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

[Sunset]

Defense Force Training Academy Twenty Six, Ares...

"Annya, right?"

Carlos was anticipating a woof in reply, but instead the German Shepard opened her mouth and spoke; "That's right." Except for the obvious differences posed by the distinct shape of the dog's muzzle and the lack of smooth front teeth that made her normal tone and pacing the obvious results of a hidden speaker, she sounded normal. That she was sitting at one of the many long tables in the cafeteria with her paws up on the counter and her face in her plate wasn't all that strange either - there were several species, some present in the room, that preferred to bypass both utensil and hand and eat directly as well as some that never seemed to eat. Further down the hall from his own two-person apartment there was a Telari cadet and the green-skinned humanoid neither ate nor eliminated, instead relying on a complex suit that supplied them with nutrients from a watery solution and photosynthesis from their own skin.

"I gotta ask - why the cyborg dog body? I mean, I like dogs..."

"It's not a cyborg," she interrupted, finishing a mound of pasta and meat sauce with a swallow and a roll of her tongue across her chops.

"What do you mean, it's not a cyborg? It's not a ForeverPet?" He'd heard - and seen - that particular innovation already. Someone with an ExoCortex might have it installed inside a cybernetic body so that they could then live as a dog, or a cat, or whatever particular form they could imagine or afford. "What is it then?"

"It's a real dog; I'm a real dog," she corrected, sitting back on her haunches and talking across the table to him while her tail swished back and forth around the edge of the seat back. "I got an ExoCortex for my birthday and I've always felt a connection to dogs, so I decided I wanted to be a dog. I found a place that will clone whatever animal you want and implant your Cortex in it. Didn't you figure that out when you saw me eating?"

He thought about it a moment - she was right, of course. ForeverPets didn't eat, didn't poop in your flower bed, didn't scratch up the furniture. He didn't think Annya had fleas but if she was eating, she probably had a reason to eat. That brought up another question and he stood up to look over the edge of the table at her paws for a moment before sitting down again; He'd already been stung once by a lack of forethought and there was no need to repeat it, "Okay, so no hands. How did you get your plate to the table?"

"Very carefully," but after a moment she answered fully though with a bit of a laugh, "With my jaws."

"Alright, so..."

The appearance of more diners and the sudden clatter of trays and utensils on the table forced him to wait to finish his question until the four had finished filling up the table. No longer a young man and a dog having a conversation, he was suddenly the odd Human out as they were joined by a two-headed Arenja, a winged Esti'Ilwe, a reptilian Duwerli, and a purple-blue skinned woman from a species he didn't recognize at all. She vaguely reminded him of a Coatlicue with her drape of flat tentacle-hair and elfin ears, but the lack of a nose, sharp yellow eyes, and that skin color set her aside. It was clear that the four were friends from both inside and outside the Academy as they chattered away about this and that.

"...is better on Chains of Jade. This seed is just bland," the avian complained, his voice sharp and chirping. "I'm tempted to plant my own garden. Maybe some flower boxes;" but another countered, "Commander Sheldon is a dick. He'd probably have you eating nothing but what you grew or could trade for!"

There was laughter all around - even from Carlos - at that. The Commander was officially known by the title and he was now working overtime to maintain his status after the new term had started with a miss-fire. Every cadet that hadn't had a run-in with him was now working hard to avoid it, especially after he'd assigned both groups of Hauyht to a joint patrol around the perimeter of the hundred-kilometer-square grounds on a weekly basis. The rabbit-like Flops and Kinks apparently hated each other and so the next thing he'd done was to break them up into mixed two-man teams and set the condition that the team that finished their patrol the fastest would be the one released from the onerous duty first.

"...so how are you going to do everything else? No hands," he noted, though he was already expecting a similar answer.

"Skri don't have hands;" And he nodded - the ball-like species typically either used cybernetic appliances or augmented reality interfaces for everything, though there was none in this particular class of cadets to draw on as an example. "I can push most buttons with my paws, pick up things with my teeth. I'm going to kick ass in a race but I'm not sure how I'll do in the emergency drills. I've only had this body for a month now and I still have to think about some things first."

"That's not how it works."

"Huh?"

"That's not how the physical stuff works," he corrected, explaining further. "We don't race against each other, we race against ourselves. Like a road rally - we're trying to improve on our own time, week after week."

He'd read up on that particular bit of Academy wisdom before he'd arrived. With dozens of species in the Republic, all with differing intellectual and physical capabilities, the Academy testing wasn't designed to rate one student against the others but rather against themselves. Those that showed the ability to consistently progress both physically and mentally over the term would graduate, with those who showed both the most impressive gains against themselves and the other cadets selected for advanced rank and preferred placement inside the Defense Force. It was practically a given that those who only graduated into the rank of Seaman would likely stay there for their entire career while those who found themselves at Ensign or above would go on to fill the officer ranks. Thus it was important to push oneself as hard as possible if they wanted to ever be anything more than an everyday member of the Defense Force.

Not that it was particularly a bad thing; Carlos' goal was to spend the rest of his life in space. If that meant doing nothing but doing maintenance work on a starship for four hours a day, so be it.

[Sunset]

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

"You like it?"

Meli posed, back arched and chest out with one arm up against the door frame. It was a bit of a change for the Dwarf, whose usual preference was a tactical vest stuffed with various implements of death and destruction securely fastened over her generous bosom that left both her rock-hard abdomen and a thin line of what would otherwise be enticing cleavage exposed. Enticing except that, for those who knew her, there was the threat that she might somehow turn that valley of temptation into yet another way to kill someone and then possibly before, after, or during any attempt at taking the amoral murderer for a tumble.

Janice was, however, suitably distracted as she poured over a topographical map of the Eastern Islands that spread out across the folding conference table like scattered blobs of green jelly that had gone uncleaned for far too long. From weird patches of mold that had started to grow angry - local villages - to the more typical blobs and swirls that indicated high concentrations of cadmium in the plants and soil, it was more than enough to keep her attention focused on the task at hand rather than the Dwarf's change in attire, "Like what?"

"Hmm?" Agent Madison looked up from where she was sprawled out in an armchair in the far corner, leg over one arm while she leaned up against the other and a series of her own projected holograms sprayed out in front of her. Unlike the Lieutenant Commander who was working, the Agent was relaxing and catching up on the latest in entertainment and political news back home - which was sometimes the same thing. "The turtleneck? Looks good on you."

It was a tactical turtleneck - slim pockets and pouches were tucked into the upper arms, at her sides, on the shoulders to half-cross her chest, but they all left the fabric that stretched across her chest uncovered so that the spread of the ribbing more than emphasized her proportions. With a pair of tight-fitting cargo pants bloused over a pair of somehow stylish combat boots that appeared to have something of a heel on them, it was a notable difference from the Dwarf's normal standards of dress.

"Date night?"

"Date night?" This was enough to attractive Huang's attention and she turned to the door just as two more figures appeared behind Meli, who was looking over her shoulder at the pair. "Like, one of the locals? Cause if they really do fuck like rabbits, I could really use..."

"Lieutenant Commander Huang," Evening interrupted, a note of warning in her tone; "The Mayor has a proposal he would like to discuss."

"...as long as they aren't hung like a hare," she finished. "What's that stuffed shirt want now?"

The stuffed shirt, who was standing right beside the Senior Agent, looked from one to another with a not-unfamiliar expression of utter confusion on his face. One of his long ears rose and then fell and his whiskers twitched and then with a sigh perfected by years in office dealing with underlings who knew far more than him and yet hadn't bothered to master the political intricacies of Jer'Don City, he brushed past both women and walked to the table, "If I might?"

Those who accused the Mayor of being nothing but a political animal were then proved wrong as, with a nod from Evening, he proceeded to reel off a string of verbal commands that accomplished what it would take the cybernetic augmented four only a thought to accomplish. His own series of images were culled from various public databases and displayed along with what looked suspiciously like an old-fashioned Power Point presentation. That alone was bound to put the four on edge but when the Mayor launched into what was obvious a rehearsed proposal they began to pay particularly close attention to the images rather than the buzzword-heavy ladle full of bullshit he was feeding them. Turning to a conversation in their heads, they talked around him while he rattled on, unaware of their side-channel conversation.

'Air service from Jer'Don to the other cities in the alliance? That sounds reasonable - except that its not.'

A titanic airplane was shown; Based on their solar-powered fighter, it was a blended-wing body design with four huge engines on each wing and a passenger deck directly integrated inboard of this with an even larger cargo area between the two. The cockpit hung down from the front with the forward landing gear just behind it and the other two built into trailing wing pods that edged out from the giant wing. Passengers were shown standing at the windows talking and chatting casually with a cargo bay full of common household goods slung between them.

'Cause it's a bomber. They want our help to build a fleet of giant bombers so they can rain terror over the entire continent.'

'Cool.'

'Yeah,' Meli seconded the Lieutenant Commander, 'Cool. We should do this.'

'No!' But Huang countered Evening's objection; 'Now hold on - this might be useful besides the fun we'd have blowing up a bunch of dumb bunnies. As near as I can tell, the whole of the Eastern Islands is overgrown with cadmium-laced vegetation. If we want to build a base there and not end up with crazy murder rabbits coming out of every bolt-hole, we're going to need to defoliate the whole thing and then start a large-scale aeroculture plantation.'

'Agent. Orange,' Ivy broke in. 'Its been tried before. Setting up trade routes between the various cities is a good idea; Trade will help tie them together but this,' she mentally indicated the sprawling aircraft, 'Is a bomber with a fancy paint job. It also won't help them learn diplomacy and how to deal with the tribes and towns between the cities. Though if this is all related to generational neurological damage due to widespread cadmium poisoning, we might be able to correct that and side-step the learning process. Which brings up an interesting point, Janice...'

Without knowing about it, the Mayor's carefully prepared presentation was about to be utterly ignored in favor of an altogether different question and set of solutions. A thought had crossed Ivy's mind and she took it and ran, 'The cadmium poisoning is isolated to the Eastern Islands, correct? And this is where the Hauyht migrated out of? That could explain why Jer'Don is proving more amiable to outside influence - it is a young city and pretty far away from the islands. Natural selection may have winnowed out many of the genetic defects that still dominate closer to their ancestral home.'

'Which means you want to fix the murder bunnies,' Huang replied with a pout and an accompanying sigh from Meli, neither of whom particularly relished the idea of a peaceful assignment, 'How?'

[Sunset]

SDF-Ixutsangi, En Route, Alpha Quadrant...

"So the Therians hired them to find the Therians?"

It was the briefing after the briefing where Timmons and his team, as well as any others of the Ixutsangi's varied crew that happened to be nearby, hung out in one of the comfortably appointed common areas that sat between the outer hull and the long corridor that ringed it. Still more outboard were the storage spaces, maintenance accesses, and conduits that carried every vital service from fresh air to water to electricity from one part of the ship to another. In the event of emergency or combat damage the open space would double as a staging area for repair crews - mostly UHCVs and other drones remotely operated by engineers safely ensconced in their escape pods - and the mix of industrial and modern with the low level hum of surrounding machinery gave the place a kind of low-level ambiance that seemed to put the Commander at ease. He didn't often discuss it, but he had grown up in an industrial arcology on Mars before joining up with the Marines and the environment reminded him of home.

"That's what she said but," he paused to sink deeper into the armchair, folding his thick arms over his chest in a manner that indicated his reluctance to accept her statements at anything approaching face value, "I don't believe her. It's all too convenient - she knew practically everything we knew, no missing bits here and there. Or at least it feels that way. Maybe I'm just adding too much of what I know into her statements so it all falls into place but," he trailed off and looked to the window that stretched from one wall to another and showed a recreated view of the stars as they supposedly streaked past.

"Why would the Therians do this?"

"Because no culture is a monolith," Deania replied, answering Trinya's question while the Commander continued to stew. The Explorers question was less an inquiry than an excuse to meander through the thoughts that sat at the front of their mind with the possibility that discussion might lead to insight. "While the Primarch's rule and methods of leadership seems successful on the outside, there has to be some conflict on the inside. Political, economic... But the Hegemony is a military regime and it would make sense that any opposition would manifest itself as a militant opposition. The idea of fighting for what they want, even if what they want is greedy or selfish, would seem reasonable."

"Maybe we're reading their history incorrectly then - or maybe they aren't presenting it correctly," Trinya nodded, continuing the thought. "As they put it forward, the Betrayer was corrupted by whatever causes the current corruption. But what if they are wrong? What if the Betrayer chose her path for whatever reason?"

Timmons grunted, "Which leads us down the crazy trail towards the notion that somehow the Betrayer is responsible for all this."

"The Therians aren't exactly talking up her history," Deania noted. "Everything I've read said that she was an exemplary warrior who was raised to her position as Master of the Clan by the previous Primarch and served honorably until her sudden betrayal. But that matches nicely with the story of an unknown outside force being the cause of all this. What if she was boning the previous Primarch and there were some bedside promises made? Then when the Primarch died and a different selection was revealed in his eulogy..."

As might be guessed, the Primarch of the Hegemony selected their own successor on both the advice of the Masters of the Clans and their own circle of advisers and friends. The successor was then revealed at the very end of the funerary eulogy where the successor would then immediately come forward to take up the symbolic arms of the previous Primarch.

"...she decided that she would take those promises by force. At least in the given history, the previous Primarch is a steadfast warrior, courageous leader yet overall the kind of boring person who makes a good filler from one exciting era to another. Or he's a whitewash."

"Would the Therians do that though?"

"Would they have to?" Timmons answered, shifting in his seat. "As I understand it, the Primarch is something of a singular figure. A facilitator, really, and nowhere near as accessible as the Secretary-General. Something more on the level of the old Kings and Princes of Earth where he - or she - lives isolated from the rest of the Hegemony so that they cannot be influenced by it and their decisions are very big-picture instead of day-to-day minutiae. They could be living in abject hedonism and the regular citizens and warriors wouldn't know any better."

"And when the new Primarch moves into the palace, they have no reason to make the state of the place known," Deania finished. "Otherwise there might be some call for the activities and the actions of their own office to be made more accountable. But if you treat someone like a King, they act like a King, right?"

"Mmm," and for a few moments Timmons thought back on his conversations with the Therians at the Pere'Nolde Outpost. There had been little mention of the Primarch with most referencing the Master of their particular Clan when questions of leadership or politics came up. "Which suggests we should be looking into the Primarch. But that would be an effective distraction from our other avenues of inquiry, wouldn't it? Supply the answers we're looking for, send us down a tangled path, and whoever is behind this has effectively removed us from the hunt. Because I still don't trust her. The odds of a one-in-a-billion meeting like that..."

Were one-in-a-billion and despite being a man of many successful hunches, the big man knew this wasn't as much a hunch as a chance crossing of paths. The lone survivor of a similar expedition out to seek out the source of the corruption just happens to be in his path? It was too pat an answer.

"But if she is some kind of intelligence operative, I don't expect her to immediately go running back to her masters to report her success. She'll fade back into station life, cover still safely established."

"But what if you did just get lucky? What if she did just happen to give us the right answer? Maybe not this answer," Deania looked around the room to various nods and signals of understanding, "But the real answer?"

"Then we'll ask," Timmons decided, sitting up. "We'll try for a repeat performance. Slip someone from the crew onto a ship heading to Oleimos Station and when they get there they'll start asking around. If she steps into their path, we'll know she's a plant. If she fails to materialize then we'll take her story a little more seriously and look into the pre-Betrayer Primarch and the Betrayer herself. Going back to where all this started might be a good idea anyway; We're chasing the same tail the Therians are - maybe they're just chasing their own tail."

[Sunset]

Demi & Erika's House, Botany Bay, Chuh-Yu...

...I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know...

The soft strains of a very old holiday song drifted up the stairs to greet Demi as she appeared at the top, pausing to look down at the scene below. An evergreen decked with a hundred sparkling orbs that glittered as fire danced in their faceted depths stood in front of one of the broad windows while a rare fire crackled in the fireplace between it and the next and a cat snoozed luxurious on the broad hearth. Outside snow drifted and fell across a frozen wonderland of dense trees that flanked a frozen river valley, a perfect waterfall held in the cold fist of Jack Frost with the glow of candles warm across the suspended water. In the far distance the pinpoint glow of cottages and chalets dotted the wilderness while on the horizon a pinnacle castle rose from the peak below with a thousand amber lights in the window.

At the base of the tree a woman knelt, a comfortable sweater draped down the back with a curl of blonde hair turned to face her for the moment as Erika finished arranging a small assortment of presents underneath. A footstep on the stairs and she turned to look up at her and smile warmly while Alex appeared from nowhere at the base of the steps. Peppermint and chocolate drifted up to her nose from the tray in her hands, the pleasant smell covering the bitter waking aroma of the coffee that steamed in the cup. Her black-gray bowler had been replaced with the red pointed hat of a jolly elf and the odd smile grew wider as Demi took the mug with a sleepy whispered 'Thank You' and disappeared as quickly as she'd arrived.

"Good morning... Merry Christmas!"

"Mhn..." And the jolt of strong coffee wrapped in spice loosened her tongue to allow her to reply with her own, "Merry Christmas."

The soft comfort of the couch cushions welcomed her backside as she settled in and as the mug thumped against the hard wood of the coffee table it was replaced in her hand by a brightly wrapped package sealed with a bow, the carefully arranged pile collapsing into a heap as quickly as it had been completed.

A smile and the present remained in her lap while she bent forward to scoop her own from where it had been half-concealed under the couch. Two pairs of hands lingered at bows for a moment, just about to unwrap before a laugh interrupted and the two leaned forward to break their fast with a kiss before parting and looking to the presents with a sly glance at the other as they awaited the reveal. Ribbons stitched with the name if their intended tugged intricate bows into separated strands and the gay wrapping paper disintegrated in a spray of red and green sparkles to leave each holding the ribbon and a bare gift.

"Oh, thank you," Erika turned her own gift across her chest so that Demi could see it as she looked down at it. A small framed painting, it showed the two sitting knee-to-knee with one arm wrapped around the other while hands rested crossed between them. "For my desk?"

Demi nodded and turned to her own, which appeared to be a large heavy book, "What is..."

Her question was answered as soon as she opened the first page. It was a memory book made by hand with thick pages that each contained separate pockets for the various life events of a growing child. The front page was a collage of pictures with a space for the parents and then the child as they passed through the various ages and stages of life. More followed with spaces for everything from a first lost tooth to a first date.

"This is so nice," she breathed as she leafed through the heavy pages, "Did you make this?"

Erika nodded, interrupted as a breakfast tray appeared on the coffee table next to them. More gifts followed - a much larger painting with the two as well as their extended family and even Alex standing to the side looking far more in charge than any of the others despite her relative position notable among them - and a quiet morning slowly unfolded as the mother-to-be leisurely awoke while her partner and the butler moved with more haste. Almost as soon as something was unwrapped it was whisked away by the ever-efficient Alex to occupy some place of pride with the heavy tome soon occupying its own place on a tall bookshelf.

"A few minutes, Ma'am," the freckle-faced woman announced as she wheeled bags and a small collection of miscellaneous items to the door to stand ready, the framed picture on top of it all.

It was the curse of parents-to-be and of those with the responsibility of leadership. Less than a few minutes later a slow rush outside announced the arrival of their chariot and the wonderful winter landscape faded away from the windows to show the bright summer day of semi-Tropical Chuh-Yu. Their first destination would be Mars and the Ambassador's parents and after that the two would play host to a Christmas Ball for Defense Force veterans and their families. A hand trailed behind her and Erika lifted Demi from the couch to lead her to the front door. It stood open as the butler finished conveying their baggage to the waiting shuttle where a Marine stood on guard, his armor painted out to resemble a jolly old elf while his partner had the aspect of a snowman with a line of coal buttons down the barrel chest of their power suit. Only the stark grey of their particle rifles stood in contrast with the shuttle decorated with strips of merry lights in green, red, and gold.

"Merry Christmas, Ma'am," he said as the Secretary-General stepped up, his voice hearty. One after another the five boarded and as the shuttle rose into the sky his voice once again boomed from hidden speakers, "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

[Sunset]

Ambrosia, Southern Anuke...

"Squad Two is at fifty percent. Squad Three," Ambrose' voice was cold and dispassionate; Exactly what one would expect for a general overseeing the drill that was unfolding through the emmense warren of tunnels, corridors, stairwells, and chambers that wound their way through the depths under the white-painted and very quiet country manor that held to the title Ambrosia. "Squad Three, take your positions and prepare to engage the hostile!"

It was all in good fun and remarkably easy to arrange. There was something brewing in the now-sealed vault where the cloning machine had been on ready display and after a week of probing at the entrance with remarkably little effect and, in one case only uncovered by the recording equipment he'd had deployed at the time, no particular memories of the events in question either he'd set this plan into motion. The previous was unfortunate in that Miss Seventeen had flatly refused to allow him to review the recordings due to content of a strictly adult nature and this despite threat to both life and limb on his part. Given that she had installed several safeguards against his access that depended on her particularly healthy presence on this mortal coil, he had failed to carry through but the promise that he might have somehow engaged in some manner of sexual congress with anyone potentially and her particularly had kept him busy late at night trying to remove the safeguards from the files in question.

Very little planning had been required to enact the training exercise and in fact none had been done. As soon as he had decided that training was necessary, he had simply instructed Miss Seventeen to fetch a container from a labeled shelf outside of one of the titanic doors that was broadly labeled with dire warnings as to loss of limb, life, and spiritual essence if it were to ever be opened by anyone. There were few who knew what exactly was inside these vaults - he'd had them added during construction and with the departure of Miss Sixteen at some point and enough filthy lucre across the palms of the black-eyed purple contractors, he'd ensured the silence of both until the proper moment.

"The proper moment," he mused aloud as something enormous shouldered at one of the half-meter blast doors that sealed off various portions of the complex with visible effect, "Being when you picked up the container and heard the click as the pressure plate underneath activated, hmm?"

Miss Seventeen looked up at him out of the corner of her eye and barely nodded a reply before turning back to the door and to the squad of Minions that now defended it. She was in no fit state to particularly consider his half-heard statement or asked for him to repeat it as she was pressed bodily up against the lone door that led from the chamber and eventually wound its way to the viewing station where he stood, her backside hard against the door with such desire that she might very well push her way through before whatever was attempting to get through did so. Her hair was askew, her clothes in distress, and her black spiked heels had been discarded as she had run in panic.

Her reflexes were excellent, as he had already admitted aloud. Owing to her origins in the genetic stock of one of his more nubile female Minions she'd reacted admirably as the yellow and red lights positioned at the corners of the door had begun to flash and the heavy barriers had barely scissored apart to display the rending claws thrust between them. Shoes had been flung aside and in stocking feet she had ran for her life as the first roars of terror and hatred had bellowed down the hall behind her and her guardian Minions had turned to face it.

"Posthumous commendations for those two," he reminded himself as the door buckled and the thick bolts that secured it showed through the spread gap. "Performed their duties exactly as programmed. Even got a few shots off too!"

He'd been watching of course but the two had had no way to know that it was, after all, only a drill as the arrow-shaped head draped with sharp spikes and fangs the size of their particularly muscular forearms had bounded through. They could then be forgiven their failings as one had screamed - only slightly, but a scream was a scream! - as a clawed hand had snatched him up and lifted his mottled gray body to those razor-filled jaws to grasp and rip him in half in a spray of gore that had nearly caught up to Miss Seventeen as she'd ran. The other had made a squealing sound but as that had been the noise of his body spreading out through the seams in his armor as the beast had pounded him into the floor with the remains of Number Eighty-Eight it could not be counted against him.

"I mean, I could, but what kind of asshole would that make me? Definitely not in the running for Boss of the Year, certainly! Perhaps... Ten seconds?"

He set himself a mental countdown and hummed pleasantly as the restraining bolts parted with enough violence to send a shard of one spiking its way through the forehead of the closest Minion, dropping him like a poleaxed ox. Without even remarking on how he really should have worn his helmet, Ambrose leaned forward to watch as the doors were wrenched open and the charmingly named Hellbrute surged through. It was less the action as the creation fell on Squad Three and they in turn attempted to end its hungering existence that he paid attention to but instead the rather more frail form of Miss Seventeen. While the Minions could take a few knocks, lose a few limbs, and perhaps even survive decapitation with immediate medical assistance - none of which was on hand and all of which were being perpetrated upon them - his assistant had managed to lose more than just her shoes in her flight. Buttons had come undone and clothing was on the verge of abandoning her and from his high position he was afforded a lovely angle with which he could look down her shirt and watch her breasts rise and fall in sharp-breathed panic as the seconds ticked away.

"Ah, yes, ten... Seven, eight, nine," and with a swirl of his hand over the door control, he pressed the button and the door yawned open behind her as he remembered his own count. She fell prone and there was even a flash of white panties as she rose on bent knee to walk forward on her hands for one, two steps before rising. With the question of both how long he could string this along and how many Minions he would have to go through to accomplish the task, he turned to the hallway behind him while her feet pounded up the hollow metal steps to the platform. A panel whisked aside as he approached and a secret elevator was revealed to swish itself shut again an instant before she gained the summit and found herself facing both five flights of stairs and the arrival of Squad Four and the remains of Squad Three, which joined them in a spray of blood and bone as the beast hurled them up towards the fresh troops. They pulled themselves up against the rail, fist-sized bores pouring shot after shot down again while she lunged for the first set of steps.

Perhaps this would persuade her to release the safeguards when he next made the request. Assuming she survived the training, of course.

[Sunset]

The Virtue of the Stars, Kosmos-Line StarLiner, Chains of Jade Orbit...

"...now, do I rub his nose in it?"

It was a thought that had run through Alwyra's mind - along with a dozen variations on both the lead-up and the resolution to the revelation that she now owned Junior Science Mystery Detective First Grade Parker MacArthur's hind end - lock, stock, and barrel! It had taken more money than she'd expected but less than she'd been willing to throw at the problem and now, with the name of a nearly-fictional holding company on the contract to his debt arrangements, she had a nearly excessive amount of power over his life. By the terms of the contract, she could call in the debt at any time and for any reason and while only a fool would pass up the chance at the kind of moderate interest returns the loan promised, she could still hang it over his head like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.

In a subtle way, of course.

That had led to her occupancy of a luxury cabin on a passenger liner that was shared with his not-so-luxury cabin a dozen floors and corridors away from it and far closer to the noisier core of the ship's operations. After struggling for a lingering afternoon in a hot bath and strenuous massage she'd come up with the answer of what to do with her own personal flesh-and-blood private investigator. For most tasks an Augmented Agent was capable of doing the kind of data-mining that would answer most questions and where they were not a full AI could then do the job - except when it came down to uncovering the kind of individual stories that she loved. This was where Mr. MacArthur was at an advantage; He could track someone down and button-hole them in a bar somewhere or behind the glass in a jail and get their story. With most of her labor force comprised of either debt-labor or those who had worked it off, her interest was in making sure the people she took on were the kind she was interested in helping and frequently the official record wasn't very informative.

But to rub his nose in it? She could track him down, of course, and take a seat across the booth from him and tell him in no uncertain terms how she'd figured out the truth and had decided - very generously - to buy up his debt rather than just put a bullet in him and bury him somewhere lonely and deep. She'd then go on to tell him why he had suddenly started to receive dozens of contracts to investigate in detail the lives of various debt-laborers and how the need to personally visit many of them had led to his presence on the same passenger liner and in orbit above the same world where many of those debt-laborers now worked.

"Nope, nope, nope," she decided, walking around the low coffee table that sat just a few feet from the foot of the sprawling bed. "He's a private investigator - he should be taking a keen interest in why his workload just went up and who exactly now owns his business. That will be a good test of his abilities," her tail swished back and forth quickly, nearly wrapping all the way around her, "To see how he plays this new information..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, The Dragon's Eye, Delta Quadrant...

"It's a long story, Captain Maethorion, and one with an even longer beginning," Captain Blaine explained as she began to present the timeline of the world that drifted through endless space below them. Under their feet the Dragon's Eye shone a cool blue-green, the diffuse glow from the phosphorous streamers slowly rising to the surface the only imperfection in the otherwise glass smooth surface. With no moons and no nearby stars or planets to create the tides there was nary a ripple except that created by the crews as they began to assemble the floating platform that would serve as the anchor for the access conduit.

A holographic representation of local space appeared between them with the Dragon's Eye in the center and it began to zoom out, everything shrinking as a pale blue line erupted from the Eye and began to trace its way across the heavens. Soon the disc of the galaxy was the dominant feature but it too was shrinking as the ray continued on its curving course and she began to read off the numbers, "About seven hundred fifty-two million years ago, this planet was ejected from its home system in the Canis Major dwarf galaxy and began to wander the stars. Another twenty or so and it emerged from Canis Major and headed," she traced a finger along the line as it led towards the Milky Way, "Here. In the depths of intergalactic space it would have frozen solid - what looks like water from here is something close, but there are chemical components that lower the freezing point - but here between the natural phosphorus vents and galactic background radiation there is enough energy for it to remain liquid."

"By itself, it is a fantastic scientific opportunity. It had to have formed along with Canis Major and it will help us understand more about how the dwarf galaxy formed. But those seven hundred million years are just the prologue;" The hologram shifted and zoomed to show the rogue as it crossed through the local space of a half-dozen nearby star systems before continuing to the current location, "Because somewhere in here, someone else happened across it. Below the surface, built across every undersea hill and mountain, stretches a vast complex of structures that can be compared to temples, squares, plazas..."

A representation in detail appeared around them, culled from the recordings her crew had taken. Those familiar with a Roman or Greek ruin would have felt immediately at home; Thin columns ringed the site with delicate arches spanning the middle but under each arch was a statue that seemed to be supporting it, holding up the weight with their bare arms or pressing their back to the weight. While each clearly showed the same species, they were all different but all the same in that each and every one was missing their face. A shattered ruin replaced it, the fractured edges softened by time. Slowly the whole began to move, tracing over the undersea terrain as she continued, "Again the created works of a people seventy-two thousand years old. Give or take. And again, by itself, a extraordinary scientific opportunity to learn something about a civilization older than our own that existed during a time period where we know precious little."

"But it gets better."

The slow movement of the forest of pillars, statues, plinths, and sculptures stopped and they were now in the middle of a ceiling'ed chamber supported by four enormous figures that stood around a central space and stretched their arms outward to hold a dome without windows. An iris of stone sat in the middle and it was here that she focused her attention, "This is where the conduit will connect to the sea floor because under these stones lies an enormous shaft that leads nearly two kilometers straight down. Filled with the near-water, it empties out into this circular pool;" There was the quick sensation of movement as they flowed down the pipe through featureless stone to the edge of a funnel and up into a circular chamber with the titanic stone pipe in the center and surrounded by an equally perfectly circular pool.

"which leads into this network of chambers." Largely a continuation of the same design as seen on the surface, the chambers flowed past as Kami explained, "Which are the source of the rock used to build the sub-surface temple complex. Each statue, each pillar. All of it was cut from here and taken to the surface as decoration for this..."

Before them were the titanic doors, the doors without a key.

"And beyond? Captain... It is like a dream."

[Sunset]

SDF-Heart of Gold, GEC-79742, Alpha Quadrant...

"One Distributed Individual Emulation Communications Array - or DIECA - ready to go," Gloignus announced, gesturing to the glowing circle of dots that spread out around ship and planet in the subjective display of the bridge holosphere. "Dieka was an old flame - closest I could get to something legible. But she'll do the job. Lieutenant Ybinydd helped me get the software part running;" The Lieutenant was the lone Heon aboard, though lone wasn't exactly the right way to put it. Heon intelligence's were highly morphic with each consisting of dozens to hundreds of sub-intelligences that accomplished specific functions. These could then be shifted to other intelligences as needed but without the connections formed by the whole, they were not themselves sapient. Thus the Lieutenant was something of a community of Heon who were, by their connected nature, one individual.

"So we know the array can talk to a Heon," the Chief Engineer nodded agreement to the Captain's interjected question, "But do we know that it can talk to a Druth'Haari probe?"

If the probes were, in fact, connected to the Druth'Haari at all. The supposition was that the crystal-infested individuals that identified themselves as Druth'Haari were in some way representative or connected to the mysterious entities that lived beyond the boundary presented by the artificial event horizons they had somehow created, but that was supposition base on the fact that the crystals they were infested with had also been found around the sites of the various underground probes that were also possibility associated with those same entities. Answers to all of these questions had not been completely forthcoming and the three known examples of the Druth'Haari 'species' had proven less than informative in the matter. However, on the other hand, neither had they been particularly objective towards the discovery of just who and what they were.

"We don't. But I think they can. Doctor Tithral," Gloignus looked over to the Bajoni, who raised an eyebrow just as the Captain in turn caught his eye, "Led me through the method that the Yangtze used to communicate through the event horizon at GEC-S53 and there are some similarities between the two."

"One of our theories is that by figuring out and using this method to talk to our probe, we have somehow proved ourselves worthy or smart enough or possibly even gullible enough to talk to the Druth'Haari," Tithral interjected.

"Gullible enough?"

"Yes. If everyone around you is speaking Standard;" As the entire bridge crew was, "And one person tells you a lie..."

"Someone else can correct it. But if you're the only two people speaking Druth'Haari, there's no way to know if what they are telling you is the truth. At least without testing it," Waretram finished. "That doesn't sound very helpful. Do we really think they are trying to purposefully manipulate us in that way?"

"Maybe? The prevailing theory is that we are dealing with a post-Singularity civilization;" A theory that both the Captain and the Doctor knew well, "And since we are not a post-Singularity civilization - correction; post-Information Singularity - we cannot reasonably understand their motives, methods, or even structures until we have ourselves crossed that point. Which has also led to the theory that the Druth'Haari - and these probes - are not themselves part of this entity but instead something of a bridge. A representative of whatever they are with a foot in both worlds. Even that notion presents something of a problem, however, since this civilization may have only had dealings with itself and its progeny, given their essentially isolationist existence. Which is also why they could be acting in a duplicitous manner - protecting themselves, essentially."

"From what? They can generate an artificial singularity of immense size in at least two flavors. I'd say they have very little to worry about on a military level."

"Do they? Again, if their own knowledge of the greater galaxy is limited to either the bridge species of the Druth'Haari or to the information gathered by these probes, they could be operating under the assumption that any civilization or culture that makes contact with them is of a similar post-Singularity nature. Prevailing theories state that such entities should have little reason to conflict with each other, but it is possible that they are thinking extremely long-term. Eventually the Universe will either spread so thin that it suffers heat death or it will collapse and there will be another Alpha Singularity. Or one of a dozen other scenarios for the end of the Universe. A few trillion years to prepare, sure, but living inside these event horizons could imply something of a bunker mentality."

"Then why - apparently - reproduce? Eventually our children supplant us. Why create that possibility?"

Tithral could only shrug, "Unanswered questions, Captain."

"Let's start getting some answers then," the Troll decided, sitting back in his chair and turning to the Chief, "Fire it up, Gloignus, and let's see if they want to talk..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Nocturnal, En Route to the Yukon System...

"In essence, this," Katryna glanced up and over the console where she stood working to the blood red half-circle of the archway that stood in the center of the room, "Is both the source of the holographic universe and the interface. But it is also somehow self-generated - that universe is somehow able to build these gateways and extrude them from itself into our universe. I shouldn't say somehow, since I'm pretty sure I know how it works but the big question is how the Dulyani pulled it off in the first place. These artifacts - all of them are linked, no matter where they are in our universe - create the boundary conditions for that holographic universe. How it does what it does. One of those conditions is that it can intrude these artifacts into our universe which is, as they say, turtles. Because, and this is the crucial bit, these portals are not technically in our universe. They are constructed of matter that originates in that universe and thus functions according to its laws. In some ways they can interact with our universe, in some ways they can't. I can look at it, pick it up..."

Which she couldn't actually do, since the portal in question was only a virtual representation of another that was located in a much more secure facility. Even then the Admiral had taken precautions that seemed downright insane on the face of it - the chamber where she was remotely manipulating the portal environment was itself heavily armored and isolated and both she and Lomak were armed and wearing powered armor suits.

"...stick it inside a plywood form and make it into a mobius loop. Which is how I've got them locked away currently. As I said - all of the portals are linked, so changes made or forced on one can ripple out to the others if the portal being changed is large enough. The one I built at the Tria Facility is the largest the Dulyani have ever found and it is apparently controlling enough of that universe that all the portals everywhere are coming out twisted in knots. Which doesn't mean some whack-job cultist on this side couldn't get through..."

"How would they do that?"

"They'd have to do what I did. Grow the portal inside a frame - a very small frame - and then slowly build that frame larger and larger. Or use an existing portal. I'm pretty sure there's only one of those though, and we have it. Perfectly safe!"

She flipped on a virtual monitor to show the artifact in question; Like the distant construct she was in the process of manipulating, it was a dark crimson archway inscribed with metallic runes that made the eyes water and contained only an endlessly shifting star field on the inside. The gateway itself was inside a chamber behind a transparent wall which in turn was located in a cell block of sorts that had apparently suffered a catastrophic collapse, leaving only the chamber where the portal stood as well as one next to it that happened to be filled with the skeletons of dozens of kittens reasonably untouched.

"Doctor Ambrose's old lair," she supplied, taking a careful look while she talked. The camera was clearly mounted on some kind of drone or robotic arm as it moved around the outer area to show both the two chambers and the carnage that had been wrought by the self-destruct sequence. "Under the Art Annex. He abandoned it in something of a hurry and we've been keeping an eye on it since."

"Who?"

"Long story, some other time. Back to our particular portal. Now one of the important aspects of these artifacts is how they are constructed or partially constructed and again, turtles, because they build themselves from the blood of these whackjob cultists who aren't really cultists but are the people from that universe who were exiled there by the Dulyani and somehow have a connection to both universes. And how did they get there in the first place if their blood is required to build the portals?"

"Blood?" Lomak looked at the sacrificial circle that he had borrowed from the Dominion Archive on Mars. Cruel and monstrous, it looked like just the kind of thing that one might need to harvest a great deal of that particular vital fluid. "My blood?"

This thought didn't disturb him overly much; Doubtless if Katryna felt the experiment would require his blood, she would obtain it in a far more humane way than simple spiking him on the metal apparatus and allowing him to slowly bleed out into the various channels and runnels. But her answer was the opposite; "No, not your blood. Because your wife doesn't share your blood. What she shares is the connection to the fragment of our universe that this thing is linked to. So instead of blood, I'm going to start by substituting the metal in these magical runes for the metal in the frame of the archway. Grow a portal around them, see what happens. Now, I pretty much expect it not to work. Or explode spectacularly - which is a good reason why this thing is in the tidal vortex between three black holes. But hopefully we'll learn something that will help the next attempt succeed..."

"...or," she sighed, "I'll have to talk to my mother-in-law."

[Sunset]

OOC: The following post contains frank discussions of subject matter that may be inappropriate for those without a reasonable ability to think for themselves. And sex. You've been warned...

Defense Force Training Academy Twenty Six, Ares...

"...so what are you doing tonight? Got any plans?"

It was an innocent question asked of one Cadet to another at the end of a long day of classes, training exercises, and the routine-establishing activities that would prepare them for a career in the Defense Force. Both Cadet Nydi and Cadet Sevae were still at their stations, the Tonhi leaning up against her console while the Shepard sat on her haunches at the second with the cable that had allowed her to issue commands directly to the simulated shuttle's systems still plugged into a convenient port hidden under the fur on her breastbone. With the last class of the day finished - a training simulation that had put the pair in command of a shuttle on a routine assignment to retrieve a ground team and one where, surprisingly, nothing had gone wrong - the two were free to pursue their own ends for the rest of the day. Homework was essentially unheard of but some cadets might pursue extra studies while others like Cadet Nydi had more typical pursuits for a young adult in mind.

"A hot shower and then a date," she finished her own question, stretching her arms over her head and looking over to her co-pilot. "Oh, I'm sorry..."

"Sorry? For what?" White teeth closed around the rugged plug and rolled it between them. With a long whirring noise the cable retracted until it met the headrest of the chair and she nosed at the ripple in her fur, smoothing it over before jumping down.

"Well, I..." The cocoa-skinned woman looked down at the quadruped, her cheeks turning a darker chocolate brown as she hesitated, "Do you date? I mean, you're a..."

She left the question unasked but Annya jumped on it, "A dog? Yeah, slim pickings around here if you're thinking I'm into others of my breed, but I'm not."

The blush faded and the cadet's chin dropped for a second before snapping shut with the objection, "But isn't that bestiality?!"

Annya stopped and leaned up against a wall, her front paws crossed in an imitation of arms crossed, "Now hold on a minute - is it? Who are you going out with tonight?"

"Chenglei Cho..."

She recognized the name; He wasn't a Tonhi but like a wide spectrum of the Republic population he was from broadly Asian ethnic stock and thus resembled the attractive young woman in a superficial way. The two were the kind of Eight or Nine that was seemingly bound to end up together, at least until their shared time at the Academy came to an end. Both were also humanoid, which didn't help to underline the Cadet's point at all.

"Alright, well, bad example. But what about those two?" Her next example, an Oeie who was chatting in a friendly manner with an ashen-skinned Bajoni. The two were a pair, though she knew that their relationship was even more casual than dating. In the sexually open culture of the Republic, it was near-routine for individuals to establish one - or more - purely physical relationships that were never expected to move beyond that for whatever reason the individuals might have. "They're not the same species - is that wrong?"

"...no," though the answer was drawn out. Cadet Nydi was a Tonhi and more than that a refugee from the Prefecture. Their culture was far more conservative than that of the Republic and even the idea of dating someone from outside of their own ethnicity was something of a personal stretch. It didn't mean that she was a bigot but there would always be a certain sense of hesitancy in her dealings with non-Tonhi.

"Don't worry about it, I get it. They are both humanoid, and even though her sex organs are way, way different than hers," she shifted her muzzle from the Oeie, whose erogenous zones were mostly concentrated in the two tendrils that trailed down from her shoulder blades to just past her waist, to the Bajoni, who was close enough to Human in that respect as to be often mistaken for a genetically engineered sub-species, "It's familiar enough to be at least a little comfortable. But me... Well, this is something a lot of people are just going to have to get used to. I'm a person, I can give consent. You don't have to trick me or train me into having sex with you - you can just ask. And sure, there are some people who are going to want to have sex with me because its 'weird' or 'kinky', but I'm not going to have sex with them unless I also happen to like their personality."

Picking up her feet, she set off down the hall towards her first stop of the evening with Nydi trailing behind, "But, you look like a dog."

"Yes, and two hundred years ago in America the idea of a white man and a black woman kissing on television nearly caused a crisis. But it happened and - shockingly - no one died. Forty years later they finally allowed gay men and women the 'right' to marry who they wanted. Humans - and I was one until I got this furry new body - have been putting restrictions on each other just because they look different or love different for a long time and we've finally - mostly - gotten beyond that. Now the question is; Can your potential partner give consent? Animals can't - people can."

"Isn't that kind of hypocritical though?"

"What do you mean," Annya's tone grew sharp, "Hypocritical?!"

"No! Not that," Nydi held up a defensive hand, "I'm just... If consent is the standard for sex then why do we still eat animals? They can't give consent at all, yet we kill them and eat them."

Annya stopped in her tracks, "I..."

[Sunset]

Liquid Design Headquarters, Chuh-Yu, Ares System...

High in orbit above a blasted world that spoke in crater and ruin of the invisible apocalypse that fought itself out in a battle where nothing remained but shattered fragments and expanding nebula fleets dueled. Many were the familiar saucer-and-nacelle shape of Republic starships fast and sleek while others were slender arrowheads that launched wings of fighters only to be hammered with fire from others while their thick hulls tried to repeal the inevitable breaches and collapsing destruction. Boxy cruisers and lumbering battleships formed into nearly-neat rows to present a volume of fire that prevented all but the most intrepid or foolhardy from venturing close. Bright sparks of ordinance streaked here and there, massive volleys of long-range missiles countered by sudden bursts of shorter-range clusters while here and there lone pilots or their wingmen fought desperate duels to avenge or deny. Beams flashed, another pulse lit the sky over a world doomed by proximity, and warships of a type and class that would never see the grandeur of space fought and died as the Twenty-Second Century equivalent of thrown wads of paper.

It was a typical meeting for the cluster of designers and engineers who populated the room in forms both virtual and physical with those earth-bound lounging around in chairs surrounded by virtual consoles that both controlled their holographic fleets and allowed them access to their various design tools. With the ease of access as well as the (somewhat) realistic battles to compare and contrast designs, the meeting was as much brainstorming as bull session with a tidbit of business sprinkled here and there. Most of that afternoon's function was centered around two designs in particular that were held forth by the universally low-held marketing department as having some potential to generate sales. That the sale of one of the two could generate more than a trillion in revenue while the other would require massive bulk lots to equal it was of little concern to those who played on the virtual battlefield; They got paid regardless.

"...you remember that kid back a few years ago? Blew into a grade school science fair with this little bit of witchcraft that slowed projectiles and then vanished into thin air? Well, his invention made it into the armor screens but now some other kid;" It was hard to classify the unnamed inventor as a kid - Derhalli de la Bonaventu was one of the more important independent creators in the Republic and far older than the designer who was holding forth on his work, "Latched onto it, figured out how it works, and then made a version that works at range."

The original invention had ended up being far too power-hungry to be used in the way it was presented at the science fair as a way to slow projectiles in a wide radius around a starship to the point where their impact was negligible. Various laws of physics presented that trick, most notably the inverse-square-energy rule that said to project a spherical field big enough, the entire ship would have to be one large power generator and field projector. But some other bright kid - or possibly the same bright kid, as he disappeared into a government lab that same afternoon - figured out that instead of slowing a projectile one could slow the results and save a lot of power. Thus the field generator found itself as just one of another layer in the multi-layer meta-composite that was a modern Defense Force starship hull.

"It still requires a lot of power, but this is pretty much the perfect application for it. Derhalli calls it the SLO-FIELD Generator and its perfect for police work."

If one were to zoom in very, very close to the surface of the planet they would be able to see the inventor's device at work. Mounted on a sleek hover vehicle, the generator could reach out and slow down the movement of everything within the field for a few seconds to a minute or more, depending on how much charge was in the vehicle's capacitors. On the virtual battlefield the little aircraft was painted out in camouflage and equipped with secondary weapons that the virtual pilots were using to dick with their opponents in various suggested ways. A drone might pop up to fire and get caught in the projected field long enough for concentrated fire to take it down or a speeding hovercraft would find one side of its pontoon hull trapped and the whole vehicle suddenly slewing off course.

"It's a pretty nifty non-lethal solution. Drop the field around a perp and the cops can just put the cuffs on them while they very, very slowly watch it happen."

"Wouldn't it affect the cop?"

"Yes, but the cop is also outside the field until they want to be inside. And it has a diminishing radius unless;" There was a sharp explosion of shrapnel on the holographic battlefield as a heavy battle tank passed one of these small cruisers at close range, the second lurking behind cover to ambush the first from behind. Armor had ripped open like a flower and now the heavier vehicle's pilot and co-pilot were suspended in mid-air inside their armored cockpit while their vehicle continued forward at a considerable pace. "Unless you're real close."

"Does it work through armor like that?"

"Well, no," the designer admitted. "If there's any kind of radiation hardening it won't do squat. I just tweaked the settings to demonstrate."

"Pity, I was thinking mines..."

"Are you an idiot?" A louder voice interrupted and the two stopped to look over to where an impostor admiral - they could tell by his enormous hat that was laced with more scrambled eggs than a North Korean May Day parade - was in the middle of berating a junior officer. "Mad? Insane? A fool? Perhaps an idiot? You'll never sell them on it."

The previous two raised eyebrows at each other and the subject of the ass-chewing appeared between them as a holographic layout. It was a starship and of the familiar saucer-and-nacelle design but the technical specifications that trailed out around it brought an immediate whistle to the designer's lips, "One-point-five-eight? Yeah, he's mad."

"Or an idiot."

"Or in marketing."

Which turned out to be the answer to the question of how one intended to try to sell such a monster to the Defense Force - and the Secretary-General in particular - when the Republic already had a large stable of battleship-plus capital ships in the fleet roster. It was admittedly an attractive ship with an elongated saucer reinforced along the nose with a double-lamination of heavy armor that also served as bunkers for heavier weapon batteries. The secondary hull was pulled in close to nearly disappear except for a trailing tail that served as anchor for the nacelle pylons. These were mounted higher than typical but this too was balanced by the high bulge of the false bridge. Dotted here and there and concealed under sliding armored panels was more than enough firepower to justify the suggested Super Dreadnought type but the Primacy class name didn't help the notion that it was a very, very expensive showpiece.

"Yeah, marketing. But you know, marketing can help win a war. Or at least stop one from starting..."

[Sunset]

Oleimos Station, GEC-1299101, Alpha Quadrant...

'I'm bored out of my gourd here, Commander,' Ensign Ueltschi whined, sounding very much unlike the Marine he was supposed to be. Augmented to the gills - or the gourd - he was the perfect choice for an assignment where there was at least the slight chance of something going wrong and turning violent. He was also small, clearly not Human, and easy to miss in a crowd. The Xypndi had been walking the corridors of Oleimos Station for...

'Nearly eight hours,' he continued, his tone desperate.

'I've asked and asked and tried every variation on the question and I haven't seen even a trace of your girl. Plenty of security officers, lots of station maintenance, and I've got a whole pocket full of interesting proposals, but if she's here she isn't keeping her ears open and she isn't looking for me! I've watched three movies;' Like the officer's conversation, he'd had a video streaming to the private world of augmented reality since things had gotten slow - which was nearly as soon as he'd arrived. 'And I want those lost hours back. The first one was so bad; This smuggler looks up and watches five planets be destroyed right above him. Five. Planets. By a weapon fired from a distant system and somehow built by a remnant of some fallen evil empire with, I don't know, sticks and rocks. And then in the last one they find out that the whole thing is being masterminded by these short little guys who are using another - yet another - ancient super-weapon to turn good people into bad people.'

'Was it on SyFy?' Deania broke in. The Duab'Akii's command of historic media was extensive and she'd been listening in to the occasional snatched of conversation relayed from the Lieutenant to a communications relay concealed in the bulk freighter that had brought him to the station and then outward to the Ixutsangi, which was lurking in deep space nearby. 'Sounds like a SyFi movie...'

'I have no idea what that is, Seeker. Can you come get me? Please?'

It was time to relent and with the Lieutenant collapsing against a bulkhead in mock tragic relief, the ship turned from its lazy course through space and crossed the distance to the station's wide arrival lane in an extended flash of blue-white streaks. While Ueltschi made his way to the docking terminal, the Captain and the senior officers held what turned out to be the shortest meeting in ship's history. Barely had they sat down at the table when their course was decided and there was only to wait for the Marine to cross the threshold before the ship departed again.

"She was born on Derhalli," Timmons offered as he walked the corridors from the docking port back towards the bridge. The Ensign didn't seem to care much, but it was just as much a chance for him to think aloud as it was to share their plans with the rest of his team, though they knew them as well as he did. "And if she rose to be the Master of the Breaking Blade, she had to be both an exceptional warrior and leader. But the Therian history on her is basically non-existent - at least the official history - so we're going to take a look through the non-official parts. Talk to friends, family, see if we can find some old pictures. See if we can establish a connection to the Primarch or someone in his inner circle. His given name was Mako, and its a bit of a rare name so it should stand out and it might be easier to find something with him that links to her rather than vis versa - the Therians probably did their best to scrub her name away. Which also means we'll need to keep a very low profile and have a good lie ready for when someone does ask why we're poking around in their shit."

"Pass out the hand scanners," Trinya suggested, swinging through the doorway that led onto the bridge just ahead of the Commander. The crew was spread out at their stations and the main screen was filled with a simulation of space rushing past. "We're looking for... I dunno. Something that was passed along through the Betrayer. Genetic stuff. Weird virus."

Acquiescing with a shrug, Timmons took his seat next to Captain Turbell, "Work on it, make sure everyone is on the same page, but we'll go with it. Any sign of our convenient source?"

Though they had left the station, they hadn't entirely left it behind. On his way into the station the Ensign had planted a number of near-invisible sensor strips and a lone IntelMouse had scampered down his pant leg to lose itself among the terminal stations and scattered luggage and cargo pods that were the inevitable detritus of a busy work environment. Relayed through the same communications node that they had left on board the freighter, an officer stationed on the bridge had taken up watch in the off chance that the Commander's accidental contact might try to follow or some other suspicious movement might be observed.

"Yes, but;" and there was a moment where he sent the images streaming through to the main display from his own smaller window, "She's doing what she should be doing."

The purple-pink haired woman was up to her armpits in a maintenance hatch and paying no mind at all as a whiskered watcher scampered close enough to put a paw on her boot. A pair of micro-tools were clamped between her lips like cigarettes and she rolled them back and forth as she worked. Time passed and she finished her work and closed up the hatch while the mouse rode along to her next destination in the bag of tools that swung at her back.

"I suppose that's that;" And the officer on watch nodded as the screen returned to its star-streaked former self. "A chance encounter. Keep an eye on her;" though the ride-along was a clear indication of just that intention, "And let's go see what's missing from the history books..."

[Sunset]

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

"Water."

It was a simple answer to a complex question and, though she would have preferred something involving an apocalyptic confrontation with hundreds of spear-chucking blood-crazed murder-bunnies, Lieutenant Commander Huang had to admit it was a beautiful and elegant solution. Since it was also her solution and she was, by her estimation and that of pretty much everyone she'd ever fucked into the mattress, bathtub, living room carpet, or front lawn, elegant and beautiful then it was just one more complement to herself. That explained the very self-satisfied smile that she was wearing like an itty-bitty bikini, 'Which I wouldn't mind wearing either. Or not wearing. Maybe a weekend vacation to an uninhabited tropical island...'

But that was enough self-congratulation and introspection for the moment. With a sweep of her hand, she pulled the protective tarp off the pallet to reveal the stack of equipment that was sitting underneath, "Everyone needs it, and on these islands there are only a very few places to get it. All of the villages are concentrated around a fresh water source of some kind, whether it is a natural spring, a creek, or an artesian well."

Just like Humans and in fact most of the oxygen to carbon-dioxide species that made up the Republic's population base, the Hauyht could drink salty, stagnant, or otherwise impure water but it was certainly not good for them after any length of time. As a point of fact, their particular biology was even more sensitive to a sodium overdose and thus access to fresh water more important - which made her plan all the more potent.

"These are water purifiers that have been modified - courtesy of the engineers up on the Wilson - to both extract all of the cadmium possible from the water;" There was a bit of a confused look at this - even her highly-trained special operations squad had all the scientific background of a turnip - but she went on, "As well as filter in a medication that should start to reverse the effects of the heavy metal poisoning as well as the long-term genetic damage that it has caused. We've already started to deploy industrial-grade purifiers through the Jer'Don territories but your job will be to be good little Jews and slip these into the wells."

"What's a Jew?"

"...that will be pretty fuckin' obvious."

The second comment was more pertinent and Janice turned to the woman. Like the rest of the squad, she was crouched down in the light cover provided by the tropical scrub, her long ears pinned down by a flop-brimmed jungle hat and a camouflage mesh uniform helping her blend into the lush green foliage. There was no eye contact - training and then conflict had taught them to keep their eyes moving, constantly scanning the surrounding jungle for any potential threat. Like much of the rest of the unit, she had taken up the Lieutenant Commander's coarse habits though, as the rest, she didn't quite know why they were considered such.

"One of those things in the water is going to stand out like a big steaming pile of shit, ma'am."

"So make with the arts and crafts. You're going to need to be sneaky anyway - two bitches on each team and you'll each take two or three villages;" Surveillance flights had located the majority of the island population and Janice had very much enjoyed watching the primitive little rabbits running scared as the delta-winged aircraft had screamed overhead, "Sneak in, and plant one of these. How you do it is up to you, but the team that gets all of theirs planted first and without killing anyone..."

There was a collective eye-roll at this; Training and education be damned, the red-eyed locals were still collectively known and hated as devil-worshiping cannibals who'd gladly murder their own kin, sacrifice them to the dark gods, and then fornicate with the remains. The idea of sneaking into a village and leaving without killing any of them or possibly all of them wasn't especially enjoyable but the Lieutenant Commander was about to sweeten the pot.

"...gets a ten-day vacation on me. Everyone else who manages it without killing anyone gets some upgrades."

Illicit upgrades. While wholesale upgrading and advancement of the local industry and economy was possible, the planet was being treated as something of an experiment in how to do what they could, where they were, with what they had. Cybernetic implants along with the high-precision manufacturing environment they would require was absolutely off the table and just the kind of risk that gave Janice a near-orgasmic rush. One by one, she passed out the devices along with instructions on how to activate the hexagonal cylinders and a cloth map with their individual targets marked. The last two she picked up herself and dropped them into her backpack before slinging it behind her where it stuck sharply to the adhesive patches that laced over her body armor in a hexagon pattern here and there.

"And if any of you cunts can beat me, I'll make that an off-world vacation wherever you want. Ready, set," For a moment she was there and then a moment later she wasn't as the optical camouflage activated to render her near-invisible, "Go..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Nocturnal, En Route to the Yukon System...

It was not the word Lomak would have chosen, but Katryna was the first to speak and thus it was her comment that his would be compared against; "Neat!"

He might have chosen disappointing, perhaps terrifying, or even disturbing. Following the path laid out for it by the surrounding form, the portal had slowly grown to unravel itself from the twisted Möbius form imposed on it by the presence of the larger portal just over yonder. Atom-by-inter-dimensional-atom it had widened and curved to absorb the eye-watering runes pinned in their place along the inside of the mold until they had all connected and for a very brief moment there had been a brief flicker of something across the open surface before a howl of soul-shattering terror and rage had accompanied the near-silent explosion. Shattering into hundreds of bits and pieces, the never-borne artifact and the surrounding form had been thrown aside in a spiraling reverse-vortex that had grown wider until the score of cursed letters had spaced themselves out across the surface of the perfect sphere, held there for three pulsing heartbeats, and then contracted again to groan and scream their frustration at the universe before disappearing with a whimper and a sharp bang.

"Are we calling your mother-in-law?"

"Not yet," she triggered the recording and began to watch it again while beside it the room both before and after flanking the hovering hologram. "There's plenty to learn here! Now, watch..."

Her eyes were not on the explosion itself but something else and she pulled his attention to the base of the sphere as it began to course around the unseen center, "See this? This," she pointed to the cracks and pits that were spreading out across the plain metal decking the experiment had rested on, "Is starting to resemble some of the Dulyani characters that were inscribed on the inside of the portal. We wouldn't recognize them now - they were the personal glyphs of House Shatterblood, which ruled the Dulyani before they were tricked and then forced through the portal. Like nearly everything from that period they were erased from the lexicon with complete replacements and only a bare few examples still exist. Interesting here because it would seem to indicate that the portal is still somehow attached to the artifact holographic universe."

"But this is not..." The recording had progressed and Lomak bent forward to examine the chaos-carved sigil. Something more familiar to the Orc began to replace it as the ultra-slow motion implosion wiped the remains of the portal away, sweeping them into a pin-prick inferno and leaving an entirely different rune behind, "The Black Speech."

Katryna nodded, "The tongue of her homeland. Not exactly something I want to have gracing the floor of my lab til the end of time, but it is a good sign. Somewhere in all of that the connection to the Dulyani artifact failed - or was supplanted - by a connection to Arda or at least to that portion controlled by those who spoke the Dark Tongue of Mordor. Which could mean anything; I might have not gotten the runes in the right order, they could have conflicted with the manner in which the Dulyani runes were aligned... Huh. I have an idea."

Stepping back from the three now-still images, she generated another set with something entirely new and different. This time the portal - and it was clearly still a portal - was of a triangle shape with the markings of the Dulyani on one side and the runes of Arda on the other. The form was different as well; Rather than a ring shape, it was a circular mandrel that would slowly expand and force the portal larger while filling the interior space and; "Not allowing the portal to form."

"Exactly! We'll keep the portal in the Dulyani configuration until it is large enough," she demonstrated, the portal slowly growing larger until it was of a size to allow someone through, "And then roll it until the Dulyani portion is disrupted and the Ardan side activated. The first will hopefully keep it stable and then we can attempt to activate the portal to Arda once it is large enough to resist the stress. We might still need to buttress the final arrangement but we're still at the trial-error-explosion stage..."

[Sunset]

SNN Nightly News with Tanya Zaldano...

"...and with few exceptions the medical manufacturing and sales sector remains flat or lower in week-on trading as the ripple-effects of the ExoCortex on healthcare are absorbed. Among these few notable exceptions - mostly companies with either new product offerings or those with an ExoCortex offering on the market - is Saint Medical Systems. Stock in SMS;" An image of the corporate logo as well as a hologram of the CEO - Dr. Mona Wilt - appeared next to the newscaster with the logo floating between her and the seated woman who now temporarily occupied the formerly empty chair, "Is up eight-and-a-third on both the continued popularity of the company's cybernetic implant offering as well as their InvitroX conception augmentation device. This near-implant..."

She held up a small pill and the camera zoomed in to show the details and not-coincidentally framing her fingers and the small ovoid against the sublime curves of her deep cleavage, which was itself bolstered by the broad arcs of the bustier she was wearing. Black leather decorated with a spray of rainbow fish scales that varied from scattered near the high-cut lower hem to complete at the line where hide met tanned flesh, the top glowed with a very faint shimmer under the studio lights. Following the line of her rib cage, it left her sculpted stomach exposed as well as the dangling jewel that lay in the cut of her navel. A matching black leather skirt worn exceedingly low on her hips and cut just as high on the thigh might have stretched the boundaries if not for the even tighter thong that she wore underneath to outline very visibly that there were not, in fact, any boundaries to her attention-seeking dress. Open-toed stilettos showed her feet and both finger and toenails were layered with the same fish scale pattern. At the corner of her mouth a tiny teardrop gemstone hung from a piercing and it sparkled as she talked; The singular piece of jewelry was the season's must-have fashion accessory.

"...allows an individual who could not otherwise conceive because of the gender, species, or phase of their chosen partner or partners to both conceive and give birth to a child or children that will share some physical similarities between the genetic contributors. Essentially similar to the Baby-In-A-Box technology that is in widespread-use through the Republic and her trading partners, the InvitroX is most notable in that it allows for the mother to carry the child to term;" Though the phrasing was something of a catch-all given the wide variety of ways in which species in Sunset gave birth, laid eggs, or whatever their method of reproduction, "As well as provides advanced medical monitoring functions for both mother and child. For many potential mothers, there is still a significant lure to the idea of a natural childbirth and the InvitroX eliminates nearly all of the individual steps needed to accomplish this between biologically incompatible parents. The advanced model - introduced three months ago - has additional functionality to preserve the illusion of natural birth while reducing the pain, discomfort, and physical side-effects of the birth process across a wide number of species."

"But this device and the SMS model ExoCortex aren't the singular reasons behind the medical supply corporation's sudden day-over surge in value. Instead that has to do with a just-announced synergy product that invokes the two. In a move that has surprised even Saint Medical's partner corporation Silaco Electronics;" Another logo, this time that of the robotics manufacturing giant appeared alongside the first and a number of combined label products began to appear and disappear between the two, "Dr. Wilt announced the introduction of a cutting-edge variant of the ExoCortex that also invokes the functionality of the InvitroX. While the current offering only functions for meta-Human birth mothers, Saint Medical has stated that a full line-up of species-compatible systems will be available before the end of the month. The unit also comes with a range of designer implantation sheaths that range from the functional to the exotic;" More images, some of which would have to be filtered out when the show crossed the borders of the sexually liberated Republic, "Which promise to make that special moment very exciting..."

Leaning back in her chair, the various holograms began to fade as Tanya shifted in place to cross and re-cross her legs, the movement allowing for both a cut from one segment to another as well as a more expansive view of the set. Instead of the former high-tech appearance, the studio had been redressed into something with more old-Earth charm. Hardwood floors and a paneled ceiling bordered frame-less windows that stretched tall to show a wide vista of an ocean shore and slowly rolling waves. Two white leather Eames chairs with one accompanying ottoman between the pair sat on a thick carpet cut from the hide of some exotic beast. Tanya sat alone in one while the other served as the invisible second host, playing comfortable resting place to the various virtual personalities that joined her.

"While Saint Medical spent the day up, the opposite was true of normal favorite Liquid Design. Down three-even Liquid suffered on the news that their design for a new Primacy-Class of starship would be rejected by the Defense Forces. While there is a possibility that a modification of the design - and its noted exorbitant costs - might be accepted this leaves the design firm without a mid-year success to buoy its finances. Even the side note that several contracts for production runs of a Liquid-designed police interceptor have been ordered have not managed to off-set the drop in their stock value..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Aayrid, GEC-1241002, Alpha Quadrant...

"Right there," Lieutenant Ase poked a clawed finger into the depths of the holosphere, pausing the recording that had been transmitted from the approaching Orinoco and highlighting a segment of space within a glowing rectangle. This zoomed large to push aside the majority of the system in miniature before once again playing past. "They tried - or did they?"

"It looks like they did," but the hesitation in the Ambassador's voice indicated her thoughts were following the Sensor Officer's own.

"They all left at once. Why?"

It was not a trickle or a flow but instead a single moment where hundreds of bright sparks indicated the simultaneous departure of the same number of ships. Thats they were ships was clear despite the gulf of time and distance that separated the observing starship from the shattered system where the Aayrid now stood watch. They drifted between the planets and were located anywhere from regular orbits to deep in inter-planetary space. Some few were visible on the recording, their drive emissions throwing off enough light that the ship was identifiable as such until the single second when their faster-than-light drives all engaged at once to send them flying away to parts unknown.

"It smells like conspiracy," the young man at the Tactical Station declared, looking down his aquiline nose at the very idea that it could be anything different. "If it was a planned evacuation, they'd be at rally points and loading points. This is pretty much the opposite - they are scattered all over, as if they are under normal operations. Now its possible that they are heading towards their assigned evacuation points but something interrupted them."

On the holosphere the Lieutenant's point was made manifest as the moment of doom arrived. Slowly easing free of its eons-old orbit, one of the gas giant's even more enormous moons began to dive into the inner solar system in a languid arc that, by the counter on the display, took just a little under six months. Here and there frantic activity could be detected but just as the sudden vanishing of their fleet had caused him to discard his numerically over-the-top scribbling to the virtual dustbin, any attempts at evacuation or avoidance seemed to be similarly discarded. Seven hundred seventy-three years previously the moon had angled in for its final approach and with a sickeningly slow motion the two had collided and been rent asunder by the impact. With its orbit significantly disrupted and body shattered into a multitude of nearly-separated pieces, the weak force of gravity and the terrible truth of momentum had torn the titanic world apart as it wobbled on a radically shifted axis.

"And he might be right..."

The Otterkin's grumbling tone brought the attention of the rest of the bridge and she demonstrated her discovery by rewinding and again replaying the recording right up to the moment where the scaled space ships fled the system. Again she highlighted and zoomed in on a particular area, this time a specific segment of the primary's orbit. Even at the level of diffusion suffered by the distant recording it was clear that there was something in that particular position. A long spiderweb structure dangled in space until the very moment when bright blue light signaled the departure of various ships around it. Just after an explosion blossomed at the center and then another as vented atmosphere burned and then was quickly extinguished in the vacuum. In virtual moments the station was destroyed but numerous others nearby remained intact, "And this looks like a shipyard to me. The ships are gone, as is the infrastructure to make more. I even have confirmation."

Ase manipulated the sphere and the remained of nearly a dozen similar structures were arrayed around the cardinal points. Some were more intact than others, but at least one shows signs of destruction that had been imposed from within.

"Simultaneous sabotage just after the mass departure of the ships that might have saved at least some of their population."

"But why?" This was Demi's question and while it disproved her own fanciful theory, her voice held the tone of concerned interest. "Why doom your own civilization like that?"

"Did they?"

The conspiratorial tone was back and the Lieutenant at Tactical leaned over the railing, "It could have been external," he went on, looking from Captain to Ambassador and back again. "That's a nice big planet they have there, and an evacuating population has to go somewhere. They could have had enemies in the making or even friends who decided they didn't want to be quite that friendly when faced with a hundred billion refugees."

"Is there any sign of outside contact?"

At Captain J'Chan's question, all eyes went back to the holosphere or to their own displays as if they could pick out some dissimilarity over the vastness of time and space. The answer as determined by several simultaneous voices was a distinct, "No, but..."

But it was impossible to know for sure. Ships varied in design and purpose and to know whether either had been inspired by outside sources would take an interview with engineers long dead.

"Something occurs to me," he picked up the conversation again. "Our investigation of the derelict ship found illustrations of only one species and the same in their medical computers. If they had had any kind of outside contact, I would expect it to be in the data banks of a military space ship. That would lead me to believe that the source of this action is internal, whether or not it was a conspiracy or something else. Let's keep an open mind and poke around some more. Confirm or deny..."

[Sunset]

Ten'Gon Hamlet & Eastern Islands, GEC-99791B (Alice)...

Thick ankles wrapped around the sturdy beam that ran the length of the high ceiling, corded muscles tense as they lowered the stout dwarf lower, one hand reaching out for the collar of the soldier who had just brushed through the curtain door. Looking around the open room stacked with crates he surveyed the warehouse to ignore the open fingers that dropped past his ears. With a sudden grasp of the rough fabric, Meli hauled him up off the floor with a sudden squeek that was cut off as she put her other hand on the top of his head and pushed it down into his chest. Bone crackled, splintered, and as her rounded body coiled like a python his furry face and nose disappeared until the only thing visible were the top half of his long brown ears. A swing against the beam and she tossed the corpse aside with a casual ease, a meaty thump followed by the steady plop-plop of blood the steady timer for her next few movements.

'Ya know, Ah'm getting kinda bored here,' she mentally whispered, her words carried by cybernetic augment and orbiting satellite to the ears of a lean young woman who was on her belly in a cluster of jungle shrubs. 'This is startin' to feel more lahk punishment detail then somethin' useful...'

One foot twisted over the top of the beam and the other swung down as her torso went parallel to the dirt floor to display a flexibilty surprising of such a muscular form. The booted foot slammed into the jaw of the next man through the door, spinning him around and sending him tumbling limp-limbed past the last of the three. His rifle was in his hand, a short submachine gun with a drum magazine and a vented barrel shroud that crumpled as she grabbed it and yanked it out of his startled hands. Eyes wide in shock, he only stood there as she snapped it over one knee and threw the parts over her shoulder. Grabbing the loose end of his belt, she braced one foot on his crotch and pulled it tight. Wide eyes bulged and there was the crackle of ribs breaking as his slim pear-shaped torso took on a strong hourglass figure.

'Ah think Ah'll let this one live. Looks funny lahk that.'

'Woah, yes, you definitely need a vacation. Get away from here.' Janice rose from her place into the classic sprinter-block stance, her eyes on the next patch of cover as she watched the two villagers slowly pass out of the corner of her eye. They weren't a patrol - just two women going to get water - but that they were was exactly why she was there. There was a horrible crack inside her head and she winced as Meli muttered; 'Whoops, too hard. Guess not...'

Hustle was on her side as she rose and pushed forward, leaves and jungle debris snapping under her feet for that half-second it took to reach the next objective. One of the two rabbits turned - a short brown and white model with the distinct short ears of the Eastern Islands - and instead of looking towards her, she turned her head up to the trees where a conveniently placed jungle fowl chose that moment to burst from cover and wing skyward. Suitably convinced of the source of the noise, the rabbit turned back to her friend just as Janice hefted a nice-sized rock and pulled back her arm.

'Rules don't say anything about knocking them out, right?'

'What, yer still playing yer little game with them? Ah'd have just killed em all. No way they'd have known - easy to cheat when yer the one makin' sure the rules are followed, ya know?'

The little well, surrounded by a low stone wall cobbled together from rocks pulled from both the spring itself and the surrounding earth, was only a few meters away now and with her objective in sight Huang began to devise her camouflage. Snaking vines were pulled out of the ground cover and wrapped around the small unit while the same rock she had snatched up with an eye to braining the woman now became a sinker. A couple passes and it was secure enough to hold the unit at the bottom of the pool where the hopefully dark shadows would conceal it. Turning to look up the trail to where she could just see the cone-shaped roofs of the native shelters. More importantly she couldn't pick out anyone on the approach and a similar glance through the surroundings, cycling through various vision options, showed nothing but the odd animal lurking just beyond the greenery.

'Maybe I'm bored too;' though to the augmented members of her squad both the armor with its optical camouflage and vision-enhancing sensors would be very much cheating, 'And I'm looking for something to make the game a little harder.'

'Ah suggest scalps,' and this was accompanied by a terrible ripping sound as Meli grabbed the base of the bunny's ears and pulled, skin stretching upward until it tore free and left a bloody, ragged circle around the slain soldier's crown. Two more followed, the last made more complex by the near-complete insertion of his head into his chest cavity, but with the three in hand she tied them loop-over-loop together until she had a grotesque chain hanging from her belt. 'Now, let's see if these boys have been up to no good.'

'Wait...' There was a distinct pause in Janice's distant voice, 'You don't know?!'

The Dwarf's assignment had been to check the hamlet and determine whether they had been - as was suspected - diverting supplies from Jer'Don-led construction efforts. Ten'Gon was just one of a score of small hamlets strung out between the larger city and their closest major ally and these would form the way-points for an improved road and rail system as well as military outposts that would connect the two. Shipments along the line - carried along in the traditional high-wheeled lorries - had been coming up short and the theft had to be occurring somewhere in between. With the guards out of the way, she was free to pry open the closest crate with her bare hands and inspect the contents.

'See? There you go. Rifles and ammunition made in Jer'Don. Gut instinct. Now I'll just kill everyone in the village...'

Janice sighed as she dropped her package into the well with a gentle plop. On the savage world of Alice the notion of simple theft being punished by wholesale murder was a familiar one, but one that the Republic was trying to change and Meli wasn't helping. A side-channel conversation with Agent Madison alerted her to the Dwarf's intentions and a conversation in low and threatening tones dissuaded the murderess from her expanded goal. Covering enough time to allow the Lieutenant Commander to sneak away from the village, she shortly found herself slinking through the same patch of scrub where she'd issued the original challenge. There was a noise and she found herself looking at a pair of mud-painted furry faces that were grinning widely from underneath their brimmed jungle hats.

"Too slow, you fucking cunt..."

[Sunset]

Derhalli, The Therian Hegemony, Alpha Quadrant...

"Officially, the Hegemony is a military meritocracy," Deania stated, a touch of authority in her tone as she pushed through the doors to the small bookseller's shop. While the Ixutsangi had been underway to the star system that numbered Derhalli among its habitable worlds she'd studied up on every aspect of the military and its internal politics. While some trace fact might lead them to the truth of the matter there were many insights available just on the face of her study. Digging through the musty stacks housed in the basement might uncover more, but she was already sharing what she had learned. "But that isn't as much the case as the powers-that-be would like it to appear. Warriors go through a series of trials and challenges with suitable prowess allowing them to advance. Thus the Master of each Clan is expected to be the best warrior in the entire body. On the face of it, that is true. A warrior who performs according to the grade expected will advance even if they are personally disliked by those judging them. However..."

And this was the big 'but' of the Hegemony's system.

"The best are trained to be the best and to get that training a warrior has to either be wealthy or be connected to a wealthy Family - which is not the same as a Clan. Therian Families are connected by birth and by blood while the various Clans are something of a military role. The snipers have their own Clan, the military engineers have their own Clan. Sometimes there are sub-Clans and all of them are supposed to work together and for the most part they do. There is some rivalry and more than a little competition but the system channels this into appropriate outlets where one Clan will try to outdo the other in terms of skill and success, accumulating honors through the deeds of their warriors. Back to training though; There are notable schools that teach the warrior arts as well as a host of regular and thus cheaper institutions."

This was something that Commander Timmons understood well, though as the only full Academy graduate among the four he was also the only one to appreciate it. The various Defense Force Academies competed to turn out the best graduates and they - as well as the civilian world - kept track of who had gone to what Academy before starting their illustrious career. Some were so famous for their graduates to the point that potential cadets might move in order to qualify for admission to that particular school - quite an expense when admission was itself not guaranteed.

"Well, as you can guess, this means that the wealthiest families thus will often have a disproportionate representation among the most senior members of the Hegemony's military. That is still as true today as it was in the Betrayer's time but here's the not-surprising thing... No one has laid any kind of claim - in the modern Hegemony era - to the Betrayer. There's nothing in the official history that says which Family she came from but by the numbers she would have come from just one of six possibilities. These six Families - Derhalli is one, with the planet named after the Family, not vis versa - supply something like ninety percent of the senior-most officers."

"Which means that she was probably of the Derhalli Family?"

"Which is why this store," the Seeker turned and pointed to a symbol mounted on the back of the door, "Is not. Presumably they would have been even more strenuous in wiping out any connection between her and their Family. If the idea plays out that is. Its possibly that she was just some kind of super-badass who rose through the ranks on sheer talent and ability and we're barking up the wrong tree entirely. But consider this; Of the last ten Primarchs, every single one of them has come from one of these six Families but yet there are nearly two hundred Clans. The Primarch can select anyone to succeed them but by-in-large it has been someone from the military with only a few exceptions."

"And these six also control a lot of the different Clans, don't they?"

It was a guess but it was a good one on Lae's part and she nodded, "Very good guess. What we're looking for though isn't so much to confirm my theory but to fill in the missing gaps. Anything at all on the Betrayer's history or even the history of the Hegemony during that period. I've gone over it again and again and its all just a little too sterile and plain. For a hundred years nothing significant happens and then there's the Betrayer and then a hundred years - or so - until things get interesting again. Fuck all of nothing. But there were things happening. I got in touch with our friend Fz'Rnth'Zp'Ltn'Sjn and she sent me a copy of a Feknarthi history primer. Its stilted, of course, but during those missing two hundred years there are still plenty of references to the Hegemony that give a glimpse into what was happening. And it certainly wasn't a vacuum..."

A box blocked her path and Deania shifted it aside to find the arrowhead shape of a female Therian's face looking back at her. There was a moment of silence and then the woman spoke, "No. Just as you might expect, there was a significant period of strife leading up to the appearance of the Betrayer. No random event was it but the inevitable result," she pulled a book up out of the darkness between herself and the stack which she was now leaning against and cracked it open, turning the pages to face them, "Of a struggle for power. Now, why are you interested in this particular segment of our history?"

"Was the Betrayer the first of what continues to happen now? Or was it a separate incident?"

"Ah! Well," the Therian looked up at Timmons with her eyes slit and a small smile on her face, "That very much depends on who you ask..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Apogee, GEC-99791B (Alice) Orbit...

"Normally we wouldn't operate an experimental vessel this far into the two hundred year zone," Captain Brown explained, referencing the enormous expanse of stars between the consolidated Republic fringe and its opposite in the Roanian Empire. Alice was, as had been noted elsewhere, well forward of the mid-point of the point where the Radiant Empire would be expected to colonize given normal conditions but just where the Unconquered Sun felt it could reasonably surge ahead and limit that same expansion. It was all political bullshit, of course - judging where either civilization would be in two centuries was effectively impossible. The Republic had been a single entity for less and the Empire had gone through its own share of expansions and contractions over the many millennium of its existence.

"But the VASSLA platform is fundamentally safe from prying eyes. I'm sure they're interested but without a hands-on look..."

VASSLA - Variable Aperture Synthetic Sensor Lattice Array - was a next-generation sensor system that the Captain was in charge of both testing and guiding the development of. Built into the secondary hull of the itself-experimental Apogee-Class, it as well as the starship were seen as a next-step in the Republic's long-term information warfare strategy. It wasn't a strategy based on conflict with another star-state but rather with itself; The amount of information gathered by the Exploration Command was nearing the level of unusable due to the sheer volume of clutter that was swept up. Even with many hundreds and even thousands of AI continually working on the pile it frequently took gut-instinct hunches to pull anything useful out - as well as a lot of hyphens.

"You're just a stripper with all her clothes on," Lieutenant Commander Huang finished, cupping her hands under her chest and pushing her back out with her lips in a pout, "Tease, tease, tease."

"A... colorful way to put it, yes. But that's not why we're here. VASSLA incorporates a lot of advancements that were made as part of the development and deployment of the TRIPWIRE array and the perfect situation for testing it is right here. A mix of explored and unexplored space with a fair amount - but not too much - traffic through it by various powers. From here we can use both the existing survey data, the TRIPWIRE array, and relay data from the ships on survey assignments to verify and improve what VASSLA is able to gather. The key to the whole system is that the TRIPWIRE feature set will allow a crew to rapidly identify pertinent data rather than sifting through it and crossing their fingers."

"Which sounds... Fascinating," Janice yawned, leaning back against one of the bridge consoles. "Really. You know I once killed a half-dozen Sessool warships single-handed?"

"It was three, and yes."

"So I'm not really looking for a post on a fancy sensor platform. I'm looking for some action! Some new action," Ideally the kind of action where she could jump her Velveteen Commando up to Republic Elite standards and go hunt down and kill some bad guys, which was the Captain's next point; "And VASSLA will help us find that action."

His misdirection didn't entirely hid the fact that he was perturbed by the younger officer's clear rejection of the offer to join his team. By her personnel file the young woman was a versatile and unconventional problem-solver with a bit of a mouth and a crass personality as her personal pitfalls. He hadn't made the trip purely to recruit her of course - the opportunity had just happened to cross his desk when he was reviewing the ever-present mountain of paperwork. That he would have, in her position, leapt at the chance to work on such a bleeding-edge system was a bit of a disappointment. It was still a situation that might be salvaged however, as well as offering her a chance at some seasoning that was in clear dire need.

"For instance, we've already been able to use the array to track down a group of raiders that have been preying on the automated freighters servicing several start-up colonies in the closer regions of the expansion zone and track them back to their source. The problem is that their source is a planet with more than a little potential interest to us." He turned to the Communications Officer and nodded, the Lieutenant on duty pulling up the pertinent data and projecting it onto the bridge holosphere.

By the coordinates, the system on display was much closer to the Republic's nominal borders than GEC-99791 and located conveniently between the several colonies that had been targeted by the raiders. Space being as vast as it was, 'in between' still covered an enormous volume but the Captain went on, "Do you remember the situation with the Ju-Docri when the Ares System was settled?" A look of understanding and he went on, "Something similar here. The civilization in this system is just starting to push out into the galaxy after recovering from some kind of collapse. We're still working on the details, but its left a gap in..."

"What do they look like?"

A humanoid appeared at the Lieutenant Commander's interruption and she walked around the floating image while the Captain continued anew, "A gap in their society where opportunists of this sort can emerge. Fleet doesn't want to rush in guns blazing - they are very close to establishing diplomatic relations - but the situation is too fractured for them to deal with. This is something where we can leverage our technological edge to take care of the problem as well as put ourselves in good graces with the locals."

"Right!" Janice was liking what she saw, though for the moment she was only focused on the image in front of her. There was something almost reptilian and nearly draconic to the species; With light purple skin mottled with the softened remnants of scales, still-pointed canines, and tapering ears as well as a pair of sweeping metallic horns, they reminded her of the demonic in their appearance. Dimly glowing blue eyes didn't hurt either and she reached out a hand to run it down a virtual cheek. "Can I take the Velveteen Commando with me? And a murderous Dwarf?"

"It might be a good idea. This operation would be performed under the auspices of Fleet Intelligence; If you, or any of your team are killed or captured, the Secretary-General will deny any knowledge of your activities."

"Fuckin' A right she would... I'm in, like balls deep."

[Sunset]

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

With a sigh of utter contentment, Agent Madison laced her fingers behind her head and kicked back in her chair to swing her long legs up and onto the desk, resting the heels of her boots - rather nice boots at that - on the surface so they were just a few inches away from another pair that slowly rocked back and forth as their wearer alternated between looking up at the ceiling and focusing on the few hovering holograms that displayed the status of various projects and news events. These belonged to Senior Agent Evening who, like the field agent, was similarly wearing the smile only possessed by the cat that had finally caught the canary.

"Bored... And I can stand some boring. A few months, years - what do you think?"

"Six years, seven months, and fifteen days of nothing but boring should be just about right," the plain woman replied, her eyes flicking from a translucent hologram to the contractor who was moving around the room behind it as he hauled a desk into place and set it against the wall.

They say that the life of a soldier - intelligence agent was a stretch, but she was taking that stretch as she pushed her arms high over her head to yawn and curl her back skyward - is ninety-nine percent boredom and one percent sheer terror and both were willing to accept the first now that the chances for the second had been greatly reduced. There hadn't been much ceremony involved when the Lieutenant Commander, her pet squad of commandos, and the free-range murderer had departed on the morning shuttle flight but for the two remaining assets there had been secret smiles and a certain sense of relief expressed in a new-found spring to their step and relaxed attitude. And just as parents who suddenly find themselves bereft of children in the house after the last departure to establish a life on their own, the two were celebrating in their own meaningful way.

For those who had ever uttered the words; "And this is why we can't have nice things," the small knot of contractors who were currently in the middle of remodeling the combination of residence and offices was worthy of note. Something had changed and now the efficient and nearly faceless grey-skinned fellows were rapidly transforming the premises from a run-down building with the bare minimum needed to run the operations on Alice to a reasonable sophisticated set of suites with what most would think of as the full range of modern conveniences.

Nice things, in other words.

[Sunset]

CORE II Fleet Station, Deep Space, Alpha Quadrant...

"Raise your paw if you want new tits!"

It was a meaningless question with no avaliable answer but Janice asked it anyway, a shit-eating grin on her face, as she stepped up to the console that controlled the single score of bio-manipulation tanks that lined the bulkhead. Inside each one and secured by a draping cluster of tubes and cables the furry head of one of her squad floated, eyes alternately open, closed, or comically wide in sudden shock. Each and every tongue was lolling out of their open mouth while their long ears flipped forward, back, or to the side to remind her over and over of a wrecked helicopter with its rotor blades broken and ruined. Below these dangled the beginning of a rebuilt body, a spinal column shiny with the glint of metallic construction and linked to the shadows of bone by tenuous ligaments but it was on the decidedly humorous severed heads that she focused and often with a giggle as she worked.

"Why am I asking you?" Catching her own reflection in the curved plastic she glanced down to her own bare mouthfuls, "Why aren't I in there? This is about self-improvement, right? Not that they don't do the job - or anyone's ever objected..."

There was a half-moment where she contemplated the logistics of clambering up to the top of the tank, securing the donut around her neck, and pressing the activation stud to send her head tumbling into the thin vlue fluid with a plop while her body tumbled to the floor to bleed out while she watched. But as she'd noted aloud to herself this was about self-improvement or more correctly about preparing her Velveteen Commando for their next field action; "Instead of preparing me to get fucked."

By her reckoning - and she had read the dossier - their potential opponent was more than a few steps above the average soldiery on Alice. Entry-level chemical rifles had been replaced by automatic weapons and then by directed energy weapons and self-guided kinetic munitions. For the raiders their equipment and personnel were expected to be of various quality with body armor a standard and powered exoskeletons common among those tasked with potential combat. Against Marine power armor they would straight-up lose but due to the clandestine nature of the operation those had been nixed. Independent action and personal resources would be key and so she would front-load her chances of success by bringing the best rabbits money couldn't buy.

"Which means getting as close to metal as I can get without going over."

Cybernetics and other forms of physical augmentation were common enough among the Pagani that they'd doubtless created the kind of security nightmare that would allow whatever she might load them up with to slip in unnoticed - mostly. They were advanced enough to knock over a few automated freighters but the low penetration of outside species would make the Hauyht stand out like a sore thumb; "Which... I could change."

But there was a twinge of guilt there. She'd already tricked them into the procedure - as evidenced by the goofy looks preserved when she'd mass-activated the decap-o-donuts during a 'training session' that would have been followed by 'rountine medical evaluations' - and the idea of changing their species tickled what little feather of shame she had still unplucked. Then there was the ExoCortex...

Because she was stepping the Velveteen up from an unaugmented state to a cutting edge military level, they would be missing all of the training that would allow them to use the new systems on an advanced level. The ExoCortex would allow them to turn their mental cycles up and substitute speed for skill. If they ran into a trained opponent with a near-matching level of augmenting technology they might find themselves quickly overmatched and subject to the declared denial of their activities.

"And we don't want to end up dead before we can enjoy the side-benefits, do we?"

[Sunset]

SDF-Nocturnal, Deep Space, Ares Super-Cluster...

"...TriLatEral Designs and MilGravCo Military Systems, in a joint conference call, announced that they have completed the design work on a new class of destroyer. Dubbed the Opposition-Class, it is expected to replace three different vessels in the current Defense Force inventory. As expected the first is the Mk-39 Gravetic Combatant;" An image inside an image appeared, a hologram floating beside Tanya as the projected news broadcast also floated inside the virtualized workspace where Katryna and Lomak were waiting for the results of the latest experiment. The craft that floated just over her bare shoulder was a familiar one to both - designed near the beginning of the Republic's entry into the Cold War with the Great Enemy, it was the dinosaur that would not accept extinction, "Which has been jointly designed and manufactured by the TriLatEral-MilGravCo Combine for more than a century. It is a mainstay of the Defense Force and serves as both a heavy hauler and as a weapons platform, providing heavy air support to ground deployed Marine forces.

"And it is really showing its age," Katryna commented as she leaned back against a workbench, crossing her arms and stealing a sideways glance at the archway just to her right. "The armor is outdated and there's fuck-all reason to have wings these days."

"With the second being the much-unloved Tempest-Class Assault Transport. Institutional opposition to the design and preference for the Zephyr-Class Fast Cruiser by Marine flag officers has resulted in that design being shelved in favor of upgrades to the Zephyr - included a now-named Tempest-type variant - and the slow run-down of production on N'Xypndiltn. With the line on Devil's Picnic Basket just coming up and the latest Roanian crisis forcing the complete suspension of production on N'Xypndiltn, the decision has been made to pull the Tempest-Class completely in favor of a variant on the Opposition-Class that will allow it to act as both a heavy assault transport and as a carrier for the Typhoon Super-Heavy Gravtank, a role filled by the Mk-39 until this point. Finally, the Opposition-Class may also replace both the Nova and Super Nova-Class Destroyers, though this is currently only speculation. Expert opinion puts the vessel's armament at the same level as these two designs and improvements in technologies since their introduction may make the Opposition-Class more capable."

"Replacing four unique hulls with one catch-all would also result in significant cost savings for both the procurement of new vessels and in maintenance and upgrades. A release confirming the announcement is due later today from the Secretary-General's office - depending on where your today is - and this is also expected to confirm or deny plans to replace the Nova and Super Nova-Class..."

"Which is going to be a 'yes'," the Admiral finished, silencing the broadcast. "Mom will throw a bone to N'Xypndiltn and have the Tempest-Class production lines re-tooled to produce stock vessels out where the public and our rivals can see them while the MilGravCo yards will start building drone ramship versions. The concern is EHMI, which will be out their contract on the 'Nova-classes and completely out of a government contract for the time being."

El Hefe Militar Industria - EHMI - had been the perfect corporation to produce one-half of the Nova-Class contract; Specializing in cheap and fast, they could pump out a large number of the drone ramships in short order. But this left the fewer manned versions of the pocket warships as something that the Republic military normally avoided: Cheap. Splitting the production between the two companies according to role would result in both cost savings and in notable performance differences between the two vessels as well as a major shipbuilding facility laying fallow.

All of which might have been an interesting side conversation, but it was not the main event. The two were there to once again - and once again after that - watch the automated mold pull away from the archway and then the inevitable explosion-implosion to follow. Her triangular version of the archway had failed spectacularly and the resulting detonation had destroyed it, the mold, and most of the test chamber as well. A second attempt on a smaller scale had fallen apart like a set of children's building blocks with the keystone pulled and this had prompted her return to both a full sized version and one with a particularly occult twist; Instead of three sides, this revision had five with the goal of slowly rotating them so that first one and two sides with Dulyani carvings would be exposed to form the portal, then a slow third with the runes of the Black Speech, and then one and two and finally three together.

"And if this turns out to be horseshit, I promise I will talk to my mother-in-law."

It was a step she didn't really want to take for a couple reasons but there were also several motivating factors in favor of the professional contact. Unlike her son, who was a talented engineer, the mother was a sorceress with many centuries of experience in crafting magical apparatus. That her designs were mostly limited to the kind of toys that Katryna's children adored shouldn't - in theory - remove her from some measure of expertise in the subject at hand while consulting with a relation might keep questions about just what she was attempting from circulating up to the Elentari. Even though there was a noble purpose to it the idea that they were trying to re-establish contact on some level with the Great Foe might not play so well in Vinyatírion; "But here we go..."

Both leaned in close as the many-paneled mold pulled back from the archway, the newly revealed runs glowing a soft bloody red that suited both the realm of ShatterBlood and Arda. The portal had stabilized on the first iteration, the three rows of exposed script resulting in the starfield sky and constantly changing landscape that wept the dark blood of the Dulyani at the edges as she had left it for nearly a day. The first rotation had gone smoothly but there was little difference describable as the portal had formed and much of that might have been chalked up to the mutable nature of the universe beyond their own. Now, however, with two rows of runes in the Dark Tongue of Mordor exposed to their opposite there was a distinct shift. There was something familiar about the gray landscape, something that made Lomak's nostrils immediately flare with scents and memories that lurked at the edge of his mind like the undiscernible shapes and patterns that could only be reflected by the mist but never revealed. Unconsciously his fingers flexed and loosened, whatever long-sought memory that stirred them causing his body to move again in ways he had nearly forgotten. Something brushed by his elbow, lumbered through a sky thick with smoke, shouted words of unknowing command across a landscape choked with ash and fire.

"I will go."

[Sunset]

SDF-Heart of Gold, GEC-79742, Alpha Quadrant...

"Holy shit..."

Announced by a warning chime reserved for Fleet Admirals, a Mother-In-Law, or a girlfriend kept on the sly, Doctor Saryan Brilla's projected hologram appeared on the bridge of the Heart of Gold with a quick shimmer and an eye-watering display of butt cleavage. Facing away from most of the observers, she was wearing nothing but a crisp white cotton thong that split her cheeks like a Georgia peach and a colorfully patterned camisole that looks like it had been painted on over her first round knockout figure. Her hair was a distracted mess and a splash of something across her chest in chocolate and butterscotch told the story that she had been working through lunch again.

"I think I just blew my fuckin' mind!"

There wasn't an answer or objection to her sudden interruption so she continued, bracing herself up against the Navigation station and leaning forward in a way that ended up with her bum nearly right in the face of the Lieutenant on duty. "No drugs either. Well," there was a guilty pause, "Maybe a little brandy. But whatever! So I was thinking..."

"You were talking about how the Druth'Haari or whatever they call themselves might be locking themselves away behind these artificial event horizons as some kind of bunker against the inevitable, right? A way to ride out the Dark Ages;" That was the prospective era in which all black holes had evaporated and the universe was nearing either complete heat death or the reversal into the Big Collapse, "So that their civilization will continue into the next iteration of the universe. But our universe has only been around for thirteen and some odd billion years. They've got a lot of time left to prepare... But what if they've already prepared?"

She turned dramatically - nearly whacking the poor officer across the face with her behind and then driving him to distraction as she settled her rear end onto the station with her confection-dripped chest as the next object of reference - and tossed her hair with a sticky hand to continue, "What if we're not seeing their preparations but the results of those preparations? What if the Druth'Haari aren't from this universe but the one before it? They've already survived one round and now they are rebuilding their civilization with these white holes?!"

"Hey, look, a puppy!"

There was a half-moment as the Lieutenant's eyes left her breasts to shoot around the room searching for the source of the oddly authoritative voice that had suggested there was some kind of cute animal loose on the bridge of the starship but the Doctor ignored it, "Hey, stop that. Which means I gotta be onto something, right?"

"No. Puppy!"

"Bullshit! So these singularity bunkers are designed to let the crystal people ride out the big collapse or rather the last big collapse fourteen billion years ago. Doesn't seem a long time if you've already survived the death of your own universe. But how do they keep the Big Collapse from affecting them? A black hole isn't going to stop an Alpha Singularity from forming. Omega? Either one, really - time being cyclical. Maybe." She paused and her face screwed up into an odd expression and she looked around until, just over her shoulder, she caught sight of a particularly shimmery patch of nothing but air, "Is it? Has it ever looped back on itself? Or are we just looking at a repeating pattern that began somewhere we don't quite understand yet?"

There was no particular answer from her unseen interrupter and so she went on, "Yeah, fuck you guys. Not really my point anyway. My point is that a friend of a friend who might be named Katryna told me about this experiment she's working on with this weird artifact that links our universe to another universe that has somehow created itself by manipulating the holographic boundary conditions of that universe before it was formed as a sub-set of our universe. Really far-out stuff, but that got me thinking - what if the Druth'Haari used the energy and matter generated off of their artificial event horizon to alter the boundary conditions of this universe inside of their black hole bunkers? The problem with altering a whole universe is that you'd need all the energy available in the universe to do it and you're not going to be able to access that energy without an Alpha of your own. Unless you shrink down the size of your universe. After all..."

Glowing characters began to appear out of thin air as she traced her finger along, constructing complicated mathematical formula out of nothing more than photons, "A lot of the physics you'd need to be able to manipulate in order to construct an artificial event horizon of that magnitude are also shared with what you'd have to be able to change to create or alter the boundary conditions. Or create a white hole, for that matter. So you use one to create the mass of sub-atomic particles that you'd need to do the other as well as create a boundary for that change that will keep you safe on the inside while the universe goes to crap on the outside. And now that you're safely through," she stood and turned to look at the main display where the planet below spread out in a broad curve, "You can go about the business of creating a new batch of people to go through the next round with you so things don't get boring! Speaking of boring," she looked over her shoulder to the Commander Chair and the amazed looking Commander who sat there, "You don't look familiar. Where is everyone?"

In fact there was no one on the bridge that she recognized; Captain Waretram and Doctor Tithral were gone and all of his usual cadre of officers had been replaced by a fresh-faced set that seemed a little bit less seasoned. Enough that they'd let a half-naked hologram rant on about some esoteric matter of physics and the universe without interrupting to ask just who she was or what she was doing there.

"They're all gone, Ma'am," the Lieutenant looked up from his astute study of her closely-encased chest to make eye contact, "Down to the surface. We activated the DIECA and got a response so they went down to the surface to investigate. They've been down there a few hours," and he pointed to the holosphere where a tactical map of the area showed a cluster of dots that represented the spread-out landing party.

"Well fuck me..." Saryan sighed and then her eyes followed the Lieutenant's - which had started to drift lower again - and she cocked an eyebrow with half a smile forming on her lips, "Maybe?"

[Sunset]

Republic Consulate, Feranos Super-Arcology, Mirayn-Three (GEC-202029C)...

"Oh no," Meli groaned, pulling her fingers down her face to tug at the neckline of her turtleneck in a bizarrely uncharacteristic show of nervous anticipation, "Not this guy!"

"This guy?"

Janice - Lieutenant Commander - Huang looked up from the sealed case she was examining in a casual effort to plumb the depths of the luggage therein and followed the Dwarf's gaze to nothing more spectacular than a thin crowd of Pagani going about their business. The consulate had only recently been established and there was still a steady trickle of tourists who had little more interest in the goings-on than to see the strange looking off-worlders. This was the kind of traffic that the Triumvirate thrived on and where interested eyes fell on some bit of displayed arcanery or talked behind a veiling hand to a companion a smiling face was there to answer a question or introduce the curious to some world beyond their experience. It was in fact only the corner of an upper gallery where there was any notion of stability and this was where the junior officer and her picked sub-lieutenants lingered along with the sturdy Meli. A doorway behind them would lead into the private areas of the facility and this was nearly obscured by a stack of equipment cases and the other required detritus of a change of venue.

"Who?" She turned to check the Dwarf's angle and then knelt, emulating her further and drawing a scowl. "The short one?"

There was, of course, no short one aside from the Dwarf. As a rule the Pagani were just under Human average though their curving horns settled their perceived height just above that of the primates. Knock a half-meter off this and Meli just about came up to Huang's rib cage and if the teasing continued for much longer the Dwarf had promised to remove it.

"No, he was right there," she pointed through the crowd to a blank patch of tile. "I know I saw him," she proclaimed, her voice as certain as death and as nervous as a toddler at the dentist. "Why is he... There!"

She pointed again and this time Janice caught just the edge of something short and black before it disappeared behind the moving crowd, "Who's that?"

"A loose cannon, that's who!" Janice just about burst out laughing and even the two rabbits cracked a smile but instead of committing some atrocity on the three, she began an explanation that was surprisingly forthright, "Yeah, Ah know what everyone says. Violent, unpredictable, insane, amoral... I'm ah good chunk of ahl of those things but this guy set the mold then broke it ahn hid it in the women's toilet just tah fuck with someone."

"Who?!"

Meli opened her mouth to answer but another voice interrupted her, a distinct sotto voce indicating that the speaker was not speaking to be heard but rather speaking as if he had been talking to himself in the depths of his head and that filter that had kept the voice internal had been suddenly bypassed to allow it to dribble over into the real world, "Solid Penguin, of course. An elite agent of the Republic of Sunset, the operative had been dispatched by the hand of the Secretary-General herself to ensure that the system would find itself under the sway of the Republic. But he was not alone; Statuesque but reckless, the young and self-assured Lieutenant Commander Huang of the regular Defense Force had been similarly assigned. The immediate question in the hardened agent's mind was whether their objectives would align or, as he feared, end up at odds. Such a confrontation would have the most unpredictable outcome thanks to the presence of one of the more fearsome operatives of the Republic intelligence apparatus known as Anathema; The Dwarf Meli."

Janice turned to Meli, who rightly shrugged before turning back to the Penguin. Unknown to her but known to us she was in fact an arm of that secretive organization but the question of just how the headband-wearing avian knew that detail went unanswered as he continued to narrate their situation.

"Introducing himself as a diplomat in the Scolopendran Diplomatic Service," he put out a flipper and the two shook it weakly, staring at him in utter bemused amazement, "He set about divining their personalities beyond what was listed in their dossiers. A charming smile and he slid his beady black eyes down the granite body of the buxom dwarf and up the lean lines of the Commander with the intention of using erotic interest to break the ice. A glance, then two, and he caught the eye of the Dwarf and asked her name though he was already well-aware of both her moniker and her occupation. Her chest swelled as she answered, clearly intrigued with his offer. Fabric stretched alarmingly and..."

"Meli, murderer."

Her hand shot out like a bullet and he squawked once as her solid fingers closed around his throat, lifted him off the ground, and shook him vigorously. A pistol of an odd character appeared in his hand from some hidden pocket - where, under the feathers, it was never to be determined - but she swatted it away with a speed that sent it spinning across the floor to near the edge of the gallery before one of the bunnies stopped it with a casual paw.

"What the fuck do you want? What are you doing here?!"

Corded muscles tight with rage, her thick arm swung him back and forth and he squawked again while his cheeks went somehow red as he flushed, "As promised, she was just the kind of firecracker he needed. Lust stirred in his loi..."

"The fuck did you just," feathers flew as his aqua-dynamic form slammed into a wall with enough force to rattle his teeth and raise the attention of some of the nearby Pagani, "Did you just say? Stirred in his loins? I'll stir you right through the bulkhead!" One, two, and three heavy thumps and she dropped him on his feet which instantly collapsed to put him on his butt and staring up at her as she stood over him. Glaring down at him over the tremendous swell of her just-referenced chest, her nostrils flared and there was a pause in his eye, "Say it again. I dare you."

"I..." The sotto voce was gone but there was a moment where he was about to fall back on the chosen identity before some glimmer of sanity won out. "Sorry," he pushed himself to his feet and ran a flipper down the back of his head, pushing his feathers back into place. "Solid Penguin, Republic Intelligence. I just wanted to make sure you knew I was in the neighborhood and that we'll be operating on the same turf, different objectives. No crossed wires and all that. I'm here to," and he glanced around before lowing his voice again, "Make sure that Mirayn ends up in the Republic's pocket. I'll be checking into any rumors of involvement by other powers, that kind of thing. Pleased to meet you."

"And you," but her pleasantry earned Janice a sharp elbow in the kidney; "Don't be nice to him! He's crazy!"

"No! I mean," he turned a flipper behind him and shifted along the wall and out from under the menacing breasts of the taller metaHuman. "It's just an act, a facade. Keep people on their heels, you know? Anyway, nice to meet you and if you could just hand me that," he stuck out a feathered hand that neatly merged with the avian wing it was attached to, "I've got to get going."

With a nod from Janice, the rabbit scooped up the pistol and handed it to him barrel first before it once again disappeared. With a backwards shuffle and an attempt at a wave, he disappeared through the crowd towards the door and the pair turned to look out the window behind them to where the curved entryway opened onto the street. A short figure emerged, raised an even smaller limb, and the Pagani equivalent of a taxi dropped out of the steady stream of air traffic that criss-crossed the vast open interior of the arcology. Turning to look up at the window where they stood Solid Penguin tossed them a salute before ducking inside, the door sliding down behind him. Rising skyward, it sought the tides of traffic for only a moment before erupting in a massive fireball that pulsed outward for a moment before the shock wave hit the building and shoot the windows.

Pagani and their hosts raced to the windows and doorway while those who had by chance been looking out over the antique shop landscape of the arcology stood with their eyes wide in shock. Smoke followed the flaming wreckage to the ground and scrap metal sprayed before a single tire, flames licking at the rim, rolled out of the inferno to topple just at the entrance. Sirens wailed in the distance and there was a general rush to the street except for the odd couple on the upper gallery; "Faked his own death."

"Yerp - Called it."

[Sunset]

Derhalli, The Therian Hegemony, Alpha Quadrant...

"For those of us who were on the outside, the appearance of the Betrayer is as obvious as looking back and finding one's tail." The smile grew a little smug and the Therian, who had introduced herself as Phep of Family Kseidu, emitated just that gesture though the stiffness of the reptilian's neck prevented her from catching more than a glimpse of it before it swung out of sight again.

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty," Timmons supplied the Human version of the same analogy, though his tone was a bit more wary and he did not stop to explain the full meaning. She seemed a bit too self-assured for his liking and her instant proclamation led him to believe that this might have been just as much to do with Family rivalries than any point of fact. It was, however, up to the woman to prove her case and thus he did not interrupt fully but let her continue.

"As you say. But just as we can glimpse our tail, we know where that tail leads and it is always back to ourselves - or in this case to the constant rivalry between the six Great Families. Your point is correct, young..." She looked at the Seeker until the Duab'Akii returned the prompted; "Deania."

"Deania. Yes, the Hegemony is ruled by the military but they do not build the ships, grow the food, raise the children, or write the books. These are the province of the Families and thus there is a balance of power between the two - but not always," she smiled, her teeth showing through her thin lips. "But not always. In the two centuries before the Betrayer and the Exile of the Kinslayer Clans, the Hegemony had experienced an unprecedented period of external peace. Few worlds were added to our domain and few threats loomed to distract the Primarch from the games of politics. With each generation the Primarch grew richer as the Families enriched them through bribes and gifts and as the Primarch grew wealthy so did the Families as lavish military contracts were steered their way. This was in fact when the six Great Houses arose; Before then most of the Families were equal with those who stood out only doing so as they waned."

It was the four Explorers' guess that Kseidu might have been one of these, but she went on; "This led to intense rivalry as the six struggled to become the one - the one Family that would put a Primarch on the Chair generation after generation. It is only a testament to the traditions held close by the Clans that this has not come to pass. But the Betrayer was the most overt attempt by one of the six to bring this to pass. However, as much as I would blame Family Derhalli for the decline in my own Family's fortunes, they are not to blame."

"But didn't the Betrayer come from Derhalli?"

Phep shook her head in answer to Trinya's question, "No. But yes - she came from this world. But those many years ago this planet was known as Derhalli-Qanula and was shared between the two as well as a host of minor families. It is, in fact, the actions of the Betrayer that led to the complete takeover by Family Derhalli. Many of Family Qanula followed their mother - no bold young clutchling was she, but rather an experienced warrior both in politics and on the field of battle - into rebellion and when the Kinslayer Clans fought the Betrayer and her forces in this system the damage to Family Qanula's holdings was so extensive that Derhalli was forced to take them over before the planetary infrastructure collapsed."

"Were they," Deania asked, "That almost smells of conspiracy to me. The Kinslayers fight the Betrayer in a civilian area and Derhalli benefits. The Great Houses control many of the Clans through the warriors they supply and train - did they control the Kinslayer Clans as well?"

"Ah! You get into the deeper questions, young one. Yes, though not completely. Then as now their top leadership was a mixture of individuals from the Great Houses but that does not mean they were without influence. To the Clans as they sit now, the Kinslayers were noble warriors seeking to maintain the honor of the Primarch and the traditions of the Hegemony and that may very well be the skin that they wore - and still do. But scratch off some scales and I think you will find that the Betrayer and the Kinslayers were not so far apart as they might claim today. It is entirely possible that if the Betrayer had not acted first, they would have forced her to do so by hedging Family Qanula out. That does not justify the Betrayer's actions..."

"But it helps us to understand them," Commander Timmons agreed. "So, if these were the events that led up to the Betrayer and the Exile, are these intra-Family struggles still going on today? Is that the real source of the 'mysterious' betrayals and attacks on the military by their own?"

"Ah, is this what you are investigating? Why you have come to my small shop rather than to one of the libraries hosted by the Great Houses? Hoping for the unvarnished truth? Stories of these events have escaped the confines of the Clans from time to time; Ships gone rogue to suddenly turn on their fellows. Pirates. Murder. Perhaps," and again that same sly, smug smile, but Deania wasn't having any of it.

"That would have come up in the investigation," she pointed out. "Communications records, orders, all of the records and logs have been checked. Nothing indicates that these random events are coming from an outside source."

Phep shrugged, "Perhaps they are not looking in the right place. If I were to name my clutch on it, I would put this at the feet of the Great Houses. They learned the lesson of the Betrayer - open rebellion will be crushed. But these events could be a nudge in the chosen direction when all else fails..."

Trinya stood up from where she had been sitting on a pile of elderly books, "Follow the money. Kami's mom taught me that;" Her best friend's mother was an executive with a financial services company, "Taught me that if you want to find out who benefits, follow the money!"

"Which could be a much more complicated question to answer than you suggest," Phep said, leaning back. There was the sense that the conversation was ending but she had one final piece to add, "If these orders are coming from the Families, the motivations and rewards behind them must be substantial. As much as I dislike the Great Houses for what they have done;" Or she felt they had done, at least, "The Clans and the Primarch have protected the Hegemony and kept it safe and prosperous for many hundreds of years. They have done that on a tradition of honor, valor, and prowess that is seen as unshakable by the common citizen. Risking that for little gain would not serve the Great Houses."

The big Explorer was the first to move, Timmons rising to his feet and heading for the door, "Come on. Let's ask two questions about two Captains..."