Sunset: Then, Now, Tomorrow (Maintenance & Role-Play)

[Sunset]

SDF-Ixutsangi, GEC-1778099D, Alpha Quadrant...

"The natural progression of planets and moons in their orbits," Timmons smiled as he leaned back against one of the bridge bulkheads. On the enormous main display the single moon of the thin sliver of planet on the left was slowly going dark, washing away the bloody red of a moon already in eclipse with total darkness. It was an incredible sight that would, according to celestial mechanics, not occur again for those bound to the planet below for another fourteen of their years. "Once man looked up at an event like this with fear, knowing that it portended the end of the world, their empire, or their lives. Prophets and charlatans both preyed on the ignorant and superstitious while all should have been celebrating the event as a supremely visual reminder that the universe is not ruled by fickle and reckless gods but instead by the steady and measured hand of science and reason. It took thousands of years but we should still let it serve as a reminder that this is why we are here; To explain the seemingly random acts of nature through the application of logic and reason..."

"...you practiced that, didn't you?" Deania asked with a laugh a few minutes later as the four made their way from the bridge of the frigate towards the shuttle that would carry them to the surface. "It was too polished for something off-the-cuff," she accused, though her tone was still teasing, "Right?"

"Guilty. And where is you pick that one up?" He glanced over at the Seeker as they rounded a corner and walked past the enticing smells wafting from the open archway of one of the Ixutsangi's kitchens. As usual she was wearing the modified barely-there clothing of the Duab'Akii; A set of appliance strips that looked like a stick-on micro-bikini and a half jacket and very low cut pair of trousers that were based on the exceptionally more modest Defense Force uniform. "I don't think I've ever seen you in something that has cuffs."

"Then you should have been there last night after unarmed combat training... Commander Phan looks shy but..."

An upheld hand and he turned away to study the corridor bulkhead, "And I don't want to hear it, Seeker. I work with him, I don't need to work with his bedroom habits," the big explorer said. "How about answering the question so I don't put you on mute?"

"Heh, alrighty. I cheat - I've got an idiom module for my translator package. But you reminded me of something with that little speech," she switched mental gears, her hands moving as she began to explain the memory from her far-distant youth. "Because that is the fundamental basis for Akii. She is not a personal deity; She is distant and unknown, the one who set the universe in motion. To observe and learn about the world around them is, for her followers, to know her;" Akii was both the religion and the theocracy that was so synonymous with the Duab that they were known more commonly by the less linguistically correct Duab'Akii. "But a long time ago Akii wasn't the only god in what I guess you could call her pantheon. There used to be three gods: Akii the Watchmaker, Yrrab'Xam the Unseen, and Ssa'Syruf the Punisher. Before we knew that the universe was laid down according to a strict set of laws that could be understood Yrrab'Xam represented that element of chaos and randomness that seemed to dictate the movement of wind and water."

"Who's Ssa'Syruf? Besides the Unpronounceable," Trinya asked. "What did he punish?"

"She. She was the first of the two old gods to be put aside. Worship of her is now heretical; She punished the wicked and was said to be able to remove them from the world altogether so that not even their name would be known. Just as with Yrrab'Xam, once the physical laws of the universe were understood in more detail her worship fell away. When we break the laws of Akii, we punish ourselves. Well," she grinned, "Sorta. Seems like the Priests of Akii do a lot more of the punishing these days and their version of the Laws of Akii seems to be a lot more about who's in favor than who's doing the Goddess' work."

Which was why the Seeker was still aboard the Ixutsangi long after the ship had left the vicinity of Duab'Akii space. She was fundamentally a heretic now; Unconvinced of the existance of Akii and condemned by her insistence on wearing pants.

"Welcome to the long line of human history," Timmons scowled. "Religion will always be seen as a source of power for those who want it. And, unfortunately, even the lack of religion will sometimes be used as a weapon against those who still profess some measure of faith. I don't think you'll ever be able to fully separate sapients from their sin. Self-preservation is too fundamental to the definition of what it is to be sentience," he said, stopping in front of their destination.

The outdoor door of their shuttle was just again, visible inside the flexible docking collar that connected it to the open airlock that would seal the ship after the small craft dropped through the armored bay doors nearly hidden under one of the frigate's nacelle-spanning wings.

"But I'm glad to have you here, so their flaw is our treasure..."

Suddenly he found himself in the much smaller woman's embrace and there was a moment of awkward silence before Trinya put her half-penny in, "D'aww. Can we keep her?"

"I think we'll have to," he reached out to thumb the door controls, moving easily despite the young woman still wrapped around him, "She's the pilot now; I think I've forgotten how to fly this thing..."

A statement that was quickly proven facetious as the four boarded and went through the docking procedures with the Commander at the helm. A few minutes later and the hull opened while the little shuttle dropped away to bank sharply down towards the unexplored world below...

[Sunset]

Senator Thang's Estate, N'Xypndiltn, E'Xypndiltn System...

"Hi!"

The voice from behind drew his attention and the guard whipped around just in time to see the little warrior perched on the pillar behind him appear seemingly out of thin air before the heavy pistol barrel connected with his upturned jaw and sent him tumbling to the ground. A crack and the second guard fell as she shot him in the chest, electric lightning sparkling across his body as he slumped against the pillar opposite and his rifle clattering across the rain-slicked slate of the courtyard entrance. With a half-leap her feet touched the ground and she turned to sweep the gun across the blood red doors that barred any further entrance to the manor. Just behind her two light footsteps alerted her to the presence of the Inspector and Tradia glanced over a shoulder to confirm before returning to watch the doors.

It was simple logic; They were looking for the Snake, so look for the Snake where they had found them before. Their months-ago investigation into the presumed den of vice had turned up what hindsight now said was an overly-suspicious nothing; The place had been as clean as a whistle aside from those activities which were normally legal in the Republic to begin with. Various games of fortune and chance had been played out at the low tables while scantily clad and enticing servers had circled among them but despite a night of not-quite enjoying themselves the pair had found nothing to rouse suspicions or to justify the issue of a warrant. Even their hosts had seemed gracious and pleasant to the point of paying above-proper deference to the Roanian and the young Xypndi escort who had accompanied him.

"...I looked really good in that dress," Tradia sighed wistfully, looking down at the body-hugging but ultimately functional stealth suit.

"You did," Min agreed, drawing another glance and a smile; "Thank you! No time for flirting though," she switched to her augmented communications gear, "Perimeter is secure. Your turn, Lieutenant."

With a bit of careful work and only the occasional pistol-whipping the pair had worked their way through the guards surrounding the manor but inside they could easily be surprised by the random movement of guards and guests where even an accidental flip of a light switch could cast a revealing shadow on the wall or a bump in a crowded corridor might uncover their presence. To bring their assault to a successful conclusion called for a bit of shock and awe and that was the loaner Lieutenant's role to play.

"Roger that... Stand clear," the voice on the other end warned but the intricately carved and decorated wooden doors barring their entrance received no such warning.

Wood cracked, splintered, and exploded inward as an invisible force slammed into it accompanied by the whip-crack sound of that same something traveling at a high rate of speed. Shouts could be heard from inside and then there was the sharp sound of steel being drawn and the answering ominous hum of a power weapon charging up. The lightning snap of an energy weapon followed and there was a bloody scream cut off as a meaty thump could be heard from the courtyard and then it was all mayhem as the Marine swept through the Manor in a humanoid typhoon. Walls parted like kindling as the Super Valkyrie plowed through them irregardless of what might be on the other side and the slightest show of resistance was met with a blast from the suit's point defense that shattered gun and blade alike as guards and over-eager guests added to the panic screams of staff and server with their own cries of anguished pain. Where the unexpected leapt out at him they were met with the flat of the tremendous sword to bat them aside with bone crushing force to crumple against wall and pillar or sprawl amid shattered furniture.

Those that could ran and while the sounds of chaos still rang through the manor the Inspector and the Adjutant were kept busy intercepting these and either dropping those who looked in any way like Triad members with their own pistols or allowing the guests to run past and into the waiting arms of a squad of officers sent down from the orbiting warships. The mayhem spreading through the cities was occupying the attentions of all the local police and law enforcement and it was with some surprise that many of the guests found themselves rounded up by the claws and pincers of a Sakkran Navy detachment.

"And now it is time for some answers," Inspector Min stepped up to the most likely of the lot, a prisoner wearing the garb of a professional gambler with wide sleeves and carefully layered robes. One of the few with the paler cast of a Roanian, he was rarer still in that he was held firmly in the clutches of an enormous Deep One who held him firmly between its claws with a casual ease. Even the Inspector seemed intimidated at the form that loomed behind the captive as he stepped up and raised his chin to look him in the eye. "Where is Prince Li Nesar?"

"...I do not know." A slight pinch and he screamed; "Are you quite sure? I cannot testify to the locals, but the Emperor may just allow you to die above ground if you tell us where he is."

"...above ground..."

"Certainly. For someone who has been implicated as complicit in the attack on his beloved Consort? I would expect nothing less."

"...and the Emperor holds no power here," but he glanced to the soldiers and sailors who studiously continued to ignore his impromptu interrogation.

"Yet here I am, and at the invitation of the Republic. Look to your own future; Where would you prefer your soul spend eternity?"

[Sunset]

SNN Nightly News with Tanya Zaldano...

"...with Saint Medical Systems, Climax, and El Hefe Fabricación all expected to make offerings within the next quarter," Tanya finished, the last corporation rolling off her tongue with a deliciously lusty linger. "Other smaller companies have also indicated some interest in entering the wide-open ExoCortex market with their own boutique offerings and all of this is being driven by red-hot interest in the life-extending technology all across the 'nets."

Muy Caliente was a suitably spicy description for the news anchor as well. She was wearing the tiniest red-ruffled flamenco dress that would still adhere to her luscious curves and the low side of the angled skirt flipped enticingly as she strode across the set while the hit side showed the sculpted curve of her thigh and ass as she turned.

"The expansion of the Phoenixi-derived ExoCortex technology into Sunset is not expected to happen without some bumps, however. Leading technologists are already warning of disruptive effects in every sector from retail to education. Some of these are expected to be positive; Increased sales of body modifications as potential customers realize those extreme modifications are no longer as permanent or even long term as they once were when compared to a lifespan that may become essentially indefinite. But others," she reached out to emphasis this with a fingertip that traced along the trend line of an invisible graph that slowly formed behind her as she sliced across the floor, "Like education are expected to see some negative impact. Just what that will look like," her fingers jumped up and down and the graph went wild, splintering into separate lines, "Is up for speculation. Some are predicting a wholesale crash of the sector as both the birthrate plummets and the need for individual education dries up. Knowledge will be copied directly into the mind of those with the implant and at least one offering - that from Saint Medical Systems;" A hovering hologram of Dr. Mona Wilt, CEO of Saint Medical, appeared super-imposed over the company logo, "Specifically mentions a database of pre-generated knowledge. Presumably the model then offered by EHFC will be very basic while Climax will offer something..."

Tanya paused with a finger on the tip of her lips before licking it and drawing it down her chest into the valley of her cleavage, "Tantalizing..."

"Specific offerings aside, the possibility that education will either be rapidly copied directly into the ExoCortex or simply available on implantation could lead to a widespread crash in both the educational materials as well as the educator market. Already this has had some market effect; For the past three weeks stocks in this sector have begun to either stabilize or fall with which depending largely on the coping or advancement strategies laid out by the particular corporation. According to SNN's market analyst, those who have put forward a basic plan to take advantage of the ExoCortex by shifting their business towards a knowledge provisionment model have stayed healthy while those who have either issued no plans or a confusing statement have fallen. Complicating the potential fallout are the continuing reverberations from the Corporate Takeover Revolt of Sixty-Nine. While most of the sector was not directly affected - the employee-takeovers were mostly concentrated in high-margin industries where executives were perceived as reaping an undue share of the profits - there is still the long-tail of corporate business to consider."

"Another consideration is the potential plunge in birthrates. With no biological clock ticking, potential parents may put off parenthood. While the national average has been creeping up," A hologram appeared to show both the birth rate, immigration rate, and average age of a first-time parent as well as a host of other factors notably adjusted by species averages, "To nearly thirty-five years for Human women and thirty-nine for Human men, that number could easily climb higher. Already advanced medical technology and the prevalence of artificial wombs has removed much of the physical difficulty and risk from childbirth and the ExoCortex may just exacerbate the question with potential parents feeling no particular biological impulse to reproduce, especially as the body will become something of a commodity. Young and healthy may become the new normal though - girls? - I've got a patent on this baby," she finished, striking a sexy pose.

"Which brings up another potential large-scale change; The elimination of an aging population. While there are longevity treatments available, as well as advanced technologies to handle full-body replacement, the ExoCortex will make these procedures essentially trivial and expensive longevity treatments obsolete. This should have a widespread effect on the hospice and end-of-life healthcare segment as well - potentially there won't be one, unless we want to die. Come to think of it; I'm probably going to stay twenty... Well, twenty-something forever. So sorry; No one is going to be replacing me anytime soon! These girls," she touched a fingertip to each side of her chest, "Are staying like this forever!"

[Sunset]

Far Beneath Ambrosia, Southern Anuke...

"Hmm, yes, smaller Minions," the Doctor mumbled as he pressed forward, lurking behind every available obstacle as the larger and more physically capable Minions moved forward through the open as the bullet sponges they were designed to be. "Female, of course, and both compact enough to be out of the way but yet capable of doing the tasks I assign them. Perhaps in some kind of high-visibility color?"

One of the current gray-faced monsters moved past, swinging the barrel of his massive disruptor rifle from dark corner to endless abyss and back again as he covered the angles and checked the corners. The platform that they had previously tumbled from had re-appeared - literally out of thin air - and just as suddenly the door behind them had disappeared as well and without hesitation he'd come to the conclusion that the two were one and the same. An adventurous Minion, ordered to survey the platform, had confirmed that there was a joint at the center of the platform as well as a pattern that looked exactly like that which had formerly supported the Doctor's back until he had tumbled through and sprawled out under a half-dozen of his less-attractive cohort. Upon his safe return he had been ordered to the front to assist in the exploration of the new frontier while the Doctor stayed safely and firmly in the middle, working his way forward with the great mass as they slowly trailed out behind until the whole looked like a wriggling sperm.

The description was apt; At the center of the new chamber was a large metallic sphere that, like the cylinders in the previous room, floated without support in the midst of a network of encircling platforms and gantries that might well have had some influence on the operation of the mysterious structure but were, as a rule, swarming with rats.

Or at least they had been. As soon as the first Minion came into sight they had scattered like cockroaches to disappear completely into whatever nooks and crannies might house their alarmingly enlarged forms. Acting on standing orders and without seeming to realize their surroundings, they had been chased into their holes by a cracking volley of rifle fire that had resulted in holes being blasted in what were undoubtedly important aspects of the function of the device as well as the immediate dispatch of those Minions responsible to test the trigger conditions for the disappearing platform at the center of the span. While it had aroused the Doctor's ire, it had also aroused his curiosity and as soon as he was able to comfortable cross the open ground between the sheltered edge of one extended platform to the encircling console at the other, he stepped forward to assume the position of Master of the Orchestra, one hand raised in consideration as he pondered which button to press first.

"Yellow? No... Quite silly. Small yellow Minions? I think not. Besides, there are those..." He snapped his fingers several times, the sharp sound echoing through the chamber but utterly failing to remind him of the Xypndi and their goldenrod yellow warrior women, "Whatever they are. Enticingly busty but not what I'm after. Perhaps this one?"

A bony finger pressed into the hollow that, to the mind of a genius, was easily linked between his own familiar notions of a button and an alien control mechanism of unknown origins. He slid it back, pressing it up into the console until a cool blue light appeared around it and the rest of the device began to light up, "Marvelous! Just as I thought!"

What exactly he thought was up in the air, as was he now that the platform connecting the control station to the wider gantry network had disappeared behind him to send Fifty Nine plummeting into the endless abyss with only a bare scowl of disgust, but that he had already found meaningful success was paramount in his mind and the absence of the Minion completely unimportant.

"Now, I would imagine this to be a control panel of some kind, perhaps controlling the rotation of this device. But what does the device do? Experimentation is called for..."

Deftly he swung the matching sphere in the center of the console around until it pointed directly at Twenty Three and, using the bezel around the sphere for fine adjustment, he zeroed what looked to be a lens on the Minion with the faint call to 'Stand perfectly still!' echoing across the space. That triggered the appropriate ingrained response and the man froze at attention while the Doctor considered the other controls. Since they were unlabeled he could only make a contextual guess and the dirty scrabbling of the rats at the controls helped to guide his conjecture.

"...no idea."

He flipped a slider from one side to the other, ran his fingers along what he could only presume were power-output controls, and thumbed the button under the globe. There was a brilliant howl of energy and the eyes of everyone in the chamber were on Twenty Three as the energy coalesced around him, guided by invisible wedges that sent blue waves of force slicing sideways from the sphere out into the ether and then...

Nothing.

"Well, I am disappointed. I was hoping for inversion or perhaps a total elimination of the test subject from this universe. For all their marvelous power..."

On the far side of the chamber the entire wall parted, smoothly sliding back into hidden receptacles as protrusions and obstacles of unknown purpose slid back or folded away until the entire curved expanse was replaced with an array of glass-faced chambers that came together in the center around a device that looked to be the twin of the one mounted on the sphere. Starting in the center, lights began to come on in smooth sequence until the entire array was lit to reveal nothing less than a matching number of identical copies of Twenty Three, all laying naked in their berths.

"...explains the rats, I suppose."

[Sunset]

The 'Jeach, Jer'Don City, GEC-99791B (Alice)...

"Listen, just threatening each other back and forth isn't negotiating!" Ivy was in full shout-mode now, leaning over the desk to bear down on the rabbit seated on the other side and keeping his gaze as she spoke every word as clearly as she could. "You have been killing each other for thousands of years. If all you can do is threaten, you'll keep doing it for another thousand years! If you want to be the capital city of the Southern Alliance, you have to be able to work with the other cities! Even if you do crush them with your fancy airship, you'll just end up with a revolt within the next generation! How many times has Jer'Don fallen and been rebuilt, Mayor? How many times?!"

"Well..."

He fiddled with his paws, counting out and glancing up at the ceiling as he tried to remember. History wasn't especially emphasized in what passed for schools among the Hauyht - in fact, aside from the largest cities the civilization didn't have them. Most learned at the knee of their father or mother which would normally mean that, without specialized instructors, the civilization's knowledge would increase very slowly as each individual only knew a specific sub-set rather than the broad knowledge base of the more advanced civilizations. But there was something instinctive about how the Hauyht interacted with technology of all kinds. They seemed to have an instinctive ability to learn new things and importantly implement them. Unfortunately this skill didn't seem to extend to the concept of interpersonal interactions or even diplomacy. When one looked at Jer'Don as a whole, it was essentially a semi-feudal state with the Mayor's Office exercising the most power and thus the most control.

It didn't really work on the scale of a city and it didn't really work when that city was trying to expand its power and influence either. The city truly ran on inertia with each aspect continuing along despite the bumps because it was just the way it was. Confronted with diplomatic missives that read as more threat than entreaty, both sides had fallen back on the way things had been not-working previously and once again they were staring at each other over the muzzles of their rifles.

"Ten?"

"Try a fruit basket. Try please. Thank you? Try inclusive statements. We must unite against the common foe. Our power will be greater. Instead of," and she quoted from the last message, "Accept our dominion or we will crush you."

"But... Those are the words of a woman to her husband! They will not fear us! They will laugh at us."

Ivy paused and sighed, the breath flipping up a strand of hair that had fallen over her face, "Mr. Mayor, do you know what's out there? Have you really looked at what's lurking over your planet right now?"

"I've seen the pictures on your holosphere," he pointed to the device that sat in one corner of his office. It was silent now but she had occasionally walked in to find him looking over some distant website or a technician or engineer jotting down the details of something. "But I'm not sure what you mean."

"I mean that there are ships in orbit of this planet right now with the firepower to wipe your city out down to the bedrock in seconds. Ships built by people who say please and thank you, and who work together to build those ships and those cities and all those fancy things that you could have if you learn to get along with your neighbors. The people of this planet are smart - too smart, by the measure of one of those ships - and you could be living in a house with a walk-in shower that shows you pictures of distant waterfalls as you wash your fur under hot water that never gets cold. You could be flying around in your own personal hovercar - plane - and eating dinner at a fancy restaurant serving food from across the galaxy. But it will take you changing your thinking to get to that point. And really; Are they going to laugh at someone with an airship full of fighters? Would you?"

"Perhaps if you gave us one of your..."

"Uh, fuck no? Prove you can work things out and we'll give you more help. The better you play the game, the better the rewards are..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Wright Brothers, Deep Space, Ares Super-Cluster...

"Suitable irony," Captain Vu'evere pronounced as she sank her five legs into the decidedly regulation Command Chair in a fashion that reminded one of a trapdoor spider retreating back into its lair, "Finding a ship when we are charged with deploying an array that will find ships."

It was a one-in-a-trillion chance but the dice had been thrown and there it was; A long, lean, shark-like shape that drifted alone in the darkness only a few hundred thousand kilometers away. That it was dead was a certainty as the ship's sensors had confirmed but the question of why and how it came to be there were not as much. Like the TRIPWIRE array, the Wright Brothers was in the void between the stars far from both the interference generated by the high-tech civilization it surrounded and far as well from prying eyes. That suggested a sinister motive for its presence but suggestions were not answers and the Captain sought answers.

"No signs of any activity at all?"

"None, Captain," the Lieutenant sitting at the Sensor Station confirmed, running his fingers over the console again to check the readings again for perhaps the twentieth time. "No emissions of any kind aside from the sensor reflections. It's pretty dead out here;" The central holosphere was filled with a technical detail of local space and, aside from the diffuse emissions of the closest star system, there was nothing that would produce enough concentrated radiation or emissions of any kind to bounce off the ship and make it visible unless one were either very specifically looking for it, or one just happened across it in the vastness of interstellar space. "She's essentially dark. Outer hull matches the local ambient in all surveyed spectrum. And to my mind, she doesn't look like an intelligence gathering ship. There's nothing to suggest something like a large-scale antenna or array. Not even something matching our own."

And that wasn't saying much. The Wright Brothers was a Recovery Cruiser - her sensor capabilities were mostly limited to navigation and the most basic of survey capabilities. This possibly limited the unknown ship to the design of a pure warship or some other use where sensors were unimportant.

"And if she was an intelligence ship," Vu'evere leaned on one of her three arms in a surprisingly human gesture, "She would have run already. Or self-destructed."

Not that the Wright Brothers was an intimidating vessel either...

"Little extreme to blow yourself up, especially when you've got a ship that big, isn't it?"

"No. Is the TRIPWIRE buoy deployed?" The Captain asked before continuing, "If she was an intelligence ship, size becomes something of an asset. Assuming a mission profile that consists of lurking in deep space and gathering information, the larger the vessel the more space to house the various systems that would be needed to cut the ship's transient - that is; before, during, and after movement - emissions to near-zero. Posted here, such a ship could lurk for years and thus essentially gather a continual stream of information about a target civilization instead of a moment in time. But I agree with your assessment. This is not a monitoring ship; Something else has happened here and we will investigate. Thus, is that buoy deployed Mr. Kenokski?"

"Yes, Ma'am," the young man turned to the Engineering Officer who was looking over his own shoulder at the ongoing conversation from his place behind the Captain and received a confirming nod, "It is."

"Then bring it online and let us make use of it. Open your third eye and tell me what your other two cannot see," she stared at him, blinking her own two lower eyes while the larger of the three stared at him intently.

There were a few minutes of work as the buoy finished its start-up sequence, panels unfurling until the bus-sized unit resembled something of a very artistic hat stand. Triangulating with the rest of the array its position in the galaxy was precisely determined, data was shared between the nodes, and it began its only task of passively measuring the conditions of local space-time and sending them through the rest of the array for comparison.

"...and nothing. Not even a ripple," he announced those minutes later. "I see our own drive signature clearly, I can even see the ripple from the comms array, but that ship is essentially invisible to TRIPWIRE."

"And thus either they have discovered a method of concealing their presence from an array that did not exist until this moment, or the ship is dead. I shall again side with the latter," Vu'evere decided. "Ready a shuttle for transport, but we will be cautious."

While the circumstances were entirely different, the Kal-En-Vesho well-remembered the events that had led her to be seated in a chair that was rather newer than the one that had accompanied her own promotion. A strange alien weapon somehow smuggled aboard had first disoriented and then commanded her crew to abandon ship as Wright Brothers has steered an odd course around the galaxy itself before ending up at an unknown fate. Even that was still conjecture; They had eventually found other ships that had suffered that fate but the original Wright Brothers had yet to be found.

"UHCV's only;" These were the unmanned armored suits used by the Defense Force for hostile boardings or, in the case of the Recovery Cruisers, for operations in the high-danger environment of a disabled or destroyed warship, "Engineering and Marine team, full NEENJA. We will remain here while our ghosts investigate."

[Sunset]

Engineering Branch, El Hefe Fabrication Corporation Regional Headquarters, Ondou City, Terra Incognito...

"We've run into our largest obstacle to the design when we tried to mate the product up to an elf," the engineer explained, pulling up a simulation diagram along with an extended series of graphs and technical specifications. The most prominent of these showed the implant in its default installed location with the sinuous flat-s shape nestled up afainst the back of the skull. Katryna looked at him oddly and was about to question his competency - her own children were half-elf, after all, and she had an extensive knowledge of their physiology - but something in his tone and the trace of a smile at the corner of his lips stopped her until he continued, "And specifically Menelmacari elves."

There was a hoke coming and she knew it now, his smile widening, but she prompted him with a professional nod, "Alright, show me," and he went on; "We found that the personality generated in simulation rapidly moved outside of statistically normal ranges for the species and that this was directly attributable to the molecular composition of the polymorphic computronium. Attempts to use different formulations repeated the same results to lesser or larger degrees until we were forced to turn to direct research on the aberant species. During that research we discovered the presence of an unknown element apparently common to Menelmacari elves."

An atomic diagram appeared showing the various particles present and already Katryna could smell something peculiar about them; The outer sphere of electrons was both extremely tight and regular with very little space between their orbits; "Which we have dubbed Unfunium."

And there it was.

"It is a remarkable scientific discovery," he went on, gesturing to the new element and then to a molecular chain showing its position inside the new form of computronium that the engineers at EHFC had come up with. In fact, Unfunium seemed to comprise nearly half of the new molecule which in turn would form the plastic substrate that the polymorphic would primarily consist of. "A geographic survey of Menelmacar has also confirmed that a thick layer of Unfunium underlays the entire nation and, imlortantly, that isotpic decay of Unfunium results in a gas that seeps up through the local bedrock where it apparently bonds with similar molecules until it forms a blockage..."

"In their bowels..."

"Exactly so," he finished, his face finally breaking out into a wide smile. "Exactly so. The condition does seem to be permanent."

"And, I'm guessing, aside from this particular issue, that your product is now ready for market?" He nodded and she went on, "And you are also aware that my husband is an elf?"

There was a small shrug and the smile remained; Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't.

"And you are aware that when I repeat all this to him tonight he will then laugh his stupid ass off, call his mother, repeat it to her, she will not laugh at it and," she sighed, "I will never hear the end of it. But there is a reason he lives here and not there, isn't there?"

[Sunset]

OOC: The following takes place after the resolution of the current Roanian crisis when TRIPWIRE be considered fully active and integrated with the Defense Force.

----

Defense Force Fleet Headquarters, ASCENDANT High Security Virtual Environment, Ares Super-Cluster...

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer;" It was an old standby but as the enormous overhead projection of the galaxy lit up with the various demarcations showing the claimed and realistic extent of both friend and enemy it was clear that the old standby was still being followed. Powers known to be hostile or antagonistic to the Republic and its allies were highlighted in various shades of yellow, orange, and red with each representing a mixed scale of both the threat they were considered to be to the Republic and their current level of active hostility. Most were yellow, a few orange, and only a very few red with the knowledgeable observer understanding that these entities were essentially hostile to everyone. Displayed alongside these, where the uniformed officers from a half-dozen militaries and twice as many species could easily interact with them, were yet more data points showing a more fine-grained level of detail with perspectives such as power projection, economic status, and intelligence reach displayed as graphing bars with their own sub-segments listed internally. From the larger display that showed TRIPWIRE's update status, it was clear that these were, in color priority, where the array was devoting much of its analysis capabilities.

The notable exception was the area around the floating solar-ray icon that showed the physical location assigned to the virtual environment aboard one of the Republic's enormous Ascendant-Class Command Ships. Space around it - the enormous blue blob that represented Triumvirate space interlaced with the Raumreich and the rest of space immediate to Sol - glowed with just as much detail and all throughout this and the red spaces the spiderweb detail of ships and jump-gates and major communications nodes glowed golden. This was the beauty of the array; To take the details of these three points of data and more and turn them into an inferred map of both the threats and opportunities available to the Republic and her allies.

"They understand this just as much as we do," the Secretary-General went on, "And so I don't see the next threat as being on the overt level that will require a large scale military response. That isn't to say there won't be confrontations and needs for our various military services," she looked around the room, noting with some pleasure the black, blue, and silver roundel of the Triumvirate on shoulder, breast, or collar, "But with hopefully rare exception these will be bush fires; Exactly the kind of thing that we're already used to dealing with and hopefully with these new tools we'll be able to get on them faster and keep them smaller. But that to me suggests that a lot of the threats we will be seeing in the future will come from a lateral direction and again, here is where TRIPWIRE will help us keep those threats contained."

Across the broad map of the galaxy lines and dots began to appear and disappear, linked together by annotation and conjecture as the golden links of faster-than-light travel spread out from the well-understood red and blue patches of the galaxy into the darkness around them. These began to fill in with the indistinct shapes of green that represented the borders and claims of those civilizations that either claimed neutrality or represented a known-unknown; Those states with very little representation or contact with the greater galaxy but whose existence was well-understood.

"It is with or through these secondary actors that I see most of the larger-scale threats to our own continued goals developing. A proxy state provoked into conflict in order to attempt to weaken us or ensure the collapse of the proxy to make absorption easier, or a potential source of economic warfare, or even as a source of excessive migration designed to tax our open-handed resources. In the past, many of these potential gambits were easily accomplished via third-party proxies but with the informational oversight gained, I hope to see a lot of these links not only concretely established but more easily turned back to our own goals. We will be able to know, with a high degree of precision, who is behind these actions and hopefully nip them in the bud before they blow up. Which means that one of the side-effects of TRIPWIRE is going to end up being a renewed emphasis on the opposite of the technological superiority TRIPWIRE will afford us for the time being; Intelligence operatives and military officers on the ground putting out those small fires before they become big fires so that we can concentrate our resources on the really big fires."

"Which also means we're going to have to do my favorite thing; Working even closer together than we have, sharing information, and keeping an eye on our enemies and our not-enemies so that we can keep our people safe and happy. To that end, I'm ordering the first expansion phase of TRIPWIRE to focus on building out our network towards keeping an eye on the links between our enemies and our not-enemies. I expect this second build-out to take considerably longer than that of the primary array; Instead of operating close to home we'll be dispatching task forces into the further corners of the galaxy to deploy these sub-assemblies and this will be risky. One of the advantages of TRIPWIRE is that no one knows about it - we're going to have to be careful to deploy these sub-assemblies in such a way that no one continues to know about it. Which in turn means more intelligence work..."

[Sunset]

Jungle Safehouse, N'Xypndiltn, E'Xypndiltn System...

"Abandoned," Inspector Min poked through the crumbling remains of the safehouse, "Just as we'd expected. Why would they have only one meeting point between the various dens of the Snake Clan and their ultimate destination? This was probably just a place to check identities," he flipped over a crumbled bit of packaging that had been left behind. It was one of the many traces that had established the place as having been used at one point by the Clan; A sturdy stone tower in the middle of a clearing that was slowly being reclaimed by the jungle, it had once been a place of worship used by the False Gods of N'Xypndiltn in their cult ceremonies. It was somehow appropriate that the place had been reclaimed for their use even if temporarily.

"They've dispatched teams to the other temples," Tradia spoke up, returning from a silent conversation in her head to the here-and-now, "But it's probably too optimistic that they might be headquartered somewhere in the hidden lairs."

The two were not alone at the safehouse coughed up by one of the proprietors of the den of vice; They'd been ferried to the site by a Combined Services Mobile Infantry unit and it was now spread out around the temple both looking for any information as to the nefarious visitors and providing protection to the two principle investigators. All across the planet attacks were still continuing with successful interventions sometimes preventing a tragedy but often only able to protect a principle target while the attackers lashed out at everyone around them until they were killed or captured. When they'd arrived at the site a Demo Man had insisted on clearing the temple first and he'd found it laced with a variety of traps from the mean to the lethal and ranging into the destructive with a hidden cache of explosives that would have leveled the building during any thorough search.

"I can only agree. One misdirection will be followed by another. But there are few clues here as to where the next step along the chain might be..."

"Sirs?" Min was interrupted by the interjection of a Mobile Infantry trooper with the hard-edged accent of a Karmabaijani regular. Appearing at the door, he half-stooped so he could see inside the doorway built for the much, much shorter Xypndi people, "We've found a heavy track leading away to the southeast. Scout detail is already on their way to check it out."

It was an old-fashioned clue and so the rest of the search was conducted in an old-fashioned method with a half-dozen Troopers bouncing along through the jungle surrounding the pair as they followed the scouts along the footpath that had been left by the cultists with the search made especially tedious by the pursued. Booby traps had been set here and there and what appeared to be established lines of travel were often revealed after a short time to be an access trail to a watering hole and other times to be a stream crossing where they had attempted to put anyone who followed off the trail. It was frustrating work until the second and third stop along the route deep into the jungle had been passed and they started to find the bodies. Sacrifices was a more proper term; Young women, mostly Tonhi but occasionally a native Xypndi spread out on an rough altar of gathered stones as a bloody sacrifice.

"Ugh, why here?" Tradia asked, carefully keeping her distance. She'd seen death before and caused plenty of it herself, but there was something about the moment of horror caught in the young woman's eyes that made her step back while the Inspector circled the altar. There was something odd about the scene; A particular stillness that seemed absent from the woman's body.

"I cannot explain it," the Inspector agreed. "I deal with the criminal, but this..."

Something moved on the young woman's arm and Tradia nearly jumped out of her skin. In her head she knew it had to be a maggot or some other harbinger of decay but then the foot shook and she stepped back, "Min..."

"I see it too, Ms. Tradia." There was a catch of apprehension in his voice and he looked around the altar to the jungle and what seemed like a growing shadow that had just now passed over them but his perspective was suddenly blocked as the form of an armored Trooper stepped in front of the pair.

"Might be a booby trap," the Demo Man warned, his voice quiet as he knelt and began to deploy the tools of his trade. But it was no trap; Even as the two stepped back, the movement of the young woman's legs intensified, her hands pushed, and she began to stand. Body broken but somehow intact, she took her first staggering step forward since having crossed the greatest boundary and then another. Dried viscera cracked and fell away as she turned and looked with eyes still wide in dead horror towards an unknown destination, no breath escaping her lips as feet began to carry her towards it...

[Sunset]

Special Projects Hidden Facility, Denali, Yukon System...

"Doctor Kraus?" Director Kryger stopped in the doorway to the laboratory and peered around the corner, taking in the open space with its cabinets and workstations along one wall, shelves and equipment along another, row of multi-purpose bio-tanks in the back, and island tables in the center surrounding an inactive holosphere, "Doctor?" There was movement from the back corner and she stepped inside, "Fredrick, I'd heard from one of the techs in the cafeteria that you had mentioned that you were bored and so..."

Francine had rushed down to make sure he was not bored. She'd been warned by her predecessor Director Tibowski that if Kraus was bored - or indeed in any state other than fully occupied with a current sanction project - that there was a significant chance that he would go off the rails, leave the reservation, make poor choices, or more simply fuck things up and make the Director's - her - job a nightmare. He'd even mentioned conditions and occurrences before hopping onto the shuttle that would carry him away and she had tried to ignore the fact that it seemed a little too gleeful when he'd done so. The inane giggle hadn't helped.

"Could be a day, could be two weeks, could even be a month, but if you let him find a way to fill his time," Adam had warned, "He'll do it and you'll regret it. One hundred percent of the time, even if you end up with a sterling note of appreciation straight from the Secretary-General on your service record;" He had several, along with many more from the Director of Special Projects, various Admirals and higher-ranking flag officers, and even a couple civilizations she hadn't heard of, "You'll regret it."

Then he'd taken the bottle of scotch and drained it from neck to heel in a single long pull that had set his Adam's Apple into rippling motion until he'd finished with a relaxed sigh and thrown it spinning into the receptacle with an ease born of repeated practice, "So keep your ears open. If the word 'bored' even crosses his lips... In fact," he'd pulled open a virtual file drawer, "I keep these around as emergency projects. Back-burner stuff, nothing anyone really cares about, but drop one of these in his lap and you'll save yourself a lot of heartache and paperwork."

"Nope, doing just fine!"

His voice confirmed his location and she walked - crept - forward, the Director's warning playing through her head over and over as she carefully moved towards what could be a scene of unimaginable paperwork-inducing horror in the sheltered corner. For a moment she worried he might be naked, covered in blood, and with a weapon clutched in one hand as he 'finished off' whatever had caught his attention, but it was not the case and she straightened to assume a more regular and - hopefully - disinterested looking posture, "So, what are you working on?"

There wasn't a whole lot in the little space; A small technical display, a comfortable looking half-couch, a couple of magazines in a rack on the wall. It definitely wasn't what she was expecting to be the scene of some prosecutable horror. Though the magazines looked like they belonged in a dentist's office... in the twentieth century.

"Nixon Hails Moon Landing..."

"Hmm? Oh, those," his eyes flicked to the rack, "It's an art piece. Retro-vintage something-or-other. What brings you down to my little corner of the universe, Director?" His eyes returned to the display, invisible from her position, and she could tell she'd already lost his attention.

"Well, I'd heard that you were bored and I had something cross my desk that could use your expertise..."

"Nope, doing just fine," his fingers tapped at something.

"Can I ask what?"

"...yes. Unless you've suddenly lacked the ability to talk. Evidence to the contrary already presented, I'm guessing you'd like me to tell you what I'm doing."

"Please."

"Well;" And she could practically see the gears turning as he either polished his story or made it up on the spot, "I just got a message from one of our... Explorers? That they had found a bit of something that looked like DNA and they want me to... Do a recreation on it? Reconstruct it. Yes - Commander Timmons sent me a sample that seems to contain a DNA-analog that he wants me to reconstruct. Immediately. Very important. You know, Commander Timmons?"

It made sense but it made too much sense. Like the Doctor's work habits, she'd also been warned that a certain Commander Timmons was to be given the utmost priority when he or his Captain contacted them. She'd done some research and there was a good reason for that - the man seemed responsible for enough major discoveries to make him a living treasure - but she hadn't seen anything cross her virtual desk about a sample or even any contact from the Commander or the Ixutsangi in months. Edging closer, she stepped around until she could see whatever he was working on and there was a long sigh of relief as it was exactly what he said. There was a scan of something that looked similar to the self-replicating molecule on one side, a wireframe of a humanoid figure on the other, and all was good with the world.

"Well, looks like your making substantial progress. I'll leave you to it then."

"Mhm, yes, thank you Director," his voice trailed off as a finger picked at a list of possible features and he dragged it over to the wireframe before hesitating and then releasing it. "Very important, thank you for your understanding... Good day."

[Sunset]

SDF-Wright Brothers, Deep Space, Ares Super-Cluster...

A long pair of double-fins split down the back of the derelict vessel, a low third running down the middle of the two to trail off and fan out into the broad spade-shape of a tapered tail, and between these were paired up the half-oval openings of what at first looked to be drive nozzles but, as the spotlights on the nose and flanks of the little craft swept over them, were revealed to be entirely different. Most of the hull was covered with what looked almost exactly like overlapping scales but these ended in the smooth metal of what looked to be launch or recovery bays. A flat ledge ran down into a larger interior before ending abruptly at what had to be hangar doors laid out in something of a flattened but elongated saw-tooth pattern. None of these were open and a convenient entry was denied and so the shuttle flew on, sliding off the side of the ship to where a narrow double-fin angled down. At the base of the fin where it joined the hull the slow movement of the lights revealed several large scales that looked unique and the shuttle slowed to tarry over them.

Lieutenant Sofi Reynolds, a middle-aged woman with a shock of brown hair that sprouted from her head like a crown of rich spikes, sat at the controls of the little Flare-Class. Like the others she was not there in person but rather an engram of her current conscious mind had been uploaded into the shuttle itself, a hologram seated at the controls giving an aspect of familiarity to both her mirrored self and to the other pseudo-occupants. Next to her sat the co-pilot, a technician from the expansive engineering section aboard the Wright Brothers. While the shuttle was perfectly capable of flying itself and - especially this close to the derelict vessel - was actually doing most of the technical work of navigation and maneuvering, the pilots were there for both gross maneuvering and to give something of the mimicry of life to their expedition. A presumption, perhaps, but living beings had created the ship that slowly flowed past them and living - even in the manner of NEENJA - operators and observers might offer more insights.

"They look like they could slide in," the Lieutenant commented, her voice ghostly in the interior of the darkened shuttle. "Weapons ports of some kind..."

There was no markings or anything other than appearances to confirm such, but there was a general agreement and so they moved on, marking the site for further investigation. This first flight would be a broad overview; Without any kind of active emissions from the unknown ship there was only so much that the sensors aboard the Wright Brothers could tell them. Sometimes eyeballs were the best tools for the job and as they moved over the hull they continued to look for anything unusual or just interesting.

"How about those up there?" The co-pilot pointed up to where a line of lighter scales could be seen on the high flank, running just under the two outside dorsal fins and all the way forward to what they would describe as the base of the head. These swept up and down again in a long single arc and as they got closer they could see that they were each inlaid with a pattern that looked like indented scales surrounded by a lattice of sorts. They varied in size as they moved from head to tail but the general appearance was the same.

"Sensors, and lots of them. It would make an effective array."

"Which starts to put this thing," Lieutenant Saathoff's hands slid over the virtual console and detailed suggestions were added to one of several wire frames that already floated off to one side, "As a command ship? Lots of launch and recovery bays, lots of sensors, but not a huge mass of weapons."

Drifting under the nose, her suppositions were somewhat confirmed as a quartet of what could have been launch bays were revealed by the darting lights. They coalesced on one and the shuttle slid up to allow them to look directly inside. Narrower, it was none-the-less a match for those on the rear of the ship with the same saw-tooth pattern. It was also far deeper and there were visible elements of a launch rail or similar assembly along the tunnel.

"Or just your garden-variety drone carrier," one of the Marines sitting behind them countered. Unlike the holographic pilot and co-pilot, who were dressed in their regular uniforms, he was wearing a UHCV as his mental avatar. Fundamentally the same as one of the Republic's GhostDragon power armor suits, it would allow him to board and explore the ship in reasonable safety. Even if it was somehow destroyed the real Lieutenant Ochoji was back aboard the Recovery Cruiser while the engram and its associated hardware were a non-sentient system that used the engram as a template that instructed it in how to think and act like the distant Marine. If it returned, the memories generated could be integrated into those of the Bajoni though as a matter of preference most simply viewed and reviewed them before storing them for later.

"Could be," there was the virtual shrug of agreement. "Anyone seeing anything that looks like markings or identification? I'm not."

Or if there was, it followed the same subtle pattern of the rest of the ship. Noting that the weapons ports seemed to be retractable had led the co-pilot to speculate that the bays themselves might retract, the scales moving to cover them and a crude glowing green representational test showed this might well be the case.

"Which... How much of this ship are we really seeing? And why cover everything like that?"

There were disadvantages and advantages after all; Complex systems needed complex maintenance, and engineering all the external systems to retract would result in larger systems that would otherwise offer more 'oomph', whether that be firepower, sensor resolution, or capacity. Which meant, to the considered observer, that there must be some reason behind it.

"Maybe the Captain was wrong," the pilot again mused, "Perhaps this is an intelligence-gathering ship of some stripe. But if it was, wouldn't it be gone already? We're so close they can probably pick us up from our breathing."

If anyone aboard the shuttle could actually breath, that was. But there was no movement from the ship, no sign of life at all, and their own craft drifted around to the very nose until the two were almost touching. Still there were no sign of any markings. Not even the sparkling of the dome of a warning light broke her dark hull.

"Perhaps the war she meant to fight is long past... Out this far, she could have been here forever. A thousand years? A million?"

"A million? Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Reynolds laughed. "A million years? Hell, why not. I dub thee... The Million Year Ark."

"...I'm pretty sure that name's taken."

[Sunset]

Ko'Oset (GEC-1778099D), Alpha Quadrant...

"The Oseti are interesting for a couple reasons," Timmons went on, laying out his logic while flipping through a holographic dossier he'd assembled. "First, Ko'Oset is on the border of the Feknarthi Imperium. Outside of their declared borders, but close enough that they get regular trade with the Imperium." The way he pronounced trade was enough to inform his next statement, "Which is mostly low-life merchants trying to peddle off cheap junk on the Oseti for whatever they can get that's worth more and, if they can't negotiate a great deal, they just grab everyone and sell them at the next port. It's too far away and doesn't happen often enough to push the Therians into doing something about it, but they've got a fair number of incidents recorded in their intelligence files so we're going to want to be careful."

"I don't think they will be mistaking us for the Feknarthi anytime soon," Deania laughed. The Seeker lifted her hands to the side of her head and used them to describe the hammerhead cranium shape of the Imperium's dominant species that was clearly missing from her own.

"No, but don't assume they will look at us as being anything other than outsiders. The Therian intelligence report is hit-and-miss," he looked out of the virtual window to where the planet's green jungles were whizzing by, "So we know that they are somewhere about the fifteen century on a Human timeline and technology scope, but we don't know much about their politics. We could find that we've landed in a city that has been just destroyed a hundred times in a hundred years by the star-demons, or we could land in London circa Fifteen-Ninety and be treated to the works of this planet's Shakespeare." He paused, half-glancing over his shoulder to the young woman in the co-pilot's seat, "Have you seen any..."

"How irksome is this music to my heart! When such strings jar, what hope of harmony? Henry VI, Act Two, Scene One."

"Which means we could pick up any number of rumors as to what the Feknarthi are up to. Or not up to."

"How much do you think they have interfered with the local civilization," Lae interrupted. "It sounds like you expect us to just find a city teeming with Fek-whatever and Oseti cross-breeds?"

"Maybe," the big man shrugged, "Though I'd really doubt it. The Oseti are a near-insectoid species. A few million years removed but it would still produce some really strange looking kids if it produced anything at all. No, everything in the dossier points to the Feknarthi as being the more civilized sort of slavers; It's not legal, but the rich and powerful do it anyway because it's illegal. The decadence of committing a crime when you ask for your morning coffee."

"then we're really talking an inter-Empire rivalry as the source of this whole thing?"

"If they are responsible, yes. And hunches are hunches, but interstellar war should never be waged on a hunch. I don't want to go back to the Hegemony with anything less than solid, incontrovertible proof that the Feknarthi are behind this... Whatever it is."

That was the trick - the rub. At this point they were grasping at the straws he called hunches while they still didn't know how whatever affliction suddenly came over once-strong Therian warriors overtook them. Knowing the how would go a long way towards determining the who but without knowing the how, they were reduced to guessing at the who.

Below them the jungle had given way to a clear expanse of open water and Timmons had put the pedal down until the white-capped waves passed in a blur. Islands whipped by, smaller and larger until one that stretched into the horizon on the right apparently caught his eye and he slowed. A map appeared, detailing out the archipelago they flew over, and the shuttle banked to head towards a newly-set destination as the map disappeared.

"It might not be London..." he said as the sprawling city on the bay appeared just over the rise of a low series of grassy mountains, "But it might have a pub or two!"

[Sunset]

Dr. Wilt's Office, Saint Medical Systems Corporate Headquarters, Notch, Beta Quadrant...

"We're doing the first round of live integration testing right now," the engineer continued, opening up a display to show the CEO a live feed from a bank of bio-tanks where a long row of body-less heads floated serenely. Unlike her competitors, Mona was a Doctor and her first rule with the development of the Saint Medical version of the ExoCortex was the first line of the Oath; 'First, Do No Harm.' The Universe was about as gray as it got as far as the right and wrong of things but where she possibly could, she made sure of that first.

"Sterile blanks, of course. They won't even have a human consciousness. We have a formal engram written into the tissue structure - a particularly stupid beagle, actually - so the closest they'll come is dreaming about piddling on the carpet. But this will let us test all the Human-side connections. A cyborg graft at the base of the neck will relay all the input-output to both a virtualization system and to a full cyborg body. One of our most advanced models - they'll feel and do everything the ExoCortex instructs them to."

"Is piddling on the carpet a good substitute test?" Dr. Wilt wondered aloud, the trace of a smile just hitting her eyes.

"We've got a wide variety of tests in the schedule," another display with hundreds of different body functions and activity listed with everything from jogging to sex to taking out the garbage. " Plus we'll be comparing against different neurological growth patterns and we'll be testing the whole batch in array looking for any significant deviations from normal parameters. If they perform according to the simulations and all-electronic testing, we should be ready for production testing."

"And what does the volunteer pool look like?"

It was a question of special interest to the Doctor, who turned from the other displays to visually isolate the roster that appeared in front of her. As an addedum to do no harm, she was determined to make sure they helped, even if the procedure ultimately benefited the bottom line. All of the individuals listed were victims in one way other another; Some were paralyzed in accidents of some kind while others had rare degenerative disorders that were consuming their body. All could be helped using existing techniques but if the ExoCortex worked properly it would both extend and enhance their lives. If the procedure failed - possibility if not a probability - more traditional medical options could be employed.

The twist was that most of the patients were not Human while most of the testing was done with the satisfactorily baseline Human nervous system models. The same testing had been repeated in abstract, but it was a reasonable fact that most of those who suffered from any of these conditions were mostly immigrants to the Republic from areas with either considerable strife or a lower level of technological achievement. A large sample pool was either unavailable or unreliable with many available groups representing a good number of close relatives or even family members. Such an isolated sample set would only be of limited use. While it might filter out specific negative interactions, it could not account for a wide range of genetic diversity.

Thus far the reverse-engineered technology of the Phoenixi had proven robust but, at Director Silaco's insistence, they were rebuilding it from the ground up using a double-blind descriptive engineering technique where the second team was told in detail how the ExoCortex accomplished a particular objective then relayed that to the third while the third passed any questions back to the first. The goal was to eliminate any change of direct contamination of the end-product from the original system. It was slow and cumbersome but with the assistance of several expert and sentient electronic systems, the actual information pass-through was nearly seamless. Now, as end-stage testing neared, everyone was on edge anticipating either success or disaster as to their personality with the Doctor and CEO crossing her own fingers extra-tight.

[Sunset]

Far Beneath Ambrosia, Southern Anuke...

"An enormous alien cloning device?!" The smile that broke the Doctor's face in half was nearly unbreakable, "How simply incredible! But," he looked around the vast chasm and just barely noted both the absence of the platform behind him and the utter disappearance of Fifty Nine, who had been standing there until the very moment when Stephen had begun his zealous experimentation with the unfamiliar console, "Why here?"

That it was buried so deep beneath the surface of what had been, until the Republic's terraforming and colonization effort over a quarter and a century ago, a lifeless planet in a lifeless system led him to only one possible conclusion; "A re-population mechanism of some kind! Undoubtedly created in the wake of the sector-spanning war that saw the final overthrow, defeat, and annihilation of the Kal-En-Vesho empire!"

While only one entity - the isolated hermit known as the Nameless One on the far planet of Rime - could be called an expert in such things, the Doctor had studied what was known about the Crafter's Empire as part of his Minor course of study at University; Fallen Empires and How to Avoid Their Fate. It was a de rigueur course for those who intended to make a serious calling in the Mad Scientist field though enrollment was limited and tended to decline over the term as students vanished or were obliterated by their rivals.

"...lessons learned," Ambrose shrugged, the smile fading a bit. As marvelous as the machine was, it raised questions as much as it provided a new source of expendable manpower. "Such as why it went unused."

Something ticked over in his brilliant mind and he knelt - crouched, really - at the edge of the console to look over it from the perspective of someone much shorter than his own gangling height. Scratches and dirt marred the surface and he turned to look around the hanging platform for the littlest of hiding holes and a tell-tale pair of glinting red eyes.

"Or did it... Number Three!" His voice echoed around the room and he stood, searching for the svelte figure of the female Super Minion. "Number Three!" He spotted her just as she him and he beckoned to her. Carefully she picked her way across the winding platforms until she was within easy shouting distance, "Number Three, excellent. Those creatures that escaped; Countermand all existing orders regarding them. I want as many taken alive as possible. No exceptions, personnel losses acceptable. It may be..."

No, it was a ludicrous idea. But there it was, written out in the scratches that marred the once perfect surface of the console. A few more generations, time to grow and change, and their claws or whatever they would become would be just the right shape to fit into the various controls. Was it a matter of brilliant pre-planning? Or utter coincidence that the slowly-humanoid rats would be able to operate this console? And had found this place? In fact, it raised more questions and once again he stared around the enormous chamber, his eyes nearly bugging out as the question occurred to him.

"How could we miss all this?"

"Sir?" She looked up from her microphone where she was breathing orders out to the rest of the team and he waved her off to return to his thoughts; "How would anyone miss this? It is too large, too easy to spot. Certainly we know about the others..."

There were Vaults on Shiva, one of the other inhabited if not inhabitable planets of the Ares System, but they were terrible places full of monsters that rolled along on tentacles made of brass or emerged from walls, floors, and ceiling to drag the unwary away to an unknown fate. Here the dull black walls seemed almost peaceful, a not-plastic reminder of an industrial age vanished into history. In his mind's eye he could see the evolved parentage of the escaped rats roaming the pathways and platforms as they went about their duties servicing the great machine, but to what purpose? Simply producing more of an already plentiful species? Or building it in enormous pre-cognition of an event that would someday destroy them.

"Had they seen it coming? Built this, and built defenses that would somehow..." His eyes went back to the console as sudden shock went through him, "Prevent our knowledge of this place? Cause us to build around, through, but never into it? How would such a thing be possible? And on a planetary scale?" His hands searched the controls but somehow intuition was lacking. Or perhaps it was something else; "Perhaps it is still hidden from me. The power to cloud men's minds on such a scale... It must be mine!"

[Sunset]

Below the Surface, The Dragon's Eye, Delta Quadrant...

"This is ludicrously cool, Captain," the engineer confessed as he knelt next to the console and ran his specialized scanner over it. "But you don't want me here..."

"Why not?"

Like the other members of her small team, Captain Blaine was sitting around - floating, really - at the edge of the curved balcony while the engineer and his smaller team of two junior technicians looked over the intricately carved station that was nestled inside a niche carved into one of the four tall pillars that held up both the balcony and the roof above them. As soon as he'd arrived from the Ojeni, he'd unpacked a heavy-duty engineering scanner that had all the rugged looks of Karmabaijani design and had started maneuvering it around the pillar. It hadn't taken him long to come to his unusual conclusion, however, and his answer surprised everyone.

"...you want a biologist. Or a botanist. Come take a look." Touching the controls, he created a feed that showed what the device saw as well as what he was looking for before moving aside to let them in closer so that they would get a full comparison between electronic display and the real artifact. "The controls aren't wired up to whatever they are wired up to with wires. Nope - plants!"

The view was murky thanks to the solid rock of the pillar and the console itself, but what they could see of the outer sections showed a network of open channels and what looked startlingly similar to a cluster of the red sea vines that grew all around them snaking its way up through towards the carved buttons and knobs of the console to curl around hidden protrusions. At a guess - and here it would be impossible to know without dismantling the pedestal - the vines were long-dead but their shriveled remains were still a potent hint as to the workings of the system.

"Wow;" There were notable examples of both bio-mechanical systems as well as engineered organisms out there, but this was something of a new yet primitive form. It almost reminded her of the Doso; While most members of that species had abandoned their vegetable bodies for the upgraded capabilities of cybernetics, they had once relied on a mineral-plant symbiosis for movement and tool-use. That interface was exceptionally more nuanced with hair-fine roots and tendrils growing through the cracks and geodes of the Doso's crystalline shell, but the notion was much the same. "It's fantastic, but..."

"What does it do? Well, there's the question and part of how we can get the answer. One of the botanists is already on her way down from the ship, but what I'm thinking is that we'll open this station up, harvest some samples, then we'll tear it down and with her help figure out the layout and mechanism of the controls. But these channels have to lead somewhere, so we'll put some probes down there and see where they go. My suspicion is that there is a much larger machine under this temple. Then the question is - what does that machine do?"

"Right. So," she began passing out orders, "I want all the other teams to check for similar consoles;" Some had already found them, while some of the other large buildings seemed to have an entirely different purpose, "Or anything that looks like it could operate in a similar manner. And dispatch anyone who isn't busy back out to check other sites as well. Is this a new thing?"

The engineer nodded while Commander Sloan took over the details of arranging and dispatching the various teams, "It shouldn't been, Kami. Technology doesn't develop suddenly like this. We should be seeing all kinds of precursors here and there - we probably just didn't know what we were looking for. Right under our noses," he lifted a handful of the red weed. "A lot of new questions. Should be fun."

"Yep! And speaking of right under our noses; No reason to sit around while everyone else does the work of has the fun!" Standing, she stepped to the edge of the balcony and then plunged off the edge, straighting out so she'd fall quickly to the floor of the chamber. "Look for anything that might be a maintenance access or shaft. If there is something below us, there has to be a way these guys got to it!"

[Sunset]

Landor City Beachfront, Terra Incognito, New Latin System...

"Not all faster-than-light drives are created equal," Katryna pointed out as she ran. Bare feet pounding into the wet sand, she was back into the warm-weather routine of an outdoor athletic activity of some sort once a day. It wasn't necessary to maintain her weight or physique but it helped her create a connection to her more biological fellows, set a good example for her kids, and entertained her husband, who was following just a few steps behind and undoubtedly staring at her ass as she ran. He was not the partner in conversation though; Instead a rather more sweaty and a little parched looking designer from Liquid was jogging along at her side, a misplaced cubical dweller who seemed like she'd be more at home in the half-height warren than on the beach.

"Right, but..." A couple staggered breaths and she pushed herself to keep up with the artificial Asian woman's athletic chassis, "They are created equal enough. And a lot of them rely on power sources that can be easily tracked by... Ooofph."

A shallow cliff topped with wind-swept beach grass opened in front of them and Katryna turned sideways to half-slide down the face, one foot after the other, while Michelle paused at the edge and Amaril threw himself off to splash down in a knee-deep pool of seawater at the base. Tide creatures scattered aside - Small crabs, a starfish tossed by the sudden movement, a cluster of barnacles seemingly unperturbed by his passage - and he ran up the slight bank and out onto the dry sand to take the lead.

"TRIPWIRE!" Her voice was half-shout now, though Katryna was standing to one side waiting while she carefully edged her way down. "So what I thought we could do is create a version of the regular weapons targeting system that uses a miniature array..." Katryna took her elbow and steered her towards the quickly retreating elf's backside, quickly pushing them both back into a jog.

"To enhance the existing targeting capabilities. Good idea. And it would provide some warning before a jump. Even a couple milliseconds could be useful if someone is trying to play combat jump tricks."

It was a neither common nor uncommon plot; At some point, every Captain or tactician had considered the archaically named 'Picard Maneuver'. Using their faster-than-light drive, they would quickly jump from one place on the battlefield to another in order to either appear to be both places at once or, more frequently the case, to dodge incoming fire while supposing that their own would take their opponent in the flank. It was a poor supposition formed from a lack of both mathematical skill and an assumption of personal superiority. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but often the question of whether or not it didn't more relied on what would have settled the battle otherwise; Technological superiority and thus which ship cost more. It was that technological superiority that the engineer was proposing to enhance.

It was that cost that somewhere deep in the recesses of a mind that consistently loved to annoy her budget-minded mother was also being considered.

Barely.

"The problem I see is that the Array, as it stands, requires space. The bigger it is, the more accurate. Less clutter around each node. Packing a whole bunch of space-time metric sensors into the same space occupied by the primary or even primary and secondary arrays is going to either make them less accurate or more expensive." Or tertiary or quaternary arrays, as with something like the Venture-Class, which was hilariously over-sensored for most of its mission objectives.

Michelle stared hard at Amaril's hindquarters, which were now a good distance ahead. A smirk crossed Katryna's lips, "If you want something like that, you should keep running..." But that didn't turn out to be the focus of her thoughts; "No... I mean... Uh. I like..."

There was a panting moment where she decided not to discuss her preferences and instead went back to the engineering-centered question, "What if we spaced them out? Say around the perimeter of the ship? Give them some space. They don't require much power - like household circuit level."

"I think you're going to want to do a testbed system," Katryna turned and pivoted on her heel to run backwards for a moment, breasts bounding under her tank top and knees high as she pushed herself higher to avoid any unseen obstacles or at least look like she was doing so. "I can see the value in the idea so the question is whether it will pan out in real life. Simulations are only going to tell you so much; Real combat is a tricky dog when you throw in personalities and leadership styles..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Heart of Gold, GEC-S4251, Alpha/Gamma Border Region...

"...so, utterly disregarding Doctor Brilla's induced-by-a-late-night-of-drinking theory, where do we stand?"

"Well, I think it is fairly certain we're not looking at a single galaxy-sized crystalline entity," Tithral agreed, confirming Captain Waretram's own suggestion. "But I did have something of a thought. There are two species that we know of - and possibly a third - that are either descended from or were created by our mysterious Civilization X. If what we're looking at here is their method of reproduction, it is possible that both Zeta Irregularis and Terra Incognito;" The homeworlds of the Doso and the Heon, respectively, "Were both created in the same manner."

"That would be... Hundreds of millions of years ago, Doctor. Possibly billions. That kind of record keeping isn't in anyone's archives."

"Yes," he admitted, leaning back against the railing that separated the back quarter of the Heart of Gold's bridge from the main. On the main screen, across the room, the brilliant white of the topic of their discussion slowly twisted, spewing out the matter that would someday form a star, planets, moons, and perhaps a species of its own. Would it be a crystalline species? That was the thought that had occurred to him and the Bajoni continued, "But we may be able to come by that information indirectly. Operating off the theory that this process is a means of reproduction - or even experimentation or any number of other reasons for creating a new species - then one would want the ideal conditions for creating said species. Giving it the best start. But here too we have another conundrum..."

A touch of the controls under his elbow and the central holosphere erupted into an image of an underground chamber and a reproduction of the construct that had previously filled it.

"So far we've found two of these... Probes? A suitable term. One on ePyrk, one on Terra Incognito, and I'd be willing to bet hard cash that there is one on Zeta Irregularus if we look hard enough. If the working theory of reproduction is correct, are these probes probes or are they seeds? Or even monitoring systems of some kind? They have both been buried deep underground with no apparent way of reaching the surface and, while we're looking at a civilization that can apparently create both an artificial black hole and an artificial white hole, the idea of getting deep into the planetary crust without apparent means of passage becomes kind of simple by comparison. But if these things are some kind of seed, it would explain how they become embedded in the crust - the planet might have just formed around them. Though that would imply these constructs are again billions of years old."

Captain Waretram turned to look at the screen, sinking his enormous head onto his upturned palms as he considered the possible reality of that statement.

"That would make them one of the oldest civilizations in the Universe. Billions..."

"Possibly the oldest. There are claims otherwise, but most of these rely on extra-dimensional claims of origin that haven't been proven beyond emphatic statement."

Tithril had seen the report and accompanying research paper that had crossed his desk from none less than the Director of Special Projects detailing the marginally-understood creation, origins, and existence of a holographic universe that somehow resided within his own and was subject to (somehow) both its laws and those of their own. To his mind, the concept would explain most of the supposedly 'extra-dimensional' claims of origin for both his and other species; They were ultimately part of this universe but also an isolated part of it. Perhaps.

It was still a very young field and ultimately not tangent to the subject at hand, "Which raises still more questions that are. If they are billions of years old, why procreate? Why not create a new species out of whole cloth if they want to? Why create one at all? That's the biggest hole in this theory; Why?"

[Sunset]

Ko'Oset (GEC-1778099D), Alpha Quadrant...

"Human, huh? Can't say I've seen any of your kind around before. Not very much to look at," the bartender finished dismissively as he poured out a very small amount of the local brew into the delicate clay bowl in front of Commander Timmons...

Making contact with the Oseti had been surprisingly simple. A few field workers on the distant outskirts of the city had looked up as the shuttle had flown overhead and one had even made a gesture that looked something like a wave before gesturing off towards a farm dome in the distance with his half-hooked implement with a motion that looked inviting in a vague and somehow entreating way. They'd settled down in the dust and dirt of a purple-shaded afternoon and been welcomed in a patois of the local tongue and very broken Feknarthi which had given the translator fits as the Commander had settled in for a conversation with the farmer. He'd come lopping in from the fields much excited about the visit with the apparent intention of telling them all about the current crop. With the software spitting out an occasional flicker of a match and Timmons nodding along with what he hoped were encouraging gestures, he'd been led through the entire day-to-day operation of the farmstead as the rest of his team first watched and then began to play with a gaggle of children, much to the farmer's seeming delight.

It was as the conversation neared the hour mark and the translation algorithm was reaching the tipping point from halting recognition to fluid supposition that the point of the invitation and extended explanation was made clear. Two of the youngest-looking children were culled from the herd and brought forward and a price suggested. To enable him to purchase the additional land and hire the help needed to expand his holding, the farmer was offering up two of his children for sale with an option of a third - an older one that might have been female - if the Explorers would meet his price. A shock had run through the trio as if they'd all three latched onto the same electric cattle fence but the jolt had been more-so as the big man had shrugged, put his hand out, and agreed to not only the lesser price but the greater as well. A handful of Feknarthi coins later and a very pleased looking farmer had stood in the door arch of his dome while they'd settled the three young ones into the back of the shuttle.

A flicker of light and Doctor Philus had appeared in the holographic guise of an adult and possibly female Oseti to continue the tutoring of the translator and to begin to introduce his new pupils to a future life in the Republic while the Commander had explained his actions to the rest of his team; "If I hadn't, someone else would. Possibly the Feknarthi and possibly some of their more disreputable trading partners. They'll come back to the Republic with us, get a good education, and go out into the galaxy with a lot more hope and dreams than if they'd ended up as palace servants in the Imperium. One way they wouldn't have ever seen their friends and family again, but now," he looked back over his shoulder to where the three were paying rapt attention to the Doctor as he explained the civilization they were about to join accompanied by a dance of living holograms and still images, "Maybe they'll be back aboard whatever replaces the Ixutsangi in twenty years..."

"...nope, can't say we are," he looked over his raised bowl at the man before taking a cautious sip. Alcohol seemed to be a constant through the galaxy - or some variation there-of - and where it wasn't that particular breed of hydrocarbon it was some other form of pleasant poison. Sometimes it was compatible with Human biology, sometimes it wasn't, and while the scanner sitting on the bar said that it was fit for consumption under the rules and regulations of the Scolopendran Science Section's Consumer Products Safety Board Recreational Beverages provisions (Chapter XXI, Section 9, Paragraphs A-T) there was always the chance that there was something new and unexpected about the way those particular chemicals in that particular combination might interact with Human biology.

Damn if it wasn't tasty though.

"Heard you came in on your own ship, not one of the Fekking traders." The way he foreshortened the word and the outward movement of his four eyes led the Commander to think that the split-horned insectoid wasn't altogether fond of the hammerhead Imperials. "Or are you just more of their off-world lackeys we haven't heard of?"

"Just convenient visitors. What about these Fek... Who're they?"

It was time for a leading question and Timmons asked it loud enough so that the whole bar could hear it. There were about ten other patrons scattered around, sitting deep in the shadows of the low half-dome building, and a few turned to look at him while the wing-fringes on the back of several others buzzed slightly, a sure signal of disinterested-interest. Most of them had the appearance of the older generation with carapaces that were already mottled gray and had that loose appearance that suggested some were ready for their final molt - a visually disturbing process that the youngsters on the shuttle had already described for the Doctor in visceral and delighted detail.

"Feknarthi. They say they have a whole Empire of worlds out there, but all we ever see of it is when they want to take something. Doesn't say much for them if they have so much but they have to come here to get more..."

"...nope," and there were similarly muttered rumblings from the rest of the room. "And when they pay, the price is only fair to them," one older fellow finished to a nod from the bartender.

"What about these others that come with them?"

"Who knows? They're all different, though they pay loyalty to the Fekker's coin and that's about it. Whatever they can get away with, they'll do."

"That's right," at the other end of the bar a silent type suddenly spoke up, his winglets flipped up and down in agitation, "I heard that one even took one of our females to mate with. They caught him in the middle of it and everything. Soft little squishy thing though," he made a phallic gesture and several of the others laughed, their eyes closing as their chest plates clacked together. "Don't think he'll be trying that again!"

"What about this?" Timmons held up the bowl and then slid it over the sagging curve of the bar top to get a refill, "Wouldn't mind taking a hold full of that home with me!"

"That's a whole different story, and depends on how good your coin is," the bartender dipped his head, mandibles wide. "Kren there," he shifted his eyes towards the man at the end of the bar, "Is the brewmaster. He'll take care of you."

Timmons grinned, "As long as I keep my hands off your women?"

Pushing himself out of the awkward seat, he moved down the bar to meet Kren half-way and the Oseti replied with a laugh, "As long as you do. Unless you don't like your squishy little dick..."

[Sunset]

Ko'Oset (GEC-1778099D), Alpha Quadrant...

"...that's a Feknarthi?"

She'd seen the briefing, saw the numbers flash by, but until the hammerhead alien had walked by with the every-thick crowd parting in front of her and then closing somewhat more slowly behind, Trinya hadn't really gained an adequate comprehension of what they meant. Everything matched up; The wide blue head with its bulging eyes on either end, the two trailing whiskers that descended nearly to its knees and marked it as female, the narrow slits that served as both nostril and ear canal on the top of her head...

Ruler of dozens of worlds, sovereign over more, and only point-eight of a meter tall.

It was a bit of a startling confrontation, though the little alien didn't seem to notice the three at all as they stood holding up the side of one of the bowl-shaped local buildings as she walked past. She'd been alone and apparently at ease but the tell-tale low whine of electric motors hinted that she was wearing more than a lacy thong under the long robes and a quick check of the Seeker's breast applique confirmed that suspicion. Perhaps alone, she was not without protection and likely carried enough firepower to level the city if the Ensign's own sidearm was anything to judge by. Whether the crowd parted out of fear or respect was an entirely different question but one that wasn't easily answered. Like crowds the galaxy over, most seemed to just casually move aside rather than make a distinct issue out of the off-worlder's passage. The unfamiliar body language of the insectoids didn't help; While Timmons was able to study one or two up-close, Trinya, Lae, and Deania had chosen to wander the tangle of streets to try and soak up as much of the local culture as they could.

"Follow it?"

"Her?" Trinya corrected, though it was an after-thought. "How?"

Indeed the diminutive blue figure had almost entirely vanished from sight, the only sign of her passage a movement of the winged crowd ahead. The wings were entirely useless; A few million years of evolution featuring the growth of a heavier carapace, stronger muscles to support it, and of course the vastly increased size of the Oseti had seen to that. In fact, they positively towered over the Feknarthi and nearly pushed even with Lae's gangling one-point-nine. But they were another aspect of body language now and Trinya was starting to slowly pick up on the various movements and what they meant. A general buzz followed behind her; The Oseti version of talking behind someone's back.

"Cheat. Ixutsangi, can you keep a pointer floating above the clearing in the crowd about... Twenty meters south-by-southwest from my current position and moving."

Aboard the orbiting frigate the Communication's Officer followed the Seeker's suggestion and a sharp red arrow appeared in mid-air, bobbing in the young woman's augmented reality as the telescopes on the ship followed the Feknarthi's distinctive trail.

"I was kinda expecting a whole entourage," Trinya picked back up as they began to move along, the nearby Oseti giving them some room but not as much as the smaller figure. "Bodyguards, servants, subordinates, the whole nine yards. Well, and a hulking monster that made everyone around them fall to their knees in desperate prayer..."

The Seeker took an entirely different tack however; "Dramatic, but I'm wondering what she's doing here and by herself. Everything in the dossier suggests that they are typically traders or merchants who always have a crew of some sort wthem. Why is she wandering the big city all by herself? If the Feknarthi really are as nefarious as has been suggested, you'd think someone would just take a shot at her. A bow and arrow would still get the job done and it's one less Feknarthi..."

[Sunset]

Eastern Islands, GEC-99791B (Alice)...

It was a standard infantry tactic made ludicrous. While her squadmates crouched and provided covering fire, the rear-most bunny in the squad would hop forward to a new position, bounding from cover to cover until they had crossed perhaps twenty meters of ground and then they would similarly take cover while the next moved up and they too provided cover. That there was no apparent enemy was unnecessary to emphasize the hilarity inherent in a one-and-a-half meter rabbit jumping out from behind a rock or tree and then bouncing from bush to bush until it landed and ducked low, not even her long ears visible to the enemy but her upturned tail signalling her position and readiness to the squad like a fluffy white smoke grenade.

"...First biplanes, then World War Two German fighter-bombers, then a Dirigible Aircraft Carrier, and now Sten guns." Agent Evening glared at Lieutenant Commander Huang, invisible under the flat gray of her own advanced body armor and unseen by the Fleet officer, who was watching the exercise proceed with delighted interest. "I'm wondering where this will all end up. Though female soldiers - that just might be inspired, Lieutenant Commander."

"Sterling, not Sten, and thank you. They blew through the manufacturing process for the Sten so I went to its successor;" Both weapons were essentially primitive by Republic standards, basic firearms that used rolling, stamping and basic milling in their manufacture. The shell, stock, and other external parts of the offset-magazine weapon had been made at various small outfits around Jer'Don while the more important firing mechanisms had all been crafted at a City facility. "And added a few improvements. That they then improved again."

For example, all of the fielded weapons featured an integrated suppressor and a single-shot or three-round-burst selector instead of the fully automatic variant she'd provided them with. The collapsible but uncomfortable metal stock had been replaced by one milled from local wood while a foregrip had been added to protect the hand from the heat of extended firing. This gave the weapon the odd appearance of a mixture between the Sterling that it was internally and a Prohibition-Era Thompson. No one had yet suggested a drum magazine but there were several members of the various squads who had taped their carry magazines together to sacrifice additional weight for extended firing before a full reload was needed. There were even a couple scopes as well - traded from Agent Ivy's sniper unit - as well as carry-straps both crude and elegant.

"Cause Gun Bunnies are apparently a thing..."

"...I'm more interested in the performance of this all-female unit. So far they seem to be much better at taking orders and following the battle plan than their male counterparts," Evening said, shifting the conversation to her desired objective.

"Too bad they are also the breeders and the caregivers, and that's pretty much their own impression of themselves. Women's liberation still isn't enough of a thing and these girls;" A slim bunny rose as they watched, bounced forward, and joined a squadmate at the island equivalent of a built-up hard point; Two trees that crossed low into an X-shape, "Are pretty much it. I put word out to send out feelers across our local intel network - rebellious daughters, spinsters, bitchy lesbians, that type of thing. I'm kinda interested to see if we can't pull off some kind of OSS-style thing where we take the dregs from various clans and mold them into a single fighting command and show the boys how it's done!"

"And it might just work..." Evening stopped and her head went up as a distant sound caught her attention. Several more followed it; A quick whiiip-thock that didn't call to mind anything she'd heard before until one of the forward scouts called out a harsh; "CONTACT!" The stuttering pop of suppressed sub-machine gun fire answered it and the two sprinted forward to follow it, ducking low as the ragged line of soldiers began to advance to envelop whatever the source was.

"Hold! Hold!"

Huang tried to establish some measure of command authority but it was already too late and already over. Ahead they could see two of the rabbits kneeling over a third who lay prone, one covering the other while the second picked up the last and slung her limp body over her shoulder and began to carry her towards the rear. Another squad held position around a fallen form further away with their weapons covering it while they looked around anxiously.

"Private Ka'Ren..." The soldier was wide-eyed as she slung the limp form of her comrade off her shoulder and to the ground at the feet of the two Humans. "She's dead!"

That would be an easy assumption to make. An arrow - primitive but capable - had pierced her chest and she lay there quietly without a sign of life about her. Blood was slowly spreading through her fur and the uniform she wore over it and based on the angle of the shaft it had either pierced her heart or nearly so. They hadn't covered much in the way of battlefield medicine yet - another area where the Hauyht lagged woefully behind - but the grey-coated young woman's condition was easy to declare if not altogether accurate.

At least if Huang acted fast.

"I've got this," she looked towards Evening, who nodded and sprinted off towards the other fallen figure. "Not exactly what I'd had in mind for medical training, but here's the gory basics..."

Opening her pack, she pulled out a flexible black tube and wrapped it around the soldier's neck. A click and it was locked in place and she looked up, shifted the faceplate of her helmet to clear so she could catch the other woman's eye, and her finger hovered over the switch.

"Dead isn't dead. At least, not for a couple minutes. Unless the brain is destroyed, it is still alive and the wounded individual can recover given the right treatment. But that requires getting them to that treatment before the brain - they - dies. This is a decap-o-donut." She flipped the switch and there was a horrible grinding sound as the device went into operation. The body shifted under its own weight and, the half-circle band still clamped around the neck, the head rolled off to show a now neatly severed spine as well as the various muscles and arteries. Something moved under the damaged tissue and Huang motioned the horrified young woman's eyes aside while she continued to explain, "It cuts the head off, seals the circulatory system, administers a very powerful sedative, and supplies oxygen or whatever the species in question requires until they can be transferred to a full medical facility."

It was also something she'd hesitated with supplying to the locals. Common in the Republic to the point where most people kept one in the glove compartment of their car, they could save even the most disastrously wounded accident victim as long as their brain remained intact. But she had had a vision of the locals using them not only to take the heads of their enemies but as a way to enable various lethal bloodsports, duels, and other gruesome forms of aggression. Sometimes it was better to let the dead stay dead so the wider civilization might learn the lessons of those deaths. That sounded exactly like something Agent Evening would say but Huang was not her and she wouldn't just let the young soldier die in what was supposed to be a training exercise.

"Take these handles here," she put the stunned bunny's hands on the two retracted handles and showed her how to pull them up and over the head, deploying a concealed bag until they met and she shoved the protruding ears down through with her thumbs. "And there we go. She'll be okay, I promise..."

"Lieutenant Commander!" Evening called out and she looked up, distractedly handing the head off to the soldier while the rest of the body pumped out blood over her boots, "Come here!"

The other fallen form was not one of their own but it was more assuredly dead. Bullets had blown ragged holes out of his back and his head was a half-shattered ruin; Someone was using improvised hollow points against orders. But her attention was on other detail after the first initial impression. Unlike the soldiers who were wearing a local equivalent of the old-style Army Combat Uniform, this one was naked except for a loin cloth and a band of crudely worked leather that held his quiver. Designs of some kind had been cut into his fur and these were then dyed various colors but the most notable feature was his ears. Neither long and flat or long and kinked, instead they were short and round, sticking straight up from his head. She ran a hand over one, tugging it out and examining the length before something else caught her eye and she pushed his remaining eyelid down to reveal a blood-red iris.

"...kone'flo'tun," one of the soldiers around her whispered, the word not picked up by her translation cyberware and prompting the question; "Kone'flu'ton? What's that mean?"

"They are," the soldier glanced around, her eyes going to the few shadows that dappled the open jungle floor, "The Lost Devils. A clan of legend..."

Hearing the name openly, several of the soldiers raised their weapons and began to move away, carefully stepping through the dried leaves and branches as they surveyed the surrounding woods. Half-way pleased to note they were still following the drill, Huang none-the-less felt the need to stop them, "What do you mean, Lost Devils? Like some kind of demon-worshiping tribe?"

"Yes," one lifted a finger to point to her eye and by extension the red eye of the fallen archer. "They ate their own kind, sacrificed their children on altars and in the fire, and what they would do to outsiders..."

"Where did they go?" Another murmured, taking the direction provided by one of the members of the fallen soldier's squad. Crouching low, she began to move again, her sub-machine gun leading the way as she looked over the sights towards the leafy green beyond.

"Hold on again! There were more of them!?"

Again, the same nodded and pointed a pair of fingers at a tree just above her head and Janice looked up to find a scattering of arrows impaled in the bark along with several missing chunks carved out by the pistol rounds their guns used.

"They scattered into the brush, but we stopped when you ordered us to. Now... We should hunt them down, Lieutenant Commander Huang. This island will never be ours if they live, and we will do the world a favor when we kill the last of them!"

[Sunset]

V'Thirnthi Jungle, N'Xypndiltn, E'Xypndiltn System...

"...reporting a potential meta-Normal event." The Mobile Infantry trooper paused and turned to look at the stumbling form that was thrashing its way through the occasionally thick undergrowth of the jungle that sprawled over nearly every acre of the tropical world, ready to supply additional information to his distant superior officer. "Hey! Wait! What are you..."

Tradia had broken into a trot, then a jog, and then for the final burst a quick sprint as she followed the broken path of the risen woman and took a quick leap to jump up and slap the back of her head. The walker staggered forward and wheeled around, a trailing leg tangling in the brush almost sending her into the dirt, and lashed out with her blood-stained hands before somehow realizing that her diminutive attacker had already retreated and was now backpedaling towards the Troopers and the waiting Inspector.

"What was that?"

"Tracking device," the Xypndi said before explaining further, "We could eat lunch waiting for her to go... Well, wherever she is going."

That the slaughtered woman was going somewhere was plain to see; A ragged trail followed her and instead of sticking to the trail only a few meters away and running in the same general direction, she was plowing ahead despite a short-if-near-vertical shelf that ran across the jungle floor in front of her, a remnant of a long-ago earthquake that had lifted half of the region nearly a meter above the rest. A more convenient section had been worn down by the passage of Xypndi and beast but she reached it, nearly slammed into it, and then pulled herself over the top with hands clawing into the earth. Lurching to her feet, she set off again and nearly put Tradia's plan into an early grave as she whacked her head on a low curving tree trunk.

"...ouch."

"Yeah," there was a touch of sympathy in the Trooper's voice. "Adjutant, is there any history of zombie or other undead activities on this world? Anything? Myths, rumors, legends? Command wants to know."

The warrior sat down on a rock, seemingly unconcerned with the further thrashings of the zombie, and a little hologram appeared over her forearm to show a grid map with a dot that indicated just where the sensor strip was as well as what it saw around it. A tug at a pouch and she appeared deep in thought for a moment as she pulled out an energy bar and began to munch at it, following her own suggestion.

"No, I can't say there are. Our myths focused on the Living Gods and their power, the gifts they gave the tribes, the sacrifices they expected. That sort of thing. We were told there were totem animals that were under the command of specific Living Gods but..."

It had all been a lie. But somehow that lie was now connected to whatever was going on here. Where had just gotten slightly weirder, aside from the human sacrifices, the shriveled corpses, the gambling dens, the assassinations, the orbiting fleets of lobster-men...

"Nothing about dead people waking up and walking around."

"Command says that's good and bad," The Trooper informed them, bouncing ahead to see if he could spot the lone figure before running back to continue his thought. "Good in that this could be something entirely off-world. Nothing to do specifically with the Xypndi or N'Xypndiltn. Bad in that if you don't know what's going on then it's probably off-world in origin. Something to do with the Tonhi."

Which made it something they didn't want getting out unless it was on a need-to-know basis. There was already a slow simmering antipathy towards the Tonhi by the native Xypndi. If it became known that they had brought some kind of magical zombie plague with them, the backlash would likely blow the top right off the kettle and there would be fighting in the streets, TYCS or no. Since the planets incorporation into the Republic and the construction of the large cities, villages had been emptied as the native tribes had flooded into them in search of the benefits of high technology and access to everything it brought with it. Which also meant there were a lot of people who had been, until recently, savage warriors now living within easy stabbing distance of another set of people who had been, until recently, living in only slightly more advanced conditions all things considered. In some ways it would be an ideal situation to bring the two together and in others it was the most volatile mixture imaginable.

"Whatever's going on, Command is calling in the experts. We're to keep an eye on it, but they've got a combat drop of meta-Weirdos on the way..."

[Sunset]

Aboard the Derelict, Deep Space, Ares Super-Cluster...

"...contact." Lieutenant Reynold's voice was barely an unnecessary whisper as she warned the rest of her crew-mates just before a soft jolt indicated the shuttle had made contact with the outer deck of one of the launch bays tucked under the nose of the shark-like craft. "Clamps are on and," she double-checked her console then looked out the forward view-screen to the scaled hull above them, "Holding. Let's see if anyone is home."

Which meant for her, or at least the non-sentient ghost in the machine that she represented, her portion of the adventure was effectively over. She would monitor the shuttle, provide what support she could, but it was now up to the team behind her to make an entry into the derelict.

"...unless you can get those doors open and it turns out to be mostly hollow inside and I can fly around in there," she finished, voice full of virtual hope as the shuttle's large cargo door opened to empty the three UHCV's out right at their destination.

Right on top of them the enormous saw-tooth doors yawned floor to ceiling, a previous flat appearance revealed to have several facets as well as more characteristic indents for lights and indicators that set it apart from the scales that covered nearly everything aside from the doors and the flat deck itself. Even this was not entirely accurate; One of the suits knelt to run a hand across it and feel the fine ridge-back texture of scales in miniature, "Is it aesthetic? Or do they land directly on this?"

"Wouldn't make a lot of sense unless they have wheels on their fighters or drones or whatever. Which would be useful for moving them around internally," Lieutenant Saathoff speculated, looking through the sensor eyes of that same suit as he idled inside the 'mind' of the shuttle. "Could also just be to keep the launch space clear of obstructions. Lots of possibilities. Easy answer? Open her up and find out."

"Which requires finding a way inside," Ochoji replied, leaning back to look up at the doors, which ultimately towered to a good four times his own slightly enhanced height.

"On the right. There's a scale with some markings on it;" A spotlight from the shuttle lit up the plate in question as the sharp-eyed pilot turned her time to helping her comrades breach the ship's exterior. The second UHCV walked over to stand at the edge of the focused beam, peering at the scale with its own sensors. What looked like markings were in fact not; Instead they were seams where plates covered a pair of concealed handles and he stuck the thick mittens of the suits robotic hands through to grasp two odd-shaped handles that slid out as he pushed the top plates in.

"Aesthetic? Or is this just about how their hands are shaped?"

It was something to note, but for the moment unimportant. The handles proved to be a catch of some kind and as the suit tugged there was a click that fed back through the suit's sensors and the entire scale began to slide over and under those next to it until a small cabinet was revealed underneath. A large disc dominated and it was obvious as to the intention; A second disc with another handle was built into it off-set from the center and the officer grabbed it and began to spin it.

"No idea if I'm going the right way," he looked over to the door, which had shown zero sign of mechanical progress, "But the markings kinda looked like they were pointing this way?"

"Oh, and there were markings," Sofi laughed, a still frame from the suit's feed popping up over her virtual console. It wasn't a lot to go on, but it was the start of a language recognition algorithm that might soon prove useful as the tiny sliver of lighter metal now showing through the teeth of the bay door indicated. It was slow work, even with the advantage in strength and speed of the armored suit, but there was notable progress as the whirling disc's rotation was converted by whatever mechanism was hidden inside the wall into a slow-opening crawl of the jaw-like bay.

A few more minutes and the pilot's earlier appeal proved prescient; With the light from the shuttle's beams spread across the doors, it spilled into the space beyond to reveal a long launch tunnel with a mechanism that immediately reminded them of an electromagnetic launcher down both sides. In the distance - perhaps a hundred meters away - the ceiling of the tunnel opened up and they could see the darkness of a much larger open space yawning above it. A brief exploration of the mechanism and they ventured further inside, the lights from the shuttle dwindling as their own lit up and they approached the larger chamber.

"You asked," Lieutenant Ochoji called back, looking up into what was quickly apparent as a much larger space than he'd anticipated. "If you want to fly around in here..."

The center of the space was dominated by a complex octopus-like cluster of robotic arms that would then move the occupants of what were hundreds upon hundreds of separate pods into launch position. Truly vast, he could already tell that it likely filled most of the center of the vessel from the landing bays at the tail end all the way to where he stood at the forward launch bays. Whatever hung in their cradles above him, there were possibly thousands of them. Whatever they were, there was no sign of life. Not even a quiver from the robotic arms or a shrinking shadow as his suit lights played across the space.

"...I don't think anyone is going to care."

[Sunset]

SDF-Heart of Gold, GEC-S4251, Alpha/Gamma Border Region...

"Based on your theory that they are creating new star systems as a means of reproduction;" The question of just who they were or even what they were was yet to be resolved, "We took a look at those three systems." Doctor Kyzura listed them off by their Galactic Exploration Command catalog numbers and a holograms of each appeared in order spread out in a line down the center of the conference table, "And by the numbers your theory is looking pretty sound," the Head of Interstellar Astronomy announced, a distinct edge of excitement in her melodic voice.

In a row, they were the New Latin System, the aPhilos System, and finally the Zeta III System. Highlighted in each system was its primary habitable world and displayed alongside was a miniature hologram of the primary sentient species. An important detail was the order in which the three systems were laid out, as well as the space between them, as the researcher went on to detail; "Based on the mostly widely recognized and studied dating techniques, this also represents the approximate age of each of the systems in question. The New Latin System is the oldest, aPhilos the second, and Zeta III the youngest. I'll leave the space between them aside for a minute or two here, but essentially these three systems are siblings. Their stars are of the same stellar type, the various planets in the system have the same proportion of elements when everything is adjusted for... I'd call this the Cosmic Egg Farm at work."

"So you're telling me that a billion years ago, this system," Waretram pointed a big finger at the one closest to him, "Was hatched from... Maybe even this same system of artificial black holes and their white hole creation?"

"Yes, perhaps even these. Which is downright ludicrous since we're nearly forty thousand light years away from the Ares Cluster, but there you go. We're talking about a civilization that can build a black hole and pump that matter through to a white hole. What else they are capable of is mind-boggling. But that leads me back to these missing spaces," she indicated the gaps between the various holographic star systems. "So, the theory leads to these being from the same origins. Which... Eight hundred billion stars in the Milky Way, random chance... Random chance that two of them happen to be the home of a sentience species of crystalline sophonts? The odds for that one are a lot lower than the first. The odds that these three similar systems would fall into a rough date-line like this; Well, actually that's a pretty good chance. Except that they are not spaced out like they should be from the galactic core if they had formed naturally."

There was a formula to determine how old a system should be based on its distance from the galactic core but it was not the straight line some might imagine it to be. Smaller stars tended to be flung out towards the halo, larger stars tended towards the center, and then one had to account for the effects of when that star system was born, what the local gravitational conditions were like, and a large number of other constants and irregulars which meant that while the Doctor had calculated these out, they weren't really very useful to the discussion.

"I'm willing to venture that these gaps and the missing time they represent are also representative of missing system. Systems that were created and we haven't discovered yet. But that also means we can start looking for them if the theory ends up holding water. Right now we've got these three examples so our category is 'Stars in this stellar category, systems with this kind of elemental makeup' but if we do find even one more we've got a much better sort function."

"How many systems?"

Doctor Kyzura playfully glared at Tithral, who'd put the question forward, "Erg, ask the hard questions, why don't you? It could be millions, could be hundred. Could be two. Could be these three and the fourth out there is just a baby zygote," she pointed to the window where the white hole was slowly spewing out the building blocks to a new nebula and then, eventually, a new star and its orbiting planets. But I've already launched that query and gotten an answer; Hundreds, at least within the Alpha Quadrant. Most are unexplored and only identified by spectography; As long as we've been an interstellar civilization capable of wandering the galaxy, there are still a lot of places reasonably close to home that we don't know about. But there are enough that are both close enough and that we've visited at some point in the past that a re-visit would be both worth-while and easily justified."

"Mhm, especially under the aims of..." Waretram trailed off. GRACEFUL JACKRABBIT was classified above the Doctor's need-to-know, but it would still be a useful way to kill two birds with one stone. He'd check if any of her systems fell inside the re-survey area after the meeting, but for now the conversation went back to the Doctor; "I'll see what I can talk Fleet into doing."

"I'll try to narrow the list down, but it's a big list and these three systems give me a huge amount of variables. And aPhilos tosses a monkey wrench into the whole thing; They don't have a sentient crystalline species. I asked and every biologist I could lay hands on told me that there's no sign of any crystalline elements in the Pyrk biology. Maybe hundreds of millions of years ago their aquatic ancestors might have nibbled on rocks, but that's about it. Which means that any of these systems;" A list scrolled rapidly past, "That also hosts non-crystalline sophonts might still be a potential site. And since both the Doso and the Heon originated deep underground, looking for any new species is going to be long, difficult and dangerous. Maybe. We can look for the same traces that TRIPWIRE found at Terra Incognito."

"You know," Tithral pushed himself out of his chair and began pacing the circumference of the table, touching the back of each chair as he went, "Maybe there was a crystalline sophont on aPhilos and we're looking at this the wrong way. When Doctor Brilla first boarded the object below the surface, she was infected with something. Maybe that something was the species that evolved on aPhilos and we've just assumed that it was something from the object itself."

"Except that we found traces of those same crystal formations on aPhilos and Terra Incognito. So I'd say that more likely indicates that they are just a part of whatever the default mechanism is - this probe or seed or monitoring device. Whatever it is. And the conversation she had with whatever they are seemed to follow that idea; They were interested in the outside galaxy and she was to act as a vessel for that interest."

"Well, and this is kind of off-topic, what if they were lying? Or didn't realize that they were lying? What if the device is there to implant these things - which could be seeds - and is using anyone or anything it catches as a dispersal mechanism?"

"And we've considered that as well," Waretram countered, "And we've kept a very close eye on the three bodies that were re-apportioned to the Druth'Haari with no sign that they've spread beyond that body."

"Yet. We're dealing with a civilization that could be in the billions of years old. Waiting a hundred or even a thousand for us to drop our guard isn't far-fetched on those timescales."

"But again, off-topic. We have top people already on that question, so let's go back to our part of the question; Can we confirm that they are building new star systems as a method of reproduction? Doctor Kyzura, find the closest system that could be a match and relay it to the bridge. For now, we can leave our mini-TRIPWIRE to monitor the white hole. It's been here thousands of years, it will be here when we get back. Let's go down the rabbit hole and see where it leads..."

[Sunset]

SNN Nightly News with Tanya Zaldano...

Tanya moved through the crowd with a natural grace, a skill borne of countless nights navigating that same endlessly rotating melee of people dancing, chatting, or simply standing there with drink in hand while those around them engaged in the prior. Lights played over a sea of bodies and music played; An audible track that set the tone of the moment while a second deep rhythm pushed clothes and hair around, a subtle beat that pushed the crowd this way and that and often towards each other. Other clubs might tolerate or even encourage the sensual but this one explored it; The outfits on display were explicitly erotic and many of the dancers were engaged in acts just as explicit. None of this seemed to matter to Tanya, who wandered the crown un-distracted by even the occasional groping hand.

"This morning's big news is that Saint Medical and EHFC have been beaten to the top by Li Chirasa and Climax Incorporated, who just released their own version of the Phoenixi ExoCortex at a series of after-midnight parties held at their many nightclubs across the worlds of the Republic and beyond! Build around the Climax brand, it is billed as a hedonist's delight with an extended range of sensory modifications that allow for individual adjustment of many thousands of different types of sensory input. Pain becomes pleasure, pleasure becomes orgasmic, and these can in turn become mixed and remixed into everything from an intricate symphony to a quickly brutal rush. Beyond sensation, the unit also comes with a suite of advanced physical controls that will allow the individual to push their body beyond its limits, eliminating the concept of endurance or the notion of avoiding discomfort in the seeking of pleasure. Climax spokespeople have been very forthcoming about this particular feature; They acknowledged that by using it, one could permanently damage the body or even kill it, all in the pursuit of pleasure. Since the ExoCortex divorces the concept of self from the body, they noted, why not take the hunt for pleasure to the next level and include the rush of death?"

Turning, she walked behind the bar, one hand running along the glass-black smooth surface to either knock drinks aside or force their owner to scoop them up. She was wearing a black mini-dress that sparkled silver in the lights, a thousand scales of armor that meet between her shoulder blades to leave her back mostly bare and then split at her throat to drop into a heartbreaking display of tight cleavage before turning into a tight skirt that alternated between just barely and maybe covering her bare waist and behind as she moved. Sharp heels accentuated every stride and at the end of the bar she stopped, pivoted sharply on one toe, and ended up with the other hooked high over the foot rail to display a long expanse of her inner thigh.

"Orders surged past a billion units in the opening minute of sales and delivery - for those who could get past the bouncer," she looked around, laughed, and a currency card appeared in her hand and disappeared between dress and breast in a single suggestive motion, "Was immediate. Some opted to leave for implantation while other like yours truly stayed to enjoy the delights of this body one last time. Already knockoffs have appeared," her hand plucked a stylish box from among many that were stacked in a display at the center of the horseshoe shaped bar and she opened it to reveal a sinuous flat s-shape that was itself suggestive of several body parts depending on the angle and she let the packaging drop unheeded to the floor to display a long row of connectors down each edge, "But most have proven to be cheap printed pieces with just enough finish to fool the unwary. Prices have ranged from the deceptively cheap to the ludicrously expensive."

Dangling the implant from a trio of fingertips she let it fall, bounce, and come to rest at her feet. The camera panned around to show her from below, through the thick glass floor of the club, as she positioned a pointed heel over it and then levered it down to shatter the fake with a crisp snap.

"But even the best of them has proven to be an intricate fake. Right now the only place to get one is right here, at this party, and I'm going back out there! Goodnight," she finished, signing off with a blown kiss.

[Sunset]

Far Beneath Ambrosia, Southern Anuke...

"Doctor..." Number Two's question was less question than urgent call for attention but Stephen seemed to treat it as such despite the sudden hum of energy weapons charging. Instead he knelt behind the console, once again putting his own eyes at the level of the numerous rats that had pawed at it and left their little tell-tale smears of scratch marks and... "Ugh, feces. Filthy animals, best thing to just exterminate them all."

"Doctor!"

"What?!" He rose, hand going to the small of his back where the overly-complex looking heavy pistol hung in its holster, ready to either dispense punishment or defend the life of its owner as he saw the need. But there was something clearly going on besides an impertinent minion and he followed the slender arm that was in turn pointed along the barrel of her carbine towards the far wall and its enormous array of cloning chambers. Inside one, where two of the regular gray-faced slab Minions had started to attempt to open it and pull their suddenly multiplied comrade into the open air, there seemed to be a problem of some kind. Both had stepped back and were pointing their own massive disruptor rifles at the chamber, fist-sized barrels looming large above fingers tight on the trigger, "What is it?"

"Movement, under the skin," she called out, stepping just slightly closer.

"What? Breathing?" He was about to repeat the same but then he remembered the binocular he carried and, pulling it out of the pouch on his chest, he slipped the band around his upright shock of white hair and peered into the screen, adjusting the view with the antique but serviceable knobs on one side. Indeed, as he focused in on the reclining form of Number Twenty-Three's nearest kin, he could see that something was moving under the skin of the abdomen, writing and wriggling before a sudden thrust indicated something was trying to escape. A half-step back from the looming Minions told him everything he needed to know; "Kill it!"

A crackling boom and the glass vaporized, propelled outward from the center by the force of the cannon's charge. Nearly at the same instant the other fired and beyond the hole fabric, skin, and tissue was pulverized as the expelling force repeated itself. Gaping open, something writhed in the belly of what was already less than a Minion. It was now a vessel for whatever had been hatched inside and they were merely breaking the egg shell to scramble the yoke. Time and again they fired and then they stopped, took another step back, and waited. Whatever had been inside no longer moved but even as the Doctor clambered across the chamber towards them they kept their weapons trained until he was nearly half-way and the sudden outbreak of another round of firing caused him to dive for cover.

This time it was not the two closest but instead any that had line of sight on the array. Glass shattered as the prostrate forms inside began to move, twisting to push themselves against the glass, and then trying to shove their way through as the hail of fire tore them apart. When one was little more than a shattered wreck they moved to the next and the next, methodically eliminating every further example of Number 23 from existence. It was only after the two halves of the last had slid through the shattered glass and fallen into the darkness below that the firing stopped and the Doctor rose again, brushed himself off, and then stepped forward.

"A trap?" He mused, stroking the stubble, "Or... Something else?"

His toe stopped just at the edge of the pool of viscera and gore that spread out around the closest and the first of the new corpses and he paused before taking one squishy-soft step into it and nudging the body with his other foot. Nothing moved in the shattered body but already one of his instantly-formed theories was put into an early grave; The grey-white of bones and burgundy-red of muscle and organ was plain to see. This was no mock person created for the express purpose of serving as a housing for an elaborate trap but rather a true person who had somehow been created with something inside of...

"Kill Number 23!"