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

[Sunset]

Special Projects Covert Research Facility 74-A (Sigma), Denali, The Yukon System...

"Have you ever wondered why the call-sign for this facility is Sigma? I mean - that would seem to imply that there are seventeen other sites on this planet but yet the official designation is Seventy-Four A. Is this just a deliberate attempt to mislead anyone who might come across one or the other? Or was the guy who came up with the designation and-slash-or the call-sign just not up on his Greek alphabet?"

Francine glared at him and the silence stretched out to the uncomfortable until there was a moment where she could almost hope that Doctor Kraus would touch one or both of the jumper cable clamps he held in thick rubber gloves to his brow in an ill-fated attempt to wipe away the sweat beading there. Would the current coming off whatever diabolical machine he had them hooked up to be enough to fry his ExoCortex? At a nearby happy thought that would result in enough damage to put him out of commission for a few days while it was repaired; A distant dim hope brought a smile to her lips - maybe it would kill him!

"And this is why I drink. And these are the kind of questions email is for, Doctor. That and avoiding the trek down from my office to your basement and on your suggestion, I might add. So there better be a damned good reason why you asked me to come down here, aside from your attempt to enable a sexual harassment claim by demonstrating your sexual fetishes in a laboratory environment!"

"Email? Sexual fetishes? Me..." Fredrick eyed the two clamps, moving them close enough to produce a sizzling spark before lowering them experimentally towards his lab coat. Just for a half-second the Site Director hoped against hope but before they could make painful contact he stopped, rolled his shoulders and neck, and held the clamps out again, "No. Nothing to do with that. Nope, this has everything to do with our good friend PTU-557. Just like everyone and their dog, I've taken an interest in the mysterious artifacts coming back to us from the Circlet. So I grabbed one of the drones, my trusty oscilloscope..."

"A pair of jumper cables..." She stopped suddenly and stared at him again, "Where the fuck did you get jumper cables? There are exactly no internal combustion engine automobiles on Denali. Hell, there probably isn't one within a hundred light years. Why would you have jumper cables!?"

"Actually, the question you should be asking aloud - and in a worried tone of voice - is 'Why did Doctor Modea have jumper cables buried at the bottom of one of her lockers under a copy of Modern Farmer? And why did Doctor Kraus know they were there?'"

Once again she stopped, stared, and then asked the question, "Who is Doctor Modea? We don't have a..."

"On staff? No. Not since the accident," he crackled the clamps meaningfully. "Not Since The Accident."

She fought it. She fought hard. The impulse was there; She was the Director, she was Management, and her momentary desire was to check into his story, to find out who this Doctor Modea was, to find out whether there was any substance to his likely-fabrication, but she fought it and fought valiantly. Palms over her eyes and a shake of the head and the impulse was gone, "So, Doctor..." She closed her eyes and repeated her earlier question, "Why did you ask me to come down here? What do you have to show me?"

Her eyes opened just in time to catch an evil grin vanishing from his mouth and the clamps nearly touching his chest as he hastily retracted them, lips now pursed into a whistle, "Weeh wheee whooo. Oh, yes. So as I was saying before you interrupted with inappropriate questions into my sex life, I've found something interesting. As a man of science, it is my duty to subject the various samples I receive to vigorous testing. It is not enough to merely know that PTU-557 is an artificial element with exceptional durability, some odd sensor-masking properties, and a silvery-white appearance that would make it reasonably desirable to the Roanians, but to also see if there are both undiscovered properties and new potential uses for it. So I hooked up my oscilloscope to a nice chunky power source and then slapped the jumper cables on the drone."

Gesturing first from the machine on the cart - the mentioned scope with its familiar wave-form output and fiddly knobs and sliders - to the spread-out sphere of the drone on the workbench, he demonstrated the process by spreading the clamps and fixing them to two opposite sides of one of the drone's external plates.

Which promptly went as smooth and reflective as the finest mirror.

"Cool, right? But this isn't some common mirror," he picked up a wand-shaped instrument from the counter and aimed it at the plate. Triggering the device, they both watched as the beam didn't appear on the surface but instead promptly burned a nice hole in the ceiling panel to join several others that she just now noted. "Every time. Complete photon reflection - across all wavelengths too." Adjusting a setting on the rod he again demonstrated by adding yet another hole in the paneling, this time adding a little swirl to complete the smiley face he'd been drawing. "Now, this is only a lab instrument. I've got one of the boys bringing down something from the armory, but I'm still anticipating some effectiveness versus higher output. But suddenly the polymer storage layer underneath every segment makes sense - this little mirror trick does use a lot of juice. Have you seen any of the write-ups on the control interface?"

"No, but I'm not sure what that would have to do with this."

"Security, of course! All of the artifacts recovered have mounted laser weaponry exclusively. With this now-discovered ability of PTU-557, the drones and warships and even the Circlet itself would largely be immune to their own weapons. If someone were to capture or hijack a drone, it would then be very difficult to deal with. Security would then be very much a concern. But this would also be very useful in everyday actions; Less need to worry about friendly fire. Except, you know, where the beam bounces around and hits some other innocent bystander..."

[Sunset]

SNN Nightly News with Tanya Zaldano...

"...launched their latest offering, the high-end Qasr-Class Pinnace. With the luxury of an interstellar yacht and the systems of an institutional research vessel, the Qasr is aimed squarely at the wealthy curiosity seeker looking to play host to a scientific expedition while still traveling in the lap of luxury. Taking design cues from both their own military offerings and the mysterious technologies now filtering out of the Delta Quadrant and into public perception, Liquid Design has sculpted a ship that will certainly perk the interest of those with enough money to afford the price tag. Since each ship in the Class will be tailored to customer specifications and carries the noted Liquid brand, this is expected to be quite high."

"According.to our sources, the Qasr was commissioned and designed for Alwyra Maric, the owner of A'iruka Industries and thus a noted purveyor of her own luxury goods brand with imprints in the gemstone, fur, and spice markets. Her latest offering is the exotic spice Syn, which gives the taster the impression of being in the place where the food was harvested or grown. Even after the initial public hype and expanded release - as well as the introduction of knock-offs by competitors - Syn has retained a leading position and wide use in five-star restaurants across its market area. Her commission of the Qasr suggests that she may be looking to replicate that success and rumors that she has retained the services of several notable officers - presumably now ex-officers - in the Exploration Command only works to confirm this. As one of the most-mentioned names is Commander Sergeant Timmons - himself the discoverer of no less than eight previously unknown civilizations - that possibility has led to considerable excitement in affiliated businesses - A'iruka Industries being privately owned by the Maric family."

Tanya turned and with a click and a shimmer the hovering depiction of the Qasr disappeared to be replaced with the exotic imagine of an orbiting mega-structure, slowly circling the newscaster like an enormous halo. It was quite the contrast; Where the silvery-white structure of the Cirlet was almost angelic, Tanya's dark metal brassiere and matching belt threaded through the loops of black jeans cast her in the role of a demoness.

"With the obvious similarities in aesthetics between the Qasr and the Circlet, much of the suggestion is that whatever Ms. Maric's latest venture will be, it will come from that direction...."

----

"Ha! Wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong!"

"Wrongity wrong? Then why are we headed to the Circlet," Captain Shin asked, confirming for himself the destination entered into the Qasr's navigation console.

"She's right on one count; Commander Timmons has accepted my offer and will be joining this crew there. But our destination isn't the Circlet. That's already crawling with science-types. Nope - I've got a less-obvious spot in mind. See, I was reading up on all these new species they've discovered in this crypt and all the unknown civilizations they represent. Interesting to the culturally minded, but what caught my eye was a reference to 'fabulous treasures buried with them'. Now, the Kion might have been barbarians - at least that's what the article said - but I'm betting they like the new and exotic just as much as the rest of us. So we're going to take a look around and see what catches our eye... Our destination? The Dragon's Eye!"

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Far Stand-Off from GEC-1400971, Beta Quadrant...

"...which there isn't," Lieutenant Commander Ingersol began, picking up the conversation as if it had never ended. That there had been an hour-plus break between had not even crossed his mind and as soon as the Captain's butt met the seat he continued on, "They are nano-plants, essentially. A few different species of micro-machines responsible for a few different functions but aside from the fact that one of them can eat PTU-557-based alloys there's nothing more complex than an amoeba in there. In fact, an amoeba is more complex but not made of metal. Which might be superior to meat, but not by much and not in this instance. But..."

There were several long moments where the Captain looked at him, he looked at the Captain, and then finally she broke the silence, "But what?"

"But that means that someone or something down there," he looked past her to where Circlet-II slowly spun in its long orbit around the star, "Made them. Something intelligent; This isn't the preordained configurations of amino acids that naturally lead to complex life. Something had to make them and that something came from down there," he repeated. On the screen a selection of orbital images began to scroll past, various places and locations in the vast open areas of the continental-scale Settings where life could have presumably been found or still existed. "Except that there isn't any. Not even a whiff or a trace. Plants, animals... Check and check. But civilizations? Nothing."

"Maybe they're inside," she pointed out. "The Svari..."

"Sure. Maybe. But you'd expect to see some ruins, or some kind of evidence of where they once lived in the Setting. Now there's a lot of space down there, and I haven't gone over it in precise detail, but whoever made these had or has the technological and manufacturing infrastructure to design and build precision nano-technology. That's Twenty-First Century Earth. Los Angeles Smog, radioactive particles in the atmosphere... Ducks with plastic rings around their necks... Pollution and waste. So yes, a civilization could have grown up and immediately moved into the structure to leave the wilderness areas wild but that seems kinda poor odds - especially when they now have these exploding bubbles of nano-flinging doom cropping up across the surface."

"Okay, that's all fair. But here's another question for you... Do we care?"

"What do you mean, 'do we care'?"

"Eye..." Kami swung back from the Sensor Officer to center-bridge and a moment later a holographic Commander Eye'tumno appeared at her feet; "What can I do you for, boss?"

"Do we care," she repeated before adding, "As in, has this stuff done enough damage to the structure and mechanism of the gate complex to prevent us from firing it up and seeing what's on the other side?"

The Skri looked up at her and then walked over on spiked legs to circle the central holosphere and the image of the gate complex that filled it, "Nope. The damage is purely superficial. Hull plating only, and even there only a centimeter or two at most. Not even enough to penetrate to the interior. In fact, I'd say that if you gave me a few hours to get some of my guys over there, we could fire it up inside a couple more. Now... If we do bring the wormhole online, you're going to kill all that stuff anyway. The kind of hard radiation put off by their particular method of singularity generation is going to be just as good as hitting them with a microwave cannon."

Captain Blaine stared at him, "Wait, repeat that?"

"It will fry them but good. The emitters that generate the singularity operate along..."

"Good enough," she waved him off and the Chief Engineer fell silent, staring at her with his single large eyeball. "It will kill them. Or would have killed them. So you've given me two answers. First - this stuff didn't originate from beyond that gate complex. It either came from the Circlet or was brought here via some other means. Second - Actually, I forget what the second answer was. But it doesn't matter. Get your crews ready to go over, Commander. Let's shoot for a deadline of tomorrow morning, ship time. Tom," she turned back to the Lieutenant Commander, "You've got until then to find a really, really interesting reason to stick around. There's going to be other ships and other scientists - we're going for the brass ring here..."

[Sunset]

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

"They come in the night," Demi read aloud, her voice low to avoid waking Nathyn, who slept at her breast while she sprawled along the length of the couch with one foot just hooked over the back to tease at the paw of the cat resting there. "How or why, we do not know. But they come and take the best of us. Station holds no allure, wealth does not dissuade them. The Gods in the Sky only take and never return..."

It was a clue to the mysteries of the Circlet and its creator's but only just. Crudely carved into the stone of a half-buried wall amid the ruins of a vanished civilization, a Dominion expedition into Setting Four had found that most ancient form of written communication and recorded it for posterity; Graffiti. Intentional or not, words like these secretly scrawled in hidden corners of the sunken houses and buildings they seemes to prefer were the only records that had remained through the ages.

"But the Gods were not the Zeer'Gen," she read on, continuing through the report as it laid out the researcher's case. "The ruins pre-date the evolution and rise of the Zeer'Gen;" Dating anything on the geologically inactive Circlet had been initially difficult but by building up a profile of different radio-isotopes and other, more concrete methods, a system had been established and proven. "And this doesn't seem like something the Otterkin would do..."

"Behind those adorable whiskers and soft black eyes lurk the malevolence of a tyrant," Erika warned, her voice dark. A moment to stop for a kiss on the cheek and a soft hand stroking her son's back as he slept and she was gone again to leave Demi to her thoughts and the report.

"So they come and take the best... What are the best? Regardless of station or wealth," she repeated. It was presuming much to read so much into a single screed but there was so much little else to go on. It was as if every effort had been made to erase the identities of the creators, "But why? Gods seems to imply power. Taking someone... Someone guarded - station - or protected - wealth - implies ability beyond either."

They were thoughts reflected in the researcher's own hypothesis and she read on, turning an invisible page with the flick of a finger.

"We do not see them, we do not know them. In the morning one may rise as any day before to walk to the fields and vanish forever. But what would they need them for," she wondered aloud. "Or was it simply an exercise in terror? But why terrify a people so far beneath you?"

There were pictures as well, both of the stone and timber dwellings now laid to ruin by rot and weather as well as the seemingly-immortal artifacts associated with the Circlet. The contrast between the two was stark but perhaps purposefully so; Even across the Republic there were places where such dwellings were still common and represented a life better lived than the previous generation.

"What did they fear?" The voice from the next room was muffled but Erika continued, "Because that's what it seems like to me. An entity that seeks to control information on this level is afraid of something. They don't want others to know their language, their appearance, their history. Why?"

"Because they are doing something wrong. They have their hand in the cookie jar and don't want anyone to see them with the cookie," Demi mused, looking down at the child sprawled across her stomach. "But yet they have all of this fantastic technology. What do they have to fear?"

"I think the only way to find that out is to fill in one of the blanks. Their history would be most telling, but they could be psychic space vampires..."

[Sunset]

The Dragon's Eye (GEC-A1291883), Deep Space, Delta Quadrant...

"I pulled a few strings," Alwyra explained as she stood in front of the newly re-purposed visitor's podium entering her information while behind her the rest of her newly-formed team made their slow-but-steady way out of the decontamination area. "Called in a couple favors, dropped a few names..."

There was more than a hint of sarcasm in the Neko's tone as she went through the eternally annoying process of filling out the paperwork. Some of it wasn't nessecary and others had been shoe-horned in when the first non-research visitor had arrived. The whole system was clearly designed with researchers and scientists in mind with a focus on collating and cross-referencing the information they were about to gather for further dissemination across the research sphere. What she knew, she entered and what she thought, she guessed at. But there really hadn't been any strings to pull. As soon as Qasr had made orbit a half-dozen people had tried to contact the ship, most with a mind to talk to her new Security Chief about one of his previous or not-so-previous finds. All he'd had to do was ask and arrangements had been made; "Fortune and fame are often fleeting," she half-whispered to herself as she continued to act the role of secretary.

It was a fitting comment given the lost grandeur spread out before her.

The decontamination chambers were much the same system that had been put in place during the initial exploration by SDF-Ojeni's Command Staff and Lord Maltherion's retinue. Secured to the lower end of the very long elevator from the surface and embedded in virgin rock, those who wished physical entry into the burial riches of the Kion Warlord still had to go through a process of calisthenics to clean any possible outside traces off their armor before entering. The armor was definitely required as well, though to protect the wearer from the atmosphere rather than the environment. To keep the treasures as well-preserved as possible, the gas mixture inside the vast chamber had been kept as exact as it had been before and this was still highly toxic to all but a handful of known species. However, while the process and facilities were still required, they had at least been expanded into a wider bank so that it was only a minute or two before the full team had exited and stood at the entrance for their double-briefing.

"...the most important rule is to not touch anything," Doctor Megrditchian emphasized. In fact the Akashan - head of the site's technical service - had repeated himself over and over until it had become a continuous mantra interleaved through the rest of the briefing. "Let the robots do their work - if you want to see something close-up, instruct the robot to do it. Don't touch anything. If you want an item reproduced for handling, there are stations at each junction," he turned to point to where the network of raised platforms came together above the aisles where one circle joined to the next. "Don't touch anything..."

They really wouldn't have to. In the intervening months since Ojeni's departure and the claiming of the site by the Triumvirate's joint scientific community, not only had the spider-like network of raised platforms been installed but a railing of presumably Akashan origins had been laid out joined to this and playing host to a marvelous system of robotic arms; "Which first take an ultra-high resolution snapshot of the area in question, determining the current location of all the items at nano-meter precision. Then they will either recover the item and present it for inspection or, if the area would be rendered unstable by the removal, they will dismantle the area into a cataloging tray under the pathway until the item can be safely removed," Nyangora explained. She was the other half of the briefing and while it centered on the technical for the moment, she was about to move on to the usefulness of the 'why'.

"Which can provide us with a good amount of side-benefit. As you can see, the Treasures of the Kion are vast. Our estimate is that each of these pits," she pointed to the closest, a massive quarter-circle trench that ran between the outer ring of alcoves and the inner ring of shrines and was heaped with every type of mineral wealth imaginable, "Contains in the range of five to twenty five trillion credits. Now, of course if that were all to be sold it would crash the market..."

"...and thus be worth nothing," Alwyra nodded. "But you're not selling it, are you? It's going to stay here, right?"

"Some portions will be going to museums and other institutions, but most of the material wealth will remain here, yes. We had a team from the Dominion come through and look into just that notion. Depending on where it was all dumped, it would either cause a massive drop in prices or only modest effect. In the Sol area, where we can create perfect copies? Not much. But there are places still where such wealth is coveted. Back to my point though; There's a lot of stuff in these pits and most of it is still buried. When you have the robots dig out something that catches your eye, you're doing us a favor as well because we can then catalog what was moved and a tiny, tiny, tiny bit more accurate picture can be built."

"How much did they steal?"

"Hmm? Oh," the researcher looked to the Seeker, who had asked the question as she peered over the rail and through the darkness to the wealth below, "Well, given the extraordinary lengths the Kion went to in order to secure this crypt, and the enormous variety, we are operating under the assumption that this was the largest and thus richest of the Kion's treasure..."

"No, no," Deania straightened and turned around, leaning against the railing with a smile on her face, "I mean the Dominioners..."

That provoked a bit of a laugh though after an unsuccessful attempt to wipe a tear away through her armor, Doctor Nyangora answered with, "Nothing. They were quite open about their desire to see all of it stay where it was; Bad for their business interests of course. Anyway, that should about cover it. If you have any questions, ask."

"...don't touch anything!"

With a final, solemn nod of agreement the four spread out around the one - Kedo, Timmons, Deania, and finally Annya, who sat at the Seeker's side - as Alwyra offered her own briefing, "So what we're looking for is the odd, the unusual. Gems... We've got gems. I do gems. Furs?" She nodded to Kedo, who shrugged, "Maybe furs or other animal products. But look for things that look mysterious. A jar that might contain an exotic spice, a plant preserved in crystal. They might have been barbarians who stumbled across advanced technology and used it to conquer the entire sector seventy-odd thousand years ago, but they still had some notion of taste."

Her first words weren't entirely accurate though. She'd still be keeping an eye out for gems - particularly those of a specific pattern and that shone with a light of their own when struck...

[Sunset]

GEC-79291Cc1, The Spinward Expanse, Alpha Quadrant...

One foot after another and occasionally on knee or hand Meli crept forward. The scout ship was behind her now, landed in a small clearing and concealed under a camouflage shroud after a disconcertingly easy descent. That didn't mean she was all that close to her first objective yet; Her assumption was that the robot's senses would be as good as her own if not better and thus both stealth and care was required. From the lip of the next rise and the lush cover there she would be able to get a good view of the valley where they worked. There would be little surprise to a botanist that all around her life bloomed. Frozen plants had evolved to take advantage of what limited growing season they had and everything from flower to shrub to tree grew vibrant with riotous color.

"But is it good lahf or bad lahf," she asked herself, voice barely a whisper.

"As vegetable life cannot, itself, be good or bad - with some notable exceptions - I must assume your question is directed towards the robots and whatever goals their programming has set them to accomplish. And again, robots are only as good or evil as their creators..."

"Ahctually, Ahm talking about thaht one," the Dwarf pointed to a particularly noxious looking ball of wood-like spikes that dangled from a looping stem. As her hand - the closest thing to it - moved, it moved as well to track her movement precisely. To her mind, that gave the little spikes and who-knows-what they carried a good field of fire. If they could fire. "Loohks meahn, thaht one."

ScLappi agreed, "Carnivorous abilities would be a reasonable way to capitalize on a short growing season. A compact and efficient source of nutrients. Since you are my only mode of locomotion at the moment;" Secure in his sack and now missing everything but his skull, the Doctor was riding atop the slim pack she wore on her back, "And since you seem intent on taking me everything, please don't die."

"Ah have no intention o' that!"

For a moment she considered cutting it down. A flick of her wrist and one of the various knives she carried on her person would sever the stalk and send it to the ground. It might blow up though, and even if the darts did little more than bounce off her not-quite-real skin, the explosion might alert the robots. Instead she tripped backwards along a known path for a few paces and then took another, winding her way back and forth across the backside of the hill until she could just barely peek over the crest. When no scorch of particle beam or scorch of laser fire answered, she went full on her belly and began to crawl forward keeping the thick trunks of the local pseudo-tree between her and the far target. That ended when she came to the crumbling edge of a low bluff and the last tangle of moss-like roots that curled over the edge. There she stopped, motionless as eyes and ears searched the distance.

What she'd been expecting was to see the robots hauling the casket-like objects towards a rising palace-temple complex where their god-creators would soon be awakened. What she saw was a rising palace-temple complex with the robots swarming over it as they rebuilt and reconstructed what looked to be fresh damage. Windows had been smashed out, hedges and trees pushed over, and the great three-toed tracks in the carefully maintained lawn told the truth of the matter. The Blud Dawgs had been there - here - and had wrecked up the place in their search for treasure. Repairs weren't the robot's only activity; A courtyard turned landing pad was a buzz of constant activity as shuttles from the Blud Huntr came and went carrying back load after load of looted treasures. More notable to Meli were the caskets, which were leaving in small but significant numbers aboard those same shuttles, "Ahn then comin' back. So they ahn't lookin' to spread their kahnd cross the galaxy. Aht least not yet..."

"It will be hard to give specific motives to these creations as of yet," the body-less Doctor added from his perch. "They were capable of not only overtaking the mercenary's warship in a boarded action, but also of comprehending the controls and interfaces of that same vessel and successfully navigating it back to this location."

"Ahn firing on those Sanglanti. So they're not yer simple robots. Complex buggers, buht ahr they sentient?" Not that she cared all that much one way or the other. Dead was dead, and she'd make em dead again if she had to. That was why she was on the ground as opposed to a team of explorers; They'd already demonstrated the capacity for treachery and violence and now it was her job to make sure more of either didn't happen, "...ahn fer the Republic for which it stands."

"What?"

"Nothin', just ah little patriotic jingoism. Ah'm thinkin' Ah should get a look inside one o' them coffins..."

With that as her next step, she crept back from the edge. Dropping over would outline her clear as day against the face and it would only take a little bit longer to circle around and once again use the hill as cover as she advanced. Lower down there were more trees to put between her and the robots but also more of the spike-ball plants and other equally noxious-looking nasties and it took her what would have been the afternoon to cover the distance. Since the moon was spinning about as slow as a ball of molasses, the sun had barely moved in the sky by the time she'd made her way within a half-kilometer of the site; "Ahn time to be rahl quiet."

Her advance wasn't quite on tip-toes but it was extremely slow and cautious. A snake-like camera led the way around every corner, checking for anything that looked even remotely like it could be looking her way, and then a dash or a crawl or a lurching dive to the next bit of cover. If it had been Humans - or people in general - she would have just blown in and trusted to her ultra-soldier body to carry the day. But these were robots with altogether unknown robotic reaction times and abilities. The four-armed monsters looked passive enough - not a hint of a weapon other than their clawed hands - but that wasn't always the case and so caution was her watchword until she was within striking distance of her target. A single casket sat by itself to one side, not exactly away from everything else but far enough to give her a peek. Maybe, 'Could be locked,' she thought.

It was.

In fact it was hard to tell just how exactly it opened. The sides were seamless and the top was half-covered with a complex carving that flowed up into a head-like mask at the top. This presented all kinds of indentations where a joint might be - or might not - and she instead began to look for a latch, 'Ahn there's not fuckin' one o' them either! Two choices,' she looked up to the sky, where the tiny dot of the Blud Huntr was just visible, and then back to the palace-temple-whatever complex. 'Ahl bet they open these at one end o' the other - so which do Ah check...'

[Sunset]

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

"Well, I am a genius," Stephen declared, his voice oozing false modesty. "I created these synthetic emotions... SynEmotion? Yes, I like that! And then you, Miss Nineteen - who I also created - found a new use for it. Bravo..."

Doctor Ambrose turned and watched the display again. It wasn't so much a display as a small advertising billboard for the various products his company produced but more important was that it made him feel happy. Very literally; It made him feel happy. Just looking at the static image of a woman, her body enhanced by the various effects of the nutritional supplement known by the trade name of NuSEXYE, gave him a distinct feeling of pleasure. It wasn't particularly strong, sexual, or overwhelming but it was definitely there. The reason was obvious; The paint used had been made using a protein-based emulsifier crafted from his own experimental formula. Over the past week he'd been able to fine-tune the results so that he could, by modification of the genetics, evoke a specific range and intensity of emotion in the subject. From there some brilliant spark had settled over someone and they had come up with the idea of integrating it into the corporate advertising campaign.

Did it really matter who thought of it? Perhaps it was the paint talking, but even if that someone wasn't Miss Nineteen she was ultimately responsible for the...

Fredrick stopped and his hand slid behind his back to where the heavy pistol was normally holstered but his hand fell over nothing. He'd forgotten to wear it today, left it sitting on the bedside table. With no means of physical intimidation readily at hand, he switched to a charm-based offense. Carefully removing his gaze from the billboard, he turned to Miss Nineteen, who was talking quietly to one of her several assistants, "Tell me, Nineteen," he smiled genially, "Who was it that designed this display? Specifically. Their work is... Intriguing."

She looked from the assistant to her clipboard and then back to the assistant, who shrugged and turned to the Doctor as she prompted him to answer with a gesture; "It was Nathaniel Hendrick. One of the new staffers in the advertising department."

"Hendrick?" The name ticked something over in his head and once again his fingers tried to curl around the butt of the invisible gun. "Hendrick... I've heard that name before. You don't mean..."

The assistant nodded, sealing his fate, "Yes, that's right Doctor. Hendrick Brothers. He's one of the family - a cousin, I believe. A bit of a steal. Very well educated, really knows his stuff."

"Ah, yes, Hendrick Brothers. Vast wealth, well-known family with connections all across the Republic, very old money... And," he gave Miss Nineteen a meaningful look, where-upon she immediately stepped away from the assistant, "One of our direct competitors!"

Everyone turned to the assistant and stared at him. Or near him. Some looked at the floor, some looked at the ceiling above him, and others looked past him to the slow-moving curtain of lava that formed one wall of the room. But Doctor Ambrose looked directly at him, fixed his gaze, and there was a near-audible gulp and if the man had been wearing a collar he would have tugged at it. Instead he rallied and the Doctor smiled as he waited to see if it was in vain, "Yes, Sir. That's why... That's why he was judged to be quite the catch. And at the price he was asking..."

Stephen's eyes went to the display again - but only for a telltale half-second - and then back to the assistant; "...he was clever, Sir, but not clever enough. I'll take care of the issue. Personally. Immediately."

"Good man! Off you go," but even as the man turned and walked towards the doors - rapidly, as per his desires for continued existence - Ambrose returned to the display. "Brilliant work though. Almost genius... But not quite."

Perhaps he had left it open on purpose, perhaps the door had remained ajar in his haste, but the distinct Krack! of a gunshot from the office space outside was enough to everyone to attention and for the Doctor's smile to widen; "...not quite."

[Sunset]

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

"The Graybeards are loving it - they don't often get the chance to play Explorer," Commander Pietz continued. Hands clasped at his back, he looked neither to the right nor to the left as he walked beside Admiral Falk. Instead his eyes constantly moved to check every junction and every protruding bulkhead for the threat that would never be there. It was habit, however, and that he had broken with habit to use an unfamiliar moniker provoked her to asked the question; "Greybeards?"

"Casual term, Ma'am. One they've adopted themselves. The Core Systems Programming Group. They write the lowest level system code that operates all of this," he nodded his head, indicating the ship in general. "All of it written from scratch as a security measure. They're the only ones with this kind of in-depth knowledge of systems and code."

It was but one security protocol among many. By writing the code themselves with only knowledge of the electronics and their interfaces, the Graybeards ensured that any attacker that somehow gained physical access to a Defense Force internal system would find their tools faced with an utterly unique environment. An expert system or an AI could try to build an interpreter to translate the system into something that made sense, but without any code documentation a remote exploit that somehow found itself transferred into the system would find itself doing nothing at all without even a clue as to what those zeros and ones meant. Of course, the more difficult task was simply accessing those systems to begin with. There was a strict air-gap policy in place where no internal system would receive data from the external communications system that was the mostly likely point of attack. A one-way junction allowed internal information to be transferred out but that required physical authorization and was one of the principle duties of a bridge officer - as well as the only place that transfer could be authorized.

"...do they?"

"Have gray beards? So I've been told. The outside contact was cybernetic, but they had a facial construct that could be called a gray beard. If you've ever commented on my discomfort with the casual nature of Fleet discourse, the reception I was given and the subsequent interaction would provoke much mirth."

But clearly not in the Commander, who stated the previous matter-of-factly and without even cracking the slightest of smiles.

"And what can they tell us?"

"What they can tell us is that someone wrote the code that runs the various artifacts. Multiple someones. There's a slight variance in each code iteration - they compare it to someone putting an extra space after a period when using a keyboard..."

"A keyboard. That's been a long time."

"Apparently they do. It's enough of a variation to assign a signature to each author," he went on, shifting back to the core question. "Which is definitely an oddity, as one wouldn't detect the same variation in our own code. They are put through various obscuring techniques so that the author - authors - are not directly identifiable. But here they are, and putting the code through their filters they've picked up dozens if not hundreds of unique signatures. In fact, it appears as though most every 'Helios' and 'Volcan' recovered has their own author. The implication from this is that each is 'owned' by a single entity and my interpretation is that their pilots or commanding officer somehow brings their own operating system along with them. In both cases, all code but the most necessary was erased before they were put into storage so there's no control interface. Or wasn't."

"Then they've made some progress on that?"

"Considerable. Even though the code varies, the Graybeards tell me that with physical access it was relatively easy to build a completely new operating system and interface. Because the creators erased their own work, we can just inject this new system directly into most any artifact through their physical interface."

"Which suggests that they did exactly the same thing, doesn't it?"

Commander Pietz nodded agreement, "That's the theory. By all accounts, it's an odd way to go about things..."

[Sunset]

Republic Special Projects Division Research Tower, Landor City, Terra Incognito...

"I am not, in fact, relaxing," Thola answered, not bothering to look sideways from where he sat midway up a full-length chaise with a reflector balanced across his lap. What good the tanning device would do the fur-covered Mecce was its own question but it went well with the dark sunglasses he wore tucked into the curly hair below his towering ears. "I am waiting. Stalking my prey, as the hunter might put it."

If the diminutive Doctor was hunting he was as singularly well equipped for that as he was for tanning. The couch in his office was missing a throw pillow and this had been wrapped over one of the glass-edged balcony railings to act as a rest for the odd-looking rifle leaned against it. What he could possibly be stalking wasn't evident; As with the other offices in the tower it faced out over the bay and the clean sands of the beach below. Which meant that the only possible target was...

"...as you've already guessed," Thola smiled, nodding his head vigorously as was the way among the Mecce, "My intended example is one of the common beach goers. In particular the muscular sort of young man who will kick sand in your face and steal your girlfriend."

"Has this happened?"

"Not that I have observed," he confessed, "Which explains my seeming air of relaxation. But I have been assured that it does, on occasion, and I have thus resolved to bring both justice and prove the triumph of brain over brawn through the application of science. But the bully has not presented himself and thus I am the angel of vengeance denied."

"Better than the lab techs, I suppose."

"Well, yes. I work with them and many are quite personable, even if they have the occasional bad habit or strange odor about them. Thus the bully."

But it didn't seem likely. Leaning over the edge of the railing, Amaril spied no such jerk among the scattered crowd of sunbathers, castle-builders, surfers, and swimmers. Perhaps the Doctor had just been watching too many old movies. Besides, physical prowess was no longer an assurance of victory on the far-ranging beaches of Sunset. One might run afoul of a cyborg, find themselves matching ability with a species possessing some kind of sonic blast, or simply tossed far out to sea when a Troll or other super-soldier species decided to do their neighbor on the sands a good turn, "I just don't think you're going to find one," the Elf concluded. Initially the idea of the Doctor testing his creation on the public had worried him, but now with both no subject present and the general loathsome character of that potential subject established, he was less-so.

"Unfortunate, but I suspect you are right." Laying aside his reflector, the Mecce rose and took up the rifle. It was surprisingly light, apparently, for despite its size he had little trouble hopping up on a table so that he could aim the contraption out over the beach. "But this is Special Projects! We should not only be interested in simply the results we settled on, but in achieving the fantastic!"

There was a button on the side, just near his thumb, and he pressed it with notable satisfaction on his face. A humm filled the balcony momentarily and lights flickered on as the weapon went through a diagnostic mode and the noise died away. Another switch and four prongs sprang out from where they had laid flat against the side of the blunt barrel to form something of a cone around a central dish. Aiming it generally at the crowd, he pressed a third and a holographic display opened up to show the distant people in close detail, a red outline flickering from one to another as his eyes focused on and then discarded one after another.

"Doctor..."

"Oh, do not worry. I have no intention of tormenting someone. In fact... The perfect quarry!" He focused on a game of beach volleyball that had sprouted up to one side and to a particularly gawky-looking youth who stood to one corner. "He seems unskilled, does he not?"

"Thola..."

"But let us venture into the realm of the fantastic! You see, I have devised a method to link the weapon to various database. Image analysis shows him to be playing the game volleyball and to be struggling particularly at it. Unskilled, but eager. Now that I have set this young lad as the target;" The red outline went green and zoomed in again, centering him in the holographic display while everything else moved around him, "We can encourage him, so to speak, and perhaps through his sudden burst of athletic prowess he will, as they say, get the girl."

"Boy."

"Boy? I will confess..." Thola watched carefully through the sight, noting the movement of target and ball, "I do not yet have your instincts as to the sexual orientation of random passers-by. Still..."

Whatever moment of timing had been established crossed the threshold and he pulled the trigger. Just a moment later the boy leapt and, in a display of ability not held just a moment before, spiked the ball squarely in the face of a player on the other side of the net.

"And there you have it! Not only can we use this device for purposes of control and containment, but also enhancement! The possibilities, as they say, are endless!"

"Too bad he's not getting the boy," Amaril sighed, turning back from the railing and looking down at the Mecce to his side, "But very neat."

"The boy? Why not?" Thola looked through the sights again and the Elf laughed; "Because that was the boy..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Far Stand-Off from GEC-1400971, Beta Quadrant...

"I don't have one," Thomas admitted with a shrug. Lieutenant Commander Ingersol was at his station and Captain Blaine had just repeated the question she'd left him with the day before; "Is there a good reason to stick around?"

"We've gone over every kilometer of the interior of the Circlet, checked what we can of the structure itself, and while there are signs of low-technology civilizations in place there's nothing that would lead me to believe that there's either a high-tech civilization down there or a low-tech one undergoing some kind of disaster beyond the normal. SDF-Rogue will be arriving to undertake a full survey in two hundred hours and if we don't beat that punch they'll start asking questions. What I can tell you is that I've done the math;" Or at least the computer had done the math and he'd eyeballed the results; "And assuming a moderately energetic explosion the seeds from the Circlet can be deposited on the Gate again in less than a day. Presuming there's someone down there that wants it to happen again. There's a mystery here, but what that mystery is..."

"We'll leave that for Rogue," Kami decided, kicking herself out of the command chair to walk to the back of the bridge where the Eye sat. "So, we ready?"

"All ready," the Skri declared. "The station's systems are up and running, I've got a positive signal from the other end, and I can bring the wormhole up from here," he tapped the console with a cybernetic arm.

"And I have no moral quandary. I'm not sure the why or the where but we're not going to be directly hurting anyone. There's been no attempted contact," she looked to the Sensor and Communications stations for confirmation and both officers shook their heads, "So let's see what's out there."

If there had been contact attempted, there had been plenty of time to attempt it. To deliver the Chief Engineer's technical teams to the Gate Complex, the Ojeni had moved within interstellar spitting distance of the gateway and with no apparent response. That was confidence in her mind, and with confidence in her step she returned to her place, "Helm, put us in firing position. Same as back in Gen Celet - Eye will activate the gate, we'll fire a probe through, and keep your finger on the trigger and foot on the accelerator. Once we have positive contact with the probe, we'll go through and take a look around..."

[Sunset]

A Chance Discovery, Deep in the Bowels of Setting One, The Circlet, Gen Celet System...

"Keep a sharp eye on that structural," Kahmed called out, his boots stepping along the deck with the characteristic hard pull of electro-magnetic adhesion. Only a bare kilometer from the enormous rend known as the Kion Breach, there was no atmosphere as well as other frequent hazards with the extreme possibility of unexploded ordinance to give the Karmabaijanii contractors' job the spice of life. "It should be good, but..."

"Ja, ja, I'll make sure."

Even this deep in the sub-structure of the Circlet, there was a chance that some of the long structural members that had originally extended out to and then through the Breach had been twisted or warped by the remote violence. While sealing the breach and re-constructing the continental environment was the highest priority, there was the secondary - and very much long-term - concern that hidden structural damage might lead to the wound being re-opened, so to speak, when time and tension took their toll. That this hadn't already happened in the many millennia of the Circlet's post-Breach existence was testament to the skill of the builders but with the possibility that the enormous artifact would inhabited for hundreds if not thousands of times that impressive length the impetus was there for early repairs.

Stepping along the wall of the corridor Kahmed held up his scanner while on the other side Sevinj did the same. Even though the member was concealed behind the sensor-muffling walls, the precision readings shared between the two devices would establish whether the corridors themselves - and thus the beam they were attached to - had been altered in any way. Minutes passed as the two wandered along, checked the readings, and kept an occasional eye on their surroundings. The early sense of danger and mystery for those penetrating into the depths had faded away and now every drone bay, abandoned hangar, or maintenance alcove was just like the past ten, twenty, or hundred. Occasionally one or the other would swing their light into an opening or archway that ran underneath the beam and the bulkhead that hung from it but quickly they returned to bouncing down the middle of the corridor, one over the other. It was only when another kilometer had fallen under their footsteps that Kahmed glanced into an archway as his light went past only to stop and bring it back.

"Huh. Eh, Sevinj, you ever see somethin' like this?"

The second man stepped over, switching off his scanner and dropping it to dangle at his thigh as he joined his partner. Beyond was the somewhat familiar layout of a Circlet manufacturing facility; Three production lines that led to a central finishing area and a storage area. What had drawn the taller man's eye was the product hanging on the various pre-finishing lines - a humanoid robotic construct that looked at least somewhat familiar in form and function...

[Sunset]

Docking Bay 4, Landing Facility VI, Setting One, Circlet Alpha, Gen Celet System, Delta Quadrant...

"Now what is that?!"

Lieutenant Maio knelt at the side of the fallen heap, bending over slightly so her fingers just touched the textured surface of the docking bay and her nose was only a hand-span away from the contraption. She'd never seen its like among all the other artifacts dredged out of the mega-structure - though as a medical tech she hadn't had much reason to examine them in depth - but here were a whole heap of robots just laying there. More were joining it every minute as well; She didn't recognize the design of the transport that was in the process of unloading, but the Karmabaijan flag on the blunted nose told her it was friendly.

"Dunno, ja? We found them in the under-structure and we thought we'd bring them in," Kahmed answered, tipping out another dolly to send the robot it carried sprawling into a heap with the others. There was little chance of damaging it since the soft white exterior marked it as built of the same near-indestructible material as the rest of the artifacts and the Circlet itself. "Good bounty on new stuff though, ahn we've found plenty," he nodded towards his partner, who was rocking one of the standing units in the back of the ship up onto his own two-wheeled hauler. "Holiday bonus, eh?"

"It looks like it," Sahra admitted, only a little jealousy in her voice. There had to be forty of the robots and though she didn't know the going rates, the spare crowd already gathered around with some looking and talking and others similarly posed over the robots to take a closer look was a good indication as to the potential bonus in their pay packet. "What are they for?"

They were Humanoid - or Whatever-oid the species they were based on was called - with the usual two arms and two legs but an odd nearly-skeletal torso and a very strange bifurcated head. All of these floated on spherical joints tucked under the flanges of each limb and between the torso itself, giving the whole thing an oddly flexible look. The elbow and knee joints were of particular interest to the Lieutenant, who noted quickly that they bent both back and forward. Combined with the other spherical joints and some personal demonstration, she deduced that the unit would be able to move into a wide variety of motion positions from upright bipedal to quadruped. That asked the question as to what the unit was used for but it was one of the other observers who provided another part of the answer, "...no weapons."

"Karate Bot?"

That was a long-shot possibility, but with that in mind the Lieutenant stepped back to take another look at the whole. While she did, an Engineering tech - by the stripe on his uniform - took over to kneel on the other side of her robot and stick an arm underneath, "Looks like there's an access pad... There..." His hand felt the rounded surface of the now-standard touch pad and he pulled out a scanner. "If its like all the others, there's no programming. Let's see..." For a moment he paged through some entries until he came across one he liked. "There's a proper tool for this, but since I don't have one... I'll just jury-rig one."

With his efforts delayed by lack of equipment, she turned to the head. Or what passed for something that might just be a head. It really looked more like the two sides of a helmet with no crown and no face mask between the two. Instead there were a quartet of small nodes with a pair at the top and the bottom of each side. What they were was unknown until the moment when a voice from beside her made the announcement, "There we go. Operating system injected, it should be coming online now..."

A faint shimmer appeared between the four nodes - the tell-tales of a holographic emitter.

"Huh," Maio rocked back on her haunches, "So it can be a biped or a quadruped or anything between, has a very flexible torso, and a holographic... face. I'd say its a prosthetic body."

The idea was familiar; Permanent or temporary replacements for a damaged or destroyed body were commonplace both in military and in civilian life. With the ExoCortex and even the more advanced EienCortex spreading through both, the idea of a robotic or cybernetic prosthetic wasn't strange at all. But this was the Circlet and by every bit of stray gossip she'd overheard there were still more mysteries than answers. Why would the unknown creators need such a device? All speculation was interrupted, however, with the arrival of a section of Marines. Wearing full armor, they came through the bay entry at a hustle before spreading out with two flanking the entrance and the others spreading out around the pile of bodies.

"Alright, everyone - step back," the officer in charge announced, his voice irritated behind the cyclopian helmet. "These are new artifacts and haven't been examined for security risks. So guess what - you're all going to have to get scrubbed down. No exceptions..."

[Sunset]

The Dragon's Eye (GEC-A1291883), Deep Space, Delta Quadrant...

"Let's see..." Alwyra stepped back from the edge of the railing and posed hip-out as she tapped the face-plate of her helmet right where the now-hidden fang would have otherwise been. Tail lashing, she looked from treasure to treasure as she considered each of her team's choices. "Clothes, clothes... What is that?"

Taking advantage of the expansive rail system and the mobile arms, they'd assembled a chamber orchestra of the original specimens with each grasped in the careful grip of a single intricate manipulator. Each arm now stood poised with their particular instrument in position for easy review and each treasure ranged from wildly to narrowly different. The first was Kedo's, an intricately made and modestly ornamented garment that still flowed easily in the curated environment. The outfit presented by the Seeker was similar except far more ostentatious but yet somehow - presuming a mammalian humanoid - revealing in a superlative fashion. The next was Timmon's and this was the current focus; A crystalline decanter of enormous intricacy and filled with an amber liquid of some kind. Annya's was last and Alwyra was inclined to write it off immediately as it looked to be nothing more than a fish bowl complete with fish and encased in an ornamented stand. The Amirah had no entry of her own.

She'd spent the entire time pursing the idea that there might be a Tyrant or Shifting stone buried in all that wonder and her eye had surveyed every pile looking for that characteristic cat's-eye glitter. It was an impossible task and nothing like her precious had present itself to her eye but for the moment she was satisfied and thus called to order a meeting of each searcher's strongest option, "Some kind of alcohol? Booze?"

"I think it's a perfume," Timmons answered, gesturing the arm forward so all could look it over. "Spectroscopy shows the liquid is a hydrocarbon - so it could be a liquor, I suppose - but a wide number of trace elements that roughly line up with various pleasant smells. Pleasant to you and me, of course. If it is a beverage, its not for our set of species. That much ethanol will put you in the ground or strike you blind."

"But if it smells good, it might be a possibility. Let's see this robe," she fingered the first garment forward to take a look. "Why this one?"

There were others, of course. Nearly all of the entombed Kion warriors and conquered examples were wearing something and these ranged from the obscene to the everyday with most of the warriors wearing an open robe over their armor that was then draped with various medallions and jewelry that suggested awards and trophies. This example was particular because it was only modestly ornamented and that had apparently drawn his attention, "Because its not gaudy, but its here. It also had a place of honor - if you want to call it that - on one of the warrior tombs. Draped over an urn full of gems and still pristine. I'm thinking the materials are either particularly valuable or particularly effective. It almost looks like an armored jacket."

Consisting primarily of a leather-like material trimmed with the hide of some armadillo-like animal (complete with scales), his guess wasn't far off. Her own examination found that the regular bulges on the outside were in fact dozens of pockets on the inside with small plates inside. Plucking one of these out revealed something useful to the researchers but not to her; They were all covered with carefully inscribed script in an unknown language. Otherwise there were a few details picked out in precious metals and set with stones. This contrasted heavily with the second example, which might well have been made entirely of gemstones except for a careful weave of wire and chain keeping them together.

"It's a gemstone bikini! An evolution of the standard chainmail bikini, it offers more protection because there's even less coverage!"

This was high irony coming from the Duab'Akii. Their regular clothing and thus semi-religious apparel consisted entirely of an intricate set of vinyl-like patches placed over the body not to conceal but to provide various functions while still exposing the body as much as possible to the sensations of the universe and thus Akii's creation. Only the reality of the lethal atmosphere kept Deania from wearing her normal modification of her cultural garment - a pair of very-low cut jeans and a quarter-jacket over a very small collection of appliance strips. Her find was nearly thread-thin and would, on her body, outline her genitals to conceal nothing but serve as a framework for several sparkling dangles that would only draw more attention.

With Alwyra's attention waning, Annya spoke up, "I think we should go with mine."

Of course everyone would say the same thing, except that both the Seeker and the Commander nodded as the Amirah looked closer. They were certainly pretty fish, and the bowl they were enclosed in was sphere-perfect and held inside a wooden cage that outlined the six sides in circular hoops and linked them together into a cubic design. Short legs held it up, and the six corners were capped with decorative metal pyramids. Inside there was a tracing of gravel sprinkled with nuggets of precious metal but ultimately it was still just a very fancy fishbowl; "Why?"

"Because," and there was a knowing grin suggested in her tone, though her canine muzzle couldn't show it, "They are alive."

"Huh? Of course..." She looked closer and the sudden truth of it came over her. Just a fishbowl. With live fish; "Seventy two thousand year old live fish..."

[Sunset]

GEC-79291Cc1, The Spinward Expanse, Alpha Quadrant...

"Ah guess Ah now waht happened to the Blud Dawgs," Meli offered, her voice half whisper and all deadpan despite the gory contents of the coffin she was peering into over the tall edge.

She didn't know it, but the remains inside were of the ex-Corporal Jadak and not all had been inflicted during his death. Laid out on a tall plinth carved of metal and stone, the lid of the casket had been pulled away by a mechanism hanging from the center of the chamber to allow a number of intruding arms to crawl up from their sockets in the stand and further violate his corpse. Plugged in here and there through neat incisions cut through both skin and bone, their unseen ends moved slowly inside both head and chest to give his rest the strange illusion of life despite the utter paleness of his blood-drained skin. Jadak was not alone; Two more of the sculpted onyx coffins stood amid identical devices while others sat waiting their turn on carefully stacked poles projecting from the far wall. Of the four-armed robots there was nothing to be seen; She'd paralleled their movements as they flowed in and out of the temple-palace complex and they seemed content to leave the caskets alone while the machines worked.

"But what will happen to them next?"

There was no obvious answer to ScLappi's question, at least not in this room. But there were more rooms and Meli slid down from the edge of the casket to creep to the archway that led back out into the central corridor. A line of enormous blocked-off columns gave her plenty of cover as she looked out both at the robots - tiny against the bulk of the building - and across to where more chambers undoubtedly stood behind the opposite row. That was a possibility but she shook her head, "Nah, not there. Don' wanna cross open ground til Ah have to ahn if Ah was building the place," she turned her head to look up towards the apex of the corridor and the next tier. Just at the very summit of the titanic steps was a platform with a single casket far more ornate than the others standing free but before this were more columns and presumably more chambers, "Ah'd set it up lahk an assembly lahn. Whatever happens next, it happens up thar..."

Checking her senses and the room behind her - nothing worse than being suddenly jumped by something or someone she'd missed - she sprinted across to the closest rising pillar to stick to the backside like glue. Pressing her behind up against it, she edged over, peered around, and with the coast clear she repeated the dash again and again as she worked towards the step. Against her petite height it was seemingly insurmountable but she proved perception wrong, sprinting first to the base and then looking up to eye a narrow ledge before jumping straight up to grab the overhand with a single hand while the other boosted her over the edge. A decorative railing provided some cover and she pushed herself back along this, body sliding over the stone surface until her boots hit the wall behind her.

"Ya missed that one," she noted, her tone tight, as she grabbed the edges of her tactical vest and made an adjustment. "Darn near popped mah boobs out there. Seems tha girls want to come out ahn play."

"As I cannot currently enjoy either the sight nor the touch, I will have to settle for your word," the voice over her shoulder answered dryly, to which she replied with a chuckle; "Have ta fix that. Laht's see what we got."

Her instincts had been correct, even if her timing was off. Vaulting the rail, she was forced to tuck herself against it as a pair of the robots split off from the stream and headed towards just that chamber with a casket carried between them. Holding her place, she waited patiently until they emerged again with another or perhaps the same slung between their eight spindly arms. Creeping up to the side, the Dwarf finished her movement with a spot-check of the wayward mammaries and a finger-camera around the corner before sliding into the room. Inside the setup was much the same, though this time there was only a pair of angled tables instead of the three previous. Making her way around the perimeter of the room she described the area to the satisfaction of the Doctor.

"I would suggest that the angled tables are symbolic and, if my theory is correct, symbolize in part the slow resurrection or re-awakening of the subjects."

"So you think this is some kind of robo-zombie operation?"

"The signs lead to 'yes', though the question is why? Why bring these Blud Dawgs in, other than the convenience of having the bodies on hand?"

There was little to do but to confirm or deny ScLappi's theory. She'd assured herself that the room was clear and with a sensor strip watching the doorway, she crossed to the closest casket. Whoever was inside had probably been an officer and an attractive female one at that. Her uniform was stained with blood from the wounds that had killed her - two precise thrusts from an edged weapon emerging just above the hidden nipples - and she bore the scar of an earlier wound across her forehead and cheek. But these had been replaced in severity by the attachment of several devices not present in the previous chamber. Where the arms had worked inside, now they were coupled to her body by these and both cables and tubes ran into her.

"'Princess', eh?" Meli read off the name plate on her uniform, "She ahn't no sleepin' beauty. Ah think yer right. Looks lahk they are rebuildin' her."

There was more than a certain resemblance between what she's seen of the robots, as well as the hovering sculpted top of the casket, and the prosthesis that were slowly being merged with her face and head but again, why?

"Time tah move up to the next level, ah think..."

[Sunset]

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

A finger under the edge and Demi ripped the envelope open, the crisp tear of paper and the tug of glue as exotic as the ancient device itself. There was no writing on the front, no seal on the flap, nor a pair of ruby red lips left by the lipstick of a lover. That would be something that Erika would do but on the outside the delivery was unclaimed, though the careful jaws of one of her wife's kittens had delivered it and thus it had passed the whisker test. A courier - itself rare and from a reliable and reputable company - had delivered it to their doorstep and then beat a reasonable retreat in their green and red ship, off to their next task. Soft paws had carried it through the flap and into the living room where she had found it sitting on the coffee table after dinner. Little Nathyn was well into solid food now and had the pernicious habit of sputtering what he didn't like all over his end of the table. To counter, Alex had inserted the spar leaf and this left him sitting near-alone at the long end of the table.

"What is it?"

"Well..." She looked across the top of the tear at Erika, who sat on the couch opposite with an unnecessary glass of wine dangling in her exquisite fingers. There was promise in those fingers - promise for later - but for now the contents of the mystery envelope were of greater interest. Fishing out the letter, Demi held the remains of the envelope between pinky and ring while she unfolded the contents and began to read; "'Missus Silaco, Missus Love' - Definitely for us - 'I have come into the possession of information as to your personal habits and behaviors which, if revealed, would do considerable damage to both your reputations and to those of any organizations to which you might be attached...' Oh, we're being blackmailed!" With a sigh of delight, she crushed the letter to her chest and closed her eyes before again holding it out at elbow length for continued reading, "'To assure yourself of the veracity of my claim, I have included the following photographic evidence, copies of which will be provided to major media outlets along with other images in my possession. All of these, proofs and originals, will be delivered to you via courier if the sum of twenty billion...'"

"Twenty billion? That's ambitious. I hope these pictures are decent..."

"Shhh, I'm getting to that," Demi continued, a finger momentarily to her lips. "'Twenty billion di-coins are deposited to the following account by noon tomorrow.' Twenty billion - not that I'm suggesting it, but do you have that much?"

"Mmhm," though Erika put the glass down and conjured up a hologram of her finances. It wasn't something the two regularly discussed; She was the president and owner of a emblematic robotics giant that did business across the entirety of the Solarian Reaches and her partner was a senior diplomat with the salary to match. Financially they were forever secure barring the most catastrophic events. "I'd have to liquidate some investments - money making money - but it could be done. Unmarked account..." She tapped at a side screen, "Maintained by a financial institution in the United Star Empire particularly noted for such things. I'd already venture a guess as to the identity of our would-be blackmailers but..."

"Hush;" She smiled as Demi again shushed her and continued the reading, "'If our demands are not met, they will then be released to the media on a regular schedule with the demanded sum increasing by one billion for each day the demands are not met.' Oh, do you remember my birthday last year?" The final fold of the letter had fallen down and through the paper Erika could make out the printed image of three individuals intertwined on a couch. "Lunch out with Ateyf, then up to her office..."

"Yes - and then the next morning, on the shuttle back, in my office... She should have closed the blinds."

Examining the picture closely for a moment, Demi then handed it over the table to her partner, "They were. You can just barely see a ghostly outline. Some kind of x-ray camera?"

"A dozen ways to do it, but you'd think I'd remember that kind of detail," the blonde admitted with a smile, "I must be getting old. But," and her smile turned serious as she passed the letter back and picked up her glass for a quick gulp of wine, "Do they mention anything about the stuff?"

"The stuff?" Demi glanced back across at her and returned to the picture. It was from a pretty good angle and she hadn't previously considered photography as part of her erotic repertoire; Perhaps enlarged and framed to set on the counter in her boudoir... "What do you mean, the stuff?"

"I mean the stuff," meaning dripped into Erika's tone. "You know - it would be bad if they knew about the stuff."

"I... Oh! You mean," her own voice dropped, "The stuff? I really hope they don't know about the stuff. This," she waved the letter, "This is nothing. A ménage à trois between three consenting and... Very attractive adults in the privacy of their own offices? But the stuff - that would be bad."

Erika nodded and moved across to sit next to her, their knees just touching, "Exactly. We can't risk anyone knowing about the stuff. We'd be ruined. Everything we have, everything we've built. It's all based on the stuff. If they know about the stuff..."

"We'd be screwed," Demi admitted with a sigh. "But what about the thing?"

"The thing? You mean;" Demi nodded and Erika laughed shortly, "Oh, I wouldn't worry about the thing. Everyone knows about the thing. But the stuff... That would be serious. Like assassins at the kitchen door serious."

"But doesn't the thing have something to do with the other thing?"

Erika went deadly silent and the glass no longer circled between her fingers. There was a long, uncomfortable moment between the two and she stood up before looking down at Demi, "Don't ever joke about the other thing. Don't even talk about it. No one can ever know about the other thing - not even," she looked over her shoulder, checking carefully for anyone else in the room, "That Man."

[Sunset]

Republic Special Projects Division Research Tower, Landor City, Terra Incognito...

"Noting my previous statement as per achieving the fantastic," Doctor Thola grasped the silken sheet draped over the oddly familiar shape below, "I have improved on my previous effort!"

Surrounded by a dozen idle researchers and scientists - as well as the couple of Katryna Silaco and her husband, who leaned against a workbench behind the main crowd with his arms around her and her leaning against him - the diminutive Mecce stood in the center of one of the tower's smaller workshops with the various benches and instruments pushed against the walls to form an open space in the middle. Of particular note to those who had been paying attention to his previous efforts were the remains of the original Treznor-made stun rifle, the scattered parts of Thola's manipulator rifle, and the robotic arm and cage of a Reinmetal Engineering RE-IA 4 Automated Fabricator folded up into its over-sized housing. All of these stood at odds with the rather more organic form under the sheet until he swept it aside to present...

...a dog.

It was, as might be suspected, a German Shepard and in fact the pattern of the coat and the animal's build and stance would have been very familiar to those currently on their way to a star far, far away. Since they were not there, he began to walk around the canine as he explained his achievement, "By happenstance, I came across a request for a specialty prosthetic that would be used by an unattached field operative. The individual was an early adopter of the ExoCortex, having suffered from a debilitated physical condition in their youth. This would have otherwise been resolved by the replacement of the body but with the introduction of the ExoCortex they chose that newly offered path. Said individual then enlisted in the Defense Force and graduated to be assigned to SDF-Southern Cross. During their assignment with that vessel they came across multiple instances where their chosen canine biological prosthetic - while proving very useful - was deficient due to the lack of bipedal mobility and opposable thumbs. Thus the request was made for a custom prosthesis and owing to the rank of the sponsoring request it was forwarded to Special Projects for completion. This has since been delivered but the technical documentation was on hand."

"Now, many of you might also note the depicted species of this particular prosthetic. The German Shepard was - and continues to be - well known as both a work animal in military and police roles, as well as a guard dog. Realizing the possible synergy between the two innovations, I have modified the design as supplied by Special Projects to incorporate the manipulator system into emitters mounted in the cybernetic animal's muzzle. This," he paused, swept his hand side-to-side to generate a virtual console before entering a command, "Allows the system superior mobility and coupled with the design of the specialized prosthesis..."

Sinking back onto its haunches, the unit began to stand as limbs and joints rotated into unusual positions until it was standing upright to look from side to side.

"We now have a capable companion unit for the ordinary police officer that combines the additional utility brought by the canine form with the interesting possibilities posed by the manipulator. This canine officer can both present a pleasant form for the public - dogs, as a rule, are still view affectionately by the majority-Human population of the Republic - and with the canine-standard sensory functions they would offer superior suspect apprehension. Additionally, I have upgraded the unit to take full advantage of the manipulator with its own Instinctive Intelligence Core; It can bring a suspect to a dead stop, back a mentally-ill suicide victim away from the edge. Programmed with the biology of every species regularly encountered in the Republic and equipped with a higher-gain artificial variable sensor array, it can switch from target to target fast enough to move a crowd out of the path of an officer in pursuit. Additionally..."

Another command and the dog dropped into the half-crouch of a gunslinger, paw-turned-furry glove at it's side. A concealed compartment on the muscled thigh opened and the grip of a pistol emerged to be snatched up and panned around the room firing imaginary shots at fake targets, "I have provided it with the means to defend itself and others with lethal force if the situation requires. Further;" Another tap at the holographic keys and fur was rapidly replaced by armor until nearly the entire form was covered head to toe in a modern-looking suit in police blue and provided with a badge on the chest as well as warning lights and what was clearly some kind of flight pack, "The fur is a long-chain polymorphic over the armor polymorphic as provided to us by Director Silaco. By itself, this would be a more than capable police unit but..."

It was clear Thola had one final surprise in store. Turning around, the Shepard sunk onto its haunches with one hand splayed on the floor while the other still clutched the handgun. A seam opened along the back between the shoulder blades and one sphere and then another emerged from some interior cavity to float over each shoulder. These were inlayed with a hexagonal pattern and slowly turned and shifted as the officer glanced around the room, "...two additional manipulator drones. By themselves these are useful, though not as fully-featured as the muzzle unit. Because of the power requirements of the flight unit, these are only capable of stopping a target. Freezing it up in a similar manner to the stun rifle or lowering the target to the ground. I have dubbed them capture drones and reasonably these can be deployed with existing officer power armor; They use the same charging mounts as the point-defense and anti-material units carried by Defense Force power armor."

"...okay, these are super-neat..."

"Thank you," his head-bob was enthusiastic. "Additionally, since these are built on an existing cybernetic design culled from designs shared with us by the military equipment division of Silaco Electronics, we can easily substitute in any animal we want. There is also the possibility of selling on the design and contributing the income to the Special Projects general fund. The most reasonable approach would be a joint venture between Silaco and the Treznor company responsible for the sale of these rifles. Of course, that brings up political implications as the Treznor government is not wholly aligned with our own mores; Negotiation would be required..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Stand-Off from the Circlet Gate Complex, GEC-1400971, Beta Quadrant...

It was the same and yet subtly different; Instead of the familiar swirl of distorted star field of a Republic Aurora Transit Gate, the many points of the artificial wormhole mechanism on the gateway lit up and then streamed together to a central bright point before exploding outward as incoming light from the other side streamed away to reveal the darkness beyond. For long moments all was quiet in anticipation of something or someone coming through but there was nothing and Captain Blaine looked upward to where the Tactical Officer lurked just over her shoulder, "Lieutenant?"

"Firing..." There was a bright streak originating just off-center from the bottom of the main display and heading towards the distant gateway, "Probe is away. Telemetry online," the Coatlicue looked to the Sensor Station and Lieutenant Commander Ingersol; "Got it... Here we go!"

In seconds, the probe had crossed the enormous gap between trailing station and drifting starship and as the singularity boundary approached panels folded back and away to reveal the clusters of sensitive instruments and, perhaps more importantly, the communications antenna wrapped in a star around the tiny sub-light drive. Depending on what exactly lay on the other side, the probe might have seconds, minutes, days, or milliseconds to relay whatever it found back through the gateway to the Ojeni and thus the risk to the deployed instruments was considered useful. A pause of inhaled breath as it breached the boundary between one galaxy and the next and the holosphere in the center of the bridge went blank, ready to receive the first images from the other side. One second, then two, and then the display lit up to show a miniature representation of the landscape on the other side while the main display was replaced with the view straight-ahead from the probe while the Ojeni's view of the gateway dropped to an inset on one side.

"Lieutenant Cadindra, eyes on the gateway and finger on the trigger," Kami ordered, but her own were on the sights spread out in front of them, "Helm..."

"Foot's on the pedal," though his eyes too were on the screen; In a mirror of their own position, the probe was just now passing by a quartet of gate stations as it sped away from the wormhole and there was only a moment to take in the details. Where the stations of the Kion Homeworlds had been covered with the bristle of guns and launchers and those of the their local system were dotted with the now-dead remains of the nano-infestation, these stations were pristine though still studded here and there with the familiar angular-square barrels of Circlet Builder laser weaponry. None fired or even moved as the probe passed and now attention was on the next attraction.

It was our own galaxy.

Spread out before them was the whole of the galactic disc, an enormous slice directly across the screen from east to west. At this great distance the individual stars blurred together into a spiral whole but that it was their own home was clear. For a long while everyone stared at it in wonder; Far from the image drawn on a screen and suggested by a computer, this was the real deal and for a second the enormity of it all was overwhelming. The probe, and by distant extension the Ojeni, was looking at their conceivable universe from the outside.

"Tom... Aft view."

Kami's gut instinct was screaming heartburn at her and as soon as she issued the command and he touched the console the impulse was confirmed. Spread out behind the probe was first the four stations, then the ring-shaped gateway itself, and finally a squadron of ships of unfamiliar design moving to surround the probe in a long arc even as they appeared in the holosphere. That they were ships was plain by their maneuvering but the design was somehow both familiar and not. Spherical and star-like, each burned brightly from a glow in their center to render them somehow ghostly and crystalline; "Identify them. Do we..."

"No," he answered, and an isolated image of one appeared at the top of the sphere. The glow had been eliminated already and the form made clear as green outlined itself over the form and a database search rapidly scrolled through beside it. What appeared was not a ship nor a species but instead something largely unexpected, "A Hoberman Sphere. The toy..;" Kami was barely familiar with it but he went on, "Though these are markedly higher-end in design and construction. Reaction-less drives, heavy weapons of some kind mounted on the nodes with what looks like smaller mounted at the joints. Variety of different models - this is the most highly represented, Captain - with mass varying from less than our own to several times..."

"Captain," Another voice interrupted, "Lieutenant Commander, sorry to interupt but the probe is receiving coherent signals that appear to originate from the closest sphere. They are attempting communications..."

[Sunset]

Eternity Incorporated Board Meeting, Virtual Space...

"So what do the numbers look like?"

The question came from Director Fishe, one of the five nearly formless individuals gathered around the table. In the shapeless gray of the space only the sharp smokey black of the table top stood in sharp relief with ghostly figures - two at a side and one at the head - variously leaning on translucent elbows or leaning back in an invisible chair. Fishe wasn't a code name; Each was a known representative of a governmental department with a vested interest in the program. Director Fishe represented one of these while various other Directors and Under Secretaries were also scattered around the table's trapezoid perimeter.

The numbers, such as they were, appeared at the head of the virtual table as a series of graphs and charts showing the pertinent information across the various metrics established for the shadowy corporation. Uptake, churn, cancellations - all were represented along with a wide variety of supplemental data points.

"For our first six months, the high cost of the contract seems to be having the desired effect," Director White, representative from the Commerce Department, answered, "You could really say that it is the option of the one percent or even the point zero one percent - and they don't seem abject to paying it either. Eien population is in the range of fifty million and the majority of these are in the top point zero one percent of Republic income levels. There's definitely a bit of social engineering going on here as well - the lure of immortality is an effective luxury tax that we are using to finance expansion and lower the cost down the line. Some of this is going towards a rapid expansion of the secure government portion - already we're looking at eleven percent uptake in the Defense Force, and nearly seventy among Fleet-level officers."

"But how do we keep that uptake rate high among the economic elite? Certainly at this point we're building out infrastructure on their contracts, but when that infrastructure is ready for the larger volumes presented by a lower price point..."

"Branding and rarity. We're moving to position the Eternity Inc. label as the prestige label, along with branded up-scale EienNode faceplates. If you've got it, flaunt it, right? When the intake structures are built out, we'll create another few 'competing' companies at lower price points. It's all the same apparatus, but people will pay for something they perceive as cheaper, faster, or better. Or rarer - we'll keep the Eternity brand under limited availability with a waiting list. Already we've seen some attempts to re-sell contracts on the underground luxury market and at this point we've let them stick. We'll crack down during the initial phase of the off-brands."

"What about foreign and outside uptake?"

"There's a scattering of acceptance and interest - again, mostly among the mega-wealthy - but there's an interesting if small contingent of hackers and political dissidents who see this as a good way to obscure their activities. In fact, we've recovered examples of modified EienNodes that have varying levels of obscuring techniques designed to shield the end-user from law enforcement and intelligence profiling. There's a lot of ideas there that have been passed over to our own intelligence segments."

"And outside investment?" This was a question from Justice Nobondonu. While the Justice Department was mostly there to keep the whole thing as legal as it could be, there was also the question of law enforcement both within and without to consider.

"A tricky area. The problem is that a lot of the big investors - say, Feanor Holdings - want to look at the books. Which we're actively cooking, even if its for noble reasons. At looking at the books is going to inevitably lead to leaks. There are proposals on the table for various isolated investment profiles but ultimate we need to keep the governance carefully curated. While we've taken numerous steps to isolate the technical side from the governance side, an outside investor could cause problems. Most of the proposals call for invitation-only investment, but that has the potential to make the whole thing look like a Ponzi scheme."

[Sunset]

GEC-79291Cc1, The Spinward Expanse, Alpha Quadrant...

"Shit... Tha's bad." One of the robots gathered around the uppermost platform and its central riser turned towards her and Meli ducked back below the railing. It was unlikely that it would be looking specifically for her; In fact, she was now under the distinct impression that they didn't very much care about a possible intruder. But caution was worthwhile and for a long minute she stayed out of sight before poking a fingertip over the edge and watching through the attached camera, "Not just bad, but Stereotypical Bad."

The capitalization had come through in her tone and in a near whisper the disembodied voice of ScLappi answered with the sarcastic, "And this from an amoral killer?"

"Ah said bad, cutie. Not evil. Just cause its a giant black coffin-thing with a 'uge four-ahmed humanoid with gray skin ahn a lot more black bits pressed into it and connected by hoses and whars to who-knows-what doesn't make it automatically evil. Thay could be nahce galactic despots and black just happens to be 'in' this season. Or for tha last few thousand years. It's bahd because it looks lahk they'r just getting ready to wahk 'im up and Ah'd rather not answer the question of good versus eval personally. Pretty sure Ah ken take him. Is that a him? Don' see no tits..."

"Not every species has your distinguished mammaries," he noted, his voice chiding. "They could be large four-armed gender-less benefactors that reproduce by splitting down the middle in a process that lasts between four and six months. Black could be a cultural implication of solidarity and communion - the absence of differentiation between caste and status."

"Or thar' jus yer run-of-the-mill spess monsters."

There was an invisible shrug, "Could be. By your deeds you shall be judged."

Whatever it - he or she - was, it wasn't part of the crew. In the previous room she'd found the remains of the Blud Dawg's officer cadre, easily identifiable as such by their fancier uniforms and the gaping holes and slashes where they had been perforated by the multi-armed cylinder robots and their missing weapons. Why the cadre seemed to be in an advanced state of reconstruction compared to the average soldiery was a interesting question but for Meli the answer was simple: She'd have killed them first, so they'd have been the first on the slab. It didn't particular answer the question as to why they were on the slab, or what would happen when they presumably woke up. Did she want to wait for the big guy to answer the question? Or pragmatically put them all down before they got the chance?

"Laht's get a little closer," she decided. More information was good, and the closer she got the more she could observe. A few minutes to wait for an opening and she was over the rail, rolling behind a stack of crates that had been conveniently left in the corner of the next platform. There was something suspicious about that - they were the standard metal and plastic containers one might find on any ship across the galaxy except right here where they were starkly out of place. Crouching behind the stack, Meli thumbed one of the latches and was rewarded with an answer as various pieces of local artwork and artifacts revealed themselves, carefully stacked between bubble wrap sheets and topped with a warning note to leave them the fuck alone, "Sahned, Corporal Jadak. Well, yer dead ahn Ahm not. Would it be particularly petty oh me to come back and do a little lootin' ahn pillagin' ahfter this is all riddled-out?"

"Not your particular idiom. I believe you have mentioned that you are, technically, well-paid?"

"Whan I get back ta spend it," she closed the lid with a slight click. "So laht's see about makin' tha happen."

Angle decided, she moved forward again with a brief dash to the first of a pair of matching columns flanking a side chamber. Looking over her shoulder to check her own and a scuttle across the opening, she made it to the next without incident and edged to the far corner to check her approach, "Somethin' interestin' on tha back wall. Ahmost looks lahk a big ol' wall o' words but that would be just..."

Stereotypically Bad. In fact it was three walls or half of a hexagon that wrapped around the rising plinth where the large coffin rested nearly upright, the contents now completely obscured by her approach. That likely meant that whoever was inside - or whatever - was now just waking up and waiting for her to go read the wall, back up, bump into something, and then turn around to find them looming over her with a strange fire in their eyes.

"Ya better hope it's not lust," she whispered, setting out from her place to skirt the edge of the wall until she could move to the back of the casket, safely concealed from the robots by its towering bulk. "But in tha' real world, Ah can't read that shit. Now Ah could play the big guy's gahm or..."

A hunk of machinery on the backside had attracted her attention and she stopped whispering to her invisible friend to examine it. All of the various hoses and cables came together in that one place and for a moment she considered ripping them out and seeing what happened. Something else - or rather a memory of something else - caught her eye though and she hunkered down to take a look at the bottom where something organic and moldy was growing in a liquid-filled bowl attached to the rest of the rig by a harness that ended in hundreds of tiny wires.

"Neat. Brain in a bowl. Ah betcha they ahr gonna have some kind-o ceremony where they slop this guy into that guys head. Then the galaxy will once again quake aht the presence o' whoever the fuck they ahr while I recline at his feet, nearly nahked cep'n for a metal bra ahn panties. But since tha' would itch," she reached over her shoulder and grabbed the bag slung on her bahk, "Ah got a better idea..."

It was the work of a few moments and as soon as she finished she stood up, walked brisky over to the wall, and began to stare at it while the software in her head began the tedious work of building a translation. Here and there it recognized words that had appeared in other places, built an algorithm, decided if that worked, discarded it, made a few suggestions, and then the alien letters began to shimmer into a more familiar tongue as an enormous hand grasped the edge of the coffin and began to pull itself free of the apparatus while a thousand robots stood below calling out their frantic cry over and over; Kejelkij! Kejelkij! Kejelkij!

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Stand-Off from the Circlet Gate Complex, GEC-1400971, Beta Quadrant...

"The unknown vessels have moved to completely surround the probe," Lieutenant Commander Ingersol announced, a glance over his shoulder and at the images sprawled across the bridge holosphere confirming this. "The closest have expanded; My interpretation of the sensor returns from the probe suggests their weapons are charged and ready, though they don't seem to be pointing them actively at the probe."

Not that it would matter; By the numbers, there were hundreds of weapons from large to small pointed in the general direction of the diminutive probe. Any one of these would blow the tiny craft apart or alternately vaporize it, disintegrate, shred, or detonate it depending on the weapons technology possessed by the unknown vessels. What was more important to Captain Blaine was the orientation of the ships compared to the gate; "But none of them have moved towards the gate..."

"None," he confirmed, checking the collective recorded trajectories.

Any further explination was cut off by the Communication's Officer, "They do know what they're doing. They've got what looks like an automated challenge/response mathematical sequence running. It's slow, but we should have basic communications in a few minutes."

"Slow?"

The Lieutenant shrugged, "Slow. They are keeping their distance, so each response is taking a couple seconds there and back."

"Keeping their distance... From a probe." Kami sat forward in her chair and glared at the unidentified ships as if she could will them to somehow talk faster. "I suppose that says something, but what - I'm just not sure. Theories?"

Beside her Commander Sloan shrugged, "I don't have a guess. At this point we're killing time until we can talk to them so... Maybe they think the probe poses a danger? But they out-mass it by a hundred thousand times or so. Unless their technology is way, way, way behind our own. But reaction-less drives doesn't suggest that. It could just be caution - the wormhole is right there, and they could be preparing for the possibility of a sudden attack. That makes a good deal of sense, actually. They could view the probe as a distraction. Something keeping their attention before an attack."

"Why not just destroy the gateway then?"

Why not? Another question to answer a question and Kami sat back in her chair, a decision made. She had the luxury of waiting - there was plenty of distance both between the probe and the ships and the ships and the gateway and between the gateway and her own ship. With the Helmsman keeping her foot on the accelerator, she was confident that if they came through, Ojeni would be long gone before they breached the wormhole, "After all, they've been waiting seventy thousand years... Wait a second," and the thought tripped around in her head, "Have they been waiting on the other side for seventy thousand years? Eye, was there any record of when this gate or that gate was last activated?"

"Good try, Captain, but no. If the system was capable of keeping logs, it likes to delete them. Given everything I've read and everything we know about all of this stuff," he gestured a spiked leg at the gateway and the circlet, still present on various screens scattered around the bridge, "They probably didn't keep logs - they seem to like their secrets. The only reason we know about the other gates is because they have to have that information to connect to each other in the first place. Erase it like they did with everything else? Billion tons of PTU paperweight..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Stand-Off from the Circlet Gate Complex, GEC-1400971, Beta Quadrant...

"Algorithm complete, Captain," Lieutenant Ya announced. It wasn't an especially momentous event, as he went on to note, "We're building a translation dictionary now, but at this rate that will take days. But we should have something viable in a few hours. I've tried everything I can to speed things up, but they don't seem to like talking any faster than this."

"Great," Kami leaned on her fist. Why were they stalling? That was the only answer as far as she was concerned; Back in the Academy they'd gone over the initial encounter between SDF-Columbia and the even-now mysterious i-We and while the initial attempt had involved nothing more than a single light blinked on and off, this had quickly evolved into a large array of blinking lights. It had turned out that the i-We were just dicking with them, of course, but the example and the simplicity of it was there, "...maybe they're dicking with us."

Or just plain stalling. Glancing up at the holosphere she checked for any trace of a stealthy approach by more ships and did a mental count of the numbers, "Ingersol, Cadindra, keep a close eye on the number of ships. I'm thinking they might be trying to stall while they either reinforce or retreat. Actually..." A glance at her chronometer and she corrected herself, "Shift change is coming up. Second shift," she looked to Commander Sloan, who would be taking over her chair, "Should get ready to take over but I want them at their stations for five minutes together so nothing slips by. Everyone set your alarm for... A couple hours," she sighed, looking back at Lieutenant Ya who answered with nothing more than a shrug.

It was the best estimate and it was her intention to take advantage of the opening to catch a nap. Retreating from the bridge with a yawn cloaked with a fist at the doors, she walked the first few paces to her quarters and fell into bed. It was not that her mind needed the rest - questions raced through her thoughts and threatened to keep her awake - but her body did and within moments of a staggered command to switch one of the virtual windows to the remote view from the probe she was asleep. For however long she rested though, it wasn't fated to last. Seemingly as soon as her eyes had drifted shut of their own reckoning the harsh buzz of an alarm pierced her empty dreams; "Captain to the bridge, Captain to the bridge..."

Pushing herself up on one elbow, her first glance was to the display and then the second to her uniform, which she'd failed to discard, but immediately her eyes went back to the window. It was exactly what she'd been expecting; In what had to have been only moments ago three more of the oddly-shaped ships had arrived with all three being of a more advanced appearance and significantly larger. Dropping her legs off the bunk she headed back the way she'd came at a fast walk. They had not opened fire the second they'd arrived and some projection of confidence was more important to the second shift crew. Four, five, and the doors slid aside and before anyone could say a word she looked to the officer at the Communication's Console, "They're talking a lot faster now, aren't they?"

The Ju-Docri looked at her with an open mouth, "Uh... Yes," she glanced at her station. "I was just about to..."

"I suspected as much," Kami moved behind the young woman, looking over her shoulder at the scattered displays. "They were stalling while reinforcements arrived. But reinforcements against what? It's only a probe."

To her, that spoke volumes. Whoever this was, they were deadly afraid of whoever or whatever might be coming through the gateway. Not enough to destroy it - perhaps they made use of them, or perhaps they wanted to leave the door open so their enemy wouldn't be tempted to use the window - but her gut said that it was fear of something. That they hadn't destroyed the probe outright told her that they were confused - questioning - and after a long watch of seventy-odd millennia that made sense. A thought occurred and she gave it voice, "The Kion? No..."

For all their grandeur and success, the Kion were still run-of-the-mill space barbarians. Against vessels such as these they would suffer the same fate as their long-idle armada had suffered in the Gen Celet System at the hands of the Menelmacari fleet - a systematic dismantling and defeat. Again her gut instinct was that their suspicion was directed at the gateway and ultimately whoever or whatever had built it.

"Translation complete... Incoming transmission..."

"On screen," Kami ordered, looking over her shoulder to where she expected the visage of some exotic alien with its genitals on its forehead to appear. Instead the Lieutenant hesitated before asking, "Are you sure, Captain? Its text only."

"Text only?"

"Text only," she confirmed, bringing the message up on a display above their heads for the Captain to look over. "I've tried negotiating additional data codecs but they refused them all. Audio, video, holographic... Nothing, Captain."

The Captain put a hand on her shoulder, "Not your fault. I'm not going to say I suspected this would happen, but in hindsight I should have. They don't want us to know what they look like or sound like. The less we know the better - at least for them. But that doesn't mean we have to accept it. Work with Sensors to try to intercept some of their comms and see if you can't reverse-engineer whatever they use for ship-to-ship. Long shot, but take it if you can."

"Aye aye, Ma'am."

That was enough of a delay and Kami retreated to the command chair while the two got to work. In a few moments the other absent first ship would arrive and while they went back to the task of keeping an eye on the situation the two junior officers could put in some elbow grease. Plopping down, she found the message already sitting there and she drug it between her and the chair now occupied by her willowy Ex-Oh so that they could read it together, "...within one hundred rotations of this vessel," she finished aloud, looking up to confirm that indeed the largest vessel present was slowly rotating on one of its many axis. The message itself was unexciting, demanding, and blunt and she voiced this aloud to an agreement from her partner.

"...that's going to be hard," Sloan offered, highlighting a particular passage. "I've never even heard of the Kraang - kind of hard to prove that we're not infested if we haven't heard of them." Long fingers tapped at the black glass embedded in her armrest and after a moment she looked up, "Yep, no Kraang. At least not as a species, culture, or civilization. There's a Vice Admiral Kraang, and an ethnic surname from Northeastern Europe but that doesn't strike me as what they are looking for."

"Interesting that they refer to the probe as 'our ship' - unless they know that we're on the other end, I suppose - but unless they can intercept our comms, I would guess they are talking about the probe. Our ship, its crew. The 'will be destroyed' part is pretty much par for the course, but that seems to indicate they wouldn't find it at all unusual that a ship less than four meters long would have a crew. And a crew that would worry them enough to rally a fleet." She looked up at the Circlet, still on display next to the image of the fleet splashed across the main screen. "Whoever built that..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Stand-Off from the Circlet Gate Complex, GEC-1400971, Beta Quadrant...

"Let's establish some goodwill," Kami decided, rising from her chair with an assuring nod of agreement from Commander Sloan. Straightening her uniform and doing a quick check for any unnoticed stains, she looked around the bridge, "Sandwich wrapper check! Lieutenant Ya, prepare a full codec to include with our reply. They might not want us to see them but I want them to see us - let them know who they are dealing with!"

A similar scramble to dispose of or hide the detritus of their shift and the bridge crew was ready; Ingersol at Sensors, Ya at Communications, Eye'Tumno at the rear Engineering station, Cadindra at Tactical, and Sedge and Wayson at Helm and Navigation respectively. They were a good and solid representive slice of the culture and civilization they stood for. A final tug at her sleaves and Commander Sloan rose from her own place to stand just at her shoulder, "Perfect. Ready?"

"Aye, Ma'am..."

A deep breath and she began; "I am Captain Kamilia Blaine, commanding officer of SDF-Ojeni, representing the Defense Force of and the Republic of Sunset. We are a people and a society of peaceful explorers and scientists who seek to expand our knowledge of the universe and the peoples and civilizations it holds. We have not heard of these Kraang, whatever or whoever they are. My crew and I are trying to find the creators of the gateway and singularity that our probe emerged from and if these were or are the Kraang then we ask your help in understanding just who or what they were, as well as who you are and the nature of your civilization..."

Kami paused and after a moment looked back to the man at the Communications Station. Ya finished his work and looked back; "Message ready and codec attached. Send it?"

Running it over in her head, Captain Blaine stepped back to drop into her chair. That was as good of signal as any but a raised pair of fingers confirmed it, "Send it, Lieutenant. Let's see what they say... Assuming they are a they and not an it or..."

That answer would have to wait for who - or what - was on the other side to respond. Relayed through the gateway and its artificial singularity to the probe and another galaxy entirely, every moment of the wait felt stretched out with only an eternity more. While she and they waited the bridge stood watch, the slow spectacle of the expanded frameworks slowly spinning in the distant system while the probe waited. Neither their own nor the unknown ships moved from their place. On the screen a counter slowly ticked down above the largest, the timer established by the transmitted message before the probe's destruction was assumed. It was only when the count had nearly reached its end and the tension had stretched to its limits that Lieutenant Ya turned from his station, "Captain, incoming message. Two - one is text-only and the second a video with attached codec."

"Read it off, Mr. Ya..."

"It's not very long," he added, before beginning; "If you do not know the Kraang, if you are not infested, then We are your salvation. If you lie, if you are Kraang, then We will be your doom."

"And the recording? Does it show our mysterious salvation?"

Ya shook his head and the video began...

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Stand-Off from the Circlet Gate Complex, GEC-1400971, Beta Quadrant...

"Each night for six thousand, six hundred, thirty-seven rotations I have made this recording," the alien began, sitting alone on a bed that was both familiar and not. Long, low, and filled with a material that would resist the inevitable shredding caused by the black and white four-armed amphibian's long claws, it sat on the upper-most platform of a large bedroom that seemed exquisite even when compared to the luxuries common to the residents of the twenty-second century. Furniture carefully carved from some luxurious native wood and set with both stone and leather where it would guard against the ravages of the lizard-like humanoid's black talons sat here and there while a carefully edged stream flowed from a sculpted waterfall just above the head of the bed and underneath to where the crystal clear water spread into a deep pool large enough to accommodate the speaker and their long red-finned tail. "And each morning I have erased it, knowing that the next night I will make another. I have found much success in life, and have accumulated both power and wealth to myself, and am I not among the greatest specimens of my species? Yet every night I sit on this bed alone while my wives and children rest in their rooms, knowing that by the next morning they may be alone."

"It has been so among our people for many thousands of years. When we were nothing but hunters who swam the marshes, the shadows came for us in our nests. When we fought with edge and armor under the shadow of the great walls, they took us. This we know, this we have come to accept. I know this - but I do not accept it."

Kami sat forward in her chair, her gaze intent on the images that moved past painted against the forward wall of Ojeni's bridge. With a gesture she immediately understood as resignation, the toothy alien rose and walked over to where the recording device sat on its perch and took it up, the image wobbling as it swung free on some unseen tether. Settling still it panned around the room, jogging only slightly as the bearer moved to stand before a mirror. She could see it now, the device cleverly concealed inside a torc hung around the feral-looking man's neck and the lens taking the form of a central jewel. To any who might encounter the species again, he looked to be a killing machine, a hunter, but despite the clear muscles running down his magnificent frame there was a sadness and a worry there. It was a notion Captain Blaine understood; His wives and children were her ship and her crew, no matter their power and ability.

On the screen the man had retreated from the mirror to rest on the bed, the camera and its recording looking out over the room as the lights faded with a spoken command to reveal the technology hidden carefully behind the facade of tradition and desire. After a few minutes of tossing and turning where she looked to the various bridge crew to confirm that they were not being lulled into some kind of careful trap, the sleeper rests and the recording went still. Minutes stretched on and she turned to Ya, who was watching as well with some trace of boredom spreading across his broad face, "Move it forward?"

"Aye..." Trained fingers worked the controls and while the unknown alien's slumber continued he looked forward until movement caught his eye. The images on the main screen moved to match - later she'd watch the entire thing to see if there was some detail she'd missed but for now there were other concerns to balance. Now the wearer rose from his place to walk across the chamber, stepping out through the thick curtains and past another chamber filled with the nests of wives and children. Here the technology of the aliens was on display with tools and toys scattered around, handheld games, books and satchels scattered around. Out through the rest of the house he walked as silent as the night to cross the threshold into a city both familiar and exotic. Guards posted at the door perhaps to prevent just such a thing slumped in slumber and with every surety the alien opened the door to a ground car, started it, and turned out into the sparse traffic of night. Through the arching screen they could see the horizon curving up and away and her eyes went to the Circlet; Where else could that city have been built?

Out of the city and into the country and then, when the roads had faded away and a series of low hills had risen around him, he stopped the car and stepped out. As sure as if he'd walked the path a thousand times a narrow trail revealed itself though hidden behind the edge of the forest. Past plants strange in appearance if not familiar in function, he went by twists and turns until a singular tree rose on the top of a hill. Standing alone before it, he was witness to a split as a cleverly concealed entrance revealed itself along with the silver-white smoothness familiar to those who had ventured inside the structure of the Circlet. Down a hidden shaft and into a narrow room, the lethal-looking claws standing in sharp contrast to the passivity of his actions. As unerringly as if he'd been there his entire life, he walked halls both empty and occasionally passed by with one of the spherical drones and yet they were not; Wrapped around their central structure was something new only glimpsed in passing, a shimmering blue gel that lent the transforming constructs a new bio-organic appearance.

Passing through an archway and then another, they found him standing in an unfamiliar chamber where a series of slabs stood inset against one wall. Some held others of his species while others were open and without hesitation the alien went to the nearest of these, turned, and laid back against the incline. If his experience followed that of the others already present, bracers then extended to hold those four powerful arms still. Still looking ahead, the events around were reflected in a long mirror-like window that looked into a raised control area where more of the drones roamed back and forth. After a moment something moved on the floor in front of the camera and something rose from the floor, a smooth tube with a window cut in the side to show the clear, viscous-looking liquid inside. Something swam there; Dozens of small creatures that shared the same brilliant blue as whatever sat coiled around the central stalks of the wandering drones. The slab turned, the viewpoint rotating with it, and in that moment they saw the truth of it. At the other stations identical pillars stood, their iris-lidded top slid open while a manipulator arm extended from the wall above plucked a squirming, wriggling spawn from inside to lay it carefully in among the spike-like mane worn by the alien.

The camera was obscured now, facing the wall once hidden by the slab, but unlike before the view began to swing wildly as the body the camera was attached to twisted and shuddered as the process repeated. Minutes passed and what had been wordless silence was broken by shrieks of terror and pain unsuited to such a mighty form. These were eventually replaced by whimpers and cries and then once again by silence. Then the slab rotated again, the cuffs retracted, and the alien stood on its own. A hand and claws passed across the lens and the torc was pulled free to be tossed aside, coming to a stop atop a pile of other discarded garments while one after another the newly-infested aliens left the room and it fell into darkness.

Kami breathed, discovering that she had been holding it for the last few moments of the recording, and then looked to the Circlet silently rotating in the distance, "It's a farm..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Stand-Off from the Circlet Gate Complex, GEC-1400971, Beta Quadrant...

"...Why?" That was her immediate response and for a moment Kami slumped in her chair as every other officer on the bridge struggled with their own version of the same, "Why would they do this? Why would they need to do this?"

To her it was a question of need rather than want or of malicious desire. There must be some semi-rational reason or logic behind the actions of the still mostly-unknown Kraang and she jumped back to her feet to cross the few steps to Communications in half that, "Lieutenant, I want to see that again," but Ya was already hard at work and as she stood to the older man's left a collection of still images began to appear. Across the bridge and just out of the corner of her eye she could see Lieutenant Commander Ingersol beginning something of the same process as Thomas began a reconstruction of the physiology of the translucent blue aliens based on what snippets were provided. "The implantation segment in particular."

That had to be what it was but something in her head screamed out just how terrible it was and she blurted out the answer before she realized it, "They're hosts. The observers..." She pointed to what had been assumed before to be drones, just partially visible through the glass wrapped around the implantation chamber, "The workers - they are larger. Grown. The young are put into the bodies and then..."

An imagine of the powerful-looking four-armed alien crawled through her mind. He slept fitfully on a bed that was not his own in a room carved from that same silvery-white material that the drones and nearly all of the Circlet had been made from. Suddenly the body shuddered or the mouth opened and the wriggling tentacles of the Kraang emerged to pour from a grievous, fatal wound. To leave once again the best of his species as little more than a husk to be discarded. She shook her head in an attempt to focus, to discard it, but it stuck there as each moment of the end of the amphibian humanoid's life was played out in single frames for her.

"...discarded as waste. But why?"

It was clear from her experience and those reports of the explorers, engineers, and scientists that she'd read that the Kraang were masters of their technology. The ability to build the Circlets especially suggested a knowledge and ability in many ways equal to that of the Republic and an industrial base to match. Yet somehow, for some reason, they still required this process. That suggested want rather than need; Creating an artificial womb or even the wholesale cloning of individuals was something the Republic had long mastered. Even the engineering of life, changing one gene into another before they were born so as to give some measure of individuality. There was no need to do this but yet they did.

"Because they were monsters."

"Were? Are, Captain Kamilia Blaine..."

A voice from behind her and she realized the bridge had gone silent, except for the quiet tap of the Lieutenant's fingers on the console and she turned to find herself nearly face to face with an entirely new monster. Four legs loomed above her while flexible arms lingered between her and a segmented head that stared at her senselessly. A fringe of thick tendrils suggested a mouth while patches of glowing blue and silver between chitinous segments suggested some form of bio-luminescence. Here and there the being's plates were covered in some artificial substance of a purple color but with the familiar sheen of Circlet material and from under the edges of these small rubber-like antenna emerged. Her eyes went wide in shock and she was just about to call out - to react, to fight - when the Lieutenant turned beside her, his own movement stopping as he caught sight of the intruder, "...external communications compromised," Ya added as an afterthought.

It was a hologram. Projected onto her ship through the drone and from one of the ships on the far side of the wormhole, her mind began to piece together the resemblance between the multi-jointed craft and the long-limbed alien that looked at her through eyes that were not there. Perhaps the others had seen it appear and drawn the correct assumption earlier but her heart was still racing and for a long moment she breathed deeply, giving it a chance to continue, "But you; You are not Kraang. We see this - We are your Salvation."

Willing her heart to slow, Kami edged away from the console and began to skirt around it and back towards her command chair, the center of her composure, "We? Who are you? Our salvation," some small sense of ego pulled at her voice, "The Kraang have been gone for at least seventy-two thousand years!"

"I am Avatar i'Farerelia and we are the i'Halalaentariel - your Salvation," it said, following her moments with its feet as it spun carefully to face her. "Without us, your species would have never learned to face the sun. The Kraang would have obliterated you or taken you as unknowing slaves," it gestured both to the image on the main screen and to the selection played out beside the Communications Station. "Just as they did with so many others. Your species would have been cut short and made to serve as cattle for their young."

"Why?" It looked at her silently and she waited a trio of heartbeats before finishing, "Why did the Kraang do this? They did not need to..."

Without answering, i'Farerelia ambled across the bridge, stepping directly through the holosphere before arriving at the open space between it and the main view screen. Here it stretched out, legs spaced wider on the floor as it settled into place. Whether this was some reflection on the technology used on the other end or simply habit could not be guessed, but when the Avatar had done so it replied, "Because they need to. Note that I do not tell you this as justification for the actions of the Kraang - their needs have resulted in the deaths of billions and their defeat in the annihilation of many more. I tell you so that you may understand the enemy you face and I assure you that for them it is a need as surely as some of you need the comfort of a false god or the illusion of individual consciousness."

A gesture with a hand - familiar yet not - and a pair of additional holograms appeared. The first was of the Kraang; A shimmering, translucent blue oval with a trio of tentacles ending in flat, spade-like fins. Here and there indentations or ripples changed the surface but there was no indication of sensory or any other organ. The second was of a new species wholly unfamiliar to her; Shorter than her and with black-gray skin mottled with the tinge of tiny scales, it looked somewhat amphibian with large green eyes and a trace of bio-luminescent dots running down the center of its broad head.

"The Kraang were, as the i'Halalaentariel understand it, a parasitic species that evolved alongside their hosts on a murky world long ago destroyed. Capable yet simple, the TsahThah were unwary of the danger that lurked inside them until a twist of evolution propelled the Kraang forward. Where they had once fed slowly off the nutrients in the blood, content to be flushed from the body as one might dispose of regular waste, they found a sudden liking for the neurological tissue of their host. It empowered them, allowed them to act beyond their origins. Over time their hunger grew and as is the way with life they desired to continue as a species, slowly spreading through the TsahThah. But their hunger would have been their doom - except that they continued to evolve while the TsahThah did not. Those that consumed their hosts left them, spread their new superior selves among the population, and even fought between themselves without the knowledge of those they destroyed. One would take the body of another and thus they became both parasite and predator. However they also discovered that who they infested mattered as much as that they did. Young birthed in the minds of the smartest and most cunning among the TsahThah became the most cunning and devious of the Kraang..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Stand-Off from the Circlet Gate Complex, GEC-1400971, Beta Quadrant...

"...and thus the taking of the strongest and through it the advancement of their species became fundamental to their being. Call it culture, call it religion, but through their long advancement it has become as intrinsic to their species as their form," the Avatar finished.

"So what happened?" Kami asked, now something at ease. There were so many answers there and so many questions. "If you say that you are our Salvation, you must have destroyed them."

"As your civilization sought the stars to expand and seek their destiny among them, so did the Krang. When the first primitive craft left the surface of that doomed world, it was not the TsahThah that rode upon it but instead the Kraang. Where once it was they who wriggled uselessly in the mud and murk it was now their hosts who watched startled as rockets rose one by one into the skies. They were now nothing more than cattle and they were only the first of many - an Empire. Creeping across the galaxy they consumed those who were not aware of their fate and destroyed those who resisted. Their tendrils would have consumed all if their ambitions had not out-stretched them. Just as we look up and see your stars stretched across our sky, so too did they. To cross that gulf would take the resources of an Empire."

"And that was your opening, wasn't it? Their moment of weakness was your chance."

"One that we long knew was coming. Perhaps I shall indulge in a moment of ego; How did we know so well, young Captain Kamilia Blaine, how their moment of weakness was at hand?"

Kami looked to her second, eyebrows raised, and Sloan looked back with a shrug. The obvious answer was 'Intelligence' but the challenge had been laid out so that the obvious was not the correct. Staring past her partner she considered the question and then what i'Farerelia had told them about the Kraang. Time ticked by as various answers came to her, each one discarded until she was about to give up in frustration. Whatever her choice, the correct answer was his own and she would be wrong and that would make her look... "...Stupid. It's easy to infiltrate the Kraang's cattle supply because all they care about are the best. So you recruited the stupid ones."

"Yes. With the bulk of their forces distracted, we were able to strike at the heart of their Empire. Muck and murk burned away to ash and carnage. Their fleets returned and flush with our victory we slaughtered them. The Kraang were extinguished, their species now hunted across the stars."

"And so you are our Salvation... Wait - you said hunted. I thought the Kraang..."

"Captain..." Ingersol's words had warning in them and she turned to his warning - "Their ships are coming through!" - just as the Avatar answered; "I did. Do not resist us, Captain. We will scour your galaxy for them, just as we scoured our own."

One by one, the contracted stars moved through the narrow opening of the waiting wormhole, the compromised probe watching nothing but the same stars over and over. On the other side they emerged to expand back to their previous size. There were only moments left until they would on them and time for only one question before she signaled their departure, "Why? Why should we care? The Kraang were monsters!"

"Because, young Captain, to fight the monster you must become one. The only way to remove the threat of the Kraang is to burn away the worlds where they are found; Pray that we do not find them on your own..."