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

[Sunset]

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

Steven sat up in his bed with a suddenness that surprised even himself, his bony fingers grasping at the blanket to clutch it tight as wild eyes stared around the room in stark paranoia, "Flush them... Flush them all!"

Wrinkled toes swung over the side of the bed and instantly recoiled as they touched the cold concrete floor but with a slap-slap they were down again and he thrust himself upright before catching a glimpse of the nightmare vision in the bedroom mirror. Hair askew and missing the clothing that might otherwise conceal the less desirable bits and pieces of himself from the world, his next action was to reach for the nightgown that hung from the antique wooden pole and wrap it around himself before cinching down the sash into a clumsy knot, "Sixteen! Miss Sixteen!"

There was something wrong with those words and he shook his head to correct himself, "Nineteen. That's right..."

It didn't do any good; His assistant was still asleep in her own bed and the flip-clock on the nightstand read just a little after two. She would not wake for another four to put the coffee on and there was no time to wait for either that or for her. Something was wrong and if he did not act there would likely be no waking again for any of them. Hastily he beat a path to his own door, undid the latch with a thunk, and strode down the hall with a purpose disguised by the unnoticed gap below his belt. The next opened automatically and he stepped through to snap his fingers, calling the guard to attention, "Come! My laboratory..."

Only a few more feet and across the corridor but still the Minion pulled himself tight to attention before dropping the heavy rifle to survey their surroundings with a sudden wariness seemingly unneeded by the placid environs. A half-step behind, he turned to guard the Doctor's flank just as another pair came running around the corner, summoned by the procedures burned into his head. Falling into order they surrounded him as he stepped up to the lab door and waited while the beam swept up and down his body and then side to side before the red lock ticked to orange and then green. The doors slid open and he stepped through, the two on either side stepping away to move the fist-sized barrels of their weapons from shadow to shadow.

A flick and the lights came up to show nothing at all out of the ordinary; In the middle of the lab stood his faithful multi-spectrum analyser while in the space dividing that from the wall was his examination table. Both were surrounded by various speciality instruments and on one wall were rows of shelves and cupboards while on the other the dozen cloning tubes bubbled away with their gruesome contents coming to slow realization. There was nothing to indicate a threat; Not a jot nor a tiddle out of place. A moment later the door at the far end of the lab whisked open and his assistant entered, her hair in disarray but somehow pants and lab coat worn over nothing at all.

"Doctor? I heard the alarm..."

"Yes..." Stephen stepped up to the closest of the tubes and looked into the murky depths. Inside floated the lone example of a species that hadn't stalked the stars in many thousands of years and for a moment he hesitated, his finger over the button. "I had a dream. In my waking, something has prodded me to believe that there is a trap laid for us here. Somehow these Krȃng anticipated my discovery and have crafted some subtle treachery. How - I do not know. My instinct is to flush them but..."

He would then learn nothing. The nascent corpses would drop away into the abyss and the tubes would be scrubbed by the harshest methods and he would learn...

His eyes went wide and he flipped the transparent cover back into place, "...nothing. And they would escape - whatever they are. That was their plan," he decided aloud. "To spread themselves into the charnel pits and from there re-emerge into the depths of my lair. Clever - but I am more. Nineteen, locker six, if you would. Bring it to me."

A hand and a single bony finger pointed towards the shelves on the other side of the lab and she hurried over to stoop, find the foot locker on the lowest level labeled '6', and present her hand to the lock for analysis. The door swung open and she pulled herself unsteadily to her feet with the clumsy thing clutched in both arms. Staggering over to where he waited, he eyed her for a moment and held up a hand to stop her attempt to hand it over. Instead he indicated the closest Minion, "57 - arm it, aim at the center of this tube, and step well back." He himself followed those orders as the Minion did and though they were conditioned otherwise the other two Minions followed as well as a ghastly fog began to pour from the awkward-looking cannon that 57 held braced at his waist.

"Fire!"

The effect was immediate; A dense blue beam lanced from the barrel to dwell steadily on the cloning tube as the surface went from moist to frosty to frozen in a heartbeat. Inside a lance of ice crystals formed around the growing fetus and then it as well as the entirety of the tube was held tight in the clutches of endless winter.

"Good! Excellent shot - Miss Nineteen? The thermostat, if you please. And I would suggest you prepare your long underwear. This should give us plenty of opportunity to safely dive into the traps they have laid for us..."

[Sunset]

The Ruins of the Market on Lethon, Alpha/Gamma Border Region...

"...Ambassador... Pear?" Looking over his shoulder and out the doorway between the pilot and passenger compartments, the officer caught Charlie's eye and waved him over, "Hey. The Roanians want you. Or at least someone named Pear. They want to know if our new passenger needs any medical attention. What should I tell them?"

"...shit. No, don't tell them that. Well, don't tell them shit. Let's see," he in turn looked back over his own shoulder to where their new passenger sat in tucked up splendour on a corner seat, a wooden cup of steaming hot kenj delicately suspended between his fingers. "How about 'That's a funny question to ask after murdering a hundred thousand people'? No? Too pointed? How about we ask the subject; Jero, are you in need to medical attention?"

"For all their faults, they are not stupid," he replied with a hiss, unfolding one arm to drape the fingers over a knee while the other remained at his side holding the cup with an unnatural stiffness. "No, I think not. Nor am I abject to you revealing my presence if it serves the interests of international diplomacy. I am already your guest and I believe I am long due retirement - a thousand years, if my calender does not lie. Unless, that is, they have some method to remove the effects of the malevolent eternal gaze of a Desert Lord of the Sessool."

"Doubt it."

"Then by all means let them introduce themselves. Then I will regale them as to tales of the lives they have cut short. Though I do not think it will matter - soldiers tend to feel themselves above such things until it happens to their own kin," he finished, the last words trailing off into a tone of regret. Shifting in his place he returned the cup to the side table and carefully draped his many-layered robes over his shoulder where the piercing gaze of the antagonist still lingered weeping. "Though perhaps my role as purveyor of flesh should be glossed over."

"Right, well - go ahead and tell them they can visit if they want, Lieutenant. Otherwise we've got what we came for, they know it, and it's time to scoot. Unless there's something down there you prefer the Roanians not get their hands on?"

"On the contrary, Mr. Pear - that might prove most instructive. Since your Ms. Madison assisted in the construction of this safe room, I have taken it upon myself to gather those records and documents which have come available to me. Letters to loved ones, a wallet, a licence of some sort. Likely the last evidence that many of these people existed before they were swept away to become the chattle of some capricious warlord or comforted princeling. Let them know of lives destroyed."

[Sunset]

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

To the ordinary passerby on the street, the ocean-side tower looked just like that; Another in a long line of office complexes, industrial laboratories, and apartment blocks that edges the tangled starfish-shaped island that comprised Terra Incognito's primary land mass as well as its most notable city. Perhaps it was a bit more sturdily built than most, and there were no windows on the first few floors, and there was no greenery attached to one or more of the outside walls as there was more frequently through the rest of the sprawling city, but perhaps the designer was aiming for a more industrial look or they just didn't like pink and purple flowers blooming over the wall when the hydrangeas came into season. Those who had the few moments of curiosity that it would take would have walked to one of the sky-bridges connecting it to the main thoroughfares and noted the plaque next to the door - or the embedded augmented reality tags - that noted it as a government facility subject to... Blah blah blah. They weren't accepting visitors.

Perhaps the more nefarious minded would have then noted that the lack of windows and cover provided by the living walls would have reduced - though not eliminated - the odds of someone sneaking into the building undetected and that the thick concrete would have made the structure rather more difficult to breach by force. Perhaps the more imaginative would have considered launching a grappling hook up to the high balconies that overlooked the ocean, or finding some angle not covered by cameras where the walls could be scaled, or even making one's way through the various underground maintenance tunnels to attempt a subterranean breach. But there were virtual worlds for such things, and they carried far less risk of whatever might happen were an out-of-shape nerd with fantasies of expertise to attempt such a thing in meat-space. So it was that the building was largely ignored by those who didn't have a reason to visit, and those who had a reason to visit simply passed through to their various jobs and duties inside.

That is, until Seven Twenty-Three AM on a Monday morning with the sun just crawling over the horizon to light the outside of the tower in brilliant relief when a sudden dull thudmp shook the area and smoke began to vomit from previously unnoticed vents around the base of the building to drift upwards in immediate columns that mingled and swirled high into the air. Those that then paid attention - nearly everyone, with those on the street turning to watch while workers in the nearby buildings coming to look out their own windows at the tower next door - were then surprised as the various doors burst open to eject Marines in full power armor onto the street where they ordered those too close to Move Away! with the authority only given to someone waving a large energy weapon around possessed. A moment later hatches on the roof of the building opened up and a pair of aircraft sprang upwards to begin circling, their limbs moving back and forth as if they were alive, while on the beach below the water surged and rolled back as two enormous tanks plowed out of the waves to shed the carefully constructed camouflage that had formerly marked them as a particularly interesting reef to the local divers.

Some would wonder then and there whether the building was about to fall, or was under attack, but in the time it would take to run from their offices and laboratories researchers began to pour out, though there seemed to be far less than imagined. By then the smoke had started to fade - whatever had caused the clamor seemed to be a one-time event and shortly after they started to trickle back inside or stand outside to look the tower up and down, some more few going over to peer at the vents and wave away the last of the smoke. In a few more minutes the fighters landed, armored doors dropping closed, while the tanks turned and headed up the beach towards the closest Defense Force base, their clever disguise wasted on seemingly nothing particularly important. A few more minutes and a woman emerged from the suite on the top-most floor to stand on the seaward balcony followed by a few others. For the intensely curious there would be little to take away from this meeting; The balcony was surrounded by invisible privacy barriers that blurred both light and sound into meaningless mumbling.

"What was that?" Doctor Thola asked, looking over the edge to where a trail of coral debris followed in the wake of the leviathans as they retreated into the distance. "You do not seem very concerned..."

Katryna's answer was a sigh, "MajikkuCat exploded. A MajikkuCat, that is. We were testing one down on sub-level six;" Which was home to an appropriately hardened chamber that could apparently vent to the outside in case of a harmful over-pressure, "And it tried to do something that it shouldn't have tried to do and it exploded. I think. That's the problem with the design," she sighed again.

"To make them an independent unit, they have to be able to operate independently. When I was doing stuff with the HBMs I was pre-running a simulation of just exactly what would happen if I changed those specific conditions in that specific environment right down to the quantum level. The MajikkuCats don't have the computing horsepower to do that, and if they off-load the calculations to something with enough, they aren't exactly independent, are they? They can do it through an Eien link, but..."

Those could be disrupted and fairly easily by someone in the same technological era.

"Which would mean they are again taking chances and all it takes is one and either the effect they are trying for just doesn't happen, or..."

"Boom!"

"That's right," she nodded. "So what we were doing is trying to come up with a... Well, let's call it a spell book. Manipulations that we've tried and tested and verified that work under most reasonable conditions. But that's going to limit their effectiveness. They'll still be fireball-slinging magical kittens - very cool - but with much less phenomenal cosmic power. Even then I can see this happening again; They're built on an II Core and to pull this off they have to have a little more juice than the typical cat brain. So they learn, they improvise, and then they explode. Give one a magical sounding name and you have all the necessary ingredients for a popular tween cyber-fantasy novel..."

[Sunset]

Port Ha'Bainda, Blishi'i (GEC-1342224) Star System, Canis Major II Dwarf Galaxy...

"Demi Love, Ambassador-at-Large of the Republic of Sunset, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary... Gentlebeings," Ambassador Love gestured and the attache beside her stepped forward to present her opposite with the physical documents that said she was who they said she was, "Our credentials."

Of course, who was to say that she was who she said she was other than the documents themselves? Certainly showing up in a starship adorned with the atomic sunburst of the Republic on its flank and saucer helped, as did the most basic internet search through the communications satellite that SDF-Ojeni had placed before it had left the Blishi'i Star System, but functionally both of those could be faked if one were disposed of both the time, energy, and billions upon billions of currency units to create a convincing duplicate of a Republic starship. That was the way of things, however; The same was true of her hosts who could have been just anyone with the resources to construct a giant crescent-shaped mobile station and assemble a cast and crew of a dozen-odd different species of sapients. Conceivably it had happened before to some poor diplomat in some far-off system but there was no other way to play the game but straight; She was who she said she was and they were who they said they were until discovered otherwise.

Fortunately she was who she said she was and they were as well, and so the Minister of the Exterior for the Blishi'i United Federation - or at least his own assistant - accepted the documents and the Minister took a cursory glance. It was the melding of two particular protocols and that itself was also a sign that both sides were who they said they were because both had done this before and thus both assistant and attache had spent some time in distant discussion before the Aayrid had arrived setting down the exact protocol and sequence of events their seniors would follow until, as was reasonable, the two knew each other better than the Ambassador and the Minister for the Exterior did, "I have received your credentials, Ambassador Love, and find them authentic. Please, let me be the first to welcome you to the Blishi'i United Federation on behalf of all our peoples."

"Thank you, Minister Phare," she replied, placing her hands on her thighs and half-nodding, half-bowing. That was the traditional greeting and he did the same, the two holding it for a moment while camera drones swung around the pair recording the moment for the Blishi'i media. Then the two straightened, Demi smiled, and he turned to gesture towards the waiting car that would take them further into the station; "Please, after you," though every step put the two at exactly the same distance from the transit pod until the moment he waited while she entered first and took a seat.

Outside there were only a few moments between the departure of their car and the arrival of the next and the more leisurely boarding of the various assistants, attaches, and envoys. These were accompanied by the media drones; The two lead actors would be given several minutes alone for some presumably secret or at least off-the-record discussions. That left two single rows of United Space Fleet officers standing at attention on their end of the platform while exactly four Defense Force Marines stood on either side of the Aayrid's boarding tunnel. Demi's stated preference was that there would be zero military presence but the Blishi'i lived in a time and place where the specter of violence loomed constant and they had insisted on a guard of honor. The difference was split and so the ranking Marine stepped up to his opposite, the Fellow saluted, the Lieutenant returned it, and one disappeared into the ship while the other led his detachment back into the station's depths.

That was the general signal for the boarding area to return to the general chaos that had been interrupted by the starship's arrival and in minutes the tunnel was besieged by merchants seeking to further their own aims while small groups of officers and crew from the Republic starship departed on their authorized shore leave. In a way, this was as important as the closed-door meeting between the Minister and the Ambassador that was already beginning with the traders seeking to portray themselves - and thus the Federation - in the best possible light while the departing crew had been specifically warned that their actions would be interpreted in the harshest possible light and that they should thus be on their best behavior.

"How many times has it been, Madam Ambassador," Minister Phare asked, the hard scowl that seemed to be more common to his species than to his demeanor momentarily disappearing, "That is, how many times have you initiated diplomatic relations?"

"Demi, please. I'd say... Eight. I've been party to fourteen, but the lead on only eight. And you, Minister?"

"Phare," he replied, agreeing to the informality. "This would be my first. The position of Minister of the Exterior is one of politics; I was elected on a platform of friendly contact with outside powers but this has been my first opportunity. You see, our segment of the galaxy seems to be far less populated than your own. The scientists will say that this is because there are far fewer stars, less paths for emergent civilizations to hop from one system to another, and thus the eight you suggest is nearly as many as we have regular contact with in total - and one of those would be the Ver'Un'Guun."

"Not to be confused with friendly contact, if what I have been told is correct."

"Exactly. Even now your Captain Blaine heads bravely towards the Inward Frontier and the risks that entails. Perhaps one might characterize this as a lawless region but this is not true - it is suffering the law of Warlord Iep. Paradoxically it is also the region closest to the majority of the galaxy but due to the twist of the arms it has the greatest open distance to cross and thus it is unlikely that the Ver'Un'Guun will ever menace it. Of course, the preference would be for my people to prevail and eradicate the Ver'Un'Guun. Perhaps our negotiations will lead the United Federation in that direction."

"You don't expect us to fight on your behalf..."

"No, no," Phare answered, with a half-laugh or at least his species equivalent. "My assistants have done their research though; Unlike the Warlord, who has the habit of attacking first and asking questions if the thought stirs him, they have come to the realization that the resources available through trade will be considerable and at less expense than those we must currently scrabble for. I say this as an offer - the Republic stands to gain from your status as the first galactic power to have contacted the United Federation."

"Why is that? I'm told that the resources of one star system are typically enormous - there is little reason to trade outside of a whole system other than for the simple act of trading. Mutual commerce ties civilizations together and thus creates peace and harmony."

"True in limited circumstances, unfortunately. The Canis Major segment has one noted difference; The Great War between the Krȃng and the i'Halalaentariel. Systems that would have supported abundant life were stripped bare by both sides to fuel a conflict the likes of which the galaxy will hopefully never see again..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, The Car'Ielson Nebula, The Inward Frontier, Canis Major II...

"That was easy... Wasn't it?" Captain Blaine asked, looking around her bridge to see if anyone else had the same answer on their mind, "Too easy, right?"

In fact it had only taken one shot from the forward battery to destroy the little craft, the blast of high-energy exotic particles tearing it into glittering flinders that even now continued to tumble along its previous trajectory towards a destination it would never reach. Almost as soon as they'd come out of space-warp at the edge of the nebula - the only point of interest in the vast immediate vicinity - the Ver'Un'Guun ship had charged out of the tenuous field of gas and vapor and opened fire. Lieutenant Cadindra had been quick on the draw and before the peppering of light fire could range them out she'd sent one precise blast right up the middle to lance through the arrowhead-shaped ship and hole it through and through.

That left the Coatlicue with her own opinion, "No - it was a scout ship, at best. Maybe even a fighter."

If it was a fighter there should be more and Kami turned to the officer at the Sensor Station, "Lieutenant Commander?"

"Nothing yet," Ingersol answered as he worked the controls. "As one might imagine, this nebula would be a good place to hide. Plenty of sensor interference - garbage - to filter out. But since there aren't a hundred more, I'm gonna second my lover's opinion - it was a scout ship."

The Captain slumped back into her chair and spun to face the image on the main screen. Three large pieces of the craft spun together while others, blown free by the impact of the cannon, had already left the screen's field of vision or were about to, "Then why attack? That's not your job - you observe and report. Mall cops in space. Unless the Ver'Un'Guun do things very, very differently. Let's see if we can find that out. Tom," she returned to the senior officer, "Keep searching the nebula and the vicinity. If they were a scout then presumably they were scouting for something. Eye..."

A hologram of the Skri appeared almost instantly, the twin-spiked eyeball standing on the bar just to the right of Calindra's position, "...and I'll dispatch a shuttle to pick up the pieces and sort through the mess. I'm already not liking what I'm seeing - there's a lot of radiation coming out of the wreck and not the usual 'exotic drives and strange weapons' sort. More like plain old Beta and Gamma radiation in sufficient quantities to give you cancer in a couple hours. If I found that much radiation in those types on this ship, I'd be checking Seaman Banner's quarters for a Hulk."

"Perfect. Meanwhile," she continued to pass out orders, "Helm, keep us moving. But don't make it look like we're trying to be evasive in case someone's lining up a spinal shot on us."

"Fly casual?"

"Fly casual. We're just checking the area... Casually. After getting a quick kill on a hostile vessel..."

In short order - or possibly because he'd issued most of his own orders before the Captain had even called - the suggested shuttle dropped away and as it turned to sweep away under the ship almost exactly what the Captain had predicted would happen happened, "Captain, sensors are picking up the outline of a... Winnebago."

"A Winnebago?"

"A small station," Thomas corrected with a grin. "Though it is somewhat star-shaped. Some sensor baselines match those of the scout ship, so I'd guess we're looking at a Ver'Un'Guun listening post," he finished, looking over her shoulder.

She caught the meaning and turned to find an image - indistinct at the moment, but growing firmer by the second as Ojeni's twin sensor arrays swept over the area and the scattered details were fed through horribly complex processing software to reveal a station that indeed looked a lot like the traditional Human image of a star; Five points with a central opening and a spire trailing down or up through the middle. The five points also angled down (or up) and it could have thus been suggested as either flower or star depending on what imagery one wanted to assign it.

"And again, why would that scout ship attack us," she pondered aloud. "There's a monitoring station or listening post nearby and now you've just drawn attention to it. That seems dumb. Do they know we're here?"

"Is the Pope Catholic? I'm not going to say one hundred percent yes, but I'm gonna say that I'm pretty darn sure. If I was sweeping me with this gear I'd have picked up me sweeping myself."

"After our shift..." though Kami ignored the Tactical Officer's suggestion; "So yes, but again, why attack us? They were pretty much right up our nose the moment we came out of warp. If there was a conversation back and forth, it was happening at the speed of thought."

Which was possible - and indeed plausible - but neither Fellow Notaro nor the rumors and scuttlebutt they'd picked up around the Blishi'i had indicated that the Ver'Un'Guun might be either a hivemind, telepathic, or routinely linked together in some kind of high-cycle communications network. Even the Defense Force - capable of such a thing - didn't routinely engage in electronic acceleration unless they were specifically under war conditions or there were specific suspicions that such would be needed. Certainly the Ver'Un'Guun and the Blishi'i were downright violent towards each other, but again - the Ojeni clearly wasn't a Blishi'i vessel. Which suggested that either the Ver'Un'Guun didn't care, were unambiguous assholes, or...

"Or they knew we were in the area, and they know we're at least friendly with the Blishi'i so fuck those guys. Which would suggest that it's a monitoring station, it's possibly capable of picking up faster-than-light traffic, and that they have spies in Blishi'i space. All of which make sense. So, as they have already shot at us and made not-friends - let's see about making us more not-friends. Options for capturing that station intact?"

[Sunset]

Panieria Basin, GEC-1042091C...

"Pretty red fish, pretty orange fish, pretty green fish, pretty orange and green fish... But no pretty..." Alwyra stopped to push herself upright in the water, tail drifting forward between her legs as she first looked back over her shoulder and then spun to kick fiercely back in the direction she'd come from, "...no pretty blue immoral fish. But that red fish..."

That red fish had seemed familiar.

The question now was finding it among all the other fish - pretty orange fish, pretty green fish, pretty purple fish - that swarmed over the low-slung saddle-back reef where she could swear she'd seen it just a moment before. There was also the question of whether the reef was a reef; After Timmons and Annya had tussled with last night's dinner, they had all been a little more cautious when exploring around anything that looked like it might not be what it was supposed to be. Still, if one of the giants had been hiding under the drifting coral it would have already had an all-you-can-eat banquet spread out among the hundreds of different fish-analogues that swam nearby and so she pressed closer.

"Here, fishy-fishy-fishy-fish... Here fishy-fishy-fishy-fish. I know I look like a cat, but do you even know what a cat looks like?"

With the largest land mass on GEC-1042091C being somewhere less than a square kilometer, she couldn't recall seeing anything that looked vaguely predatory on land though there had to be something. There had been little mouse-like creatures, little crab-like creatures, and something that looked like she'd sneezed it up; Nature in all its wondrous snot-like variety. But no cats, "Which is a shame. But where is my fish?"

Twisting onto her side, she passed between the finger-like fronds of a giant palm the color of a bowl of sherbet and then over another that might have been at home in a jar in some mad scientists lab. Back and forth she went until she was convinced that the fish she had seen was either back at the previous reef or entirely imaginary and brought on by a sudden streak of optimism or bad gas. Whatever the reason, she swung about and as her tail lashed around her waist she spotted just the very end of a twisting red tri-foil disappearing behind the sherbet palm she'd just avoided. Putting one hand out, she dashed forward recklessly to grab around the corner, "Got you!"

It was only when her fingers closed on something that she realized that it could well have been anything and hastily she released, peered around the stalk, and instantly regretted herself as the small eel-like form darted away in a mad rush. There was nothing to do but give chase and the water churned behind her as she paddled madly, one stroke then two and her clawed hand reaching out for it as it sought refuge in a dark hole.

"Oh, it's going to be some giant turtle and its going to snap my hand off..."

But it wasn't and she was just fast enough to grab the little swimmer just before it could escape. Caging it between her fingers, she brought it close to her mask before taking a mental picture, "Let's see how you compare. Red, blue, does it matter?"

Maybe it did, maybe it didn't, but a moment later the comparison came back; A near-perfect match.

"But how to know if you're an immoral fish," she asked aloud, peering at it around her fingers; "How can a fish be immoral..."

[Sunset]

The Doctor's Lab, AMI Industrial Complex, The Moon Minamoto...

With tremendous care and precision the long, slender needle slid through the ice, plastic, and frozen murk that surrounded the curled-over contents of the tube to pierce through and extract some measure of vital fluid. Then it melted.

"Subject's interior is highly acidic," the Doctor noted, stepping calmly back as a sickly orange liquid bubbled up through the narrow hole left by the thermal lance before erupting in a dribble from the ice to pour slowly towards the floor. Then it burst into flames. "And exothermic. Any consideration of consumption should be put aside; Subject is either an engineered warrior species..."

There was a hiss, a trace of sulfur in the air, and then a sharp crack as the side of the tank exploded into icy shards. Rattling off the wall next to it, they provoked a curse from Miss Nineteen - in a language he was quite sure he hadn't programmed her for - and a more considerate one from himself as he reached behind the tails of his lab coat to extract the heavy pistol from its concealed holster and point it with both hands at the steaming crackle. 57 advanced behind him with his own weapon looming large over the Doctor's shoulder but as the last of the fog drifted away it was obvious that the damage was superficial to the container.

"...and explosive, likely on contact with one or more common atmospheric gases. This would reinforce my previous speculation that this is an engineered species though it now leads me down a different if related path." Returning his pistol to its place, he snatched up a broom and began to sweep the chunks together and then towards the grate under the tank that led to the abyss below the deepest levels of the facility. "I now suspect that some, if not all, of the genetic information stored in the Krang sequences are of species that would prove useful to them rather than what might simply have been swept up in their feeding. Further tests will be required to reach a definative conclusion but," he set the broom up against the edge of his console and began to work the keyboard until a list of representative species appeared, "There are very few - exactly none - species with this particular combination of traits that could also be considered sentient. Similar examples are all engineered and thus my reasoning stands."

"Now, shall we see what particular function the next specimen fulfills?"

[Sunset]

Port Ha'Bainda, Blishi'i (GEC-1342224) Star System, Canis Major II Dwarf Galaxy...

"...the United Federation will not even consider a permanent exchange of diplomats without that particular stipulation," Minister Phare noted, his tone far more strident than it needed to be. His statement was less for the Ambassador - their conversation in the transit car had laid out much of the groundwork and the facts and reasoning behind it - and more for the records that would be released and then digested and distorted by the Fifth Estate. "The threats of Heresy and Corruption are everywhere, and while you can make every assurance that your people are not touched by either, we must be sure, Ambassador Love!"

"But our diplomats and envoys are representative of our nation, our culture, our civilization, Minister Phare," she countered. "For them to undertake their work, they must feel that they are able to maintain some measure of privacy and circumspection. Intrusive testing - even if it is as important as you suggest - would remove their privacy and their ability to go about their work without worry that the Blishi'i United Federation is constantly looking over their shoulder. Frankly, this is a constant in the segments of the galaxy we regularly travel, Minister - diplomatic staff and their premises are considered inviolate territory of their home polity and thus subject to their own laws and regulations. Those states that violate this are viewed dimly by the larger body galactic, and those that have abused this in the reverse are also subject to the same."

The Minister let out a snort, "Then you reside in a far more stable and reasonable portion of the galaxy, Ambassador. You should know that our initial contact with the Ver'Un'Guun was conducted much along the same lines; They assured us that they were only interested in peace and peaceful co-existence. Meanwhile they were using the spaces allotted to them to construct various nefarious weapons inside our own borders and adjacent to our own homes. When this was finally revealed, they sought to take us hostage to them by threat of immediate destruction were we to not subject ourselves to them. It was only on the strength of our own will that we were able to force them from our places and yet many lives were lost in the war that followed. Perhaps you feel you can be trusted, but I tell you - the trust of the Blishi'i United Federation must be earned!"

For a moment Demi looked properly taken aback, though as before he'd already mentioned the events described and they had been laid out in full detail in the dossiers provided. It was only after seeming to digest this act of brutality that she responded, "A truly terrible act, and an understandable response. The day that the Republic acts in such a manner will be the day I stand ashamed of it."

"And so you now understand our position, and be assured that we understand - though we cannot hold ourselves to - your own, Ambassador Love. We simply cannot allow this scenario to reoccur!"

"A compromise then, Minister," and it was time to suggest the course they had essentially agreed to earlier. "When we travel abroad we are made aware of the potential for unusual disease and infection and we are inoculated against it. It seems to me that your description of Heresy and Corruption has more similarity to viruses and bacteria than it does to the previous notions set in religious terms. We will then lay out notice to our prospective staff that there are certain conditions that will pose a medical threat if they are carried to the United Federation and that, as part of regular travel procedures, they will be subject to inspection for these conditions. To assist in this, the United Federation would then provide... Examiners? Examiners who will conduct regular medical examinations of potential travelers so as to establish their fitness before they are allowed to visit. For their own safety, of course."

An annoyance, but a necessary one. The idea of having a BUSF warship destroy a civilian merchantman from the Republic - or elsewhere in the larger galaxy - on the discovery of Heresy or Corruption carried the potential for diplomatic disaster. The Blishi'i might not like the idea of allowing Heresy or Corruption to go uncleaned, but the potential relationship in an unconnected region of the galaxy was seen as more important than the irritation of putting ships and crews forward for inspection at a station located in Republic space.

"I believe this will be acceptable, Madam Ambassador. The United Federation believes it is important that its new friends be made aware of the dangers both that it faces as well as what they themselves face. By establishing such procedures, we will be able to undertake that mission without undue risk of misunderstanding. I will have complete details drawn up and submitted to your offices for negotiated approval..."

[Sunset]

Ner-Dok City, Juniper, Juniper System (GEC-74209), The Coreward Fringe, Ares Cluster...

Governor-General Ten-Ton paused, his furry paw at the nap of the sheet draped over an irregular object that was itself sitting atop a wooden pedestal just visible under the gray cloth. For a dramatic moment he looked through at whatever it was and then turned to the crowd assembled around him. This was far larger than one might expect for a species that had been brutally decimated by a civil war only a year earlier but the Hauyht were nothing if not a prodigious people; Two full generations had been born since then and litters of young bunnies already clustered around the feet of mothers and fathers. In another few years they too would be having children of their own, and many of the children who had survived the destruction of Alice were now bearing their own fruit. This was no mere mental summary for Ten-Ton - to carry forward his grand designs he would need every paw and every ear that could be mustered. From eye to eye, he swept the crowd until he had come full circle and he grabbed the very tip of the drape between forefinger and thumb, "My people..."

"Good people of Juniper," he continued, his mouth stumbling over the strangely shaped word, "We are a new people; No longer bound to a poisoned world and free to seek our own destiny among the stars. Certainly we have made friends but friends alone cannot carry us forward! We must carry ourselves forward as well - to have the ability to defend oneself is the mark of freedom and so I give to you the next step in that ability to defend ourselves, to not rely on the hands of others but to raise our own!"

A sweeping gesture and the drape flew away to reveal a shape familiar yet new; A space ship that looked much like the ships some in the crowd had built for their defense after the retreat to the Unknown Islands but with the addition of enormous engines and various spines and fins around it.

"To defend ourselves we must accomplish the extraordinary! We will take our place among the stars, and ships such as these will carry us there!"

[Sunset]

SDF-Springbok, Intergalactic Space, Just outside the Milky Way Galaxy...

"Anything, Lieutenant?" Commander Brown asked again, his voice half-afraid of what the answer might be. For nearly an hour now they had sat stock-still in front of the impressive circumference of the i'Halalaentariel WarSphere, the minuscule Halo-Class a tiny dot against the slowly rotating linked sphere. Further afield and barely visible the Wright Brothers was stationary as well while the point of all this - the experimental NX143 - was dead in the center of the expanded craft. Technically he could have ordered it to leave, making its way by any number of methods through the gaps left in the linkage of the WarSphere, but without knowing the intentions of the i'Halalaentariel the slightest movement at this range could be opposed by overwhelming force. "Any response at all?"

"No response, Sir. I've tried everything I can think of;" Down to and including blinking the lights on the Springbok's hull in a mathematically meaningful pattern, painting pictures of words and actions across an open expanse of plating with the floodlights, asking politely using the already-established frequencies, and muttering a silent prayer to gods no one particularly believed in anyway.

"No response, but it can't be a coincidence," Brown looked at the displays on the arm of his chair. The Wright Brothers had tried exactly the same and while it was 'only' a Recovery Cruiser the more powerful communications gear it carried compared to the little Fast Courier should have given it enough to punch through whatever might be interfering. Which meant, as far as he was concerned, that there was neither interference nor concern on the part of the i'Halalaentariel. They were content to keep the situation in stasis; But why, and for how long?

He sighed and leaned forward, "Walk away... Ignore them. But then what? Somehow they knew that we were here, somehow they were able to put that thing," he fixed his gaze on the ship slowly rotating at the front of the bridge, "Right where she'd end up. Didn't even clip a spar. And TRIPWIRE..."

Well, TRIPWIRE couldn't see out this far, could it? There was the dissimilarity, and one that had him doubly concerned. At their previous location the TRIPWIRE array had been able to monitor the tests and had provided a wealth of data on the performance of the Quantum FrameShift drive. Out here there was no TRIPWIRE and out here an i'Halalaentariel WarSphere had shown up right at the point where NX143 would be completing its test. That told him that they plausibly knew about the array, plausibly knew its extent and capabilities, and plausibly knew how to evade it. Given that it was not only a secret right up to the highest levels of Triumvirate military command and an essentially passive system that could not - in theory - be evaded was again concerning.

"Nothing," Hanson replied. On a ship as small as the Springbok the Helmsman was also the Communications Officer when they weren't busy. Since the only movement in the last fifty-nine minutes had been the routine motions of galactic drift, she was their connection to the outside world. "Fleet says they haven't seen anything unusual from out our way."

Which was also unusual. The last time any Republic starship had encountered or observed a WarSphere underway they had left a giant wake visible - at least on TRIPWIRE - over half the galaxy. So either they had turned something on for that particular occasion or turned something off for this one, or done something entirely different.

"What about two weeks ago?"

That would be insane. Not only would they have known where he was going, but also have still managed to position their ship just in the right place to perfectly intercept the...

"Uhm..." Whatever weirdness was in the Lieutenant's voice was enough to immediately propel the Commander up and out of his seat to her shoulder, where he looked past to the expanded console and the data they'd requested as it continued to stream in; "Two weeks ago, TRIPWIRE detected a very faint impression that disappeared in this vicinity. They didn't flag it as i'Halalaentariel - it was flagged as anomalous."

"And we still came here?!"

Granted, that would have been his fault. But why would he have studied the TRIPWIRE data for a faint shade-of-a-shadow? Looking at the data stream, he would have flagged what was likely now the passage of the WarSphere as a possibly rogue or orphan planet. Useful for Republic resource extraction operations, or as a clandestine location, but there were literally hundreds of millions of those already. What was one more? The Lieutenant didn't have an answer, of course - or at least not one she was willing to give voice to. The whole situation was confusing as fuck; If that had been the WarSphere in transit, how had it managed to be right where it needed to be in order to intercept NX143?

"Something smells rotten in Denmark," he ran his finger along the anomalous trace. "It's too long for an orphan planet. Planets don't move that fast unless you're shooting them out of a very big gun. We'll have to talk to the folks at TRIPWIRE central about their flagging system, but look at this," he ran the finger back along the course, the little map of nothing zooming out as he hit the edge until a good portion of the visible galaxy was now included. "It runs right into the Canis Major II Segment. Springbok," he spoke aloud, "Pull up the reports from the Ojeni. I recall something about an i'Halalaentariel structure..."

In a moment he had it, and his finger was right over it. Only a few dozen light years from the sole remaining Krȃng Gate Complex in the dwarf galaxy she had come across an enormous construct referred to as the Union that might or might not have been built from the processed remnants of the Krȃng homeworld. Whether or not that was true, the trace looked to have originated there and... "Extend the time back. Given the length of the trace, when would the WarSphere had to have departed from the Union?"

That was not a pretty answer and Brown wrinkled his nose as soon as the numbers translated into a stardate on the Lieutenant's console. Somehow the WarSphere had departed before they'd set out but; "But I had this spot already picked out as a backup location. In fact, we were going to go here first but I changed my mind so we could... use the TRIPWIRE data. Which means that they're inside our systems somehow. Ojeni reported a penetration of their external comms only;" Which were air-gaped and thus - in theory but apparently not in fact - isolated from the internal system and thus the internal communications system that would have had access to his files; "But clearly they are inside. How?"

But the Lieutenant had another slice of information to offer, "I don't know, Sir, but I noticed something - Ojeni departed the Union for the Blishi'i System and, if the travel rate remains constant, the WarSphere they encountered there could have been this same vessel. Avatar i'Grathenial commanding..."

"And I suppose you now have the Avatar on the line for me?"

"That she does, Commander Brown..."

[Sunset]

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

"You know, those of my particular breed often have their own idiosyncrasies," Doctor Kraus offered aloud - and to no one in particular as the late-night lab was empty except for him, "But I often wonder as to the efficiency and thus effectiveness of our pet Doctor Ambrose. Admittedly," he paused to fiddle with and then adjust the controls of the particularly large and expensive piece of laboratory equipment he stood in front of, "His guess as to the nature of the Krȃng genome was inspired, but why take all that time to grow individual samples when he could have had them virtually recreated inside of an hour? Minutes perhaps," he pressed a button on the most prominent external console and a rack of tubes whirred into motion, quickly sorting their contents by their mass as the centrifuge did its work, "Given his wealth and thus access to resources."

A probe dipped into the middle of the blue liquid smashed up against the rounded bottom of the various tubes, found the proper depth, and a simultaneous sample was taken from each of the ten while they continued their motion. The contents were, of course, finely ground Krȃng but something else had occurred to the scientist and he stepped back from the machine, rocked back on a heel, and tapped his finger against his chin in a disturbingly familiar though perhaps purposeful gesture - all while remaining completely oblivious to the hypocrisy of his own previous statement.

"I wonder... Is it possible - or plausible - that there is some particular connection between us? I've never looked into it, but there is a touch of the familiar - or could it be familial? - about him."

The idea that he might somehow be related to Doctor Stephen Ambrose wasn't particular either far-fetched or disturbing; His supervisor, Site Director Francine Kryger, was either his clone or he was her clone or possibly both had been cloned from the same stock and thus making the two siblings of a sort. Was it possible that Stephen was part of the same legacy? To be completely fair, most intellectuals of their persuasion tended to share a gift of inspired intelligence...

"...and insanity," Kraus finished aloud, one eye going wide and staring as he eyed the machine again. "Perhaps something I should..."

There was an odd noise from the free-standing device and he paused. The tubes had come to a stop and for a moment the screen closest to him flickered. A pop from somewhere deep in the bowels and he stepped forward, already reaching for the button that would lead him to the diagnostic panel and an answer to just what was going wrong. Barely had he touched the display when the glass and plastic column exploded with a dull krump, throwing him backwards as disassociated shards of metal and ceramic flayed his body open down to the bone. His foot caught on the workbench behind him as he flew back and he tumbled heels over head to smash face-first into a counter build across the far wall. His last glimpse would have been the smooth stainless steel of the work surface before the impact snapped his neck like a twig and shattered his skull like a rotten eggplant used for batting practice by a group of awkward youth during those long summers oh so many years ago but his eyes had been blown out in the initial event, torn to into sickening ruin by bits of the console.

Unless acted upon by an outside force, his torso, arms, and legs continued their flight unimpeded except by the row of cabinets above which absorbed the impact with a resounding crack-thud that rattled the already shaken laboratory. With outside force applied, his body fell out of the mangled ruins now liberally painted with the gore of his passing paint brush to land - suitably - in a large sink. Perhaps by chance Kraus's hand snagged one of the levers and hot water began to pour over the corpse, quickly rising past scalding to near-boiling as it washed the various fluids away from what small patch of his body it flowed over. For a few moments there was silence in the lab as various ceiling fixtures swung without clatter on mounts torn loose and the stools knocked over by the violence came to clattering rest. A fire burst to life in the ruins of the machine and then, finally, the alarms sounded.

It was only just as the first Marine burst into the room, power-armed shoulder bursting the door aside as easily as if she was just entering the football stadium - American, not everywhere-else-including-Andromeda - that the door between the laboratory and the walk-in storage opened and Kraus re-emerged to calmly open a nearby cabinet and extract a plastic face mask as well as a sturdy-looking protective apron. With the soldier's partner fanning out to the other side of the room led by the heavy rifle he held forward and flanked by a pair of hovering gun drones, the Doctor gingerly picked his way through the carnage only interrupted as a firefighting drone plowed into the room behind the pair and proceeded to cover both the test equipment and himself with suppression foam.

"Ah, thank you," he wiped away the vibrant green to expose a half-intact panel, "That was less than useful. Very interesting," his fingers found a plug on the side of the panel and he flicked off the cover. Somewhere in his journey he'd recovered a test device and he plugged it into the slot. "Was that intentional, or just some random catastrophic or explosive failure," he offered, the question half-written on his face just as the test device exploded and tore his arm into bloody scraps and sending a shard of space-age glass deep into his unprotected throat. The body slumped, the Marines stared, and seconds later the door opened again, "Goddamnit!"

A more careful approach this time resulted in a more appropriate conclusion, though one that was hardly satisfying to Site Director Krieger as she rushed in in slippers and nightgown just a minute later, "What the fucking hell happened here?!"

"Very interesting Francine. Fantastically interesting. Doctor Ambrose showed more prescience than I thought plausible; Somehow the Krȃng genome was able to program the machine for explosive detonation while I was in the middle of a virtual reconstruction of the species embedded in its structure. My guess is that it is a fail-safe - or a trap - to keep outsiders from uncovering the secrets hidden there-in without resorting to direct cloning and thus running the risk of having the bowels of one's facility overrun with exploding acid monsters!"

"Exploding acid monsters?" The two Marines looked at each other and then shifted their weapons up and then down; Special Projects Covert Research Facility 74-A (Sigma) was buried so deeply within the southern mountain range that either direction could reasonably qualify as the bowels but the Site Director went on, "We have exploding acid monsters in here?"

"No! But he does - he swept their remains into the recovery chute and... Well, self-replicating molecules," Fredrick shrugged. "I expect he's having a grand old time trying to root them out. But one must wonder how the Krȃng managed that trick - they'd have to know the particular specifications and design of this particular... Duh," he slapped his forehead. Or at least he tried - the plastic face mask he'd retrieved from his own corpse instead took the blow and reverberated slightly. "They have a whole operating system impeded in their genome and of course the Hewlett-Crumbz YS-98a isn't hardened against an internal attack. Why would it be? Though that leaves me with another unanswered question," he looked to the Site Director, strange blue eyes wide with crazed thoughts.

"Which is?!"

"How well did you know your parents, Francine?"

[Sunset]

Vir Taak Orbital Complex, Mirayn-Three, Mirayn System, The Spinward Expansion...

In a society and culture as technologically advanced as the Republic, the idea of a real face-to-face meeting was largely unnecessary. Those who wanted to be present in some far-away portion of Sunset could be so via virtual window hung on a wall, projected hologram, remotely inhabited drone, or even a complex full-body prosthetic that looked, felt, and moved every bit as comfortably as the real thing - if the inhabitant still had a physical body they thought of as their own in the first place. That wasn't to say that such meetings were rare, just as there was still a use for physical couriers even when the document in question was nothing more than a sheet of artificial paper with some words laser-burned into the plastic surface. Those words could be very important after all, and just like the words that passed between the various attendees the notion of privacy from the all-seeing and all-consuming eye of the Internet was considered well worth the added cost. To be able to discuss something of a sensitive nature without the risk of one's opinions, select facts, or playful conjectures coming to light - or at least being able to isolate the source of those words - was still critical to the workings of both business and government alike.

Thus it was that the gathering in one of the well-appointed meeting places secreted deep in the shielded heart of the Vir Taak Orbital Complex leashed to the surface of the corporate world of Mirayn-Three was not considered overly anomalous, though the presence of the particular participants would be. Seated around a horseshoe-shaped table, under the curved windows of the flat-topped dome-shaped room, and shadowed from behind by dim lights built into the tall backs of their various seats, were a half-dozen individuals who all held titles roughly similar in nature and responsibility. First there was Chief Executive Virtaania Re, the host and a Pagani who's partial namesake with the complex indicated her particular level of power within the layered corporate ecosystem of the Mirayn star system. A sixth-turn around the table to her left was Queen Akhelisi of Ixut, matriarch of the royal dynasty that had largely overtaken the Ixutsangi after off-world contact. Across from her sat the furry form of Governor-General Ten-Ton. The elected leader of the planet Juniper, his presence and invitation was largely last-minute though it had much to do with the core purpose of the meeting.

Again across and kitty-corner was Director Herifus, coordinator of the scientifically-minded Solonic star system and as close to a political leader as they regularly approached. His opposite was the Queen's counterpart - Adwo of the Cyar, who shared their planet with the Ixut in a rare example of two sapient species evolving on the same planet and not annihilating each other. Last, and at the open end of the horseshoe, was Crown-Daughter Teyiluni of the Zeer'Gen and the second insectoid-humanoid at the gathering. There were no adjutants or advisers; Notionally the meeting was secret and these were cordoned outside where they too would likely wonder at the conversation to be had inside.

"Welcome to Vir Taak," the Chief Executive began, signalling the formal beginning by rising to her feet and nodding onyx horns towards each of the others, her hands crossed over her chest. Familiar or not, the others repeated the gesture and the Pagani smiled before sitting again. "I've asked each of you to come to this meeting - some from very far afield, some from not far at all," she nodded again towards the Crown-Daughter and her relative celestial neighbors from Ixut, "Because divided we are weak. Each of our systems is, by itself, not considered politically relevant enough to entitle it to the status as a Republic Federal State with the protections and political clout that entails. Whether by population, distance, or familiarity, we are all together the scattered byways of the greater Republic and that is what I envision changing."

"An alliance," she rose again, leaning over the table to look from face to face, "Of those elements on the fringe of Republic awareness. Some of us are so-called client-states while some of us are new-found colonies and others," she looked to the Crown-Daughter, "So distant as to be out of the mind-space of Republic politics. To change that, I propose we join ourselves into a single organization, a single power block, with the goal of establishing our various systems firmly in the Republic's political arena. This will have numerous benefits for us - political, culture, economic - but will also require some sacrifice. Those of us who are not yet full Republic member-systems will become so and thus bind our future to theirs; The Outer Systems Federated State..."

[Sunset]

SNN Nightly News with Tanya Zaldano...

"...Outer Systems Federal State will be formed along familiar lines, notably and purposefully evoking the charter of the Triumvirate of Yut. This treaty - which the Republic of Sunset is a long-term signatory to - is effectively government-neutral with the exception of several key provisions which all of the proposed member states already enshrine in their legal systems. This will allow the five formative members - six, if the unique dual-government of Ixut is included - to retain their own particular forms inside the larger body and then inside the Republic."

"Speaking of the Republic," Tanya turned and strode to one side, light bouncing off the clear blue liquid of her dress, "That is the biggest challenge waiting for the new power block. Composed of a mixture of client states and new colonies, the OSFS is expected to face an uphill battle in the Senate where representation is currently concentrated in two distinct segments; A pro-citizen block led by the Mangalan senators and a pro-growth block largely centered in the Sunset seats. The second is expected to be essentially neutral to the proposed addition while the first may be more hostile; Several of the Outer Systems members have government forms that are broadly felt to be more business or nobility focused rather than on the needs of the common people. While all Republic citizens may vote and run for a seat in the Senate, the low population of these outer systems, as they are choosing to call themselves, means that current representation in the Senate is low but that in turn is another consideration for the two core power blocks; The population of those outer systems is expanding rapidly thanks in part to an influx of refugees that find these systems an easier place to integrate and resettle and in part due to the Hauyht and Ixutsangi, species given to high birth rates."

Another turn and Tanya continued across the set, every footstep setting the material of her dress into motion once again. Whether it was painted on or somehow captured, the short-skirted dress appeared to be a steadily flowing cascade of water that emerged from the very peak of her cleavage to flow over her chest in a delightfully translucent fashion and cascade lower across stomach and hips to trickle out into individual water droplets that seemed to never end just shy of her thighs. Instead of heels or flats she was wearing an odd pair of soles that wrapped up to cover her toes in a sandy-brown material but left them looking as though they were just digging in under the surf. Highlights had been added to her hair and the black mass now looked as if she'd spent more than a few days under the tropical sun.

"If the Outer Systems are accepted as a new Federal State, they will already have a considerable leg up. According to information gathered by SNN, a high-level meeting at the Vir Taak Orbital around Mirayn-Three resulted in several preliminary agreements; An economic cooperation platform, a government technology exchange, and perhaps most telling the foundations of an independent Federal State Navy, similar to those of the existing recognized Federal States. The OSFSN, as it has been dubbed, would also contribute to the economies of the several parties with each providing one or two classes of ship to the combined fleet. Interestingly, this coincides with the commissioning of two ship-building facilities on Juniper, the Hauyht-majority colony in the same-named star system. Whether Governor-General Ten-Ton's announcement had any impetus to the Outer Systems proposal is unknown at the moment, but is definitely an interesting coincidence. Presumably then they will be adding their GateKeeper and LineBreaker-Class warships to the OSFSN roster, fueling speculation as to what particular vessels the other member-systems will contribute..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, On the Run, The Inward Frontier, Blishi'i United Federation...

"Well," Kami waved a hand in front of her face, sending a spiral of smoke curling away before a cough churned it into brown-grey chaos, "I guess we know why there was a Ver'Un'Guun listening post there. Damage report, Commander," she stabbed a finger into her armrest controls, "And casualties, Doctor..."

In a coincidence of presience, her orders to the helm to 'fly casual' but keep the Ojeni moving had saved them all from disaster when, not seconds before the salvage shuttle was about to recover the wreckage of the destroyed scout ship, an assload of warships had dropped out of faster-than-light around them and opened fire without the courtesy of a written warning or even a raised middle finger. Her foot on the gas, the Lieutenant at the console had pushed Ojeni to warp almost instantly but it had been enough of a delay for a score of lances to find her armor. One had struck deep enough to dislodge various panels from the fortified core and a fire had started under one of the auxiliary stations. No explosions; That was for the movies where they carried volatiles under the counter. But the sweat on Captain Blaine's forehead was very real and her knuckles were white as she waited for the two reports.

The first was from Commander Eye'Tumno and the Skri skipped his usual holographic projection as he checked in, "We're flying, but barely. There's a through-and-through from the lounge to the port-ventral. Looks like they thought that was the bridge because there's a half-dozen minor hits around it."

A large star-shaped warship of cruiser weight had dropped in right on top of them and it was this that was responsible for most of the damage. They'd scooted out from under it as quickly as they could but it had chased them with a volley of missiles, "Which knocked the back half off our port nacelle. Your story about a barbecue isn't all wrong - that cost us about a third of our heat sinks."

Which meant no fighting or no running, or they'd stew in their own juices.

"Alright," Kami replied, nodding to the invisible eyeball and turning to the next, "Doctor?"

The voice that responded wasn't that of Doctor Prescott but instead one of his staff and her knuckles grew even tighter, fingers digging into the faux leather, "Seven donuts and some walking wounded, Captain. Frank's in the first group - he took some shrapnel running for the lounge. And Captain," the nurse paused, "Two KIA - the bartender and the chef were on duty when the lounge was wiped out."

"Then we got lucky," though her response was a slip of the tongue. She hadn't put the ship on full alert so those in search of a meal or off-duty could have been circulating through the recreation center. Most of the crew had been focused on various tasks, however, and the only occupants had been the unfortunate pair. Luck for the rest didn't stop her stomach from knotting up; She hadn't fired the shot but it sure felt like she'd been hit by it. "Alright, get everyone up again as fast as you can. Concentrate on technical staff first. We'll need them to get wherever we're going."

That was the next question, and one she directed to the bridge in general, "Helm, where are we going?"

"Blishi'i frontier outpost," came the answer. "Less than fifty light out," fingers passed over the controls and local space appeared in the central holosphere. "And getting closer."

"Captain," Lieutenant Commander Ingersol interjected from behind her, "We might want to let the Blishi'i know we're coming - and we've got company coming with..."

[Sunset]

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

"The problem," Katryna said, plucking her coffee cup off the hanging hook and running it under the nozzle to release a blast of her chosen brew, "Is that the Druth'Haari are able to create an artificial event horizon from a single generator and at considerable range - millions of kilometers. The closest thing we have are the artificial wormhole generators on the Aurora's. Which can generate a wormhole independent of the gate, but only by creating the other end inside their normal operating radius. Inverse square rule. The further from the generator the entity is created, the more power is needed to accomplish the same effect. But they can pull it off at AU-scale ranges, so either they have a very big generator - say the star at the center of their artificial singularities - or they have some way of short-circuiting the inverse square rule. Which, I suppose they could be altering the local holographic boundary in their favor. That would be one way around it, but you'd again need to somehow put enough energy into the system to counter the Prime Universe's desire to normalize. There you go - they create the artificial event horizon to create a boundary between the Prime and the... Whatever they call their own local reality..."

"Ferni'Gon"

"Thank you. Our Eien," she added, ignoring the interjection of the faintly shimmering patch of air that was not supposed to be in a secure environment. Another sip of coffee and she went on, "Between the Prime and Ferni'Gon. Inside the boundary area, the rules of local reality allow them to create the boundary at whatever range they want. Which, I can pull off a fireball-slinging kitten, but that seems to be a whole order of magic less than what they are doing. Maybe two or three. I'll work on it, but the easier way to put up our own Singularity Fortress would be to generate our own event horizon from one or more nearby generators. So I'm thinking we have Velma do it."

"Velma?"

"...was hot. Those glasses, and that sweater dress? She had to be a tiger in the sack!"

"First off, your interrupting. Second, how do you know about Scooby Doo? And third, why do you have a thing for hot nerd chicks with glasses? You're a..."

Of course, the shimmering patch of air that was or had been or might have been the iWe was now just a normal mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and various trace elements that constituted Terra Incognito-normal atmosphere. Katryna looked around, pushed her cup through the empty patch of nothing in particular, sighed, and turned back to her fellow researcher, "Asshole;" who agreed with a nod.

"Anyway, what I was thinking was that we could find some stars - little ones, in out of the way places - and put a baby VLEMA in place. Self-replicating solar energy collection and conversion array, set it to self-expand, and then it starts adding HBM generators when it gets large enough. Which is pretty much the same thing as an artificial singularity generator. The star feeds the array, the array creates the boundary and thus the event horizon, then it can expand itself off the star's output until there's enough useful space inside the construct to do something. I'll need to run some numbers though, get Saryan involved. We'd need to find the radius where the generated event horizon is stable but doesn't need all the power coming into the array so we can use the array to do something useful. And of course stars don't last forever. But a few billion years is a long time to dink around with..."

[Sunset]

Panieria Basin, GEC-1042091C...

"That's our fish," Timmons agreed enthusiastically as he held up a floating hologram taken from the original to compare. Aside from minor differences in size, the length of a fin here or there, and of course the color, the two were close enough to be twins.

"And you say it can talk?"

"No," but she pushed her face mask up to the transparent bag she'd placed the captured fish in and made a silly face, "Hello? Hello in there little fishy..."

'Hello little fishy,' it bubbled, the words double-distorted by the barriers between them.

"It's an immortal parrot fish," she continued, happiness in her every word. "It says what you say, sorta. I don't think it knows what you're saying though. I tried tapping the bag and asking it to swim to the tap and pointing to myself and saying my name and pointing to it and... Nope! It just says what you say."

"Still neat. I'd guess its either a hunting or a defense mechanism. Echoes the sounds of predators so they think there is competition and move on, or echoes the sound of prey so they think its safe to go outside. Doesn't explain how they are immortal though," he swam closer, nearly touching the bag.

'I'm an immoral fish!'

"Well, maybe they learn a little..."

"Uh huh," but the big man traced a hand down the plastic, looking through the bag for a moment as Kedo swam up behind the two, his eyes on the prize in the bag. "I wonder if the color has something to do with it."

Though the red-orange fish was still beautiful. Flecks of gold flashed through the tail and a band of silver ran down the top of each flank. He hadn't noticed it on the one they'd found in the Tomb of the Conqueror, but this one had four eyes in brilliant yellow and a mouth full of triangular teeth. These didn't seem to do it any good in its attempts to escape; Occasionally it would run down the side of the bag or bump the wall but otherwise it seemed content.

"Or it's a girl. Or a boy. Do fish have color preferences?"

"That's not a good question," he answered, fishing at one of the pouches on his waist before finding the hand scanner he was looking for. Activating the device, he pressed it against the side of the plastic, "Now hold still. I'm trying to determine your gender."

"My gender cannot be determined!"

Everyone looked at the fish oddly and there was a long pause, though it gave the scanner plenty of time to construct a complete image of the fish and its innards. A few more seconds where the fish opened its mouth a few times, flicked four orange eyes past the three, and then spun around in a circle, and the explorer looked back to his device. A moment later and a large hologram appeared beside the floating bag, the fish inside instantly pressing itself up against the barrier and making a set of soft noises that almost sounded like cooing, "Yeah, that's weird."

"Which," Alwyra asked. "The baby noises or the scan?"

"Both. I'd want to forward this on to a biologist, but I think the fish is right - it doesn't have a gender. Or at least nothing I can identify as reproductive organs. Not to say they couldn't be something entirely unfamiliar; You hear about the Erae? They have baby pods in their brains. When they die, the pods wake up and the body serves as a nutrient bed for the young. So it would be best to have an expert take a look. But did the fish know that it was answering the question," he looked back to the fish, who rolled over so that it's belly was showing before swimming around in a half-circle to end up once again upright, "Or did it just mix up the words so as to confuse the big brown predator?"

"Where did you find it?" Kedo spoke up, putting a finger against the bag and pressing it in as the fish backed off. "One sample is good - two is better."

Swirling around in the water, Alwyra realized that they'd been drifting for more than a few minutes now and that the coral where she'd caught the little creature was now at the other end of the reef. Kicking away, she drew the bag behind her and they followed until the familiar shape emerged from the colorful mass, "Right here. It was hiding in and around these two. I'll pass it along," she decided, "And we'll go look for more..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Springbok, Intergalactic Space, Just outside the Milky Way Galaxy...

...a moment later the simulacrum appeared, crawling out from behind him like a horrendous spider, bio-luminescent patches glowing fiercely under the influence of the holographic reconstruction. Commander Brown watched carefully as the Avatar came to a stop just to the right of the spherical display that sat at his feet and just between the two forward stations, almost appearing to rest on the shoulder of the Lieutenant seated at the helm. Whether it looked back was impossible to tell; Were those eyes or just another vaguely smooth section of its carapace?

"...well," Brown struggled to keep his composure, "What brings you out this way, Avatar?"

It was a weak opening but either the i'Halalaentariel did not understand the tension in the Human's voice or did not care, "Because you have begun experimenting with the technologies of the i'Halalaentariel and those who do often delve the dire mysteries of the forbidden Krȃng. Even with your assurances and hoping in your professed wisdom, there may be others who are attracted to the seeming miraculous advances you have unlocked and these we would know as well to assure ourselves that they too remain pure."

"So you're keeping an eye on us," the Commander replied, his tone wary and his posture now suddenly defensive.

"Guarding your civilization and others. Repeated endlessly you will still never understand the true threat posed by that which has been purposefully destroyed and hidden away. It is your place as a young civilization to be inquisitive and thus our own to assure your Salvation - even if it must come by force and at our own hand. As I say; It is not unexpected that you will dabble in what you think will bring you power and mastery. It is the nature of growth. But not all growth is good and not all truths are useful nor desirable. Take a heed that you do not delve too deep too quickly, Commander Brown!"

"Or you'll find a balrog. Eat a dick, i'Grathenial..."

Startled by the sudden interjection, the officer glanced around the bridge in an effort to discover the source of the particularly well-formed words but nothing - except perhaps a particularly energetic patch of air near one of the auxiliary consoles - brought his concentration, "...who?" But - and perhaps more importantly - the Avatar didn't seem to notice the interruption though a moment after his eyes came back to center the Commander looked past the four-legged hologram to the titanic WarSphere occupying the whole of the main display. Was it a trick of the light or was the spindle-connected construction now spinning slightly faster than before? This seemed to be confirmed a moment later as the whole thing ground to a halt and then began to reverse itself, the entire body contracting only slightly to expand again.

As if it were breathing.

For some seconds time ticked by uninterrupted by anything until the Avatar once again spoke but now something had changed. Where the bio-luminescent patches and spots along its body had once burned brightly before, they began to move and flow in rhythm and intensity. Whether or what this meant - or even if it was important - wasn't immediately obvious but perhaps it was contained in i'Grathenial words, "Beware as well; The risk you take is three-fold. The risks to yourselves cannot be iterated enough, but they are your own and you take them upon yourselves. But others will also desire what you learn and perhaps to their deteriment. Know that the Great Enemy is devious; What seems understood and simple to you may well function as a cunning trap to those unprepared. There are also those who already know, who already understand, but who will manipulate your advancement to their own ends."

"Yeah, yeah, or you could just pick up the phone once in a while!"

All of the sudden the geometric tangle came to a crashing halt and the Avatar stepped back, his holographic form nearly passing through the console except by virtue of chance. The head stalk moved around, settled on nothing in particular, and then the ominous red crackle of the WarSphere's drive shield began to surround it.

"Lieutenant!" Commander Brown called out, his voice rising to near panic, "Get the 143 out of there!"

"Aye Sir!"

Whether the Avatar chose to give them the moment to retrieve their ship, or whether something else had paused him in his obvious retreat, there was just enough time for a hasty burn of the experimental craft's sublight engines to push it through a gap in the i'Halalaentariel vessel before the whole contracted, the points touched, and the crimson glow washed over it and it vanished in a blood-tinged blur. All around the bridge there was a sudden sigh as breaths held released and the crew looked from one to another and then to the Commander, who once again stared around the bridge in desperate search of a voice that was not there, "Who's there?!"

If it had been listening, it certainly didn't answer him directly, "I tell ya, some people. Ascendancy this, Ascendancy that, but once they get off their thorax and actually go through with it they never call, they never write. Just leave their damned answering machine on..."

"...what's an answering machine?"

"Look at the time!" And there was a pause from the slightly solid patch of air, "Gotta run!"

Nothing changed but there was a sudden sense of absence and he practically jumped out of his seat, searching here and there while the head of every other sapient on the Springbok's command deck did the same. Again, there was nothing except a slight regularity to the air over near one of the auxiliary consoles and, to the particularly observant, a roughly hand-shaped patch of condensation on the black glass...

[Sunset]

Port Ha'Bainda, Blishi'i (GEC-1342224) Star System, Canis Major II Dwarf Galaxy...

"...why not use a more humanoid model," Demi asked, watching as the short four-legged robot went about its business. The automaton and its identical kin seemed to be everywhere, rolling here and there and disappearing into service areas to emerge moments later - or was it an entirely new unit and there were dozens if not hundreds more back behind those sliding-teeth doors? - with some container in hand or with a hand or both replaced by this complicated-looking tool or that. "Something more familiar to you and me?"

Of course the word she had self-translated for use was not Humanoid but something closer to Blishi'i-oid but the meaning was the same, as well as the irony; By the latest census of both the Republic and the United Federation, neither Humans nor Blishi'i were the majority species though both were still the largest fraction of the population by the numbers. Perhaps in a hundred years or only ten that would change and a new 'oid' would come into widespread usage. Both had been momentarily of some importance since the joint trade negotiations had just ended for the day and things like census numbers and use-cases and phenotype-needs had come up here and there. Both civilizations were primarily Human/Blishi'i-oid but the liaisons responsible for such things had made it repeatedly clear that merchants, traders, businesses, and corporations seeking to initiate cross-civilization commerce would find demand for their products in hands of all shapes, sizes, and numbers. This segment of the negotiations seemed to have been a favorite for Minister Phare, who delighted in the minutia, and this had been explained when one of her aids had slipped her a virtual note explaining that the Minister had previously been the closest equivalent to a car salesman the Blishi'i had.

She had even given an impromptu history lesson; When the subject of hands, their numbers, and their placement had come up the example given had been the Kal-En-Vesho. Confronted with the truly alien, questions had come and she had stood to give her best micro-lecture, explaining their million-year-gone empire and history to the accompaniment of less-than-thrilled looks by the Inquisitorial representative on hand. Explaining their current status and regenerated history within the Republic had mollified most but a flurry of assistants coming and going at the red-robed officer's command threatened headaches to come.

"Humanoid? The drones you mean," Minister Phare answered, gaze following her own until it lit on one of the units just passing out of sight. "I..." There was an audible pause and he leaned over to one of his assistants and asked the question in the shorter man's ear, "Why aren't those drones more humanoid? I confess I don't know - I've never been in the military beyond the ceremonial."

The assistant didn't know either, and for a minute the question was passed around until it made its way to the attache for the Blishi'i United Space Fleet - the representative herself having left hastily to handle some other task - who found she had the answer and was thus sent to join the Ambassador and the Minister as they continued to circulate among the dining tables; The meal was presented by one of the various member species who preferred to eat standing up and walking between the various plates.

"Excuse me, Madam Ambassador," the officer began, stepping up to the Minister's shoulder. There was something familiar about the white-skinned woman and for a moment Demi mistook her for an albino Coatlicue until the large flat tendrils put that notion to rest. "You asked about the MD-x? The drones?"

"Yes, I was wondering why you don't use a more humanoid model? Something more familiar in form?"

"If I might, I have a question for you first. I had heard that Ambassadors of the Republic of Sunset are given the rank of Captain in your military. Is this true?"

"Mmm," Demi finished her bite, "It is, but I haven't used it in years. Its so we can issue orders if needed. Why?"

"Easier to address you by Ma'am, Ma'am," and the Ambassador laughed while the officer went on to answer the initial question, "At one point, we did Ma'am. MD-Sm/s Type Drones were part of a short-lived BUSF experiment in the use of drones with a more 'biological' appearance. Deliberately they were designed to be somewhat androgynous and even facial features were removed but the hypothesis was that a drone with the body shape more typical to the various species across the United Federation would allow more natural interaction with the crew as well as more flexibility in their primary duties; Individual combat, maintenance, and repair. The mechanical body was thus covered with a synthetic 'skin' and then layered with armor segments over the chest, waist, and legs to further reinforce the notion of a nebulous non-individual. Seams at the major body segments - hands, arms, chest, waist, thighs - allowed the units to be easily taken apart for reassembly in case of damage or upgrade and again this was designed to emphasis the interchangeable nature of the units. Their capabilities would largely be the same as the MD-s Fleet Drone," she pointed out one of the four-legged wheeled robots, "With the exception that they would carry and use the standard rifle instead of mounted weapons; Storage for additional ammunition as well as common tools and small replacement parts would be internal and concealed by the major body segment seams."

There was a pause and something in the officer's tone became more personal and less of a practiced statement, "The experiment was a failure."

"Despite the specific design attempts to minimize the unit's resemblance to a biological individual, the resemblance was close enough that some officers in the trial units formed attachments to individual units. Most often this was as a personal assistant but there were some who considered their chosen unit as a friend, confident, and - in extreme cases - lover. While the first instance was a reasonably expected use this often led to the secondary attachments with many documented instances where the units were considered to be an emotional equal and fifty-seven known instances of intercourse or attempted intercourse. This was also caused some strife in the units they were deployed to; Some considered the units - expert systems with supposedly no possible potential capacity for sentience - to be essentially slaves while others engaged in behaviors that would otherwise be considered abusive towards the units, sometimes deliberately damaging or destroying 'favored' units. This was exacerbated by the interchangeability of the units with 'owners' or 'friends' modifying their 'personal' units in various ways. That was the end of the experiment - the MD-Sm/s were recalled and the units assigned to the experiment broken up."

"There was even an Inquisition into whether the problems had been the result of Heretical or Corrupt influence, though that line of questioning didn't go anywhere. The units were simply too close to us, Ma'am."

"Interesting," and the Minister was echoed by the Ambassador's own, "Interesting. Does this mean there are no cyborgs or humanoid Artificial Intelligence in the United Federation?"

It was an important question to her, give her wife's own status, and one that she felt sudden regret for overlooking though the officer's answer was immediately pacifying, "There are, though they are rare. Does Ma'am know much about the Krȃng? Their ability to interact with electronic systems - Corruption - has meant that all Artificial Intelligences are very carefully watched and studied by the Inquisition before they are allowed to go about their lives. In fact, I could name all of them," she held up a four-fingered hand. "Cyborgs are a lot more common, beyond regular cybernetic enhancement. In fact, that was the destination for many of the recalled MD-Sm/s units. They were rebuilt into host units for officers waiting for a new body after suffering lethal injuries..."

[Sunset]

Deep Under The Doctor's Lab, AMI Industrial Complex, The Moon Minamoto...

"Squad One," Agent 17 barked the order, "Advance with covering fire to the corner. Squad Two..."

A tremendous explosion rocked the twisting rock-strewn tunnel, itself carved out of the deep places of the moon and here and there floored with concrete, steel, or bone, and the pulverized remains of Squad One flew past 17's position to paint the wall behind her with cotton candy and birthing agent. The first hissed and sizzled as the sugar caramelized from the heat while the second slid down the wall in great globs of milky-clear lubricant. There had been four Minions in that squad and one had gone down earlier so to 17's well-honed instincts...

"...Squad Two, advance with suppressing fire to take cover behind Squad One. Squad Three..."

She sincerely hoped there was a Squad Three or else she was likely - and shortly - to be all alone in this section of the tunnels against both a seemingly-endless collection of exploding acid monsters and whatever other horrors had managed to emerge before the first attacks had hit the Doctor's outer (under) perimeter. Those had wiped out not only the perimeter defense squads but a good chunk of the facility's subterranean infrastructure - apparently several of the things going off in a group hug was a good way to turn a hundred meters of rock into gravel. Given the immediate severity of the situation and the chaos all around him, the Doctor's response had been practical and thoughtful; He'd pulled the lever that dumped all of his own monstrous creations directly into the emergent battlefield.

For a while carnage had reigned supreme as towering monoliths of muscle and claw had rendered their way through a tide of suicidal gibbering horrors until they too were blown asunder only to be washed away by the purifying flame of some momentarily negligent Minion who had been modified to belch flame. Inevitably these too had gone down in a spray of Vibranium crystals that now represented a node of vast wealth fought over by black-clad commandos and snake-like creatures that slithered through the darkness to wind their way around the body and pinch off limbs with razor-sharp spines. The moment some sense of tactical stability had emerged the Doctor had declared the situation a crisis and, blasting through the walls from an adjoining chamber, had brought the guns of a buried Omen-Class Battlecruiser to bear on the whole thing. Mecha had followed crushing waves of disruptor fire into the breach and they had together pushed through to the deepest depths where the robotic warriors had become stuck and the Minions had once again progressed on foot.

"...Squad Three? Report..."

She'd left them at the crux of two adjoining tunnels while taking One and Two down the one on the left. It had looked to peter out after a few more turns but the gradually lowering ceiling had suddenly opened up into an open space strewn with water-carved sculptures and liberally salted with ambushing acid monsters. With no sounds of explosion or screams of carnage, she could only now assume that something had taken Squad Three silently and it now lay between her and whatever remained of the Doctor's forces. He, of course, was having a blast.

"Squad Two, belay that. Withdraw under covering fire to me;" The bulky Minions that had shortly passed her own position glued to the ceiling of the tunnel began to fall back, firing their heavy rifles blind into the darkness in the not-so-vain hope of scoring a hit. One by one they leapfrogged back over the other and a satisfying crack-boooom! followed a particularly well-placed thooomm to follow with a minor shower of broken rock. As soon as they were past she began to fall back herself, long rifle out front and feet slip-sticking to the rock as she hung down into the passage. Somewhere behind her was Squad Three - the question was just how much of them was left...

[Sunset]

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

"...every twenty seconds. It's one of those things we don't like to talk about, but when you consider the idea of putting up Baby Velma's to establish a system of fortress stars - it's really something we should have been doing all along. Compared to the resources scattered through the rest of a typical star system, the star itself is typically ninety-nine percent of the total mass. When it really comes down to it, all the planets and asteroids and whatever that we live on," Katryna paused and took the last drink of her coffee before turning the cup out over the sink to let a few scattered drops splash across the stainless steel. "Well, there you go. Just the last few drops."

"So if we concentrate on putting up VELMAs around every star in our core systems, we'll make the resource extraction efforts of everyone else look like those same drops. And at this point its all just wasted energy; We put up arrays over the poles and we're not doing anything to the volume of sunlight that's going out as far as crops and windows and whatnot go. At worst people looking up or down at our systems ten thousand years from now might wonder where the star went and there's nothing like adding a sense of wonder to someone's existence..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, On the Run, The Inward Frontier, Blishi'i United Federation...

"...negative Ojeni, wave off. Repeat, wave off. Outpost Ver'Krieg has come under attack by determined Ver'Un'Guun force. Repeat, negative. Outpost is under attack..."

Captain Blaine - as well as the rest of her bridge crew - listened to the message again and the knot in her stomach grew tighter. The timing was just too close; "That has to be either the same force that attacked us or connected to it. They were probably hoping to destroy us before we reported in!"

But that didn't make sense in her head and she realized that as she said it. Lieutenant Yu hadn't been able to contact the outpost directly - Ojeni didn't have access to the BUSF's faster-than-light comms - and had instead relayed a message through the communications satellite they'd supplied to the United Federation when Ojeni had been in the Blishi'i home system. That had been passed to their central command and then the message had been passed back to Ojeni and the Lieutenant. Speed of thought was a thing but the message had to pass through real hands both ways and real flesh-and-blood hands hesitated and asked questions of protocol. Assuming the message was real - and by unwittingly relaying around the outpost and any communications trickery that might be going on there - she was reasonably certain that the contents were authentic and that the Ver'Un'Guun attack had to have either begun shortly before or shortly after her ship had been jumped in the Car'Ielson Nebula.

It was a scattered thought; More to the point, they weren't attacking the outpost to prevent Ojeni from relaying the position of their monitoring station.

"It could still be our fault..."

"Not our fault," Commander Sloan pointed out, getting a hint of where the Captain's thoughts ran. "I'd guess when we stumbled across that station, we stepped right into the middle of a planned operation. They could only assume we were a scout and that word of the station's location would get out and they then pushed up the timetable for their attack to immediately. There's a chance that we forced their hand and the attack on the outpost might stall."

Hopes and dreams, but Kami refocused on the more immediate, "Okay, then where else can we go? Helm?"

"Ask the Eye first, but presuming he can keep things together, the next closest port facility is a colony world twenty three light beyond the outpost. We'll fly right by it, but they'll never see us."

A sudden vision of a daring fly-by attack on the Ver'Un'Guun force flew through the Captain's head but she shook it away, "Too dangerous. What type of colony is it? If they are after us, or on a larger offensive, is it at risk?"

"Captain," Lieutenant Yu held up a hand and Kami swiveled, the catch in Yu's voice prompting Sloan to stand and clutch to the back of the Captain's chair, "Word from the Blishi'i High Command. That colony is under attack as well and Outpost Ver'Krieg is expected to fall. This is being treated as a major incursion by the Ver'Un'Guun and significant reinforcements are on the way. Blishi'i High Command recommends we return to Blishi'i if possible and link up with our forces."

Fingers dug fresh new trenches in the faux leather as the knot grew tighter still, "Eye'Tumno, can we make it? Reduced speed, whatever it takes."

There was a few seconds pause while they waited the Skri's answer and Sloan bent forward to half-whisper in the Captain's ear, "Our forces? The only ship there would be..."

"The Ambassador's ship - Aayrid," Kami finished with a sigh. "I'm pretty certain we just threw a Ver'Un'Guun monkey wrench into those negotiations..."

[Sunset]

Port Ha'Bainda, Blishi'i (GEC-1342224) Star System, Canis Major II Dwarf Galaxy...

A momentary sparkle among the stars and Ambassador Love was distracted from her conversation with the Space Force officer to look over her shoulder to the giant picture window that seemingly looked out over the endless expanse of space and the clutter that was Blishi'i orbital traffic. One, two, three, four, and five and then they were done and she turned back to the woman, who had also turned to follow her gaze, "What ships were those?"

"I don't know, Ma'am," and the tone of her voice told of honesty and some mild note of curiosity.

Ships were always coming and going, of course, but there was a touch of the familiar about those particular flashes though they had neither the collapsing-line 'ziiiing' of the BUSF's Fold Drive nor the contracting rubber-band 'fwuuuump' of a SDF Space-Warp Drive. Instead it was a sudden 'pop' and either the ships were there or they were gone - it was impossible to tell at this great distance. Perhaps something moved against the stars and perhaps not but since the great bulk of warships clustered around the station and in orbit did not falter in their slow orbits they would not be a threat. In fact only a handful were on the move with one being a great leviathan breaking orbit as if it were a breaching whale with its attendant escorts moving nearby as a school of dolphins or lesser cetaceans. As these were headed nearly the opposite direction it was clear that they were not interested in the five and the officer - who would be interested in such things if they were of interest - turned back to her and the Minister, "I can find out, but likely they were merchant ships from one of the other systems."

"Or perhaps they weren't," a new voice interjected. Demi turned to find herself not two inches from a wholly unfamiliar alien who had snuck up behind the three while their backs were turned. Or hovered up, as the case stood - or rather didn't stand. He or she - it was impossible to tell, though the soft voice suggested some femininity - floated in mid-air thanks apparently to a corset-like appliance that wrapped around their torso and form-fitting silken gray dress to give some impression of breasts and cleavage where there was none to rival her own. Blue skin speckled with white blotches and slick with moisture suggested an octopus or squid and there was more than that in the person's face with its trim of tendrils where a mouth might be and two more draping to either side of a single eye from a layered arrangement of cranial skin folds. The hands were rudder-like and the tail that hung suspended above the floor while her dress just brushed it was similarly wide and paddle-like.

"Perhaps you should ask Minister Phare - Greetings, Minister," she half-nodded, closing the one eye as she did and with the Minister doing so in return, "Whether your curiosity has something to do with the ongoing Ver'Un'Guun attack on one of their frontier outposts..."

Phare looked first to the newcomer and then to the officer, who shook her head as though she didn't know or simply couldn't say. Then he returned to the Ambassador's side, not-so-subtly wedging himself between the two with the then-offered cover of providing suitable introduction, "Ambassador Demi Love, this is Envoy Ise of the Sui Oishi Regency. Envoy Ise, Ambassador Demi Love, of the Republic of Sunset."

"Yes," the Envoy floated back, her arms slightly outstretched in what Demi could only call a greeting or gesture of some kind, "I know. Here to establish relations between yourselves and the nearly like-minded Blishi'i United Federation. Perhaps when you are finished securing the benefits of harmonious trade and a recognition of each other's laws and sovereignty you will come visit us as well. The Regency," her voice grew soft and she drifted closer to drop her hands into a more normal posture, "Has much to offer as well."

"Including the tendency to wish to play facilitator or spoiler, depending on which mood suits them," Phare added with an edge of irritation. "But what is this about an attack?"

He looked from the Envoy to the officer, but neither had a clear answer for him though whether the Envoy was acting as one or the other of her insinuated roles and whether the unnamed officer had since been informed was still unclear. That he didn't know himself spoke volumes as well and a moment later there was something equivalent to a sigh as he stepped over to the window and operated some controls built into the frame, "Ver'Un'Guun attacks are nothing new, nor especially concerning, Ambassador."

The starfield outside was overlaid in an instant with a hexagonal grid stretched out to an odd perspective until she realized that it matched the stars themselves to a certain extent, with symbols surrounding some and notation appearing along and between various grids.

"The Interior Frontier," he pointed. "The gulf of un-colonized and largely unexplored stars between ourselves and the Ver'Un'Guun Supremacy. They make it exceptionally hard to do either, which is why we have focused our efforts elsewhere. They are savage monsters, Ms. Love, and I do not speak in hyperbole." As if to confirm, he looked to the Envoy and the Officer and the first did not offer challenge while the second nodded agreement before he continued, "Attacks are common across these sectors - attacks that claim hundreds of lives and dozens of ships every year. It is the Ver'Un'Guun who were behind the incident we spoke of earlier, and when their end eventually comes it will not be too soon..."

[Sunset]

SS-Qasr, GEC-1042091C Orbit, Gamma Quadrant...

"Timmons..." The wailing whine of anguish and distress could somehow, and despite the enormous expense put into the construction of the luxury personal starship, be heard not only through the walls of the Amirah's cabin but out into the hallway and even further down to the dining hall where the intended recipient was fiddling with the alien computer console and a variety of tools he'd laid out around him in a star pattern. "Timmons! My fish is dying!"

There was a sigh, but the big man pushed himself to his knees and then to his feet, put the octagonal crystal back where it had been among the lattice of others, and then turned to half-jog towards the call while steadfastly ignoring the sudden flurry of rainbow flashes from the array as the spirits trapped within welcomed their missing brother back. For a man of his size he was not simply surprisingly quiet but ludicrously so and it was only when the door whisked open that his presumed employer turned on a dime with her eyes wide and tears welling up. It was more than enough to feel sorry for her, though that she was standing there in a silken nighty seemingly unconcerned with parts of her so uncovered that gave him a temporary pause.

"...your fish?"

"My immoral fish! It's dying!"

It was - at least as far as he knew - only her fish at least. They'd caught more and found many more after that and with the future survival of the species assured the team had decamped for orbit and the Qasr with the plan being to return to Republic space within the day. Of course if her fish was dying, that would present problems and he looked from her to the tank and then back again and she pointed, "See?"

That led him to follow the quivering finger to the large tank set up atop a dresser that likely cost more than his monthly salary. It was filled with water carefully retrieved from the ocean below, as well as plants and other fish that had been in the area but that didn't look especially threatening. In fact the whole thing didn't look problematic at all; The whole school swam back and forth slowly in the enormous reservoir that sat against a virtual backdrop of further sandy-bottomed ocean broadcast live from a buoy placed above the reef where the fish had been found. No one had seen them eat, so the effort was made to include a wide variety of possible food source, but for a fish it was probably a very comfortable space.

All of that established, it did seem like the fish was dying.

Nearly as soon as he got close enough to the glass to make out the water-distorted details he could see the reason for her concern. Small pieces of skin were peeling back here and there and some had detached to float to the surface. These gave something of the effect of glitter across the gently moving surface but while they attracted the eye they didn't seem noteworthy to the other fish.

"Some kind of skin disease?" He pressed his nose close; "I'm dying!"

"Did you teach him to say that?"

"No," she sighed, sitting down on the nearby bed with a flounce, "He's just saying what I said when I noticed. He looked perfectly healthy!"

"Yeah, that's weird," and he watched steadily through the glass as the fish swam around, peering closely when it came to within half a fin's width of the pane. There was no discoloration nor signs of anything odd about the skin underneath - something that might indicate a parasite or infection. The skin was just slowly peeling away. "I'll get a scanner."

A biologist would be more helpful, but the scans could be forwarded to an expert and from there they could establish either a course of treatment or the proper method of disposal - possibly by the ceremonial flushing of the commode...

[Sunset]

Habitat One, Molar Plane, Falk's Gambit, GEC-1309912, Canis Major II Segment...

"I hate moving," Lae noted for perhaps the fifteenth time that morning, this time accompanied with a grunt and a sigh. Sometimes it was a grunt, sometimes it was a sigh, but always it was accompanied by yet another collapsible plastic box full of the various things that seemed to accumulate around the house despite all attempts otherwise. "Couldn't we just have robots do it? Or have them do it," the lanky Cyar nodded towards a virtual window that looked out over the great Molar Plane that surrounded the only permanent structure on the planet. "Or just sell the old place, scan it, and have everything printed out here?"

"We could," Trinya admitted as she sat on the couch - one of the first things to make its way down the corridors of the mushroom-shaped habitat and into the suite of rooms that they would call their own, "But moving is a chance to go through your life and see what's really important. Get rid of what you don't need, decide what you do, maybe even decide on a new direction or two. A chance to get out of the rut."

Falk's Gambit was certainly getting out of the rut, though whether they had been in one before was a highly debatable question. In fact it barely seemed like they had finished setting up house in a newly-renovated section of the Circlet's super-structure when her mother had come calling - in person, no less - to make an offer that was half offer and half strenuous suggestion. The Circlet would shortly be flooded with colonists both from the Republic and its various Federal States, several tenuous civilizations that had been happened across in the Delta/Gamma border region where the Gen Celet System could be found, and with its own population of Zeer'Gen, Otterkin, and Svari that were all on the rise. Instead, she reasoned that there was a need for a remote colony near the extant Krȃng Transit Gate in the very remote Canis Major II Segment. As locations go it was almost exactly opposite the Circlet but directly accessible via the Kion Gateway still present at the edge of the Gen Celet System and slowly moving its way towards the Circlet as it was towed into a new and more convenient Trojan orbit. Out where the stars trailed away to near-nothingness, this colony would serve as a potential landing pad for starfarers wishing to do business or diplomacy with the civilizations of the region.

As noted, it was half offer and half strenuous suggestion. The two would be moved back to active duty and given assignments pertinent to their rank with the 'benefit' that neither would require a long period of re-training were they to return to active duty after their still-cooking children were born and raised to a suitable age. The truth was somewhere in between; Admiral Falk was establishing this colony on her own initiative rather than through the usual processes of either Senate legislation or under the purview of the Secretary of Commerce. Thus the moniker 'Falk's Gambit', which had immediately stuck as the first anchors were laid on the otherwise lifeless world they'd chosen for the site of the new colony. Its only advantage was that it was within interstellar spitting distance of the Krȃng Transit Complex, at least on the terms of the widely-scattered Canis Major II Segment. Touching on all her previous contacts, she'd arranged for Habitat One to be constructed by an ArAreBeen company interested in exploiting what exotic resources they could uncover and then for the planet to be terraformed by deployment of millions of self-replicating PTU-557 ants provided by a contact within Special Projects.

That was what was moving outside the window.

Millions of quarter-meter white ants spread out across the lifeless surface, slowly chomping their way through the available resources as they broke them down and built them back up again into what would become a viable biosphere. What that biosphere would look like was a relative unknown - according to Jamie she'd been assured it would be 'Krauseriffic', whatever that meant - but the relentless critters didn't seem at all interested in breaching the line of pylons that had been established a few kilometers away from the stalk-base of the Habitat so there seemed to be little worry.

"So we don't need five spatulas..."

"No," Trinya agreed, flipping one and only one into the half-empty box she'd established as the 'throw' box. That was her chosen job; While he collected box after box from the pile in the landing bay, she went through them one by one and decided what was going to stay and what was going to go. At first he'd tried to vary his routine of walking the half-kilometer to the bay and back by putting the 'stay' away but after she'd objected and directed him over and over to put them in an entirely different place he'd resigned from that position and focused completely on moving boxes. Despite her spot on the couch and the collection of stuff that was otherwise hemming her in, she was apparently putting the stuff away so the tasks were - relatively - evenly divided.

"I'll be back in a few," and the door closed behind him; "Alright - love you, see you in a bit..."

Barely had the door slid shut when she picked up the four spatulas that remained and dropped them on the floor at her feet. A moment later a pair of white mandibles poked out from under the couch and, with remarkable dexterity, they picked up one of the four as the ceramic head swiveled to look at her, "Put those in the utensil holders on the counter in the kitchen. Then put these..."

[Sunset]

SS-Qasr, Underway to the Circlet, Gamma Quadrant...

Philus stared at the fish tank, the holographic representation of his eyes growing enormous and, well - fishy due to the lensing effect of the water. Clearly - another watery joke - the holographic projector-slash-recorder's visual sensors were not enough for the Solonic's long distance examination though and these had been tied into an improvised array of hand-held scanners secured to the glass with nothing more than duct tape.

Space duct tape.

Back and forth the tapered fish swam and back and forth his eyes followed it until a particular event broke his reverie and he stood straight to turn to the owner, who had been standing beside and half-inside him through the whole nervous examination. A step back and another so that there was some hint of space between the two and he looked down at the Neko, whose eyes were still shiny with tears. A sigh and he crossed his hands behind his back and she nearly burst forth again as she clasped her fingers together under her chin and blubbered, "We-well Doctor? Is my fi-ish dying?"

"No, Ms. Maric," he answered, a sigh in every syllable. "Do not fear - your fish is not dying. It is, however, molting."

"Mo-molting?" It sounded suspiciously close to molding and she turned to the tank and put her face close to watch her pretty little immoral fish succumb to a fungal infection, "Why is it molding?"

"Molting," this time enunciated as clearly as the connection would allow. "Your fish - fish analog, as to be clear - is molting. It is shedding the outer layer of its skin as part of a natural process of replacement and rejuvenation. More interesting is that, where it can get to the shed skin before the other creatures in the environment do, it is eating those shed pieces of skin. Indeed, I would hypothesis that this may be some small part of the longevity of your discovery. If it has a particularly efficient digestive system then the nutrients it harvests from itself may be able to sustain it for some time. I do not think that is the only source of its success - so far I have also measured very little temperature difference between it and the surrounding water, meaning that its bodily processes do not generate much in the way of waste heat."

A gesture down the side of the tank and a holographic overlay of the composite image from the hand scanners appeared, this time showing the various temperature differentials inside the tank as compared to the tank and the water. While the other species zooming here and there were small dots of brightness, the immortal fish was only a slightly more blue shade of blue against the water.

"My surmise is that this creature has hyper-specialized towards efficiency. There is very little waste of any form. If I were to make a further guess, it would be that this species has survived some period of climactic trauma - beyond the Kion, that is. A period of glaciation, or some similar event that forced it to do more with less. Those examples of the species that were more efficient survived and spread their genes while those that were less-so died. Or they are an engineered species. The only way to know will be to bring the samples in for closer examination. But in the end - no, your fish is not dying. It seems reasonably healthy."

"Yay!"

"Indeed, hooray," Philus stepped back again and straightened himself, "Now, I look forward to examining your find in greater detail when you arrive, but I must be off to my next appointment. You find us in busy days, Ms. Maric - goodbye..."