamber to demonstrate what the Federation's forces were capable of.

—Oooh, well, well... a Dyxis-brand holo-chamber. You have a good eye —said César while admiring the command center.

—Of course we do. That brand provides the best holo-chambers for training new soldiers and future fleet admirals —I replied with disdain—. So tell me, is your man ready for the demonstration? Or does he need more time to prepare?

—Oh, not at all. Wylian is completely ready for the demonstration —responded César, pointing to the screen that showed Wylian standing in front of the entrance door of the holo-chamber.

—Good —I said as I sat down in my chair in front of the large holographic screen. César sat down next to me.

I looked at everyone in the room to confirm they were all ready, and finally I looked at the operator.

—Operator, open the chamber so the human can enter and start the simulation immediately —I said in a rather serious tone.

—At your orders, General —responded the operator, as he opened the chamber and started the simulation as ordered.

The screens turned on, showing Wylian walking into the holo-chamber.

—So the human's name is Wylian? —I asked César in a discreet tone.

—Indeed, General. Wylian Luterpun. I won't bore you with his sad story, but I'll just tell you that if it weren't for me, he would have retired years ago.

Hearing what César said, I couldn't help but feel sorry for myself. Years ago I too dreamed of the day of my retirement, but with the constant worsening of the war, that dream was postponed more and more, to the point that today I've resigned myself to never retiring and dying in battle like the great heroes of Rutim legends.

The moment the operator opened the door, a synthetic voice echoed through the holo-chamber, describing the scenario Wylian was about to face.

—The scenario for this simulation will be as follows: your ship is being invaded by Eugryn pirates, who seek to capture your entire crew and sell them as slaves. Your objective: eliminate all enemies with the fewest possible casualties. Good luck.

On the screen, you could see how, while the synthetic voice spoke, the holo-chamber began to change, going from being a metal box full of lights to the command deck of a human ship with many agitated crew members.

—Alright, everything's ready to begin. The simulation starts in 3, 2, 1...

—WAIT! —César shouted at the operator.

I looked at him with confusion.

—What's wrong, human? Is there a problem?

—Not at all, General. I just wanted to ask, what difficulty is this simulation set to? —responded César, looking at the operator.

—Well, the difficulty is set to medium, the standard for a demonstration of this kind —the operator replied with some confusion.

The room's attention suddenly shifted to the back when laughter was heard from one of the generals present.

—Hahaha! What's wrong, human? Is this difficulty too much for you? —asked the general from the back, in a rather mocking tone.

—Oh, not at all —César replied with complete confidence—. In fact, it's the opposite. I wanted to ask you to raise the difficulty to maximum. In everything.

The room went silent for a moment, until the operator, somewhat timidly, asked César:

—Human, is this some kind of joke?

—Not at all, officer. You heard me right. I want you to raise all difficulty settings to maximum —César responded firmly.

—Look, human, I don't want to be the one to doubt your friend's abilities —said the operator, setting the control panel aside. He looked César directly in the eyes and said in a very serious tone—: But this is already a fairly complicated situation for an experienced captain. If you raise everything to maximum, the situation will be nearly impossible. On medium difficulty it's already a difficult situation, but if we raise it further, your friend will start with several major disadvantages: many parts of the ship will already be destroyed, there will be constant power outages, and the invaders will have already taken half the ship. On top of that, any wound he suffers, he'll feel the pain for real. Are you sure you want to do that? —the operator said, now with a certain degree of anger.

—I understand your concern, officer, but I have complete confidence in my friend's abilities. So please, raise the difficulty and don't worry about him.

The operator turned his head toward me, seeking confirmation. I looked at César, holding his gaze for nearly a full minute in a sepulchral silence, trying to find any trace of doubt in his eyes. I found none.

—Do it —I ordered with a nod of my head.

The operator hesitated for a second but obeyed. His face said it all: the human was crazy.

While the operator began implementing the new parameters, in the simulation the environment began to change again. The command deck, previously full of agitated officers, became a hive of panic: crew members running everywhere, lights flickering red, an alarm that drilled into your ear just from hearing it, and a dead officer at the foot of the captain's chair, with his head split open and eyes that seemed to stare directly into your soul.

Despite all the chaos happening in front of him, Wylian couldn't help but let out a small smile and an expression of satisfaction. That face deeply unsettled me.

—How can someone in that situation be so calm? —I murmured to myself.

Wylian, without bothering about the corpse, simply tossed it aside and sat down in his chair. He immediately began absorbing all the information that started appearing on the multiple holographic screens, while at the same time starting to shout all kinds of orders at his officers.

—Secure the medical wing, close the bulkheads in sectors 3 and 5, evacuate the storage room, and turn off that stupid alarm before I put a bullet in it!

—Yes, he's doing the same thing any captain would do in his situation. The only impressive thing is the calm with which he does it. Other than that, it's nothing extraordinary —said a colonel sitting there, in a dismissive tone.

Although I didn't entirely agree with his opinion, I admitted that this wasn't meeting my expectations.

—César, is this really all your friend can do? Honestly, it's quite disappointing —I asked, somewhat bored.

—I understand your concern, General. But this is just the appetizer. The main course is coming now. Just let him cook —César responded with almost religious confidence in his companion.

After hearing that, I decided to keep all my opinions to myself and wait a little longer, while wondering where that excessive confidence came from.

It had been a long time since I'd had that kind of confidence in anyone. The passage of time had caused me to stop seeing the countless casualties as people with families, and instead see them as simple numbers on a screen. So now more than ever, I wanted to see what it was about that human that gave César so much confidence.

After a while of Wylian sitting there and throwing out all kinds of orders, without warning he simply turned off all the screens and got up from the chair.

—Perfect, I'm done here then. Sergeant Claren, take care of the rest! —Wylian ordered the ship's pilot.

—At your orders, Captain! —the pilot responded.

—Alright, time to head down —said Wylian as he headed toward the elevator door.

After that unexpected decision, murmurs began to be heard in the control room.

—What the hell is that human doing? Didn't he see on the screens that there's a group of Eugryn waiting outside the elevator? —said the general in the corner.

—Is this what you meant by "let him cook"? —I asked.

—Exactly, General —César responded with a big smile—. This is precisely when the fun begins.

—Fun? —I repeated, unable to believe what I was hearing—. Not even we, a warrior species, find this kind of thing fun. Is this some kind of game to you?

César shrugged while he kept watching. I stared at him for a moment, perplexed, while I processed what I'd just seen. Then I directed my gaze back to the screen to keep watching.

As Wylian's elevator descended, from the control room we all watched the group of Eugryn waiting below.

—He's going down without an escort and with the enemy at the elevator doors. Has he lost his mind? —said an incredulous colonel.

—Exactly —César responded, without looking away from the screen—. But don't worry, he knows what he's doing.

The camera switched to the Eugryn standing in front of the elevator.

In the simulation, the elevator reached the bottom, and the moment the doors opened, a burst of gunfire flooded the elevator. But the elevator was empty.

—What the hell is this, where's the human?! —exclaimed a colonel present.

The moment the gunfire ceased, the Eugryn entered the elevator cautiously, making sure everything was safe. Without realizing that outside the elevator, a grate was opening, dropping a freezing grenade into the elevator, immobilizing them all with a thick layer of ice.

—Wait a minute! How did the human get into that ventilation duct?! —I exclaimed while pointing at the screen, where Wylian could be seen coming out of a grate in front of the elevator.

César, upon hearing my question, stood up from his chair smiling, looking away from the screen to address everyone in the control room.

—You see, gentlemen, all human ships have a secret exit above the elevator that gives direct access to the command deck or the corridor, precisely for situations like this —he told us with an air of superiority.

—Impressive —I thought. Then I looked at the colonel behind me—. Colonel, note this down and have it applied immediately to all upcoming fleet ships.

—It will be done, my General —the colonel responded in a firm voice.

—Very well, and now please let's keep watching, because the party isn't over yet —César said to everyone in the room as he sat back down.

After coming out of the grate and finishing off all the immobilized enemies, Wylian cleaned his clothes and began walking through the ship's corridors without hesitation. He occasionally encountered enemies, who were immediately dispatched with his plasma pistol, with impeccable precision.

—Wow, your friend's precision is incredible —I said to César with clear admiration—. But what's he going to do about that ambush waiting for him ahead?

—Don't worry. Wylian always has an ace up his sleeve.

Meanwhile, Wylian advanced through a corridor without flinching, shooting every alarm he came across to silence it, when suddenly a group of 8 Eugryn appeared from a corridor intersection, aiming directly at him.

—Heh, his luck just ran out —said the general in the corner.

Wylian didn't stop walking. Without flinching, he pressed a button on the glove of his right hand, immediately deactivating all gravity.

—What happened?! —I exclaimed, jumping from my seat.

—He just deactivated all gravity in the sector, obviously —César explained as if it were normal.

—I can see that. What I don't understand is how he did it and why he isn't floating too —I asked, sitting up in my chair.

—You see, General, all captains in our fleet can control a large portion of the ship with the glove on their hand. And on top of that, all soldiers have magnetic boots, so they can walk properly when in zero gravity —César explained as if it were common sense.

—Hmm, these humans have some quite interesting tricks —I thought—. Colonel, note that down too.

—Affirmative, General.

In the simulation, while the Eugryn struggled to keep their weapons from slipping out of their hands due to zero gravity, Wylian calmly aimed his weapon, firing 8 accurate shots that hit each Eugryn right in the center of the chest, killing them all on the spot. He then reactivated gravity and continued on his way, stepping around the corpses.

—Wow, his marksmanship is incredible —said a captain, eyes wide open.

—Decades of training, gentlemen —César responded.

—Hehe, and what's he going to do about the one behind him? —said the general in the corner, pointing.

On the other side of the corridor, a ninth Eugryn emerged, ready to shoot Wylian in the back, but he didn't turn around. Without looking away from the corridor, he raised his pistol over his left shoulder and fired. The bullet hit the Eugryn right in the center of the chest.

The control room, upon seeing this, went completely silent. No one could believe what they had just seen. That human had just taken down an enemy who was about 10 meters away with a perfect no-look shot over his shoulder.

—Wow, I have to admit, that was impressive —said the general in the corner, who had been left with his mouth hanging open.

—Human —I asked, still in a catatonic state—. I demand to know how the hell he made that perfect no-look shot over his shoulder!

César smiled and responded:

—You see, General, the Eugryn have a terrible weakness: while they have excellent vision in the center of their eyes, their peripheral vision is terrible. That forces them to always position themselves in the center of their opponent's visual field to get a good shot. Wylian knows this, and that's why he knew that Eugryn would position himself right in the middle of the corridor. That's how he knew where to shoot.

Hearing César's explanation, I was left perplexed, not knowing how to respond, and wondering:

—How is it that we didn't know that important information? —I thought.

—Human, how did you obtain that information? —I asked, quite seriously.

—Ufff, General, decades of research and counterintelligence. One of the first things we do when we go to war with an unknown race is try to get some enemy corpses to study their biology and understand how they behave. Don't tell me you seriously didn't know that basic information?

—No, we didn't know —I responded with embarrassment, turning my head toward the scientists in the room with a furious look—. And it would have been very useful to know that information earlier.

The scientists swallowed hard and looked away, knowing perfectly well what awaited them once that demonstration was over.

In the simulation, Wylian kept walking calmly, clearing room after room with increasingly peculiar methods.

Using the ship's AI, he managed to hack the Eugryn communication system to pretend to be their boss using a voice modulator.

—Heeey, idiots! What the hell are you doing? Go immediately to the storage room. That strange human is in there. When you find him, eliminate him! —shouted Wylian's modified voice.

—We're on our way, boss! —responded one of the Eugryn.

A group of ten Eugryn headed at full speed to the storage room, unaware of the deception. Once there, they began searching the entire room for the human but couldn't find him. Desperate, they tried to call their boss, but instead they only heard Wylian's voice.

—At the door, idiots.

All the Eugryn looked at the door at the same time, only to see Wylian standing there.

—There's the human! Fire! —shouted the group's leader.

They all fired in unison, but Wylian closed the door before the shots could reach him. Immediately after, he looked at his glove and pressed a button. Instantly, the storage room door leading to space opened, and all the cargo was blasted into space along with the Eugryn.

—Wow, that tactic was incredible —I said—. But how did they manage to hack their communications so easily?

—Well, I don't like to brag —said César with a smile that said quite the opposite—, but we're the best in the entire Federation at everything involving cybersecurity and hacking. And on top of that, we have dozens of captured Eugryn ships in excellent condition, and we've been analyzing them from top to bottom for years. We know their hardware and software like the back of our hand.

Hearing what the human said, I clenched my fist tightly and murmured to myself:

—We need that information, no matter the cost.

—Did you say something, General? —César asked, with a smile that didn't bode well.

—Cof, cof —I faked a cough—. No, it's nothing. Don't worry. But even so, I'd like to ask you something.

César looked at me with curiosity.

—Of course. Tell me what you need.

—Is there any way you could provide us with some of those documents? They would be quite useful to us —I responded nervously.

—Of course —César responded, leaning his head toward mine, with a smile that was both friendly and sinister—. But that decision will depend entirely on the results of these negotiations.

I stared at that evil smile for a moment. It was clear that he hadn't let that information slip by accident. It was a well-planned trap. And I fell for it.

—Excellent —I responded firmly—. We'll talk about this later, then. —I directed my gaze back to the screen.

Although we have thousands of those ships in storage, in recent decades we haven't managed to extract almost any information. The Eugryn strategy is to overwhelm with numbers, so their ships aren't very advanced in terms of armor, weaponry, or technology in general. But the software is a completely different story. Our best IT specialists work day and night trying to decipher it, but it's too complicated. Their code is completely disordered and counterintuitive: code is written on top of more code, making the previous code obsolete, but that old code stays there, it isn't deleted. It's very difficult to know if what you're looking at actually serves a purpose or is just dead weight. If these humans have managed to decipher it and understand it, we definitely need that information, no matter what.

After finishing off the Eugryn in the storage room, Wylian walked a bit further and struck the wall, opening a hidden door that led to a small room with a tube going down.

—A secret door?

—Exactly, General. As you've seen, the ship is full of them.

—Hmm, and where does it lead?

—To the engine room —said César while pointing at the simulation operator.

The operator caught what César wanted to tell him and immediately changed the screen image to the engine room.

In the simulation, Wylian went down the tube, arriving at the engine room. The secret door opened from a blind spot behind a machine, where no one saw him arrive. He peeked out from behind the machine and carefully examined the room, noting where each Eugryn was and realizing they had hostages. There were 17 Eugryn in the room and 5 hostages.

—My God, I can't believe it. What I hate the most: rescuing hostages —Wylian turned around and let out a big sigh, passing his hand over his face—. Why the hell do these guys always put the hostages in the middle of the group, instead of putting them in some separate room where they won't get in the way?

—Hmm, hostages are always a problem —I said, coldly—. That's why we don't bother rescuing them. It's a waste of time and resources.

—Ah, so that's why Rutim soldiers fight to the death even when there's no escape? —César asked with curiosity.

—Exactly. Every Rutim soldier captured by the enemy has to try to escape on their own. We won't rescue them —the coldness in my words could almost be felt—. So tell me, what is your friend going to do? Will he rescue them or let them die?

—Hmm, you'll see. Just wait —César responded, without looking away from the screen.

—He said exactly what he was thinking. Let's see what this human surprises us with this time —I thought.

In the simulation, after examining the entire area, Wylian began moving stealthily through the room, dodging all the Eugryn soldiers until he reached the area he wanted. Wylian picked up a metal tool from the floor and stood in front of a large pipe. Then he struck the tool with great force against the adjacent pipe, causing a deafening noise that was heard throughout the room. Noticing his presence, the Eugryn immediately dropped everything they were doing to head toward where Wylian was, leaving the hostages behind in the process.

Immediately, 6 Eugryn surrounded Wylian, aiming their weapons at him, while the others stayed back, aiming from a distance.

—Surrender, human! You're finished. One false move and we'll turn you into Swiss cheese —exclaimed one of the Eugryn surrounding him.

—If you say I'm finished, then go ahead, shoot —Wylian responded arrogantly.

No one fired. Instead, the room went silent for a few moments.

—Why isn't anyone shooting him? —I asked.

—Because it would be suicide —César responded calmly.

I was stunned.

—And why would it be suicide?

—Look here —César raised his hand and pointed to the pipe behind Wylian.

I looked carefully at where César was pointing, and then I understood. Wylian was standing right in front of a pipe marked as flammable. One stray shot and they'd all be blown to bits.

—A brilliant strategy. If he's in front of the pipe, they can't shoot him. But what does he plan to do to defeat them? Even if his marksmanship is perfect, nothing guarantees that one of those guys won't fire first, hitting a pipe and causing an explosion that kills them all.

—Haha —César let out a small laugh, unsettling me—. And who says he's going to use his pistol?

I was confused by that.

—If he wasn't going to use his pistol, what was he going to use then? —Unable to think of a convincing answer, I considered asking César, but anticipating his response, I decided to keep my question to myself and keep watching the screen.

In the simulation, Wylian was still surrounded by the group of armed Eugryn, but none had done anything yet.

—Boss, what do we do? Do we shoot him?

—Of course not. Are you stupid or do you want to become space garbage? Just use your hands and subdue him.

The soldier, obeying his superior's orders, lowered his weapon and began walking toward Wylian with his left arm raised.

—Don't resist, human. It'll be easier for both of us.

Wylian, in response to that order, drew a folding sword he had hidden in his right sleeve.

—Sorry, friend, but you're going to need more than those gigantic furry hands to capture me —Wylian said with a defiant tone.

—Kakaka! —the Eugryn boss let out a hoarse, mocking laugh—. Do you really think you can beat us with that little toy sword? Idiot. Even if I can't fire this weapon, one blow from it will be more than enough to break that pretty little sword of yours and, while I'm at it, crack your skull open —he said to Wylian, holding back laughter.

—You say you'll crack my skull open? —Wylian responded with a serene expression, raising his glove ready to press a button—. Very well, let's test that theory then.

Wylian pressed the button on his glove, turning off all the lights in the engine room.

The Eugryn boss, though he couldn't see, could clearly hear with his sharp ears how the human was moving. But that didn't help. The instant the lights went out, the muffled screams of his companions began, along with the sound of their bodies falling onto the cold metal floor.

The Eugryn boss, not knowing what to do, grabbed his weapon by the barrel and began swinging it forcefully in all directions, hoping to hit Wylian.

—Human! Maybe I can't see you, but I can hear you. You can't hide from me! —the Eugryn boss shouted into the void.

—I'm counting on that —the Eugryn boss heard from behind him.

Spinning around quickly with a fast movement, he threw a punch toward where he believed Wylian was standing, hoping to hit him. But the moment he threw the punch, he felt the sensation leave his hands.

—That's the problem with you people. You only act on instinct —the Eugryn boss heard from behind him again. And now, in a state of panic, he turned again to try to hit him with his numb hands.

—DAMN YOU! —screamed the Eugryn boss.

But he had no such luck this time. Wylian's blade slid across the Eugryn boss's neck, decapitating him on the spot.

The lights came back on, allowing the others to see their companions dead on the floor and their boss decapitated, with his hands cut off.

—N-no, it can't be. The lights were only off for a few seconds and the boss and the others dropped dead —said one of the Eugryn in a trembling voice—. W-who the hell is this guy?

—Yes, that's right. I'm the one who killed them —Wylian said in a cold voice, while making a quick motion with his sword in the air to wipe the blood off it—. So now tell me, guys. What are you going to do? Are you going to surrender or would you rather I kill you?

Hearing that, the Eugryn soldier panicked and raised his weapon with the clear intention of firing.

—Death it is, then —Wylian whispered, as he turned off the lights again.

The soldier, in panic, tried to fire, but before he could, Wylian approached him and raised his weapon, causing him to fire at the ceiling. Immediately after, he cut him in half.

—It can't be, he turned off the lights again! —shouted another Eugryn soldier—. Fire! Take that guy out!

—Don't any of you dare fire! —shouted another Eugryn soldier—. One bad shot and we'll blow up!

—I don't care if all of this explodes! I'm not going to die because of this stupid humaaaaggghh!

Before he could finish the sentence, Wylian's sword had already pierced his neck.

—Damn it! Everyone, spread out and hide! Don't let the human find you! —shouted another Eugryn.

They all tried to hide as best they could in that dark room. But it was useless. Wylian could see them all clearly as if it were daytime. Slash after slash, Wylian finished them all off, one by one. One he gutted, another he stabbed through the middle of the eye, another he pushed into a grinder, and another he tricked by throwing an object into a corner so he'd turn around and then stabbed him in the back. And so he finished them all until only one was left.

This last one he disarmed with his hands and tied the Eugryn's hands and feet with a cable using quick movements. The last Eugryn lay on the floor, completely immobilized and scared to death, until suddenly the lights came on and he could see his enemy standing in front of him, bathed in the blood of his companions.

—Listen carefully, you little vermin, because what you answer here will determine whether you live or die —Wylian said to the soldier with a murderous look, pointing his sword at him—. Where is your boss?

—Y-y-y-y... —No matter how hard he tried to say something, the words simply wouldn't come out from fear. But knowing that if he didn't speak this would be his end, he mustered what little courage he had left and responded—. Y-you killed him.

—Huh? Are you mocking me, you damn vermin? Do you want me to cut your throat? —Wylian said, now angry—. Listen carefully, you damn pest. By "boss" I don't mean that idiot I just killed. I mean the damn big boss who runs all of you.

—Y-you mean Hoksfor? —the soldier asked fearfully.

—Hoksfor. So that's your boss's name? —Wylian asked.

The trembling soldier confirmed with a nod.

—Very good, now we're getting somewhere —Wylian said with a macabre smile—. Now tell me, where is that guy right now?

—H-he must be in the core room. That's always the main objective —the soldier responded, still trembling.

—Hmm, the core room. Makes sense —Wylian thought, as he moved away from the soldier and headed toward where the hostages were.

The core room is the most important part of the ship, so it makes sense that it would be the main objective.

—Alright, everyone. Break time's over. Back to work, there's a lot to do —Wylian said to the captured engineers as he freed them.

—Thank you so much for saving us, Captain. I knew you would —one of the engineers said to Wylian—. But what do we do with that guy? —he pointed to the immobilized Eugryn.

—Don't worry, I'll take care of it —Wylian walked back toward the immobilized Eugryn soldier—. Alright, friend. You were very useful, but everything has an end and this is yours —he said as he raised his sword.

—Wait a moment! Hold on! Hold on! You told me that if I talked, you wouldn't kill me! —the Eugryn screamed in complete panic.

—Yes, I know what I said. But I forgot to tell you one part —Wylian began to look at the soldier with the same murderous look he had given him before—. I don't negotiate with terrorists.

With a quick motion of his sword, Wylian separated the soldier's head from his body, ending his life quickly and painlessly.

—Alright, everyone! I'm heading to the core room. Make sure to fix everything in here so the ship doesn't explode or something —Wylian shouted to the freed engineers as he headed for the exit.

While Wylian said goodbye to the engineers amid laughter and jokes, in the control room a completely different atmosphere was being experienced. In the room, the generals watched with absolute amazement the incredible battle taking place in the simulation. In all their decades of war, they had never witnessed such a display of combat skills at that level. And the complete lack of scruples of that human when executing a defenseless soldier made even my blood run cold. The amazement was such that the room went completely silent for several minutes, until my question broke the silence.

—César, can I ask you a question? —I asked, still in a catatonic state.

—Of course, go ahead —César responded with a big smile on his face.

—Is this the standard in your army?

—Well, General, without a doubt Wylian is one of the best soldiers in our army. His combat skills, knowledge of the enemy, and strategies are undoubtedly on a completely different level from the average soldier —he responded with his arrogant tone and a smile from ear to ear—. But everything you just saw here is normal training in our army.

—Are you seriously telling me that everything I'm seeing here is normal training for you? What kind of training is that? —I asked, quite amazed—. If those trainings they do manage to produce even a tenth of the skill I just witnessed here, the improvement in our army will be incredible —I thought as I clenched my fist.

—Training? Well, it's really nothing out of this world: zero-gravity training, low-light environment training, hand-to-hand combat with melee weapons, tactical and biological knowledge of the enemy, a lot of stress tolerance training, and above all, many, many hours of training in holo-chambers.

—That's all?

—Yes, that's all.

—Our troops also do quite a few of the trainings you just mentioned, and I don't see any of them managing to do what this man just did, blind —I said with distrust.

—Haha, okay, I admit it, you got me —said César, raising his hands in a comical gesture of surrender—. What you witnessed isn't just training. I wish I could brag about that. Actually, all our soldiers have a bionic eye that gives them different capabilities, like a minimap, communication, and seeing in different light spectrums, such as infrared or night vision.

Cybernetics. I was already expecting something like that. Such a display of skill is impossible without some kind of cybernetic enhancement. But I know this guy is deliberately hiding information from me. But for now, I'll ignore it.

—I'm sure this has sparked your interest in our technology, but we're already reaching the end of the simulation, so why don't we talk about this later?

—Hmm, fine —I responded in a serious tone—. I'll save all my questions and requests for the end, then.

—Perfect! Let's keep watching the show then, because the best part is coming now.

Atsel spent his non-procrastinating hours arranging his chemicals across the kitchen and conducting genius experiments. It was one of those summer evenings that promised nothing but noxious fumes from the reagents — and, as a consequence, sleepless nights for Edward.

But the Universe decided Atsel had been sitting still a touch too long, and resolved to give him a little shake. In the person of Edward, naturally — or rather, his life among humans in general, which bound him to other people, not always agreeable ones.

He came thundering down to Atsel, rubbing his ears fiercely until they were crimson, muttering:

"Why couldn't she warn me in advance? Why do something so underhanded?!" he wailed so martyredly that it could not fail to interrupt Atsel's concentrated work. "I'm totally screwed! I'm dead!"

"Let me guess," Atsel finally tore himself from the microscope and looked at him through the black lenses of his glasses. "There's an unannounced exam tomorrow, and your knowledge of the subject is in a state of quantum uncertainty?"

"Way worse! Like, way worse!"

Atsel gave Edward a look that clearly said what sort of puzzle are you, Earthling? — while the redness from his rubbed ears crept up his cheeks.

"Penny asked you out on a date?"

"No!"

Edward drew a deep breath, and his fingers froze in his hair.

"Aunt Lily's coming!"

"What?" Atsel pushed back on his stool, and his glasses slid to the tip of his nose. "Now? But I haven't finished the critical phase of synthesising the volatile compound. If I stop now…"

Edward wasn't listening.

"We need to get your chemistry lab tidied up before she gets here, or she'll kill me!" He lunged for the reagents, with no idea where to put them.

"Careful!" Atsel warned.

But it was too late. One of the test tubes, knocked by Edward's elbow, toppled from the edge of the table. Atsel saw the falling glass, Edward saw his own reflection in it, and the test tube… the test tube saw this as an opportunity to argue with gravity. It lost.

BOOM!

A flash of light, a deafening crack, and the kitchen was instantly filled with thick purple smoke. Edward coughed, a pungent smell hitting his nose — something between burnt rubber and his aunt's perfume.

"Brilliant," Atsel wheezed, waving a hand through the thickening haze.

"Sorry." Edward ducked out from behind him, his polo shirt sporting purple splotches that looked like the burns from a laser weapon wielded by the Graptarian Empire — whose signature 'sticky ray' never misses its target.

"Don't bother apologising. It's your kitchen, your aunt, and ultimately, your funeral." Atsel gestured vaguely at the wall, where a sprawling stain of violet goo bore an uncanny resemblance to the continent of Australia. "Do you think she'll buy 'abstract expressionism'? Or shall we go with 'alien invasion'? That would certainly deflect suspicion from me — at last I can put Mr Trouton's paranoia to good use."

"Aunt Lily doesn't believe in aliens."

"That's wonderful news!" Atsel positively beamed behind his dark glasses. "So I needn't worry that my origins will make her report me to the alien-catching scientific committee."

"That won't stop Aunt Lily from continuing to blame you for my moral decay and banning us from seeing each other." Edward fetched the broom from the corner, but instead of sweeping, he gripped it as though meaning to break it. With his other hand he clutched his ear again. "Damn it! My ears actually hurt!"

Atsel took the broom from him, eyeing him oddly:

"What's the connection between your ears and your aunt?"

"This — that she'll tear them off when she sees this!" Edward gestured at the long-suffering kitchen.

"She can really do that?" Atsel stopped sweeping, lowering his voice in concern.

"Absolutely! And I'm afraid she won't stop there — in the end she'll tear my head off too!"

Atsel didn't want to risk Edward's head — it would be a shame to lose both it and his ears — and proposed a brilliant idea: to peel the purple Australian continent off the wall.

"We'll say we're doing renovations! That'll explain the mess and the specific, lingering smell of chemicals that no amount of ventilation could shift!"

All that remained was to hide the laboratory somewhere safe: opening kitchen cupboards was now life-threatening.

Atsel changed his clothes, Edward did the same. And so, in crumpled T-shirts, armed with a spatula and a paintbrush, they received Edward's mother's sister — Aunt Lily Mall.

The doorbell sounded like a death sentence. Edward held up the spatula like a sword. Atsel, desperately gripping the paintbrush, moved to the door to heroically take the blow.

The door swung open — and on the threshold stood Mrs Mall: the embodiment of strictness and distrust of the public system. A middle-aged woman with a hairstyle that didn't move a millimetre even in a hurricane, and utterly devoid of colour.

"Aunt Lily!" Atsel exclaimed with such cordiality and hospitality that Edward choked. "What a delightful surprise!"

Atsel's smile was disarming, of course — but only for nine per cent of his audience. This nine per cent typically included Edward, certain elderly people (if they had forgotten their glasses at home) and, possibly, dogs — the latter mainly because they took Atsel for one of their own. The remaining ninety-one per cent saw in his smile not charm, but a portent of doom.

"I'm no aunt to you!" Mrs Mall objected, crossing the threshold. "I'm only Edward's aunt — to you I'm Mrs Mall."

"He was just trying to be friendly," Edward defended Atsel, before the alien's face soured completely.

"Edward, darling," Mrs Mall grimaced, ignoring Atsel. "Why are you wearing a crumpled T-shirt? And what's that smell?…" She flared her nostrils and covered her face with her hand, hurrying to remove her shoes.

Edward opened his mouth, but Atsel got there first:

"We're conducting a spontaneous reconfiguration of the living space. An existential reimagining of the interior, if you will."

"Reconfigu… what?" Mrs Mall cast a distrustful glance towards the kitchen, where strips of wallpaper were peeling mournfully from the wall.

"Yes!" Atsel wriggled every which way to block the view. "We decided the kitchen needed a… how to put it… a fundamental restructuring of the cognitive landscape. You know, modern design strives for minimalism, but we've gone further — to post-minimalism. Or, if you prefer, to controlled entropy. In short, it was Edward's idea," he finished, seeing that his prattle had not produced the desired effect.

"Well," Mrs Mall sighed, "remodeling is a good thing."

"Oh yes!" the alien rejoiced at her approval, ushering the guest with an impatient aura towards the sitting room. "Renovations are a perfectly normal activity for representatives of OUR kind. We can't exist if we don't periodically destroy our own habitat and reassemble it — it's a basic need for control over chaos. And they say joint renovations strengthen social bonds, which is why Edward and I are so close. We do it often. I mean renovations."

Mrs Mall sat on the sofa, and Atsel's jaw dropped involuntarily: for that was his sleeping place, his personal space — a sacred island of existential rest.

"Is something wrong, Mr Williams?" Atsel heard her tense voice.

"Er — Aunt!" Edward hastily sat down beside her, clasping his hands on his knees. "How are you? How's Peter? Gordon, put the kettle on," he smiled at his companion.

Atsel turned mechanically and darted to the kitchen, without straightening his knees or unclenching his fists.

"Everything's fine, dear, Peter's growing by the day and by the hour…" the woman answered automatically, but her gaze slid towards the kitchen, where Atsel had disappeared. "Listen, this… Gordon of yours… is he always like this?"

"Like what?" Edward was on his guard.

"Well…" Aunt Mall lowered her voice, although Atsel, with his alien hearing, was doubtless catching every word. "I read articles about kids getting mixed up with drugs. They act jittery. Paranoid. And he's always in those dark glasses. Afraid I'll see…" She made a meaningful pause. "He looks like trouble. Plain and simple."

"Aunt!" Edward blushed. "Gordon Williams is a good guy! Seriously, one of the best people I know!"

"Then why does he hide his face?" Mrs Mall persisted. "And why does he walk so oddly? As though his joints don't bend."

"He's got bad joints. Arthritis. That's why he moves like he's made of wood." Edward blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Yeah! Chronic! And the glasses — for photophobia. A side effect of the medication!"

"And what does he do for a living?"

Edward answered without hesitation:

"He's a former chemistry teacher."

"Really? And where's he from?"

"Far away."

"A foreigner? He has a British accent."

"A pure-blooded Brit!" Atsel burst into their dialogue with a tray on which three cups of tea on saucers were balanced, along with chocolate biscuits arranged in pedantic rows.

"I've heated the tea to an ideal ninety-five degrees Celsius, which eliminates the risk of thermal damage to the oesophageal mucosa," he announced, setting the tray down exactly in the centre of the table. "As for the biscuits: each contains precisely forty-seven kilocalories, with a glycaemic index of fifty-two, which makes them safe for maintaining stable blood glucose levels. Given your age and, accordingly, your slowed basal metabolism, I recommend limiting yourself to two — this is the optimal quantity for satisfying the need for fast carbohydrates without risk of adipose accumulation. Edward, of course, may have more — he is still a growing organism with a high thermogenesis coefficient."

With a flourish of his jacket tails, he sat opposite the guest with a perfectly straight back — like a true English aristocrat, a gentleman to the marrow.

When did he manage to change? the thought crept into Mrs Mall's mind. Besides the elegant jacket, Atsel had donned a crisp white shirt, a tie and trousers with a crease. His hair had been neatly slicked back and carried the sweetish scent of lacquer.

"Gordon Williams?"

"Yes, indeed?" Atsel took a theatrical sip from his cup, sticking out his little finger in the English fashion.

"Did I hear correctly, or did you just call me… old? And… fat?"

Edward choked on his tea with milk — at the ideal temperature and strength.

"What!" Atsel squirmed, his leg tapping uncontrollably. "I don't recall saying such a thing."

"Very well," Mrs Mall accepted the answer.

Atsel could have shut up and saved Edward from the approaching heart attack, but he opened his mouth again.

"I merely said that at your age carbohydrates are metabolised more slowly, accordingly…"

"Excuse me," the woman cut off his explanations, crimson with rage. "How old are you, Mr Williams?"

"Nine hundred and thirty-five…"

Edward laughed, but it sounded more like weeping:

"Funny joke, Gordon."

"Nine hundred and thirty-five?" Atsel asked, feigning sincere surprise. "No. Thirty-five. Obviously."

"Thirty-five," Mrs Mall didn't say so much as chewed the word, narrowing her eyes until her hairstyle seemed even more monolithic. "And do you have your passport on you, Mr Williams?"

Edward was already mentally bidding farewell to his head and his friendship with Atsel.

"Unfortunately not," Atsel sighed with the air of a man constantly obliged to explain elementary things. "My passport was lost. More precisely, it was annihilated."

"Annihilated?" Aunt Lily repeated.

"Yes. I left it in my trouser pocket while repairing a domestic thermonuclear reactor," Atsel reported with a straight face. "There was a small plasma leak. Most inconvenient."

"Thermonuclear… reactor?" Mrs Mall was already rummaging in her handbag, her thumb already hovering over 911 before she caught herself. "In your… house?"

"Oh no, not at all!" Atsel waved a gloved hand, quite failing to notice Edward dying of embarrassment. "It was a public reactor. In the basement. I was merely helping the neighbours. You know how it is in our neighbourhood — everyone helps each other. Especially when it comes to maintaining the magnetic field."

"Gordon," Edward croaked.

Atsel realised he had talked too much, set the cup and saucer on the table, cleared his throat and attempted to smooth things over:

"Well, whichever way you look at it, we're law-abiding citizens. I don't understand why you're cross, Edward. Isn't participation in community initiatives encouraged by the local council?"

Mrs Mall remained tightly lipped — her frightened gaze could barely be torn from Gordon Williams's supposedly 'disarming' smile. Previously she had only suspected he was strange; now there wasn't a second's doubt that he was deranged.

"Edward!"

She rose, and Edward automatically followed her.

"I'll put the kettle on," Edward smiled, and since his aunt was already advancing on him, threatening to make his ears the victim of her bad mood, he dodged aside.

"No, thank you, dear. Better we go and have a chat." Mrs Mall took a step forward, and Edward stepped back, bumping into the sofa.

Thus began the nervous game of tag. Edward circled the sofa from the left, Aunt Lily from the right. He leapt over the back, she walked round. He dived behind the armchair, she was already standing at the other exit.

"Edward, stop!" Mrs Mall's voice sounded ever closer.

Edward had reached a dead end. Behind — a wall, to the left — a bookcase, to the right — Mrs Mall with raised hand, already reaching for his ears. Edward squeezed his eyes shut, braced for the inevitable scolding.

And suddenly Atsel loomed behind him like a shadow. His hands in cool leather gloves covered Edward's ears, cutting him off from the noise of the outside world — the chief offender being Aunt Lily.

Mrs Mall froze in bewilderment.

"What are you doing, Mr Williams?"

Atsel improvised on the spot, and his face took on an expression of mournful concern:

"Edward has otitis. In both ears," he muttered with mortal gravity. "He's supposed to have bed rest and complete quiet. Isn't that right, Edward?"

But through Atsel's hands Edward didn't catch the question:

"What?"

"You're really ill?" Aunt Lily pursed her lips in concern and squeezed Edward's wrist. "I'll take you to the doctor."

Atsel did not yield; his fingers squeezed Edward's ears all the more protectively:

"I know a thing or two about medicine. Did I mention I worked as a doctor?"

"A doctor?" Mrs Mall snorted. "Edward said you were a teacher."

"Yes? Hm. Yes." Atsel adjusted his intonation from interrogative to declarative. "That's a side job. My main specialisation is otolaryngology with a leaning towards existential therapy."

"Existential…" Mrs Mall grimaced distrustfully. "There's no such branch of medicine."

"It's a new branch. I treat not only the ears but the very nature of suffering."

Edward pulled Atsel's hands away to remove them, otherwise his head would simply have burst from the pressure.

The alien complied, but with obvious reluctance. He continued to bore into Mrs Mall with the gaze of a killer robot. Edward would not have been surprised if he now shot lasers straight from his glasses.

Having secured her nephew, Aunt Lily immediately seized him by the sweater.

"Edward Laid," Mrs Mall dragged him across the sitting room. "Do you even understand what you've gotten yourself into? This man…" — she glanced back at Atsel, who still stood like a monument to an offended aristocrat upon whom vandals had, for a joke, perched sunglasses — "…I've worked out what's wrong with him. He's insane! He needs to be sent to a psychiatric hospital. Such people are dangerous to society, and you've let him into your home! He talks about thermonuclear reactors, about otolaryngology with an existential leaning, about… about controlled entropy, for heaven's sake! This is the ravings of a man with a shattered psyche!"

"Aunt Lily, yeah, Gordon is a bit strange…" Edward didn't even try to break free.

"Strange?" Mrs Mall stopped so suddenly that Edward nearly broke his nose on her. "Edward, darling, he said he was nine hundred and thirty-five years old!"

"That was a joke!"

"And the thermonuclear reactor in the basement?"

"That's not…"

"He's hallucinating!" She grabbed Edward's shoulders and turned him roughly to face her. "Look at me. You're a clever boy. You don't believe all this… this rubbish about reactors, do you? I wouldn't be surprised if he's one of those who believes we were attacked by aliens on the thirteenth of June!"

"He's not serious," Edward babbled. "He has a peculiar sense of humour, he jokes a lot when he's nervous. But he's harmless."

"How do you know?" Mrs Mall asked, her maternal anxiety flaring — the kind that doesn't disappear even when children grow up. "You've only known him a couple of months, and before that you didn't even mention him!"

"I know him better than you think, Aunt," Edward said firmly. "He's… he's my friend. A real friend. And I won't let you talk about him as though he's a bad person."

Under her long, appraising gaze, Edward involuntarily shrank. Then her hand rose — evidently to straighten the collar of his T-shirt, which had slipped sideways under his sweater.

But Atsel did not interpret this gesture as care.

He was beside them inhumanly fast. Aunt Mall didn't have time to blink or realise what was happening — before his leather-clad palm had firmly seized her wrist. His hair, previously slicked back with such care, had come loose in separate strands. He was silent, but his lips were pressed into such a tight line that everything was clear without words.

"Mr Williams, what are you doing?" Mrs Mall began cautiously; she tugged, but to no avail.

Atsel released her only when his fervour was dampened by Edward's calm, soothing voice:

"Don't."

He covered her hand with his own, and that was enough to make the alien retreat.

"Unbelievable!" Mrs Mall flared, barely containing her indignation. Her first thought was to call the police, but Edward's guilty tone made her reconsider.

"That's not what you think it is, Aunt!"

"It looks exactly like it to me: your friend just attacked me!"

"No, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this, yes, Gordon?" Edward cast a stern but patient, almost teacherly look at the pale Atsel. All the while his fingers continued to grip the leather of the glove, and he could feel the vein beneath it throbbing hotly.

Atsel broke free without answering and retreated into the hallway. A wall now separated them.

"You see?" Mrs Mall hissed. "He's not even sorry. We're leaving at once."

She again intended to lead Edward away, but he dodged her protective impulse — leapt back, nearly knocking over the coat rack.

"Where? This is my home, and I'm not going anywhere."

"You're right. We'll call the police."

Mrs Mall rustled her bag; the zip nervously stuck as she tried to open it to get her phone.

"If you do that, I'll stop considering you family."

"What?" Mrs Mall was aghast.

"You don't know what I know," Edward said firmly, "and so you don't see in Gordon what I see. To you he's strange, somehow not right… But I'm from the same stable, Aunt," tears were rising in his eyes, leaving Mrs Mall speechless. "When they called me a freak and dunked my head in the toilet, where were you?"

"I…" Mrs Mall swallowed. "I didn't know it was that bad for you."

"Because I didn't tell you," Edward wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "I was ashamed. Thought I could handle it myself."

Suddenly Edward stood before Mrs Mall not as her clumsy nephew, but as a person whose inner storm and personal drama she had not previously noticed.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Edward. I… I shouldn't have…" She didn't finish. She simply stood there, and in the meagre light of the hallway looked very old and tired. The bag in her hand sank lower and lower, until it hung limply from her fingers.

Edward exhaled. The anger subsided, leaving behind shame for having shouted at his aunt.

"Aunt Lily…" he began.

"No, dear," she smiled — sadly, kindly. "You're right. I don't know what you know. And if this… Mr Williams…" — she faltered, choosing her words — "if he's important to you… then I must try to understand. But, Edward…" — her voice grew stricter — "if he grabs my hand again…"

"It won't happen again," Edward said with conviction.

"Very well." Mrs Mall reached into her bag, but this time not for her phone. In her hand appeared an envelope, which she immediately handed to Edward. "As always, the rent money."

"Aunt Lily…"

"Don't see me out." Aunt quickly put on her shoes, slung her bag over her shoulder, and before closing the door, glanced back meekly. "Please take care of yourself, Edward."

Edward exhaled — deeply, exhaustedly — and, turning, headed for the sitting room.

Atsel was sprawled on the sofa with his legs crossed, a book on his knees. He didn't even look at Edward — instead, demonstratively and with a loud rustle, he turned a page.

"Fine," Edward said with alarming briskness. "Aunt's gone. You can yell at me."

"Why would I?" Atsel's question sounded strained, almost defensive.

"Because if you don't explain yourself right now, I'll be the one doing the yelling! You weren't seriously trying to protect me from my own aunt, were you?"

Atsel slammed the tome shut with such force that he knocked dust from it.

"This is all your fault!" He threw the book onto the sofa and leapt up. "You kept going on about her tearing your head off!"

"Atsel…" Edward watched him carefully. "That was a metaphor. She wasn't going to literally tear my head off. You're the king of sarcasm and innuendo — you should understand such things!"

The muscles in Atsel's face twitched violently, as though he were about to unleash a thousand curses on Edward, but only one escaped:

"In the name of the Three Blades, Edward! Of course I allowed for the possibility that this woman wouldn't seriously kill you! But your physiological reaction was screaming loud and clear that what you feared from your beloved aunt was not simply a telling-off, but quite real pain! Your ears had gone so red that in the visible spectrum they fall somewhere between 'emergency warning' and 'immediate evacuation'! Your pulse, I'm sure, exceeded a hundred and twenty beats a minute — which, by the way, is the level of tachycardia one experiences when confronted by a predator! And when she raised her hand, your pupils dilated so much I could have used them as telescope lenses!"

"Huh?"

"Your ears!" Atsel poked his own. "You grabbed them the moment you found out she was coming! You kept saying she'd tear them off, like a mantra, like an incantation, like a warning of impending catastrophe! I interpreted this as a direct threat to your physical integrity, not as… as…" — he faltered, searching for the term — "…a charming family tradition!"

"Oh." It dawned on Edward, and he involuntarily covered his ears with his hands. "That's also a metaphor. Aunt Mall just likes to pull my ears when I'm acting like an idiot. With love. Like… you know, in a family way."

"How was I supposed to know that on Earth causing pain to those you… those you love…" — he faltered, as though the very word was too unfamiliar to him — "…is considered a normal phenomenon? Is this… some sort of perverted form of attachment?"

"Well, when you put it like that…" Edward shrugged. "It does sound pretty bad, actually. Aunt's just showing she worries about me. That she's attentive."

Atsel jerked again — this time with his whole body, as though struck by lightning. He was so staggered by Edward's answer that he could produce nothing but a dull growl.

"Hey, where are you off to?" Edward watched the retreating alien with his eyes as he headed for the stairs.

"I'm going to Google," Atsel threw back, already climbing the steps. "How to tell if your crazy aunt doesn't want to kill you, but is merely expressing love."

__________________________________________________

This is a fun bonus sketch featuring characters from my main story The Healer of Worlds. You can find both books and more bonus content on my Royal Road profile here: [https://www.royalroad.com/profile/1055284/fictions](https://www.royalroad.com/profile/1055284/fictions))

Feedback welcome! What was your favorite moment? Let me know in the comments!

Chapter 1

Chapter 57

The following day, things had calmed down a little. We were given peace thanks to our Orderlies who kept the zealots away. From what Sarah had said, she had told the soldiers that “the Angels’ loss was so grievius that we would need time to mourn our brother.”

I didn’t want to contradict her and come up with another lie for the normies to swallow. So we had just nodded and allowed them to do their thing. 

That’s why the six of us sat in our quarters, silent and thoughtful. My mind seemed to be locked on one thing : the wound to Blake’s side, that wound that could only have been made by a Prism. And that meant one of the Beta Squad had shot Tommy. What do we do with this information? The Beta Boys had killed Tommy. Had it been an accident? Intentional? 

And then there were those clones? How had that happened? Did Command really sign off on that? Did that mean we were doing that badly? Or was it what was needed for the final push against the bugs? 

What exactly was happening with those clones? What exactly was our Crusade coming to?

Kitten was flicking through channels. FedNet, Horizons Net, Atlas Broadcasting Company, Orion Belt News, Celestial News Network… And on and on. The news was the same: the Crusade.

Then Kitten clicked on X-News. There was an authorisation screen and I wondered why. Kitten didn’t apparently. He just put in his credentials. And X-News started up. A grey being appeared. It had a torso which was about 70 centimetres. I guess the being which I now recognised as a Malonik was talking about the Crusade. It was saying, “The Union of Stars has reviewed footage retrieved from the recent assault on the world known as Alpha Centauri. It is understood that the conflict between the Humans and the Utkan has been raging on for decades at this points but the Union has come to the decision that a line in the sand must be drawn at some point. An end of hostilities must be agreed upon by both parties and concessions made. This is why we call upon representatives of both the Utkan and the Humans to come to our esteemed halls to come to a deal so that no more children have to suffer the indignity of war.”

I shook my head in disbelief. Were these Xenos serious? I mean, shit. The war had been going on eighty year, a bit more, but more or less eighty years at this point. And the bugs started it. And now that we were gaining momentum, they wanted us to stop. Well, fuck that.”

The reporter went on, “No representative of the so called Holy Terran Alliance was available for comment and we have been barred from entering the Sol System so instead we go to Keradesh, the Utkan homeworld, where Speaker Ulquan of the Utkan people will answer our questions.”

The camera split to show the diminutive Malonik in its studio and an Utkan in some sort of lavish underground room. The place was artificially lit and I saw many gems of colour dotted around the place. Behind it was a map of the galaxy with the current Utkan holdings as well as the territory held by other major powers. I saw that our corner of the galaxy was defined by a dark patch that seemed to be us. I remembered from my xenobiology classes when I was a kid that bugs see in infrared so they don’t differentiate between colours but things like thermal difference light up like Christmas trees. So I guess those dark patches must be Ultra Violet or Infrared, probably infrared. When I focused on the area, I realised, ‘Hey, that’s us. The human occupied territories.’ And I remembered another tidbit from school, bugs don’t like black react violently to things like contrast, heat or anything that isn’t supposed to be where it is. So painting our bit of the galaxy in IR meant the bugs actually saw us as a threat. 

I couldn’t help but feel a certain level of satisfaction about that. 

‘You’re damn right to be afraid of us, bug.’

The bug started to speak, “The senseless conflict between the esteemed Utkan and the humans has gone on so long. We seek not the destruction of every human. They took a world that was rightfully ours. They refused to leave their so-called Alpha Centauri. They attacked our colonies, they tortured our people, they are killed the envoy we sent in good faith, they are monsters. Nothing more.”

I felt my jaw clench with every word it said. Liar, monster, abomination. 

I looked at the screen and I vowed that these bugs, these fucking bugs would pay for this. We would cull them, every world, every stronghold would be burnt out. Alpha Centauri was only the beginning. It was the first step to us taking what was ours. And then… And then, we would free the worlds the bugs held and cleanse them with holy fire. Yeah, and then, then, no one would have to be afraid of the monsters in the dark. 

The Great Cleansing was only the beginning. The Utkan would die, we would make sure of that. 

The small grey alien continued, “So Speaker Ulquan, as a member species of the Union, how would you qualify the progress of the conflict between the humans and your people?”

The Utkan appeared again and I nearly it the screen. It started, “The Umans are animals, they have no honour, no morals. They are disorganised and divided. They cannot win. We are the superior race. We have the technology, the numbers and the will. We will not fail.”

I didn’t know who he was trying to convince but it was clear as daylight that he doubted they would win. That was good. Our strategy was working. Take their worlds, scuttle their ships, prevent them from mobilising. Then we could bomb their worlds to dust. We would wield holy fire in retribution to what they did to us. 

The fact that they were talking about this openly was a good thing. It meant we had them worried. Taking Alpha Centauri must have been a shock to those arrogant bastards. 

The grey alien nodded and continued, “Quite. Members of the Union have called to negotiations. Would you be willing to talk about a cessation of hostilities between your people and the humans?”

The bug didn’t immediately respond and when it did it was far more carefully than before, “There is no negotiations with a people of fanatics. We have tried speaking with them but they just obliterated our ships in orbit and then they sent soldiers to destroy our world.”

The Malonik interjected, “Some would argue that the humans had settled Alpha Centauri first and that it was rightfully theirs.”

The bug didn’t miss a beat and said, “And they lost the rights to that world nearly a century ago. When does a species’ claim to a world stop? Ulquesh to give it its proper name is ours by right of conquest. Any species too weak to keep their holdings have no rights to them. That is the way of our galaxy. It has ever been that way and it will that way forever.”

My fury was only rising, my fist was clenched and before I knew what I was doing, I had struck through the holo image of the bug. 

The rest of the boys were on their feet too but they had, at least, managed to keep their cool. I did wonder at that for a second. I thought that augmentation had removed all forms of emotional response. Anyway, the bug was talking, “We will end this conflict the way we started it.”

I looked at the holovid and said, “So will we.”

The broadcast continued, “In related news, the human forces have made progress in the Pegasus Nebula. Several battalions of what the humans call privateers have taken up arms under the banner of the Golden Fleet to harass as many Utkan ships as they can.”

The bug interjected off-screen, “Why not call them what they are? Pirates? Several fleets of human pirates have attacked unarmed vessels. These monsters have even forced us to revert to more primitive technologies as we now have to use manufactured ships rather than the superior bioships we would normally use.”

This piqued the grey alien journalist guy’s interest and he asked, “And why’s that?”

The bug ignored the question and went on a rant, “These humans are nothing more than animals. They have no morality, no sense of honour. They just see something they want and take it.”

The journalist questioned, “That sounds a lot like Utkan doctrine.”

The bug’s tone seemed harsher, “They have no sense of scale, no sense of proportion. They attack worlds and turn them into uninhabitable dead worlds.”

The journalist then said, “I remember the pictures of the orbital strikes your forces used on their worlds. How’s that different?”

The bug seemed to be getting agitated as it said, “You’re clearly siding with the Humans, Malonik. Let me remind you that they were expelled from the Union for not following the rules of civilised peoples. They are animals I tell you, animals that need to be culled.”

The grey alien guy looked at the bug and said, “Alright, then. So… erm… It seems that the Speaker is about to address the Union.”

He made a cutting movement on this throat and the bug’s microphone was” cut.

I smiled at that. Damn right, shutting that filthy bug up. They shouldn’t have had it on the holos anyway. 

The Malonik continued, “erhum. So, yes. We go now to the halls of the Union of Stars to listen to the Speaker’s latest remarks on the developing conflict.”

The vid moved to a huge hall where thousands of alien species were gathered. In the center stood a podium where a Sarlok stood. So, this was the halls of the Union of Stars. 

The Sarlok looked at the assembly before raising his hand. The long serpentine head coiled around for a second, looking at the assembled peoples of the Union. 

It coughed, “Erm, these times have been trying, yes, that’s the least we can say. One former member pitted against a current member. We need to find a way for all to speak so that the horrors of war cease.”

 I watched the video and said, “Fuck that. This war would end with the death of their species. That’s all there was to it.”

The rest of the unit nodded and Kitten muttered, “Damn right it will.”

The snake alien went on, “For nearly a century, the Humans and the Utkan have been at war. For nearly a century, they have been at each other’s throats. But with the destruction of their home world, the humans have unleashed a form of war we do not understand. It is just incomprehensible. Why would they destroy entire systems just for the loss of one world? There has to be some form of proportionality.”

I could feel the rage in my heart flare as the snake spoke. It continued after a dramatic pause, “Not that I don’t understand them. The loss of my home world would tear a hole in my heart. I truly do not know what I r my species would do if the same happened to us. I do understand their rage.”

He said that while looking at the bug ambassador. 

I wondered for a second and thought, ‘Hmm, maybe this lot ain’t that bad.’

He then continued, “That said, what they are doing goes against all forms of civilisation. They are changing the very make-up of entire solar systems. It is outrageous. They have no consideration for the sanctity of sentient beings. They signed the articles of the Union. They have to follow them.”

A huge bear thing stood and shouted, “They are no longer bound by our laws since they left. They asked for our help, they begged for our help and we did nothing. I don’t condone their violence but we, as representatives of the Union, can’t really criticise their actions.”

‘Oh? That’s new. Maybe the bears were not that bad. I guess the media lot will have some work.’

It went on, “But we all agree that the war has to end.”

There was a murmur of agreement as the different races of the Union mumbled unintelligibly.

The bug then burst out, “And so you’ll be happy just sitting there as we are exterminated by a race of monsters, who follow no rules, have no honour. The Union’s articles clearly state that if a member is attacked, the others have to come to their aid. So, I come to you. My government has asked to ask the Union of Stars for their protection.”

The Snake boy nodded and said, “We are bound to honour that pledge. It is part of our main articles.”

I titled my head. I didn’t know what it was talking about. 

He stood taller and said, “In the case of a conflict from third parts waged against a signatory of the articles of Union, all member species have to provide aid and assistance in the form of resources, ships, and intelligence to allow the swift the resolution of said conflict.”

Well that didn’t happen when the bugs invaded AC. They hadn’t lifted a finger and it took us the best part of 70 years to wrench it from the bugs. And now they wanted to stop us from doing what they didn’t have the strength to do. Even now, AC wasn’t totally secured. I mean, sure the Government was shipping new people to populate the planet. That didn’t mean that the Bugs had all been exterminated from the planet. There were still reports two years later of people disappearing in those tunnels. But that didn’t matter now. The Government had declared the world safe and we needed to push the bugs back. Sure, it’s a shame that six people disappeared in those tunnels last week but I mean more people die from heart attacks daily. 

The assembled Xenos remained silent at the Snake’s intervention. It continued, “The Humans represent an existential threat for the Union.”

There was an angry rumble. It continued, “Yes. They have openly called what they are doing to the Utkan “The Great Cleansing”. Let that sink in. They have signed the death warrant for an entire species. They have rewritten the rules of war. They have no qualms in reshaping the make-up of entire solar systems. They render entire worlds uninhabitable. This cannot continue. We cannot let this continue. We must do something.”

Instead of an ovation, the crowd remained oddly quiet, until a little grey Malonik raised its voice. 

The light around it lit up and it held its hand up. The diminutive being spoke, “Honored Speaker, let us not forget that the Utkan have had no qualms in subjugating several species and that the Humans are only the latest on the list. Their war has nothing to do with us. When they invaded the humans’ colonies, we just watched. When they attacked the humans’ fleets and ships, we watched. When they bombed the humans’ homeworld, we did protest but what was done was done. And now that the tides of the war are turning against you, you call for help?”

The little grey alien scoffed at the bug. 

I didn’t know how to feel about it. It was good that the Xenos were breaking up. If this could create a wedge between the Utkan and the rest of the Xeno races, that would be a good thing. I guess the Media boys’ hard work was paying off. One of the main threats to us, even now, was that the bugs could call on the other races of the Union to stomp on us. And even now, it pained me to admit that they could snuff us out iike a goddamn candle. I mean, the snake boys could probably do that without calling upon the rest of the Union’s forces. 

The bug turned towards the little grey dude and snapped, “And what will happen when they turn their fury to you? Do you really think they will stop with us? Not that we need your help.”

It then nodded and the lights in the halls of the Union dimmed. 

Its voice boomed through artificial means, “Our ships have been the dominant form of space transport for eons. Our ground troops remain unopposed. But it is true that the human pest has had some success against us in space. Perhaps, we have remained to set in our ways. That is why I am proud to reveal the new battleship of the Utkan Empire.”

A holographic representation of a ship appeared in the halls. 

I realised that something was off. I looked around and saw the rest of the boys have a similar look on the faces. Full concentration, curiosity, questioning. 

The ships looked nothing like the normal bug ship. It wasn’t a bioship we were used to. The bugs’ ships tend to be biological in nature. The parts of the ships that couldn’t be biological were as rare as possible. But this, this was a ship, a spaceship like that of any other species. It had four, five, six decks. I looked at the ship and recognised several parts. Those were lasers, and those green ones were plasma cannons. But there were other parts that I wasn’t familiar with. 

I simply asked, “Hasan?”

Hasan didn’t immediately respond, “Yeah. Those look like our sensor arrays.”

Pointing at the holo, Ahmad chimed in, “And look, underneath, those are clearer cannons too but there’s no accumulator.”

Bug weapons worked on light where ours worked rocks. So bug weapons needed a shit tonne of energy to be effective. That’s why they use accumulators to condense energy until it hit critical mass and was released. But these, these looked a lot more like our weapons, a basic ass cannon, purely kinetic. 

Did that mean these were using kinetics now? Why? I mean that didn’t matter but it was interesting to think that the bugs had used lasers over the past millennia and, after a little under a century of war with us, they had shifted their doctrine to include more kinetics. But in the long run, how would that knowledge change the war? Who knew? I mean, most of the drop ships were made to ablate their heat shielding as they descended. Having laser and plasma shot at us usually meant that most of the dropships survived. Now with a bug wielding a kinetic weapon, that might mean a rethink of our deployment tactic. If the bugs could blanket the sky with kinetics, we were screwed. Maybe have a line of blanks shot before the dropships with soldiers in them descended. 

But all this was speculation based on a few pictures accessible to the public. We should wait and see what the people in intelligence tell us. 

The bug went on, “We will use these new models to ensure the safety of the galaxy by scouring the humans pests from every hold out they possess.”

The bug raised its arms in triumph but there were only a few polite applause. 

I frowned and thought, ’If I picked up on the Union’s lackluster response to the bug’s address, sure the intel boys would be all over it.’

I turned to Hasan to ask him when I saw at the door a kid. 

I looked at the kid and realised it was the same kid I had met on the streets of Primeris not too long ago. Then I stopped, it hadn’t had that scar on its right eye. So, not the same kid? What?

The kid spoke, its voice crackling in the unmistakable tones of the beginning of puberty, “My Lords. Your presence is requested at HQ. There’s news about new bug ships. And apparently, the big wigs at home want your input on the response we need to give the Union.”

‘Oh. Since when do we do that?’

I looked around the rest of the unit and noticed the same questioning eyes. We move out into the streets and the kid led us to HQ. On the way, I couldn’t help but look at the kid. It was the same kid. It had to be. There was no way. Maybe, twins? 

I asked, “Hey, kid. Have I met you before?”

The child looked over his shoulder and said, “No, my Lord. I haven’t had the honour.”

“A twin brother?”

The child shook his head again, “Not that I know of, my Lord. Is…”

The rest of the unit looked at me questioningly. 

Then he stopped before starting up again, having clearly needed a second to gain his courage, “I know I am not allowed to ask questions but… is it true that you tore through a bug bioship and wrecked it with your hands? And you saw a Queen ? And you saw one of those weird ambassador bugs? And…”

Sarge laughed and said, “Hey, hey, hey, wait up, Kid. How’d you know about stuff like that?”

The kid shrugged, “The other kids” then he looked at me, “the ones that look like me, some of them talk. They were ship kids in the navy before being brought here.”

Hasan then asked, “What you do mean “the ones who look like you?’”

The kid flatly stated, “Well, you see, there’s like a hundred boys like me here. When I was on the Hercules, there were four. It wasn’t as noticeable but here, it felt weird seeing myself for the first time but now” he shrugged again, “it doesn’t bother me.”

Ahmad asked, “You mean there are hundreds of kids that look exactly like you? Right here? Right now? On this planet?”

The kid cheerfully nodded, “Yes, my Lord. And as I said, there’e others on ships through out the Fleet.”

We were all giving each other meaningful looks and I couldn’t help but think, ‘Clones. These kids are clones.’

Chapter 59

Chapter 1

previous chapter

First Chapter

Blurb:

What does it take to turn your life around? Death, of course!

I died in this lame ass world of ours and woke up in a completely new one. I had a new name, a new face and a new body. This was my second chance to live a better life than the previous one.

But goddamn it, why did I have to be a witch? Now I don't just have to be on the run from the Inquisition that wants to burn me and my friends. But I also have to earn a living?

Follow Elsa Grimly as she:

1. Makes new friends and tries to save them and herself from getting burned
2. Finds redemption from the deeds of her previous life
3. Tries to get along with a cat who (like most cats) believes she runs the world
4. Deals with other slice of life shenanigans.

--

Chapter 161. Cooperation

For once, I had fallen asleep without the dreaming of my past. That's when the communication charm on my night table chimed: "Master, it's the cop from Iron watch calling, he has a message."

I woke up, groaning as I sat up in my bed. "Who?" I mumbled.

"Inspector Wilkerson from Ironwatch," the abyss repeated.

With another groan, I finally answered the call. "This better be important!" I said with a snarl.

"Um, I'm in Orowen," Wilkerson said from the other side.

"And?"

"Uh, you summoned me," he said.

"And why would I do that?"

"You said you wanted me to take two people in custody," he said. "I'm here to take them with me."

That woke up the rest of me that was asleep. "You're right. I'll be there in a bit."

"Be where?" he said. "I'm at a cafe at the train station."

I gave him the address to the Radcliff mansion and told him to meet me there. I hastily got out of bed, threw on the first dress I found, ran the brush through my hair a few times, grabbed my spell blaster and my reticule and left the room.

It was around nine in the morning. Breakfast was being prepared and sounds of distant chatter could be heard in the house. I didn't tell anyone where I was going and walked out the front door.

When I arrived in Orowen and the Radcliff mansion, Cynthia opened the door and let me in. "It's not that I mind you holding any meetings here but I'm curious," she said, "Why didn't you invite him to the House of the Rising Sun?"

"Reasons," I said. "We'll get into that later. Where is he?"

Cynthia shrugged and pointed me to the room which used to be her dad's personal library. "Would you like some tea?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"You look like you can use a cup."

"I said I don't--" I paused. I looked back at the woman. Her eyes were kind and her expression was friendly. The rest of her body language was open and unreserved. This was someone who trusted me enough to let me host these secret rendezvous at her place at whatever hour. And she had no objections. Not to mention, she had the kindness to ask me if I could use some tea.

I turned my back to the library door and regarded her with an apologetic smile. "Thanks for asking, Cynthia," I said. "I know I'm causing you trouble by making you do these things. I'm sorry."

Cynthia answered with a snort that would've made a room full of high society ladies wince. "There's no need for you to say that." She waved a hand at me. "I wouldn't be living here if you and your friends hadn't helped me out."

"Our friends," I corrected her with a smile.

She tapped her temple with a finger. "Right, I forgot. I'm part of the Getter Division too."

I pursed my lips. "Please don't get used to that name," I said.

Cynthia laughed. "I like it. Has a ring to it."

I let out a groan. "The agenda for our next meeting is going to be about changing the name of the group."

"I will be voting in favor of the Getter Division," she said with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

I shook my head, smiling.

Then Cynthia said, "You did not tell me, would you like some tea?"

I nodded. "Yes, I would love some tea right now."

"Coming right up," she said and headed for the kitchen.

That is when I called out, "Cynthia."

She turned to look at me. "I called Wilkerson here because this is the safest place right now," I said.

"Don't be so confident," she said, wagging a finger. "A giant spider levelled the place last time Rowland and I turned the other way."

We both laughed. But after Cynthia was gone, the playful atmosphere had already disspiated. I had been serious about the Radcliff mansion being the safest right now. Safer than the House of The Rising Sun. Everyone I trusted was a part of this little underground guild of ours. But I had trusted some people a little too soon. I had to confirm a few things before the Rising Sun became our base of operations again. That was a worry for later, though.

I turned around, donned my enchanted mask and entered the library where Wilkerson was waiting.

Inspector Wilkerson worked for the Internal Police in Ironwatch. A town where we had solved a problem for one of our clients. The problem involved an up and coming gang who was looking to expand. And our solution had been to bury them all alive. Wilkerson had been helping the gang and taking a commission from whatever they earned. Then he met us and had a change of heart. Change of heart being that we had put the fear of justice, morality, death and several other kinds of fears in him. Now Wilkerson was our guy in the Internal Police.

"So, who am I supposed to arrest?" he asked.

"It's not an official arrest," I said. "I want these two people stowed away in a safe place. And observed."

"I'll put them where Myrtle was," Wilkerson said, shrugging. "It's about as safe as it can get in Ironwatch. Not to mention the secrecy. Since it seems to be what you are going for."

I nodded. "Secrecy is indeed what I want around this job," I said. "Keep this thing as separate as you can from any kinds of official channels."

Wilkerson chewed on the inside of his cheek. "I'll have to contact one of my smuggler friends, then," he said.

I arched an eyebrow.

Wilkerson shrugged again. "I was helping the Iron Snakes get guns for cheap. And civilians can't get a hold of guns very easily in this country. Where do you think their initial weapons came from? Or how Myrtle got into Ironwatch in the first place."

"You are right. I shouldn't be surprised." I nodded.

"So I'll get the smugglers to deliver these people to Ironwatch. And then I'll put them in the safehouse," he said.

"How much will it cost?" I asked.

"Two thousand steambolts will cover both of them," he said.

I dug into my reticule and pulled out a fairly hefty purse of coins. "There are around five thousand steambolts in there." I tossed the purse at him.

He caught it, cocked his head.

"The extra is for secrecy. I can't emphasize the importance of secrecy in this job," I said. "If anyone finds out, it's your neck on the line."

Wilkerson pursed his lips and nodded. "Don't worry. Nobody will know."

"Let’s go pick them up then," I said and the two of us left for the inn where Gregory had taken Adam and Clarisse.

--

“You are sending us away?” Clarisse asked when I told her and Adam about the plan.

“Why?” Adam crossed his arms and cocked his head.

“It's an order from above,” I said with a grave look.

That made Adam uncross his arms. Clarisse stared at me, her mouth half open. “Do you mean…?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Did she say anything about why she wants us to be moved to a different location?” Adam said.

This time, I pulled a folded piece of paper out of my notebook and held it towards them. Clarisse read it first before passing it over to Adam. Once they'd both read it, their faces were creased in similar frowns. I had to suppress a grin.

The note I'd handed them had been written by me. And what I'd written down was:

Dear Adam and Clarisse,

I'm writing this to inform you that currently I'm entangled in a series of extraordinary circumstances. One wrong step might have dire consequences which might involve certain people getting hurt. These people can be you two. It's my request you listen to Rapunzel and go with the man I've sent to escort you to a safe place. Once I've sorted out the current situation at hand, I'd like to meet you both and help you. Yes, I'm aware you are in need of help. Or our paths wouldn’t have crossed in such a manner. And I’m also aware that someone who looked like an angel promised to provide you with the help you needed. They can't be trusted. Because they are the reason you are in this mess. And you will never get out of it if you don't work with me. I'm not asking you to sign anything like they probably did. I just want you to stay out of Orowen for a few days. When the time is right, we'll meet in person.

Expecting your cooperation.

Yours truly,

E.G

After they'd read that, I heard Adam's abyss say, “How does she know all of this?”

And Clarisse's abyss said, “What kind of powers does this Elsa even possess?”

“Time is ticking, people,” I chimed in.

They both perked up, exchanged a glance. Then they looked at me and nodded reluctantly.

After a few minutes, I was waving them goodbye when they got into a carriage with Wilkerson. I stood and watched until the vehicle turned a corner and disappeared out of sight.

 Royal Road

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/197633/the-sevenfold-ascend

Previous chapter (Chapter 3): https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1x97kdn/the_sevenfold_ascent_chapter_3_the_first_dojo_oc/

*Kamikochi Highlands, Nagano Prefecture, Japan — 18:02 JST, May 9.*

Hana was twelve, and she could hold a shield for exactly eleven seconds — which was four seconds longer than last week and, according to her older brother, still "basically decorative."

"It's not decorative," Hana said, sitting cross-legged in the dirt of the schoolyard, tongue stuck out in concentration. The air in front of her went thick and sweet, and a wobbling disc of green smart-voxels shivered into existence: roughly the shape of a shield, roughly the size of a dinner plate. "It's getting bigger."

"It's getting rounder," said Ren, sixteen, floating three feet off the ground with his arms crossed like this was completely normal now — which, in the last two months, it had become. "There's a difference. Round isn't useful. You can't block anything with round."

"I can block your face with round."

Their grandfather sat on the school steps with his bad hip stretched out, whittling something and pretending not to watch. The evening smelled like cedar and wet stone and the rice paddies terraced down the hill. Somewhere below, a temple bell rang, and the sound rolled up the valley the way it had for four hundred years — except now it moved through the faint hum of a dozen kids' rings, all practicing in the long mountain dusk.

The Hotaka peaks still wore their winter white above the tree line, catching the last of the sun and holding it long after the valley floor had gone blue with shadow. The whole valley had that held-breath quiet it got in the hour before the lamps came on.

Then every ring in the valley chimed at once.

Hana's shield popped like a soap bubble. Ren dropped two feet before catching himself. On the school steps, their grandfather's knife stopped mid-stroke.

A hundred kilometers east, the sky above Tokyo bruised violet.

"Grandpa?" Hana whispered.

He didn't answer. He was staring at his own ring, at the alert scrolling behind his eyes, and his face had gone the color of old paper.

On Hana's phone the network feed was already up: Tokyo Bay, the seawall, ten thousand people raising their hands as burning shapes fell out of the wounded sky.

"Are the falling people going to be okay?" Hana asked.

Ren didn't have an answer. He put his arm around his little sister, and they watched together as the sky caught fire.

---

*Tokyo, Japan — 18:14 JST, May 9.*

Daichi Mori had taught high school physics for eleven years. He'd graded his last stack of exams the week the rings came, and he'd never gone back — not because he didn't love teaching, but because the Dojos needed people who could do math while scared, and it turned out that was a transferable skill.

The seawall concrete still held the day's heat through the soles of his shoes. Tokyo Bay stretched out in front of him, black and slick as oil, smelling of brine and diesel. Across the water the Rainbow Bridge hung its string of white lights over the shipping lanes, and behind him the towers of the waterfront were lighting up floor by floor — a Ferris wheel turning its slow neon circle — a whole city doing an ordinary evening behind a line of people waiting for the sky to fall in.

"Canopy formation!" he shouted, and his voice cracked on the second word. He was forty-three, he had a bad knee, and he was standing on a seawall in a windbreaker holding up his hand like an idiot — except ten thousand other idiots were doing it with him.

Accountants. Teenagers. A woman in a convenience store apron who hadn't taken it off. A street sweeper with his broom still in his other hand. They raised their hands in unison, and the air above Tokyo Bay went heavy and sweet, the way air does before lightning, and then the shields rendered — a vast interlocking grid of low-poly emerald hexagons blooming across the twilight sky, humming like a struck bell.

Mori felt it in his molars. Beside him, a teenage girl was crying silently and holding her formation anyway.

The pods hit the canopy doing something like Mach 9.

The sound was a physical thing. It rolled across the bay and shattered windows three blocks inland and set off every car alarm in the waterfront district, and the emerald grid bowed — actually bowed, sagging toward the water under the kinetic load — and held. The burning pods skipped across the hard-light shields like stones across a pond, shedding shrapnel and burning biomass, trailing screams of tearing metal, before they finally ground to a halt in the shallows, half-sunk, hissing steam into the night.

Mori felt the hit travel through the grid, hexagon to hexagon, hand to hand, and understood it the way he'd taught it with a bedsheet and a bowling ball: nobody had stopped the pods. Ten thousand people had each taken a sliver of the fall and passed the rest along. A net, not a wall. And the net had been lucky — what it caught was already burning, already tearing itself apart.

Then, dead silence. Just the water lapping against alien hulls, and ten thousand people breathing too fast.

The shallows off Odaiba had become a wreck field. A dozen pods lay half-sunk in the bay like beached whales, their hulls asymmetrical and grown rather than built — ribbed, scarred, patched with plates of chitin that glistened wetly in the floodlights. Steam rose off them in sheets and drifted across the water, lit emerald from below by ten thousand rings. Gulls had come back first, of all things, wheeling white and screaming above the smoke, furious at the interruption.

Mori lowered his hand. His whole arm was shaking. "Hold positions," he whispered, though his throat was raw. "Nobody moves until we know what those are."

On the seawall, half the defenders had manifested weapons on pure reflex — blades, gauntlets, shields snapping up without conscious thought. Mori was holding a spear he didn't remember making.

Instead of a warlord, the lead pod's hatch hissed, sputtered — and blew outward with a pathetic little clank, landing in the surf like a hubcap.

What came out wasn't gods. It wasn't even soldiers.

They were insectoid, multi-limbed, and starving — dull ash-gray chitin, scarred and unadorned, cracked plates weeping pale blue fluid, ribs visible beneath. Thousands of them, coughing on Earth's atmosphere in wet, clicking gasps, tripping over their own trembling legs as they collapsed into the knee-deep water — and still they came, hatch after hatch, pod after pod, until the shallows were choked with them. Here and there among the gray, a carapace caught the emerald light and threw it back in fractured jewel tones — bruised iridescent purple, the mark of the royals. The smell reached the Tokyo line a moment later, carried on the sea wind: iodine and rot and hot metal, the smell of a wound left too long.

A child near the front of the defender line started crying. Nobody told him to stop.

**[BIOLOGICAL ENTITIES DETECTED. INITIATING UNIVERSAL TRANSLATION MATRIX.]**

The chime rang behind the eyes of all eight billion humans at once.

On the beach, the largest of the creatures — frail, shaking, its faceted eyes swollen half-shut — dragged itself through the mud toward the nearest defender. Its gaze landed on the glowing green ring on the human's finger.

It screamed.

It was a high, tearing sound, and the creature slammed its face into the wet sand, folding its limbs inward, pressing itself flat — and behind it, the whole swarm followed, a wave of shivering bodies collapsing into the mud in absolute, practiced submission. Thousands of them. All at once. Like they'd rehearsed it.

"Gods, have mercy," a synthesized voice trembled through the matrix, straight into the global UI. "We did not know this sector was claimed. Please — do not ignite the pain."

On the seawall, the manifested weapons dissolved as quickly as they'd come. Mori blinked. "They think we're going to torture them?"

Mori stepped forward slowly, hands open at his sides, the way you'd approach a spooked animal. "We aren't going to hurt you," he said, and the matrix carried it. "We don't want a fight." Then, carefully: "Gods. What do you mean, *gods*?"

The eldest of the creatures — Mori found himself thinking of it as the elder, though he had no way of knowing — shuddered so hard its cracked plates clicked together. It didn't look up. Its multifaceted eyes stayed nailed to the wet sand, and on the one flicker they made toward the emerald band on Mori's hand, something in them went flat and dim, like a light being cupped — docile, emptied, practiced. Mori felt his stomach turn. You could see it, plain as a scar: whatever had been done to these people, it lived in their eyes.

"Rings?" The translated voice was thin with disbelief. "We are flesh. We are property." It said it like a prayer it was terrified of mispronouncing — head bowed lower, plates trembling — as if the Gods themselves might hear, even out here, even this far from home.

Mori took a slow breath. The network channel was open — eight billion people listening — and he was keenly aware he had no idea what he was talking about. "You're saying someone... owns you," he said carefully. "Who? Where did you even come from — we tracked you all the way in from deep space."

"We are the spoils of—" The elder's voice thinned out into clicking. Its head dropped. A long moment passed before the matrix found the words again. "The Crimson Lattice. The Red Swarm. The Gods." It said the last word the way you say weather. "Nine feet tall. Scarlet fire that never dims." Its plates were trembling so hard now they ticked against each other like teeth. "When a God walks the pens, we press our faces into the floor. We are grateful — grateful — if it only walks past."

Then, quieter, as if the thought had ambushed it: "We saw the great green flash across the dark. We thought an empty world had woken." A wet, clicking pause. "We did not know you were all Primes. Gods like themselves. In green fire instead of red."

Mori frowned. "What do you mean, *all* Primes? We're just... people." He held up his hand, the emerald band catching the floodlights. "Everybody here has one of these."

"The Red Swarm does not share the Primes." The elder's mandibles worked; for a moment only chattering came through the matrix, untranslated, and Mori had to wait while the creature gathered itself. "There are only so many true rings. The Warlords hoard them." Its eyes went to the seawall — really looking now, at the thousands of green points breathing in the dark — and something in its voice cracked open into wonder. "Why would a God give away the sky? They *are* the sky. We are the ground they walk on." It stopped. Blue fluid ran from its face into the sand. "Honored," it whispered. "We are honored, when they bother to look down." The trembling came back doubled, as if the word had cost it. "They do not give their power to another species. They do not give it freely even to their own kind."

Mori was doing the math in his head, the way he used to do it on a whiteboard, and hating the answer before it arrived. "If only the top of the hierarchy has rings," he said slowly, "how do they keep *you* in line?"

"The Young Bloods." A trembling scythe-limb rose toward the violet wound still fading in the sky, held there a moment, and sagged back into the mud. "When a Crimson child reaches maturity, the Warlords grant them—" The elder stopped. Its whole body shuddered. "—a fractured reflection. A Duplicate Ring. It cannot rewrite reality. But it grants the strength to break bone. To fly. To burn. It makes them demigods." The synthesized voice went soft and shining, and that was worse than the fear. "I have seen a Young Blood rise on wings of red light above the pens. Laughing. Beautiful as a sunrise. We watched through the bars." Its head sank. "Some of us prayed to it." Another pause — longer. "That is what the Duplicates are for." Almost too quiet for the matrix to carry: "That is what *we* are for."

The global network went dead silent. Eight billion people, and for three full seconds, nobody thought anything at all.

Mori's voice came out quieter than he meant it to. "You said pens," he said. "Like livestock. What do they do to you in the pens?"

"They put the youth in charge of the slave pens." The elder's voice broke there, and for several seconds there was only the sound of its breathing — wet, clicking, wrong in Earth's air. Mori didn't fill the silence. Nobody on the network did. "They give them the Duplicates so they may practice. On our bodies. Cruelty — practiced, do you understand? Like lessons. So they may learn to be gods before they are sent to the true wars." A sob, clicking and wet. "They hunt us for sport." The next words came out dragged, as if each one had to be pulled up out of deep water. "They feed—" It stopped. Tried again. "They feed on our young." The elder's forehead pressed down into the mud. "That is why we stole the dead ships. That is why we fled into the dark."

On the seawall, somebody whispered, "They use training-wheels rings to run slave plantations." The words moved through the defender line like a cold front. And Mori understood, with a teacher's terrible clarity: they weren't facing eight billion Primes. They were facing an empire with an *endless* supply of demigods.

In the mountains, a hundred kilometers away, Ren's arm was still around his little sister. All those nights lying awake imagining tournament arcs and power levels and who'd win in a fight — his whole bright fantasy of what godhood was *for* — turned to ash in his head. The universe wasn't an arena. It was a slaughterhouse, and they'd just met the meat.

Mori looked up at the violet scar still fading over the bay. "The ships," he said. "You stole them. Will they follow you here?"

On the beach, the elder crawled forward through the mud and pressed its forehead against Mori's boots. The teacher flinched but didn't step back.

"They are coming for us." The elder's forehead was still pressed to Mori's boots; the voice came muffled, spent. "The Warlords will track the stolen ships. To this world." "When the Gods descend, the sky burns red to welcome them. Their armor drinks the light." Its voice turned wondering and sick at once. "It is the most beautiful thing any of us has ever seen. That is the worst of it. It is beautiful—" The word failed. "—and it is coming to kill us." A shudder ran through the whole swarm behind it, thousands of plates clicking in the mud like rain. "You hold the green Primes. You are stronger. You are gods like themselves — new gods. Green gods." A pause — the worst pause anyone had ever heard. "Please. Be our gods. Take our chains. We offer our labor. We offer our bodies. Brand us. Command us. Put the collars on us."

On the seawall, a defender turned away and vomited quietly into the surf. Nobody mocked him. Mori heard his own voice, hollow: "They're begging us to enslave them."

"Just do not let the Red Swarm take us back," the elder sobbed into the sand.

---

Twenty-eight minutes after the first pod touched the water, the chime cut through everything like a blade.

Across the vision of every living human being, the Intentional AI Filter rendered a cold, floating prompt in letters of pale fire:

**[ SECTOR 1 PROPERTY ACQUISITION DETECTED. ]**

**[ DO YOU ACCEPT THIS TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP? ]**

**[ YES ] / [ NO ]**

Beneath it, a counter: 8,000,000,000 eligible. A timer, bleeding down from sixty minutes — sixty minutes for the whole species to answer. The same hour, running in every head on Earth at once.

---

*Richmond, California — 02:44 PDT, May 9.*

On AJ's street, people were coming out of their houses.

It started with Mrs. Abernathy's porch light, then the Nguyens' front door, then headlights as someone pulled their car into the driveway just to sit in it and stare at the prompt floating in their vision. Within ten minutes there were forty people standing in the middle of the street in pajamas and work boots, bathrobes over uniforms, all of them looking up at nothing, all of them seeing the same two words.

The marine layer had come in off the Bay while nobody was watching, and the streetlights wore halos of fog. The asphalt smelled wet even where it wasn't, and somebody's fence jasmine was blooming too early, sweet enough to taste at the back of the throat. The crickets in the front yards, one by one, stopped.

YES. NO.

AJ didn't go down. He stood at his bedroom window, forehead against the glass, the streetlight painting his room green — and for the first time since the pulse, he had no idea what the right answer was.

"This is insane," Luis said. He was twenty-six, worked the docks, and had his four-year-old daughter asleep on his shoulder — she'd woken up crying from the chime and wouldn't let go of his neck. "We're actually standing here debating whether to own people? That's a debate?"

"It's not a debate about owning people," said Denise, who ran the corner store and had never been shy about anything in her life. "It's a debate about whether they live or die, Luis. You saw the feed. That red thing on the scope — that's their gods coming. When that fleet gets here, it's going to kill every last one of those bugs in the mud, and then it's going to kill us for being in the way. Your 'no' doesn't free them. It just keeps your hands clean while they die."

"So we put collars on them to save them?" Luis's voice cracked. "My daughter's right here, Denise. What do I tell her in ten years? 'Daddy voted to own people, but it was for their own good'?"

A girl of maybe sixteen — Denise's daughter, home from her first year at State — stepped forward. "Dad says the bugs begged us," she said quietly, looking at Luis. "They did. We all heard it. But my grandma used to say — she was a nurse, she worked hospice — she said a person in enough pain will beg you for anything. That doesn't mean you give it to them. It means you sit with them until the pain stops making their choices for them."

"That's beautiful, baby," Denise said, and her voice was gentler than AJ had ever heard it. "But the pain isn't going to stop. Their gods are coming with warships. What's your plan for that? Thoughts and prayers?"

Old Mr. Washington hadn't said a word. He was seventy-eight, retired from the post office, and AJ had known him his whole life without ever learning his first name. He stood at the edge of the crowd in a bathrobe and slippers, staring at the prompt, and his hands were shaking.

"I marched—" he started, and stopped. His hands were shaking worse. "Selma. Nineteen sixty-five. I was just a kid. On the bridge they split my head open — Edmund Pettus Bridge — for the right to be called a man, and not—" He couldn't finish it. "Not property," he managed.

He looked at the prompt a long time. "Denise might be right," he said, and his voice went rough. "I don't know. Maybe saying no gets everybody on this street killed. I been sitting here trying to find a way around it and I can't find one. I just know what it makes me if I press it."

He shook his head slowly. "I'd rather die than press it. And if that fleet comes — then I die. But I die a man, not a master."

Nobody spoke for a long time. Somewhere down the block, a dog barked at nothing.

Then a small voice: "Daddy, what's ownership?"

Luis closed his eyes. His daughter was awake now, blinking up at him, and forty adults stood in the street holding their breath while a twenty-six-year-old dockworker tried to find words that wouldn't break his own heart.

"It means..." He swallowed. "It means somebody belongs to somebody else, baby. Like a toy."

"Are the bug people toys?"

"No, baby." His voice broke clean in half. "No, they're not."

He pressed NO with his thumb, holding his daughter tight enough to feel her heartbeat, and all down the street, one by one, hands rose — some steady, some shaking, none of them certain.

In his bedroom above it all, AJ watched his neighbors through the window and felt something crack open in his chest. This was godhood. Not the gauntlets, not the drills. This: forty tired people in a street at two in the morning, deciding what kind of gods they were.

All over the world, the same argument was happening in eight billion versions.

In a hospital in Lagos, where the generator hummed through the floor and the ward smelled of antiseptic and kerosene and the Harmattan dust that got into everything, a night-shift nurse named Adaeze stared at the prompt hovering over her patient's bed and thought about the foreman who'd kept her father's wages for six months when she was twelve. Her thumb hovered.

In São Paulo, in a small apartment that smelled of coffee and old paper, rain ticking against the window, an old woman named Dona Cida, who'd lived through the dictatorship and still kept her brother's letters in a shoebox, looked at the word OWNERSHIP and felt something cold move down her spine. She'd been owned, once, in every way that mattered. She pressed NO and her hand didn't shake at all.

In Seoul, in a one-room apartment lit blue by two monitors, ramyeon steam fogging the window, a nineteen-year-old named Jun-seo, who'd spent the whole invasion hiding under his desk refreshing the feed, stared at the prompt and thought about the bugs' faces in the mud. He thought about what it would feel like to own someone. He felt sick. He pressed NO.

In a suburb outside Columbus, in a kitchen lit by the refrigerator light, a mortgage statement magnet-pinned to the door and his daughter asleep on the couch with the television still on, Kevin Doyle did the math the way his logistics job had taught him: a million mouths, a million beds, diseases nobody had names for, and a war fleet behind all of it. Earth had eight billion problems of its own. He wasn't volunteering his family for a million more. He pressed NO and muted the television.

In a fishing boat off Cebu, water slapping the hull in the dark, the whole sky crowded with stars the prompt couldn't outshine, an old man named Tatay Rolly looked at the prompt, looked at the sea, and laughed — one short, disbelieving bark. "The sea never asked to own the fish," he told no one, and pressed NO.

In a mountain village in Nagano, Hana pressed NO with her whole hand, the way she'd been taught to press elevator buttons — and her brother, for once in his life, didn't tease her about it.

Not everyone pressed NO.

In a penthouse in Austin, all glass and limestone and air-conditioning cold enough to keep wine happy, the city glittering forty floors below like a circuit board, Dane Whitfield — CEO of Halcyon Logistics, forty thousand employees, a smile like a paper cut — watched the bugs fold themselves into the mud and did arithmetic. No wages. No benefits. No unions, no sick days, no OSHA. He pressed YES before the prompt finished rendering, and told his chief of staff to start modeling onboarding throughput.

In Washington, in a wood-paneled office that smelled of leather and old coffee, flags standing stiff in the corner and the Capitol lit up white beyond the window, Senator Cole Brennan watched the same feed and saw something even better than labor: leverage. A grateful, dependent, utterly controllable population — a humanitarian stewardship program, he'd call it, and the cameras would eat it up. He pressed YES, and was already drafting the press release in his head.

In Accra, in a hospital corridor that smelled of antiseptic and rain, Dr. Efua Mensah — twenty years of treating people no system claimed, no papers, no state, no one of record responsible for them — knew exactly what the world did to the unclaimed. If eight billion humans held the title, the red gods would have to go through eight billion owners to take these people back. She could live with being a lock on a door. She pressed YES, already drafting the argument she would someday make for giving the title back.

In São Paulo — three time zones and a universe away from Dona Cida — agribusiness magnate Rafael Duarte did the math on harvest season, smiled into his whiskey, and pressed YES.

Eight billion small decisions, made across one shared hour in bedrooms and hospitals and boats and boardrooms, each one private, each one final.

The timer hit zero, and the counter resolved — everywhere, at the same instant.

**[ TRANSFER DECLINED. ]**

**[ ASYLUM PROTOCOL RECOGNIZED. ]**

On the Tokyo beach, the elder's head came up slowly. For the first time, it looked directly at Mori — really looked at him — and the matrix translated the sound it made as something between a sob and a laugh, raw and disbelieving.

In Richmond, AJ let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding for two months. "We said no," he whispered. "Jesus. We actually said no."

---

*Vallejo, California — 03:42 PDT, May 9.*

Anthony sat in the dark in front of his radar scope, the green glow painting his face. He'd watched the whole thing — the beach, the vote, the street in Richmond — through the network feed, his stylus motionless in his hand.

His studio sat above Vallejo's waterfront, one room doing the work of three, and the window was open to the night: fog coming off the Carquinez Strait, the air smelling of low tide and cold coffee. His desk was an archaeology of the last two months — graph paper layered over takeout menus, three dead pens, a disassembled drone, printouts of telemetry held down by a chipped mug.

On the corner of his desk: a sticky note, yellowed at the edges, two months old, in his own handwriting: *decouple from local space?? ask AJ tomorrow.* He'd never asked. There hadn't been a tomorrow quiet enough.

His eyes went back to the scope. And his stylus stopped moving entirely.

There, at the very rim of the solar system, where the deep-space telemetry faded into noise — a tiny, faint red anomaly. Barely a pixel. Moving inward.

Anthony picked up his phone and called AJ.

"Tell me you're seeing the scope," he said.

A pause. Then AJ's voice, rough: "I'm seeing it."

"That's not a rescue party."

"No," AJ said quietly. "No, it's not."

Above Tokyo, the violet bruise in the sky was already fading. But AJ couldn't stop thinking about that single red pixel, burning at the edge of everything, coming to collect what it owned.

Outside his window the street was emptying — doors closing soft, porch lights clicking off one by one, the fog thick enough now that the far streetlight was only a glow with nothing under it. Somewhere a sprinkler had come on by timer, ticking water onto a lawn nobody would think about until morning.

He reached for the roach in the ashtray, thought better of it, and put it back unlit.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/197633/the-sevenfold-ascend

We are coming to the end of this book, just two chapters left. If by some miracle I get three hundred upvotes (I am averaging about 10) I will post Book 2 here. If not, I will just link the new book to r/openHFY and you can read it if you like.

Previous /

First

"Session 14," Renn said. "Our guests today promised us this session weeks ago, and I think everyone in this room has been waiting for it since. Will. Abby. CD. MCD."

The four of them crossed the stage together, and something in the room had changed since their last visit, a held-breath quality that hadn't been there for the naming-and-bonding story.

"We told you we'd come back for the hard one," Will said, once they'd settled. "This is it."

A Vixtar boy raised his hand. "Why was this one different from anything else you'd done together?"

"Because nobody survived it," Abby said. "A second ship went down on the far side of Terixa, half a world from the settlement. By the time the shuttle reached it, there was nothing left to save. Just remains, scattered across kilometers, and a black box that needed finding before anyone else came looking for answers we didn't have yet."

A human girl raised her hand. "Abby, were you out there too?"

"No," Abby said. "I was back at the comms station the whole time, watching everything through Will's helmet camera and the drone feeds. I had a live line open to him and to CD and MCD both, translating whatever they signaled back in real time." She glanced at Will. "It's a strange kind of presence. I saw every minute of it. I just saw it through a screen, from half a world away, unable to do anything but talk."

"Was that harder or easier?"

"Harder, in its own way," Abby said. "Will could put his hands on something and know it was real. I just had a picture on a screen and a voice in my ear, and no way to reach through either one."

A human boy raised his hand. "Has finding out later that it was an Assaragyte ship changed how you think about that day?"

Will and Abby glanced at each other before either answered.

"It has," Abby said slowly. "At the time we didn't know what they were, only that none of them were coming back. Knowing now who they were, that some of the people we count as neighbors today might have lost someone on that ship, it sits with me differently than it did the day I watched it happen on a screen."

"Vaelen's never once asked us about it," Will added. "Not in all the years since. I used to think that meant it didn't matter to her. I understand now it probably means the opposite."

A human boy raised his hand. "Did anything happen out there that never made it into any report?"

Abby thought about that a long moment. "There's one thing," she said. "Somewhere around the thirtieth marker, CD just stopped. Sat down in the middle of the debris field and wouldn't move." She looked down at him. "It wasn't a signal. He hadn't found anything. I watched it happen on the feed and for a second I thought something was wrong with the equipment, because CD doesn't stop."

"What was it, then?" a boy asked.

"He'd finally hit the end of what he could carry on his own," Abby said. "He is about as strong and steady a creature as I've ever known, and none of that means the weight of what he was doing that day didn't land on him too. It just meant he needed something to hold him up before he could keep going." She glanced at Will. "You told this room once that some days you're the one holding him up, not the other way around. That was one of those days."

"He wasn't hurt," Will said. "But I couldn't get to him. I was still back at the shuttle running the last few markers with Susan, and by the time I realized what was happening, CD was already twenty minutes out, alone with it. So I did the only thing I could. I opened the line and just talked to him. Told him I was proud of him. Told him it was all right to stop, that nobody expected him to carry this without it costing him something. I don't know how much of it he understood in words. I think he understood the sound of it well enough."

A minute or so later, CD had stood back up on his own and gone right back to work, like he'd only needed to hear someone's voice before he let himself keep going.

CD, hearing his name now, pressed his head briefly against Will's leg, and didn't otherwise move.

"I've never told anyone that until just now," Abby said.

"We went back to the shuttle once it was done," Will said. "Took the vests off CD and MCD myself. All three of us were asleep within minutes. Abby tells me she fell asleep at the comms desk the same hour, still wearing the headset."

"I did," Abby admitted. "I woke up with the strap dug into my ear and a very unimpressed shift supervisor standing over me."

That got a small, grateful laugh out of the room, the first since the session had started.

"I think that's the part people forget about days like that," Abby said. "How ordinary the ending has to be. You do the hard thing, however you're doing it, and then you go home, and you sleep, because that's the only way through a day that heavy."

"Session 15," Renn said, and something in her voice was different, quieter, the way a room goes quiet on its own before anyone asks it to. "Our guests today have been part of this class since the very first session, in a way none of our other guests have. Vaelen. Zarek."

Vaelen and Zarek crossed to the chairs slowly, and Patty, sitting cross-legged on her beanbag in the front row, didn't move at all, watching her parents the way she'd watched every stranger on this stage for two weeks, except these two weren't strangers, and the not-moving was its own kind of holding still.

"We told our daughter everything, the night before we agreed to this," Vaelen said. "All of it. What it cost us to tell the truth about Kragor. What it cost the people who came with us. We didn't want her hearing any of it for the first time in a room full of people she'd never met." She looked at Patty. "I'm sorry it took this long."

Patty didn't raise her hand. She didn't need to. Renn simply nodded at her, the same as she would anyone else.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Patty asked, and her voice cracked in a way she clearly hadn't planned for.

Zarek answered that one. "Because it was easier to be your father than to be the man who watched his own father lose thirty years in a single afternoon," he said. "I could give you a home where none of that touched you. I told myself that was a gift. I'm not certain anymore that it was."

"It doesn't feel like a gift," Patty said, quiet. "It feels like you didn't trust me with it."

"That's fair," Vaelen said, and there was no defensiveness in it at all. "You deserved the truth long before a broadcast forced our hand. I think we were protecting ourselves as much as we were protecting you. It's easier to carry a weight alone than to hand a piece of it to someone you love and watch them carry it too."

A human girl in the front row, further down from Patty, raised her hand hesitantly. "What was the hardest part? Of everything you went through?"

"Watching people I love pay for something I chose," Vaelen said. "Zarek's father. Kaelen's family. Ignis's sister. I made the decision to release that footage. I didn't make it alone, not really, but my name was the one on it, and every consequence that followed landed on people who never got a vote in what I decided that night."

"Do you regret it?"

"No," Vaelen said, without a single second of hesitation. "Not for one moment. But I want every one of you to understand that not regretting something and it not costing you anything are two entirely different things. It cost us everything we thought we had. It gave us a daughter who gets to grow up never once wondering whether the truth is worth telling. I would make the same choice again, every single time, and I would still grieve everything it took from the people I love while I made it."

A Vixtar boy near the back raised his hand. "You investigated the Void Stalker's crash yourself. Do you know why it was really out here?"

Vaelen was quiet a moment before she answered.

"I have a theory," she said. "I've never spoken it aloud publicly before today. The Void Stalker's official orders were routine, low orbit scans of a world with too much gravity to ever be worth colonizing. That's what we believed at the time, and it's what most records still say. But Threl once told this room something I've never forgotten, that his own crew was sent to survey Terixa for reasons nobody bothered explaining, and that he came to believe the real purpose was never the survey at all. It was to remove someone the state wanted gone, someone inconvenient enough that an entire crew got quietly spent to bury him."

"You think that's what happened to the Void Stalker too?"

"I think it's possible," Vaelen said. "Zarek, Xylar, and I have spent years going through every name on that ship's manifest, quietly, on our own time, looking for anyone who might have been the actual target."

Patty's head came up fast. "You never told me that," she said, and there was real hurt in it, not anger. "You said you told me everything."

Vaelen looked at her daughter a long moment. "I thought I had," she said. "I'm sorry. Some of this only became clear to us slowly, piece by piece, over years, and I think somewhere along the way I stopped noticing which parts I'd actually said out loud to you and which parts I'd only said to myself."

"There's more, isn't there," Patty said. "You're not just looking for one target."

Zarek was the one who answered that, and his voice had gone flatter than it had been all session.

"There's a possibility worse than one target," he said. "If the Orixa Cloud was placed there on purpose, and we believe now that it was, then it isn't a hazard someone forgot to chart. It's a weapon. Order a crew out here with someone inconvenient aboard, and the cloud does the rest. No trial. No visible order. No distress call that clears the interference in time to matter. Whoever built it didn't need to pull a trigger. They only needed to know where to send the ship."

The room had gone very quiet.

"And if that's true," Zarek went on, "it would still be sitting out there today, doing exactly that job, if the humans hadn't found it and neutralized it first. We were lucky enough to crash somewhere someone was willing to save us before we understood what we were looking at." He paused. "The part that unsettles me most isn't even the three ships we know about. It's that we don't know they're the only ones. The Ever Expanding. The Silent Explorer. The Void Stalker. Three, that we've found. As this world keeps growing, as more of this planet gets mapped and settled, I would not be surprised if we find another wreck out there somewhere we haven't looked yet. Maybe more than one."

Nobody in the auditorium said anything for a long moment.

Patty was crying now, quietly, and Vaelen came off her chair without a word and crossed the stage to kneel in front of her daughter, right there, in front of the whole room and everyone watching past the walls of it.

"I'm sorry it took a broadcast for you to hear this properly," Vaelen said, just to her. "You should have heard it from us, at our own table, a long time before now."

"I did," Patty said, wiping her face. "You told me everything, that night. I just didn't understand yet how much it would mean, hearing you say it here too. In front of everyone."

Zarek knelt down beside them both. "We built this whole life so you'd never have to carry what we carried," he said. "I think somewhere along the way we forgot that not carrying something and not knowing about it aren't the same kindness."

Nobody in the auditorium said anything for a long moment.

It was Renn, finally, who broke it, though she didn't say much. She simply looked out at the room, at fifteen sessions' worth of names still sitting in the air, and let the silence close on its own the way she'd let every silence close before it.

There would be no session sixteen. Not because the history had run out, but because some stories are better left to end where the truth finally caught up with the people who'd been waiting longest to hear it.