For the Union: Specters of War — Chapter 4

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The world slowly faded back in from the black of the simulation. Louis flexed his hands, enjoying the safety of being back in control.

Now it was time for damage control.

This was not the first time Hal had refused to lose in the Sync. Though it was frustrating, Louis intuitively knew why Hal felt the need to win. The Sync was the only place where Hal truly did anything on his own instead of simply assisting Louis. That made it very hard for him, in the moment, to accept being anything less than he could be.

Louis had been happy that at least the last Maverick had gotten them. The training AI running the scenario had berated them for losing a ship, even a simple patrol craft, then reminded them of every point of Union Navy doctrine they had ignored. Unfortunately, it had then begrudgingly praised them for completing the objective and winning the scenario despite the attackers’ clear advantage.

Louis quietly hoped this display would not be weighted too heavily in the overall ranking system.

So, what are the standings now? Louis mentally pushed at Hal, who had been suspiciously silent since they left the Sync.

Well… I’ll start by saying it could have been worse, Hal responded.

Worse? Hal, pull up the rankings.

Well, just promise you won’t be that mad.

Hal, pull up the rankings!

Hal begrudgingly showed Louis the class rankings. As they appeared in his mind’s eye, Louis went cold.

First Cadre

First Pod

John

Alexandra

Louis

Carl

Mei

They were now in third. They had overtaken Griz, who had held third place for at least the last five years.

This was going to get Louis noticed.

HAL! Louis sent furiously through the link.

His tirade was cut off before it could start by a cold, clipped voice arguing near his piloting couch.

Louis slowly sat up and took in the stunned classroom. A furious Mei squared off against John and Griz, who stood firmly between her and Louis’s couch.

“It’s obvious!” Mei spat. “He is a cheater, and this time we finally have proof! Missiles don’t have the capability to generate screens, yet one of his did so he could win.”

Louis could not decide which would be worse: people thinking he actually had the potential to place third or being branded a cheater. Cheating was not specifically forbidden by the instructors, but anyone who was caught was punished harshly. Louis was doing the mental math to decide whether to agree with Mei’s accusation when Professor McAllister politely coughed.

“Mei, if you will lend me your attention for a second, I think I can shed some light on the subject.”

Professor McAllister had pulled up the missile interception in question on the room’s holo tank. He replayed the moment the screen sprang to life in a five-second loop. Over and over again, the screen appeared for a split second and parted the wall of tungsten shot headed toward Louis’s missiles.

The professor zoomed in on the simulation, fiddling with the controls on the side of the holo tank until they were no longer looking at sensor data. Instead, they saw the oncoming missiles as they would have appeared to the naked eye.

This revealed Hal’s trick. Where the sensor plot had shown only one missile, there were, in fact, two objects: Missile Three and one of the Avenger’s remaining torpedoes.

Mei spluttered as the torpedo came into view. McAllister, always the teacher, took a moment to explain to his class what had happened.

“Ah, what a brilliant move by Cadet Louis. A missile can’t form a defensive screen, but a torpedo can! Now, can anyone tell me why what Cadet Louis did was either insanely lucky or insanely impressive?”

The cadets stood silently until John reluctantly raised his hand from the back of the classroom.

“Ah, yes. Cadet John.”

“The torpedo’s drive is programmed to operate in the Deep, not in normal space. Louis must have reprogrammed it with an entirely new set of parameters sometime before the intercept. Not only that, but a torpedo’s drive isn’t very strong because it only needs to operate in the Deep. The screen tuning would have to be perfect, using an exact calculation of the local gravity to get even a temporary screen to form. Louis must not only have completed the recalibration but also have predicted the point of interception to within 0.1 AU.”

It was actually 0.025 AU, Hal murmured to Louis through the link. Mark Twos have weaker drives than the newer torpedo models.

As everyone in the classroom turned toward him, Louis felt his face flush in a rare loss of control. He could see the rest of his pod racing through the math in their minds as Dr. McAllister let out a peal of laughter.

“What a display! Louis, who knew adrenaline and the Sync were all you needed to unlock your astrophysics potential? If only my tests would get your blood pumping as much as the Sync did!”

“Now, where was I?”

With all the self-importance of a longtime lecturer, Dr. McAllister resumed his lesson.

Louis’s mind raced as Dr. McAllister finished his lecture and assigned four math problems to his cadets, including the very calculation Louis had used to reprogram his miracle torpedo.

As the class broke apart, another line appeared in front of Louis. This time it was the default green, a sign that Hal must have known Louis still had not forgiven him for his previous antics. It led Louis to join up with the rest of his pod and march in perfect order out the door.

It was the discipline of the pod that saved Louis. Throughout the rest of the instruction, though, Louis felt their eyes on him. From explosives to engineering, Louis felt them appraising him, reweighing their opinion of him. Their threat assessment of him.

This gave Louis time to work on a believable story that could explain his sudden jump in skill. He needed something just outrageous enough to be believable, but ordinary enough to be forgotten.

Despite splitting his focus during instruction, he still had nothing by the time the cadets went to mess. So he and Hal had to fall back on Plan B: blame it on dumb luck.

As they approached the mess hall, Louis reflected that it wasn’t a very good plan.

His pod was the last of their cadre to eat, one of their privileges as the First Pod. As they walked into the mess for their evening meal, the entire hall fell silent.

This time, Louis avoided any visible reaction as every pair of eyes tracked him. Louis knew that taking Griz’s spot would create a splash, but he had hoped against all odds that it wouldn’t be this large.

Then the room filled with quiet chatter as the pods fell back into conversation. Louis knew how the station rumor mill worked, however. Most of those conversations would be about him.

Louis’s old pod, the Second Pod, actually let out a small cheer as he passed. All but Henry. Louis’s rise through the ranks had pushed Mei from fourth to fifth and forced Henry out of First Pod. His eyes were firmly fixed on Mei. She and Henry had a thing. Well, as much of a thing as cadets could have on the station. They had once spent almost every waking hour together. Now Mei was lucky to see him at mess.

After collecting his food, a surprisingly good chicken and rice dish, Louis sat down to eat with his pod and was immediately set upon by John.

“So, Louis,” John said between bites of his food, “I didn’t know you were that good at piloting.”

He left the sentence trailing there like an old-fashioned noose for Louis to hang himself with.

“I’m not,” Louis mumbled, using the excuse of eating to avoid anything approaching a real answer.

Griz let out a rumble of a laugh, surprising Louis. He had expected him to be more upset about losing his traditional spot in third.

“Not that good of a pilot? Louis, I haven’t been beaten so badly in any combat scenario since the instructors first taught us Pustota.”

Louis internally cringed at the image. Griz had been too large to reasonably learn by fighting the other cadets, so Hollister had made him his personal sparring partner, and the instructor never went easy on recruits.

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad, was it?” Louis tried to rebuff Griz’s comment. “I just got lucky, that’s all.”

“I’m due that kind of luck,” Alex said from across the table, her eyes sparkling. She really only ever came alive when they talked about piloting. “I think you could have given even me a real run there, Louis. I wish we had ended up on opposite sides,” she said wistfully. “I’ve been flying against these guys so long I’m due for a bit of a challenge.”

At the word challenge, her eyes flashed with a bit of manic energy as she gestured around the table.

Oooo, tell her to pick the time and the place, Louis, Hal sent, ending the silence he had maintained to let Louis cool off. We could take her.

No, Hal, Louis shot back. We have to stay under the radar.

Louis was so absorbed talking to Hal that he almost missed the subtle nudge Alex gave Mei with her elbow.

“Yes, Louis. Great flying,” Mei mumbled, rolling her eyes as she got up from the table, her food half-finished.

She shared a longing glance with Henry before mumbling an excuse about the bathroom and quickly leaving the mess hall.

“Don’t mind her,” Alex said, scooting over to fill the void left by Mei. “How did you manage that trick with the torpedo? You must be great at multitasking and modeling to get everything in order like that and make such a smooth ascent.”

Louis felt Hal puff up through the link at Alex’s praise.

Before he could assemble a response that wasn’t Hal spilling their secrets, Alex froze momentarily as she and the rest of the mess received a message from their Shadows.

What’s going on, Hal? Louis quietly pushed, relying on Hal to get him any information that was shared digitally.

Oh, looks like evening instruction and free time are canceled, Hal thought back to him. Looks like the Director is calling a general assembly. Oh, and mess only lasts about another four minutes.

Suddenly, there wasn’t time for any more conversation in the mess hall as every cadet began cleaning their plates as fast as they could. Though their diets were strictly controlled by the station’s nutritional AI, the cadets always felt like they were starving. No one was going to leave a plate half-finished unless they absolutely had to.

Louis caught a quick glance between Griz and John as they got up from the table, but only realized what it meant when Griz bussed Mei’s plate.

Louis knew that even though it wasn’t his fault, Mei would blame him for missing the rest of her meal.

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I'll kiss your lips with an aching tooth in my mouth
I'll place my freshly pulled tooth on your ring
I'll mix Apranax in your drink
so that you think
your toothache is gone because you met me
I'll describe the paint color I want for our bedroom
to the ironmonger as tooth yellow.

I'm fifty-one years old, and this is the only poem I've ever written, which I wrote ten years ago.

I don't really like writing poetry, because I'm not good at it. I especially enjoy the sound of poems with rhyming lines; they sound like music to my ears. But I've tried a few times and failed miserably. I couldn't write a good poem. I'd written this poem for my dentist, who knew I was a writer and with whom I had a good relationship. I mean, I hadn't written the poem for her. I'd simply wanted to write a poem about teeth.

She was a very beautiful woman. I had no feelings for her, but she'd misunderstood the poem I'd written and thought I was making a move on her. She'd given me a pretty harsh telling-off. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get her to understand that the poem wasn't written for anyone in particular, and that it hadn't been inspired by any feelings I had for someone.

Anyway, my publisher was telling me that sales of my latest novel were terrible. He kept calling me and bringing me down.

“Maybe you should stop writing horror novels and start writing detective fiction instead. You know me, even two sentences from you are enough to move me. I can't sleep at night. But this latest novel of yours was an absolute fiasco. I seriously regret publishing it.”

I was tired of his calls and him repeating the same things in different ways for two months. He was almost going to ask me to compensate him for his losses. He wanted me to write and finish something else as soon as possible and make up for the losses I'd caused him. He didn't want to wait.

But I'd been overcome by the fear of not being able to write well. I'd been deeply affected by public opinion. Albert, the successful writer of many years, can no longer write... The story's opening is too rushed... The ending doesn't come together properly... Even an elementary school kid could come up with these descriptions... We're sick of ghosts that appear at night... And so on.

If he called today, I wasn't going to answer. He called every other day to ask, “Have you started the new book yet?” Whenever I said no, it was the same old stuff, the same complaints. For the past month, I'd been sitting down at my computer almost every day, but nothing came of it.

As I sat at my computer, waiting for something to come to mind, my phone rang, of course. I didn't even need to check who was calling. I tensely raised my hand to my head and began running my fingers through my hair. I looked around the objects in my room, as if I might find inspiration in one of them. The bed, the couch, an oil painting my sister had made... Nothing came of it. I pinched a lock of my hair between my fingers and pulled. I looked at my hand. There was a clump of hair between my index and middle fingers. I hadn't realized I was losing so much hair.

It was as if an electric current had passed through my head. Then, in one go, I wrote the following:

''In my 1+1 apartment on the second floor
I was drinking Americano by the balcony door
Suddenly I saw a wig falling down below
with bangs and in the color of dark yellow

I thought one of the neighbors upstairs must have dropped it while leaning over the balcony.
I lunged for it on instinct, trying to catch it. And I caught it, everything happened so quickly.

And the wig was now in my hands
I even caught it by the bangs

I waited for a while,
still in the position to catch it,
holding the wig in my hand,
waiting for someone to call.
But there was no sound at all.

Considering the possibilities,
I thought I should look up first.
But someone could have been down there,
waiting for the wig to fall.

While I was looking around upstairs,
someone called out from below:
“Throw it down already.
What are you looking at like an idiot?”
She was tall like a door
She was as tall as a first floor
I downed my Americano
And calmly threw the wig toward her
She jumped and
caught the wig with her head
and suddenly disappeared.''

I had no idea how it had happened. It was as if I hadn't been the one who wrote it. It was frightening. The way the sentences came to me, the way they lined up in my mind—I had never experienced anything like it. Everything was finished in one go, without any planning whatsoever.

My publisher called. I sent him to voicemail. I read the poem from beginning to end. It was as if I were reading it for the first time, as if I were discovering the poem all over again. It wasn't the kind of poem I could have written anyway, not in terms of its subject matter. I wouldn't describe ghosts or entities like this; I would leave them shrouded in mystery. In this poem, the ghost was very concrete.

My publisher called again. I answered this time. I was going to tell him I had an idea or something. I was such an idiot, always telling him the truth: inspiration wasn't coming, I couldn't write, my mind felt frozen, and so on. I picked up the phone, planning to ask him to give me a month and tell him I'd deliver a novel of at least two hundred pages.

“So, Albert, any progress? How many pages have you written?”

Suddenly, my mouth had locked up. I couldn't speak. The words I wanted to say were only passing through my mind; they wouldn't come out. All I could manage were sounds like “mmmh.”

“Albert? Hello?”

I started reciting the poem I'd just written. I read it from beginning to end. My mouth wasn't under my brain's control.

“What is this? What’s going on?”

''Hello?''

''Albert, what's going on?''

I could speak again now. It would have been ridiculous to say that something had taken control of my mouth and fingers. I had to say something, but I was too frightened to think. My mind was in turmoil. I hung up.

My publisher called again. I don’t remember that moment very clearly, but I mumbled something along these lines.

“What was that thing you were telling me about? So now you’re hanging up on me, too. Is this what we’ve come to, Albert? After all these years of working togeth—”

“It’s me, John. Did you like my poem? Jason, I was going to ca— If you want, I can write a few more poems like this... Jason, I can’t spea—I could even write five hundred poems in the same style, if you like. Do you publish po— Jason, my mouth is going numb. I don’t feel well. I’ll call you back in a bi— Listen, I wrote this three hundred years ago.”

I hung up. I jumped to my feet. I licked and bit my lips. I took a deep breath, and as I exhaled, the following words spilled out of my mouth:

''He figured out how to pass through
Walls within a year or two
But he still can't pass through wood
The ghost in my lover's neighborhood.''

My publisher kept calling insistently. His calls felt like a voice reminding me of my connection to this world. I'd set my phone's ringtone to Radiohead's “Weird Fishes.” The song played throughout each call. I couldn't move; my body was locked up, but hearing the song comforted me. When the song ended, I'd try to take a step, but I couldn't. I'd try to speak, but I couldn't move my mouth. It was as if I'd had a stroke. Then the song would start again. Yes, I'd tell myself, “I'm still alive. The world still makes sense.”

The song had stopped playing, too. My connection to the world had been severed.

I came to my senses again for a brief moment. I sat down at my computer. The screen was covered in dust. I noticed a cloth right next to the monitor. I couldn't remember when I'd put it there. I wiped the monitor clean. The poem looked better now.

I was completely focused, entirely cut off from the outside world. Things had finally reached the point I'd been waiting for in the film I'd been watching for a full hour, and I was at the height of my concentration. The detective, who had been tracking down the culprit for the past hour, was now very close to catching and exposing him, and I was incredibly curious. He was about to open the door, walk in, and discover the culprit's identity. I was moments away from finding out whether my suspect was right.

When we look at something, we also see what's to our left and right, albeit vaguely. While watching the television directly in front of us, we can perceive the fan a meter to its right swiveling from side to side. Other objects and movements become blurrier as they move farther away from the center of our field of vision. Everyone knows this and is usually aware of it. Even if your grandfather, sitting to your right at dinner, isn't looking at you, he'll notice if you secretly flip off your brother sitting across from you.

At that moment, the world was nothing more than a rectangle to me. My field of vision had no depth. Ten eagles could have been flying around the room, and I wouldn't have noticed them unless they passed in front of the screen. I had to find out who the culprit was.

Even if you bring your eyes into sharp focus, your ears can't do the same and remain even more open to the outside world than your eyes. When you listen to a song you love, your ears become fully absorbed in it, and your eyes join in, too. You drift away, and your field of vision narrows. But your ears can't join your eyes in doing the same.

“Albert, shut your laptop,” I heard a whisper just as the detective was about to open the door.

At first, I thought it had come from the film. There was no character named Albert in it, and the laptop had very little to do with the plot, but still, I didn't want to take my eyes off the screen before the detective opened that door. However, I'd started thinking by then. A new thought had formed in my mind, and it had weakened my focus. I would enjoy finding out who the culprit was a little less.

I paused the film. I was still looking at the screen, but my field of vision had widened and become rounded again.

I thought I saw a ripple on my right. A moving, blurry image, about a meter in size.

When I turned my head to look, there was nothing there. I looked back at the screen. I thought to myself that being this focused wasn't good either. It bothered me that I was experiencing a mental activity so intensely when the only reason for it was a film. Was finding out who the culprit was really that important? I never focused this intensely when writing my stories, working on a thesis I had to finish, or learning Spanish in the course I'd recently started. That was probably why I'd heard the whisper, too. It was a trick of my mind.

I turned back to the screen. My desire to find out had diminished. Reluctantly, I pressed play.

But then I saw that ripple again. A transparent, shapeless thing, moving randomly. Like a transparent fire, its movements resembled those of a burning flame. I pressed pause.

When I turned my head to the right, it wasn't there again.

A sense of unease had come over me. I stared at the spot where the blur had been. There was no movement at all. All the objects stood still, just as they were.

This time, I saw the same ripple on my left, right in front of the laptop on my lap. I sharply turned my eyes back to the screen. Nothing. The detective walking toward the door, the confident expression on his face. That was all.

I set the laptop aside. I threw off the blanket I'd pulled up to my chest, got out of bed, and sat down at my desk.

I picked up my Spanish dictionary and opened it to a random page to calm myself down a little. I read a few words. The ripple was above me. I looked up at the ceiling, and now it was on the left. I turned to the left, and it moved to the right. Its size changed every time. Sometimes it was a one-meter rectangle, sometimes a scattered circle ten centimeters in diameter, and sometimes a thick line stretching from the floor to the ceiling.

I left the room, and it was on my right, in the shape of a circle. I couldn't get rid of it. My palms were sweating. Now it was on my left. I kept turning my head from side to side, up and down. And I could never bring it into my vertical field of vision; it was always outside it.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my T-shirt. Now it was above me. I tried closing my eyes. But I couldn't. The moment I closed them, a sharp fear would immediately take hold of me, and I'd open them again before even two seconds had passed. My gaze had grown much faster now. Left, right, up, left, down, right, up. I was looking around like crazy. I was like a camera trying to bring an image into focus.

I finally ended up with a stiff neck after one wrong movement.

I could no longer turn my head to the left.

And the ripple was on my left.

I turned to the left with my whole body. It stayed on my left. I turned left once more. It slipped to my left again.

I had turned a full circle. Now it only appeared on my left. It seemed to have found my weak spot. Every time I turned, I instinctively turned my neck a little, too. You know what a stiff neck is like. It's quite painful and sudden. During the day, you forget that your neck is stiff, and if someone calls out to you from your left, you turn to look at them. You feel that sharp little ache.

So I stopped trying to catch it. It stayed on my left, rippling. Sometimes it stretched out, sometimes it shrank, and sometimes it disappeared quickly and reappeared. I moved my pupils as far to the left as I could. Yes, now it had moved to the right, because my field of vision on the left had been reduced to zero.

Now only my pupils were moving. But the image was even closer. And it was getting closer and closer.

Finally, while I was looking straight ahead, I saw it. It hadn't gone away. It's impossible to describe its shape.

“I'm x56 c 66 bmf 8 bmd 8 g 9 kdr 8 889 klkw 999 c 3 d 3 v 3 m 3 g 3 o 3 12345. Thank you for playing with me. By the way, the killer is Michael,” said a voice from very far away, heavily echoing and robotic, sounding a little like a creaking door.

Without knowing why, I tried to catch it with my hand. It was an arm's length away. I'd acted impulsively out of excitement. And it vanished instantly.

The quick, deep breath I drew through my nose passed through my nose hairs and rubbed against my completely dried-out nasopharynx, producing a sound that was a mixture of a faint snore and a low-pitched whistle. I held the breath in my lungs for a while, then slowly exhaled.

I went back into my room, sat down in the armchair, and for some reason, burst into tears. It was like a catharsis. I couldn't remember ever crying this intensely before. Or maybe I was simply crying out of fear, but I wasn't sure that fear could trigger such an intense crying response.

I wiped my eyes, and just as I was about to get up to wash my face, the ripple began speaking from the ceiling, right next to the lamp. It had watched me cry the whole time. Strange.

“If you want to play with me again, all you have to do is look in the mirror and say my name three times, and don't worry, your memory will be erased by tomorrow evening. You'll only remember my name. You'll try to figure out what the hell it was, whether it was your old Wi-Fi password or something. Anyway, Albert, I'm out of here. Take care. It was nice meeting you.”

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“The United States has reached an agreement with Thali’ean representative Prince Nelivit of House Bravillia to formalize military cooperation with Thali’ean and the Hispana Republic, marking a major expansion of the growing coalition against the Unity. The agreement still requires approval from Congress, but its passage is widely expected and would formally bring the United States into the coalition.

As part of the expanding US/USAM Grand Strategy, General Kelvin Sherman announced plans to establish Field Force II inside the theater of war, beginning with the Thali’ean capital of Ellaqua. The 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division is expected to conduct a combat parachute operation within two days to secure the area and begin construction of a new airfield. The 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division will follow, with the newly arrived 10th Mountain Division and 7th MDTF deploying once the field is operational. Their mission will be to defend Ellaqua and begin combat operations against Unity forces.

The establishment of Field Force II is also expected to pave the way for Hispana Republic forces to form Field Force III, creating a three-force military structure across the coalition. Sherman described the arrangement as the beginning of a long-term strategy to connect the three nations through a triangular logistical network capable of moving troops, equipment, and supplies efficiently across the theater.

If Congress approves the agreement, as most experts expect, General Sherman is also expected to receive promotion to Six-Star General, a rank that has been awarded only three times in American history. John J. Pershing received the title during World War I, while George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant received it posthumously as honorary appointments.

The White House defended the proposed promotion, stating that the unprecedented scale and importance of the war requires a senior commander capable of unifying military forces from multiple worlds. “This is not simply an American war,” officials said. “It is a conflict that requires our nations and our militaries to operate as one.” - Salva Dioliet

June 12th, 2069 (Military Calendar)

Prime Lord Palace, Affrooliea

Nevali Region, Aldrida, Alagore

*****

Illythia walked through the Palace halls, lifting the hem of her dress to keep it from the blood smeared across the marble floor. The copper scent still lingered in the air despite the open windows, mixing with dust from shattered stone.

Hundreds of slaves worked tirelessly to restore the Palace to its former glory, though it would be a monumental task. Statues lay shattered. Stonework had collapsed. Palace automatons had been reduced to twisted wreckage. The walls were scarred by magic and energy blasts, riddled with bullet holes. Paintings and decorative drapes had been ruined, while entire sections of the structure had been blasted open.

She had always understood that the Altaerrie humans posed a threat.

Illythia simply hadn't expected them to inflict this much damage.

After following a Palace Guard to the throne chamber, she found Verliance Lord Kallem standing beside the Prime Lord's throne. Below him knelt dozens of nobles from across Nevali, each pledging their loyalty and, more importantly, their support for the coming war.

After some time, the nobles were dismissed from the lecture chamber, encouraged by General Ayark to prepare their Houses for the conflict.

Once the room had emptied, the Kiriyak General turned toward the Vampire Lord, unable to hide his irritation.

He openly questioned why Kallem had allowed nobles who challenged Verliance authority during the summit to leave unpunished.

Kallem answered with a lecture of his own.

He criticized Ayark for failing to trap the Salva delegation, allowing them to escape while an old rival seized the opportunity to ignite a rebellion against the throne.

Ayark argued that no one could have predicted a revolt erupting at the exact moment he cornered the delegation in the market. Victory would have been theirs had traitors not intervened.

Even Kallem conceded that point.

Only then did Ayark rise.

“If we had attacked their compound when I first suggested it, they never would have escaped... nor would this rebellion have happened.”

Illythia quietly shook her head.

A capable and brutal general, Ayark was not burdened by many of his people's rigid traditions.

Politics, however, had never been his battlefield.

The Vampire Lord reprimanded him for failing to understand the delicate political position they occupied before dismissing the General and ordering him to restore order throughout the city.

Illythia stepped back into the hallway.

When Ayark emerged, genuine surprise crossed his face.

“Mistress. I was not expecting you.”

“I do not need to announce my presence beforehand,” Illythia replied coolly. “And you should know better than to question Kallem so openly.”

Ayark glanced back toward the throne chamber, annoyance evident in his expression.

“His schemes are why we failed to kill the child and the Altaerrie man. And it will never be easier than today. The Templar wasn't even among them.”

“No,” Illythia answered. “On this, he is correct. An unprovoked attack would have driven many City-States into that child slave hand. His schemes are the reason House Verliance has remained on the throne for generations.”

Her response only deepened the Kiriyak's frustration. Still, he held his tongue out of respect for his Mistress. Still, that didn’t stop him from giving a frustrated growl as he marched away, gathering Palace Guards as he departed to suppress what resistance remained within the city.

The Kiriyak was a blunt weapon, she thought. Useful in battle. Dangerous in politics. But valuable to have, in case anyone crossed her path.

Once the hallway fell silent again, Illythia entered the throne chamber.

There she found her Lord seated upon the Prime Lord's throne, quietly reflecting on the recent battle. It was a rare glimpse of vulnerability and one she quietly savored.

“My Lord,” she said. “If anyone has earned rest, it is you after today's victory.”

“Do not lecture me, Illythia,” Kallem replied.

He straightened his posture before rising from the throne. His armor still bore the marks of battle. Bullet impacts scarred the breastplate, the sides were scorched black by spells, and enemy blood stained the polished metal.

“Why are you not assisting my daughter?”

“Your daughter is doing an exceptional job governing your realm in your absence,” Illythia replied. “Naturally, I have offered guidance with the daily affairs where appropriate.”

This caused her to smile faintly. “I will even offer you a compliment. You raised your daughter well. Mine could never bear the strain of governing a city—let alone an empire—alone.”

“She takes after her mother,” Kallem answered. “Very few could withstand such responsibility. After our children's marriage, your daughter will learn the art of governing an empire.”

Part of Illythia almost laughed but was forced to restrain herself. To her frustration, her Lord noticed that slight emotional hiccup and would have noted that minor detail for later.

The idea of Viessa ruling independently was amusing. Still, she had to admit Kallem's daughter, Ornnallia, had managed the responsibilities left behind by her late mother with remarkable competence.

Though she disagreed with one point. Ornnallia resembled her father far more than her mother. Her confidence. Her discipline. Even the way she carried herself.

“I must disagree,” Illythia said. “She takes after you.”

“Perhaps now,” Kallem replied. “In my youth, I was more like Ere-hian. My discipline was never taught. It was forged through decades of disappointing my father. Grandfather, and brothers.”

“Now... why are you here?”

“Our Houses may soon become one,” Illythia answered, “but I am still under no obligation to explain my travels.”

She folded her hands behind her back as she slowly wandered around the chamber.

“I wished to see how the war front progressed. I had grown weary of remaining inside your castle.”

“You could have gone anywhere,” Kallem replied. “Coming this close to the front was unnecessary... and dangerous.”

Illythiav couldn’t help but have a playful smile spread across her face. She continued circling the chamber with graceful confidence, deliberately testing the boundaries she had spent years slowly moving.

 “You do care about my well-being.”

Kallem merely exhaled, as though accepting that she had no intention of leaving.

“If you must know,” he said, “I have secured House Verliance's position within Nevali.”

He looked toward one of the shattered windows overlooking the city.

“From here... we will drive the invaders from my lands.”

Before Illythia could respond, she watched the Vampire Lord turn and leave the throne chamber.

She quietly sighed. His habit of ending conversations on his own terms remained as irritating as ever. At every opportunity, he reminded those around him that he occupied the highest seat in Aldrida. It was a tactic she herself often employed.

The Mistress simply disliked having it used against her.

Quickening her pace, she caught up and fell into step beside him. “There is something I have wished to ask.”

Kallem continued walking without acknowledging her.

“I understand why we seek to defeat the Altaerrie and secure the Orilla device,” she continued. “But your interest in these lands existed long before its discovery. Why do you care about these backwater people? They are beneath our race.”

“They are beneath us,” Kallem answered. “Yet there is power hidden within these lands. Not in technology... but in something far more dangerous.”

“Forgettable hill folk? That is why you care about them?”

“Yes.”

His answer came without hesitation.

“The terrain discourages central authority, but not permanently. If you recall, the former Elf-Vampire alliance of Uristans was birthed here. Under the right ruler, these lands become a powerful foundation for expanding an empire. Hispana understood that when it elevated the current family to govern this region.”

He continued through the corridor, passing servants and guards alike. “Nevali provides resources, manpower, and a naturally defensible frontier capable of sustaining any prolonged war.”

“That is a logical assessment,” Illythia admitted, “but history does not support it. Even the Balan puppet rulers struggled to maintain order.”

“As I said... under one who is worthy.”

“And you believe you are that ruler?”

The words escaped before she fully understood what they implied. Then realization struck.

Her crimson eyes narrowed. “That is why you are wary of that slave girl... and the Altaerrie human.”

Kallem offered no reply, which, in that silence alone, confirmed her suspicion.

The Lord of House Verliance—the man who had ruled the Aristocracy for decades—considered those two a genuine threat. Maybe not militarily, but politically.

“So that was the purpose of this elaborate scheme?” she asked. “Everything... simply to confront your newest enemies?”

“Mistress Illythia.” His voice remained calm. “I expected better from you.”

He continued walking, hands folded behind his back. “You, of all people, should understand the value of a powerful story. These are not ordinary humans, left unchecked; everything I have built here will eventually crumble.”

“Then the Aristocracy will find itself surrounded on every side.”

“Surrounded?” Illythia asked. “Last I checked, the Unity remains our ally.”

Again... No answer. The two continued through the Palace halls.

Whenever servants or guards noticed Kallem's presence, they immediately halted what they were doing and knelt.

His silence left Illythia alone with her thoughts. There was no denying that Kallem had identified the Altaerrie as a threat, just as he had recognized the danger posed by the Unity decades earlier. Yet something had never made sense. Yet, he had surrendered to the Crusaders to spare his people from invasion. That decision had always troubled her.

A ruler of Kallem's stature should never have yielded so quickly after sacrificing so much blood and treasure resisting the Unity's onslaught. The only explanation she had ever accepted was the assassination of his wife by Hispana during a failed attempt on his life.

Even after her death..., he never sought vengeance.

Instead, he withdrew the Aristocracy from broader affairs and devoted himself almost entirely to Nevali and domestic stability.

Officially, the Aristocracy and the Unity remained allies. Unofficially....

“Kallem,” she said, breaking the silence once more. “If you truly consider these humans—and these Ryders—such a threat, why invite them to dine with you before attempting to capture them?”

She tilted her head slightly. “I understand the importance of appearances, but arresting them immediately would have solved many of the concerns you now speak of.”

“I fear nothing,” Kallem replied evenly. “And it would not have been appropriate to seize them at that stage. As Heads of our respective Houses, I believed it appropriate that we first share a meal before my plans unfolded.”

“So... you manipulated them into attacking the Palace.”

As they approached a pair of towering double doors, Illythia slowed.

If the stories surrounding Ryder's attachment to the Orcs were true—and after Kallem had displayed them before the summit—the Altaerrie Captain would have assaulted the Palace regardless.

The dinner had served another purpose. This caused her smile to widen. “You wished to see your former slave again... didn't you?”

Kallem reached for the doors. For the first time, his mannerisms hesitated. But only for a heartbeat.

Yet that single pause was worth more than any confession. It confirmed everything. He had wanted to see the slave girl again. Just as importantly, it revealed something else.

Kallem respected the Altaerrie Captain who had become her father.

There remained one detail she still couldn't reconcile. When Ryder and Assiaya escaped the first time at Forlace, Kallem's response had seemed almost restrained.

Initially, she assumed they had simply slipped through his grasp after taking the unexpected western route instead of fleeing north. Now, knowing how much the Vampire Lord cared about the girl.

“Interesting,” she murmured.

The pair stepped onto a broad stone balcony overlooking the city, and this was where Kallem had finally stopped, with his crimson eyes looking west.

Far beyond the city walls, faint flashes illuminated the horizon as artillery continued exchanging fire. The distant echoes rolled across the countryside like approaching thunder.

“You asked why I seek to clash with this Altaerrie man,” Kallem finally said. “Since the beginning of his war—when we first crossed paths upon his world—our destinies have been intertwined.”

He rested both hands upon the stone railing. “When fighting the Unity, there were no honorable battles. No worthy opponents. Only necessity for our survival. And in the end... I was forced to concede.”

His eyes remained fixed on the distant horizon. “But here... there will be no compromise. There will be a proper contest. One of us will prevail. The other will fall.”

“You have always been a strange man, my Lord,” Illythia said softly. Finding the statement humorous.

She understood his meaning. Seeking an honorable war, yet that doesn’t mean she agreed with this notion of armor. Only victory.

“You speak as though you seek redemption.”

“Redemption?” Kallem gave the faintest shake of his head. “No. I am preparing for the future.”

The Lord of the Verliance Houlse stared out, watching the glow of battle unfolding.

“If we lose here, the Aristocracy itself will become vulnerable.”

“Our allies in the Unity will sense weakness and begin entertaining dangerous ambitions.”

“Our enemies will see only a corpse waiting to be picked apart.”

He finally turned toward her.

“My son—or I—will not be the last of House Verliance.”

“It will outlive the Altaerrie.”

“It will outlive the Unity.”

Illythia rested one hand upon the stone railing beside him.

Not touching him. Not yet. But closer than most would ever dare stand. Years ago, he had rejected her marriage proposal, as she had anticipated.

Little by little, she had pushed against the boundaries he established, slowly becoming one of the few people permitted this close to him. Standing beside the Lord of House Verliance, one thought lingered in her mind.

It wasn't the way he spoke about Ryder that interested her. She had rarely heard Kallem speak of an enemy in such a manner.

It was respect.

That was what unsettled her most. Kallem respected almost no one—not rivals, not allies, and certainly not his enemies.

Yet whenever the Vampire Lord spoke of Mathew Ryder, there was neither contempt nor arrogance.

Only the quiet acknowledgment that somewhere beyond the western horizon walked a man capable of unraveling everything House Verliance had spent generations building.

For Illythia, that realization was far more fascinating than the battle itself.

June 13th, 2069 (Military Calendar)

Salva, Velunara Protectorate

Nevali Region, Aldrida, Alagore

*****

Ryder grabbed the local polë whiskeui, or wheat whiskey, and poured it into the small glass. He then lifted the glass, staring at it.

Next to him was a Dioliet, broadcasting updates on the war.

The campaign against Silvium was on the verge of concluding, thanks to Natilite and the Minutemen's actions. After destroying the Unity and Teviel base, the supply lines were now secured in the north, allowing the United States to bear its full weight against the city. The Brass believes the City-State will fall at any time, opening a safe passage for aircraft in the north.

The other subject was the Public Relations Officer addressing the question regarding the Bridge deactivation. The Officer rejected any claim that the portal had ever malfunctioned, stating that it was only down for maintenance while applying American nuclear power to increase efficiency. Any opposing view was considered grunt gossip, a fear that he acknowledged everyone had.

Ryder knew the truth after listening to a long story from Fraeya about her venture to Mars. It was a crazy tale, with new enemies and mysteries to unravel. A positive note he noticed was her loyalty. Rejecting a senior lead position at Ashurbanipal to stay with Comanche. It was home.

That led to the final part of the daily update. Uprising across Nevali, going from small towns to villages rebelling against their local lords and the Katra, causing chaos for the enemy logistics. Weapons and troops are already slipping through to assist in the new guerrilla campaign.

However, that didn’t translate into the population centers converting to Salva’s side. Kallem’s power became absolute, and most of the neutral City-States now joined the war on the Aristocracy's behalf. Harff mobilized a hundred thousand militia, creating a massive new front that the Coalition didn’t have to defend before. Brutal suppression of the countryside, with anyone caught in rebellion, would be sold to the Unity for judgment.

Most importantly, the rebellion at Affrooliea failed as expected. Anyone who survived the execution was publicly tortured to death. Because so many slaves became sympathetic to the Ryder House, most were instantly killed, even if they remained loyal, while others were given to their Toriffa allies to succumb to their desires.

“I see you have already started without me.”

Ryder turned to see his mentor, Colonel Hackett, turning off the magitech alien radio before taking a seat. “You know, it still surprises me that people used to get their daily news from… that.”

“There was a point where that was the main source. The Internet of its day. If I recall, it lasted about a hundred years before television replaced it. But that is the nature of things.”

The Colonel ordered himself a drink and settled in. “So, what brings you here?”

“Just clearing my head.”

“I can understand.” The Colonel then took a drink. “I saw that Orc family. They were the ones that saved you and Assiaya?”

“Yup.” Ryder leaned into his chair, staring at the Dioliet radio box. “I do wonder if they regret doing that.”

“Don’t ponder on what ifs, Matt. What happened to them was not your fault.”

“I know. They could have turned us on and been shot if they had known Asisaya's identity. It just sucks. I guess the saying is true: no good deed goes unpunished.”

“What happened to them?”

“I had Ceka make arrangements for a home. I think for now, they need time.”

“I know what you are thinking; you did well, Matt. You did well. You all did. The Brass is very pleased.”

“I know, I was there. I am glad to see that Natilite isn’t above her Templar label and trusted us. Otherwise, those Teivel would’ve won. I am concerned about them, though. I can only hope that they will follow her example.”

“She vouched for them, but there is some uneasiness after their deception. Expect the CIA representative for obvious reasons. Even if it was for the greater good, their actions would ruffle some feathers. Still, we will have to learn to work with these Templars. Otherwise, these Teviel will tear us apart.”

“They are not like her. I would like you to talk to them, as Duke of this city. They might respect that more.”

Ryder signed, acknowledging the order.

Wishing to change the subject, he continued, “I do want to say, Fraeya is a lot stronger than she gives herself credit for.”

The Captain was shocked to hear what she had been through. Raiding these ruins was dangerous enough, and yet going through an unknown portal to an unknown destination, which only ended up on Mars. Discovering that each world's Akumas hate each other, and new types of these demons, only made everything more complicated. And yet, she survived. “That’s the second suicidal mission she's been through, and here she is.”

“She is definitely our little elf. Because of her actions, we can bridge to our most critical research facility on Mars, and the White House has given us the lead position on Akkad research.”

“I am proud of her. I really am. I told her father would be proud.”

“And how did she take that?”

Ryder explained that the Elf Girl nearly strangled him to death from her overly expressive and emotional hugs. This made them chuckle before they took a drink.

“I do want to ask, what about that Akkad site Basilisks discovered?”

“We sent a Nightbird to bomb the facility with two Massive Penetrators. We just didn’t have the manpower to secure it form here yet, and we didn’t want this Dwarf-Goblin Order to maintain control of it.”

He didn’t blame the Colonel. Whatever this new faction was up to, it was vital to prevent them from having such a valuable resource. Better to keep those secrets from no one than to let the enemy use them to counter USAM interests.

Sadly, it came at the cost of half of Basilisks. That Minutemen team suffered so many casualties protecting Fraeya that they are no longer combat-effective and have been moved to reserve status. He personally thanked them all for defending his teammate.

When Hackett set his glass down before grabbing the native whiskey bottle, refilling their glasses. “I wanted to tell you, thank you for not lying about Assiaya's astral projection abilities and the fairy possessing her.”

“Last time I tried hiding something from you about her, you basically bitched slapped me. Then promoted me.”

Hackett simply chuckled, finding the memory humorous. “I am glad you have learned from that. It has been a major subject of discussion at VI Corps on what to do with that information.”

“They're not taking her,” Ryder boldly stated.

“No need to get defensive,” Hackett calmly responded. “No one is planning on taking her. More than that, she opens another question this world has. No one knows about this ability, or about these fairies-.”

“Kallem knew.” Ryder then took a long drink.

Hackett nodded his head, coming to the same conclusion. “I agree. We also concluded that is why he told everyone the Princess was dead, and kept her as his personal slave. To hide that truth.”

Ryder picked up his refilled glass, staring at it.

This revelation struck deeper for him. The relationship between the Vampire Lord and his daughter was deeper than he expected. What bothered him was that Kallem had feelings for her. Not romantic in nature, but there was some level of care. Enough to influence his foreign policy, such as that conspiracy with those City-States to humiliate and capture his House.

“Look at the bright side,” Hackett said. “At least we know he wasn’t the one who tried assassinating you, or sent that fake duchess woman.”

Ryder already knew the answer to that. With their short dinner conversation, he came to the same conclusion. “One date doesn’t mean we are not enemies. I still don’t understand why, though.”

“It is simple, Matt. With the modern world, with drones, instant communication, and all of our gadgets we rely on. We have gotten dirty. It has never been easier to see your enemy as pure evil, nothing redeemable. However, just like the old days, you might be enemies, but you can still have respect for your enemies.”

“It still doesn’t make any sense.”

“What is on your mind?”

“Kalkem respects me? I made a fool of myself in Affrooliea. So many died because of my actions. I fell right into his trap with that Orc family. I compromised everything. I almost got one of my teammates killed over a race everyone hates.”

Hackett took a drink before gently setting his glass down. “Do you regret what you did?”

Ryder held his glass, without hesitation, responded with "no", and took a drink. And that is what concerned him.

“Good. I am not going to say you did everything perfectly; there is no perfection in war or politics. Remember what Holloway said.”

The Alagore Czar was nearly glowing during the debrief about the details. Apparently, he never believed this diplomatic mission would have succeeded. When the Colonel said they wanted to make a statement, they wanted to show everyone that the Americans wouldn’t take any humiliation lying down.

In short, they sent their flagship team into the heart of the beast, knowing they would cause trouble. If this was a trap, which it was, the opportunities for chaos would emerge, and the Captain and Ambassador would exploit it. Which they did explosively.

Holloway didn’t care about the liberation of the Orc slaves in detail, as his interest was in winning the war, not making an anti-slavery point. However, the man enjoyed the fact that it rubbed into the faces of all the nobility in the region. One of his greatest fears was that Ryder’s House would blend into the environment too much, where many would only see the same. No, he wanted to shake this up, and freeing the Orcs sent a message that they were here to play a new game.

And that brought up the most important point for the Czar, escorting a Slave Trader to Salva, under the agreement of protection and exclusivity for his practice. Out of everything that had happened, Ryder believed this point was what would have nailed him in the eyes of the Brass. Freeing slaves is good PR for the American people, but working with one?

However, it was exactly what the CIA wanted. Through the Orugia business network, the United States intelligence agencies can expand their influence in a world they have never been to before. To listen and install agents when needed in places they currently cannot reach. More importantly, with this arrangement, this Slave Trader can find and smuggle people of interest to Salva to be freed. Warriors, leaders, religious folk, potential allies, anyone of value to building the Velunara Protectorate or the war effort, with a superpower funding it.

The icing on the cake was securing new allies. They were not the ones the White House would have preferred. While it wasn’t expected to secure entire City-States at this summit, that would have been ideal. Yet, many Nobles and Guild Masters willingly volunteering to fight alongside the Assiaya throne, and opening the countryside with thousands of new allies and troops, is a game-changer for this current slugfest.

“That this was a successful mission. The Czar was nearly levitating with us shooting up a palace, on top of starting a civil war there. That Kallem's stranglehold in this region was secured, but cracks are forming.”

“That is correct,” Hackett said. “Remember right before all this started? When you asked me to assign Fraeya to your team?”

“Yeah?”

“I hated the idea. She was an unknown, let alone an alien, and the Minutemen are a Tier-1 SF unit. Giving that kind of expectation wasn’t inside any doctrine that would be acceptable on Earth. And then Natilite came, and you allowed her on without asking.”

“Well… you tell a genetically augmented super soldier that she couldn’t,” Ryder replied.

“That did cross my mind, yet I think she would have honored my decision if I said no, which I considered. However, by that point, I was starting to see the benefits.”

“Thank you, sir, but why are you saying this?”

Fraeya learned that she can be essential under pressure, that she isn’t a fifth wheel. Natilite, even as an augmented super-soldier, achieved victory only through cooperation and trust in us lessers. When your back is against the wall, you can respond. You were right to trust your gut with Fraeya. Then again, with Natilite, and at Affrooliea.”

“My gut? Yeah… I am not fully certain about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“That Slaver Trader.” Ryder quickly finished his glass before continuing. “The bastard said he allied with me because I wasn’t moral. That I am pragmatic.”

“I can see how that can get under your skin,” Hackett said.

“It isn’t under my skin. The bastard was right. I used to enjoy killing his kind in Northern Mexico and Iraq. Now I am dealing with them.”

The Colonel then took a drink from his whiskey, debating the subject. When he set his glass down, he said, “The Slave Trader is correct. Morality is for fairytales, barbeques, and those who shout from the safety of their classroom, while people who understand the world build civilizations. I know that is hard for men of faith to say, but morality is overrated.”

Ryder slowly set his beer on the table, giving his full attention to the Colonel with wide eyes.  “I am surprised to hear that coming from you.”

“Do not get me wrong, Matt. We should all try to live moral lives; however, we both know that isn’t always in the cards. There was nothing moral about nuking Japan twice; but it was pragmatic to save millions. We had to do what we had to do because that was war, and those who scream the moral sins of that choice, almost two centuries later, well, they never had to make the choice or face the reality of not doing it. It is always easier to take the high ground when you don’t have to make the decision. Or the other extreme, the level of deaths and oppression of communist equity or fundamentalism. Are they moral societies? Yes. Is there also a trail of body bags enforcing that morality? Also, yes.”

Ryder saw the point his mentor was making and agreed. “It was easier when shooting people like Orugia in North Mexico. I just never thought I would have been making those decisions.”

“And that is why I proposed my plan to make Assiaya the Princess, and you the Duke, to the General. Because I know you can make the tough decisions. You can adapt, grow, and make not the moral or pragmatic choice, but the right ones when it matters. You are real, Matt.”

“I know.” Ryder took a deep breath. “It was a successful mission.”

“Good,” Hackett said. “In the end, all you can do is trust your gut. That is all a man can do.”

✦ FIRST CHAPTER ✦ PREVIOUS CHAPTER ✦ NEXT CHAPTER ✦

As Book II—which I’ll admit has been running on for a long time now, which is entirely my fault. Poor planning and other pressing projects took my time. More about that later; for now—and we approach the epic climax, the war.

The city of Vienna is poised on the brink of total collapse as they have finally run out of time.

#1) The war and why it is happening.

The cult is using Vienna as one of the necessary sacrifices to conduct a ritual on a very grand scale. This ritual feeds on the souls of all those sacrificed to allow the incarnation of “The Darkened One” to walk onto the world of Eldamar IX. The reason why Vienna is that of the bastion that is present under the city of Vienna.

When all five continental ritual circles align and link deep through essence conduits, they will form a single ritual circle spanning the entire globe.

The convergence reaches critical saturation, which turns the very air thick with miasma or corrupted essence, which will kill anyone not protected with an aura. As of Chapter 158, we are at T-minus 1 days to D-Day.

It’s safe to say failure in this war will lead to a total wipeout of the city and its population.

#2) THE ENEMY → The Cultist of Darkened One: Ego, Ambition, & Puppet Strings

The “Cult of the Darkened One” is massive, with various clans, factions, and powers, each interpreting the powers of the Darkened One in their own capacity. The cult faction that took over Vienna belongs to the Vasht clan, which focuses on darkness, corruption, rituals, and sorcery as their focus.

SANGVATH ANOR is a pseudonym of Malachar. This faction, while appears to be a cult—and is outlawed and declared as terrorist—isn’t actually a cult. There are only limited members in the SANGVATH ANOR and each of them bears Malachar’s power seed and is known as a Hand. Malachar is an avatar of SANGVATH ANOR, the revenant. Just like in Vienna, we see Malachar leading alongside the cult… he is also present in another form, another avatar in each of the cities where this ritual is being carried out.

As of CH158, the cult has the following ranked cultists and other power force:

NAMED FORCES:

Hierarch Malachar: Rank ??? → Expect minimum power levels of and ORDER V and beyond.

Xerxes: Rank ORDER V+ → He has consumed Hand Vakan—who was crippled by Salvatore—under the manipulation of Malachar and have sort of become a fused chimera individual.

Hand Vella: Rank ORDER V+ → She is the mad chimera alchemist responsible for the creation of Vellakin and Nourma that our heroes faced earlier in the story. She had elf-like features and her actual combat capabilities are unknown.

The Chimera Lord: Rank ORDER V → The latest creation of Hand Vella. She used the body of previous commander Hobbs of Vienna, who was killed by Malachar in the initial phases of invasion. Malachar has also provided his seed to the creation of this chimera.

Apart from the named elites, the enemy currently posses around only 7 ORDER IVs and around 800 cultists at ORDER IIIs. Apart from this, the cult has close to 80k abominations, the monster creations of Hand Vella. She used fragments of her power, Malachar’s power, the Darkened one blessing, and the sacrificed/dead people of Vienna to turn them into monsters.

As of CH158, which is T-minus 1 day to D-Day. The enemy has pulled its forces back strictly to the Cathedral Wards, losing its eyes on the outer sectors. And flooded abominations throughout Vienna.

#3) HERO’S FORCES → The Survivors of Vienna.

As of CH158, the surviving people of Vienna are all holed up in the Bastion, which is an ancient architecture wonder whose true purpose is lost to time, and only a few remember the purpose.

We see hints at how dire the situation becomes—even for the Z.A.C system to acknowledge—when bastion protocols fail. We get more hints at Joe’s elusive past, and the threat of bastion failing had been put off immediate fires with close to one year to find the resolution.

The Veil and the invasion started somewhere around 70-75 days prior to CH158. And it was said the barrier lasted a total of 90 days. Technically, we still have 15 days till then, but the essence density reaches a critical threshold around the total 78-80 days mark, and so Jin had to start the war keeping that in mind. Even though he wants to finish everything in one fell swoop, that is sadly not possible; hence, the war starts on day 76.

Over the course of a couple of weeks after cleaning the bastion of cultist infiltrators, Jin had managed to establish “22 Mage Companies” totaling 2,200 sorcerers all at Base ORDER III power levels.

This is the bulk of Jin’s Army. The members of mage companies could also be termed as “One trick ponies” because the companies know one or two sorceries imprinted into them by Jin.

Mage companies 1-6, being the most experienced, have access to multiple One-verse sorceries.

This may sound mediocre, but the might have one sorcery cast by 100… or 1000 sorcerers all chained together can reach the damage potential of ORDER IV combatants in sheer raw power. They may lack quality, but Jin established these companies for the sole purpose of getting the named leads into the heart of the war, the nexus area of the ritual.

Named forces of Vienna

JIN WINTERS » Our Hero and MC → ORDER III+, but actual combat power levels reach peak ORDER IVs and current levels are unknown after assimilating Trish’s harvest. He has meta knowledge of the world and knows various secrets and high-ranking sorceries.

Rudeus Whitehart » RANK ORDER III+ → Combat power levels reach ORDER IV.

Reyana Silvers » Rank ORDER III+ → Combat power levels reach ORDER IV.

Salvatore Silvers » Effective rank ORDER V purely martial capabilities. His mantle heart was ripped out by the Revenant, making him incapable of using his mantle or any essence. He was in ORDER VI realm before his mantle heart was ripped out. He uses vital energy, his lifeforce, to mimic a fraction of his skills’ power.

Joe » Rank ORDER IV+ → Combat power levels reach ORDER V+.

Mathew Whitehart » Rank ORDER IV+ → Combat power levels reach ORDER V now with the mutation in his mantle boon. We haven’t seen Mathew in an active combat situation, but we have shown him taking out multiple ORDER IV of the cult and inflicting a fate worse than death onto one of them. Similar to how Jin made his mantle to yield harvest from anything rather than just crops, Mathew's mantle of the bastion has also mutated.

Veric » Rank ORDER III → Jin’s right-hand man and the person with the most tactical and military knowledge. He can do the annoying, mundane desk jobs and the various planning parts of maintaining such a big force.

Illiana » Rank ORDER III+ → The master ranked crafter of the bastion.

Elenor » Rank ORDER III+ → Illiana’s sister and an accomplished mage. She is unexperienced and a hero type mentality. Regardless, she is an elite combatant capable of holding against multiple enemies of same rank. She is also a 2nd circle mage, making her a crucial element to mage companies in helping and supporting them merge and combine the braids.

Gleeward » Rank ORDER III → Extremely talented young man, capable of handling multiple enemies of the same rank and if pushed I have no doubt could take on and survive an ORDER IV. Survive… not defeat.

Bram » Rank ORDER III → Leader of 1st mage company, most talented and experienced among all mage companies. He is also the Commanding Officer for Mage Companies reporting to Veric.

#4) THE VARIABLES

Now I’m a firm believer of “No battle plan can survive the first round of a bullet,” and in a war, the advice is doubly true. There are so many variables to account for, and “anything that can go wrong will go wrong” hence, the best our heroes can do is to adapt and take immediate sound decisions which may minimize the losses.

Once such a known variable is the presence of demons. I won’t spoil a lot but in the very start of the series, Jin recalls this:

"I can quote it word for word," Jin muttered as he searched. “The simultaneous fall of Vienna, Svethaal, Rin’ Tora, Mol’Daine, and Karash marked the beginning of the end. Five jewels of civilization, each home to hundreds of thousands of souls, simply... vanished."

"When investigation teams finally reached the sites ninety-one days later, they found only craters filled with horrors that defied classification. No survivors. No answers. Only the terrible certainty that something vast and malevolent had announced its presence to the world."

"And another report mentioned monster corpses. Thousands of them scattered throughout the ruins. But here's the thing—no survivors, yet plenty of dead monsters. That means people fought back. They just weren't strong enough or smart enough to win."

"But the big revelation came in Volume Seven's appendix—demonic essence signature detected in underground tunnels. A whole fucking compound built under the Cathedral of Prime!"

To summarize, Malachar does indeed summon demons, or rather, opens a portal to thier realm in the original timeline. He does this to muddy the waters and help the crown and other leaders deflect the blame onto demons, to push the mindset of war with demons.

So, will we get demons? Jin certainly thinks Malachar will use all the advantage he can get. And as such, he has taken some countermeasures, but “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

So with this, you all are up to speed on everything you all need to know before the war.

Start of the gruesome battle in the next chapter, CH159.

 ✦ FIRST CHAPTER ✦ PREVIOUS CHAPTER ✦ NEXT CHAPTER ✦

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A/N: The war is on!

Bau Bau~

Psst~ Psst~ Advanced chapters are already up on patreon. It would be awesome if you guys, you know...

Help me with rent and UNI is crazy expensive!! Not want much, just enough to chip in.

✦ DISCORD ✦ PATREON ✦

Chapter 159: First, We Do This

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✦ FIRST CHAPTER ✦ PREVIOUS CHAPTER ✦  Prerequisites to War!!! ✦ NEXT CHAPTER ✦

The barrier took the brutal onslaught of the monsters the moment they stepped out onto the surface, and Bram felt the impact it in his teeth.

The veil drowned the whole city in a thick, dark sickly red aura, and only now he could the ramifications of what boss meant by the ambient atmosphere killing anyone not at Order III. There was a persistent ringing in his eyes and even though he was wearing the specialized gear and had his aura shield him from certain death, it wasn’t a 100% shield.

He shuddered, thinking what would have happened if they were still low rankers…

Focus, he chided himself, poured more essence into maintaining the combined thread of sorcery and directing it to the various node points.

The pale blue of the barrier pulsed and flexed inward across a forty-metre face. It went white and the essence density thinned where the pressure gathered but it held.

The Second Company held it.

Bram could see their leads inside of the barrier line with their arms up and their feet planted, mouths working through the same six words over and over.

"TWO, REPORT." Veric came through the comms and Bram was grateful for the voice helping it find calm.

"Two holding. Eighty-one percent."

"Two, you're bowing at the left seam."

"Aware. Correcting."

Above the essence wall, an abomination climbed the corpse of another abomination and came down on the barrier with everything it had. A third and fourth imitated that one..

They were stacking. Nothing in the reports had said they would stack, but then again the monsters were throwing themselves at them uncaring of thier lives. He should expect all known norms of battle to change today.

"They're not stopping," Clara Mashburn said at his shoulder. "Sir. They're not even slowing at the wall."

"No."

"They should slow. Anything alive slows."

"Alive should…" Bram wet his lips. "These things aren’t free will, Clara. Focus. If the situation worsen the lords and the boss will move."

Around him, his hundred men stood dormant in the belly of the column with their palms empty. Only Bram was on correcting and maintaining the sorcery weave duty. Rest had to preserve strength for later.

Waiting for later.

That was the hardest thing Bram had ever done in his life.

"SIX. Take up."

The block at the column's centre raised their hands.

Bram had never worked out what to make of the Chorus. A hundred mages who never attacked anything, ever. They caught what the other companies weaved and they braided it, and the air over the Mile had gone thick and bright with threads that came apart if you tried too hard to look at them.

"What are they doing," he said.

"Catching Four's spill." Clara had her eyes shut, reading it off her own senses. "Four's about to take every drop of moisture out of this end of the avenue. If nobody catches the runoff, Seven through Ten lose their ambient and the sustainers go dark."

"FOUR. Charge."

Fourth Company began the water pulse. It was a one-verse sorcery, and the sorcery wasn’t anything powerful. It was a glorified sorcery that doused the target with water. Like a splash of water.

Still when 100 of these combined together into one weave the pulse looked like a flood. Moisture came up out of the stone and the dead and the sea air, gathered along the barrier's outer face, and hung there in a slow curtain twenty metres deep.

The horde ran into it and kept running. It didn’t do any damage and only stopped them for a few moments. Still, it enabled the company to enact true attacking sorcery with much higher damage potential.

"SEVEN THROUGH TEN, watch your ambient. Four's pulling everything out of the air in front of you."

"Copy, Command."

"FIVE. Stand by."

Fifth Company raised their arms. Bram did not look away, and afterwards he was never sure whether that had been discipline or the other thing.

"Command, Two… left seam's going. I need relief."

"Three, panel up on Two's left. Move now."

Third Company moved, and they moved badly. Two of the front rank crossed feet and went down. The panel came up three seconds late, and in those three seconds something with too many elbows got a shoulder through the seam.

It made four steps into the column. Second's second rank put it down with essence-honed blades, and one of them was slow getting clear and lost most of an arm below the elbow.

Bram saw the arm hit the ground before he saw the woman it had come off. She did not scream.

"Casualty, Two, front rank, arterial—"

"Marked. Eleven, extract." Veric did not raise his voice, and somehow that was worse. "Three. Do that again and I'll have your lead's badge, and then I'll have yours. Panels come up before they're needed. Not when."

"Understood, Command."

Three seconds. Bram made himself hold on to the number. Three seconds of two people finding their feet, and a woman would spend the rest of her life learning to write with the other hand.

"FIVE." A pause on the net while Veric watched something Bram couldn't see. "Chain."

Fifth Company fired.

The lightning combined with sorcery erupted in blinding white and struck the horde. It went clean through the frontal wave of the monsters, blowing their bodies clean off.

Hundreds of monsters dead in an instant. But neither the horde nor the sorcery was finished. Just as more monsters rose over the corpses of their kin, the bolt of lightning splintered and found the bodies doused and standing in the water, and every one of those bodies was touching others. The lightning arcs toward each of them.

Bram watched the flashes of white, and the cacophony of dying screams and wails filled the battlefield.

Thousands upon thousands of abominations convulsed together as the mage company repeated the water pulse sorcery and then followed up again with a lightning sorcery, but this time focusing more on chain rather than raw damage.

The number of corpses, the terrible smell of charred corpses and the cacophony only rose with each step the army took forward.

The barrier also had arcs of light sliding off its surface as it pushed forward.

"Keep advancing." Veric again on the comms. "Barrier factor in and allow dead signatures to pass the barrier. Push against the living signatures. Walk. Two, Three, keep the panel on the front, don't chase the flanks. Go."

The column moved. And another fresh wave of monsters collided with the barrier again.

Eighty seconds. That was the cycle. Barrier, water, chain, twenty to fifty metres.

They had drilled it hundreds of times on the surface, and Bram had hated every drill. But he understood now that he had hated them because they were boring and that boring had been the entire point.

Because today was not boring… it was hell.

◈◈◈

The comms were a mess by the second kilometer marker.

"—Nine, we've got ambient collapse in the green, I can't hold sustainer output at this—"

"Nine, this is Command, throttle to sixty and cycle with Twelve—"

"Command, Four, my second's down—"

"Who's stepping up."

"Voss."

"Voss, you have Fourth Company. Confirm."

A pause. Then a young voice, dragged up out of a well. "Voss has Fourth. Confirmed, sir."

"Good lad. Charge on my count."

Bram listened to a nineteen-year-old inherit a hundred people and take it without arguing, and something went hot in his chest and stayed there. He wanted to find the boy afterwards and tell him. He knew he probably wouldn't, and he was ashamed of knowing it.

Just when they were making good progress and getting used to the surface… a renewed and stronger pressure bore down on them.

Bram's knees folded before his brain had finished registering anything, and he went down on one hand and stayed there with his breath punched out of him. All around him people dropped. Fourth Company's water pulse guttered and came apart in the air.

The barrier flickered.

An Order IV. Somewhere ahead, up the Mile, past the horde and Order IV had showed up.

Bram had never been afraid like this. The fear did not feel like his. It felt installed, put into him from outside by something that had decided he should have it, and the part of him that could still form sentences hated that more than the fear itself.

"AURA EVENT." Vera on the net, thin. "Command, aura event, bearing—"

"I have it," Veric said. "Everybody down and hold. X, one out."

Something went over the top of the barrier.

Bram got his head up in time to see a shape cross the shell from the inside, land in the middle of forty thousand abominations, and vanish into them.

Two seconds of nothing.

Then a sound rose from the horde. It was a devastatingly loud slicing sound, like a sword cutting cleanly through bamboo, only played on the world's loudest speakers. It’s sound, and a shockwave swept across the entire battlefield.

And they just like that, the pressure was gone.

Bram got his lungs working as his aura rose. The column came up off its knees around him. Fourth Company's leads started their verse again from the top with their hands shaking, and the barrier steadied, and somebody behind Bram was being sick and apologizing for it between heaves.

A figure shot from the sky and landed in a crouch six ranks ahead. Bram saw the flash of silver hair. Mr. Silvers straightened and rolled one shoulder. There was blood on him to the elbows, and none of it was his.

"Command, Starkiller," Salvatore's voice on the net was bored. "One underlord abomination. Threat taken care of. There'll be more."

"Copy. Thank you, sir."

"Don't."

Bram was staring. He knew he was staring and could not stop. His fingers dug into his palms. A few weeks ago, he was nothing. He was a salty, helpless young man who took out his frustration on others. And now he stood shoulder to shoulder with figures he could only look up to but never reach.

Whatever one might say about Jin Winters. For Bram, he was his boss who made this possible, and he would not stop at being just an ORDER III. He will rise and protect his people.

A cold chill ran up his arms, breaking his line of thoughts and he looked down to find a silverly chain coiled around his right arm.

“Boss chains?” He muttered.

Then all of a sudden he felt a sting on the arm and everything cleared. The miasma covering and bearing down in his senses cleared up and a rush of fresh essence flooded through him.

The chain then uncoiled and disappeared.

He also noticed the same chains around other leads and also coiled twice around Sir Silvers’ arms.

Clara had felt too. "Sir—"

"That was boss, don’t find the chains."

“Sir,” she nodded.

◈◈◈

The cool wash from the sustainers came at the fifth kilometer marker, and Bram was not ready for how badly he needed it and he realized Boss chains were doing the same thing, but on a more personal and deeper level.

Down the column a hundred people in the Eleventh stood with their hands out and their eyes shut, feeding it forward through the formation. They were the only ones on that road not looking at anything.

"Eleven, you're beautiful," someone said on the open channel.

"Get off the net," Veric said.

"Sir."

"You can marry them after. Two, your panel's dropping. Three, relieve."

Bram laughed. He heard himself do it and could not entirely account for it. Two ranks up a girl called Lira laughed too, and then four more of them, and for about six seconds a section of First Company stood in the middle of a slaughter and laughed like idiots.

Then the horde hit the barrier again, and they were stopped by the might of thier powers.

The survivor’s Wrath.

◈◈◈

The second aura event came at the seventh marker and the sudden increase in pressure was even worse than the first time.

This time there were two of them.

"BREACH RISK, TWO, TWO, THE PANEL—"

"HOLD THE PANEL." Veric went through the net like a nail. "HOLD IT. X—"

Starkiller was already in air.

That was the part Bram would remember, and not the kill because Sir Silvers was flying.

This time, along with the sounds of explosion Bram could see multiple buildings collapsing in a wave from the sheer shockwaves of the attack.

And the pressure came off the column like a lid off a pot.

"Two down." Salvatore sounded, for the first time all day, faintly interested. "Command. Something's…"

"Say again, sir?"

A long pause on the net.

"Nothing," Salvatore said. "Keep your count."

◈◈◈

The chains came at the eighth marker, and nobody on that road ever agreed afterwards about where they came from.

Bram was watching Fifth Company charge when the light over the column changed. He looked up.

Chains… Hundreds of them… rising from somewhere back and low in the formation, arcing over the heads of twenty-two hundred people and out past the barrier in a spread that took the whole width of the Mile.

They went into the horde like rain into a field.

Bram saw one hit an abomination in the chest and pass through without slowing. He saw the thing stop mid-lunge. Then it sagged, and the mass went out of it in under a second, and what dropped on the stone was a grey shell shaped like something that used to be alive.

The chain was already three bodies further on.

They worked in silence. That was the part that got into people afterwards. Forty thousand things screaming, five companies chanting, the barrier singing under load and the chains made no sound at all while they emptied the front two hundred metres of the avenue.

Then the power came back down the line as those very chains found him.

His essence heart had been running at half since the fifth marker. It filled in about two seconds and kept filling until he had to dispense the excess back into the weaves of sorcery.

Up and down the column, twenty-two hundred people staggered and then straightened.

"Command—" Somebody was almost shouting. "Command, my reserves just went to full, what was—"

"Command, Fourth, same, we're at—"

"Command, what is that? Sir, what is—"

"Everyone shut up and use it," Veric said. “Boss helping us out. Don’t question.”

◈◈◈

The Mile ended at the eleventh marker.

Second Company walked the barrier the last forty metres. The horde thinned, and thinned again, and then there was open ground in front of them and the inner curtain beyond it.

Bram had read the brief. He had read it four times, the last time by lamplight at three in the morning with his boots still on. Stone curtain wall, nine metres, single gate, garrison strength unknown.

The column halted. The barrier came down to a maintenance panel.

Somewhere behind him a man was crying and not bothering to hide it, and Bram let him. After all this place was a symbol of people’s faith. The primes were the gods of Vienna and now thier very temple of power corrupted into this.

Ahead, the lead counted off casualties. Bram made himself listen to the whole list. He owed them that much, standing there all day with clean hands.

Then he walked forward through the ranks, because he was First Company and First Company went first, and he stopped about thirty metres out.

He got close enough to see that the wall had faces… faces that resembled vaguely human and judging by the sudden shift in mood and rage he was feeling…

These faces belonged to the once people of the city who were likely captured by the cult.

Comms filtered in information that the wall was just for… show… there was no purpose for it other than to…

“Sadistic cocksuckers,” Bram cursed.

✦ FIRST CHAPTER ✦ PREVIOUS CHAPTER ✦ Prerequisites to War!!! ✦ NEXT CHAPTER ✦

◈◈◈

A/N: The war is on!

Bau Bau~

Psst~ Psst~ Advanced chapters are already up on patreon. It would be awesome if you guys, you know...

Help me with rent and UNI is crazy expensive!! Not want much, just enough to chip in.

✦ DISCORD ✦ PATREON ✦

What follows is a transcript of the interrogation of Legate Gnav Urgela, former Commanding Officer of the Lidis Imperium P.O.W. camp in the northern hemisphere of Tykelion in the system of the same name. The camp mainly housed prisoners from the Federation of Sol and was designated “Camp Tiberius” by Federation Intelligence.

The recording was found by Union Congressional Intelligencers after the liberation of Melva-3. The name of the interrogator has been redacted, only their rank remains.  Translation, transcription, and localization courtesy of Col. Efe Ibeh, Federation Council of Intelligence. 

Provost: You oversaw the camp for how many cycles, Legate?

Legate: I was there since it was constructed.

Provost: How many prisoners were under your watch?

Legate: Roughly twelve thousand when the camp was full.

Provost: But it is no longer full, is it, Legate? How many escaped?

Legate: …My officers tell me the count is close to two hundred and fifty.

Provost: Two…hundred…and…fifty. In one night!

Legate: No, not one night, they had been working away at their plan for many cycles.

Provost: And you were none the wiser, Legate! This happened on your watch, and you did not see, you did not know! It makes one wonder if you have abandoned your oath to The Emperor and allowed it to happen. [Slams on the desk]

Legate: How dare you!? I am a Legate in his Imperial Majesty’s army, and I will not allow such a baseless insult to pass by so unanswered!

Provost: You mean you were a Legate in his Majesty’s Imperial army. You will certainly be losing your command and your rank after this, whether or not you lose your life is up to the throne.

Legate: …What? Without trial? I demand a court martial.

Provost: You are in no place to demand anything, Mister Urgela.

Legate: This is a masquerade of justice.

Provost: Tell us the truth and perhaps his Imperial Majesty will find it in his infinite character to dole out mercy for such a disgrace of an officer.

Legate: [Uninterrupted string of untranslatable curses]

Provost: Speak. What happened?

Legate: [Chair shifts against the floor, sounds of pacing] They tunneled out.

Provost: That is not possible. They had no access to tools for such an endeavour.

Legate: [Remains silent]

Provost: They would have needed tools to dig through the clay and stone, pumps for air as Terrans are so susceptible to poisonous air, and that is not to mention the survey equipment and computers needed to keep a tunnel straight and on target. Are you telling me you provided them with such things? That you were complicit?

Legate: NO!

Provost: Then explain! Did they burrow and dig as though they were giant talpa?!

Legate: I did not provide them with the tools nor the materials, but they made do without.

Provost: “They made do”? That is your explanation. That is your best lie? I thought you smarter than that, Mister Urgela.

Legate: They made the tools themselves.

Provost: How in the minds of the gods did they accomplish that? Did they have a workshop? They had to have had help.

Legate: Not one of my men helped them. You will not drag them into this shameful discourse; you are after me and me alone. Understand!?

Provost: Sit down, or I will be forced to call the guards in.

Legate: [The pacing stops and the chair slides] The Terrans are an industrious bunch. They scavenged metal and other materials from the buildings throughout the camp and manufactured their own tools.

Provost: Surely such a civilization as young as theirs lacks such capabilities and understandings.

Legate: Were my life not on the line I would say that the Terrans may well be the finest tool makers outside of our glorious Imperium.

Provost: But it is, and you are not. [Snaps fingers]

It appears that the exchange preceding the snap was meant to be edited out but it had been reconstructed by some unknown party.

Provost: Even if I did believe that they made the tools themselves and not one guard in the camp noticed, that still leaves the engineering of the tunnel itself. Without navigational data and surveys there is no way they could have managed to dig the tunnel straight and long enough to make the tree line as they did. They had access to such data, and someone in your command gave it to them.

Legate: No, they made do without.

Provost: [dismissive mouth noise]

Legate: I do not know how else to explain it, Provost REDACTED. They did the math the hard way.

Provost: Those prisoners were mere soldiers; they are not educated in such matters. That still does not account for how they made measurements or gathered data.

Legate: They made a measurement device out of homespun rope with pieces of colored cloth tied off at curious intervals. As for the rest, it may have just been educated estimates.

Provost: You mean that a secure prison camp on Imperial land, headed by an Imperial officer was outplayed by simple guesswork!?

Legate: You may not have spent as much time among Terrans as I have, Provost. But they are always looking, always seeing and hearing. I thought it was a quirk of their uncivilized nature but now I see that it is innate to their kind. They observe, they collect, they process, and they plan. Your outrage comes from a place I once stood. I too underestimated them once. Now it seems I shall pay the price for it. I have spoken nothing but the truth, send your men to the camp and see for yourself.

Provost: I am waiting for their report now.

Legate: Then, if you do not mind, I would rather sit in silence with my wounded pride while it is the only part of me that is wounded.

There is some time of silence before the Provost returns.

Provost: I have received the report of my men that were dispatched to your camp. It appears to corroborate everything you have said.

Legate: Just as I knew it would.

Provost: However, it is the official position of his Imperial Majesty that the Federation of Sol are uncivilized barbarian interlopers, and it cannot be known they outplayed the imperium so handily and so simply.

Legate: No…

Provost: [Snaps fingers]

That exchange shows signs of being another restored edit.

Provost: Mister Urgela, you are hereby stripped of your command, your rank, and sentenced to death by firing squad. You will be labeled a traitor, and your family name will carry that shame as long as your line lasts.

Legate: My men, my family, they will not be satisfied with your fabrication, they will want answers, they will want the truth.

Provost: They will make do without.

[The Legate shouts unintelligibly as he is dragged from the room]

END TRANSCRIPTION

Of the 250 Federation escapees from Camp Tiberius, only 4 are accounted for and known to be alive. This transcript was turned over to the Federation Council of Intelligence after Union Congressional authentication and in honor of the Nifflon V Agreement.

The head of the medical department heaved a big sigh, even though its species did not technically have lungs. This had been a very embarrassing experience. It had never needed to deal with another species’ reproductive organs in any depth. Other beings kept their reproductive organs inside their bodies, like normal people, and mostly didn’t even need to think about them until mating season. They certainly didn’t talk about these things outside of their own species. The human doctor it had spoken with had just…told him about human reproduction and sexuality. Just laid it all out. With pictures. It shuddered in remembrance of that conversation.

Now, he had to decide how much of what it had learned to pass on to its whole department. And then he would have to write a report to send on to the major medical stations’ Heads of Medical, as well as something to tell the military. Oh, yes. The military commanders were not going to be happy to need to know this. He needed to include instructions to only ask human medics for any additional information needed. The doctor has told him that the human military were very casual about the subject. And that they were always in season. And liked to have sex, a lot. The doctor had tried to tell him about something they called ’stress relief’. He still didn’t understand how that worked, and really didn’t want to.

First, he thought, was the alert to medical personnel on site. He could worry about the military later. Maybe he could get the senior doctors from the main research institute to talk to the military. Hmmm, that had possibilities…

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Attention all medical personnel:

You are to actually look at human biology, based on actual scans, before assuming that a human male has a soft tissue injury. Human males keep their reproductive organs on the outside of their bodies, between their legs. Yes, really. Apparently that is a major reason the humans wear body coverings.

If you are not absolutely certain of a soft tissue injury, meaning bleeding, do not attempt to debridement in that area. The human will scream and attempt to run away. If cornered, they will become violent. If there are multiple humans in the area, the females will laugh hysterically, but other males may attempt to leave the area with the patient. They may threaten you with live weapons until you go away.

To avoid this behavior, always listen to the patient. If the patient is unconscious, another human male should be consulted. Do not listen to the females in this instance. They may attempt to ’play a joke’ on the male, and the male may react violently once conscious.

It is suggested that the same protocols be used for human females, although they apparently have their reproductive organs mostly inside. The females carry mammary glands on their chests that provide nutrition to their offspring. Unlike most species, human mammary tissue is always present and not just when lactating. The females tend to be touchy about the size of their mammary tissue. It is best to never mention it unless bleeding is present.

In conclusion: reread any available information about the human body. Please do not cause another interspecies incident regarding humans, like last week.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

FIRST

-- --

Blurb/Synopsis

Captain Henry Donnager expected a quiet career babysitting a dusty relic in Area 51. But when a test unlocks a portal to a world of knights and magic, he's thrust into command of Alpha Team, an elite unit tasked with exploring this new realm.

They join the local Adventurers Guild, seeking to unravel the secrets of this fantastical realm and the ancient gateway's creators. As their quests reveal the potent forces of magic, they inadvertently entangle in the volatile politics between local rivalling factions.

With American technology and ancient secrets in the balance, Henry's team navigates alliances and hostilities, enlisting local legends and air support in their quest. In a land where dragons loom, they discover that modern warfare's might—Hellfire missiles included—holds its own brand of magic.

-- --

Chapter 101: Serious Firepower

-- --

The thing about downtime was that Henry had never figured out how to spend it. Of course, some scenarios were easier than others; sometimes there wouldn’t be enough time to do anything but play on his phone, so he’d have an easy answer. Sometimes he’d have homework or reports to work on. And sometimes he’d have enough time to binge a show. This current bout fell into none of those categories.

Well, technically it did fall under the last one, but how the hell was he supposed to binge a show without internet? The last time he’d resupplied his laptop was weeks ago, and he’d already burned through everything he’d saved.

So he’d gone looking for something to do, and it turned out there really was something.

With their campaign assignment on hold until Sinclair and the Guild got everything sorted out, the only thing left on his plate was figuring out what to get Sera for their one-month anniversary. It wasn’t due for another couple weeks, but Henry didn’t much like kicking the can down the road, so he’d decided to scope the market early – get a feel for his options, come back with a plan, and spare himself the indignity of scrambling for something last minute.

As luck would have it, the search had gone sideways almost the second he started. The enchanted gear that would’ve actually upgraded her kit was somewhere in the millions of lumens. Everything under that he’d either failed to understand or couldn’t picture her wanting.

After scoping out several equipment shops, he’d ended up trying his luck at a jewelry store. Nothing came to him at the time. He’d stood at the case for minutes – long enough that the shopkeep came over to figure out whether Henry meant to rob the place or just have a stroke in front of it. It was neither, of course. Henry had explained it was a gift for a girl, and that he didn’t have the first clue what she’d like.

The man, to his credit, hadn’t tried to move the priciest thing in the case. He’d just asked why Henry didn’t bring her something from his own homeland instead. It was admittedly a bit embarrassing that he hadn’t thought of something so obvious, but it was true: there was nothing here she hadn’t seen a thousand times over, but everything back home she’d never laid eyes on. Anything he wanted was just a requisition form or an Amazon order away.

So he’d resolved to do just that, thanking the man before heading back to the inn to make a list of all the stuff Sera might find interesting.

The others found their own ways to fill the days. Hayes spent his becoming a local legend, which had been inevitable from the moment the first dwarf in Kharvûk recognized him as the Kraggen Slayer – the man who’d bested Var at his own drink back in Krevath. Word like that got around, and now every dwarf in town with something to prove wanted his shot at the title. Hayes turned every challenge down, partly because a hungover operator made for a bad look, and partly because Hayes knew to quit while he was ahead.

Sera and Doc had spent most of the three days with Sinclair. Sera knew the political landscape from the inside – the standing tensions between the powers, the alliances that held and the ones that only looked like they did, the history that explained why the Nobians being here meant what it meant. Doc, meanwhile, made sense of it all, drawing on past conflicts for the parallels that fit and handing them to Sinclair to run down. Between them, they’d helped shape the Korth Varren mess into something Command could take to a war council.

And then there was Ron, who’d somehow talked Isaac Yen into leaving the wire for something other than work. Henry would’ve bet against that one at long odds and lost, which was more or less the mood at breakfast when Ron tried to explain how it had happened. Or rather, what happened during their outing, because apparently that was a lot more important.

“– and this dude ain’t do shit!” Ron put his fork down to free up both hands. “She talkin’ for an hour, half an hour, whatever. And guess how many words Yen says during that whole time? Three.” He sighed. “It’s bullshit, cuh.”

Yen continued working through his plate, like none of it concerned him.

Henry shrugged, landing on his usual response for the big guy. “Gotta lock in, bro.”

“Yeah, lock in what? How? Fuck am I supposed to do? Mew?” Ron lifted his tongue and closed his mouth, mugging across the table.

Henry lifted a palm toward him. “There you go.”

“Whatever, man.” Ron picked the fork back up. “Y’all don’t get it. One day I’ma figure out his secret and then it’s over for everybody.”

“Well, you’ve got time.” Henry went back to his own plate. “Even once Kel gets here, it’ll be a week plus before we deal with that dragon. Plenty of runway to crack the code.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ron’s voice flattened into mock enthusiasm. “Lemme just go compete against the high-ranking adventurers with their magic and their fancy mithril gear. Real even playing field.”

“It worked for me,” Yen said.

Ron shot him a look.

Yen shrugged, unbothered. “Just saying.”

“He’s got a point.” Henry tipped his fork toward Yen. “Just lean into the novelty. Think about how many times the locals have geeked out over us – our gear, where we’re from, all of it. The folks back in Eldralore. Livia. Half the dwarves in this town.”

“Oh, speaking of – we ran into Livia’s crew at the tavern. Whole party of ’em rolled in yesterday.” Ron pointed the fork like Henry might’ve missed it. “Wild, right? Out of everybody. Sera’s gonna be in for a surprise when she gets back.”

Henry hadn’t known that. “Huh. They in for the campaign?”

“Yup. They came straight from Enstadt, too. Apparently the dwarves are prepping for–”

Henry’s radio crackled before Ron could finish.

“Alpha, Durin Actual. We’re on final approach to your position, two mikes out. Kelmithus is with us, along with your fires element. Over.”

He keyed back. “Copy, Durin. We’ll come out and meet you. Alpha out.” He pushed up from the table. “Alright. That’s us. Let’s go say hello.”

They stepped outside. The convoy came up the lane a minute later – two MRAPs sandwiched between two UGVs. The lead vehicle pulled up short of the inn, doors already opening before it stopped.

A pale blond guy Henry didn’t recognize swung down from the lead MRAP and made his way over, tablet in hand. The unloading had already started behind him, the convoy’s personnel dragging out the first crates of goodies.

“Captain Donnager? McMillan, sir.” He held out the tablet. “Got your requisition here. Everything's accounted for. Figured you’d want eyes on it before we started unloading.”

Henry took it and scrolled. The list ran longer than he remembered putting in, though most of that was the ammunition padding it out. He thumbed through the line items, found nothing missing, and handed it back.

“Looks good. Appreciate the haul.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll get it staged and out of your way.” The sergeant tucked the tablet under his arm and turned back toward the vehicles, leaving Henry to the two passengers stepping down from the cab.

First came Kel – the mad genius himself, probably already itching to nerd out about something. After the chaos of the last few weeks, seeing him was a damn comforting sight.

“Kel.” He went to meet him. “Good to see you. How’s it been?”

“Busy, Captain. Gloriously so.” The weariness lost out to the enthusiasm without much of a fight. “I have at last met your forgemaster. Ah, Captain, what a fellow! Balnar and I have scarce quitted the workshop since. We sit down to discuss one matter and find ourselves embroiled in six ere the first has settled.

“Indeed, three days ago we laid a binding upon one of your metal plates, merely to discover whether it would take the charge. Well, it did, and with such success that neither Balnar nor I would credit it at first. We ran the trial again, and then once more for good measure, yet still arrived at the selfsame conclusion.”

He caught the thread running off without him and reeled it in. “Ah, but this is intolerably rude of me. How goes the campaign? You fare better than I feared, and I’m glad of it.”

“Shit, it’s going well – real well, all things considered. Long story, though. I’ll tell you over dinner.”

“Very well,” Kelmithus said. He glanced toward the inn. “Though I ought to find Sinclair first.”

“I’ll take you,” Yen offered. “She’s at the Guild.”

Kelmithus nodded and set off after him.

Henry waved them off. “Oh, and Yen – tell Sera about Livia.”

The other passenger had hung back through all that, waiting his turn. The chunky field radio he set down marked him for the JTAC, plain as anything. Years of humping that thing through sun and hard country had worn him lean and dark.

The guy waved as he came over, going for a poker face but not quite getting there, clearly too starstruck to pull it off.

Henry nodded him toward the door. “Come on, let’s head inside.”

They filed in out of the cold. Once they’d taken a table, the man set his pack down and put a hand out.

“Captain.” He took Henry’s hand with both a grip and a grin he couldn’t fully tamp down. “Staff Sergeant Delgado – but you can call me Tripp. I’m your JTAC for this one. Shouldn’t be in your hair long – half the job’s just pointing a laser, anyway.” He cleared his throat. “Real glad to be here, though, sir. Been hearing about Alpha for weeks now. Kind of a big deal, getting put on you.”

Henry shook his hand and waved him into a chair. “Likewise. Glad to have you.” He sat back down across from him. “But what do you mean, just pointing a laser?”

“Exactly that, sir.” Delgado sat. “This isn’t a normal CAS run. No talk-on, no nine-line, nothing you really need me for. The General’s using Tomahawks for this one. We’ll launch a timed strike toward the AO, then use a laser to paint the target for terminal guidance. Could be me, could be a drone, could be you if you want hands on it.”

“That simple?” Ron asked.

“As far as you guys are concerned, yeah.” Delgado tipped a hand side to side. “How hard it is to mod the missiles, I can’t say. There’s a whole setup behind it, too – relays strung up the corridor, the bird flying itself on internal nav the whole way, all that. The way I heard it, it’s a lot of moving parts. But none of those parts are yours. What matters is they get the missiles to the target area, and the laser does the rest.”

He pulled a map from his cargo pocket and spread it on the table.

“Right now they’re still finding it. There’s an RQ-180 up, running the search. Once it pins the target down, it hands routine tracking off to a Reaper to keep watch until you’re ready to move out.”

“How many Tomahawks we got?” Henry asked.

“Twelve. Three Typhon systems, four missiles each.” Delgado ticked them off. “One system’s running conventional, one’s thermobaric, and the last one’s the experimental stuff. Word is the eggheads cracked the chemistry once they got the new powder figured out. I don’t know how hard it is to go from deflagration to an explosive payload, but they did it. So after some quick testing, the first thing they did was load up four and send ’em along to see what they do.”

Ron whistled. “That’s some serious firepower.”

“That’s the idea. You’re going up against a Tier Ten.” Delgado said it plainly, the way a man states a fact he’s made his peace with. “Which is why they’re not picking and choosing. They’re putting all twelve on it at once. One salvo, all in.”

He let that sit for a moment.

“Which means you do not want to be anywhere near it when they land. Klick and a half off, minimum – and I’d push it further if the ground gives you the option.”

“Contingency if it survives?” Henry asked.

“Then you get into the Gatebuilder site and you hunker down.” Delgado shrugged. “Nobody told me why, specifically. But I guess at this point it’s kinda obvious we might go nuclear.”

Henry glanced at Ron, then back at Delgado. “Shit, dude.”

Delgado folded the map back up. “Yeah, I know, right? But nukes should be able to handle any Tier Ten, or at least hurt ‘em bad enough to deter them, I think. Dr. Perdue said as much.”

The guy’s tone wasn’t as reassuring as Henry might’ve preferred, but the logic underneath was sound enough. If Dr. Perdue said so, then there probably shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

Delgado looked back up after stowing his map. “Oh, right. Forgot to mention this. As far as the brass is concerned, I’m a formality – somebody’s gotta sign off that you had fires support attached, and that’s me. I don’t need to be out there with you. The Reaper can hold the laser fine on its own, or one of you can do it. It’s just holding a designator on the target.” He shrugged. “But if you’d rather have a dedicated guy running it, I’ll come. Up to you. Just let me know before the op.”

“We’ll sort it out,” Henry said. “Appreciate the rundown.”

Delgado nodded. “Just the messenger, sir.”

Henry checked the time. With nothing pressing on his schedule, the rest of the day was wide open. “You wanna tour around town?”

Delgado’s face faltered again, the poker face slipping. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m down for that.”

-- --

Next

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"OPEN FIRE!" The captain practically screamed within the bridge of the pirate ship Nico, followed swiftly by a tremble that resonated through-out the entire ship, its sturdy bulkhead vibrating furiously as six plasma cannons all fired simultaneously causing the vessel to drift and lean starboards as it travelled through the empty void of space.

"This is madness captain! They outclass us by seven thousand tons!" exclaimed the second in command, her eyes wide in panic and despair as she desperately held onto the control panel with both hands.

"I don't care, Althera! Its been six months, six fucking months on this god forsaken vessel!" Captain Bill shouted in response, eyes wide as well but not in panic but rather desperation and wrath! The rest of the crew didn't understand what had changed, what could possibly have changed to make their Captain so reckless. Althera recalled just minutes before that things had been going well, they had managed to hide their ship within the void without being seen by the competing pirate vessel. They had even managed to break into their coms network so that they could listen in on some of the communications within the vessel. Their Captain, a human had even managed to keep a cool, steady head even if he was constantly tapping his fingers against his large captains chair.

There was no reason to attack the vessel which outclassed them so much, then suddenly something seemed to have change in him. A strange stillness having come over him at something that had been said by the other vessel..

Their ship suddenly recoiled, a shudder and a groan from the bulkheads as the response of the other vessel arrived, less impactful than she had expected. "Status!" She shouted to the crew causing a chorus of responses from the rest on the bridge. "We've lost power to engi-.. "Cannon two to four are reporting dama-.." "Critical hit to their power supply! They're drifting!" That last part was important she felt but before she could ask for clarification she heard a new order from the captain. "Good, prepare boarding torpedoes!" She paused, mouth agape and glaring at their captain, seemingly gone mad.

"You can't be serious captain! There's more people on that ship now than have ever even served on our ship!" She waved her arms around madly as she watched their Captain step down from the chair and set into a sprint down towards the torpedo bay, faster than she has seen him move in ages. He turned to look towards Althera as he sprinted down the corridor without stopping. "Good point! I better pack enough ammo."

"That's not the fucking point you oaf!" He slowed, if only briefly giving Althera time to catch up a little to the man. "You're right.. I'll bring the sword!" She glared at the back of his hairless skull as he doubled his pace towards the armoury. "NO! FUCK'S SAKE CAPTAIN WHAT THE KRELL HAS GOTTEN INTO YOU?!"

"You wouldn't understand!" He ducked into the armoury and by the time she finally caught up to he was already strapped to the teeth with two assault rifles, eighteen magazines all of which had enough energy in them to fire a hundred rounds, six grenades, two plasma charges for breaching bulkhead a landmine and a plasma machete. He pushed past the woman with his broad build, quite easily and ran off to the torpedo bay.

"I'm pretty sure no one could 'get it', could you just slow down and explain already?!" The ship once again shook which reminded her that she'd never given the order to cease fire in her rush to try to stop the captain from doing something fantastically reckless and.. She hated to use the term but could think of nothing that fitted better, Human.

"No time! There's no time!" There was desperation in his voice but also hope, joy the likes of which she hadn't heard from the captain for six entire months. She wondered what could possible get their captain out of his irate mood. Then she remembered what that word had been they'd used seconds before he'd told the entire ship to get into combat ships. "IS THIS ABOUT THAT FUCKING TOBACCO YOU KEPT BURNING?!"

The captain practically dove into the torpedo tube and gave a quick thumbs up out of the top before closing the hatch. The last thing she heard before he activated the automatic loading and firing sequence was. "DADDY 'S COMMING BACK, HE'S JUST GOING OUT TO GET SOME CIGS!"

Althera stood there in the loading bay for several seconds, glaring at the now empty tube fury that made her dark violet knuckles turn white. Crushed within her fist was a small green pack which she now regretted very much taking away. She honestly hoped that the enemy ship took them out, anything would be preferably over that awful smoke again.

It was a calm day on Cloudhaven Station.

“Boss,” John shouted from the other side of the room, “can I redirect this to you? It sounds serious.”

It had been a calm day.

“Sure,” I said resignedly.

I answered the call with my headset and gave the usual introduction. “Hello, this is Chief Engineer Peter Johnson. How may I help you today?”

“My daughter and her bastard husband went missing! They don’t answer my calls, and they should’ve been back an hour ago!” The other side was practically screaming.

“Who am I talking to, ma’am?” I interrupted.

“My name is Mrs. Jackson,” she answered, slightly calmer. “And you need to rescue my daughter!”

I asked a few clarifying questions, and the story started sounding serious enough to investigate. Her daughter and son-in-law had rented a ship and left the station five hours ago. They hadn’t answered any calls for at least two hours.

“John!” I shouted. “Can you check radar and see where the airship Nautilus currently is?”

“Sure, boss,” came the immediate reply. He knew I hated it when he called me boss. That’s why he did it, I was sure.

While he tracked the ship down, I pulled up its datasheet: standard two-person airship, twenty-seven years old, last inspection two months ago with clean results. The atmosphere of Venus is harsh, but the ship looked flawless on paper. They had rented it yesterday but only started the trip today. Since they rented it for two more days, there was no reason to panic yet. Maybe it was nothing - just out of range, with an overprotective mother.

Suddenly, I realized John was standing right beside my desk.

“What?”

“Boss, they’re at the bottom,” he said in an ominous voice. “I think the ship is disabled, and now it’s floating at the ten-megapascal level.”

I quickly glanced back at my screen. Yes, the ship was designed to float at the 10 MPa level, and fortunately, it was built to withstand that pressure for an extended duration.

A rescue mission from the bottom. Brilliant. It had been a calm day. Until now.

“That explains why they aren’t answering calls: at that depth, signals can’t reach them,” I said to no one in particular. John obviously already knew that.

“Okay, we have two rescue ships,” I listed our immediate options, which weren't really options at all. “The Enterprise, but she can’t go that far down; and the Victoria, but she’s designed to rescue people, not haul ships.”

“Is there any other ship in the area that can go down to the bottom and lift a hundred and fifty tonnes?” John was following the exact same train of thought. We didn't have many options.

“Okay, I’ll call the Central Venusian Rescue Operator - maybe they have something,” I decided. “You call the military. I’m pretty sure they have heavy craft; the question is when they can get here.” I glanced at my screen again. “The ship only has enough air for three days, so we need something fast.”

“Sure, boss,” John answered, already turning back toward his desk.

My call to the Rescue Operator was fruitless; they didn’t have anything larger than our own inventory. I started calculating how to deploy the Victoria - rescue the crew first, worry about the ship later.

“I found a ship that can help,” John announced triumphantly. “A military vessel called the UVS Extractor. She’s designed for heavy-depth rescues and can be here by late tomorrow afternoon.”

“That might be too late, John,” I replied grimly. “They have three days of air, but at that level, the ambient temperature is four hundred degrees Celsius. Without power, the ship’s internal temperature will hit fifty degrees in just eight hours.”

I sat back in my chair, deflated.

“If they still have power, late tomorrow afternoon is fine. But if they had power, we wouldn’t be staring at a rescue scenario.” I looked at John, and he knew what I was calculating next. Our only choice was the Victoria. But spinning her up takes an hour, plus another hour to descend to that depth. It had already been six hours since they left. We had to launch now, or there wouldn't be anything left to save.

I picked up the comms and patched directly through to engineering.

“Jack,” I said the second he picked up. “We need the Victoria. Now. Start spinning her up and skip every non-critical protocol. This is an active rescue operation; we don't have time to waste.”

I turned back to John. “Head down to the Victoria. You’re leading the operation.”

I took a deep breath. “I’ll call the mother back and break the news.”

One painfully awkward phone call later, I was deep in buoyancy and vector calculations for the Victoria when my communicator pinged.

“Go ahead, John.”

“Peter, you won’t believe it. The Nautilus just docked.” His voice was an equal mix of relief and irritation.

“Did they blow their ballast tanks? Managed an emergency ascent?” I stood up immediately, grabbing my tablet. “Did the heat exchangers hold?”

“You should probably just come down here, boss.”

When the elevator doors opened at the docking bay, there was no medical team, no scorched hull venting emergency coolant, and no structural breach squad.

There was only a middle-aged man in a tropical shirt stepping off the airlock gangway, holding two iced mocktails in thermal pouches, followed by a woman stretching her arms as she’d just woken up from a glorious three-hour nap.

“Excuse me,” I called out, marching over with my heart still hammering from calculating thermal mortality rates. “Your mother reported a catastrophic system failure! You were hovering at ten megapascals!”

The husband took a slow sip of his drink and smiled peacefully.

“Ten megapascals is the only depth where comms, radar, and long-range emergency beacons are completely blocked by dense supercritical carbon dioxide,” he said mildly. He nudged his wife, who looked more relaxed than anyone I’d ever seen on this station. “Best four hours of quiet we’ve had in fifteen years.”

Wiki

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First

Undying Blues

His eyes flutter open and he doesn’t suddenly pop up with unexpected, unwanted energy beyond the desired. He simply rises. His legs a counterweight to lift him upwards. His eyes open and he’s still in the medical chamber. And thank goodness for that. His luck is turning and so long as he can keep the pressure on the problem it should be resolved.

Hopefully.

He rolls his shoulders and there is a small series of satisfying pops. A stretch of his arms and a roll of his wrists feels immensely satisfying as he rises up. The Doctor is not present, nor is anyone else. He assumes that since there is no barrier he can sense and nothing has been applied to him that there is no risk of infection or they have at least some confidence in his health. He rotates his body in a short bit of stretches to wake himself up further and takes a deep breath to centre himself. The sensation that he had been drowning on dry land is fading a little, but still present. But thankfully he seems to be safe enough to at least acknowledge, in his own head at least, that he’s in over his head.

Mentality is a big part of this. A huge part of it really. A curling of his toes cracks them as he starts moving to leave the medical area. As expected the door opens before he reaches it and the doctor is there.

“Hello Doctor. May I assume my lack of containment means I am no longer infectous.”

“I managed to get some information on those things that were inside you. They dissolve harmlessly when killed, but take several days to fully fade.” The Doctor says.

“I see. That’s good to know that the thing was no longer actually within me.”

“... What was it like? The report on the thing states that prolonged infestation can drive a person insane while rendering them almost completely immortal. Even a Null blast can’t stop the regeneration. Only the death or removal of the parasite can actually kill the host.”

“... The madness was never obvious in the moment. It was a slow change of personality in the moment, but in hindsight... I was growing ever more volatile. How best to describe this? I can only see this due to my own training in self control and reflection. The important thing to recall though, is that the madness is an honest madness. Born of endless stress, over-tuned instinct, overwhelming and unrelenting energy and the increasing divorce from the consequences of poor decisions. I can fully believe that anyone with those things in them for a prolonged period have a severe estrangement from reality.”

“I’m sure. The Captain wants to see you.”

“That’s wonderful. Could you please tell me where I may find her?” He asks.

“Oh, right. You don’t know the ship.”

“I think it would be rather concerning if I did know the ship prior to any tours or proper time to explore it.” He notes.

“... I can’t tell if that was sarcasm or pleasant conversation.”

“It’s a neutral statement, I am a Courtesan good Doctor. Much of what I say is reflective of my training to keep myself as personable and either as pleasant or provocative as the client prefers at any given moment. If one was looking for humour then my statement was a joke, If they’re looking for acknowledgement then the statement served that purpose. It could also be impudent or insulting, all depending on the mindset and therefore desires of the client. People will look for what they want after all, even if they don’t care to admit they’re looking for it. Or even consciously aware of it.”

“I wasn’t aware it was that complicated.”

“Much like any field there are levels of skill within it. For example, most any nitwit can wrap gauze around an open wound to staunch the bleeding. But it takes training or bitter experience to wrap it without causing further harm to the patient. And it takes both training and experience to do so quickly and without seeming effort.”

“I see... still that’s clearly a benefit of being born to royalty your highness.”

“Please madam, I am so far down any line of succession that the idea of holding any amount of actual power or authority is either laughable, or an admission of intended usurpation. My family is enormous. So much so that even though it was a direct blood aunt that had kidnapped me, it had taken an embarrassingly long time to recognize her.”

“So... a fairly typical family. So many members, so many children that people just get lost in the shuffle?” The Nagasha asks.

“Yes, I was either going to be of use or I was going to be used. So I deigned to be of use. Then began my Courtesan training which my family ensured was as complete and arduous as it could be to encourage me to quit. The end result is that I am now considered one of the finest Courtesan’s in the La’ahbaron empire.”

“If not the galaxy?”

“The galaxy is a rather large place good Doctor. It would be the height of hubris to think myself competitive on such a scale.”

“Or a demonstration of appropriate humility to compete at such levels to deny it.” She notes.

“Ah! You understand, wonderful.” He says with a heartfelt smile.

“Oh... you are dangerous. Just not in the way you’d typically think of in an Ibu.” She notes.

“Oh very much so. But very quickly before I entertain the captain, what’s her name and... how long have I been asleep? And for that matter madam, and this is terribly embarrassing, but what is your name?”

“I’m Doctor Hissia. Well... technically a nurse, but after... what happened I’ve been serving as a doctor on this ship.”

“Ah, well. It is a pleasure to meet you Doctor Hissia.”

“The Captain is Purra Legara. She’s a throwback to a Tret ancestor born to a Valkas.” Doctor Hissia says and Danburi smiles with a nod. Shuffling the species named Valkas into the back of his mind as he honestly has no idea what that is. He’s never met anything called a Valkas, but it must be a standard species in some regard if they can have Trets in the family tree.

“Thank you very much for telling me.” He says genially. “Now... might I bother you for instructions on how to find Captain Legara please and thank you?”

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Bridge, Nova Pirate Craft, Between Systems)•-•-•

The door to the bridge opens and she turns to see the towering blue frame of the rescued Ibu Prince step into the bridge.

“Ah, the sleeping prince awakens.” Captain Legara notes. “You’re looking better.”

“Am I? I haven’t been able to avail myself of a mirror yet.”

“Really? Well there are more and more surprises aren’t there?” She asks. “Now, we need information. Contact information primarily. As well as any possible allies to drop you off to, because our long range sensors are showing that those stealth ships are running their engines hot to keep up with us. Meaning you’re valuable, but a little hard to keep.”

“And I would appreciate if you did keep me captain. I’ll need a good look at a galactic map to see if there are any La’ahbaron allies or trading partners close to our location. I have the passwords to bypass most security checks for calling the La’ahbaron Royal Palace directly and... I sense you have more questions madam.”

“Yeah. About that sword. A lot of my girls with more curiosity than sense have been tampering with it and everything we learn about it just confuses me further. That thing is as sharp as a ball bearing until someone holds it, then it goes through trytite like a plasma blade through butter. Every scanner we’ve brought near it has broken as if severely overloaded or suddenly undergoing millennia of wear and tear without repair totems and holding the thing exhausts everyone to the limit. And pulling in Axiom doesn’t help.”

“Is my blood on the handle still wet?”

“It is.”

“Terrifying.”

“Yes.” The Captain agrees with him. “Where did that thing come from?”

“Unfortunately captain, the only source I have for the source of that weapon is unreliable in the extreme. It is my Aunt Wurana who was clearly attempting to subvert or manipulate me and therefore every she said to me is highly suspect to put things lightly.”

“Hmm...”

“However, the gist of what she claims is that she uncovered an entire world infested with the same parasite that has been purged from me. It rendered the inhabitants unable to die but increasingly insane. The animals were twisted into giant monsters and everything was in a gigantic cycle of death, obsession and madness, except in some few small places. There was apparently some kind of temple of monks who found an herbal method to quell the madness and coupled it with meditation and ritual to regain and maintain their sanity.”

“And the sword?”

“Apparently there was some other temple. One where it was held like a sacred artifact. But again, I’m not sure what I do or do not believe from her. But the one thing I do believe is that the weapon was found on a world overrun with the parasites that a single nick from that sword killed.”

“Hmm... where were you cut by that sword?”

“Right palm, I already healed the wound though so it doesn’t show.” He says showing his right hand to her.

“I see. How did you get your hands on it?”

“During my escape from my Aunt’s... pardon me if this is crass but, as I ran away out of that puckered sphincter of hell and torment I was in a berserk state and only barely in enough control of myself to not enact a massacre on her slave soldiers and instead leap over them. I was able to keep ahead of her portal network in the base and yet she was still able to find out I was looking for some kind of escape craft and successfully guessed which one I would find first. She had the sword at the time. I’m not entirely sure how I disrupted her attacks with the sword, but I did and grabbed onto it via the blade, which is how my palm was cut, and then attacked her so viciously I stunned her before kicking her away and breaking her grip on the sword. I then took the sword and rushed onto the ship before she could collect herself and took off as quickly as I could.”

“So she was using it?”

“Yes, and the moment I picked up the sword I nearly collapsed in exhaustion.”

“... Very strange.”

“Yes.”

“No one has been able to sense any Axiom use from that thing.”

“Nor have I.” Danburi agrees.

“Okay, so rule one with that thing. Which I passed while you were asleep. Is that we’re keeping it on your ship so that if we have to we can throw it out of our ship and not have it just vanish into deep space to be found embedding some poor bitch’s ship some thousand and ten years from now.”

“Understandable and acceptable.”

“Good. Rule two, and this is for you exclusively. Is cover up.”

“Very well, but... why?”

“You’re the only man on this ship. We’re in a very dangerous situation and while you are a beautiful piece of blue eye candy we can’t afford the distraction those abs and that man ass is going to be giving us. You need at least a shirt and some less flattering pants.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t exactly dressed when I stole that ship and made these by hand.”

“We’ve got some things sized for Cannidors. It’s going to be baggy on you. But right now we need that because I had to tell off a lot of girls from just staring at you as you slept rather than actually working.”

“I see. Shall I tie a scar around the lower half of my face as well?” He asks holding up a hand to show what he would look like with half his face covered. Captain Legara just stares at him in open mouth shock.

“I... that might make it worse...” She says slowly before looking away. “How the hell is one person so damn pretty? Was he designed to be like this?”

“Essentially.” Danburi replies and she turns back to him.

“I’m not surprised. You’re too pretty.”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“... Oh you’ve gotten in trouble from it.”

“Yes. I have. However this branch conversation is now over, please and thank you.”

“Ah, got it. Scandal.”

“Personal and private, please respect it please and thank you.” Danburi says.

“Fine. But my order stands. Clothes. Big and baggy. You’ve got some delicious looking muscles and that’s the problem.”

“Should I wear a hat to cloak my face in shadows?”

“Honestly? Probably.”

“Hmm, well I won’t begrudge that. Once I’m more appropriately dressed would you mind if I discussed with you manners in which to make my skills of use to the ship?”

“OH? And how would you do that?”

“I can create powerful Axiom Totems that will allow you to expand your already existing storage expansion to a ludicrous degree and stretch your supplies many thousand fold.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You will have my utmost attention during that conversation good sir. Now. Shirt.”

“And where shall I find it Madam Captain?”

“Right, let me call up the Cabin Girl.” Legara says as she taps at the armrest of her chair.

“Yes?” A voice asks over a speaker on the chair.

“Get up to the bridge and give our guest and payday the trytite tour of the ship. Start it in the Tertiary Storage area, where we got those extra clothes. He needs to get covered up. He’s distracting.”

“Woo! Time with the man candy!”

“Grizelle!”

“Sorry! On my way!”

First Last

Chapter 6: I Fight God's Soldiers, and Someone Falls Out of the Sky

If I lost, I was dead. If I tried to run, I was dead. And if I won?

The Grand Alpha would still be waiting for me, along with all those damn questions I'd planted in his head myself. Not to mention the witch they were planning to summon.

Wonderful. I'd managed to get myself into a situation where even winning could get me killed.

And yet, despite everything, I felt a wave of relief when I finally spotted the chapel at the end of the path.

I almost felt like thanking the Lord out loud. With any luck, there would be holy water inside.

The chapel stood in the middle of a small clearing. I could make out the outline of its sloping roof and a narrow tower. A few lights near the entrance illuminated the steps leading up to a large wooden door.

At least, that was what I could see past the armed men standing guard.

I counted twelve. No, fourteen.

All of them carried swords. And they'd already spotted me, despite the darkness.

"Halt!" a man shouted, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "Don't take another step!"

Better do as he says.

I stopped before reaching the area illuminated by the chapel's lights.

Peaceful. I had to play this peacefully.

The goal wasn't to attack them, but to convince them to leave. Even if the werewolves had already tried that.

After all, I was a servant of God. I couldn't kill innocent people. The Lord would never forgive me. All I had to do was talk things through calmly and find a compromise. Nothing too complicated, right?

"I'm just here to talk... We don't want any bloodshed. Would you please let us have the chapel?"

Had that sounded convincing? Fingers crossed.

The man who'd called out to me shone his lantern directly into my face, briefly blinding me.

"A VAMPIRE!" he screamed.

A heavy silence fell over the clearing. Then came a sharp twang. Something shot straight toward my face.

I dodged it almost effortlessly, without even knowing what it was. In this darkness, it was hard to make out a projectile clearly, even though my night vision was far better than that of the humans from my world. Three more twangs rang out almost simultaneously.

I dodged those projectiles just as easily, though one grazed my chest.

Arrows? But where were they coming from? Above?

I looked up at the chapel roof and barely made out three crouching figures.

More arrows came flying toward me.

"ATTACK!" the same guard shouted as I dodged the last of them.

Several soldiers drew their swords and charged.

Small lanterns hung from their belts, casting flickering light around them as they approached.

At least I could see better now.

And them... They were slow. Very slow. Ridiculously slow.

Every step, every movement of their arms was absurdly clear to me. It was as if they were moving in slow motion. Not one of them stood a chance of even touching me.

THWACK!

"AAAH!"

My vision suddenly blurred. I couldn't see anything out of my right eye. Something had struck me head-on.

No, no, no! How was that possible? I'd thought I had everything under control.

I leaped backward, immediately putting some distance between myself and the five soldiers.

I reached for my face. Something thin and rigid was lodged directly in my right eye... An arrow?

They'd kept shooting even with their own men in the way?

[SANCTIFIED PROJECTILE DETECTED]

[Source identified: blessed weapon / partially immersed in holy water]

[HOLY BODY — Automatic Response Activated]

[Holy Water Integration in Progress...]

Huh? Holy water?

Before I could even process what I'd just read, the five soldiers charged at me again. I could still dodge their attacks, but it was much harder now.

[INTEGRATION COMPLETE]

Suddenly, the pressure in my right eye vanished.

I felt a fine dust slide down my cheek. And...

I could see again! My right eye had healed.

But how was that possible? Damn, this body was incredible!

"May the divine blessing be upon you!" A powerful voice rang out. From the chapel?

A golden light burst forth, splitting into five beams that struck the soldiers around me. Their bodies glowed for a brief moment.

What the...?

One of them suddenly lunged at me. His sword passed just inches from my throat.

A second attacked immediately, followed by a third from my right. I barely managed to dodge their blades, and one of them grazed my face.

Just seconds ago, I'd watched them move in slow motion. Now I could barely keep up with them.

SHNK!

A blade sank into my abdomen. Agonizing pain tore through me.

A sword was buried in my stomach. An actual sword!

The soldier kept driving it deeper with all his strength. The sword's guard was now only a few inches from my stomach.

Fuck, that hurts! That really, really hurts. Way worse than the arrow in my eye.

SHNK! SHNK! SHNK! SHNK!

The other soldiers wasted no time driving their swords into me as well.

I couldn't even tell where they were stabbing me anymore. The pain was everywhere.

FUCK! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL ME!

I'm going to die here! No, no, no! I don't want to die. Not like this. With all the sins I'd committed, I'd probably end up in hell. I needed God's forgiveness first!

Desperate to break free, I reacted on instinct. I grabbed the nearest soldier by the face and squeezed with all my strength. He screamed, immediately letting go of his sword.

I threw him aside, then punched a second soldier square in the chest. The impact sent him flying several meters backward.

A third tried to attack me, but I grabbed his arm and twisted it violently, drawing a shrill scream of pain from him.

A single kick was enough to send the fourth stumbling back, while an elbow strike knocked the fifth to the ground.

[SANCTIFIED WEAPON DETECTED]

[HOLY WATER DETECTED]

[HOLY BODY — INTEGRATION IN PROGRESS...]

AGAIN?!

A shadow appeared to my left.

One of the guards who'd stayed near the chapel?

He was charging straight at me, his sword raised above his head. Purely on instinct, my arm moved on its own.

My fist struck his head. The impact was devastating. His head snapped violently to the side, and his body went flying several meters away.

He slammed into the chapel's stone steps and collapsed, completely motionless.

Standing right beside him was a man dressed in a long white robe.

In his right hand, he held an imposing metal emblem, almost as large as his torso. Wait...

That was the symbol engraved on the vial!

"MARCUS!" a soldier shouted from near the steps, rushing toward him.

"Marcus! Answer me!"

No response. Even the man in the white robe standing nearby remained impassive.

The five soldiers I'd fought off weren't charging at me again. Some were still on the ground, while the guards who'd remained near the chapel also seemed hesitant to attack me.

Was he dead? Had I just killed someone?

Oh God... No, no, no!

[INTEGRATION COMPLETE]

The swords still embedded in my body began to rust. The corrosion spread rapidly across the metal, all the way to their guards, before the blades gradually crumbled away.

So that was what had happened to the arrow in my eye.

My wounds were already closing. The pain had completely disappeared, and I actually felt better than before.

Could Holy Body neutralize any weapon that had been infused with holy water?

But still, Lord... What had I done?

I'd just seriously injured several men. And killed one.

My first murder.

I'd brought shame on myself. And on the Vatican.

All because of that damn Grand Alpha!

If only he hadn't sent me here alone while he and his pack stayed hidden behind those damn trees. I could still remember his words at the edge of the forest.

"You'll approach the humans alone after nightfall. We'll remain in the forest, close to the chapel. If you run into any trouble, we'll come to your aid."

Of course! Judging by the amusement in his voice, he'd probably been looking forward to watching us kill each other. And watching me suffer in the process.

But why had he kept his entire pack back? With that many werewolves against these men, they wouldn't have had any trouble...

Suddenly, a brilliant light erupted in the sky, illuminating the entire clearing as though it were broad daylight.

What the...?

A human figure descended from the light and landed in front of the chapel. The radiance overhead showed no sign of fading.

"What took you so long?" the man in the white robe asked.

"CLERIC JOHN!" several soldiers cried out in relief.

That face... I knew him.

The guard with the glasses?!

First Previous Next

Chapter 11:- The Coward!

KNOCK KNOCK!!

Someone knocked on the door.

Isha got up from her seat and opened it. From where we were sitting, we couldn't see who was outside.

Father asked her, "Who is it?"

"...."

"Isha... who's there?"

"...."

She didn't reply.

I got too curious to see who had come, so I went to check myself.

I ran towards Didi, excited to see who was there.

But what I saw sent a shiver down my spine.

I don't know what happened, but suddenly, a wave of fear rushed through my body.

There were four men standing outside. The man at the front was the same guy we had encountered that afternoon.

I looked at Didi. She was in shock too, unable to think of what to do.

For some reason, I looked at Didi again.

She wasn't looking at the man in front. Her eyes were fixed on the man standing behind him, on something at his waist that I couldn't see from where I stood.

Her face went white.

Without a word, Isha stepped away from the door and stood against the wall.

Only years later did I understand what she had seen. That night, all I knew was that my sister, who never backed down from anyone, had just moved out of the way.

The man at the front entered the house without even removing his shoes.

My father saw him enter and was about to ask him, before my father could the man spoke.

"What's up? I'm Novo Toryard. I work at a small position in health department."

We were all confused.

"I'm here to inform you about a blood donation campaign that's going to be held in three days."

As he spoke, the other men slowly entered the house.

My father got up and asked, "Blood donation? They can email the local people or print it in the newspaper. Why would they send workers to our homes?"

"Can I see your ID?" my father asked.

"Yeah, sure," Novo replied, looking back.

All the remaining men entered the house and slowly closed the door.

Novo slowly put his hand into his pocket.

Now that the house was filled with four strange men, I suddenly started feeling intimidated.

My mother got up from her seat too.

I saw her grab a fork in her hand.

"Here, take it. My card," Novo said.

He held out his hand, palm down. I couldn't see the card. Neither could Dad.

My father stepped towards him to take the card.

Suddenly—

Novo moved to the side.

The man behind him stepped forward and—

"BANG—"

"...."

It happened so fast. He quickly pulled a gun from his waist and shot my father in the chest.

We were all shocked. Didi fell to her knees, witnessing such a dreadful act.

My father screamed in pain.

"AHHH!!"

But my mother didn't show much of a reaction. She charged forward.

Running.

She raised her hand, formed a fist, and swung it towards the face of the man who had shot my father.

He easily dodged her punch.

But the look on his face suddenly changed, as if he were in pain.

He looked towards his waist.

My mother knew he could dodge her punch, so she stabbed him with the fork in her other hand.

Novo's expression changed.

Everything suddenly went quiet. Nobody spoke a word.

"...."

"Honey... honey, wait! Don't fight. You're pregnant!" Dad said, kneeling on the floor.

His clothes were stained with blood.

"You bitch! How could you hurt my brother?!" Novo shouted.

He stepped back and kicked my mother in the belly.

She fell to the ground.

As she fell, I don't know what happened to me, but my heart suddenly started beating faster. I began to cry. I was terrified, as if my protection had been taken away from me.

"Mom... Mom," I whispered.

Novo didn't stop there. He sat on top of my mother and started punching her.

"THUG!!"

"THUG!!"

"St... stop!!" my father shouted.

The man whom my mother had stabbed started laughing.

"Unlucky bitch! She only managed to get my hand! Hahaha!"

He pulled out the fork and threw it to the ground.

Novo continued punching her.

"THUG!!"

"THUG!!"

"...."

"...."

Finally, he stopped from exhaustion.

My mother wasn't moving. I tried calling her again.

"Mom?"

She didn't move an inch. She was unconscious.

"Mom..." I called her again.

"...."

She didn't respond.

"Please... leave my family. Do—"

"Do whatever you want to me. Tak— take all the money."

"Please..."

"Please... leave us alone!!"

My father begged them. His voice grew weaker with every sentence he spoke.

My Didi couldn't say a word.

"...."

"Money?! Dumbass! I work for the government. I have plenty of money. I'm not here for money," Novo said.

"I want something more precious."

Novo said this while looking towards my sister.

My father noticed it, too.

Somehow, he managed to get up and tried to kick Novo.

But my father was too injured. Novo easily moved out of the way.

Novo picked up the fork, placed his hand on my father's shoulder, and stabbed him in the same place where he had been shot.

"SWASH!!"

My father fell to the ground again, landing on his chest. Somehow, he was still conscious.

My hands and legs were shaking. I was breathing heavily, and my mind was going numb.

I looked at my father. He was... he was dying.

Somehow, his eyes were still open.

He couldn't speak properly, but I understood what he was trying to say.

"Vivek... save your siste—"

He was asking me to save my sister.

"...."

I just watched him.

I couldn't move. I was too afraid.

Novo came towards me and said, "Hey, dickhead, move."

He pushed me.

I lost my balance and fell to the ground, crying. I couldn't do anything on my own.

They went towards my sister.

She screamed.

"Don't do it!!"

"Don't do it! Please, I beg you!!"

I heard the sound of tearing clothes.

I didn't dare to look towards her.

She kept screaming for hours.

I was too cowardly.

I was selfish.

I was the shittiest person in the whole world.

She might have looked towards me for help.

But I—

I just kept crying.

I couldn't save anyone.

I didn't even try.

She screamed and screamed and screamed!!!

I didn't move because I was the stupidest kid ever.

AFTER A FEW HOURS—

"Knock! Knock!"

Someone was at the door.

My sister had stopped making any noise.

I was still in the same position. I hadn't moved a single inch.

Someone went and opened the door.

I heard someone say, "We're from the police."

I heard them step inside.

"What the fuck?! Novo, what did you do?!" an officer shouted.

I could see them approaching my father. The officer placed his hand on my father's neck.

The officer shook his head, indicating no.

I didn't understand what it meant.

I moved my head, following the officer wherever he went.

He went towards my sister and made the same gesture.

Next, he went towards my mom.

This time, he acted differently.

He picked my mother up and took her somewhere.

Later, the officers came towards me.

I was taken to the hospital.

I didn't know what happened to Novo after that.

The nurse kept asking me what had happened, but I didn't dare to speak.

A few days after the whole incident, I met my mother.

I saw her lying on her bed, looking at me.

"VIVEK!! VIVEK!!" she shouted.

She opened her arms, calling me, she accepted me, even if didnt even tried to protect my sister.

I don't know why, but I ran towards her and hugged her tightly. She hugged me just as tightly.

She was crying, too.

"Ma'am, you shouldn't cry. You need to recover for your baby," the nurse said.

My mom was a very supportive and mature woman.

She wiped the tears from both our eyes and said,

"Don't worry, Vivek. I'm here, right? We'll be safe now. Don't worry!"

Later, my mother was discharged from the hospital, and she gave birth to a boy.

My mother decided not to return to the same house. She sold all her jewellery, and we started living in a rented house.

I used to take care of my little brother, Hiru, and our home, while she went out to do household work to earn money.

We somehow managed to continue our schooling.

It was very hard for us to survive.

Without our father, our family struggled a lot, both financially and mentally.

My friend Leo used to help me.

We continued living the same life until I grew up.

A few years later, I was selected to join the police force.

By that time, I had become quite mature.

My grudge against Novo kept growing as I watched him become the Health Minister.

*****

"I was always looking for a chance to torture you.

But because of Rumi, I got it!!

I GOT A CHANCE!!

I FINALLY GOT A CHANCE!!!"

Vivek laughed loudly while pointing the gun at Novo.

"Please... please, Vivek, don't!!"

"YOUR TIME IS UP! SEE YOU IN HELL!" Vivek shouted.

Novo squeezed his eyes shut in fear.

Vivek pulled the trigger.

"BANG—"

The room went silent.

"...."

*****

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Author's note: this story is completed and will be posted here M-F until Jan 4, 2027.

Want to see the cover, read the blurb, and find out what happens next? Read OPERATION NEW WORLD for free on Royal Road. The story is already four episodes (20 chapters) ahead of this release.

EPISODE 1: FIRST CONTACT IS MURDER

POV: Commander Sarah Yao

ACT 1

ACT 2

Earth: January 4, 2029

Vise: Human Era, Year 1, Day 1

Despite having just laid eyes on Vise for the first time less than a day before, the planet struck her as oddly familiar. Perhaps because, from orbit, it resembled Earth’s iconic blue marble wrapped in white clouds. Or maybe because she’d spent countless hours in simulators practicing landings on a virtual Vise. Or possibly from studying thousands of images captured by the Eyes of Sauron satellites deployed since the early 2000s. Whatever the reason, the familiarity calmed her nerves. She found comfort pretending this was just another simulation.

She took a deep breath as she held the shuttle’s control stick. The craft responded to her touch as naturally as Kyle’s cradle when she used to rock him to sleep as a newborn. Yet her current orbital position played tricks on her brain. Intellectually, she knew there was no true “up” or “down” in space, but her instincts rebelled at the sight of Vise above her when she was three hundred miles over its surface. She was also flying backward, though it was hard to tell when she had no fixed frame of reference.

A memory surfaced, bringing a smile to her face. She’d tried explaining this concept to Kyle once, and he’d immediately flipped himself upside down on the couch to watch Lightyear, legs kicking in the air as he declared, “Now I can see space the right way, Mom.”

Her son, daughter, and entire life were God knows how many light-years away. But history was right in front of her.

“Ready to dive?” Sarah asked Alex and Carlos.

“Hm... no,” Carlos replied with a nervous laugh. “But let’s do it anyway.”

“You?” Sarah glanced right at Alex.

“I was born ready,” Alex said, her face lit like a supernova.

“Here we go, then.” Sarah eased the throttle forward, her back pressing deeper into her seat. Her brain again played tricks, signaling acceleration when she was actually slowing their backward drift, just enough for Vise’s gravitational pull to take hold.

Sarah’s primary duty as commander in the Phoenix II—one of America’s crown jewels of space technology that no one but a couple hundred people in the entire world knew existed—was monitoring the automated systems. But Simpson’s probable crash reinforced what experience had already taught her: computerized systems might fly the ship, but the difference between touchdown and disaster ultimately rested with the person behind the stick. The margin for error was microscopic. A mere percentage off in angle or velocity could send them to the wrong hemisphere… or worse.

The landing sequence clock showed three minutes and fifty-seven seconds when the shuttle’s control system flashed green. Sarah eased the throttle to neutral and settled in for the next thirty minutes of descent toward the atmosphere. Waiting had never been her strong suit, but space had a way of teaching even the most restless soul patience. Still, her foot tapped as she checked the instruments every couple of minutes.

Vise expanded above her, its features slowly sharpening into focus. Sarah could now see the planet’s solitary continent, a sprawling landmass nearly twice the size of Earth’s combined continents, encircled by a vast, unbroken ocean. Despite Phoenix II’s position over the South Pole, no ice caps marked the terrain.

The control panel flashed, alerting her they’d reached 500,000 feet. Time for the next critical maneuver. Sarah pulled back on the stick, and the planet’s position shifted gradually from above the shuttle to directly ahead, then finally beneath them. She maintained steady pressure until the craft reached the required forty-degree angle of attack, positioning the black silica tiles under the shuttle to absorb the coming thermal punishment. A mistake now, and they would become a very expensive shooting star.

Entering the atmosphere, the shuttle convulsed violently, making every previous turbulence in Sarah’s thousand-plus flight hours seem like gentle rocking. Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back. The migraine pounding behind her eyes didn’t help. Through the viewport, nothing was visible except the brilliant cascade of sparks as atmospheric friction superheated the craft’s exterior. It was like the Millennium Falcon hitting light speed, only far less controlled.

Then the shuttle decelerated hard, like a car braking from highway speeds. The atmosphere had caught them. Sarah initiated the banking sequence, easing the stick to the right while monitoring their trajectory toward the primary landing site. As the craft began drifting off course, warning indicators lit up the panel. She banked left now to start roll reversals, holding the controls firmly to be ready to shift right again at the next interval.

Twelve minutes that felt like twelve lifetimes passed. Sarah adjusted the craft’s angle of attack, easing the shuttle horizontally until it responded more like a commercial airliner. Her migraine receded to a dull throb, and her head felt lighter than she wanted.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The alarm blared from the control panel, as if pleading with Sarah to grab the yoke. This phase of the descent—control-stick steering—was when commanders truly proved their worth, Sarah knew. If the Phoenix I had really crashed, it would have happened during this maneuver.

“Status check,” she called over her shoulder.

“Systems nominal.” Carlos’s voice was shaking slightly. Carlos was scared, she realized. She was too but couldn’t show it. Not now. Not ever.

Ten thousand feet to go. A vast, dark forest came into view, stretching toward the horizon like something from Alice’s favorite Pandora scenes in Avatar. Their landing zone was a natural clearing amid dense jungle, fifteen miles north of Sune, the capital of Vise’s largest nation. Sarah aligned their approach vector, mentally mapping the terrain against the satellite images she’d memorized down to the smallest detail.

The shuttle bucked violently as it plunged into a dense cloud bank. Sarah checked the nav display and felt her stomach drop. They were directly above the landing zone but heading straight into a thunderstorm. Commercial pilots had options: divert to alternate airfields or circle until conditions improved. She had neither luxury. This was it.

Then she saw the consequence of failure made horrifyingly tangible. About three miles from their landing site, angry flames and black smoke billowed from the jungle floor. Simpson. The confirmation of the Phoenix I’s crash hit her with physical force. Though logic had already written off that crew when communications failed, a stubborn corner of her mind had clung to hope. Now that hope was extinguished.

“Oh my God,” Alex gasped.

“What is it?” Carlos asked, straining forward from his seat behind.

“The Phoenix I,” Sarah answered, her voice tight. “They didn’t make it.”

“Fuck,” Carlos whispered.

Sarah caught the sound of stifled sniffles through her headset, coming from both crew members. She tightened her grip on the stick.

“I know,” she said. “We all feel it. But right now, I need your complete focus. We have our own landing to nail in this storm. We can honor them by not joining them. Clear?”

“Clear,” they responded together, voices steadying.

Sarah gave a curt nod, eyes locked on the instruments.

“Entering heading-alignment cone,” Carlos said as the display showed their craft’s triangular icon spiraling toward the landing zone’s center.

“Copy that,” Sarah said. “Initiating glide slope.”

She guided the yoke forward and right, fighting to keep the triangular indicator centered on her display as they descended at a twenty-degree slope. Her knuckles whitened. The shuttle’s five redundant computer systems offered plenty of automated assistance, but the relentless microbursts and wind shear battering them from all directions made maintaining control a battle of millimeters. Landing a 787 at Bush Intercontinental in this weather would challenge any pilot. Bringing a space shuttle down in a muddy jungle clearing in this storm crossed the line into the nearly impossible.

Sarah aligned the shuttle with the clearing’s longer axis, trusting the instrument panel as a wall of water obscured everything beyond the cockpit’s immediate perimeter.

“Four thousand feet,” Alex said. “Three thousand,” she added a few seconds later. “Two thousand.”

“Initiating preflare maneuver,” Sarah said, easing back on the stick to decrease their descent angle.

“One thousand feet,” Alex’s voice tightened.

Sarah kept her eyes locked on the trajectory display. “Carlos, speed reading.”

“Three-fifty knots,” Carlos reported.

Too damn fast, Sarah thought, jaw clenching.

“Five hundred feet,” Alex called out.

“Three-thirty knots,” Carlos updated.

“Landing gear down,” Sarah said.

“We’re too high,” Alex warned.

“We need the drag to slow down,” Sarah replied.

The landing gear deployment sent a jolt through the craft. Sarah’s harness bit into her chest, squeezing so hard she thought she might faint. She clutched the stick with renewed determination. Any slight overcorrection now would kill every soul on the shuttle in a fiery blaze.

“Two-forty knots,” Carlos said. “We’re slowing.”

“Two hundred fifty feet,” Alex reported.

The clearing stretched six miles long, plenty for a standard runway. But this was far from standard. Muddy, slick terrain awaited them below. Even with the shuttle’s modified landing gear, the drag chute would face extreme stress in Vise’s thicker atmosphere, while the slick mud provided minimal surface resistance. Sarah had run this scenario dozens of times in simulation and even more lying awake at night. No training could have replicated this.

“One hundred feet,” Alex shouted.

“One-seventy knots,” Carlos added.

“This is it,” Sarah said to her crew and herself.

She locked onto the display screen. When the shuttle’s wheels finally made contact, the impact jolted through the craft with unexpected force. Sarah’s neck compressed painfully against her rigid muscles, her body braced for impact.

“Drag chutes released,” Sarah said.

The tug came, but wrong. Not the clean, hard yank she’d felt in simulation. It was softer, fluttering, like the chute had reefed late or half-inflated in the rain. And yet the shuttle still bled speed as if it had struck glue.

“Ninety knots,” Carlos said. “Sixty.”

“Aren’t we stopping too fast?” Alex asked, words vibrating with the shuttle’s shudder.

“Forty,” Carlos said. “Twenty-five.”

A metallic crack shattered through the shuttle’s frame, sharp as a gunshot. Then came a grinding shriek, so raw it seemed to saw straight through Sarah’s teeth and jaw. The shuttle lurched hard left. Not a panicked swerve or a slip on wet ground, but more like a wheel swallowed by a hole that hadn’t existed a heartbeat earlier.

“We lost the left gear,” Alex said, voice strangled.

The cockpit display erupted in staccato flashes: caution blocks multiplying, strut loads spiking and then vanishing.

They slammed to a halt with the shuttle’s nose pitched low. Sarah couldn’t tell how long it took them to halt completely, but it couldn’t have been more than seconds. The downpour obscured any visual reference points, but the monitor told the story clearly enough: they’d used less than half the available landing distance and stopped at roughly two-thirds of what the shuttle’s computers had calculated they’d need. Determining deceleration rates and stopping distances was basic physics, yet somehow NASA’s brightest minds had miscalculated—and the shuttle was now structurally compromised because of it. Still, it was good fortune compared to the smoking wreckage of Phoenix I. What had been a lucky break for her crew might have spelled disaster for Simpson’s.

“We did it,” Alex said, punching the air with both fists.

Sarah leaned back in her seat, a cocktail of exhaustion and triumph washing through her. The dizziness might have been physical or just the psychological weight of what they’d achieved. Either way, Sarah savored it.

She toggled the comms switch. “This is the commander speaking. We have successfully landed on Vise. Remain seated while your bodies adjust to the 1.2 g gravity. We’ll begin disembarking shortly.”

Sarah unbuckled and stood, ready for the next entry in history books. She took a step forward, and her muscles screamed in protest against Vise’s gravity. The fact that she could move at all after a two-year space trip was a testament to human ingenuity: the relentless three-hour daily workouts, the nearly 3,000 hours she’d logged in the centrifuge, the flood of medication to stave off bone and muscle loss and to keep her cardiovascular reflexes sharp, and even the micro-electrical shocks firing through her legs as she slept.

All of it had led to this moment. She had achieved her life’s mission. She would be the first human to set foot on an alien planet and encounter an extraterrestrial race. Yet she only got this honor because eight people were dead. No decent person should feel anything but grief at such a cost. So why, beneath the shock and professional concern, did she sense something else stirring? A feeling she wouldn’t name but made her gut knot. A feeling she would never dare admit to anyone.

Sarah banished the thought. They had landed safely. That was the only thing that mattered.

The floor tilted, and Sarah grabbed the console’s edge, fingers digging into metal as dizziness blurred her vision. Then the entire shuttle lurched sideways, and the realization hit. This wasn’t just her body adjusting; the craft itself was moving.

“What the hell?” Alex blurted.

Carlos gripped his armrests. “Some kind of earthquake?”

Sarah’s mind raced as the puzzle clicked into place. The shuttle hadn’t stopped too quickly because of miscalculations. The NASA physicists had based their models on slick, muddy terrain, a reasonable assumption for a jungle clearing. They hadn’t accounted for a torrential downpour turning the clearing into a swamp. Their landing gear had probably plunged deep into the saturated earth, creating unexpected drag that rapidly decelerated the craft. Now that same sodden ground was giving way beneath the Phoenix II’s weight.

“No,” Sarah said. “Not an earthquake. We’re sinking.”

* * *

Want to see the cover, read the blurb, and find out what happens next? Read Operation New World for free on Royal Road. The story is already four episodes (20 chapters) ahead of this release.

Or you can wait until tomorrow to read Act 3 right here. Your choice.

"That doesn't make any sense. Are you drunk?"

"Hear me out," Zorbalax insisted, "I can explain."

I shook my head and stacked another bag onto the tower I was building in his arms. "As long as you can explain while carrying this fertilizer for me. If we don't get the shelves restocked by ten, the boss is gonna shout at me again and my doctor says I need to watch my blood pressure."

Zorbalax nodded and shuffled along after me, unable to see over the huge pile of twenty-kilo packs of chemically-fortified soil but trusting me to guide him. "Sure, sure. So, like I was saying, humans' greatest strength is their weakness."

"See, you're losing me already. How can strength be a weakness?"

"No, no, you've got it backwards. Their weakness can be a strength." I had known Zorbalax for a long time, but this was starting to worry me.

"Isn't that what I just said? If strength is weakness, then weakness is strength. Which is nonsense, strong is strong and weak is weak. Obviously."

Zorbalax waited while I shifted fertilizer from the tower onto the shelf until the flimsy metal creaked faintly under the strain. "Hmm. I guess you have a point." Finally! "But it's only the second one, how weakness is strength, that I'm talking about." Sigh.

"Okay man, dazzle me with this brilliant insight of yours. Oh, and take a step this way.. yeah, some customer left a rake in the aisle again. It's like they don't think."

My friend bounced on his toes and cheerfully followed me to the next shelf. "All right, try to follow along here. How many of these bags could a human carry?"

"Pff.. maybe five, if he was trying to show off? I don't think he'd have any breath to spare arguing with me, though. Like I said, weak is weak."

The stack had shrunk enough that Zorb could make eye contact over it again. "Right, but human merchants move more goods every day than we do. So ... how?"

I thumped another sack down onto the shelf and stopped to think. "They use one of those little cart thingies, right?"

Zorb's tail curled in the way that his people used to signal agreement. "Exactly. Instead of getting stronger, they made the work easier."

"Yeah, but it would make the work easier for us too. They have to either buy or build a cart just to move as much as we can, but the cart doesn't make them stronger than us. They're still spending more and doing less than we could with the same tools."

Zorbalax handed me the last bag of fertilizer, brushed imaginary dirt off his hands, and we set off back to the store-room. "Sure. But they invented it before we did. And with old, basic tech, that's not a big deal. But just like they're always behind us in literal muscle power, we're always behind them when it comes to pushing technology ahead."

"Look, I'll be the first to admit that humans have invented some cool toys. But I think you're taking it a little too far, now. Can you think of any technology where the human version is the best? Hold your arms out, we're doing cement next."

As I loaded him up with the powdered mineral mix, he pressed his point. "They've invented a lot more than some. Pick a tech, any tech you want, the humans are ahead of three quarters of the rest of us. It's a different three quarters for each tech, too, and over the past few centuries their version has been the first as often as not. You know what they do with all those inventions?"

"Yes, Zorb, they sell them to the rest of us. I did go to school you know, I took this job because I like the climate here, not because lifting heavy things is my only skill."

"They sell them to the rest of us, and they use them. There's a reason that out of 57 known space faring species, more than thirty percent of occupied systems are part of the Terran Republic, Korg."

I hefted one last bag of cement mix onto the pile and tapped Zorb's shoulder to let him know it was time to follow me back into the store-front to stock the shelves again. "And you want me to believe that reason is that humans are weak, therefore they invent things faster?"

"They do say that necessity is the mother of invention. And nobody needs to invent more ways to make work easier on themselves than humans."

I had to give him that one. The collective pouting of the human race when it had reached the stars and found out that they were actually among the least physically capable intelligent species was legendary. Every other species was more fit in at least one way - more agile, more durable, or physically stronger - and most of us surpassed humans in at least two out of those three.

"Okay, it's true that they need to do more work leveling the playing field than the rest of us. But their success is mostly down to the fact that there's just so zotting many of them, isn't it? I mean, their ships and tools are good, sure, but the main reason they always win is that it's like playing cards against a rich man. They just bully you into folding by committing more to every single hand than you can afford to risk. And if you do manage to win a hand, it doesn't even really hurt them. It just means you get better terms when you eventually lose."

Zorb shuffled to a stop and carefully set down the cement mix so he could help me line them up neatly - the conversation was slowing us down and we didn't want a lecture about being lazy from a man who had never lifted more than his own body weight in his life.

"That's a result, Korg, not a cause. They have a lot of worlds, and people, and ships, now. But they started with just their home the same as the rest of us, and by order of discovery they're number 45 out of 57. Since they were discovered they've gone from one star to owning more than the rest of us put together. How did they keep winning before they were the biggest player?"

That was a real puzzler, and we worked in silence for a while as I thought it over. Raw population density was a factor, but compared to advanced technology, a bigger navy, and more territory, it had a pretty hard upper bound on how much it helped.

"Traded excess population to other empires for an early advantage, and took more than they gave with their initial allies?" I hazarded, not really expecting that to be the answer. Humans were notorious for trying to impose their own morals on others and more than one derelict had been towed to civilization and set adrift with PEOPLE AREN'T CARGO, MATE written on the hull in carbon scoring. Societies changed over time, but this would be a pretty radical departure.

"Nope!" Zorbalax cheerfully confirmed my suspicions. "It was three things: reverse engineering, cooperating with enemies, and a whole lot of cheating."

Setting the last sack of cement atop the pyramid, I admired our handiwork. "What are you, a history professor now? Why are you suddenly so knowledgeable - and so interested?"

"Not yet! I'm using my wages to help pay down my tuition, working on a xenosociology degree whenever I have enough for another class." I hadn't known that. Zorb was more of an intellectual than I had given him credit for.

"Oh nice, good on you mate. But I don't really follow how those things prove your point."

The boss poked his head in and gave us a dirty look for standing on the shop floor not visibly busting our asses, but we were on schedule so he didn't actually say anything. I was so smug, I didn't even mind that I could feel the balance of the argument shifting.

"Right, so, the first thing that happened when humans were discovered is that they got tangled up in a war. Big surprise to everyone, despite being weak they survived and the Dezlan had to sue for peace because they had over-extended trying to wipe out the humans and everyone they'd ever pissed off suddenly wanted a piece of them. How did the humans fight a much more advanced and stronger species to a standstill?"

"Well, you kind of gave me the answer already. They figured out how the Dezlan's tech worked."

"Exactly!" Zorb's tail was twitching excitedly. "The humans needed less time to figure out how to operate Dezlan weapons and ships than it took the Dezlan to train their own troops. Humans are so used to breakthroughs that the Dezlan's most pessimistic guess was that they were ten generations ahead of human scientific progress, but ten years was enough for the humans to use almost every one of their own technologies against them."

My friend shook his head, putting on a disgusted expression. "And then the Morban rolled through after taking half of the Dezlan's territory, and tried to crush Terra before they could use that stolen tech to become a serious player."

"Wait, the Morban-Terran War was that early? But that would mean..." My head was starting to spin. "No. There's no way. They survived the Dezlan, but they'd just got the crap beaten out of them and they still had only one world. That can't be right."

"Oh, but it is. And, one minor but important correction. They had only one star system, but several worlds. Their population had taken a big hit, but in the twenty years it took the Morban to win and the ten years it took them to secure the territory they'd taken from the Dezlan, humans had been breeding and building shipyards like crazy. And then, of course, the impossible happened."

I was nodding along in spite of myself. "The Impossible Alliance. I remember as a child, thinking that must have been a bit of human propaganda. That there was no way what they said had not been some kind of exaggeration or spin. But you're telling me it really happened."

"It sure did. See, nobody was listening to the tiny handful of scholars that had actually read the huge pile of historical texts that Terra had made publicly available. What kind of idiot would trust what someone told you about their own history? Except it was, broadly, true. Human cooperative societies began so far back, it's arguable if they'd even finished evolving into a fully separate species from their closest relatives. They didn't have a choice; they were too weak to live as independent individuals like most of us did back in our early days."

"And one of the things it taught them was how to live with people that they had been enemies with, is what you're saying?" I was no expert, but the implication was obvious.

"More than live with. If you gave them a reason they could accept, they'd learned how to cooperate in the name of survival so well that they'd work with yesterday's enemies to defeat today's. And the Dezlan, well, they didn't trust the humans, but Terra didn't even ask them to - only to show up and aim their guns at the Morban. Most of the galaxy was just as shocked as you were when they found out what had happened. Certainly the Morban didn't expect it."

"Now that I can believe." Human ships during that war had been built too quickly; they were armed, and numerous, but they weren't up to the rest of the galaxy's standards. Something like one ship of every three had deliberately sacrificed itself to screen the much better designed, heavier Dezlan ships of the line, which had promptly taken revenge on the Morban in truly epic fashion. Humans and Dezlan had almost had a fistfight at the negotiating table arguing over who would own which stars when the fighting was over, but in some inexplicable way they had come out of it as allies, less than half a century after the Dezlan had literally tried (and nearly managed) to conquer Terra itself. It was, well, impossible.

"And you said the third thing was... cheating? Are we still using card games as a metaphor? I'm not sure what cheating at real life would even mean."

Zorb glanced over my shoulder and grimaced. Uh oh. I grabbed a pair of trowels, tossed one to him, and we quickly scooted outside to do some busy-work weeding the big flower display in front of the store before the boss could catch up and start ranting about chatting while on the clock.

"Humans cheat all the time, at everything. Did you know they have a GalaxyNet page that does nothing but keep track of how many interstellar laws only exist because a human did something that nobody had thought needed to be explicitly illegal before? Last time I checked, it was more than seventy percent. Seventy percent, Korg! It's a point of pride to them. Their home world dealt them a bad hand and they've been countering it by stacking the deck ever since. They've made cheating into a zotting art form."

"All right, I think you need to calm down a little. Every species has people that try to take advantage of oversights in the rules, it's not something that only humans do."

Zorb 'accidentally' yanked a weed out too forcefully and spattered my face with dirt. Real mature. "Okay, yes, mister spoil-sport, it's a matter of degree. But one of the newer species being so heavily over-represented is not just a bit of statistical variation. I'm thinking of making this my thesis at school, actually. Right after the Morban-Terran war, Terra had relatively average technologies and a fistful of systems to start with, and then within a hundred years they had reached #4 on the list of species with the most territory."

Gaining multiple worlds suddenly by turning the tables in a war was not unusual, for a mature species. Jumping from around fortieth place to fourth in one of the best metrics for overall power was on a wholly different scale. The species that had been the top three (and were now ranked two through four) had been the only space-faring species for more than five thousand years before the rest of us came along, and the difference between the current holders of fourth and fifth place was easily a full order of magnitude.

"So how did they manage it? I'll concede that they have done a lot of shady things, but since each one has been outlawed, it's not like they could just do it repeatedly."

Zorb was smirking at me as he tossed another fistful of weeds into a bucket. "How much did you say you would wager on that?"

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. "I didn't say anything about a wager. But humans are also the ones most likely to .. what's that saying .. to throw the book at you if they catch you breaking the rules. Are you trying to say they're just being hypocritical, that they actually break the laws and are just better at not getting caught?"

"Not exactly. But think back. We've already agreed that they're really good at coming up with and making use of new ideas, and working together." I supposed we had. And, I realized with a start, I had stopped thinking that it was ridiculous that those things that gave humans such an advantage were because of weakness.

"They apply those advantages to everything," Zorb continued, "not just to work and war. Nobody has ever gone to the trouble to prove it, but the timing of a lot of events is ... suspicious. A new law would come down, too late to stop the first person who had found the existing gap in the rules, but it would turn out that a hundred human companies and government programs had been doing the same thing, and they would also be forgiven as having happened before the change."

He was really warming up to his subject now. "Humans didn't snatch mining and colony rights to one world and then get stopped, they'd grab those rights on one world in each other species' territory all at once. They'd apologize, and it wasn't against the rules at the time, but all of a sudden they had forty or fifty more worlds. And of course, they needed to build trade routes between those worlds, and they were scattered all over explored space."

My expression must have shown my horrified comprehension - Zorb was nodding rapidly and gesturing with his trowel. "It all looks so natural and harmless, and then before you know it, they're everywhere and our own laws make it illegal to kick them out without a formal grievance that will probably end up starting another war. And the more times they get away with it, the less appealing it is to go to war with them."

"They make money on every trade - and they trade with everybody. You know, on average, most species only have official trade and nonaggression pacts with seven to ten others? The Terran Republic has one with every species they aren't actively at war with." My left eye was starting to twitch and Zorb was still barrelling on.

"They usually win without even having to fight, and you remember what happened the last time someone was mad enough at them to actually start a war." I had been so cocky when this argument started, but I was completely lost now.

The latest major interstellar conflict had been little more than an object lesson on the importance of correctly identifying your friends and enemies. A coalition of four species had attacked the humans. By the time news of the war had reached the farthest corners of settled space, it was over. Two of the four had turned on their supposed allies during the very first battle because the humans offered them a better deal before the shooting had even started.

Seriously outnumbered even without counting the possibility of reinforcement by human forces that would have had to travel to reach the conflict zone, the two remaining aggressors had been surrounded and forced to surrender in well under a year.

The worst part, at least to them, was that of course Terra immediately resumed trading with them, and its navy would rescue their ships or colonies now that they had lost too many resources to provide those emergency services for their own kind. It would probably only take one generation before they were among the humans' allies.

The Terran Republic was well on its way to being in control of all of explored space, and we were paying them for the privilege the whole time.

Because being weak had made them too strong to challenge.

Thunderbolts should rain upon fatidic showdowns. Skies should split apart. Rivals ought to have their final bout amidst fire and flood, exchanging fierce moves that outdo each other until one barely prevails.

Every inch of Adam's artistic integrity told him all of that and more...but his pragmatism editorialized the desire right out of his heart. Many millions of lives depended on him doing this right. He wouldn't relinquish his high ground just for the sake of theatrics.

Aboard the ship, his arm draped across the railing, the Painter stood nearly uninjured. He gazed down at the fallen Hangman, who crawled in a puddle of his own blood.

It all comes down to this, huh? Adam wondered. Never thought it would be so...

Easy.

Ultimate evils ought to be nightmarish creatures that your subconscious couldn't even grasp, damnit.

Adam always thought of 'evil' that way, even long before he came to the Painted World and discovered the horrifying marvel known as magic. Moving across dimensions only made that belief stronger. When he took responsibility as the Lord of Penumbria, a small part of him had always assumed that saving all these people would mean having to slay a dragon, or god, or dragon god of some sort.

Just as well that things turned out this way. I'm more of a fan of actually getting things done than winning some dramatic one-on-one duel.

His battle against Eric, he reminded himself, was his sole exception. That was the one time where doing it himself was half of the point of the whole ordeal. Otherwise, Adam had always been more concerned with results over glory. It was precisely why he ensured Ferrero was the one to take care of Ciro rather than go himself.

A good King was one who made use of capable subjects to achieve victory for his country – not an attention-seeker obsessed with writing his name in the history books.

And yet, now that the only person left threatening the world was Valente, Adam couldn't help but feel like this was wrong somehow. Like he should be slaying some unknowable eldritch horror rather than an unstable nuke in the form of a person.

Valente was the Strongest Man in the Painted World, there was no doubt about that. Someone who should have fit the image in his head of an unstoppable monstrosity. His erasure of an entire city before Adam's own eyes was definitely proof enough of that. Even before inheriting Ciro's Talent, Adam didn't think anyone could have defeated him in a fair fight...

Though a conversation with Ferrero had changed his mind about that.

'See, non-duelists often talk of this mythical concept of a fair fight,' Ferrero had told him, the night before he crossed blades with Ciro. 'But those simply don't exist. You can't make them happen – at least not how you imagine them.'

'I get the feeling that your concept of fairness is different from mine,' Adam said, barely containing a smile. 'Go on then. What do you mean they don't exist?

'When most people say a fair fight, they imagine a scenario where both duelists enter the arena perfectly equal. Well-rested, not distracted by any particular worries, not having practiced more often than their opponent lately, and capable of making full use of their abilities.'

'Yeah. That does sound fair to me.'

'It does. It also sounds...how should I put this? Downright impossible?'

Ferrero's question didn't sound like one. 'I might be great at all sorts of parries, but I also might be showing preference toward a specific kind because it worked better in my last practice. My opponent might be stronger, but they also might underestimate me long enough to receive a fatal strike before they ever have the opportunity to display their skills. You get the idea, yes?'

Adam crossed his arms and frowned. 'Well, if they underestimate you, isn't that their own fault?'

'Of course.' Ferrero nodded vigorously, then brought a fingertip to his lips in a gesture Adam knew to be more performative than truly indicative of deep thought. 'But consider this: what if my theoretical opponent, rather than let themselves be ruled by arrogance, did the opposite? What if they were careful of me, approached me cautiously...but that very approach allowed me an all-or-nothing gamble which just so happened to take their life? Would I be an underhanded trickster then? A cheater?'

'No, but I don't think you expected me to answer differently. Is your point that fairness doesn't exist in duels?'

'Oh no,' said the Puppet. 'It absolutely does. Just not how most people picture it. In that scenario, I'd have won fairly, but my opponent wouldn't have been able to demonstrate his skills. Some would have cried luck, mayhaps accused me of a dishonest win, when in truth...it would just so happen that I won against someone better than me.'

Adam stayed in thoughtful silence for a time before responding. 'And what if you had been the one to lose by happenstance to someone weaker than you? Would you still call it a fair duel?'

Ferrero suddenly turned more serious than Adam recalled having ever seen him. 'I would hope so. Luck and circumstance may sometimes work against you, certainly. But even during those trying times – especially then – one needs to take responsibility for their own shortcomings. It does you no good to speak of a nonexistent world where everything would be perfect, if only life were devoid of outside influences.'

Looking down at the sight of Valente's maimed body, Adam couldn't help but think that Ferrero had been right in more ways than one.

Here lay a man who rightfully claimed the title of Strongest. A man who did not delight in the suffering of the innocent. A man who just wanted to be a hero.

Yet his definition of hero had been misguided from the beginning.

Part of me thinks he doesn't deserve to die, Adam thought. The other part thinks death is too good for him.

He leaned over the railing and squinted his eyes to take note of the extent of Valente's injuries. Poor bastard's lungs would collapse any minute now. Tenver had pierced his limbs with surgical precision, aiming to maximize pain without outright killing him. It wasn't something he'd done out of cruelty.

Not only out of cruelty, anyhow. The Talent of Hanging would've let Valente endure just about any punishment, and he was also the type of troublesome guy who would conjure some eleventh hour rally the moment before he was about to die. Best to cut him off from the chance to engage in dramatics.

Tenver took that quite literally, the Painter thought. Enough giantslaying arrows and monstrous crossbow bolts had gone through Valente's arms that even if his Canvas miraculously recovered somehow, he would still never hold a weapon again. His legs had scarcely fared any better – more arrows had pushed the Hangman's fragmented bones out of his thigh, with his kneecap in particular having been torn off like a scraped piece of armor.

Perhaps the Lord Talent could heal him in the future, but Adam had no intention of allowing him to have one.

He still almost hesitated. Instinctively, the sight of Valente's visible agony gave Adam an urge to excuse the Hangman's mistakes, to think of how he was a victim of Ciro's empty promises...only for that conversation with Ferrero to come rushing back, parrying the emotion with a flourish.

"You lost to us." Using his Realm, Adam projected his voice loud enough so that not a single word would be lost on the man. "Despite coming in with three Talents of the highest possible Rank. Doesn't that just piss you off?"

Valente tried to speak, but his body wouldn't cooperate. He'd nearly given up on the task when Adam raised his hand and muttered an Order to allow him to talk, if only for now. It's not exactly healing, but it should relieve him of his pain a bit...

And make his next decision come from the heart.

"Of course it does," Valente barked out. "I am one chosen by the heavens, by – by Ciro! None of you could best me in a fair match, and yet your trickery–"

Adam sighed. He wanted to get mad at him, the way one gets mad at a friend who had long since lost their way...yet even that was beyond him. Anger could've at least told him that he still held Valente in high enough regard to be disappointed, but he didn't feel much of anything, really.

Not even a sense of loss.

Is this what happens when someone disappoints you too much, and too often? Do you just get...ambivalent about them? He honestly didn't care enough to wish that Valente would change.

Which, oddly, didn't change how he felt Valente should have the chance to change. I guess that's more for my benefit than his.

"I think everyone has the right to try again if...nah." Adam shook his head. "Not true. Even if you admitted to all your mistakes, it wouldn't do anything for the countless people you've slaughtered. It wouldn't grant you the right to live. But...it would mean that I'd remember you differently."

He laughed bitterly. "Can't you at least give me something to work with here? Tell me that Ciro tricked you, and you regret everything you've done?"

Valente hadn't been expecting that. Adam didn't need Divine Knowledge to know as much when the man's anger faded to a blank, open-mouthed stare. One heartbeat passed, then another. An unsure sound came out of the man's throat–

Then ceased. Had it not been for his Realm, Adam would have thought the man's pain to have stopped him.

Unfortunately, he knew better.

"Regret? I...you want me to regret what I've done?"

Although Valente couldn't see him from so far down, Adam nodded nonetheless. "I do. If you had regretted things earlier, like when Aspreay fought you for the first time, maybe you could've still done some good. Fought against Ciro. Protected the Puppets. Something. Instead, you ignored what was right in front of you and–"

"If I regretted all of that..."

Valente's eyes fell to the ground. "If I were to disavow everything I've fought and killed for...then wouldn't that make all of their sacrifices meaningless? The Mountain Puppets, the innocents in the Capital, the City of Almarades, Gaspar, they – they all died in the name of the greater good. We needed to save the Empire, the world from those monsters. Do you want me to say that they died for nothing? That I killed them for nothing?"

"Yes." Adam's answer came steady and immediately. "You did."

Valente laughed weakly. "So harsh."

"Call it tough love." Adam closed his eyes and hardened his resolve. He couldn't forgive Valente, but he wasn't looking forward to this next part. "If you can acknowledge that you've done wrong, then I will give you a clean death. Maybe a shot at another life, after you die. If not–"

A geyser of blood cut him short.

Valente's Canvas stained itself again and again, becoming a shade of black so dark as to reject the very concept of color.

The Painted World had rules? So what? Heroes didn't follow rules. Fate was their law, and willpower their tool.

Of course. Of COURSE! Valente let out a small, disbelieving laughter at himself. Had he actually been concerned? Had he truly been afraid that he would fall here? That he couldn't fulfill Ciro's last wish? That he would lose to Adam?

Why did I ever think of that being a possibility?

His soul didn't need any rhyme or reason to succeed. That was all it took for his Canvas to heed to his command, for his battered leg to stand even on missing muscles and bones, and for his complete and utter confidence in his victory to return.

"I WILL ALWAYS OVERCOME ANY CHALLENGE THAT COMES MY WAY!"

Adam didn't doubt that. I kind of understand Aspreay a little better now. Playing the mocking villain against the ignorant fool...doesn't feel half-bad.

Valente's guttural scream felt less like a promise and more like a prophecy. Though he should have been nearing death, having his back to the wall had only triggered a last-second evolution – as if the world itself didn't want him to lose.

"I won't die from just this much," Valente threatened. "I'll survive anything you throw at me. Even tossing me out of this castle into the ground wouldn't be enough to kill me!"

Adam nodded. "That's true."

"Do you think you have the power to judge me?" Valente kept rambling like Adam hadn't spoken. "That you can lecture me about my wrongs, pass down a sentence upon your betters? WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!"

Broken stone floated around the Hangman, crackled like bolts of lightning, then crumbled to dust. The palace itself quaked at his display of power, thousands of priceless artifacts sent crashing down. Just outside the castle, the airship suffered as well; far from the man as it was, it still trembled mid-air as it struggled to stay in place.

Throughout all the chaos, Adam didn't budge. He maintained one hand on the railing, unperturbed. Only his hair fluttering against the wind assured the Hangman that the Painter really was standing there...

Staring at him with eyes that were sad, yet unwavering.

"Who do I think you are?" Adam reached inside his coat pocket and searched mindlessly, as if he didn't already know where he'd put the damned thing.

Am I just delaying on purpose? Guess I am. Part of me isn't heartless enough to do this right away. Or maybe not strong enough is a better description.

Ferrero's advice flared up again, prompting a smile on Adam's face. In the end, if I win, I win. The final result is what matters.

"I'll tell you."

Adam looked at Valente in earnest. Really looked at him. Without mockery or hatred, if only for the moment.

"I think you're just an insecure kid from Blacksmith's Falls. You felt weak and unimportant because you hadn't awakened to your Talent yet. You thought that no one cared about or respected you, even though some of them probably did. Despite how Stella considered you a friend, you wanted her admiration, and sought for a way to attain it.

"That was a hard dream to achieve. It may have been impossible, but you wouldn't know, since you never really tried.

"Instead, rather than searching for a way to improve your life, rather than accept that maybe no one disliked you as much as you disliked yourself, rather than face reality...you searched for a more palatable answer.

"And there came Ciro.

"Ciro said you had no one to blame for your shortcomings. The damned elves, those abominable Puppets, oh, they were the reason the world was going to hell! And you know what? You were special for being among the wise few who saw them as the devils they were. You had the gift of a cleverness that those fools who everyone else admired didn't.

"It made you feel important. Like the underdog in a tale who needs to overcome the ignorant masses. Suddenly you had a purpose. You had value.

"Most importantly, you had respect for yourself.

"Truth be told, you didn't really care what your purpose was. Ciro could've convinced you of anything by that point. Your loneliness was useful, as was the loneliness of many others, and your beloved Emperor channeled it into hatred and blind obedience. You followed his every order – and in turn, received the praise you so desperately craved.

"Maybe there were times you hesitated. Maybe there were times you stood awake at night, wondering if you were doing the right thing. Times when your joyful mood crashed upon seeing family after family clutching dying infants, their deaths a product of the orders you willingly followed."

Until now Adam, hadn't doubted his reading of the man. Now...now came the part he hoped he was correct about.

"But before long, there was blood in your hands – and you felt like you'd lost the chance to turn back. That those people who once denied you importance would stomp on you rather than welcome you with open arms for acknowledging your mistakes.

"And so you kept on fighting. Even though you long grew to regret everything you'd done. Even though at this very moment, you wish you could take it all back, fighting only because you don't think anyone would accept you. You run from the weight of your actions, but you do want to face them.

"You just don't know how."

The Hangman responded in the only language he had ever truly grasped – violence. Electric sparks encircled him, producing thousands of purple flashes that combusted around him, like thousands of fireflies racing from birth to death. A raging storm joined the quaking, making the castle interior feel as if a hurricane was raging inside.

And the eye of that hurricane was Valente. The deathly change in air pressure came from him, from his will. Even Adam's airship, an Imperial prototype he'd stolen during the incident with the Ghost of Waters, wouldn't be able to last long in this. Valente fixed his gaze on his target and—

"I'm no arbiter of morality," Adam said. "I'm a painter. Let's have my art judge you instead."

—Stopped when Adam threw an object at his feet.

It was a canvas. The physical, material kind, with the blank back side facing up, and the painted side on the ground, hidden from view. Adam's Stained Ink had enveloped it, ensuring that it arrived safe and sound.

Valente eyed the back of the painting suspiciously, unwilling to turn it over. Just for a moment, his hesitation lessened the destructive aura surrounding him.

"Whether this works or not..." His fingers trembled slightly. "It depends on if your account of me, your interpretation of me, is correct, yes?"

"Yeah." Adam knew Valente would understand as much, even in this manic state. His Talent of Painting was one that Ciro had made sure all of his Hangmen knew quite well – if only to avoid an outcome where the Kingdom of the Frontier stole even more Talents to distribute among its lords. "If you are the man that I think you are...I'll take your soul."

"And why would I look at this painting at all?" Valente demanded.

Left unsaid was: 'Why didn't you just make me see it?' Adam's response both to the question Valente hadn't asked and the question he had was the same.

"Because I know you're curious if I'm right."

Adam was well-aware that he could force the outcome if need be. He simply didn't believe it would be necessary.

"I'll sweeten the pot," he continued. "I wager a Lord Talent that I'm right."

Greed, surprise, and some other twisted emotion all manifested at once in the Hangman's expression. None were more obvious than the sadistic hope he felt over the prospect of obtaining more undeserved power and avenging his bruised pride. With yet another Talent, he could destroy the airship, kill Adam, kill Aspreay, kill all those who had mocked him.

"THEN I'LL PLAY YOUR GAME!" With a face of manic expectation, Valente turned the painting over to look at it.

Careless, Adam mused.

Valente was only confident because he refused to accept the man he had been – let alone the man he'd become. He felt certain that the painting wasn't even close to describing who he was as a person.

And yet, had the Painter wanted to, it would've been easy to rig this contest. He could have described his impression of Valente incorrectly to bait the man into participating, but made the painting itself accurate. He could have even used the Talent of History to change the painting after-the-fact to guarantee victory.

Adam didn't resort to any of that. He didn't need to.

"I'VE WON!" Valente shouted, a frenzied cackle escaping him. "YOU WERE WRONG!"

A link between Adam, his tablet, the painting, and Valente started to form, that now familiar hazy blue light flowing between them all. It was the unmistakable heralding of his artistic wager of souls. The Talent that had started it all – and the one that would end it all.

Tenver emerged from inside the ship to raise an eyebrow at his King. "Far be it from me to leave a party too early, but the weather for our flight home is looking mighty dire, my dear Adam. May we yet take our leave?"

Adam sighed as he regarded the madman below one last time. "Yeah. I did all I could."

His decision was made – but even so, he hesitated. Adam almost turned back to glance at Valente again when Tenver wrapped a comforting arm around him. Before he could open his mouth to complain, Solara poked out from the door and beckoned them inside.

With both of their help, Adam allowed himself to shut the door behind him, finally ordered the airship to set sail for Penumbria.

For home.

"I'VE WON! I AM THE CHOSEN ONE! I'VE NEVER LOST, AND I NEVER WILL! I–"

Much like Adam, Valente's legs gave up on him. It shouldn't have been a surprise; his body was still a wreck of broken bones and gaping wounds. Nevertheless, he gasped in shock as he crumpled to the floor.

But I was getting stronger! There was no pain! This doesn't make—

Valente felt too ill to complete the thought. Every ounce of pain returned with the flaming vengeance of the worst of hangovers. His intestines rebelled as well, and when he threw up, he felt some of the stomach leave through not only his mouth, but also a gap in his throat he hadn't even noticed.

Am I...dying? He hoped he was. His convulsing body twitched and turned, the only sort of movement he still seemed able to perform. But he wouldn't die so easily, regardless of how much he wished. The Talent of Hanging would keep him alive for a while longer.

His short-lived euphoria was gone. All the sparks of purple vengeance had disappeared. The storm, the quaking that his presence had summoned – they too vanished without a trace, leaving behind only a collapsing castle and the man who'd once been heralded as the Dark Captain of the Hangmen.

"Wha...what happened?" Valente asked. "Adam...?"

No answer came. The airship had flown away. He was alone in the ruins of an empty palace.

So, so alone.

Even Stella wasn't with him anymore.

"Adam?" Valente called out in a weak voice. "Adam, please...please come back."

Silence ruled over the imperial palace, caring little for his pleas.

"Please...."

Still nothing.

"I have your Talent!" Valente cried out. "That's right, I – I won your Lord Talent in our bet! Don't you want it back?! If you leave, you won't–"

"Two things wrong with that, actually," said a familiar voice. "First, he'll get it back once you die. Which is fortunate, as I really don't want to be with you forever."

Had Valente been able to move, he would have recoiled away. As it was, even in his fugue of astonishment, all he could do was gawk at the newcomer.

Atop a pile of rubble sat a familiar figure – a dashing young rogue. The man regarded him with one leg crossed over another, an impish grin, and a thoughtful rubbing of his chin, as if contemplating the next swindle he should pull over at the local tavern.

In spite of Valente's best efforts, Divine Knowledge hadn't erased the man's name from his mind. His tongue still struggled to get the word out. "G—G—G—"

"You could be trying to say either 'ghost' or 'Gaspar.'" The Fallen Lord of Asteria, Gaspar das Cinzas, shrugged. "Should try being more confident. Either of those guesses would've been correct."

Horror surpassed pain, urging Valente to roll back to increase the distance between the two of them. He felt his broken ribs stabbing at his lungs, and did not care. He had to get away from this, this thing at all costs.

"Easy there. You're not healed. Adam just made you believe you were earlier – he wanted to ensure that you weren't making a decision based on desperation. Made you think that you had one of those heroic willpower bullshit moments. Y'know, to see that if given the chance to regret things, you'd at least feel bad over some of the shit you did. Like killing me."

Gaspar eyed him with a mischievous smile, as if Valente had only played a prank on him. "But naaaaaaaaaah. Turns out that no matter what, you're still a little shit. Kinda depressing. Adam was honestly hoping you would prove him wrong."

I didn't surpass my limits just now? Did I just overuse what was left of my Canvas while I thought fate itself was healing my body? Did Adam bait me into – no! That's not what happened!

"But...he was wrong. I got his Lord Talent." Valente frowned. "Why did he give me his Lord Talent?"

"It wasn't his Talent." Gaspar's ghost clapped his hands excitedly, stood up from the rubble, then pointed at himself with both thumbs. "Remember who had the rare gift of a mobile Realm? The one that Adam inherited?"

"This..." Valente studied his hands uneasily. "This is your Lord Talent? Not Adam's?"

"Sure is! See, that's the second thing you got wrong. Was trying to get to this before, but you kept screaming like you saw a ghost or something, so, you know."

"What difference does it make if it's your Talent or his? What good does that do him?"

Gaspar smirked. "Well...one thing Adam wasn't lying about is that you're super hard to kill. You weren't wrong that even dropping you from this high up still wouldn't do the trick. The Talent of Hanging really is just keeping you...hanging on."

He arched an eyebrow. "And if you hang on for long enough, who knows? This time Adam was fucking with you, but with enough time, your ridiculous set of powers probably would give you the opportunity to recover your wounds."

"He couldn't kill me?" Valente asked weakly. His features turned into a hesitant grin. "Despite all his grandstanding, he didn't have a way to kill me?"

"Indeed, indeed! Oh my man, you're so strong and so great!" Gaspar clapped so enthusiastically that Valente nearly missed the irony in his voice. "Not a single thing in the world can kill you...which is why he's not using anything from the world."

Valente felt what was left of his stomach sink. "What do you mean?"

"Adan issued an order to my Realm before transferring it to you. Can you guess what it was?"

Valente's eyes crept slowly, ever so slowly, towards the missing walls where the airship had been. Though it was difficult to make things out from where he stood, with enough time he was certain of what he was seeing. There was the moving world outside of them, and...clouds.

Clouds beneath them.

"Adam told the Realm to – to keep flying."

"Yup. My mobile Realm, if you remember, because I'm simply that guy. Just unprecedented skill really. You won't ever be outside my Realm's boundaries, even if it keeps moving."

Gaspar bowed to a nonexistent audience. "And even though you have access to my Realm, Adam already confirmed that you can't issue any orders with your Canvas in that state. So you'll keep flying."

"Until?"

Gaspar's laugh was a dark one. Gradually, with purpose, he raised his arm to point at the sun burning bright in the sky.

A colder chill than his own dying body raced through the Hangman.

"You'd normally die much sooner than that, but the Realm Walls should give you a semblance of an...atmosphere, or whatever Adam said, once we're in outer space. Assuming this world has an outer space, Adam isn't sure about that. But he knows we have a sun, so – you'll burn up there."

I can't possibly heal from that. No one could. Valente thought the matter over in silence. Can't heal, can't escape, can't fight. I won't have a chance to...do anything.

Already, the blue of the sky seemed muted, its color rapidly fading. Soon there would be nothing left but the cavernous black of the void, an infinite darkness broken up by tiny pinpricks of lights.

I...guess I lost, huh?

Valente was oddly surprised at how little he wanted to deny the thought. Suddenly he felt tired, more tired than he thought a person could feel. He closed his eyes and didn't open them for a long, long while.

It could have been hours. It could have been days. At times he thought his Canvas was healing, but whatever strength returned to him was immediately used up by his – by Gaspar's Realm to reinforce its Walls.

If only I could turn it off. Or do anything to stop it. But Valente's own actions had ensured he couldn't. Even if his Canvas recovered enough, his unrelenting assaults on his own mind with Divine Knowledge had left his understanding of Realms too fractured to be of any use.

Not that it was likely to recover anyway. His last-second overuse of whatever was left in his soul after Adam's trick had ruined him. It would take an incredibly long time for the Hangman to ever recover.

And time...time wasn't something he had much of anymore.

All he could do was flicker in and out of consciousness, kept alive only by the Talent he wished to have awoken as a kid.

I'm hungry. But no matter how many times he awoke, he wouldn't have any food to eat.

I'm thirsty. But no matter how many times he awoke, he wouldn't have any water to drink.

I'm...lonely...

But no matter how many times he awoke, he wouldn't have anyone there who cared.

Except perhaps for Gaspar – if you could interpret unreadable smirks as caring. Time passed, the castle traversed the void, and Gaspar was still sitting atop that same pile of rubble, wearing that same roguish grin.

"Hang in there," the ghost told him. "We must be almost there. Even my Realm is struggling to give you enough air to breathe now."

"Hey...tell me one thing..." Valente muttered. His voice was so quiet he wasn't sure that he'd spoken aloud at all. He also wasn't sure whether he would have needed to. "Are you really Gaspar's ghost? Or are you an illusion?"

Gaspar regarded him with a nostalgic look for a long moment. He turned to look at the hole in the wall, staring at what lay outside.

His mouth split into a bittersweet smile. "Who knows? The Lord Talent is passed down through the soul. Maybe there's a bit of me in the one you inherited, just like there's a bit of all my predecessors. Or maybe Adam created an illusion of me to make sure you suffered in your last moments. Does it really matter?"

"I...suppose not."

A long silence fell again. Valente's mind sank into a haze. He dreamed of past times, better times, worse times. He imagined futures that would never be, playing out scenes of him and Stella and Adam and Gaspar all laughing together over some shared joke. If he wished hard enough, maybe he could make it real.

The feverish daze haunting him broke suddenly when something near daybreak came through the broken wall of the palace.

Valente felt the cracks in the Walls of Gaspar's Realm even before he could feel the results of their shattering. Any moment now. His cold sweat was immediately replaced by a burning sensation that grew hotter by the second, a heat so absolute it felt closer to being consumed than being burned.

"Gaspar...if it means anything, I really am sorry."

"I believe you," Gaspar told him. "I believe you're sorry for yourself, at least."

And so the Strongest Man in the Painted World, along with what remained of the imperial castle, collapsed into the sun and became ashes.

Then nothing.

--

Thanks for reading!

If you truly want to scare a Shraphen engineer, just mention you fixed the fusion core MacGyver-style.
Be prepared; you might need spaghetti Bolognese to calm the poor guy down.

— Author unknown, On the Cultural Impact of Reckless Human Engineering**, 248 P.I.**

The missiles left their tubes, and Botha could feel the whole ship shake under the recoil of the PDGs.

Lieutenant Commander Lindqvist checked the trajectory on the tactical monitor.

“ETA to target, thirty minutes. We’re on target.”

Perfect. Right when the Forbin would meet the Texas, the Argos would have her own little surprise. The missiles would spend most of their fuel while still in Jupiter’s shadow and then switch off their drives. Nothing would warn the Argos and the Mecklenburg.

“Captain, Argos and Mecklenburg are accelerating. They’re leaving orbit.”

“What? Why?”

“Unknown, Sir.”

Browner, the old bastard, must have seen something. Hitting them now with PDGs was impossible; only missiles could change course enough to still strike.

“Calculate another volley, all missiles. Order the Persepolis to interlock with our fire, and coordinate arrival times to be synchronous. We need to overwhelm their PDGs in one fatal alpha strike.”

“Understood, Sir. Targets still Mecklenburg and Argos?”

Botha thought about it for a second. The Mecklenburg was an older destroyer and could severely damage his ships, but her hull plating was simply not up to Argos standards. While he knew he could hit the Argos multiple times without destroying her, the Mecklenburg might be killed with just a few direct hits. And three hundred personnel with her.

“No, only the Argos.”

“Sir?”

“I don’t want to destroy the Mecklenburg by accident.”

Lieutenant Commander Lindqvist shifted in his seat. Botha knew he wasn’t happy about the decision.

You didn’t attend the academy with the people on those ships.

The Terran Defense Force had to ramp up its recruiting programs at the beginning of hostilities.

Many, like Lindqvist, came from private shipping companies or the terrestrial navies and air forces.

They weren’t shooting at their friends.

“Problems?”

Lindqvist turned around. “No, Sir, it’s just… unconventional.”

“It sure is, but two weeks ago I was serving next to those men and women, and in six weeks we will hold the line against the Batract next to those people out there. If it is up to me, we will kill as few as we can in the meantime.”

“Understood, Sir. Let’s just hope they think the same way.”

Lieutenant Fourie, who had watched the exchange silently, now turned.

“Time until we leave Jupiter’s shadow: eleven minutes.”

The timing had initially been planned to be too short for the Argos to move significantly out of orbit. Even though the ship was fast and maneuverable compared to most alien ships, she was slow and cumbersome compared to the Helios.

Now that the Argos had fought her way out of orbit, Botha’s suprise attack was at risk.

—————

“Sir, two more ships detected, heading 050, 010. They just left Jupiter’s shadow opposite the first hostile group.”

Hostile group…

Browner knew the Texas; he had served his first rotation on her.

“That was his plan all along. Scan for fast-moving objects. I wouldn’t be surprised if they fired from inside the shadow.”

“Scan for fast-moving objects inside Jupiter’s rings, Sir?”

He stared at the sensors officer. “Well, he won’t be shooting ice particles, Lieutenant.”

“Scanning, Sir.”

“Send out all googly eyes, especially out of the ecliptic. I want an eagle’s-eye view of the battlefield.”

“Aye, Sir.”

The Solar Sensors network would have allowed him to see every floating grain of sand, but the first accords of this… whatever the hell this conflict was… had been that neither side was allowed to access the sensor grid or fire on it.

As long as no one used the grid, no one had reason to damage it. The outer belt colonies had taken control of the network, and it was clear that if one side broke the agreement,the neutrals would choose the opposing side, giving it an instant sensor overview and resources.

Browner began to study the tactical overview.

If he hadn’t ordered them out of orbit ten minutes ago, he would do so now. If there was a volley of… hostile… fire coming at them, they would accelerate into it face-first.

A shiver ran along his neck. No matter how outdated Botha’s ships were the man was everything his personnel file had said he was.

“CIC to Bridge. Our guest might have sent us some advance greeting. Captain, bring us between them and the Mecklenburg and drop heat now. We might be fighting longer than we expected.”

Dropping heat in the form of kinetic gel was wasteful, but heat buildup was one of the most limiting factors in long fire exchanges.

And the hot gel was like a flare to heat-seeking missiles.

He took a closer look at the new group. The Persepolis and the Helios. The Helios especially was surprising. She was still in her original configuration: no rotational gravity and a weak prototype A-Drive.

Why use such outdated ships?

No hull plating to speak of and no inertial dampeners. The ASN used those ships mostly in the Homefleet reserve. They were a capable artillery platform after the refit to a larger spinal gun, but the Helios lacked even that.

“Comms, call the Helios. Ask for Captain Botha specifically.”

—————

“Sir, the Argos is calling us. They are asking for you.”

So Browner knew I wasn’t on the Texas*. That’s why he left orbit early.*

“Put him through.”

The admiral’s face appeared on screen, and Botha immediately asked himself why the man was smiling.

“Captain Botha, very clever trick you pulled off. Next time, hide the puffy face.”

He’s trying to bait me. Nice try. It might have worked with an inexperienced captain.

“Thank you. I’ll remember it for next time. I see you’re leaving orbit. Can I assume you’re giving in to our demands?”

A young cadet handed a dataslate to the admiral. Was the manpower shortage in the ASN so extreme that they put cadets on an admiral’s flagship?

“I am sorry, Captain, I can’t.” Browner read through the report, then raised an eyebrow. “Even though you sent four hundred missiles my way. Respect, Captain.”

Damn, the sensor technicians on the Argos must be magicians.

“I thought I’d show my enemies the respect they deserve. Come on, Admiral, you can’t be happy having one man in control of the whole Human race.”

“Don’t start with the junta crap, son. Am I happy? No. But we didn’t fire first. All of that”—Browner made a wide gesture with his hands—“is because Earth didn’t like not leading the system, and you know it.”

It had been a shock to learn that the attacks on Liverpool and the other archives had been carried out by the Gaian cowards, and the fact that Earth vessels really did fire the first shots was a bitter pill to swallow, but still. The ASN and the Aligned Planets had defended a de facto military dictatorship.

“They were just working from the information they had at the time. Neither of us knows how we would have acted in their place.”

Browner actually nodded.

“So you won’t back down, Captain?”

“I was just about to ask you the same, Admiral.”

Sadness. Botha could see it clear as day through the visor of the admiral’s space suit. He knew the feeling well.

“Stay safe, Captain.”

“You too, Admiral.”

The line closed.

Lindqvist turned in his seat to look at Botha, a tic the rest of the bridge crew seemed to have taken on as well.

“Sir, the Argos has opened fire at the missiles.”

“Let them. Pegasus will cross the terminator line in ten minutes. Then all this is over.”

—————

The PDG fire looked like glowing fingers reaching out into the dark, destroying missiles far away, each hit a small bloom of orange or green.

The fact that an Earth ship used Martian-built missiles with heavy copperized methane as fuel showed the irony of the conflict in glowing colors.

“Sir, Texas and California have begun firing at the Forbin. Orders?”

Botha was no idiot. Why attack the Forbin now?

“Order the Mecklenburg to fire sprint torpedoes. Let’s give the Forbin some breathing space to slowly retreat back to Europa.”

His initial instinct was to counter the attack with force; he just wasn’t sure if that was his opponent’s plan.

I hate 5D chess. If he knows that I know that he knows…

On the screens, he observed the Forbin fighting a battle he had watched play out all over the system for the last two weeks.

Giants sparring each other. The Forbin, slowly turning away from the advancing Texas and California, fired focused streams of PDG rounds at the Texas’s PDG towers.

One after the other, the forward towers of the Texas exploded.

Simultaneously, the Texas and the California tried to pierce the Forbin’s PDG shield with missiles, without any luck.

The Forbin was a destroyer, equipped with 32 point-defense lasers for missile defense, similar to the Argos’s short-range defense, and another 32 PDG kinetics in 40 mm for short- to medium-range defense and offense. Combined with the long-range 56 mm PDG kinetics, she outgunned the Texas and the California together.

The Texas had already lost eight of her 40 mm guns, half of her kinetic armament. The California wasn’t much better off, with only ten guns still active.

What is your plan? You must have known we can outgun you any day of the week.

A dim glimmer on the Texas’s hull caught Browner’s eye. Zooming in, he saw that the Texas had begun to open her hangars.

“Admiral, one new contact, identified as TDF Pegasus. She’s coming down from Jupiter’s north pole.”

Browner turned to watch the new contact. He suddenly got a bad feeling.

What was the Texas doing, opening her armored hangars?

“Multiple FTL transits registered, vectors—”

The whole ship shuddered under fire. Browner could swear he saw rounds streaking through the CIC. Through the deck plating, he felt the ship’s PDGs open fire at something he couldn’t see. Debris and an odd-looking red mist drifted through his vision as he began to float. The first volley must have hit the grav plating in the ceiling.

“Report!”

He didn’t know the voice that answered him.

“Fifteen small satellites have just transited from the Texas and the Pegasus to us. They were covered in 56 mm PDGs. Hull plating critical, multiple inner and outer hull breaches.”

“Status of the Forbin and the Mecklenburg?”

If the Argos had almost been taken out, he could imagine how the other ships had fared.

The CIC was in total chaos. Debris and people drifted around. Browner clicked the heels of his spacesuit together to activate the magnets.

A body with a large chest wound drifted by him, the medical indicators on its arm showing the person inside was dead. Browner swallowed heavily, then pushed the body softly aside as he moved back to the tactical table.

“I said, status of the Mecklenburg and the Forbin! People, focus!”

Another person answered. The comm identification system must have broken down as well; no name was registering.

“Undamaged. The satellites only targeted us.”

“Admiral, Captain Carmichael here. We have critical failures along the PDG network, as well as engines and life support. We can’t take another hit like that.”

Of course. Everyone in the TDF knew the layout of every ASN ship. A clinical strike that had almost taken out the already damaged Argos.

“Captain Botha is hailing us.”

Browner exhaled sharply. “Put him through. Audio only.” He didn’t want to risk giving away how badly they were damaged.

“Admiral, I’m glad you survived.”

“Not everyone was that lucky, Captain.” His mouth tasted bitter.

“And I truly regret their deaths, Admiral. So please, listen. I have a couple hundred more of those satellites stored in our hangars, and I will launch them at you and the other ships if you force me to. Please, Admiral, save what’s left of your crew and retreat.”

Browner swallowed again. Every officer in the CIC was looking at him. Some with anger in their eyes, willing to fight on. Some, like Cadet Six, with barely hidden fear.

He could fight. He wanted to fight. But what for? The whole charade had been for naught.

We underestimated the TDF, and they took the Nixtred frame and turned it into a close-quarters combat weapon.

The ASN needed to rethink its whole rulebook.

“Our engines are damaged.”

“That’s no problem, Admiral. We’ll give you time to repair them, or have the Mecklenburg tug you out. Do you need assistance?”

Most of his crew showed relief. They would fight any alien species to the death, but die fighting Humans? Fighting their friends?

“No, thank you. We will call you with an update when we’re able to retreat.”

“Take your time, Admiral.”

—————

“Captain, Admiral Jellico from TDF HQ is calling.”

Botha wasn’t in the mood. His victory tasted like ash. He had known people might get killed, but that didn’t change the guilt he felt.

“Put him on screen.”

Jellico’s round face appeared, and Botha felt the usual dislike well up again.

“Well done, Captain. Taking Europa has improved our situation considerably.”

Before Botha could answer, the admiral continued.

“But the Prime Minister wants to know why you gave the enemy time to retreat. Why didn’t you destroy, or at least board, the ships?”

Botha wanted to jump up from his seat, but the harness held him back.

“Tell the Prime Minister that if he’s unhappy with how I pulled off an impossible victory, he can climb into a dinghy, row out here and show me how to do my job. Until he moves his cowardly ass out of his bunker, I’ll operate how I like. And I’m not gonna commit a massacre. Understood, Admiral?”

Jellico raised his hands placatingly.

“I already told him that killing Humans isn’t in our interest. Calm down, Captain. I see the Persepolis is mostly undamaged?”

“Yes.” Botha was still boiling with anger.

“Good. We need you to take command of her and the Pegasus. We have a new mission for you. Have you ever heard of Shambhala?”

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Hello,

Not much to say except to enjoy Chapter 2.

Sorry for the delay; I overlept the release yesterday, since Reddit doesn't allow scheduled posting

Well, I am thinking about adding a “Friends of Astra Inferna” section on Discord, dedicated to other authors I’m friends with.

Would you like that?

Anyway, have a nice one.

M.R. Reese

The fence was all that they remembered from the time before. That and the infernal, menacing mist that always blocked the light from the sun, no matter what the season was. It was the morning, but who would really know for sure?  Then again, nobody really had a reason to care anyway.  Morning, evening, it was all the same.

Jon stopped tending the grass long enough to put his digger down to wipe the sweat from his forehead.  The sun was always seen through a haze of dust or smoke or something that was in the atmosphere.  It might keep the light levels down, but it didn’t do anything to slow down the heat any.  If anything, it held the heat in.

He looked around and just breathed for a moment.  Jon liked to spend his extra time out here where nobody else was.  Even if it wasn’t his assigned task, he would probably be out here anyway.  It was a place to go.  Here in the plot, there just weren’t that many places where you could get away by yourself, even for a little bit.  It was peaceful here … serene almost.

The fence in the distance seemed to shimmer and undulate in the heat and haze as if it was a long, segmented worm, carried along by the whispery thin legs of the posts that supported it.  The swaying weeds and wild grasses at the edge of their plot brought the vision to life even more as he watched.

It was like a living thing that wrapped around their plot and kept them on one side while the roving towers of metal rumbled in the distance.  Or did it protect them from the giant leviathans of metal that lumbered across the terrain as they followed the directions of their alien gods?  They had discussed what it was all about many times in the clan huddles of the conclave over the generations that they’d been here.

There were stories of the multitudes of people that covered the planet in the old times … back before “they” came.  Humans were supposed to have been at their peak of evolutionary advancement.  The elders used to tell all the old tales of ships that could fly, and others that could float across giant oceans of salty water where other people of different skin colors and body structures would meet them.  It all sounded like made-up shite now.

The elders were long gone now anyway, and the stories probably got embellished a little bit with each retelling.  Nobody believed them anymore.

In the distance, toward the conclave, he could see someone coming toward him pulling a cart.  He sure hoped it would be Cheris.  Really, he already knew it would be her.  If it was, that meant that there would be some mostly fresh water to drink, and there would be some gruel to put something in his belly.

The thought of his stomach made the insistent feelings of hunger and emptiness more pronounced.  That was nothing new, though.  It was a constant nagging feeling, but they all learned a long time ago that there wasn’t going to be anything to help out in that department, so they shrugged it off.

A movement on the other side of the fence drew his attention away from the person with the cart.  It was a small creature with long ears, nibbling on the grasses close to the fence.  He already knew what it was.  It was something called a rabbit.  It was one of the many different creatures that lived outside the plot.

His immediate thought was of alarm for the rabbit, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do.  Everybody knew that the fence was death.  It was like the sky when it began to rumble and light up with those streaks of crackling lightning.  Touch any part of it, and there would be nothing left but a smoking husk of your former self.

It was still going to be several minutes before Cheris could get there, so he watched the rabbit.  It was such a beautiful creature.  It was gray and brown so that if it wasn’t moving, it almost looked like a stone from his vantage point out in the grass.

The little rabbit went out of sight for a moment in the tall weeds on the other side of the fence, and then back in his field of view a little farther down from where it was before.  It was curious and inquisitive, just nonchalantly checking out this, and then that.

While he watched, there was another movement that caught his eye.  Another rabbit joined with the first and they met and sniffed each other up before going their own way again.  That was so cool.  It was like two strangers meeting and talking for just a second before saying, “Okay … see ya.  Have a good day.”

He looked back, and Cheris was much closer now.  She was such a gentle girl.  They had been friends most of their lives.  She wasn’t born here like he was, but was dropped with another group of people years ago.  Actually, it was the last time that there were any new people dropped here in this plot.

They didn’t have much of a story to tell … just another plot like this one, only there was an earth-shake, and part of their fence tore apart.  As soon as it did, the metal towers outside their fence rolled up and began to suck everybody up with wind or something.  They were brought here … and that was that.

She was almost there now, and he looked back for another look at the rabbit.  It was gone by this time, and the fence and the waving grass were all there was.  Jon sighed and put it out of his mind.  Rabbits, and dogs, and deer … they were all creatures that you could see every now and then, but it wasn’t like they could actually touch them or anything … not with that fence there.  It was an inescapable and deadly prison.

Cheris was always a welcome sight for Jon.  She was one of the only people in the whole plot that understood where he was coming from.  It wasn’t just one-sided either.  They both understood each other.  Well, he got along with her better than anybody else anyway.  He’d probably never truly understand her.  She wasn’t like the other girls here … or guys either, for that matter.

That was probably the thing that he liked most about her … the way she was different.  You know, if every part of your day is pretty much the same … every single day … something that stands out is a welcome change.

She had this way about her that made him think of things that nobody even discussed at all.  It probably wasn’t her fault, but she had these dreams that kept occurring, again and again.  In the dream, they were in a big plot that didn’t have any fence.  The animals could come right up to them, and they could walk as far as they wanted and never have to turn back.  They could go all the way to the ocean if they wanted.  Crazy, right?

  It sounded pretty crazy.  Nobody talked like that since the elders were around.  Sure, there were elders still in the conclave, but they weren’t the elders that really knew the old stories.  These people just heard it from those that came before, not like they actually saw those things they talked about.

Cheris waved when she knew he was looking again.  Jon waved back and waited for her to get there.  He could have met her and not let her pull the cart all the way over, but it didn’t even occur to him.  His job was tending to the grass, and hers was bringing the gruel, which, of course, was made from the stalks and grain from the grass.

If he met her halfway, then he would be partially doing her job, and then he’d still have to do his.  Everybody had to do their own job, or how the hell was the plot supposed to survive?  You gotta have grass to get the seeds and stalks to make gruel, and gruel was the key to survival, wasn’t it?  What else is everybody supposed to eat?

When she got to where he waited, Cheris was about to say something to him, but then she looked past him to the fence.  She had a look on her face that was like horror and surprise and shock all at the same time.  It was enough to make Jon turn around again.

The rabbit was back, or at least a rabbit was back, and it was being pursued by a dog of some kind.  No, not a dog.  This was smaller, with a bigger head … it was a coyote.  It had been years since he saw one of those.  The dog packs had run off all the coyotes years ago.

They were both frozen in place watching this scene of life and death play out on the other side of the fence.  There was nothing they could do.

Cheris’s hand reached out to hold on to his arm.  He wasn’t sure if it was for her own stability, or to reassure him.  It felt nice all the same.

The coyote was close … the rabbit was weaving back and forth as they neared the fence.  Closer … and closer.  It was almost to the fence, and Jon felt himself holding his breath … just knowing that the end was right there.  He even squinched up his face in anticipation of the contact with the fence.

They both knew what would happen as soon as that poor rabbit made even the slightest brush against that thing.  There would be a loud cracking sound and a bright flash of light, and then the smoke would rise up with the terrible stench of burning flesh and hair.  They’d seen it before.

Cheris’s hand clenched down harder on Jon’s arm and then … at the last second … the rabbit vanished from sight, and the coyote veered off at the last moment too, just before running into the fence himself.

Jon and Cheris both just stood there for a moment, not knowing what happened.  The rabbit was there one second, and then it was gone.

“What …?” Cheris asked, to nobody in particular.

“Uumm …” was all Jon had to say too.

Then, on their side of the fence … not the other side where the drama had just played out, but on their side … a little nose from a rabbit popped up out of a hole in the ground, right at the edge of the grass that Jon was plugging.  It was close to the fence, so nobody ever went over there, that far.  Nobody ever went anywhere close to that thing.  To go over there was suicide.

The rabbit followed its nose and came out into the grass of the plot as if it didn’t have a care in the world.

“How did it …?” Jon said.

Cheris pulled her hand back and slowly said, “Jon … it went under the fence.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said.  Understanding that the rabbit did indeed go under the fence, but not quite understanding what she was getting at.

“No Jon … It went under the fence,” she said, looking meaningfully at his digger.  “If it did … then we can too.”

Jon raised his digger up and looked at it as the realization of what she meant opened in his brain.  “The dreams …” he said, looking over at Cheris.

FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.

OC originally written by Charlie Star/starrfallknightrise. Slightly rewritten and restructured (with hindsight of the full finished story to connect it more together, while keeping the spirit), reviewed, proofread and corrected by me.

Just so you know: this chapter’s original name was changed to avoid spoilers!

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"Alright, come on."

Kay wined a bit as Adam picked him up, sweeping him away from the dirt pile he was studiously building up with the help of the little Finnari hybrid girl. He looked like he was thinking about throwing a fit, but when Adam sat him down at the picnic table and handed him a paper plate with a very gooey glazed cinnamon roll, whatever complaints he had been thinking about voicing died.

Adam ruffled his son's hair,

"That's what I thought."

It didn't take long before Kay was covered in sugar glazing, all four hands and the whole lower half of his face.

Krill and Riss appeared just then, carrying between them a large liter soda cup with two straws. Adam doubted it contained soda, probably just warmed sugar water, which the two of them had taken to calling tea.

As they approached, Adam could already hear them arguing.

As usual…

Krill argued with everyone, but he especially enjoyed arguing with Riss, who like Krill, was willing to argue hours on end without stopping. Granted, the two of them denied that their conversations constituted arguing, insisting that they simply enjoyed an exuberant debate.

Adam might have agreed if their conversations had been more scientific.

He could see the merit of debating whether the Rorschach test was a valid form of reality testing, but he did not see how the two of them could "debate" for over an hour on the proper location to store a bag of sugar. Honestly this shouldn't have mattered, but the two of them were conducting a new "experiment" that involved Riss and Krill moving in together and cohabitating "like the humans do".

Again, they said it was for science, but Adam wasn't so sure.

First, you have kids together and then you start sending time together, and then you go and move in together?

It makes a guy wonder…

History would just say that they were roommates cohabitants…

Krill still claimed openly that Vrul were not capable of feeling, or producing “romantic feelings”.

Adam also pointed out that once upon a time they thought Vrul couldn't produce rage, but here they were proven wrong.

Krill had been annoyed, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

"Happy Foundation Day."

Riss said, while all around them colored lights swirled and silent music played. Adam could hear the clattering of metal against metal as a few sparring matches continued at the edges of the field.

"Chew with your mouth closed."

Sunny admonished, doing her best to wipe some of the glaze from Kay's hands.

Adam raised his hands in a welcoming gesture,

"And Happy foundation day to you as well."

He glanced down at their shared cup with a grin,

"I see the humanizing phenomena has gotten to you too?”

Riss shrugged, but Krill lifted his chin defiantly,

"You would be wrong. We are simply sharing this cup out of convenience. The booth was only offering one size and neither of us are large enough to finish off one drink."

Adam raised an eyebrow,

"Uh huh…"

"Our relationship is purely professional and scientific in nature."

Adam turned his head back over his shoulder to look at Sunny,

"You hear that? I know we have a son together but according to Krill our relationship is purely professional and scientific."

Sunny snorted as she finished cleaning Kay up,

"Uh huh… While we are on the matter, which position do you think is more professional reverse cow-"

Adam held up a hand,

"And I am going to stop you right there."

He already felt his neck turning red.

Sunny snorted, blowing a gust of air through the holes at the base of her neck,

"How is it you can be a married man with a son and still be a raging prude?”

"With great ease."

Krill cleared his throat,

"I think you forget my species does not have the same biological imperative as yours does."

"And I think you just don't want to admit you are in love, because if you did that would be admitting that you have had an illogical and irrational emotion Mr. Spock."

"I am pretty sure in the later movies Spock's primary emotional response is Rage."

Krill said, brandishing his liter cup at Adam.

Martha and Jim arrived sharing a soft pretzel,

"Why don't you let us take Kay for an hour or so and you can go have some fun."

"I was having fun heckling Krill, but I don't think Kay would mind."

He glanced over at Sunny, who, while skeptical eventually relented. It wasn't that she was an overprotective mother. She was perfectly fine with letting Kay figure out the world on her own. She was, however, paranoid about Kazna and the forces of Evil coming to steal her son.

Adam felt similarly, but his mother had already proven effective at fighting them off once, he was sure she could do it again.

He took her hand and walked her into the crowd, and they walked together around the little carnival, sharing food and watching a few fights.

He saw Nairobi and a few of the other engineers attempting to learn one of the Kata dances. Nairobi was surprisingly good for an engineering nerd, though the rest of them were woefully lacking in hip movement.

They saw Conn and Eris again. Eris had her head tilted back to the sky in annoyance as Conn flicked marshmallows at the crowd from above. He seemed to take some form of sadistic glee as he pelted people with the fluffy sugar cylinders. Upon seeing Adam, he lobbed a marshmallow directly towards his face, which unfortunately for him, Sunny caught in her open left palm, right before it could make contact. She eyed Conn who shrugged and went to turn away.

Sunny waited until he was distracted before flicking the marshmallow right back at him.

It was a good shot and hit him right in the back of the head, causing him to turn and frown at her.

Conn should probably have been able to sense that coming, but in large crowds like this his telepathic abilities were less effective. As far as they knew Conn's working memory wasn't much better than that of the average human. He could really only focus on one thing at a time, and his memory could contain up to seven pieces of information plus or minus two at any given moment.

So, while he could monitor the general mood of an entire crowd, it was difficult for him to pick up singular thoughts.

They passed into a row of dueling circles, and Sunny stopped to watch a few of the fights.

Maverick was in one circle with a Drev that was almost twice her height, and she was practically toying with him. He was big, powerful and slow, and unfortunately for him she stayed inside his reach, ducking between his legs on more than one occasion, kicking him in the back of the legs before he could turn around to face her.

Ramirez shouted and cheered from the outside of the circle waving his fists.

”That’s my Maverick! Go get him girl!”

Someone tapped Sunny on the shoulder and two of them spun around. Dzara was standing there with her spear held in one hand,

"May I have this fight, sister?”

Sunny glanced down at Dzara's side,

"And your wound?”

"Krill cleared me for combat this morning."

Sunny huffed and rolled her shoulders,

"Good. Are you ready to get pounded into the dirt then?”

"I'm ready for you to try sister."

Dzara wasn't a very accomplished fighter, at least not in comparison to Sunny.

She had only been fighting for the past two or so years after getting her leg braces, but to her credit she had been working very hard, and she had the guts to challenge Sunny to a fight. Adam didn't think he had seen Dzara win a fight since knowing her, but she never punched at her own weight, she always tended to choose those who were way better than she was.

He had a feeling that was on purpose.

He held to the side of the circle and watched as the two sisters squared up against each other.

"Been a while since I had a good brawl."

Adam turned just in time to see Lord Celez standing beside him. The rainbow-haired war criminal was still wearing his fuzzy pink sweater, but now he also carried an impressively large cloud of cotton candy. Adam vaguely wondered if it reminded the man of home. The ball of cotton did vaguely resemble a biiig Celzex if you squinted at it long enough.

Lord Celex took a bite,

"The last time I got into a good brawl I died."

"You know every time you say that it’s still just as weird as the first time. I keep forgetting you're-…"

"Undead, does that make me a zombie?"

Adam shrugged,

"Maybe... Actually technically you came back on your own accord (or due to some divine intervention) so by definition you’d be a revenant, not a zombie."

Celex looked on longingly at the fighting,

"I would fight, but it would be highly unfair to anyone else if we did. I am an eternal being of great and awesome power now."

Adam snorted.

"Is that it? Right now, you look like the flamboyant uncle. Lollipop is a flavor not an aesthetic."

Lord Celex raised an eyebrow at him,

"Are you trying to goad me?"

Adam shrugged,

"Maybe….”

"Because clearly, you aren't very good at it"

Adam shrugged,

"Fine then, I guess you're just too chicken to fight me."

"I am not entirely sure what a chicken is, but if you are implying I am a coward, then I am going to have to take you into that circle and thrash you to prove a point."

"Try me."

"Only you would be stupid enough to challenge a Maker to a duel."

"I stole the architect's ship, I am nothing if not audacious."

Lord Celex, reached up, stuffing the cotton candy into a ball which he shoved into his mouth whole,

"Very well, let us begin."

The two of them walked into an open circle, and the fight was overseen by an arbitrator who examined the lines.

Lord Celex pulled off his fuzzy pink sweater and handed it to one of the viewing members of the crowd. He had sculpted himself a very fit physique, which Adam would have been jealous of if Celex had earned it the hard way. Adam didn't need to take off his shirt, but he did, just so everyone could see what hard work and dedication actually looked like.

Celex's was a fabrication, while Adam was for real.

The crowd oohed.

Adam watched as Celex winked into the crowd, causing a very pretty girl in the front row to blush.

Adam snorted,

"Don't bother, he already has two hundred wives."

Celex almost looked insulted,

"HAD, and it was two hundred concubines and ONE wife."

Adam frowned,

"Avex didn't inherit any of your concubines did he? Because that's just super gross."

Avex frowned,

"Are you trying to... oh what is the word you humans use... Cockblock me?”

Adam shrugged,

"I was a few seconds ago, but now I actually really want to know if Avex inherited your concubines because its making my skin crawl."

Celex crossed his arms over his bare chest,

"He did not. If Avex wants a harem, then he's going to have to get his own."

He turned to look at the crowd and grinned,

"And just for the record: I am a good time in case anyone was interested."

Adam rolled his eyes hard,

"Alright stop stalling and pick your poison, spear, sword or…?"

"Bare knuckles."

"Are you proposing to me?"

Adam teased

Celex looked him over as if he was actually considering it,

"Mmmmm unfortunately you aren't my type."

"Not hairy enough?”

"You seem to be laboring under the delusion that you're funny."

"And you seem to be laboring under the delusion you can beat me."

The arbitrator raised his hand and the two of them began to circle slowly. Adam knew that Celex could simply vaporize him with a thought, but he certainly hoped the old war criminal was at least honorable enough to give him a fair fight.

"I could beat you, like a dusty rug."

Celex taunted

It didn't work.

Adam wasn't going to make the first move,

"Are you going to fight me or keep running your mouth old man?”

Celex opened his mouth as if to respond, but then lunged forward. Adam was ready, and the two exchanged a series of testing punches. Celex hit hard, really hard, and he was unrelenting.

But Adam noticed he was a bit uncoordinated.

He had amazing footwork, but he tended to stop moving to use his hands, as if forgetting he had four limbs now.

Adam used that to his advantage, punching and moving at the same time.

He was getting the upper hand when Celex figured out what was going on.

Celex switched tactics quickly and came in low, grabbing Adam around the waist with both arms and body, slamming him to the ground. Adam tensed all the muscles in his core as they hit the ground narrowly avoiding getting the wind knocked out of him, though it hurt like hell. Celex grabbed him and locked his legs around Adam like a barnacle, and the two of them went rolling across the circle.

Now that they were on the ground and rolling, Adam found himself woefully outmatched. He had never been great shakes at grappling, but clearly grappling was closer to the Celex form of combat than boxing was. It took all he had simply not to be pinned or choked out. Instead, it deveolved into a long drawn-out battle of stamina.

Whoever caved first would lose…

Adam managed to get his foot up between the two of them, and was ready to kick the Emperor off when the sky suddenly lit up with a blinding flash of white light…

The crowd went silent, eyes wide as they stared upward.

The white light dissipated into a sharp disk that crackled in an arc through the night sky.

Celex let Adam go, and the two of them got to their knees to stare.

Adam's implants began buzzing almost immediately, and before he knew it Conn was hovering above him,

"What THE HELL was that!?”

Adam demanded.

"THAT was the defense nexus."

Conn said,

"Shit."

”Shit indeed.”

Adam reached out and grabbed his shirt from a gaping member of the crowd, followed closely by Celex who sprinted after him through the crowd. Sunny linked up with them on their way out, along with Maverick and Ramirez. Maverick had a bloody nose but didn't seem to notice it as she raced after them.

The group of them piled onto a tram transport which whisked them to the airfield. Adam was met by a group of on duty soldiers.

"What's going on? Status report, now!”

"The defense nexus was activated sir. Reports are coming in from all over Arcadian airspace. Multiple similar instances. One station managed to capture this image before the explosions..."

Adam's mechanical eye opened the image.

"Shit is that…?"

"An unidentified ship of some sort?”

"Do we recognize the make?"

"The base model is Kree but the rest of it is... Unknown."

"Kazna..."

Celex muttered darkly under his breath, looking up at the sky as if waiting to see another eruption of light.

Adam felt his face pull into a grim line,

"Put Arcadia on high alert. I am declaring a state of emergency and bringing us onto DEF-CON 3! Get our pilots ready for wheels up in five."

"Yes sir!"

Whether it was a scouting mission, a probe, or the beginning of a full-scale attack, Adam had no doubt that this was the beginning…

The beginning of war.

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Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story in its original form written by starrfallknightrise and I am just proofreading and improving some parts, as well as structuring the story for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!

Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this.

Adrian was standing at the train station again.

The station seemed almost the same, but there was an unmistakable difference. The station was dimmer than before, as though evening was just starting, with the sunlight giving off more of a yellowish hue, but the figures in the crowd seemed darker.

The girl was standing in front of Adrian again, but this time she was standing more distant but she was still smiling. Still teary-eyed. Still, her next words radiated kindness and compassion.

'Protect the children, Adri. Protect the children, Adri. Protect the children, Adri.'

Adrian woke up with a jolt in bed. He raised his hands to look at them. These weren’t the soft and small hands of a ten year-old but these hands were bruised, and each fingertip had a deep layer of calluses. These hands were larger and stronger.

Adrian sighed just like the day before, but this time he observed that his shirt was drenched in sweat. Seeing this, Adrian got off his bed and began to get ready for work.

Even though it was still dark outside.

'You really can’t catch a break, Adrian.'

Adrian’s boss was frowning as he stood in front of Adrian, who was already picking up his keys and getting ready to leave. However, the warehouse seemed almost empty today. There was no commotion going on like the previous day. The only ones standing in the warehouse seemed to be the boss and Adrian.

The door of the warehouse stood ajar, and just outside it, the sky looked blue, lacking the intensity of heat that it usually had when Adrian was leaving the docks. Evening had already arrived at the docks.

'I gave you one day off to rest up so that you don’t fall ill, and then you show up the very next day before dawn.'

'It was really nothing, sir.' 

Adrian had picked up his keys and was now facing his boss, smiling. Now his features became more visible under the yellow hue of sunlight. His forehead was drenched in sweat, and his face was covered in a mixture of sand, dust, and sweat. However, his eyes were full of energy.

'You arrived hours before dawn and are leaving hours after everybody else left.'
“Well, we all have to earn our share now, Sir George.”

Adrian smiled and George couldn’t help but smile as well.

“Oh and by the way.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I got a call earlier from the community clinic of Eastreach. Apparently, the doctor
there wants you to drop by after work before you head home.”

'Alright.'

'You asked for me, doc?'

Adrian had arrived at the clinic. It was sparkling the same as the day before but today it seemed completely deserted. All the beds were empty and the only audible sounds in the atmosphere were light sounds of the spinning fan and the usual noise coming from the streets of Eastreach of children playing, grown men complaining about rising expenses and women chatting with each other as they
walked along the streets.

'Y-yes, Adrian. Please have-please have a seat.'

The nervousness was extremely apparent in the doctor’s voice. His expression was stiffened and his face was sweating, even though it was almost dusk and the fans kept the atmosphere cool. The doctor was also refusing to meet the eyes of Adrian. Noticing this, Adrian thought best to clear things out as he pulled the seat from under the doctor’s desk and took his seat.

'About the other day-'

'Oh no-absolutely no need to worry about that. I understand you had to take care of the children. Of course, of course that was very crucial. Very crucial.'

The nervousness of the doctor was increasing and Adrian wanted to speak about it but thought it best to let it be if the doctor did not wish to talk about it.

'So how did your meeting go with the don the other day?' the doctor tried to ask casually but the nervousness still lingered in his tone.Adrian proceeded to tell the doctor all about the previous day. How he just reached the orphanage in time, how the don acted very unexpectedly kind to the children, how the don later handed Nanny Marie 1000 Alfas and finally Adrian losing his cool over it.

The doctor silently listened to the entire story that Adrian had to tell with one of his arms folded and the other stroking his chin while he frowned. Once Adrian had finished explaining the details of the previous day to the doctor, he looked up to see the doctor’s reaction but the doctor was still frowning. 

The doctor seemed even more nervous and hesitant now.

'So what do you think, doc?'

'Ok…ok…good…good.'

The doctor’s eyes seemed transfixed on the fan above their heads. Ignoring this, Adrian continued.

'So doc, is this the reason you called for me today?'

'No actually I had something else to discuss as well.'

The atmosphere of the room shifted. It was no longer an energetic Adrian trying to cheer up the nervous doctor but the doctor’s eyes had now finally met with the eyes of Adrian.

There was fear in his eyes.

'One of the don’s men came today.'

'What for?'

'They had a message and an offering from the don himself.'

Adrian stared at the doctor. Confused.

The doctor pulled open the top drawer of his desk and took out a bulging leather pouch and put it on the table in front of Adrian.

'1000 Alfas.'

Adrian stared at the pouch with disgust in his eyes but his expression remained emotionless.

'What does he want?''He has a proposition for you. If you are to agree, the don has agreed to send
1000 Alfas to the orphanage every month and pay you handsomely as well.'

'I said,' What does he want?'

Adrian’s voice had become dramatically cold and his face was filled with fury. The doctor had become even more hesitant and nervous as he spoke his next words.

'Join the Eastreach gang.'

As the doctor finished speaking, the truth sinked in within Adrian. The visit to the orphanage, the playing with the children and the generous donation were not to burden the orphanage but to bring out and burden Adrian.

'What if I refuse?'

The doctor pulled out a white sheet of paper from the open drawer and put it in front of Adrian. Adrian looked closer and saw a single sentence written on it:

I sincerely hope Adrian does not deny my offer for the sake of the orphanage and the wonderful children that live there.

Yours truly,
Korr Blemish

The words 'Adrian', 'children' and 'orphanage' were written in red.

Adrian slowly looked back to the doctor who’s fear was now evident not only in his eyes, but his trembling hands and desperate expression.

'Why does he want me?'

Adrian was in the orphanage again. He was once again standing in the playground area with Nanny Marie as he was holding out a bulging leather pouch to Nanny Marie but she had a look of pity in her eyes.

'So you would join the gang, Adrian?'

'I don’t seem to have an option now do I?'

'Run away. I’ll gather the children and join you as well.'

'Run where?'A cruel silence followed these words for the next few seconds but Nanny Marie
continued her protests. 'All the children, look up to you so much Adrian because you have always been the honest, loving and hardworking big brother.'

'I don’t intend to abandon them.'

'But you can’t continue in the mafia without getting blood on your hands. I know you would never go against your morals.'

'I’ll do my best not to get involved in any job that requires me to kill. I already wasted any future prospects when I decided to drop studies and pursue a job. The kids have their whole life to look forward to and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I stole that from them. If my sacrifice makes things better for them, I guess it will all have been worth it.' Nanny Marie helplessly looked at Adrian. The boy who she had taken in when he was a helpless child. A boy with dreams, aspirations and all the love in the world to give.

‘It doesn’t mean you should just give in! We can try and talk it out with the mafia… they might consider the situation and we can return the money they gave us. You’re not alone, Adrian! Please… let me help you…’

She always wanted to protect this innocent soul from all harm but now in his immaculate maturity, she had no option but to watch. Adrian looked indifferent but the spark in his eyes had vanished. They looked like the eyes of a sad man; void of joy, excitement or any hope. Like the eyes of a man who had accepted his fate.

'I never asked you this before but…' Nanny Marie paused. She had tears clinging from her eyes. 'Why are you ready to always sacrifice yourself for the children…'

'Some promises are meant to never be broken.' Adrian smiled sadly. ‘I promised that I wouldn’t let anyone bring harm to them, didn’t I? Let me keep my promise, Nanny.’

Nanny Marie stared at him for a few seconds then pulled out her pack of cigarettes. As she took one out, before she could light it, Adrian extended his hand.

'I would like one, too.'

They both stared emptily into the moonlit sky and two separate trails of smoke rose up in the air.

The surrender was swift and bitter.

Roman raised his hands and stepped out of the tunnel. The others followed, their bodies trembling, their weapons falling to the ground. The traboids surrounded them, weapons trained on the captives.

They were marched through the ruins of Mukit. Buildings still smoldered. Bodies lay scattered across the square. The village they had fought so hard to defend was now a graveyard.

The meeting hall rose ahead, its walls scarred but still standing. The traboids pushed them inside, herding them into the center of the room. Roman stumbled, caught himself, and looked around.

The hall was packed. Cy'reth pressed together, their bodies stiff with fear and exhaustion. Some cried. Others stood in stunned silence. The wounded were propped against the walls.

Ten armed traboids stood guard around the perimeter, weapons raised, helmets scanning. Once all the Cyreth were inside, the doors were sealed.

Roman found a spot near the back and sank to the ground. His body ached. His mind was numb. He had led them here. He had surrendered. He had given up.

The murmuring began. Soft at first, then growing louder.

"I knew it," one said. "I knew a humanoid could never lead us."

"We should never have followed him. We should have left when we had the chance."

"We lost everything. Our homes. Our families. Our lives. And for what? For nothing."

Roman closed his eyes. He didn't defend himself. He didn't argue. He just sat there, letting the accusations fall.

A rigid S'ra sat not far from Roman with her eyes fixed on nothing. She didn't look at Roman since the surrender.

Roman watched her and sighed.

A traboid stepped forward. Its voice was flat and mechanical. "Who is your leader?"

The hall fell silent. No one spoke.

S'ra stepped forward. "I am."

The traboid's helmet turned toward her. "You are the leader?"

"Yes."

The traboid studied her. " Okay, you come sit here."

S'ra walked to were she was instructed and asked. "What are we waiting for? Why haven't you killed us?"

"We are waiting for the V'keth leadership to arrive. They will decide your fate."

A few minutes later, the doors of the meeting hall slid open.

Roman looked up. The Trab who entered was different from the others. Taller. More imposing. His neck ridges pulsed with an intricate purple pattern. His clothing was pristine, unmarked by battle.

He walked to the center of the hall, his dark eyes scanning the captives with cold disinterest. The traboids parted to make way for him, their helmets bowing slightly.

The Cy'reth pressed together. Some looked away. Others stared with fear and hatred.

The Trab stopped. His voice was calm and measured. "I am O'ra. I speak for the V'keth leadership."

He paused, eyes moving across the room.

"I am here for the traitors. S'ra. V'rak. K'len. And the corrupted humanoids."

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

O'ra raised his hand. The murmuring faded.

"The traitors step forward. Now."

The hall fell silent. No one moved.

O'ra hissed. "I will not ask again."

S'ra stepped forward and stood before O'ra.

"I am S'ra."

O'ra studied her. "The other two. V'rak and K'len."

 "They died in the battle."

"I do not believe you."

"It is the truth."

O'ra was silent. Then he said, "The humanoids. Step forward."

The 5 humanoids, Roman and Lirael emerged from the crowd. They were all scarred and worn. They walked to the center and stood beside S'ra.

O'ra studied them. " You are supposed to be 9."

Suddenly shooting began.

Roman dove for cover. The sound of energy fire filled the hall.

The traboids who had been guarding them were fighting each other. Some turned on their companions, their shots finding their marks.

The hall was chaos. The hissing of the Cy'reth rose above the gunfire. Roman pressed himself against the wall, watching.

He saw S'ra. Still standing. Frozen with shock. The humanoids had formed a protective circle around her.

He saw O'ra, the V'keth representative, crouched behind a fallen traboid, his neck ridges flickering with blue. His composure was gone.

The shooting continued for a few more seconds and then it was over.

The hall fell silent. Five of the original ten Traboids guarding them remained standing. They stood in a loose circle. There weapons were aimed at ora’s chest. The V'keth representative stood frozen.

“We are the elite special forces of the Cy’reth,” one of the Traboids said.

The hall erupted with hisses of hope and happiness. A weak Roman smiled, happy that his plan had worked.

O’ra’s composure returned. Slowly, he straightened. His eyes moved across the faces of the Cy'reth and then across the traboid impersonators.

He hissed. "You think this changes anything?"

One of the special forces replied. "It changes everything. You are our captive now."

"Captive? With what? With whom?" He gestured toward the doors. "There are more than a thousand traboids outside. Armed and ready. You can kill me for all I care but you can’t escape justice."

The Cy'reth exchanged glances. Their hisses of joy faded. Their smiles faltered.

O'ra continued, his voice rising with confidence. " You have captured me. But you have not won. You have only ensured your own destruction. When the traboids outside realize what has happened, they will kill every last one of you."

Cy'reth pressed together. Some began to cry. Others stared at the floor.

O'ra turned to S'ra. "You can still end this. Surrender. Give yourselves up. And I might let some of you survive."

The weight of O'ra's words hung in the air like smoke. A thousand traboids outside. A thousand soldiers ready to kill them all.

Roman watched the faces around him. The fear. The despair. The resignation. They had come so far. Survived so much. And now this was how it would end.

One of the elite force traboids stepped forward. It reached up and removed its helmet.

The face beneath was familiar. It was V’rak.

O'ra froze. His body went rigid. His neck ridges flickered through a rapid succession of colors. Pale gray. Deep blue. Flickering amber.

"M'to," he whispered. "M'to, is that you?"

"Yes, Dad. It's me."

O'ra moved forward and his hands reached out toward his son.

"You're alive. You're actually alive."

V'rak stepped forward and their foreheads pressed together. Tears flowed freely down O'ra's face.

"I thought you were dead. When they told me you had been killed by the humanoids, I thought I had lost you forever."

V'rak pulled back slightly. "The V’keth tried to kill me. They lied to you. They always lie."

O'ra hissed, his tears still flowing. "When I heard that there were traitors in Mukit who survived the bombing, I asked for their names but I didn’t see yours. I still decided to take up this task, to see if I can at least interrogate the traitors and know what happened to you."

 "Didn't the V'keth know you are his dad? Didn't they know that one of the traitors might be your son?" S’ra asked.

O'ra shook his head. "No. They didn't know. The V'keth leadership doesn't care about family. They teach us not to care. They tell us attachments are weaknesses."

He paused, his hand still resting on his son's shoulder. "But I always loved my son. I always loved my family."

V'rak pressed his forehead against his father's again. "I never forgot you. Even when I was trying to forget my V'keth past. I never forgot you."

O'ra pulled back. His eyes were bright with tears, but there was something else there now.

"I'm going to go back. With you, M'to. We're going to go back to the V'keth and make things right. Show them that the leadership has been lying to us."

V'rak stared at him. "They'll kill us. They'll execute us for treason."

O'ra shook his head. "No. They won't. Because I control the army outside."

The hall fell silent.

"The thousand traboids follow my orders. Not the V'keth leadership."

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

"The V'keth leadership sent their forces here to crush you. They stripped the capital of its defenses. They left themselves vulnerable. They didn't expect anyone to attack them. But that's exactly what we're going to do."

He paused, his voice growing stronger.

"We are going to take seven hundred and fifty of those traboids and march on the V'keth capital. We'll strike without warning. A surprise attack. They won't have time to react. And once we're inside, I'll find the evidence. The proof of what they've done. The murders. The lies. The cover-ups. I'll show it to every V'keth in the capital. And they'll turn. They'll see the truth."

Roman stepped forward. His body ached. His head was pounding. Roman looked at O'ra, then at V'rak, then at K'len.

"Take K'len with you," he said.

O'ra's eyes widened. "What?"

"K'len goes with you. V'rak stays here."

V'rak stepped forward. "Yes. So that all Cy’reth here know you are serious."

Roman turned to O'ra. "If you don't come back, if you betray us, V'rak dies with us. That's the deal."

O'ra was silent for a long moment. Then he looked at his son. V'rak met his father's eyes.

O'ra was silent for a while. Then he hissed. "Okay. I'll go. I'll take K'len with me. And I will leave the 250 Traboids in V’raks command."

K'len stepped forward. His body was stiff. "I'll go. I'll make sure he keeps his word."

Roman looked at him. "Thank you."

V’rak turned to his fellow Trabs. “ I also want to say I am sorry for lying about my name. I just wanted to do away with everything that connected me to V’keth.”

The Trabs hissed.

Roman stepped forward. His voice was barely above a whisper. “I also have something to confess.”

He took a breath. "I'm not a humanoid. I'm a human. An alien from Earth."

The hall fell silent. The Cy'reth stared at him. Roman braced himself for anger. For accusations. For betrayal.

But then the hissing started.

It was soft at first. Then it grew louder. More joyful. The Cy'reth were hissing with happiness. With acceptance. With joy.

V'rak stepped forward and touched Roman's forehead. "You have nothing to be sorry for. You saved us. You led us. You gave us hope."

Roman tried to respond, but his legs gave out and collapsed. V’rak caught Roman's body before it hit the floor. The others gathered around him.

"What's wrong? What's happening to him?" S’ra asked.

Roman tried to respond, but his body was failing. His limbs were heavy, his chest was tight and his vision darkened at the edges.

"The vaccines," he managed. "They ended. I'm sick."

"The vaccines? Why didn’t you say it earlier?" S'ra turned to V'rak. "Your father can get medicine. He can bring something to help him."

V'rak hissed. "Yes."

"No. Don't," said Roman.

V'rak stared at him. "What do you mean, no? You're dying."

Roman shook his head. "No need. I already did my duty."

His voice was weak, but there was calmness beneath it. A peace that surprised even him.

"We're on the brink of a win. Your father is going to turn the soldiers. The Cy'reth are going to be free. You don't need me anymore."

S'ra knelt beside him. "That's not true. We need you. You're our leader. You're our family."

Roman smiled. Weak. Barely a curve of his lips. But there.

"You don't need me to lead you anymore. You've learned how to lead yourselves. You've learned how to fight. You've learned how to be a community."

S'ra reached out and touched his forehead. "We'll get you medicine. We'll find a way. We won't let you die."

Roman looked at her. At the alien face that had become so familiar. He turned to Lirael. Her face was calm, but he could see the fear in her eyes.

"Goodbye," he said.

His eyes fluttered closed. The sounds of the hall faded, replaced by a quiet stillness.

He thought of his daughter. Of her face the last time he saw her. Of her smile. Of her laugh.

Then darkness embraced him.

 First Previous RoyalRoad PATREON

The Final chapter comes out on Friday. Thank you for being with me throughout the journey.

Chapter 4: https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/s/Doc1uefZ7l

The Zylians were not butchers by nature they were conquerors and pragmatists. Total containment and harvesting was on their mind. As the hypercane ground the automated defenses of New York City into frozen dust, the invasion doctrine shifted seamlessly into the harvest phase.

The Zylian skiffs began projecting sweeping, localized antigravity fields over the panicked, frozen crowds, scooping up hundreds of civilians at a time. The terrified humans, completely numb and shivering uncontrollably, were levitated helplessly into the massive, hovering cobalt monoliths to be sorted, cataloged, and processed for reasons no one understood.

High above the surface, Earth’s orbital space was a graveyard of flash frozen debris. The CSV Dauntless was currently drifting dead in the void, its entire hull encased in thick, crystalline frost. Inside, the captain and his remaining crew were huddled in the emergency life-support bunkers, watching on dying monitors as the massive blue dreadnoughts completely ignored them, focusing instead on the Frozen hellish Zylian starships as they use their quantum ice cores to literally freeze the invisible energy of empty space, turning the interstellar medium, sparse gasses, and spacetime pressure to instantly contract, The ship deploys specialized thermalsail collectors.

The solar winds and cosmic radiation are drawn violently toward the cold pressure drop and catapult the ship forward at FTL velocities. The vessel leaving a wake of superchilled, crystallized space dust and hyper freezing currents. The Zylians had bypassed a long space battle entirely, making the Commonwealth fleet obsolete by simply tearing the battlefield out from under them.

But on the surface… the corporate giants of Earth were finally showing their teeth.

As the Zylian skiffs swept through the financial district, the ground erupted. From concealed, subterranean vaults, Synapse Heavy Industries and StellerTech deployed their heavy-assault mech divisions. These weren't standard military synthetics; they were towering, thirty-foot behemoths powered by immense, experimental fusion cores that burned hot enough to push back the localized cryo-fields fully shielded by Derincite Musculature metallurgy.

The mechs thundered onto the iced-over avenues, their massive thermal lances burning bright blue, swinging heavy plasma-cutters that actually managed to sear into the sleek Zylian armor. For the first time, the blue vanguard was forced to halt. A Synapse mech swung a massive kinetic hammer, the sheer, heated force of the blow shattering a Zylian skiff and sending its riders tumbling onto the frozen asphalt. But the resistance was desperate, a frantic, shield holding back a glacier.

Deep beneath the city, the chaos was muffled by miles of reinforced concrete. Norrington Selvin, the CEO of Synapse, was shoved into a high security subterranean bunker, his corporate guards locking the heavy blast doors behind them. Red emergency lights bathed the room as Selvin stared at the tactical displays showing his multi-billion-dollar mechs fighting a losing battle against an empire that fought with weaponized wind. Alongside him was Viktor John (Director of Mechanized Warfare) Taylor Vance (Director of Operations) Dr. Hayes (Lead Architect of Behavioral Synthetics) and Dr Aris Thorn (Head Material Of Science) the Brilliant creator of Derincite who was now watching it be turned to brittle ice.

"The extraction teams lost her, sir," Vance’s voice came through, tight with panic. "The rogue unit with the Phase Two battery. The grid collapsed before they could secure her." Dr Thorne watched the feeds her hands trembling “I created the ultimate miracle for Humanity and.. these monsters tore it apart with Ice..) her voice trembling with held in anger. They took down our Mechanized divisions Viktor responded with visceral fear and incomprehension. Dr Hayes says “We still have no location of Unit 746. Theres been no further sight of her since the boy and his family retreated from the sector.”

Selvin slammed his fist onto the console, his face pale. "If those alien bastards scan the city and detect her energy signature, they will tear the entire planet apart to get it. Do you understand me? Seal down all subterranean entrances. We will retreat into the depths of the Earth. We possess the entire industry down here. We wait..”. In the back a certain guard stood by the doorway.. though no one noticed.. he looked at the desperate Board, his eyes turning yellow, a malevolent smirk crossing his face he watched the desperate CEO.

Up in the chaotic, frozen ruins of the Sub-

Grid station, that exact machine was completely incapacitated. Luna, her synthetic mind struggling from the spatial feedback of the spatial tears, was slumped heavily against Jerry’s side. The brief, uncontrolled surge of the alien battery in her chest had left her disoriented, her optical sensors flickering wildly.

"What the hell is going on up there?!" Jerry yelled, wrapping his arm around Luna to keep her upright. Beside him, Rachel was weeping in sheer terror. Luna was heavy, dead weight, and she couldn't pull the localized gravity field back around herself to hide.

They had tried to run, dragging Tony along with them, but Jerry watched as the roof of the decommissioned station was simply ripped away. The Zylians were clearing the tunnels, harvesting the SubGrid.

A heavy, invisible pressure wave slammed into them, throwing Jerry and Luna hard against the rusted pillars, ripping Tony from their grasp. Before Jerry could scramble back to his feet, a towering Zylian Vanguard landed silently on the platform. The cold radiating from his blue armor and red visors instantly frosted the sweat on Jerry's face.

"Jerry!" Tony screamed, struggling against the intense, invisible grip of a localized gravity tether pulling him backward toward an extraction skiff hovering above the ruined station ceiling. "Let them go!"

The Vanguard didn't look at Tony. His sapphire eyes were locked entirely on Luna. He didn't see a human girl in an oversized coat. His scanners picked up the faint, unknown thermal energy pulsing weakly in her chest.

He tilted his head with mild curiosity and with terrifying, mechanical grace, the Vanguard reached down, his perfectly gloved hands grabbing Jerry by the collar of his jacket and hauling him effortlessly off the ground. Another Zylian stepped forward, hauling Luna up by her arms.

"Dad!" Jerry yelled, kicking frantically, his breath pluming in the freezing air as the Vanguard's grip tightened like a metal glove.

Another Zylian grabbed Rachel by the waist. She thrashed wildly, attempting to hit the armored giant as she screamed hysterically. "Oh my God, let me go! Let me go! Dad! Mom!"

Janet tried to run through the chaos, reaching desperately for her children. "Let them go! Let them go, you monsters!"

As the three were dragged violently upward toward the gaping hole in the ceiling, Jerry looked out over the ruined city. The 24 century skyscrapers, once monuments of human achievement, covered in beautiful neon lighting and air traffic, were completely covered in thick, jagged ice, shimmering under the cobalt glow of the alien ships.

The reality of their situation hit him with cold finality. They weren't just being arrested. they were being taken off the planet. The hysterical incomprehensible screams of his mother and father faded into the roaring wind as they were left behind in the grasps of these alien overlords.

The invisible grip of the gravity tether took them violently upward, ripping them out of the ruined subway station and launching them into the open sky. For Jerry, the sudden acceleration was nauseating. The sheer, dizzying height immediately triggered a primal, suffocating fear of falling. The terrifying sensation of dangling completely helpless hundreds of feet in the air with nothing but empty, freezing space beneath his boots.

Down below, the city was a chaotic, apocalyptic nightmare. Massive, blinding high yield lasers from the Synapse mechs carved through the localized blizzards, striking the Zylian skiffs and triggering deafening explosions that sent shockwaves rippling through the frigid air. Plumes of carbonized fire and shattered, flashfrozen glass erupted into the atmosphere, making the sky an inferno of corporate desperation and alien ice. As StellarTech 180 Vulture Ships soared through the sky firing Micro missiles thag exploded into Shardic Plasma that only froze. There Thermal lasers utterly useless.

But the moment they were pulled through the hole into the underbelly of the massive cobalt monolith, the deafening roar of the warzone vanished, replaced by an absolute, sterile silence.

The towering Zylian Vanguard didn't hesitate. Before Jerry’s boots even fully settled on the frictionless floor, the alien gripped Luna tightly. The artificial child’s eyes flickered with simulated terror, her small metallic hands reaching out as the Vanguard turned effortlessly on his heel and began dragging her away down a massive, glowing blue corridor.

"Luna!" Jerry screamed, horror tearing at his throat. He thrashed violently against the force still holding him. "Let her go! Put her down!"

He didn't even get a chance to struggle further. Two more Zylians materialized from the periphery. One stepped smoothly toward Rachel, while the other stepped right into Jerry's path. The alien didn't draw a weapon or a chemical syringe. He simply raised his gloved hands and wrapped a Cryo Collar around his neck and Injected something in him.

The sedation was a terrifying, absolute theft of heat.

It hit Jerry’s nervous system like liquid nitrogen injected straight into his veins. He felt his blood instantly turn sluggish and thick, a deep, agonizing frost creeping directly into his brainstem. It didn't burn; it just tired him out. His limbs turned to heavy lead, his muscles completely hardening up as the electrical signals in his body were forcibly dampened by the cold.

A heavy, dark shadow washed over his mind. He tried to scream for Luna again, but his lips were numb, his vocal cords frozen midshout. Out of the corner of his rapidly narrowing vision, he saw Rachel go completely limp as the Zylians had placed the exact same collar on her, before the dark, icy paralysis swallowed Jerry entirely.

He didn't wake up all at once. Consciousness returned in a slow, agonizing crawl, accompanied by a chilling cold that seeped deep into his bones.

Jerry forced his heavy eyelids open, his breath fogging in front of his face. He tried to lunge forward, to rub his shoulder. but his body wouldn't move. Panic fast in his chest. He was completely, terrifyingly immobilized, locked upright inside some sort of transparent pod. An invisible, freezing pressure pinned his arms rigidly to his sides, preventing him from moving more than a fraction of an inch. The collar around his neck cold yet he felt it was deliberately holding back its frost.

Staring out through glass of his enclosure, he realized they had been moved.

It looked and felt as though they were outside. He was locked in a vast, openair expanse, perhaps some staging deck or something on the warship's hull. A strange, twhite fog rolled heavily across the ground, clinging to the base of his pod like ice. Towering around this misty courtyard were massive, flawless blue walls and enormous, arching azure doors that pulsed with a faint, unearthly bioluminescence.

Jerry strained his eyes against the rolling mist. Just a few feet away to his right, locked inside an identical transparent pod, was Rachel. Her head was slumped forward against the freezing glass, her face deathly pale in the blue light. She was still deeply unconscious, leaving Jerry entirely paralyzed and completely alone in the silent, alien fog. She wore the same collar around her neck.

Jerry thrashed against the invisible, freezing pressure pinning his shoulders to the back of the pod. His muscles burnt in protest, burning with exhaustion and the lingering, icy ache of the Zylian sedation. Every time he tried to push forward, the ambient gravity inside the glass cylinder seemed to instantly recalibrate, pushing him back with the weight of concrete

A few feet away in the rolling, heavy fog, Rachel remained slumped in her pod.

"Rachel!" Jerry yelled, his voice raw and echoing weakly against the thick glass of his enclosure. He pounded his heavy, numb fist against the glass. "Rachel, wake up!"

She didn't stir. Panic, hot and desperate, flared in Jerry's chest, momentarily pushing back the biting cold of the alien chamber . He slammed his fist against the glass again, harder this time, completely ignoring the sharp pain shooting up his forearm.

Before he could strike the glass a third time, the thick white mist outside the pod began to part.

There was no sound of heavy mechanical doors opening, no hum of engines. Just the perfectly silent, rhythmic footsteps of a Zylian Vanguard stepping out from the shadows of the towering azure walls.

The alien stopped just inches from Jerry's pod. He was terrifyingly statuesque, clad in the same pristine, sweeping cobalt armor that had shattered the Earth mechs hours earlier. The Vanguard stood with perfect, relaxed posture, his gloved hands clasped neatly behind his back. He didn't sneer. He didn't gloat. His face was a mask of flawless, unsettling coldness. He was unhelmeted.. and to Jerry's shock he looked human.. but his symmetry was too perfect, his skin was as pale as the snow on a winter. He possessed a hair that was platinum and blondish color. His eyes.. His irises were a dark sapphire color that seemed to stare directly at his soul.

Those eyes locked directly onto Jerry’s. They were eyes that had seen a thousand worlds burn and felt absolutely nothing about it.

"Your sister is fine, creature" the Vanguard spoke.

His voice bled straight through the glass, carrying that same melodic, deeply cold tone that had echoed across the Commonwealth fleet. It was perfectly translated, perfectly calm, and completely devoid of empathy.

"We will not hurt you," the Zylian continued, his gaze unmoved as he watched Jerry struggle. "But we can freeze your corpse. Cease your thrashing, or your core temperature will be lowered until your motor functions permanently crystallize."

Jerry froze, his chest heaving as his breath plumed in the cold air. The threat wasn't delivered with malice.. it was delivered as some bureaucratic fact.

"Where the hell are we?" Jerry demanded, his voice shaking, though he forced himself to hold the alien's gaze. "What are you going to do with us? Where are my parents?!"

"Your progenitors have been left in the ruins of your city. They are of no utility to the Vanguard, they will be used for labor on Earth," the Zylian stated smoothly. "You and the female will be integrated into a labor strata in a neighboring sector now light years from your home. Your biology is fragile, but sufficient for raw atmospheric harvesting on the fringe worlds."

The Vanguard turned his head slightly, as if analyzing a crude creature "You should find solace in your preservation. Many of your kind were not granted the same utility."

The sheer, casual mention of the slaughter hit Jerry like a huge blow. But the overwhelming dread was immediately replaced by a frantic, gnawing terror for the one person the alien hadn't mentioned.

"What did you do with Luna?!" Jerry yelled, slamming his hand against the glass again. "The artificial girl you took from me! Where is she?!"

For the first time, a microscopic shift occurred in the Zylians flawless expression. It wasn't fear, but a cold curiosity.

"The synthetic child.." the Zylian said softly, stepping a fraction closer to the glass. "She will not join you in the labor strata. She has been sequestered in the Ships Compartment Of Scientific Study."

Jerry’s stomach dropped: "Don't touch her! She's just a child!"

"She is not a child," the Vanguard corrected, his voice dropping into a lower, heavier voice. "Our scans probed the musculature silicon architecture of her mind, but the localized gravity field radiating from her core... it defies all standard thermodynamics. We attempted to dismantle her chassis for analysis, and she unconsciously folded the spatial pressure of the laboratory, crushing two of our engineers into absolute atomic density."

The Vanguard leaned in, his sapphire eyes narrowing. "She will be tested. She will be unbolted up and down, studied at the highest echelons of our scientific caste. Because no amount of technology, no intellect within your entire galaxy, could have forged what currently resides inside her.. not within your galaxh "

The alien slowly stood back up to his full, towering height, his hands still clasped calmly behind his back.

"Whatever your kind placed inside that machine, Creature.. it is beyond mere physics."

Before the Vanguard could say another word, a piercing, hysterical scream shattered the sterile silence of the foggy courtyard.

In the pod to Jerry’s right, Rachel was awake. Her hands clawed frantically at the glass, her eyes wide with sheer terror as she realized she was trapped, paralyzed, and staring at a towering blue alien.

The Vanguard didn't even flinch at the noise. He simply turned away, the conversation entirely finished, and melted back into the rolling white mist of the corridor. Confusion and shock hit as well as fear for his sister. It seemed not even the Zylians understood or could touch her core.. Just what the hell was inside her..

Post Chapter note:

Hope my story so far has been entertaining and unique. Following this chapter I will post on a 3 day week schedule Monday, Wednesday and Friday as I work the nights. This schedule will start tomorrow!

First Chapter

Covert Art & Blurb

Jessep 10

Jessep’s captors had taken his warning seriously. Quickly, his prison cell was opened. Shaffer refreshed the water supply, and provided another bowl of food. Meanwhile, Carcolh ushered him to the nearest bathroom at gunpoint.

Jessep swore he heard hallelujah chime from the heavens upon spotting a toilet. Without the translator, the bug-man spoke in theatrical limerick that made no sense to him. Thankfully nature’s call required no communication.

After tossing Jessep back into his cell, Shaffer swore she knew nothing of the Gio-Crü. She went on to explain they were from somewhere named Lyla-Fortuna, and were similarly lost. Dropping that bombshell of information, she departed for the hangar bay with Carcolh.

Leaving him alone. And isolated.

Given a moment to reflect impacted his mood. Severely. Other than the socialization, and he supposed the food, he had just traded his airtight box for another. Beyond this box, another box. Beyond that, a suffocating death.

He stood at a cliff beset by an endless chasm. The world simply ended, with only oblivion awaiting a step further. There was nowhere to run, no where to escape to.

Countless hours of Faster Than Armada had tricked him into thinking he wanted this. That he could enjoy the claustrophobia of space. Hell, after witnessing it, he didn’t even like the concept of the ocean’s vastness. Something he realize he might never see again. A realization that crushed his heart, as he began to understand what he lost.

Furthermore, he missed his old box. He missed King, as ludicrous as that sounded. There was a familiarity to his generated voice. A comfort in the slightly homicidal remarks he infrequently made.

Jessep found himself wishing to cry, but incapable. Whatever despair he felt at losing Earth became overran by the fear and adrenaline of having met real aliens. At the wonder of imagining Humanity beyond the Thrallwark.

A pure awe refused to release him, knowing the Gio-Crü had failed in nipping Humanity’s bud. That despite their best efforts, they had failed to prevent Humanity from roaming the stars. From achieving full bloom.

His overclocked mind whisked him away into a wistful memory. Back to when he was a boy.

Air around the monastery always smelt of pollen. This was due to the neighbouring apiary, and its melliferous flowers that surrounded the land. Occasionally, as he browsed the forbidden archives, a breeze would sway in through the clay window – for when this monastery had been erected, the secrets of advanced masonry had yet to be rediscovered.

The sweet scents elevated his mood, as he lay on his stomach beneath a cloth-adorned table; kicking his feet, and turning the page on an old and battered, yet well-maintained copy, of Faster Than Armada’s concept art bound in book form.

Producing honey, and floral arrangements, had been a cover long employed by the monastery to disguise its true purpose. Protecting what information had survived about beyond the Thrallwark.

As a boy, he enjoyed the detailed drawings. The flashy colourful fights depicted. And the idea of forging a name for one’s self among the stars. It didn’t occur to him to question why ten generations of monks had taken great care in allowing this relic to survive.

Other artifacts were kept in this cloistered room. Dotted parchments. They were secured behind glass meant to moderate humidity. While Jessep would take these out, and gawk on occasion, they proved less interesting than seeing the quad-winged Velasithus, Humanity’s most agile gunboat. Or, the saucy two-page centerfold spread of the Jonathan-Ace.

Star charts, he came to realize just now, in retrospect. As a boy, a teenager, and a man; whenever Jessep looked up, he would be confronted by a mauve bulwark. What was a star. How could those come to be? Big balls of gas? Seemed made up.

One day, after gloating to his mother on how he had defeated space pirates in his make-believe play session, he asked her if stars were real. His mother had been a wise woman, educated before arriving at the monastery even.

“Long ago,” she said. “We lived our lives by them. They are our birthright, child.”

She nuzzled his cheeks, informing him of harvests and great migrations willed forth by their majestic guidance. The grace in which she spoke of them instilled in him a dream. If they were his birthright, a cornerstone to Humanity, then he would like to travel among them. Like the spacemen in his concept book.

A ridiculous concept for a child to spout, knowing now what adults knew then. That the stars were stolen from Humanity by the Gio-Crü, who did not intend to give them back. Nevertheless, his mother pledged herself to his dream. Her enriching laughs that day becoming a foundation for all the good he felt in the world.

Exhausted after work, she would construct faux-craft in their tiny bedroom; expending any energy she had to shake and carry the taped-together boxes. All in an attempt to simulate Jessep traveling through space. On her days off, slipping away from that crone Judeth, she’d sneak into the archives with Jessep. Her intention to teach him about the constellations depicted on the star charts, regardless of how much he protested.

“Beauti-ful mem-ory to share,” a foreign voice rung through his mind. “What is her name?”

Startled by the intrusion, his memories of the monastery severed. His mother melted away.

The Gio-Crü had tricked him, hadn’t they? He had never left Earth’s orbit. Never met any extraterrestrials. He remained on the floor of the King of Saigon, clawing at his eyes, trapped beneath their sickening spell. He had let his guard down, and now they would shred his mind.

The feeling of intrusion ended immediately, recoiling as a hand would from a hot stove.

Jessep shook his head, becoming aware he sat in a prison cell – not his memories. Across the cell’s glass panel stood that sapphire blob-thing. Strange orbs floating within, saturated magenta, began to lose their colour and return the… Umibōzu, if he remembered correctly, to its usual homogenous shade.

It, or rather she, remained stationary. Without a mouth, her uncanny appearance creeped Jessep out. Her bipedal, vaguely woman shape melted. The flight suit she wore absorbed deeper into her opaque membrane. Reduced to a condensed, ball-shaped form, she now matched his narrow concept of an alien.

Strange. The silence felt stranger.

“Jolene,” Jessep said. He received no reply.

Others had spoken to her, right? Though, she seemed incapable of communicating with him. Or choosing not to. A notion that made him uncomfortable.

“She had a different name, but they made her change it to match everyone else. Me too. I was too young to care about my old name, though. We came from further away.”

Wow. Months of solitary torture had pried open his private shell. Unzipped him. Jessep continued, unsure if he was capitalizing on a silent conversation partner, or if he needed a therapist.

“I was told with just a book and a blanket. But they mean a tapestry. We wouldn’t have been allowed in without it. The book I mean, not my baby blanket.”

Pangs of sadness beat against him as a palm would a tambourine. He missed his water tower, his cilantro sprout, the whole set-up. All these things gone, never to be seen again.

“The monastery was okay. Mom got to make candles. They only started expecting stuff from me when I turned ten, or something. Don’t… Don’t really remember, do you not want to talk to me?”

Shaffer had left her tablet, it indicated successful translations.

The Umibōzu shivered slightly, her membrane similar to a rippling water balloon. She protruded a few inches of jelly, and attempted to wave. The most rudimentary affirmation she could think of, most likely.

“Oh, you can understand. They made me sweep and scrub mostly. Candles weren’t easy. Not like my mother made it seem. Everything was gone by the time I was old enough to give it an honest try. Though, one time,” Jessep smiled, the memory a warm loaf of bread. “I stole a bunch of her stuff and tried making her an everything-scented candle. Every petal from every flower outside, every fruit from the larder mashed up into pulp. Sort of just smelt like chaos. For the next few years, she burnt a few centimeters off it every birthday.”

“She cherished the gift greatly,” the foreign voice resumed.

Expecting it, hoping for it to return, it startled Jessep less than it had previous.

“Can you only talk a little?”

“My words are sent in pulses. Ones condu-cive to the waves oper-at-ing in your brain. Humans display much ESPer prowess. As such, your nega-tive mind raises defen-ces. A previ-ous wound scars over you.”

“ESPer? Like mind control?”

“No,” Raine’s telepathic voice laughed in three different cadences before his mind settled on a satisfying depiction. “Umi-bō-zu cannot control minds. It is extra senso-ry psion-ics.”

“Extra sensory psionics-er? ESP…er,” Jessep repeated. Worried he sounded like a child, he quickly followed up with a question he thought astute. “What do the extra sensors pick up?”

“Empa-thy. There are strong ties to emo-tion. Posi-tive. Nega-tive.”

“Right, my negative mind and all.” Jessep flipped the notion over, a thought pancake. “You broke in twice, does a positive mind lower defences?”

“Not neces-sa-rily. I find it easy to pene-trate when you are happy. An unused ave-nue. Your emo-tions are callus. Injured skin, turned to bark, to protect itself.”

“Yea, well, I had something else rooting around there recently. I’m not too keen on keeping the front door unlocked. Look, just try me.”

“Evi-dent-ly unlocked,” Raine mocked him.

“Wait!” Jessep burst into a chuckle. “I wasn’t ready.”

♚

With the passage of time, the fear of being locked in an air-tight coffin faded as Jessep continued to communicate with Raine. She taught him more about how ESPer waves functioned, and the nature of her species’ development of this sixth sense that Humanity had never honed, and was devoid in the other aliens the Umibōzu shared a community with.

Jessep divulged how he thought life in the monastery to be vastly superior to where they lived prior. He had no recollection of such a place, but how his mother spoke of their luck in being allowed to live somewhere above ground – with bees – cemented a bias in him he never questioned.

Raine understood his obsession with space, the fixation brought on by the illicit materials harboured by the monasteries for centuries; sharing that her own desire to travel the stars came from a fear of stagnation. Though, she seemed to not understand this concept of a planet-wide prison that occupied Jessep’s brain.

She seldom interrupted, regardless of how confused Jessep must have made her. A fear of being disrespectful maybe, or of killing the conversation.

Eventually they returned to the subject of his mother. Raine proved to be quite curious. A majority of his diatribe was dedicated to the daily life they lived. Rather mundane, but the details could not stop spilling out of Jessep.

“… been something like, sixty, seventy years old? One day she climbed up it to paint, and it snapped underneath her. Died in bed a few days later.”

“Apol-ogies for your loss,” Raine projected a softer voice.

Jessep wiped away moisture building up in his eyes. Over her death, he had cried his last a long time ago.

“Thanks. The monk in charge of carpentry spent his next few years making ladders, only ladders, then died at the bottom of a bottle.”

“Humans harbour much guilt. Much shame.”

“Necessary components, maybe,” Jessep said, lacking conviction.

“I do not think that true.”

“I do. Maybe if I felt guilty for being a fuck up and blowing off everything, she wouldn’t have tried to do my chores for me. After my mother died, my workload was so poor this old woman started beating me twice as hard. She caught me where I wasn’t meant to be once. Where she wasn’t meant to be. If I felt guiltier about what rules I broke, I’d be a candlemaker journeyman by now.”

“And this jour-neyer of candles. It was your desire?”

“No, not exactly. That’s not the point. The monastery would still be standing. I could have been…” he realized he was talking to what amounted to be a bouncy ball. “Never mind.”

Jessep held his breath as if he were a cartoon character inflating his skull into a balloon, hoping he could clench his mind shut. He felt a knock at the front door, but refused to answer. Raine quit trying, eventually, but remained near the prison cell.

A sore ache brewed in his tummy. It was unavoidable. He had hurt her feelings. If she had feelings. Talking to her had improved his mood, and now he ruined it. Like he always did.

He ignored the nasty thoughts, assuaging himself with the idea he was just protecting his emotions. His mother’s death had been painful enough, he couldn’t stomach discussing the monastery’s arson.

The staring contest with Raine ended abruptly when she shifted shape into a thin sheet, and squeezed between a tight seam in a stack of refrigerated crates nearby. She had fled.

Rounding a corner shortly after, the robotic-looking man with his robotic-looking dog in tow. Headed directly towards the prison cell, hefty stomps resounded aloud. He cranked his arm up high, electric club in hand. He struck the bulkhead wall. Sparks arced across the dented metal.

Pissed off was certainly an understatement.

Read Ahead on Royal Road

Breakfast hadn’t been great, but Sasha thought she’d done everything as best as she could. Taking care of two teenagers was hard… 

She wasn’t looking forward to having to spend coin on the shopping trip later. She was honestly afraid she’d snap, literally snap her jaws, at whoever she’d be paying. 

Vivian helped. Vivian always helped. She let Sasha lay down with her head in her lap, and scratched just behind her horns in that way she absolutely loved. Then they talked. If they all went after Vivian was done with… whatever she was doing today, Sasha hadn’t felt the need to ask… well then Vivian would handle the coin, and Sasha wouldn’t have to see her hoard depleting. 

So it was with a wonderful happy bubbly feeling in her stomach, she walked downstairs, in her human form, to the shop below. Then of course, her mood was instantly dashed upon the rocks that were Tellur. 

A gauntlet grabbed her hair, and dragged her into the forge. She would have lashed out if she hadn’t sensed the particular odd alloy the forged used in her armor approaching behind her. 

“We need to talk.”

That was all she got for the next several minutes. After Tellur dragged her, she’d just sat her down on the floor of the forge, and started to get her tools ready for a long day of work. When she finally spoke, Sasha’s heart dropped into the fiery pit that was her stomach. 

“You're doing it again. Making a routine, and sticking to it, even though you know you should be doing something else. When are you going to preach? When will you show these poor lost souls the beauty of our Goddess, and the love she has for her children.”

Sasha didn’t speak. She just sat there, waiting for the forged to continue. 

“I know your scared to get out of your comfort zone again, especially after the battle that happened two months ago. I’ve seen you scraping your tongue with one of the nice spoons. Trying to get the taste of orc out?”

She felt herself unconsciously reaching a hand up to her mouth. The memory of eating part of that orc replaying in her mind over and over again, like it had so many times over the past two months. 

“The people you’ve surrounded yourself with love you. None of them will judge you for something you did unconsciously, especially right after a head wound. And of course, there’s someone else who’s always listening.”

Her fingernails sharpened, and she started to reach into her mouth. She needed to forget. To shove the memories down to her fire, as she always did. The sudden gauntlet wrapped around her wrist stopped her. 

“No. I will not let you hurt yourself in front of me. You need to face what happened, and to let those who want to help you, do so. Tonight, reach out to her, she’s always there for her children, all you have to do, is take that first step.”

Tellur let her grip slacken,  and Sasha dropped her hand to the side, and wiped at her eyes with the latter. Her tears had already evaporated in the heat that was pouring off her, so all she did, was smear the minuscule salt layer. 

“That isn’t everything though. We have three months until the first of those hunting you arrive. If the beginning of the revolution, at the very least, isn’t underway, then everything will fail. I can assure you of that.” 

She watched the forged woman walk over to the forge, and pull something out from behind it. The handle had been peaking out, but somehow, Sasha hadn’t recognized her own Goddess damned axe. 

“You’ve had this for nearly two months now, as is right, yet you still have only properly used it twice.”

She sat it down slowly along her work bench, and Sasha flinched at the click of Merton metal. 

“I’ve cancelled you full beyond the wall with Marie today. The girl needs to catch up on her studies, her practical studies, and you, you need to start planning. Finally.”

Sasha shakily stood up after several minutes of silence, and started to walk over to the forged woman. Her mouth was partially open, ready to say… something… when the door behind them slammed open. Both women spun around to face the intruder instantly, only to be met with a soot covered half elf. 

“I duni cleaned the damn chimny ya bloody giant block a metal. Now, whatcha teachin me today.”

Ivy’s once nearly unintelligible accent had certainly improved.