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

[Sunset]

Arrival Three, Chains of Jade, Ares Super-Cluster...

"Is it a test?" The Solonic answered with a shrug, "Of course its a test. So was that. In fact, most of this is a test," he turned to look around, taking in the entirety of the model settlement in one long circuit. "Many different tests, but not just for us but for you. Yes, you could just tell us what your skills are, where your abilities lay, and what the particular advantages or disadvantages your species might hold over the baseline are, but the Humans have an appropriate saying in their culture; Actions speak louder than words."

The refugee who had stepped forward with the question she had thought so simple nodded, "So what should I do?"

"That too is a test. Are you a leader or a follower? Neither is particularly a wrong answer - a good follower is just as useful and important as a good leader and you can't have one without the other, but again, I can ask..." Stepping over to one of the pre-built homes that stood in a wide circle around the central park that they occupied, he indicated first it and then the lot next door. "But most people would like to imagine themselves to be leaders. It's a very natural aspect of many species biology. Those who lead secure the best mates and have the best potential to pass along their genetic traits and thus - possibly - improve their species as a whole. It was the same with my species until our post-biological transition;" Which explained his brushed metallic exterior - many assumed the Solonics to be robots until they revealed their obvious sapience, "And we transitioned to an egalitarian system based rationally on our particular totem animal and their importance."

The crowd looked at him as though he'd grown a second and a third head.

"Ah. Sorry. An attempt at humor. In my culture we adopt certain of our native animal species as our personal totem or guide. They typically fit either what we see our personality or what we would like to become. My personal totem does not, apparently, have a very well-defined sense of humor. But as you can see here, we have two different houses. This one has already been finished and this one is waiting construction. All of the pieces are there - they just need to be put together in the proper way."

In fact, nearly half of the houses were similarly laying in pieces on their particular foundations and ready to be assembled. When complete they would be a simple two-story rectangle with a solid wall that faced the circle on one end and a U-shaped wall on the other while the space between was filled with two enormous sections of aluminum-framed glass. This was laid out in squares and rectangles as well and judging by those houses already completed could be assembled into a variety of different configurations to give each some individualization. Inside they were a mixture of Modern and Japanese design with wooden floors undoubtedly composed of some synthetic laminate and mats both thick and thin that could be used as bedding. A kitchen with all the modern appliances carefully worked into stylish cabinets filled the lower level of the 'U' while the upper was accessed via a floating staircase and could be used for anything imaginable. Faux paper screens in tracks could be used to block the windows for privacy or turned to create several rooms out of the large main living area.

"Are you a leader? Put together a crew to assemble your homes. Are you a follower? Follow the leader's guidance but make sure the house doesn't fall down when you're done."

The woman spoke up again, "But what about that?" Her tone carried a particular accent that indicated she was from one of the derelict civilizations that had formerly inhabited the Beta Quadrant which could only follow as the Onager that had brought them to Chains of Jade had departed not twelve hours ago from Notch, the Republic's eastern-most colony in that quadrant. Only a few of the refugees who seemed to arrive on a daily basis chose to remain there; It was a harsh and arid world outside of the single center of civilization with most of the unskilled labor going to the mines where the planet's signature product, Ster-X, was extracted. "That's no house."

"It is a garden," he agreed, leading the group behind the completed house. "Soy, mostly, though there are some other plants as well. Soy is a complete protein and will sustain most of you without need for additional nutrients. Everything you need in one convenient package."

Except that if they wanted their meals to be anything beyond bland or perhaps toasted they would need to grow herbs and spices, grains for carbohydrates, or chickens for meat. That too was a test, as were the limited sample of Syn seed that was innocuously included in the mixture. That was a gift and a lure left by the company that had sponsored the refugee community; Those who were able to grow the valuable spice would find themselves with a secure job growing and harvesting it while those who realized its value might find themselves with a job in sales. Beyond that there were many more tests and opportunities hidden through the circular compound. While the planetary constabulary was there to keep the peace, there were no drones to maintain the roads or cut the grass. A simple success would be to see to the tending of one of these to the betterment of the community but someone with a bit more savvy might import those needed drones - or make arrangements to begin manufacturing their own.

"And if we don't want to live here?"

The Solonic shrugged; That too was a test.

[Sunset]

Katryna's Office, Special Projects Research Tower, Landoor City, Terra Incognito...

"So what've you got for us today, Q?" Amaril asked, leaning back against one of the workbenches that dotted his wife's office-slash-workshop. His arms were crossed and he wore an expression of expectant interest on his slim Elven face but while he'd been expecting yet another dog-and-pony show from one of the junior engineers he instead got a shocked expression and a startled; "...how, how did you know?!"

The truth was that he hadn't. Instead he and Katryna had been out to lunch and when they had returned she'd told him there was a meeting with one of the junior design engineers scheduled for just then and he could stay if he wanted. Never one to keep his pointed ears out of something potentially interesting, he had waited the two minutes for the young woman to arrive and had come up with the old movie line on the spot. She was a familiar face - and no secret agent - and he work had often intermingled with Katryna's on various projects. A bit of humor had seemed appropriate but the look on her face told him he had somehow just stolen her thunder, though he wasn't quite sure how.

If he had been a proper back-home Elf, his next response would have been to say something shitty - as though he'd really known why she was there all along - but instead he took in the whole body of visual clues and asked, "What's that?" in the sort of honest and well-intented manner that let the poor girl know that it was somehow - whatever it was - just a lucky choice of phrasing.

"Oh... Oh!" Her hands clutched at the case she was carrying and she relaxed from bunny-in-the-headlights petrified to only on-the-side-of-the-road fixated. "This? Yes, you mean this, right?"

He looked to his wife with a shrug and she looked back with a similar gesture, "I guess. Is that what you wanted to show me?"

"Yes, see, I've been kinda-sorta dating this guy," she stepped forward and put the case down on the workbench next to Amaril and he looked it over. It had been immediately unusual in that no one really carried them anymore but examining it closely it was what appeared to be a modern-looking hard-sided attache case with a stylish cut to the brushed aluminum shell. A chrome bead indicated where it seperated and the swing handle was covered in a material that had the feel of leather but the appearance of shiny black carbon fiber. There was even a discreet designer logo worked into the embossed design on the upper face and he recognized the brand as an imprint of McGrader-Dougal, which was noted as both a fashion firm and the supplier of the Defense Force's regular duty uniforms. The locks as well were standard-issue and overall it looked as though she'd just bought it from an online vendor.

"I was out field-testing various modifications to the 'Zero - he runs a drone-farm on Anuke - and he asked me if we could make a flying car like in the Jetson's. Well, first I had to look up what the Jetson's was;" There was a universal shrug at the name, buch she demonstrated, producing a holographic video of a grainy old-fashioned cartoon show intro that also neatly featured the car in question, "But then, why not? A lot of what it does is already incorporated in the 'Zero."

"So this turns into a flying car?" Amaril put his hand on the case and then picked it up by the edge. It certainly didn't weigh all that much if it did.

"No. I did the math on that and ruled that out really quickly. The size of the case and a four-person car," she explained, spreading her hand out and then sharply punching through an invisible object. "You'd go right through. Thinner than paper. Nope, this turns into a bike."

Taking the case from him she swung it between her legs and with an Augmented command it shifted, changed, and filled out to a shape not altogether unlike that of the SHC Zero though without the wheels and with a more skeletal appearance.

"I call it the SHC Zero Mini, or Mini-Z. It can still do the armor thing," she again demostrated and was quickly surrounded by an eye-popping explicitly form-fitting set of partial plate armor, "Though its not even close to a 'Zero or a GhostDragon. Just enough to be a power assist suit and maybe hit a hundred k-p-h in level flight. Still, you're not going to do that on foot unless you've got augments coming out the yin-yang..."

"That is neat, but," Katryna - whose yin-yang was entirely cybernetic - hesitated, "It's pretty obviously not an attache case, isn't it?"

"Well, that's why I was a little put out when Amaril called me Q," the engineer admitted. "See, I already thought of that and when I did," she paused and the armor flowed off in a series of cascading plates to once again assume the shape of the hard-shelled case, "I remembered this old movie. You see here James," she put the case back on the bench and turned it to half face her audience, "An ordinary attache. Open the lock like so and you have nothing out of the ordinary - just a typical traveling set with everyday toiletries. Except I took a stop by the Intelligence section and they fitted it out with sensor-black and all the usual goodies. Which, I'm not sure exactly what those are..."

Picking up a portable groomer she pointed it towards a chair in the corner and Katryna's eyes went wide, "Well, I guess I have a guess now." Returning it to the case she went on with the various - and suspiciously familiar - features of the case and its covert contents, "...and here you have a hidden black credit stick comically marked as having fifty million in untraceable credits on it. They wouldn't let me have a real one. But close it up, twist the locks;" Which normally didn't twist at all, given they were a standard biometric type, "And you have your armor suit with the contents tucked up into a little pack under the armor."

"Perfect for the agent in the field," Katryan nodded, prompting a smile from the engineer. "Almost."

"Almost?" She looked crestfallen, though almost perfect was as close as most things got.

"Almost. You know Dr. Thola..."

"The Mecce?"

"Yes. He showed Amaril this idea last month for a consulate card that can use an Eien Node - Extruder, if you like - to replicate an Extension out of the Eien and into the Prime. Well, it was a good idea but we can't very well go sprinkling replicating Eien Nodes around everywhere. Someone would pick up on it, tear it down, and the jig would be up. Plus the cards were vulnerable to the kind of microwave damage that every nanotech system is. Take one through the security scanner at the spaceport and it's toast. But this," she reached out and took the case, "Has sensor black inside and that blocks the kind of microwave radiation that would fry the card. Plus it's already a limited edition - intelligence work only. Some modifications and you could open that case to find nearly anything you need inside..."

[Sunset]

The Dig, Great Northern Basin, Hanson's Kneecap, Parson's Shoal System...

"We're either fabulously rich or in really deep doo-doo," Alwyra moaned, face to the sky as she settled back onto her haunches before collapsing into a slump.

The first problem was that she was already fabulously wealthy - though the dusty dig outfit she wore would have suggested otherwise if not for the designer labels - and the second was spread out on a supply crate hunched up under an over-cropping ledge to one edge of the site. Dozens of stones from sparkling to fractured were scattered without heed to the riches they represented across the recessed surface and it seemed like more joined them every minute as one or another of the ArcheoBots plucked something from the hard clay of the ravine. Thus far it seemed to be a miracle that they hadn't pulled either more body parts or an entire alien spaceship from the ground but it couldn't last. The robots were quick and efficient and a detailed holographic projection of the site hovering above another crate showed an excavated depth of over two meters.

"I'd settle for some liquid assets..." Kedo dropped his pick on the ground next to her and she peeked at him from under the brim of her straw hat. Scooping up a canteen he took a gulp and then poured a splash over his head. Strong hands cupped to receive more and he washed away some of the dust on his face as she watched. "I don't know - there's got to be something else here, too many stones for there not to be - but where is it? Could be ten feet away or a hundred yards up these mountains. Either way we could miss it."

Looking up, she caught his eyes for a moment before looking back down. There at least was one advantage - in the shaded heat of the dig site the muscular Neko had his shirt off and every corded muscle glistened with sweat from his broad chest to the scarred washboard down his abdominal. It was something she'd have to do something about but only later after they retreated to the ship for the night.

Or after lunch.

"But we can't," she grabbed the haft and pushed it upright to haul herself back to her feet. "If we don't find it one of the miners could - and not all of them are going to keep their mouth shut. Can't just close off the entire eastern range either. There's legitimate money to be made out here and people would wonder why. I could call it an ecological preserve, but spot prospecting isn't exactly high on the old destruction of nature list. They'll figure I'm getting greedy and there's something here. Then we'll have plenty of folks coming in on foot and we can't keep 'em all out."

"That's if it - whatever it is - is even here," Keko answered, pointing out the obvious problem. Taking the pick he swung it over his shoulder and looked back to the tireless robots before turning to follow his glance and trudge back down the winding ramp to the bottom. "Might be anywhere," he called back. "Remember the ruins out on the islands? With the bugs?"

"Barely..."

It tickled her memory but only slightly; She'd stepped aside as Governor when the notion of political leadership had proved both boring and likely to lead to uncomfortable questions regarding the origins of her business. This had left the exploration of those ruins to her successor and she'd never taken the time to read up on what had been uncovered. Perhaps it was time, but he'd already done the work; "There were some statues and some murals with stones worked into them. Eyes, the usual places. You didn't have a claim set and apparently the Defense Force soldiers who made the landing after the bugs died figured that out. Whole ship put in a mining claim, sold everything off to museums and private collectors after the science work was done. Nice haul for themselves."

"Is that legal?" But it wasn't the right question to ask, "Is our mystery glove from the same people?"

"Not by my reckoning," he answered, stopping at his chosen section of innocuous dirt. A swing of the pick and a section came lose, joining a pile that would be gathered up and sifted through by one of the ArcheoBots next to a growing mountain of tailings. "At least these fellers didn't have four fingers on top and three thumbs on the bottom. They found some tombs up in the mountains... Not far from here, actually. But nothing about crystal armor or seven fingers."

"Weird."

Grabbing a shovel, she took her own detour and walked up the ravine a bit before pushing the blade into the hard earth. It didn't go very far and she stomped it in as deep as it would go before jumping to land with both boots on the shoulders. This had less impact than she'd hoped and she resorted to chiseling repeatedly at the spot. Any hopes of finding the gleaming surface of an alien ship just under the ground were dashed, however, as she hit a large and very obvious rock after a few more modest shovel-loads, "Blah. So where did these aliens come from?"

There wasn't an immediate response but after a second there was a chime at the corner of her vision and a pending stream appeared. An acknowledged moment later and Kedo's face appeared, "Too far away. Can't hear you talking at me from the living room again."

"Where did the aliens come from? In the ruins?"

"Here. They were native to the planet. Evidence of evolution in the geological record and everything. For whatever reason they got to a couple thousand years ago and then just died off. A few theories, but nothing that points to the mystery glove..."

[Sunset]

Under the Ice, Rime, SEC-24, The Western Expanse...

It was an infrequent visit to an abandoned world.

If one were to consult a general map of the Republic localized down to the Ares Super-Cluster - available in most starport lobbies for the momentary distraction of travelers on their way from here to there - one might notice the dotted yellow line of a trade lane running west out of the Ares Local Cluster and into the southern reaches of the Western Expanse region before finally dipping south into the very northern edge of the Homestead Sector to peter out near nothing in particular. Those of an interest to investigate would find that this was not, in reality, a trade lane. Instead it was supposedly the regular route of a Triumvirate of Yut Combined Services patrol group dedicated to keeping the space-lanes free of pirates, helping those who might need such, and any of the other assorted Good that We Do. For those who did not then get caught up in the various informational screens showing the inspiring pictures of warships carrying the rondel of the Triumvirate on their hulls, the various publicly available statistics on weights and lengths and throw weights (all lies), they might then turn back to tracing their finger along that patrol route and reading out the names of the various planetary systems the route seemed to cover. Some were better known than others with some being nothing more than a catalog number and one of these was the simply labeled 'SEC-24'.

Again for the curious, it would then take someone with a particular background in the history of the Republic and the Triumvirate to remark on the oddity of this designation. Most of the systems on the map that did not bear distinctive names of their own were labeled with the more familiar 'GEC-XXXX(XXX - it had grown over the years)' where the 'GEC' stood for Galactic Exploration Command and more literally for the system's catalog entry in the expansive - and constantly expanding - Galactic Exploration Command Star System Database. Those who again preferred to find their distraction on a long flight in numbers and details could then spend days, hours, years exploring the vast publicly-available database that covered every star that the combined exploration services marshaled under the banner of the Triumvirate and its Exploration Command had ever visited for any reason. Perhaps this too might serve as a distraction and perhaps not, but those who maintained their curiosity as to the oddly designated system would find that the SEC designation was a relic from the earliest days of the Republic and only just after the discovery and adoption of the Printz-Iwamoto Space-Warp Drive before the limited Sunset Exploration Command database was wrapped up into the larger Galactic Exploration Command. Only a bare handful of systems still bore the designation with SEC-24 being just one of those.

Pursuing the matter further would show that the system was essentially lifeless and pointless to visit with the rare exception being those ships who required some kind of sun-diving or solar collection method to gather power for their particular breed of faster-than-light drive. Two planets - both frigid balls of ice - bore the names Rime and Reason, with Reason being the larger of the two as well as the proclaimed destination for most of the very infrequent visits to the system. This planet held the galactic equivalent of the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota; An enormous expanse of ice dotted with rocks and the strewn remains of a freighter that had crash-landed to deposit hundreds of thousands of rubber bath toys across the surface. An oddity and not a very interesting one at that. Rime was, by the catalog, nothing more than a convenient name for a smaller icy ball with nothing more interesting about it than a ship buried under the ice that happened to be the current and long-standing home of a singular individual who claimed an age stretching into the millions.

As the ship was her home, and she valued her privacy, both the existence of the ship and of the singular entity known as the Nameless was kept off the official register.

Inside the ship one would find a winding maze of tunnels and corridors that seemed nearly organic in their construction and manner, as if one were to travel through the depths of a termite mound carved out of a poured cast of oily black metal. Built to accommodate the arrowhead-form of the Kal-En-Vesho, who darted through them with ease thanks to their radial legs and arms, it was an uncomfortable place for those both familiar and not with the vessel. There were no floors, no particular even spaces for the visitors to stand, but rather a joint or the shallow curved bottom of an open chamber broken up by the slender columns and arches that the Trilats - as they were commonly called - used to move and support themselves when they did come to a rest. Far deep in the core one would eventually come across the Nameless as she went about her inscrutable business while her 'male' drones - the Kal-En-Vesho long moving themselves past gender needs - tended to this or that. Whether or not she would engage the visitor in conversation was always a tricky question; She was the last true remaining member of her species with all of the millions of trilats spread through the Republic and beyond being clones based on recovered samples. Thus she was the lone remaining witness to an empire and a past a million years gone and wiped away by the fortunate passage of time. A past where her species created, manipulated, and exterminated untold others for little more reason than a momentary need.

"They were the Sh'Dos," she answered, staring at the hologram through inky black eyes that reflected every surface of the chamber and of the armor that the visitor wore.

"Who were the Sh'Dos?"

It seemed like a circular question, but those who visited the Nameless on an irregular - which was all she tolerated - basis had learned to ask their questions in a particular way. There were some she would not answer because the answers were too terrible and others she would not because the answer was too obvious - and she did not answer which was which. Still, the researcher dutifully noted the name in the growing entry dedicated to the unknown species discovered in the vaults adjacent to the former estate of one Doctor Stephen Ambrose and now a summer camp for deserving youth.

"They were one of the rebel species, perhaps to be counted among the first to attempt to throw off the chains of our rule. They were to be extinguished utterly and I thought my order accomplished but time has a way of again vexing us with our failings. Take care. If you have encountered their species then they may seek your destruction as well."

He seemed to take an immediate interest to the remark, "Why would they do that?" The markings on his armor gave the reason for his interest; The flat gray of the Intelligence services. It was possible that this was the same unnamed individual who had knelt to examine and operate the mysterious console at the heart of the labyrinth but he did not share his name and she had no interest in gaining it.

"Their rebellion was not motivated by the biological desire to see the continuation of their species without the desires of our Empire. Instead they sought to supplant us, to replace their creators as the head of the pantheon. For this they were punished in far greater detail than many others. Tortures both terrible and justified were leveled against them and when we were finished, when we had utterly stripped their species from the Universe, we laid bare their homeworld and made it a barren place."

"Anuke?" It was a useless question. The Nameless existed in isolation as both her punishment for her great betrayal and as her own desire. The name would mean little to her, though it was a piece of the puzzle. Instead he switched to another, producing another hologram while the first continued to hover, "We discovered this facility underneath one of the worlds we inhabit. It produced this... A Sh'Dos," he corrected.

Her eyes narrowed and for a moment all was silent until the sudden entrance of one of her drones. It swept past the man and swarmed up her back, attaching itself in seeming intimacy to her body and placing long fingers against the underside of her bifurcated head. Something unmentioned passed between the two though he knew it was memory; For the eternal Kal-En-Vesho, the drones also served as a way to augment their memories as well as dispose of those they found unnecessary or distasteful. It was an elective ability not yet understood in the Republic where to do the same would require both complex machinery and a trained staff or the help of a formerly insane Gynoid who doubtlessly involved something of the same in the process.

"It is not our creation but theirs. It shares its heritage though - units such as these were used to create vast armies unmatched and uncountable to those of the present. The Sh'Dos have turned it to their own purposes?"

A rare question for the Nameless and he answered as best he could, "They seem to have used it as a method to recover from your extermination. It was buried deep underground and was first used to uplift a small mammal - a rat - into a humanoid form and then to apparently create a distinct sub-species of Sh'Dos for use as a living bio-weapon." He produced an illustration of the technical details and her understanding seemed immediate though he continued. "The effects were contained, and on re-activation of the system the cloning chambers produced a young Sh'Dos, which does not yet appear to serve as a weapon."

"Take care. To rebel against our knowledge and power took subterfuge over many millennia and even then it failed. These could be their first resurrected generation or they could be yet another trap with a purpose long in the future. Do you intend to abort them?"

"Should we?" It was a matter-of-fact question, despite the fact that the young Sh'Dos were clearly well-past the point of sentience and thus the laws of the Republic were clear.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. My kind now spreads among your peoples and displays only the variance in character associated with the individual. Those that have fallen to their former ways are treated as is proper in a culture of equals. These Sh'Dos may prove the same, though in our time the question of nature versus nurture had long been engineered in the favor of nature; It is perhaps a testament to your culture that my distant kin have overcome their nature. Place your few feet carefully, Human. But..."

She paused and the drone detached, retreating without hesitation to whatever dark place it inhabited, and he studied her as she stared at the holograms, "This machine. You know it well; What we create is a mixture of the organic and the metallic. The biological and the technological. The Sh'Dos used it for a purpose but it too may have its own. Such things were not unknown even among our mastery and the Sh'Dos were but imitators - else their extinction would have not been so casually accomplished. Do not ignore it in favor of what it produced or your peril may be multiplied..."

[Sunset]

SNN Nightly News with Tanya Zaldano...

"In industry news tonight, three new products launched today with absolutely no tie-in to what I'm wearing," Tanya said, finishing with a wink and a tug at the edges of her hard leather biker jacket. This had the intended effect of emphasizing her cleavage, as well as the plain fact that she wasn't wearing anything under the top aside from a tattoo that would likely last only until the end of the episode. Fashioned from stiff material, the vest was decorated with buckles and straps as well as an embossed and hand-painted eagle across the back with the wings flowing out onto her bare shoulders to join with another tattoo spread under the leather. Just barely stiff enough to keep her covered, it was still flexible enough to offer a tantalizing glimpse here and there as she moved. A pair of biker pants that might have well been painted on and a pair of heel-less high-heeled shoes completed the evening's outfit. "Well, maybe one," she finished with a laugh.

"First, Silaco Electronics has officially launched their new OmniFormer line. These units are not terraformers;" A hologram appeared showing the various models, which ranged in size from shuttle to small space ship with a universal half-dome design, "But instead are engineered to create a new variant of the owner's civilization to match the local environment. Highly adaptable, they can create the infrastructure and habitation necessary to allow individuals to live anywhere from a tropical paradise to a volcano-blasted molten hellscape and seem, to the casual observer, as if they had been there all along. More than that they can also design, build, and deploy a new body for their owner to occupy that matches the environment as well. In the Standard Edition - SE - this is a robotic body that can be linked to either an ExoCortex or to one of the just-launched Eien Nodes, but the LE and EX models have the ability to create a biological extension that can, in the EX model, reproduce. To accomplish this, Silaco has partnered with some of the hottest names in biological engineering with multiple branded variants available for both the LE and EX ranges."

Stepping across the stage, she was slowly transported from the crisp and model set to the very hellscape she had mentioned earlier until she stood at the pinnacle of an obsidian tower that sprouted like a thorn from the ragged side of a volcanic spire, "The OmniFormer seems to be squarely aimed at the emerging market of those looking for something new and exciting to do. With immortality within our grasp, boredom seems imminent and the OmniFormer will allow those with the money for the initial investment to create their own world and their own civilization. There is also talk that the OmniFormer may be used to allow the Republic and allied governments rapid expansion into unclaimed territory; Colonization without the colonists."

"Next," she reached the crown edge of the pinnacle to find nothing more sinister than a high-end attache case waiting, "Is a new release from Republic Engineering Corporation, itself a well-known front company for technologies emerging from inside the Special Projects Division. This is my personal favorite..."

Swinging the case between her legs, she pressed a button on one end of the handle. In moments she was enveloped in a stylish set of biker leathers that complemented her own with the hard vest still over the top though everything below was covered with tight black leather that shared the same eagle pattern. The bike that had somehow folded out of the case fit as well, with the styling and near-appearance of an old-school chopper with rising handlebars and a leather saddle while twin tailpipes roared with flames.

"This store-able hoverbike comes in multiple styles from crotch-rocket to cruiser and features an integrated riding suit. Just as with the OmniFormer, REC has partnered with some of the most notable fashion and cycle clubs to produce both signature bike and suit designs in a variety of price points..." Steering herself off the spire, she dropped towards the ground only to pull up at the last moment and emerge at the head of a pack of similar bikers to roar off across the blasted landscape. "There isn't much room in the case - just enough for a change of cloths and a toothbrush - but that's all you'll need if you play your cards right!"

"But," she slid to a stop, one leg bracing as the bike hovered in a dispersing cloud of dust, "The last product is only connected if you're really interested in what comes after the toothbrush. SolarLabs has launched a new imprint brand called BabyLove. In a startling coincidence, this product line is being represented by Demi Love, Republic Ambassador-at-Large and wife to Secretary-General Erika Silaco. BabyLove features SolarLabs signature polymorphic solar cloth but with a focus on products for baby - included the couple's own infant son. Picnic baskets that become both blankets for relaxing with the family and play-pens for keeping the little one safe while the parents play, BabyLove features both stylish and contemporary designs curated by the Ambassador as well as SolarLabs new Active Fabric Technology. This allows the fabric to do more than simply change shape and color but also to provide function; Soothing music, heating and cooling, entertainment, games..."

"It's all very cute, but," and she kicked the bike back upright and began to rev the throttle, "I promise you, I won't be needing it anytime soon..."

[Sunset]

Ker'Strel, Sessool Space, The Eastern Edge of the Galaxy...

"Ah ken officially say this is tha stranghest thing Ah've done for this job..."

Poured, dipped, or painted, whatever material clung to the Dwarf's stout frame fit her tight down to every corded muscle except for the gap between her rounded breasts and the triangle where the hem of the dress fell to the middle of her thigh. It was a dress of course, and no young lady looked as awkward and unsuited to it as Meli. A sandy khaki stitched with the detail of many false pockets and with a gauzy off-the-shoulder blouse worn over the top, it was the perfect complement to the tropical forest that surrounded the starport and the planet Ker'Strel's namesake city. Colorful bird analogs called from the top of every tree and building and someone - not Meli - had accessorized her outfit with a flower clasp that pinned a portion of her medium-length black hair back into a braid.

"Everyone has their thing," the furry little creature lurking around her ankles noted. The little ape-like humanoids seemed to infest every port, starport, and trading post throughout Sessool space and it was natural to deploy one of the Uplifted Yabeonn as her handler. "His thing happens to be short muscular women of no particular species."

"Ya gotta wonder wat kind'o hangups a feller who wants his girl shorter 'en him ahn stronger than him could have. Make 'er feel insignificant next to ya but she kin take ya in the sack?"

It was not only her target that had their own particular thing but the Republic as well and here their thing was her thing; A scientist and researcher who knew a thing or two about the technology of the Sessool. The name had come up once or twice during conversations held over friendly drinks as to just how terrible the Trade Princes were and how unfortunate those who caught their ire tended to be. Notionally this had been pursued in order to track down the particular Prince who had put out a bounty on the Defense Force's Commander J'Hira but opportunity had knocked. Doctor - there was something analogous to the title among the learned of Sessool - ScLappi had merely been exiled from the Palaces of the Princes for his failures and while this was cited as the least-worst thing that could happen to someone who displeased a Prince it was a best-case scenario for those with a certain interest in their capabilities. Careful pursuit had traced him to Ker'Strel - one of the least-favored worlds of the desert-loving Sessool - and the starport that served as the only significant point of civilization on the planet while also identifying his taste in women. Outside of the piercing spires the jungles hid little more than the scattered villages of chirping natives that supplied the only export of note.

For those who might still be interested in that particular aside, the planet's native species was appropriate to their environment. A simplistic depiction would be 'feathered dinosaur people' but the Maiorca had the kind of rich culture and oral history that would give any Republic anthropologist a wet dream - if they hadn't been under the pinched fingers of the local Trade Prince. This was an apt analogy; The export in question were the few contour feathers that spread down the back of the neck and shoulders like a crest. Not only were they vibrant and colorful but like many things evolution had so marked, they were toxic but only mildly so. For the brilliant plumage of the Maiorca this took the form and effects of a strong hallucinogenic that would induce a mild state of torpor while the mind wandered elsewhere. Each feather was only worth one or two doses when placed carefully on the tongue but for the true aficionado the source and the rarity made up for the piddling side effect of paying the outrageous prices demanded. Since the feathers did not regrow once plucked and the Maiorca came with only a limited supply regulated by their breeding season and the difficulties in catching the elusive tribesmen the major concern of the Prince was in both harvesting and in protecting His crop from poachers.

"Ahn since Ah happen to be of no particular species, they put me on the job. Fuckin' great," Meli moaned, playing either the part of the wilting lady or feeling it at that moment. The heat of the jungle was insufferable - even to a Dwarf of her stature - and sweat had already begun to trace along the long 'V' of her cleavage to leave an outline visible under the blouse. "Where is this guy so I can kill 'em ahn get outta here?"

"Oh no," the Yabeonn warned with a startled look and a wave of his flat-fingered hands, "No no no. We don't want to kill him. Extract him! Bring him home alive so we can... Well, I guess we'd grill him for information."

Meli grinned at the unintentional suggestion, "Literahlly."

"What do you mean?"

But it was time and she swept the burdensome street pest away with a foot as a personage familiar from the dossier came stepping around the corner. Doctor ScLappi was of an unknown species but of a particularly familiar and positively porcine appearance. The answer as to who would dominate who was immediately answered as well as Meli took her measure of the man. Both shorter than she and with a rotundness that spoke of comfortable living, it would be she who dominated physically if she could push herself to sacrifice for Queen and Country; "...or money, lots of money. Lahk right on the dresser before ahny clothes come off."

The Yabeonn rolled his eyes, "Good to know you're a professional..."

But her personal opinion was essentially correct - the Doctor was hideous. Blessed with a face that only a brick and a hard swing could produce as well as a skin condition that looked as if it might grow legs and attack at any moment, he still carried himself with a confident slouch that said he knew or was someone important enough for the general populace to avoid or treat with some deference. This was in no way reinforced by the tall black and very armored form that followed his shoulder as he passed through the crowd, its laser eye scanning this way and that to fall on anyone who interjected into the Doctor's path for too long. Unfortunately for the Dwarf, that was exactly her job and she waited until the pair had nearly stepped on an invisible target she had set in the street before detaching herself from the wall and pushing past a tall Colythwan to turn straight into his path but running in the same direction. A few overly-emphasized steps in the wrong direction and she was sure he had taken a good look at her backside but she went for the kill-shot anyway.

"Whoops!" A shiny something at her feet caught her attention and she stopped to bend at the waist, "Dropped my neuralizer..."

A scoot and a swivel and when she stood back up she found those beady brown eyes looking right between her cans and utterly ignoring the silvery cylinder she held between her fingers like a lit cigarette. She even followed with a puff of breath as the device worked its charms and he staggered into a willing, "Bluh?"

"Bluh? Nahce tah meet yah," and she stuck out her hand. Prompted to obey her every command he followed suit and she shook it as though she was charmed by the little porker. "Hey, how 'bouht you ahn Ah grab a drink? Raht over there near mah friend with the hydrospanner..." Eyeing the towering robot she swept herself into the crook of his arm and began to lead first the Doctor and the Robot towards the alley where the Yabeonn waited with multi-tool in hand...

[Sunset]

Eastern Mountains, Hanson's Kneecap, Parson's Shoal System...

Raising her binoculars, Kami swept the slope downhill before running them across the valley and towards the next where the faint silver glimmer of a spaceship rested on the sun-baked rocky flats just at the mouth of a narrow-looking ravine. She had amplification of her own, of course - hidden behind the brown irises that blankly stared into the distance while she swept the hand-held unit around and watched the video that filled most of her vision - but the device was both exponentially more powerful by virtue of its bulk and unlikely to attract as much attention as a face-wrapping cybernetic implant might. Instead it put them squarely in the role of casual hikers along with every other visual clue around the pair. Both had discarded their jump suits in favor of flattering pocketed shorts and snug shirts printed with the imagery from popular media on front or sleeve while the sort of super-light hiking packs common to galactic civilizations clung to their backs without nary a strap or snap to be seen.

"Wasn't that long ago..." She swung the glasses back behind her and focused on a cliff face several kilometers back, "Wasn't that long ago that we came through here ourselves looking for something. Wonder if its the same something."

That was her initial theory as to why the Amirah's ship was parked out on the eastern edge of her inland empire, far from the capital city and the everyday conveniences it offered. The sun was edging towards the horizon but there had been more than enough light to pick up the distant shapes of two people and a small host of not-people following them to the ship as they doubtlessly settled in for the night. Running an image recognition on the first had confirmed it was the Neko - they'd met before, and she was sure of that positive identification before it had been made - and on the second had revealed them to be robots marketed to institutions as archaeological assistants with the capacity to act as everything from digger to sorter to documenter. That didn't mean they couldn't have been re-purposed for some other role but they were shiny and new enough to put her bet on the other side of the table.

"We didn't find anything there in our survey," Sloan noted from just behind her. Like Kami, she had been tripping her slow way across the rocky face of the arid side of the range for the past day, slowly crawling across the map towards the marker point of the landed ship. "Everything was clustered around the lake."

To an archaeologist, that made whatever they were looking for or excavating odd indeed. The melt-water lake that had been created by means of an impressive dam left by the previous and long-vanished inhabitants of Hanson's Kneecap was the only local and reliable source of water on this side of the mountains. Certainly the ravine itself might flood during the Spring melt of the few snowfields the leeward side of the mountains gathered but it wouldn't be a consistent source else there would have been some manner of civilization erected there. Instead there was nothing but more rocks and more hard-baked clay broken only by the occasional scrub brush or desert succulent. Even the sand dunes had long retreated from this portion of the Basin to be blown in great shifting waves to the south-western edge. All that was left was the great patchwork of the wind-scoured basin.

"But she has to be there for something."

"More shiny rocks?"

"She's got a lot of shiny rocks." Kami remembered the office where she'd met the Ojeni Governor-select; It was the center of A'iruka Industries' business empire and along one wall there had been display cases filled with both set and loose gems of all shapes and sizes behind glass that looked as thick as the breastplate of a suit of power armor. "Lots of them. Why would she need more?"

"Money is money?"

"She's got plenty of that as well. Which... Hell, adventure? That's what I'd do if I had a lot of money. Or, you know, this..." The only way to know was to put one foot in front of the other, but already the light was failing and she looked to the stars as they were slowly revealed in their glory. "Probably time to camp. Be weird for a couple hikers to go wandering around in the middle of the night."

There was plenty of flat space to go around and she picked one at random to pull off her pack and detach the tent from the back-side before tossing it into the center and nudging it around with her toe so the entrance would face the rising sun. Another hard tap of the inflation controls and the package began to hum as the solar-powered motor pushed air through the hollow tubes that would form the rigid spines of the eventual dome. With camp made, she sat down next to Sloan on a suitable rock and wrapped one arm around the other girl's waist while again casually sweeping the area with the binoculars, "Better have camping sex tonight. Gotta keep up appearances, right? She's probably got sensor stakes out so gotta make it look good, right?"

"Well, you sure know how to charm your way into a girl's pants," but the willowy blonde wasn't at all resistant, as the night would prove...

[Sunset]

SDF-Dogana, Circlet Station-Keeping, Gen Celet System...

"...and data gathered by the passive sensor array left at the edge of the Esti System would seem to indicate that the activity of our operations in the system has yielded results." Several holograms appeared above the Admiral's desk as the mousey woman in the gray-tabbed uniform thumbed through the virtual dossier. "Increased military activity," she indicated one that showed an estimate of the positions of the many warships scattered around the system as well as a time-lapse of their movements, "Seems to indicate a heightened level of alert and several suspicious incidents with a large corresponding spike in activity could be attributed to our operations. That was capped recently with this..."

Her final recording showed a space station that vaguely reminded both her and the Admiral of a tree with its branched docking arms clustered with weapons and various large bolls dotting what could be called the root section, which tapered down to a single point aimed at the planet below. Suddenly an enormous gout of white-hot flame erupted from the side and the entire station began to cartwheel quickly at first and then faster and faster as what maneuvering arrays and control units the station possessed fired in a feeble and utterly useless attempt to correct. Several of the local's diving-raptor shaped warships had been docked with the station and these flew away, torn from their moorings, while one was destroyed utterly as a branch swept it from the sky. Five, six, and seven rotations and then just as abruptly the entire station exploded in a cascade of bursting fireballs ripped it asunder. In moments the atmosphere of the planet was filled with tracing meteors as larger pieces traced through, some large enough to land with notable impact on the surface.

"...which destroyed one of the Este'Ilwe's largest military stations. Since then things have been quiet, but presumably our agents have been laying low."

"Mmm, so where does this put the timeline for a liberation operation?"

"Actually, Ma'am," the woman approached the question carefully, her words even and almost bland, "Recent communications from Fleet Intelligence have offered the opinion and instructions that we are to allow Intelligence operations in the Este System to reach their natural conclusion and avoid any direct involvement unless an outside power prepares to involve itself. If, somehow, the assets on the ground happen to foment a revolution that takes power and distinctly communicates their intentions to Federalize under the Republic then so be it, but Este itself is otherwise too far from our emerging power base in Delta - that is, here at the Circlet - to govern effectively."

Jamie sat forward sharply in her chair, nearly so that she would have sent the coffee cup that sat to one side spiraling away if her elbow had landed any further forward, "Really? So all of those lives, all of that effort, and your chain of command just wants to let things 'reach their natural conclusion'? Which sounds like you're willing to abandon whatever assets happen to be in-system to either succeed or die. Now, I realize that war calls for sacrifices on more than occasions but this seems more like we're fucking around with people's lives for the fun of it..."

"Well, Ma'am... Fleet believes that expanding too quickly into Delta and Gamma;" The Este System being almost as far on the Gamma side of the border as the Circlet was in the opposite direction, "Will represent a crucial over-extension of our ability to project power and secure our assets. Delta is stabilized by the presence of several older and expansive Powers while Gamma is largely ruled by conflict. Its an over-simplification, but we would expect fewer Gamma players to be fully cognizant of the Power status of the Sol-region entities - including ourselves - and would be more willing to engage in the kind of low-level skirmish action that would be negligible in the short-term but sap our strength over the long. Until we can impress on them our willingness to wield a very big carrot and a very big stick, Fleet feels that we will be risking far more than we will gain. Este is, for the time being, harshly ruled but ultimately under the law. If it happens, it happens, and we will continue to pursue other avenues when they open up."

"Mmm, gone are the days of extraction campaigns, eh?"

"Depends on the circumstances, Ma'am. The counter would be the Erae. With the Circlet established as a safe relocation point, Lord Maltherion's Fleet has begun to prepare them for relocation to the Circlet. Setting Three, specifically, which has been largely surveyed by Dominion and Khenalan missions and certified as safe from notable hazards. We're expecting the first convoy in a week."

"That will give me something to do," Falk nodded. 'Mostly dealing with the Menelmacari's desire to get all grabby,' but she kept that to herself. The Circlet was firmly Republic territory, as far as she was concerned, and while they would doubtless try to worm and wheedle their way into some kind of authority position it was her position - seconded by the Secretary-General - that territorial and political control would remain right where it was. "So..."

The Lieutenant-Commander looked at her with an answer just on the tip of her tongue, "So...?"

"Throwing you a curve-ball here. I seem to recall that when Southern Cross arrived, there were a bunch of former slaves crowding out the regular crew. Captain Sloan's ship is still here - what happened to them and what do we know about them?"

Whatever answer she'd had ready vanished in a swing-and-a-miss, "I... I'd have to get back to you on that one. I'm not sure whether Intelligence is pursuing anything with regards to that." In fact she knew that there had been an operation undertaken under the auspices of the Intelligence Service during the Southern Cross's trip to the Gen Celet System but as the Admiral's Intelligence Liason she didn't need to know the precise details other than it had been completed to satisfaction. That it had been accomplished with the additional purchase of a number of slaves - ex, as of their reception into the Republic - had escaped her notice. "I will get back to you on that one."

It was a petty and minor victory for the Admiral. She didn't like the idea of so much death and carnage for no foreseeable gain and to at least make the Service's proxy squirm a bit felt good, "It's not a big thing, I'd just like to know if there were any surprises in the grab-bag my son-in-law purchased on a whim. Thank you, Lieutenant-Commander..."

[Sunset]

The Fetid Jungle, GEC-6677Ca (Yes, THAT GEC-6677Ca), Alpha-Beta Border Region...

"One of the remarkable abilities available to those in my rarefied profession..." Dr. Ambrose paused while a Minion, appropriately dressed in a dark khaki version of her usual tightly fitted tactical vest and a long skirt that had been gathered and tied at the waist, swooped in and cut the offending vine in two, "...is to embark on nearly any undertaking with little if any justification. Vague rumors, innuendo, out-right lies, and purposeful misinformation. All of it likely to lead somewhere useful. Useful to me that is!"

"Of course, Doctor..."

Unlike the Minion - who had not yet been named Mustafa but seemed destined for some perversion of the not-even-subtly racist moniker - that stood ready with machete in hand to clear whatever minor annoyance the Doctor came across in his wanderings, Agent Sixteen followed separately. Picking her way through shrubs and dipping and ducking around both vines and fallen trees, she passed through the overgrown jungle without notice. Instead of his pith helmet and crisp white linen suit, she wore her usual navel-gazing cat-suit but in the tiger stripe camouflage common to the jungle fighters of South-East Asia during the '60's. The skin underneath - and there was a lot of it - was similarly painted and when she paused at the base of some tree or before some shrub or plantation the only thing visible were the whites of her eyes. These darted around constantly and she kept at least one hand hovering above the butt of her pistol or ready to grab the carbine that was dangling off one side of her chest.

"Thus, when I heard that one of the animals common to this very planet held the ability to project an uncommon form of energy for use in feeding upon its unfortunate foes, I dropped everything and took up the pursuit! Based on nothing more than a rumor - a rumor! - that was passed to me second-hand and doubtless itself based on a hearsay conversation between two layabout and utterly shiftless spacers bound to nowhere in particular aboard a tramp freighter. Or overheard in a bar or saloon. Perhaps if they had frequented a tavern - or better yet a pub - their life circumstances would have resulted in a more fulfilling and less ultimately futile and worthless existence but I am not the one to be correcting them on their choices. That would have been better served by their mother or father; As always, I blame the parents."

"Yes, Doctor..."

Ignoring his own rambling for the moment, Stephen stopped and looked up the roots and through the flying tangle of branches to the crown of the tree and where the enormous face of an unknown man projected through the tangle. The statue was gorgeous in detail and depicted the stunning visage of a typically-reptilian species that matched not-closely any one of the many cold-blooded species found throughout that region of space. Both towering sculptures and tangled ruins were found in abundance scattered across the surface of the moon in every environment from tundra to desert and represented an archaeological treasure trove of astounding possibility but as they were not the Doctor's goal he ignored them utterly except for an offered, "Sessool, perhaps? Yes."

It was exactly the kind of thing one might declare when one did not know, especially where it concerned the Doctor - who claimed to know everything. After all, few if anyone had ever seen the Sessool or even a Sessool and thus it would be impossible for anyone to gainsay him. Similarly others might claim that such-and-such had been invented or discovered by Thomas Jefferson, or in the Medici court of Florence, or Vladimir Putin. Since all were impossible to verify it was impossible to gainsay the speaker with anything other than a similarly bullshit answer. Unless one wanted to engage in pointless bickering it was simply best to leave the subject alone and move on. Since Sixteen had no such inclination, she nodded agreement and did exactly that.

Ahead the jungle opened up into a fog-shrouded valley dotted with massive temples of a scale to leave the most jaded explorer agape and the Doctor, who paused at the precipice of a drifting waterfall that fell away into nothingness, standing nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets, "Hmm. An utter inconvenience this. Around or through - we're not likely to find our critter here though." A stone lingered at the edge and he kicked it over to watch it drop into the abyss. Against the distant roar of the water there was an odd ring as the projectile bounced from here to there with a click-clack-chang and then a sudden tremor shot through the valley, up the Doctor's legs, and staggered him until he was forced to put out a hand to steady himself. It found the arm of the convenient Mustafia, "...unwieldy name, that," and he settled only to watch as a half-dozen spires and complexes disappeared into the fog as their bulk collapsed. His jaw dropped once, he snapped it shut, and he chewed on his thoughts, "Well..."

Something shifted again and the entire planet moved, however slight, with the focal point seemingly right under his feet. This time both went down with the Minion dropping to one knee and the Doctor sprawling flat with his noggin saved from a nasty bruise by the fashionably-equipped pith helmet. Square in the middle of the valley the mist parted and one could see the rubble of the former inhabitants strewn across the floor but this was rudely tossed aside along with the very earth as a single enormous spire pressed itself up through the earth to rise soaring into the heavens in a matter of moments. Temples not leveled by the initial quake were tossed aside and smashed to gravel against the sheer cliff walls with untold thousands of years of careful construction erased in an instant. What remained was both older and newer, a delicate arching pinnacle with gleaming cornices capped in gold and silver and both untarnished by age. At the very summit loomed a singular statue, her erotically held face turned up to the stars with uplifted arms to either side. Her body was voluptuous and gorgeous, even disregarding her alien, reptilian appearance. Trailing behind her a tail wound down and through the uppermost levels of the spire where it was tended by a male host in subservient adoration.

"I... Well, My God. That does seem appropriate, yes? Fantastic," Stephen stared, hardly pushing himself up from where he laid still. "Appropriate word. Well, I was saying that it was all likely to lead somewhere useful..." There was a pause as he searched for more words but instead his eyes fell on yet another rock that stood, by itself, alone against the bare stone of the upper falls. With barely a moment to consider, he crawled over to the lone twin of the former and extended a hand and then a finger, pausing just before flicking it out and away and far down into the vale. Without paused he put his head to the stone and laced his fingers behind his head, spreading his legs to brace against the expected onslaught.

click-clack-chang

The world roared. Trees swayed and were flattened in great swathes, the flow of rivers and streams stopped to reverse themselves and find new banks, mountains toppled and valleys were lifted up to the heavens... At least in the Doctor's mind. But something did happen. Instead of the overly dramatic only the dramatic spectacle of several widely-spaced sections of cliff collapsing away to roll away in mighty avalanches rewarded his insightful toss. Boulders the size of small houses - Craftsman, early 20's - cartwheeled over lanes and squares laid down by hands long dead to end their movement nestled up against the base of the central tower while a long tail of rubble stretched out behind. From these openings a half-dozen soaring buttresses plunged inward to cross and then link the rim of the valley to the center with a matching set of bridges that settled into stonework specifically set aside for them. As the final span reached its precipice fire erupted from the woman's eyes and channels were revealed in her tail as the flames raced down the length in blazing pattern to touch braziers at the edge of the high terrace. From there they fanned out to leap from pot to pot across the new bridges until they reached enormous fire bowls at the edge of the valley and these roared to life, the fog that had once shrouded the valley rolling back to the edges of the jungle.

Ambrose lifted his head and then tucked folded arms under his chin, "Fantastic. Just what we needed, really. Another distraction..."

[Sunset]

The Dig, Eastern Mountains, Hanson's Kneecap, Parson's Shoal System...

"And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise..." Alwyra ran her hand along the wall of the shallow cave, tracing the fractured outline of the star-shaped mark on the otherwise smooth surface. There were others as well; All clearly not natural and an indication even to the untrained eye that some violence had occurred here at some point in the past.

"Nerd."

"Hey - when I was growing up, all we had were old two-dees. No holo-reception down in the warrens;" Her mind drifted back to the arcology on Mars where she had been born. Toconao, on the border between Sunset and the Kajali holdings. It was one of the oldest surface structures on the planet, dating back to before the floods that had eventually turned it into an island in the center of an expansive bay. Those same floods - caused by the wholesale melt of the northern and southern permafrost (As well as intensive icy comet bombardment) as terraforming took hold and the temperatures rose - had also turned the unseen industrial and infrastructure half of the aging mega-structure into a dank and humid pit of squalor and misery. Her parents had been edge-of-their-teeth squatters and thus she too had grown up poor with a proclivity for both petty criminal activity and doing what was needed to survive. "If you wanted it, you had to pay for it and just getting your next meal was more important."

Kedo didn't have anything to say to that. His early life had been far more blessed and it didn't seem that she was interested in carrying the discussion further - despite the reference to her past, her mood seemed more upbeat though it had been nearly opposite just an hour earlier. Slaving away at the dig site for another futile day had brought both their moods to their knees and when she had finally suggested a walk-about he had gladly accepted. Leaving the robots to continue the work unabated they had headed up into the relative shade offered by the folding cliffs with no particular destination in mind. Here and there the terrain had been difficult on foot but nothing for the pair - used to the effort of clawing through snow drifts that occasionally reached to their necks - to be dissuaded by. An hour of mostly pleasant hiking interspersed with the occasional climb and they had found themselves nearly back at the dig site again but nearly a hundred meters above it at the point where a thick bluff trailed out from the mountain range to cast its enormous shadow over the Basin.

Who's sharp eye had spotted the thin oval of the cave entrance would be a matter of eternal future debate, but it had been a sudden discovery as well as a useful end-point for their expedition. Not much more than five meters deep and a couple wide but with a soft sandy floor that spoke of a time when the dunes had first begun their long wind-blown trek to the west, the first thing that they had noticed was the oddly-shaped marks on the wall. Where every other surface was the same flowing shape caused by the steady erosion of fine silica on the breath of the air these were the uneven and ragged cracks of tools or explosives. While Alwyra's experience with the debt-miner's trade had been interrupted by her summons to perform for the erst-while head of state she had still picked up enough here and there to know that something was distinctly out of place. Turning from the marks she paced out the floor and looked to the entrance where a draggle of sand trickled out onto bare rock.

"Can't be that deep here, but no shovels but our hands..."

Kneeling, she began to scoop away with first one hand and then both, tossing handfuls of loose sand towards the entrance where they were mostly pushed back inside by the occasional buffet. Then Kedo joined her and together they scraped four long trenches down the middle until his finger caught something under the floor and he pulled it free with a tug.

"A matched pair."

Indeed it was. Nearly a perfect match for the previously recovered gauntlet, right down to the corrosion that had eventually eaten away most of the metal. This too was odd though it didn't particularly strike either as to why. More notable was the damage to the crystal formation and Kedo turned it over in his hands before tossing it to his wife, "There's your stormtroopers. Looks like someone took a shot at whoever was wearing this."

"And then left a few billion in gemstones scattered around?" She compared the shattered crystals to her fist-sized impression of the trove they had uncovered so far and shook her head, "They must not have been gems to them, I guess. Who wears gloves but nothing else though?"

Tossing the glove back, she returned to her digging and it wasn't very long before she too had her reward. Something else kissed her fingers and she scooped out a valley around what looked to be a helmet attached to some kind of collar or torq. Nestled down in the corroded ruins was a single large gem, now free from its setting on forehead or nasal, and she picked it up to be rewarded with the familiar flash. Placing the glove next to it, they poured their attention to the floor and with each passing minute more and more was revealed until nearly the entire outline of a humanoid form had been revealed. Some pieces - a shin here, a shoulder there - were entirely missing but all that remained had been heavily corroded. Right below the helmet was the most important clue; A breastplate shattered from top to bottom.

"They left him where he fell," Kedo noted.

"Sexist. Could be a she. Kinda hard to tell," though her own impression lent itself strongly to a male. The suit - it had to be a suit - had been substancial before the wearer had been killed and the remains left here to slowly decay. There were no bones, no evidence of the owner, and every shred of padding or internal mechanism was long-gone to leave only the shell and the eternal crystals behind. "And now we have a new mystery. Who wore this, and who killed them?"

Kedo asked the question, though it wasn't serious, "Are you worried that they might come back?"

"I suppose not," she sat back on her haunches and then pushed herself to her feet with a groan and a hand just above her tail, "Ouch. Too old for that. But why is there only one? If these suits are the source of the gems, why haven't we found more?"

"They do break down over time," he noted, running a finger along the corrosion with notable results. Even with just a slight pressure the metal flaked and crumbled. "This could just be the best preserved one. Only, maybe. We can have it analyzed," he suggested. "There are parts here with no crystals. Nothing to suggest anything other than an odd bit of metal found out in the desert. Figure out what its made from, how old it is."

Pushing past him and hugging the wall, she went to the entrance and stood to look down at the robots who still toiled away, "Sounds like a plan. We'll leave them to dig though - there's still a fortune under there..."

[Sunset]

Setting Five, The Circlet, Gen Celet System...

Annya pushed her muzzle deep under the brush and shuffled her hind end, trying for a moment to push through until one of the long thorns slipped around the plates of her armored jacket and drew blood, "Yeouch! Well, if we ever find these guys, we'll know what they use for sewing needles..."

"Find anything, Ensign?" Timmons asked, concern in his voice. "Not too banged up?"

If she was, the Shepard didn't show it. Instead she kept nosing her way along the natural hedge row until she found a spot where the spines didn't seem as dense or as threatening before pushing her nose and then her shoulders through and into the lighter undergrowth beyond, "No, Sir. Just a lucky strike," though a sharp whine a moment later said she hadn't been attempting the whole truth. It didn't matter - with another hunched shove she was through and exploring the space beyond with tail wagging, "Something went through here. Smells like the local mammal analogs - a group of them."

As time passed, her sensitive nose was picking up the difference between one group and the next and whatever she had picked up was new to her nostrils though it shared a scent with others. For the most part the local wildlife either stayed quiet or fled from the five but still the air was filled with the stronger scents left behind.

"Could they be our mystery sculptors?"

Annya ran down a particular scent for a dozen meters and then turned around, "Not unless they are pretty small;" Size, and thus brain size, was a reasonable indicator of the chances of intelligence though that didn't always hold true. "There are some runs back here - trails - where they have been back and forth. I'd say they are group hunters... Though we are looking for a group, aren't we?"

"We're also looking for a group with access to iron age tools," Timmons reminded her, calling out over the intervening row. "You wouldn't expect hunter-gatherers to carry the industry necessary to smelt ore around on their backs!"

There was a pause in the conversation as leaves and branches rustled, Annya pushing herself in a crouch through the tunnels that were just a hair too low for comfort. They seemed to branch off at random and circle back more than occasionally, but there was something odd about the scent that kept drawing her further down the tunnels. Finally she came to what looked like the end; A sheer cliff that ran just up to the height of the brush. Dogged determination turned her head aside though, and she found an opening running along the base just wide enough for her paws and this led shortly to a narrow defile and a clear path up to the top. More interesting was a split to one side where the tunnel disappeared into the cliff and again the scent became stronger, "Commander... Over here. I think I smell," she took another deep sniff to make sure, "The station. There's a tunnel here - I think it might go all the way down to the base layer."

Backing up, she turned her head to the sky. This far down into the creek valley there might be only a hundred meters or so of soil and rock before a digger would come across the waffle-ridged plate of the underlying structure.

"Can you fit," he called back. It would take circling around or cutting a path through the dense growth to reach her though the nearest, Lae, was eyeing the thicker branches of the overhead trees with a gleam in his yellow eyes. "Actually, don't try. Don't want you getting stuck down there..."

A mental command and one of the small black drone spheres on his armor detached itself and zipped over and through the intervening growth to hover at her nose. A hologram sprang up in front of her and while the rest made their way over and through, she watched the drone as it drifted down into the tunnels in search of whatever might be beyond. It was only when the others had arrived that it reached the bottom and, as expected, found that the tunnel suddenly leveled out along a floor of gleaming silver unobtanium. The hull metal wasn't so much as scratched though there were bits and pieces of rock scattered around that looked as if they might do the job if it had been any other material. Another few meters and they caught their first surprise as the tunnel widened out into a larger half-domed chamber, "Oh!"

"A nest;" But not just any nest, as the Seeker peered closer. A pile of sticks pulled from the shrubs not an arm's length away proved to be more - a skillfully woven construction lined with grasses harvested elsewhere and formed into a thick mat and it was not alone. A half-dozen more were arranged around the outside of the room and tucked into various nooks dug out of the earth were both similarly-woven bowls and containers as well as smooth river rocks and more importantly the gleam of silver, "Tools!"

But not just any tools; The drone drifted closer at their command and what was easily guessed at became obvious. These were not tools made by any civilization or culture capable of only weaving sticks and twigs into beautiful but otherwise primitive beds but instead those that had likely worked the very mechanisms of the Circlet. Perhaps they shared a different name but pliers, hammers, screwdrivers, and others were all present in their alien forms. Some looked to be the interchangeable bits like one might find for any power tool while others retained their hand usage.

"That explains that," the Commander sat back to put his finger along his chin, "But where did they get them? A maintenance station at the edge wall?"

It was the most reasonable explanation but he was about to get another surprise as the drone swung around to continue its survey. At the far wall another tunnel left the chamber but it didn't go far, instead leading to a silver frame where the waffle-ridge of the surface plate rose up and a hole yawned through into darkness. After only a moment it was clear that the hole was a hatch of some kind and that somehow, despite whatever precautions had been laid, the inhabitants of the burrow had stumbled across it and penetrated into the interior of the enormous orbiting structure.

"...why the hell would you build a hatch there?"

[Sunset]

Edge of the Farmlands, Southern Hemisphere, Anuke, Ares System...

"So what you're saying is that these Sh'Dos could be something prepared by the... Machine? Is that the right way to put it? Something it prepared and deployed with some other task in mind?"

"Maybe." It was a useless answer, but perfectly concise when it came to just how much they knew about the complex just below their feet. Even after his visit to the Nameless, the Intelligence man wasn't any more confident in what he knew than before. "It's all unknown-unknowns. Our source indicated that some of the systems built were so complex, and so aware, that they would often have their own goals beyond what their creators or users intended. But we don't know if this particular system is capable of that or if it is simply a machine. Known in, known out. We're looking at a technology here that not only predates the Republic but possibly this star system. The Kal-En-Vesho..."

"Wait, what?" Lieutenant Lybecky's jaw had dropped and he struggled with the concept for a few moments while his counterpart waited, "Are you saying that this... It's not a ship. It's a huge underground complex. How would it..."

"Come to be here before we colonized this system? The Kal-En-Vesho Empire was unimaginable powerful. Annihilated whole species on a whim, controlled many hundreds of thousands of star systems, created works with their three hands we can only imagine. Moved worlds to suit their needs. Ares is a pretty unique system, Lieutenant. Four habitable worlds with just the right mass, spin, rotation, density... In one system. It just doesn't happen. Our source hasn't - or won't - confirm it, but our speculation is that the Ares System was crafted by the KEV for some distinct purpose. Possibly just a major manufacturing center, possibly as the core of some enormous undertaking - or even just a minor branch of one. Our best guess is that all four were stripped bare during the revolts that brought down the Empire but that's speculation. A million years tends to erase a lot of evidence."

"And Magellan just stumbled across it."

"Pretty much," there was an unseen shrug in his voice. "We find new things all the time. Have you seen the news about the Circlet out in Delta?"

Oddly, the Lieutenant wasn't much of a news-hound and he shook his head, "No."

"Orbital ring around a gas giant. Like the Ring around Saturn, smaller though. Still enough to house billions and billions of people." He didn't mention that there might be more of them; While the Circlet itself was open knowledge to the various Triumvirate militaries and civilian governments the possibility that there were more attached to an unknown gate network was being kept secret until a survey could be undertaken. "New things, big things, all the time. But our source was concerned that this thing," he stamped an armored foot on the ground, "Could have been too advanced for these Sh'Dos to understand. A fusion of biological and mechanical, and according to our information such creations were capable of their own designs and goals. Given their creators were one of the more evil species to ever carve out a galactic empire, it seems a good idea to assume that their creations could be just as evil."

"So what do we do about it, and what qualifies as 'evil' to an underground complex? Aside from dropping people from a great height for shits and giggles, I guess."

"A million years with no interaction? Could just be pants-on-head crazy too. But we're trying to discern the motivations of a construct of a species we don't always understand ourselves, and we live with them every day. If there are even any motivations. It could be that the Sh'Dos programmed it to wake up in a million years, spread their bio-plague to whatever species had moved in to inhabit their world, and then birth the new generation. It hasn't done much of anything since."

"Slap some warning tape across it and hope that the stupid kids next door stay out? Sounds more like we should put back and nuke the site from orbit, just to be sure."

[Sunset]

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

One foot over the back of the couch and the other resting on a throw pillow, Demi laid back with a novel hovering over her and one hand lazily drifting through the short hair of the cat as it slept curled up on the floor beside her. With one eye she kept occasional watch as Nathyn crawled the carpet, finding his way through this way and that until he came across the fascinating toy of the cat's slowly moving tail. A chubby hand reached for it and it swayed out of reach but persistent legs lurched him forward to make another grab at it.

"Do cyber-cats scratch babies?"

Erika looked up from her own place in a chair opposite. She too was stretched out with her stocking feet up on the stone hearth of the fireplace as it gently crackled behind the thick glass grate, "No," Her tone was authoritative - she had built the original model after all, "First they will avoid, then bat with padded claws, then move away. Most of the current model cats don't even have sharp claws. Just a very realistic looking flexible polymer. But if she doesn't respond he will think its okay to pull a cat's tail and there are still real cats out there with real claws. He's got to learn to be nice."

She didn't mention that this particular cat did have claws and that they were far sharper than any normal set. It was an integrated part of the household defenses and was by itself a lethal little killer, able to shred anyone wearing anything but hardened body armor down to the bone. The opportunity to use those claws had never come about and, as she had truthfully mentioned, they stayed carefully retracted in their velvet sheaths. A grab, a tug, and it swatted at Nathyn's hand before jumping away and then across Demi's lap to the back of the couch where it perched to glare down at the offending crawler.

"Just you wait til he can walk," Demi reached up to run a hand over its head, "Then you'll never be safe. What are you working on?"

"Fun stuff. We're taking a trip - business trip," she clarified before the other woman could ask. "The Zeer'Gen are having an Investiture in a few days to elevate one of their Crown-Daughters to the role of Regent. It's biological - they need someone with the right pheromones around or they get cranky. Can't have an Empress inside a Republic though, so they went with Regent. Hereditary Regent will be the official title, I believe. It's in the dossier."

"Which makes you the Empress?"

"Mhm. More complex though. Whoever the Secretary-General happens to be is officially acknowledged in the Investiture as the Head of the House of Zeer'Gen who then immediately and irrevocably places their authority to rule the people under the laws held by the Republic while retaining their authority as the commander of the Zeer'Gen military structure and placing it firmly under that of the Defense Force command structure. It keeps the Zeer'Gen within our civilian leadership structure while satisfying their cultural militancy. I'm sure whoever wrote the ceremonial text loved it - it should clock in at just under an hour."

"I... was kidding. And an hour," Demi flipped a page, "Remind me to pack my flats."

"Oh, I think you'll like it."

"Why's that?"

Erika finished her work and sat up with a stretch before bending over to snatch at the ankle of the passing crawler, tugging him closer before flipping him around and lifting him to her lap, "They will be holding the ceremony in their native language. You'll get a chance to stretch your linguistic muscles..."

"My linguistic muscles are just fine," Demi declared archly, "In fact, you declared so yourself several times last night, if I recall correctly. Maybe I should give them a few days to refresh though. Make sure they are in top condition. What's she look like?"

"Who?"

"The Crown-Daughter. She's nobility, right? Good breeding, regal?"

"If you are into Insectoid Humanoids, no. She was a compromise candidate. The Zeer'Gen wanted the oldest daughter, we wanted the most experienced, they wanted one that smelled good, we wanted one that was smarter than a half-hill of rocks. I'd say she's a seven, depending on whether she's molted recently..."

[Sunset]

Thompson Ring, United Stars Commonwealth, Alpha Quadrant...

"...Casciato," Ambassador Tae Lee nodded to the first woman in line, locking eyes with her for a moment before looking past to where the greater bulk of the man-made orbital ring slid past as the Kangas slowed for docking. He'd seen similar before, but the sheer scale was still mind-boggling even after decades among the stars, "The travel dossier. Key areas are the free movement of tourists, merchants, and general labor. Let Zanardi," he glanced up to the next of his attaches, a towering Therian with a still-slender build and something of a Human smirk on his lips, "Deal with the trade details - its your job to make sure they're able to get in and out. Cover all the bases from UCS visa requirements right back to the Triumvirate model. Absolute clarity is key..."

"Understood, Sir," and she stepped to the side and up to the airlock door while he paused in front of the reptilian humanoid; "Zanardi, you will have the pleasure of tempting our hosts with access to the various trade networks and associations we are member to. If there is any - I repeat - any mention of Happy Happy Foods I will make sure you spend the rest of this tour on grasshoppers and water. Am I clear?"

The Therian nodded, though his half-grin didn't so much as move. Ambassador Lee was apparently not finished - or perhaps provoked by the possible insolence - and he leaned close to look up the man's narrow chest to his amber eyes, "Perhaps I was not clear enough. This is a Republic diplomatic mission. Let the Industrialists do their own talking. And since they are not here," his tone went sharp, "I don't want to hear any of their words coming out of your mouth! You are this close to the edge - one step over and I'll push you then laugh as you land on the rocks."

The mental image of the Therian plunging headfirst onto the sharpest and most distant of rocky chasms was a brief delight that almost brought a smile to his lips, but it was time to move on. Another step and he stopped to look back sharply at Zanardi just in time to catch him rolling his eyes. Two fingers linked his eyes to the other's and then he went on. Fortunately the Therian would only be concerned - at least by the dossier he'd been assigned - with the technical details of trade. With everything from the dimension of cargo containers to the health and safety regulations published by the Federated Segment's Science Section to lay a burden of responsibility across his shoulders, the Ambassador hoped he would be too tied up in the minutia to spend any time on his side gig as a roaming ambassador for Happy Happy Foods.

Small 'a' - very small.

"Which brings us to Lieutenant Commander Steahra. My lovely Miss Steahra;" She preferred the personal title instead of her official rank and if there was ever a more delightful and charming Southern Bell it was she - except for the blue skin, the crest of smooth mineral growth that formed a hair-like tangle over the top of her head, the two delicate tendrils that hung down from her shoulder blades, and of course the four breasts. The Oeie blushed and twisted on her feet and while it might well have been an act it served - as it typically did - to put the Ambassador back at his ease and onto his heels with his hands in his pockets, "I'm afraid I have the hardest assignment for you. While our friend Zanardi concerns himself purely and solely with the technical details of trade between our two great civilizations, you will be responsible for riding herd on our gaggle of civilians. I assume you have briefed your subordinates?"

"Of course! Yes, Mr. Ambassador!"

Unlike the other attaches and envoys, she would bring her own cohort of assistants and aides along with the sole task assigned to many the careful shepherding of their particular charge through the new world of recreational drugs and alcohol they were about to discover. Perhaps it was some undiscovered super-power only available to those of Executive Vice-President employment and above but they seemed to have the startling ability to booze their way through an evening out and then somehow make an entertaining - if not entirely steady - presentation the next morning. The job of her underlings would be to make sure that no laws were violated or that bail was posted promptly. In turn it would be the presumed duties of the various corporate representatives to make their various sales pitches, partnership proposals, and high-level handshaking while Miss Steahra's aides eased the way.

That was all she really needed to say and his only reply was a smiling, "Good, excellent. And Commander Tascono, Lieutenant Wedgeworth..."

The last two members of his delegation were referred to by rank and for that specific reason. Tascono, an older woman with the touch of a French accent that marked her as of Sanglanti heritage, would be the Republic's military liaison and the even-older Lieutenant her intelligence counterpart. Despite the apparent age difference, the two were apparently inseparable and Lee had inherited the duo when he'd been posted to the Kangas to replace his retiring predecessor. So confident in their abilities was he that he didn't bother with even an overview; "Carry on. Which leaves me. My assignment will be general hob-nobbing with Mr. David Triggerman and in-depth discussion of our ability to support their proposed Trans-Betan Expressway in whatever way we can."

Ideally, that would include the inclusion of Notch, the Republic's only major colony in the Beta Quadrant, as a particular stop along the route but much of this depended both on whether the USC would be routing anywhere near that misshapen world. The benefits to the Republic in trade and transit would be obvious, as would the benefit for the USC in having an immediate access to the medical complex that had sprung up around the Ster-X mines, but convincing his opposite? Now that was the trick...

[Sunset]

BD-001 Blud Huntr, Tsubasa Orbit, GEC-9978, The Western Expanse...

Corporal Jadak leaned back in his bunk and tried to lace his fingers behind his head until one set failed to connect and he looked over to realize once again that, yes, there was nothing but a stump where his arm had been. It had been his favorite arm too - his girlfriend hand, as the joke went around the barracks - but both it and the girlfriend were replaceable. He was rich now and the way he figured it he could probably afford both a whole new body and an actual girlfriend to replace the make-due hand. He'd lost it to another one of those damned Kejelkij! Kejelkij! Kejelkij! screaming robots when it had come out of nowhere and lopped it clean off with some kind of vibro-blade. The pressure cuff in his armored sleeve and his carbine had both done their job and he'd managed to come out of the scrape both conscious and with a robot that was only mostly disabled.

"Hey, you!" Rolling over onto his side, back to the window that stretched along one side of his raised bunk, he turned to the black robot that now stood silent in the corner. "Another cleaning run! Major said there's going to be an inspection and he's not going to give me half-points for only having one hand..."

He'd been tempted to order the 'bot to take care of another pressing matter but the jointed hands looked uncomfortable and to tell the truth he wasn't quite into that level of excitement. Restoring the robot to working order hadn't been the trick - he'd provided plenty of spare parts and bartered what others the techs had needed - but instead teaching it Standard. A panel located right where you didn't want to stick your fingers had a factory-reset and as soon as it had rebooted the robot had recognized him as the new owner. In fact there were more than a few of the four-armed units now zooming around the corridors of the Blud Huntr on their conical hover-units as the mercenaries converted them into everything from waiters in the commissary to personal assistants. With the troops relaxing after a pleasant week of pillaging and looting it was now more common to come across one of the robots than a living soul.

"Good work," Jadak rolled over to face the window as the quad arms mercilessly dispatched yet another mote of dust. Outside the half-curve of Tsubasa slowly moved past and he lost focus as he considered what he might do with his new-found wealth. It wasn't a lot in the grand scheme of things but to the right buyer - say the Sanglanti 'Merchants' that frequented the drifting trade ports of the gaseous world below - the assembled loot would be worth millions, maybe even tens of millions. Minus expenses, a cut for the shipboard crew that hadn't been able to participate, the officer's stipend; He might just come out with three or four million. In the wealthy Republic that wouldn't carry him very far but there were places that loved the DiCoin and had a standard of living that would put him at wealthy beyond measure.

"Don't even need to hire a servant..."

Tossing over again, he expected to find the 'bot doing this or that but instead it was hovering quietly just at the edge of his bunk and now staring at him with those cold blue eyes. For a long few seconds he stared back but it neither said nor did anything and finally he broke the weird silence, "All done? Good. I think I'm going to take a shower - why don't you power down for a bit?"

Obediently the black shape retreated to the corner as he half-tossed himself off the bed, using his one good arm to catch himself as he landed just beyond the combined desk/dresser workspace that stretched out under his bunk. Officers would get a real bed on the floor but he was still a lowly Corporal and thus his quarters packed as many things as possible into as small of space as possible. It could be worse. They would take on a new batch of green contractors both here and at their next port of call and they would spend the next three months sleeping in shared bunks until they either quit or an officer decided that they would fit into their particular unit. Stripping off his clothes he slapped the door panel and stepped into the Tardisian All-In-One toilet, sink, and shower. A press of the button and the sonic emitters buried in the wall began to blast the accumulated crap off his body while pulses of warm air simulated something like precious water. Swinging his stump around, he braced the other hand on the wall and relaxed with a sigh as the door slid shut.

Across the room there was slow motion as the inactive robot straightened then turn, first the cylindrical head swiveling around to look at the closed door and then the body following until it crouched spider-like on the floor. Pushing itself gingerly up onto splayed fingers it crossed the space quietly, any accidental sound masked by the deep hum from the shower. Pausing beside the door it waited for again a moment before scuttling crab-like across the recessed opening. It was only then that the blue glow from the hover unit came on and it rose into the air, two hands extending to grab the frame of the narrow door while the middle arms swung back. Panels opened up on the forearms with a snicker-snack and blades pivoted into the open before it stabbed forward in a blur, the two long tapers crossing each other as they punched through the thin polymer and into Corporal Jadak. For only a moment he struggled and thrashed until the life left him as the blood poured down the drain...

[Sunset]

A'iruka, Great Northern Wastes, Hanson's Kneecap, Parson's Shoal System...

"...thirteen thousand five hundred to thirteen thousand eight hundred years. I'd offer a more precise date but," the young Hauyht gestured to his motley collection of instruments, "This is what I've got to work with. If you want to pony up for something better, I saw a GZ7-Y Model 96F Full Spectrum HydroAnalyzer on the market for only five grand."

He was also an amateur and an oddball as well; Most of the residents of the city were debt-labor from somewhere inside Sunset and either employed directly by A'iruka Industries or by one of the other companies that had sprung up to service it. These too were often either founded by debt-laborers who had earned their freedom scratch-mining in the Wastes or Swamps or again in one of the many industries required to support the mining operation. Instead - and Alwyra had noted this when she'd completed her search for a scientist among the city's population - Jor'Dan was a debt-laborer originating from inside the migrant refugee Hauyht population. The records purchasing his debt noted that he - all twenty-two kilograms, soaking wet - had killed three people in a dispute over rations during the trip from Alice to Zee. Also notable were his distinct looks; Instead of the flop ears common to the species he had ears with a distinct kink at the base so that they lay neatly down along the side and back of his head where they were pinned together with a clasp. This gave him the look common to any number of male nerds in the Republic with similar long hair tied back into a draping ponytail. It didn't hurt that he had adopted the black trench coat still occasionally in vogue among that sub-culture.

The look on her face as she stood there hadn't warmed the young man to the possibility of an unexpected equipment purchase so instead he went on, "Well, if you can't do that, I can get a better range with access to the site. This," he held up a small vial filled with sand and dirt she'd scraped from the cave walls and floor, "Helps but the more samples I can measure the more exact I can get."

"It was months ago and we found it when we were camping out in the Western mountains. I just now thought to have someone look at it and I couldn't tell you where the site was..."

Or wouldn't, but she'd practiced the line in her head a couple of times as if she'd been expecting it. It was half-misdirect and half-evasion, though to look at the heavily corroded half-curl of metal one would have little clue of the origins except that apparently he did.

"Weird. Cause this stuff isn't from anywhere around here. If I were to put my guess, it would be from Sol and specifically from the Ring. Like an asteroid impact had knocked a chunk off," he turned and tapped at a display, pulling up a database of different materials and their common sources. In a moment he had returned to the last entry, a glorious image of the Saturn Planetary Ring taken from a side-on angle. "What's left of the metal is from the PTU family - that's post-transuranic - which is a group of artificially created elements more commonly called unobtanium. Very strong, very light, and very hard to manufacture. Nothing we could have done back home. Strictly high-end laboratory stuff or orbital manufacturing. What's weird about this particular sample is that it has corroded. Normally PTUs are very stable and last essentially forever. That's part of why they made the Ring out of them. You can also find them in ship hulls, high-end power armor, some munitions. Very common to advanced electromagnetic weaponry. Railguns, that kind of thing. Around here the only place you'd find it is on the Horizon or the other starships..."

"And they," he looked at her with a grin, "Aren't thirteen thousand five hundred to thirteen thousand eight hundred years old. Wherever you found this, an advanced civilization came through there that long ago and left this behind. And no - I already know your question - it wasn't whatever species was out on the Eastern Islands. Or the insectoid species that followed. They had some PTUs," he tapped and consulted the database, "But not this. A lot of their stuff found its way onto the open market after they died and collectors have plenty of samples to compare it to."

Alwyra looked at him oddly, "People collect this stuff? It's just rusty metal..."

"Sure! Well, not me," he assured her. With no Kedo around and a healthy looking - and attractive, and rich - young woman in his quarters he was gaining in both confidence and thus-far futile attempts to flirt, "I collect fossils. There's all kinds out in the desert and I pick up a few here and there when I'm out prospecting. Would you like to see?"

He was about to try to lead her over to one wall where there was a collection of rocks and stones that might very well have included the ancient bones but she directed him back to his previous statement, "You said it was weird that it had corroded. Why?"

"Because normally PTUs don't. They are engineered to either create a non-reactive layer when they come into contact with whatever would normally be corrosive or they are non-reactive. The exterior of the Ring is exposed to vacuum but the interior isn't - can't have that much surface area rusting. That would be a maintenance bitch. So my guess is that this little bracelet," he held up the curved piece, which looked and had originally been part of the wrist of one gauntlet, "And the element its made out of were created to either only ever exist in a vacuum or in a very specific atmosphere that didn't have the element it has reacted to. Which is Argon. Again, weird, because normally Argon is non-reactive as well so whoever engineered the PTU had to make that particular sacrifice to achieve the desired result. Why would you make that choice when you're already transmuting a custom element on a presumably massive scale?"

"Space or a planet with very little argon, got it. But not here?"

"If you don't mind your expensive material breaking down. For most applications that would be a bad thing..." Jor'Dan was about to explain further but a sudden alert made Alwyra raise her hand. A message and stream was coming through from the executive manager and she held him to silence; "Ma'am, I just had an odd visitor. The Druth'Haari came to the office and asked to see a particular gem. I've got her waiting outside, but Alwyra - she asked to see one of the gems you brought back from the dig."

"Which... Which one?" There were other questions to ask but that was the first that had popped into her head as a shocked expression crossed her face like a tidal wave.

"Umm, the one that had been attached to a helmet? I think? She described it in perfect detail. Like she'd seen it before!"

"I will be right there. Tell Kedo, and activate the security guards. There's no way she knew about that. No way," and with a wave she turned to leave, "Thanks. Gotta run, but stick around and you'll get your full spectrum whatsit..."

[Sunset]

A'iruka, Great Northern Wastes, Hanson's Kneecap, Parson's Shoal System...

Alwyra lurked just inside the elevator door - lurked was the right word as she narrowly edged around the door with one hand on the sensor to peek just her eyes and ears into the open - to stare across the causeway towards the distant doors of her office and the lone figure standing attentively there. When she had ordered the building she had laid it out with an eye towards defense; An attacker would have to cross a hundred meters of luxuriously appointed open ground with the fortified bunker of the office on the far end and under fire from the upper-most levels of the private apartments that ringed the vast interior plaza. Since the intruder had already crossed the open space it was now she that looked with trepidation at the long walkway and the potential pitfalls and perils. It wasn't that she didn't own the entire building but there was a sudden sense of the alien about the woman, as if every ouch of her being was focused not on the door but instead the gem that lay on a crushed velvet display in the center of the office.

As instructed the security guards had been alerted to the intruder but with no specific orders to engage or detain they still stood at their places, the Egyptian-themed robots standing at attention just outside of their armored charging stations with the golden light from the pyramidal skylight shining off their engraved and enameled armor. That at least gave her some measure of confidence that - were she to confront the Druth'Haari and things turn ugly - she would have some muscle beyond her words. Still their utter silence was somehow unnerving as if they had already come over to the other woman's side and now waited for the Amirah to cross words with their patron.

Ding!

The sound interrupted her thoughts and she looked around in panic for just a moment before realizing the source and collapsing against the frame with a sigh. It was the other elevator and a half moment two people came around the corner to stop when they saw her. First was Kedo and he was expected, though the heavy Treznorian stun rifle he carried wasn't, while the second was similarly unexpected and armed as well though not openly carrying her weapon. Instead she was a woman of plain height and plain stature and essentially unassuming except for the holstered pistol now held to her thigh by magic unknown.

"There you are," Kedo relaxed as well, tossing a glance over his shoulder towards the far end, "Everything all right? I..."

"Who's this?"

"She's," the Neko looked at the woman next to him, who was herself focused on the far figure, before being interrupted once again; "Lieutenant Kyong, SDF Intelligence."

Without turning, she flashed up a small hologram for only a moment and while it wasn't at all useful in confirming the woman's identity it did offer some sense of assurance that someone who knew what they were doing was on the job and she went on to explain further, "I'm the agent assigned to monitor the individual - DH2, since she hasn't bothered with a name - while she's here. I was following her."

"She follows her everywhere," Kedo confirmed. "Apparently your visitor doesn't get out much. Just stays at home and makes hats."

"Which is unusual. Not the hats - that's fairly normal in the wild world of the internet - but ever since her arrival she hasn't ventured outside more than a couple times. Otherwise everything is delivered and she just makes hats with her clothes off. Is there any reason she'd be visiting your office," she asked, eyeing Kedo's stun rifle meaningfully. "Anything I should know about?"

"I..." Alwyra paused. The lie came instantly to her lips but she held it back. If the woman really was with the nebulous Intelligence services there was no way of knowing just how much she already knew and what might betray any secrets she still held close to her vest. Even worse, if she was then lying to her would potentially nullify any assistance they could offer if there was a problem. She had already offered that the woman was under surveillance and doubtless she knew more about her than either Neko. "I don't know." Looking past the two for a moment to verify that still - yes - the woman was standing where she had been, she asked her first question, "Who are the Druth'Haari? I wasn't here when she arrived."

There was some vague memory of the woman's arrival but it, like many other recently involved events, had been during the transition period where she had been stepping away from day-to-day control of A'iruka Industries and the political triumph that had quickly proved less than inviting.

"Could be a them, could be a they. We're not quite sure. That's part of why I'm following them. Lots of theories, not a lot of facts;" And some of the facts she did have the Lieutenant couldn't freely share. "Her professed reason for being her is to learn about us and our civilization. An open spy, if you want."

"But she doesn't get out much? Hard to learn about us if you don't go beyond your front door," Keko pointed out.

"Internet. But you're right - she doesn't do a lot of that either. Most of her traffic is outbound streams with people watching her make hats. Again, this is pretty unusual." And again the pointed question, "So, why is she here?"

There was no way to know but to ask and with the two behind her Alwyra straightened her back and marched forward, "Let's find out..."

A hundred meters crawled past as she put one nervous foot in front of the other but it wasn't until she was standing right next to the woman that she seemed to take any notice but Alwyra was the first to speak, "Hello," she put out a hand, "Alwyra Maric. Owner of A'iruka Industries... And you are?"

It was hard not to pay attention to the Druth'Haari's every word and gesture. While Alwyra would put herself as cute and attractive, the woman was downright gorgeous with the kind of hourglass figure that most men and many women would trip over themselves for whether she realized it herself or not. At least she was wearing clothing - a simple dress that somehow still looked like high fashion on that voluptuous frame - but whether she was paying attention to anything but the office doors was unlikely. The offered hand went unshaken and after a moment Alwyra retracted it, "I said..."

"I am Druth'Haari and I would like to view the gem you have in that room. It is a large..." She went on to describe it once again in exacting detail down to the smallest detail to ultimately leave the Neko standing there open-mouthed, "Please."

"Why?"

"Because it is important. There are few things as highly valued in this universe as what is possibly contained within and I must confirm or deny this value. To do so I must view the gem and handle it. Can you arrange this?"

"Will you damage it?"

"The gem?" The woman turned to her then stepped forward, putting one hand to the door, "No. It will not be harmed."

"You'll forgive me if I accompany you. The gem is worth... A lot of money. And I'm going to lock the doors behind us." She touched the door panel and they slid aside to reveal her chosen executive standing alone next to the display, a hand tucked behind her and presumably holding the pistol that normally stayed in her desk. "Do you understand?"

"The gem will not be harmed," but already she was walking across the open office towards the center display and Alwyra hurried to lock the door behind the second pair. Before she had even turned the Druth'Haari took up the gem in one hand, cupping it in her palm, and holding it up at arm's length to stare into the depths.

"What are you doing? What is she doing?" None of the other three had an answer and Alwyra could only watch as the woman continued to do nothing more than look. Then there was a moment when she turned the gem, laid it on her forehead framed with four fingers, and then closed her eyes. Something flashed in the depths and she was tempted to reach for the gem, to wrest it away from her, but then it was simply returned to the display.

"I am done;" Everyone stared at her as she stepped away and turned back to the doors, "Your gem is unharmed."

"But... What did you do?!"

[Sunset]

Steven's Crater, The Moon Minamoto, Hachiman, Ares System...

"The Doctor..." Miss Eighteen (Or was it Seventeen? An important question, given the discussion to follow...) manipulated the holographic display with an adroitness long-vanished from the hands of her elderly employer. Where he preferred real physical buttons and levers as well as the occasional pen and paper for the tasks of design and analysis she was completely at home with the more modern tools available to the laboratory, "...has indicated that he is done with the mundane tasks of creating new designs to add to our military-industrial catalog. He is also away on a project that will, by his latest message, take several months or longer to complete. But there are still multiple systems listed for inclusion in the Spring Catalog," she pointed without looking to another hovering hologram that showed the glossy tri-fold that was still missing several sections and the appropriate pictures and prices, "And so I have taken it on myself to draft as many of them as plausible for his remote approval."

Minion 34, who well remembered what had happened the last time Miss Eighteen (Or was it Nineteen?) had gone off the reservation, edged away from her by means of a sudden large step back. She did not remember, of course, and could not as that portion of her memory as well as her gray matter had been removed by means of a high-caliber pistol round to paint an interesting Rorschach across the concrete wall of the old-old laboratory. Perhaps prophetically the Doctor had and still maintained a number of incubating recovery units on hand but as 34 was not empowered to act directly in the Doctor's stead, the dull gray Minion only asked the question while shifting his heavy rifle in a fashion that might have otherwise been nervousness if that feeling hadn't been stripped from him by a course of harsh chemical and psychological treatments, "Are you sure that's a good idea, Eighteen?"

To question the Doctor would have brought immediate pain and a sense of humiliation - again, supposedly stripped from the merciless aliens by many days of torture and manipulation - but the red-headed woman was not the Doctor and his concern was mostly genuine, if only based on the desire to not have to mop up the lab.

Hadn't her hair been black? Or was it blonde?"

"Nineteen," she corrected and he nodded; "Nineteen. Correct."

Again, he'd been trained to never use 'right' as an affirmative. 'Correct' or 'Yes' but never 'Right'. 'Right' was a direction and an indicator and could, if used as an affirmative, confuse the Doctor and result in some kind of punishment. As durable as his Minions were, they seemed all too easy to kill when it was the Doctor's hand at the trigger, the controls, or occasionally waving them in the wrong direction. However, despite his reluctance to get involved and risk either wrath or clean-up detail, the Doctor's new public face was that of arms manufacturer and as a Minion it was his duty to be invested in all things militant, "What is it?"

"It..." Nineteen spun the image larger until it filled much more of the room, "...is a variable fighter. I noted that the Republic's covert civilian sales organization is now offering a de-militarized version of their new mini-Z intelligence operations hovercycle to much commercial success. Since AMI does not currently possess the manufacturing or design capacity to reproduce it and negotiations with a sub-contractor have reached a monetary stalemate, I have settled on creating something of a similar vintage but more suited to our primary audience. Reproducing the old variable fighter designs was a possibility, but what struck me was coming up with a new design that simplified the model and made it more suitable to the kind of remote field operations our clients typically embark on."

"Rugged and durable, that's a good idea. Do you think the Doctor will approve?" He took another half-step backwards. "I mean, he's not a big fan of robotics and this is putting your foot close to the line."

"He did manage the design on the 'Sorcerer' and 'Calliope'," she noted, pulling the hologram back to reasonable scale so she could resume work. "Anyway, why are you here? I believe you were assigned to guard the business communications room."

To guard the complex's internal communications room would have been one thing, but to have him appear from guarding the BCR, as it was called, was very odd. The BCR was not staffed by the regular Minions but instead by off-duty female Super-Minions, who wore appealing civilian outfits and sat at clean desks to hold extended conversations with prospective clients who were, of a near-universality, testosterone-driven in both gender and attitude. The guards were simply there to add another element of militant flare to the sales pitch.

"I am. I will return there as soon as my temporary assignment is complete," he said, his eyes going glassy for a moment. "I have been assigned by the head of the business communications division to report that the Blud Dawgs mercenary company has lost contact with their Mark 51 Omen-Class Star Cruiser which was purchased from us. They wish to know if there is a way to contact and override the remote computer system."

"The Blud Huntr?" It was a stupid name but easy to remember - it had been AMI's first warship sale. "No. We don't have any way to do that. All sales are final..."

Thus eliminating the financial liability for someone using their ship in a way for which it wasn't legally intended. Given that mercenaries were often one step away from pirates, the legal precautions were reasonable and redundantly made clear in the contracts.

"How did they lose it?"

"I do not have that information. Should I gather it from the head of business communications and return here?"

"No," Miss Nineteen shook her head, "No. Not our concern. All sales are final, as I said. It is hard to lose a kilometer-long warship though..."

[Sunset]

Setting Five, The Circlet, Gen Celet System...

Commander Timmons rolled his eyes, exasperation showing plain on his broad face, "It is not a vault full of buried treasure. Or a secret underground cloning facility." He wasn't sure who had suggested that second option - it might have been Annya - but the truth was plain to see, "It's a maintenance hatch, probably for occasional inspections of the local geology to check for things like sink holes. Hand tools, the hatch opens inward, no control panel or access point on the surface-side of the door. Maintenance access," he finished authoritatively. Dropping back onto his haunches he rolled onto his knees from the hovering hologram that showed the interior of the final chamber to the dirt-shrouded entrance to the tunnels. "In fact, I wouldn't be shocked or surprised if the presence of these advanced tools led to accelerated evolution by our small friends here. Treasure of a sort, if you want to think of it that way."

"How did they get it open, then?" Lae asked, his nose still practically buried in the display.

"Yeah..." It was a good question, as the other echoing voices indicated, but again the big man had an answer; "Just above it and to the left. Circular object in the roof of the chamber, looks like it has been gnawed off by something? Tree root." Leaning back to look up and over the edge of the embankment to the forest above he pointed to a likely looking suspect, "Possibly that one. Depends on how long these grow. Which was probably another good reason to have access points like that - to be able to inspect for intrusive plant growth. Give a tree root enough time and it can push a whole building over."

In any normal circumstance a tree of any size or scale would not have been able to damage the underlying super-material that made up the ultimate foundation of the Setting, but time and luck had conspired to put the root right up against the hatch and the small metal clasp that had held it shut. Faced with centuries or millenia of constant pressure even the unobtainable had ultimately succumbed to stress and fractured and then luck had driven the tunnel makers to dig just that deep in just that spot.

"So where are they?"

"Probably running away from us," Timmons rose to his feet and brushed the dirt and soil from his armored legs. "Either down in there or out the back through an escape tunnel. If they were there to begin with. Annya?"

The Shepard nodded and edged around his shins to take another sniff, "They were there. Scent is pretty strong - that's pretty fresh - and it doesn't smell rotten or moldy. But I don't see an escape tunnel." She was right and several pairs of eyes took another look at the hovering stream to confirm this, "So they are down inside the Circlet."

Which meant they were now effectively beyond reach. Presumably the access tunnels that linked the various maintenance hatches together would run everywhere under the surface, branching together and away to ultimately join up at the most logical point. That would be one of the large atmospheric generator complexes at the far end of the Setting where fresh air was pumped in at one end and pulled out at the other for recycling into the greater bulk of the gaseous planet the enormous construct orbited. In itself that was one of the more interesting puzzles of the construction of the titanic station; The planet it orbited served as something of an atmospheric reservoir but also a recycling system with enough of the components for any number of flavors of breathable air stored away in its swirling layers. That then begged the question of whether the planet too was a construct or whether it had originally contained the right mixture of gases and mass or whether that too had been engineered. Those were questions for someone else, however, and so Timmons turned to the Ensign, "You're it."

"You're the only one who can squirm your way down there. You think you can get down there with some drones and find them and then guide us in? We'll go back to the interior access and see if we can't find a way down into the sub-structure. You might flush them out though..." He considered the thought for a moment. As soon as the canine entered the hatch and left the vicinity the inhabitants - who doubtless knew the layout better than she would - might simply double-back and retreat back up into their own tunnels. "So lay down some sensor strips. Junctions, at the hatch." Annya nodded and he concluded, "If we can't catch them at least we can catch them on camera."

"Right!"

But she was just about to dive into the hole when the alarm went up from the three still sitting around the hologram, "Oooh! Sergeant! Timmons! Sir!"

It was a nose, small and pink with a cluster of knobby protrusions on the end that had just edged over the frame of the hatch and just as soon as he looked - and whatever was attached to the nose caught scent or sight of the floating black orb - it disappeared in a flash and there was the distinct sound of running feet. For a moment he considered sending the drone to give chase but that would deny them of their eyes and ears in the chamber. The merest glimpse of whatever it was had been heartening though and he turned back to Annya and the hole, "All right! Get in there, we'll grab a shuttle flight back to the platform and meet you down there, alright?"

"Yes, Sir!"

[Sunset]

A'iruka, Great Northern Wastes, Hanson's Kneecap, Parson's Shoal System...

"Out!" Alwyra shrieked, her voice rising to nearly a scream as she grabbed the woman and spun her around with surprising energy to roughly propel her towards the office doors, "If she even makes a move towards the gems," she ordered, both distress and dead certainty in her tone, "Shoot her! Get... Out!"

It was only when the Druth'Haari had been ejected from the office and the door slammed shut behind her that the Amirah paused, turning to put her back to the door as if the slender woman might somehow try to force her way inside or the smaller might somehow prevent it. Her hand went first to the knob and then to the control panel to find the lock and then she looked back to the office where Kedo, Heikkila, and Lieutenant Kyong stood staring at her. Kedo at least had the heavy rifle - his for hunting the Pauwyr that his family fortune was built on - out and reasonably aimed in her direction though neither of the two women had raised their own weapons.

"What is going on?!" Heikkila asked, her eyes wide.

The Neko practically jumped across the room, running back to the center display with her tail lashing behind her, "Didn't you see it? Lock her out of the elevators," she pointed to the manager, "Now! You didn't see it?!"

Her hand plucked at the large gem sitting on the center-most pedestal, a slight hesitancy that the motion might reveal what was no longer there, but nothing happened and she grasped it firmly to brace it in her fingers and then thump it on the stand, "See? Gone! It's just gone! She took it!"

Indeed it was. The gem itself was completely intact - down to the scratch it left on the polished wooden surface - but the sparkle that had sizzled through it and every other authentic Tyrant gemstone she'd ever held was gone and the fist-sized rock was now as dead and lifeless as any diamond. She dropped it again and then reached for one of the many others that surrounded it only to be rewarded with an inner flash at the slightest touch. This was enough to bring the breath back to her lungs but she still turned back to the largest cut example she'd ever seen, the smaller stone flipping and turning as she nervously tossed it up and down, "How... How did she?!"

That was the secret of the Tyrant stone and why they were so valuable. Hundreds of laboratories, dozens of tests; None had been able to reproduce the distinctive sparkle each stone produced whenever it was touched or moved sharply. This one had had it as well and deeper than most but now that life was gone and the only sparkle came from the routine refraction of light through the various facets...

----

The Dig, Eastern Mountains, Hanson's Kneecap, Parson's Shoal System...

"Nothing there but the robots," Kami declared, lowering her binoculars again. The ship had left that morning and with less risk of discovery the pair had headed on a near-direct course across the final shallow vale towards the site. Occasionally a robot could be seen emerging from the defile to dump a load of broken clay onto an increasing pile of tailings but of their owner or the ship there had been no additional sign. "I'd say she hit pay dirt, came out to make sure the robots were doing their thing, and now she's back home to enjoy her money."

Sloane nodded her agreement and then raised a hand to shade her eyes as she turned towards the sun, "I'd say we hit the Basin floor, skirt around to get a good view up the gully, then call it a trip. Still no reason to let her get an eye on us. Titan will let us know if her ship heads back this way..."

It didn't, he didn't, they did, and by the afternoon they were gone, lifted away by one of the Horizon's shuttles before they could bake into the hard crust that lined the unforgiving desert basin. Rear Admiral McCopper had been there to greet them when the shuttle docked and as they made their way to the bridge he grilled them to no avail, "Nothin', eh? Jus' a robo-minin' camp?"

"That's it," Kami offered. "A dozen of them moving rock and plucking out the occasional stone. Faster than I've heard of any miner doing it, but somehow she must have come across the motherlode."

She expected a 'Whal Damn...' or some other disgruntled remark from the elder prospector, himself no unfamiliar hand in the quest for earthly riches, but instead there was another sparkle in his eye; "Aye, she foun' it ahright. Then she lahst it, he he..."

----

Intelligence Annex, Special Projects Research Tower, Just outside Landor City, Terra Incognito...

"Right through here, Dr. Brilla..." The officer stepped up to the door, waited for it to slid open, then stepped aside to allow the blonde woman behind him to pass through. She'd never been to this area inside - or possibly underneath - the sprawling tower complex but that was reasonable given the nature of the space. Instead of whiteboards filled with mathematical equations or the scattered pieces of this project or that, the numerous displays held the informational secrets of the Republic with everything from population statistics left in plain view to hovering holo-displays that made her eyes water when she tried to figure out what they were saying. The one in the center was not similarly protected, however, and it was at this one that both Director Silaco and the unambitious-looking but clearly commanding head of the Intelligence Section stood. Her escort abandoned her but with the familiar face of the Director waiting she stepped lively to join the pair; "What's up, Katryna?"

"This," she gestured to the display. "This is a real-time display of the output for the TRIPWIRE Array covering the Ares Super-Cluster, focusing on the Parson's Shoal System. An hour ago, the array picked up an unusual spike in the system..."

Saryan looked it over, noting the pertinent numbers - intense but quick, barely a moment of static for anything but the ultra-sensitive array - before grabbing the edges and expand the view out to show the traced contact line between the origin and the destination. That turned out to be the almost-expected; One of the known artificial black holes nearly seven hundred lightyears beyond the regular borders of the Super-Cluster, "The Druth'Haari?"

It was a mystery she was still deeply involved in. Who - or what- were the mysterious entities who had concealed themselves beyond the nearly-impenetrable barrier of dozens of artificial singularities scattered around the galaxy? Her stake in the matter was personal as well as professional and while her and her colleagues' discoveries had enhanced the technological prowess and understanding of the Republic there were still tremendous secrets to uncover as regarded the Druth'Haari and their motives. Important to her was that the Druth'Haari who had overtaken one instance of her body after her own exploration of the interior of one of their ship-probes had made its home on one of the planets in that very system.

"That's right. And it has caused a bit of an incident on the ground. She showed up at the main office for the local mining conglomerate asking to see a stone - a stone that no one should have been able to know was there. The owner let her examine it and something happened. We're still getting reports from the agent in the field," the unnamed officer explained, "But the timing of the incident tracks exactly with this spike. Since surveillance of the Druth'Haari is an Intelligence matter..."

"...and trying to figure out just what and what the Druth'Haari are up to is in my balliwick..."

"...you thought you'd bring in the expert," Saryan finished, leaning back against the railing that ran around the display and crossing her ankles. "I'll see what I can figure out..."

----

A Lonely Plain, Casablanca, Bogart System, Ares Local Cluster...

"Feeling better?"

"Much." The reply didn't come from the invisible breath of the wind but rather from the mouth of a man who might otherwise be recognizable to those who tracked the lives of celebrities and important personages in the Republic. He once had been a President, then an Admiral, but now was Druth'Haari and bore both the metallic harness and glittering purple gems shared by the three known members of the species. "To have a piece of one's self returned after so long is a delightful relief, even to such as ourselves."

He knelt, picked up a stone, examined it, and then flung it into the far distance where it cracked and rattled among the hard-baked cliffs. Behind him the dull red of a volcanic flow churned but he paid it little heed as he stepped from one burned black point to another. All alone on the plain he would have been an odd sight as he walked naked among the flames and sulfur fumes but there was no one to observe him except the wind and the unseen voice.

"They'll come after you."

"Perhaps. It has been a long time since they took their slave. Most would have given up and progressed beyond this age." He paused, knelt again, and scooped up a palm of glowing orange to pour it out again and leave his skin untouched. "But we have allies this time."

"Allies? Is that what you want to call them? How will they know who to defend?"

"An interesting question when asked by the Meddler..."

[Sunset]

SDF-White Nile, Fringes of the Raumreich Oversector, Beta Quadrant...

In space, scale - or a sense of - is a very relative thing. To the observer standing on the Moon and viewing a ship against the vastness of Earth that kilometer-long starship may look minuscule but to the person aboard it will still take minutes to walk from one end to the other. Place the Earth against Saturn and again the sense of scale changes with that enormous warship shrinking again into insignificance. Yet for those who are honest with their money that same vessel will still represent the entire economic output of a modest country not a hundred years previous and yet minuscule when compared against the resources of a single Earth-like planet. There were other questions of scale as well; The importance of the struggle of a son against his father, a citizen against their government, one civilization against another. But for those that had truly ventured among the stars there were scales beyond all imagination; A galactic balance that might tip at any moment in one direction or the other...

"Admiral," Lieutenant Nydamas looked up from his station, the Kitsune's ears swiveling as they tracked the sounds still coming from various displays, "A report just came in from Fleet. The sensor network in GEC-9552 has picked up movement from ELO-04..."

"ELO-04?" Now it was the Admiral's turn to look interested and then concerned as the identifier first rang a bell and then an alarm, "Catch the feed from that network, main-screen! Any additional information in that report?"

There were, in point of fact, only twenty-three entries in the Exploration Command database with the prefix ELO and the White Nile had found four of them, including number four. These were Extinction-Level Objects - often of unknown purpose, intent, and origin - which all had the clear ability to pose sufficient danger to an individual star system in such a manner that would guarantee the complete extinction of life in that system. There were ancient super-weapons sharing space with wandering automated dreadnoughts and nebula-sized masses of exotic particles worse than any solar storm but ELO-04 and its kin were the biggest of the big. The simple description would be to compare them to an octopus or squid made up of a purple-black liquid crystal with a tentacle span greater than the Earth to the Moon and seeded through with mysterious organs of unknown purpose. No element of this particular description was exact; The rubbery and soft skin of an octopus had been replaced by still-translucent plates that bore more in common with an insect while there were only three to seven of these enormous tendrils linked together to what could have been a head, a body, or merely a joint. In either case these were not the species' - that too being an assumption - primary method for gathering nutrients. Instead these were the placement points for somewhere between six and ten bulb-like organs that had been termed 'suckers' as they still filled the same purpose as those of a Terran octopus.

This was to hold the target still as the gargantuan entity undertook the slow process of breaking up and dismantling whatever planet had last attracted its attention or been subject to its nefarious plans - if it was capable of planning. Despite all that was unknown about these objects or organisms, what was known was that their favorite meal were solar systems. Entire solar systems. Able to create the most complex interactions of gravity fields as easily as we draw breath they moved from system to system, slowly breaking down whatever planets they found until only a vast cloud of debris remained around their tyrannic feeding. This was then slowly dissolved by unknown means into the body of the beast until nothing remained. From the presumed point of their birth a thin line of stars stretched across the heavens utterly devoid. When they were done feeding they went dormant until awaking again for whatever reason.

ELO-04 had been discovered during its dormancy and had remained that way long enough for the Exploration Command to lay a large network of sensors around it. Some suggested it be destroyed but the answer was first 'how' and then, after any number of options were offered, 'how' again. But now the sensors were useful as the slow pulse of life returned to the resting limbs, each spreading and moving by its own accord as whatever hidden forces set it once again to work. By the estimates this was one of the youngest - perhaps the youngest - with only three armored limbs and a nexus that bulged warily with the promise of more. Hidden under the depths something moved, strange organs once again resuming their activity, and with a strange grace the long tentacles unrolled over each other to straighten to a single arrow-tip as the thing oriented itself towards the distant star.

"What is it doing?"

"It is moving," AmErIka answered from her own place at the science console. The ArAreBeen pressed the flat black display and data points appeared around the projected behemoth to show the sudden surge of gravity wells in the forward portion of the cage created by the projecting tentacles. "Fantastic - it doesn't seem to be affected directly by the gravity wells. Selectively?"

So intense were the wells now that the light from behind the monster, thrown off by stars hundreds or thousands of light years away, was now bending inward along three vast lines of force that stretched from the very tip of the three to trail out just before the nexus. Yet despite the overwhelming force on display the substance of the fluid-formed arms was not moving. Perhaps it was resisting, but perhaps too it was simply unaffected by the forces it claimed power over. But yet, somehow, it was now moving and accelerating and diving towards the far distant star.

"Is it going to eat it?" Villanova wondered that aloud but he already knew the answer; Always the star was left behind and as the monster drew ever near they had their answer as to why; "There's a high-shear gravity well forming below the stellar corona," AmErIka called out. "It's sun-diving!"

One of the rarer forms of faster-than-light travel and incredibly dangerous, a sun-dive involved using the considerable stellar mass of a star to assist in the creation of an artificial singularity - a wormhole - that would temporarily link one star with another while the ship completed its transition. The enormous heat posed its own dangers, as did the pressures involved, and most ships capable of sun-diving were either specially built for the maneuver or required deployment of specialized equipment - often down to extremely specialized hull plates. ELO-04 did not seem to possess any of these and that was an opening one of their number mused on; "You know, this would be a good time to blow the shit out of it."

Janice Huang hung over the rail, nearly putting her face on the Admiral's shoulder as she suggested the improbable, "If we were there, we might be able to either destabilize the wormhole or take out enough of those projector-nodes to throw it off. Then it's fucked. Where's it going?"

That was an excellent question and the Admiral turned to his science officer, "Amy?"

The purple-skinned woman shook her head and looked at him with wide blue eyes, "Not good, Fidelo. TRIPWIRE already shows a trace to the Parson's Shoal System;" And the millions of people who lived on there...

[Sunset]

Intelligence Annex, Special Projects Research Tower, Just outside Landor City, Terra Incognito...

"...once we eliminated this carrier matrix from the transmission," Dr. Tithral continued, the Bajoni demonstrating by pulling the representational hologram apart and thus separating out the two multi-dimensional grids that represented the contents of the transmission, "What we were left with was an information stream that bore an immediate and marked similarity to the information passed to the nascent crystalline intelligence on GEC-79742B."

Again accessing the display, he pulled up a variety of different recordings and their comparative percentages with the observation in question. During the time since Heart of Gold had left that system, the emplaced monitoring system had picked up hundreds and in fact thousands of transmissions originating from the Druth'Haari probe-ship concealed in the underground spawning pools and this had given the Tithral-Brilla team an unequivocally wide spectrum to compare again.

"Now, notably these transmissions were brief by comparison. In storage terms they only consumed a few hundred megabytes and they were largely the same as well, which lends credence to the theory that the Druth'Haari are using these crystalline forges to create new species partially patterned after themselves. To what end is unknown, but the speculation is that these species - possibly including our Doso and Heon comrades - act as outside connections for the otherwise-isolated Druth'Haari. Again, there is much speculation, but evidence suggests that the Druth'Haari have either chosen to or can no longer permanently inhabit the Prime Universe and must do so through avatars of one form or another."

"So what does this mean for our mystery transmission and the events that unfolded on Hanson's Kneecap between DH2 and the gemstone in Ms. Maric's possession?"

"Direction, Mr..." Saryan looked at his chest, searching for the familiar name placard that every other service uniform would have on the cross-collar tab but finding none, "Sir. Whatever. Direction and size. Going back to the megabytes comparison, this transmission was thousands of times larger. Large enough to leave the kind of distinct impression that the big TRIPWIRE array can pick up and record. But just like the transmissions on GEC-79742B it was one-way with the matrix originating in Ms. Maric's offices and ending - connecting, really - to the artificial singularity at GEC-S431. If, as the theory has been proposed, the transmissions on GEC-79742B are there to program the nascent intelligence with some measure of the Druth'Haari's intelligence then this transmission would be the opposite - recovery of that intelligence and accompanying information. Thoughts. Memories. Experiences."

"...as if I merged my core with my mom's," Katryna said suddenly, looking up from where she'd been standing with arms closed and chin nearly in her chest. "And to a civilization locked away beyond the Prime this would be enormously valuable and worth tremendous risk. Has there been any progress in locating DH1 and DH3?"

The Intelligence man shook his head, "No. DH1's tail followed him to the Spider's Nest lava fields on Casablanca but shortly after he entered the field either natural interference or specific jamming was effected and the agent lost track of him. He could be on the planet or off, though we don't have any indication that the DHX's are capable of off-planet travel on their own or any indication that a suitable ship was waiting or has left the planet. Given that, he's probably in there somewhere. We still have no idea where DH3 is - she's been missing ever since the Star's Charter was hijacked."

"But that thing is headed right for DH2. But what does ELO-04 have to do with the Druth'Haari?"

"What's an ELO-04?" Saryan and Tithral asked at nearly the same moment before looking one to the other, the Bajoni stepping forward first; "Something is trying to find the Druth'Haari replication of Saryan?"

"Oh, it found her," Katryna confirmed, the Intelligence officer adding his own nod. She stepped forward and again activated the display, conjuring an image of a three-tentacled entity while the data presented earlier shrunk to the side. "This is ELO-04 - that's Extinction-Level Object Number Four - which, until a few minutes ago, was dormant in GEC-9552." She touched the hologram again and the behemoth was now shown for scale against the distant desert world to an accompanying invocation by Dr. Brilla; "Holy Shit! She's fucked..."

"Is she?" But the Division chief looked grim. "It is plausible, given the semi-crystalline nature of ELO-04 and its kin, that they are somehow related to the Druth'Haari. This could be simply a visit from an old friend in response to the recovery of some lost memories."

"Or it could be the Master coming to recover their lost slave or a suitable replacement..."

[Sunset]

A Lonely Plain, Casablanca, Bogart System, Ares Local Cluster...

"Did you have to tell them that?" The annoyance was plain in the aquiline face of the speaker as he stooped to scoop up more glowing handfuls of the orange-hot lava, smoothing them over his arms to leave behind a red shell that began to rapidly harden as it cooled. Each layer did not mask the first as he smoothed it over the top but instead added more detail and refinement as if the soft-fleshed surface of his palm and fingers was the most delicate brush. Lamination emerged as rock became obsidian-smooth armor and his fingers pinched out a spiked tip that ended just before his elbow and the gemstone embedded in his own flesh. Under the mantle it pulsed, still somehow visible through the layers, and without further interference the hard stone began to assume the shape of a delicate facet in a luminous purple hue.

There was a shrug on the air, "They would have gotten there on their own, but Saryan likes to talk and there's only so much time."

He-who-was-not-Fidelo laughed sharply, "Time. Yes, will they have enough?"

Again the invisible shrug, "Perhaps. They are a civilization quick to adapt, to adopt to new ideas and new ideologies. Is that strictly necessary?"

This time it was Fidelo's turn to shrug, the movement causing a ripple in the plates that had already started to spread down his body as great handfuls of liquid fire poured down over his face and head and onto his broad shoulders and chest. The clothing that he had worn had burned to charred rags when he'd entered the lava fields but now it dissolved away to ash under the intense heat to leave his body bare for the moment before dark rock covered it, "No, but you above any know that distance is only relative to our frame of reference and what seems a war in isolation may spread. They are not their only agents. Which is why you adopted these as your own."

"I would not call it adoption."

"Meddling? Your games?"

"Games have their end. A winner and a loser..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Dauntless, En Route to Parson's Shoal System, Ares Local Cluster...

"...throw everything we have at it and see what sticks? If it were up to me," Grand Admiral Glafka scowled, unintentionally fixing her displeasure on the blonde hologram that stood across from her desk rather than the smaller portrait that filled one side along with a dozen other salient items of interest, "We'd give her to the ELO. This isn't our fight - and from what everyone is saying it seems to be one that has been tossed in our lap!"

Erika at least was unflapped. By the Secretary-General's estimation the Grand Admiral would, in the end, do her duty and to the best of her formidable abilities to do so and thus her counter was basic, "We don't know that this thing wants her. It could be friend or foe - we've known about them for nearly fifty years..."

Nearly as long as she'd held the office; It had been Admiral Villanova's White Nile which had first stumbled across the titanic space-borne entities and he had preceded her to the post but under a different title by two previous Presidents. Since then they'd been studied extensively but to little end. Current events would change that but for the now she had to focus on the threat to the Republic and its citizenry.

"...but we know very little about them. We've tried every form of communication we know of, we've had top people try their personal magic, but either they don't recognize it or just don't care. For something with the mass of Saturn I would put my estimate on the latter. They are baryonic entities, which means that our standard weapon set should affect them. Nothing out of the ordinary there except that they would appear to have some kind of natural control over gravity and the ability to manipulate that force on an extreme scale. Trying to give it a stomach ache with a linegun probably won't work. But they feed on planetary systems and, Jennifer, there are millions of Republic citizens on those three worlds. They are our people and its our duty to defend them."

"And my duty to make that my fight," Glafka sighed. "Alright, so we try to warn it off then we blow it up. Battle plans I have in abundance but seriously, this thing is fucking huge. We're trying to fight a moving planet. We can call in everyone and just blow the shit out of it but we don't know that that will work. Plus that will leave us with a whole lot of TYCS here and not a lot other places. There's half a dozen empires I can think of that wouldn't mind taking the chance to give us twenty-one black eyes. Coordinated strikes on our fleet bases, maybe even surprise attacks on our civilian populations. Depends on which dick wants to pull the trigger! And if it doesn't work? If this thing turns out to be some kind of unstoppable military juggernaut? We're in even worse shape."

"Which is why we're going to stick with your plan," Erika noted, her tone agreeable.

The Grand Admiral's initial call, and the plan the Secretary-General was agreeing to, was to keep the first response essentially in-house. The center-most display showed just that with dozens of lines converging on the Parson's Shoal star system as both the Dauntless' Battle Group as well as all of the capital ships normally patrolling the Super-Cluster headed directly to the system. This would leave both the rapid-reaction assault groups and the greater bulk of the Combined Services and scattered Exploration Command as a reserve. This would put the Grand Admiral's impromptu fleet as a recon-in-force element and due to arrive as one just minutes before the incoming ELO. They would have some heavier backup; The three CORE super-stations had brought their Nemesis strategic launchers to full readiness and all were standing by to engage when the opportunity struck. Normally these were off-limits except in the case of defense against genocide but even if the intention of the intruder was a light snack the result would be the same.

"If I may?" The third voice - there were others, though the conversation had largely been between the Secretary-General and the head of Fleet operations - at the table spoke up. This was Admiral Villanova himself, somewhat isolated in one of the side panels to mull over his thoughts. "My tactical officer has, in her usual uncouth way, brought up a pertinent observation and a method of attack. ELO-04 is fundamentally a 'fucking' three-legged stool. Knock out one leg - one tentacle - and the whole thing topples over. It might not work on the larger - older - examples but it appears we are dealing with the youngest of the species. And we might not even need to destroy the entity; Hurt one tentacle enough and it may be forced to withdraw."

"And this might teach them - presuming these are several separate entities and not one gigantic super-organism - that we know how to beat them and won't hesitate to face them. This is our chance, Jennifer. Win this and even if they don't view us as their target, they will understand that they will regret it if they attack our systems in the future."

"If they don't just all spring to life and come after us," Glafka noted sourly. "But its a sound plan. Focus fire, put an arrow in its knee, send it packing..."

[Sunset]

A'iruka, Great Northern Wastes, Hanson's Kneecap, Parson's Shoal System...

"Evacuation?!" Alwyra stared at the woman, mouth moving pointlessly for a few seconds before she sputtered out, "But... Why?"

Still peering out the office window to the causeway and the woman who stood there seemingly motionless, Lieutenant Kyong concentrated for a moment and then produced a hologram of a purple-gray trio of armored tentacles joined together into something like an extremely tapered starfish. It wasn't very big - and purposefully out of sight of the window - and the Neko poked at it with a claw; "That? We're being attacked by calamari? Deep fry the suckers!"

Thoughts of squid suddenly reminded her that she hadn't eaten in a while and her stomach was more than rumbling. A hand pressed flat against her belly and there was a gurgle and the taste of saliva in her mouth, "Can we stop for take-out? There's a Bangkok Express just downstairs..."

"No." Kyong sighed and the image increased in size until a blue-brown sphere occasionally mottled with green could be seen between the tentacles. "That's the enemy, that's our planet. Your planet. Which it wants to eat."

Her eyes went wide and she stumbled back to catch herself against Kedo, "Eat Hanson's Kneecap!? Wow, that's big. Like;..." Inconceivably huge, really, and she tried to find words before failing, "My city! My people! My moooney," she wailed. "Why?!"

"Best guess is her," the Intelligence woman looked over to the Amirah before jerking her head at the window meaningfully. "While you've been contemplating lawsuits, the higher-ups have been trying to figure out what's really going on. Best guess is that whatever she did to the crystal freed or transferred some information that had been stored in it and this thing is coming to get it back."

"So tell her to give it back!"

"...information that might be something like slavery."

"It's a rock," Alwyra pointed out, sarcasm suddenly mixing with panic. "It's a stupid fucking rock! How is a rock on a table on a fancy piece of cloth slavery!?"

"It's more complicated than that, and we don't have time to discuss it," Kyong countered. "Get to your ship, take everyone you can, and leave the system. The Secretary-General has ordered a general evacuation and you are on that list. So go!"

"Fine..." The Neko went to the door, pressed the lock, and threw it wide. Stalking across the open space she put her nose within inches of the silent woman's and fixed her dead in the eye. "You. This is all your fault..." Claws extended from under her fingertips but strong hands caught her just as suddenly, "If you destroy my company, if you hurt my people, and that thing doesn't kill you..." Her voice lowered to a hiss, "I will."