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

[Sunset]

SDF Training Facility, Ares, Ares System...

The class stood in the middle of the Wilderness, as both the staff and the students were apt to call it, gathered around the instructor in a broad semi-circle. It was time for another demonstration of the wonders of SDF technology. What would it be? A suit of body armor? A gun?

"A knife..." Josh took the proffered tool and held it, turning it over in his hands and examining it.

'ssh..'

That was Kami. She'd become his constant tormenter and correcter ever since the incident with the titcorder. Every time he made a mistake, had a question, didn't quite get the top score, she was there. Just that little bit in front of him in every little thing. She could even lift more weight, do more pushups, and all those other physical things that he'd been good at because of his chromosomes. And endlessly approachable, except by him. Ouch.

"This," the instructor began, "Is the SDF's standard survival knife. Now it's your standard survival knife. You'll find one in every survival pack, medical kit, storage cabinet, and glove compartment, right alongside a Wilkes 320 laser pistol. Quick challenge..." he held it up, "Count out how many different functions it has. Go!"

Josh started counting. There was the blade, of course, for cutting so that was one. On the backside was a saw - a real saw - that looked like it would go right through bone. Two. All along the blade were inscribed, in a half dozen languages, several useful phrases. Three. A series of numbered markings ran from tip to pommel. So a measuring device. Four...

There was a tiny hole in the pommel, and another just beyond it. Which did what?

An ear-splitting whistle just behind him made him jump and nearly drop the weapon and he turned to find... Yep, Kami. So it was also a signaling whistle. Five.

----

"If you pull the binding cord off..." Kami demonstrated, pulling the bulb tips of the binding cord out of their little rounded sockets, "You'll notice that the cord is exactly one meter long."

It had markings on it as well, dividing it into tenth's of a meter. Six.

"The bulbs are weighted, so you can use it as a plum line..." Seven. "And the cord is Imnsvali dura-cord so it bends but doesn't stretch."

Josh wasn't immediately sure why that was important, but another student shot her hand up so he didn't have to ask.

"Why is that useful?"

To save time, the instructor stepped in and opened a case he'd been carrying with him. Inside were several wooden shafts and other carved wooden articles. They were a cut above what one might in an ordinary woodland setting, but it was only a demonstration.

"Cut two notches in the end of a reasonably flexible stick," he held up an example. "Using the saw. The cord will fit perfectly in the notches, held in place by the bulbs. If you pick a shaft that's over a meter long..." He slid the cord into place and held up the result. "You have a bow." Eight.

"Which if you combine it with another pointed stick like so..." he wrapped it around another and knelt, putting the pointed tip of the stick into the notch on a thick branch. "You can start a fire." Nine.

There was also a magnesium striker bar in a plastic tray that clipped into a wide slot under the binding. Was that ten? Ten. Which led Josh to examine what was in the tray while the instructor moved on. One side held the slot for the striker bar, as well as several small holes filled with various pills in plastic. These were marked; Several bore a droplet of water, and several had an X on them. Water purification tablets and Ster-X pills. Eleven, twelve. And there was a thick needle as well as two fine skeins of plastic thread. While the rest of the metal had a matte finish, the other side of the handle had a mirror finish that allowed it to be used for signalling.

Thirteen.

"Cut a slot in a shaft that's the width of the handle," the instructor continued. "Cut a notch for the bulbs - ideally - or tie it off and you have a spear for fishing, hunting, or fighting." Fourteen.

Tourniquet with the binding cord. Fifteen. The tip was specially shaped and hardened to match a Phillips screw head. Sixteen. There was a matching flat head on the pommel. Seventeen. The circular pommel was marked with the degrees of a circle, so it could be used as a simple sextant. Eighteen. There were instructions on the other side of the blade, the math that one would need, to use it for this as well as using it as a sundial. Nineteen.

"You can garrote someone..."

Josh turned around to find Kami, once again, with a double-run of the cord between her hands. Twenty. The instructor hauled out a large tub of water and tossed the knife in, with it's scabbard. The pair together floated nicely. Then he pulled it out, unwound the binding from the scabbard, and withdrew a thick needle from the plastic case concealed underneath. "Run this along the blade a few time like so... And you get a temporary magnet that you can find north and south with."

Twenty one and twenty two.

"The knife is a permanent magnet, so not only can you use it to find north and south but..." He wrapped the cord around it, lowered the knife into the case, and drew it out again with a tiny screw dangling from the tip. Twenty three. "It also weighs exactly half a kilogram, so you can use it to calibrate a scale. There's a hone on the back of the scabbard, and the scabbard is covered in gecko-web. Minus the binding, it will fit in the accessory socket on the front of any SDF long arm, so it's also a bayonet."

"Look at the cross guard..." He pointed to a slit in the metal. "Notice the markings? This is a stadiametric rangefinder. If an average person fills the whole slot, they are fifty meters away, and so on. Notch in the blade here," he pointed to the base of the blade, "Wire strippers. Make sure you disconnect the battery first! That's what the screwdrivers are for."

"Depending on how you count them, that's just about twenty five different uses for just one knife. So, here's today's long skill test. Break up into teams or groups, and have fun. Using only the knife, I want you to make something and come back to the group before evening meal and show it. Go!"

Kami came back with one of the base's shuttles. She'd used the knife to break in and hotwire it.

[Sunset]

The Forbidden Zone, Under the Art Labs, NeoVanc University, Sunset...

"Good... Good! Now, push!" Doctor Ambrose called out as the muscular hulk that was Specimen 34 and the voluptuous hourglass of Agent 16 pushed the strange stone circle into place.

With a click it struck home and the pair stepped back to survey their work. Which was... Well, they weren't quite sure. Deep in the Forbidden Zone, the complex-looking machine stood in a deep niche that had been crudely blasted into the rock by an impatient (but apparently expert) Doctor Ambrose. A line of Minions had removed the rubble by hand and then the machine, which had been laboriously maneuvered down into the Zone on a floating dolly, was hauled into place. It looked like something right out of the fifties.

"And not the Twenty-One Fifties," Agent 16 postulated aloud. "The time of the Big Bopper and Elvis..."

The Doctor looked at her, surprise evident on his face. "You know who Elvis is?"

Specimen 34 shrugged and Miss 16, who was standing with two hulking Minions on either side of her, smirked.

"I studied music in college. Major in Minion, Minor in Art History."

Now they all stared.

"Uh, right. So..." Ambrose looked a bit flustered, but he began to explain the workings of his device while casting the occasional look over his shoulder at the Agent, who was preening out her long, silky black hair.

"This device is one-quarter of the dimensional energy harness that will provide the power for my death ray. Well, it might not cause death," he noted, but continued without explaining, "But yes. This ring, retrieved by Specimen 34's strike team, is part of the remains of another archway that was discovered deep in the void during the last expedition. One interesting feature of these archways - which are not truly archways but instead rings half-buried - is that when they are damaged, the pieces spontaneously form into smaller and smaller rings."

"How small can these rings be?" Miss 16 asked.

"As small as you like, but this is just about perfect," Ambrose gestured, measuring it out with his hands. "When the four energy harness are activated, they will form a dimensional nexus centered on the vortex shaft. That will, in turn, transmit it's energy to the relays placed on the bell tower, and in turn to a satellite in orbit."

"Satellites are very expensive Doctor..."

"Oh, yes, certainly. But sales of SEXYE have been on the rise lately and my coffers are full. Anyway, as I was saying, it will relay through the vortex shaft. But first we need to get the other three energy harness in place. One will be in the commissary, another in the lab itself, and the last in Agent 16's quarters."

"Why in my quarters?" Agent 16 asked. "It does not match my decor."

"Tradition, of course," Ambrose chuckled. "If some team of do-gooders were to break in, they would then be required to take a complete tour of the facility in order to fully insure the system's destruction."

It was the turn of the rest of the group, including the normally inscrutable Minions, to stare at the Doctor.

[Sunset]

Ixutsangi, Ixut System...

The shuttle slid just along the edge of the high cliff, the open plateau of the high prairie on one side and the towering trunks of the Sinnyn trees on the other. It was a beautiful day for flying as well, with only a trace of clouds in the sky and the darker red of the Ixut sun high overhead.

"Change the recommendation for the placing of the DOOD from closer to the equator to here," Timmons said as he managed the controls.

Behind him, pressed into the center seat together, the human and cyar teenagers sat side-by-side as they watched the landscape zoom by. A holopad popped up in front of Trinya, and as she altered the report to Timmon's suggestion, she explained the technology to the young man.

"My cybernetics - small electronic implants - generate the hologram. My fingers aren't actually pressing on anything but the implants detect their movements and the hologram changes accordingly. I can make the hologram invisible to anyone but myself..." she demonstrated, fingers continuing to tap away, "Or to only certain individuals. But only if they have cybernetics themselves."

The hologram returned, along with another. It was a building, shaped like an artistic hockey puck, with the same stars-and-spikes roundel on the top that appeared on the sleeve of her uniform as well as on the side of the shuttle.

"A Triumvirate of Yut DOOD. That's Diplomatic Office, Orbitaly Deployed," Trinya supplied.

"If a civilization is advanced enough to warrant further contact, then we have one of those deposited somewhere on the planet," Timmons continued. "In this case, we were going to have one left for the Ixut, but out in the desert where only the adventurous would find it. Adventurers tend to have more open minds than others."

There was no question that the young man was adventurous, but he nodded in agreement anyway, "Right."

"But your people have proved to be a lot more open minded in general. So we'll put one up here," he pointed out the window to a point on the high bluffs. "And those cyar who want to can use it to learn more about the galaxy. Or call their son when he's off exploring the universe."

"Oh, thanks!"

"You won't thank me when your mom is calling you every day wondering why her son isn't calling her every day. Anyway, you've got a lot to learn, and less time to learn it in. A lot of that is going to be on you, Trinya."

"Why's that?"

"Because you spend the most time with him, and you need the experience. You'll need to teach him basic survival, how to read and speak Standard, how to operate our technology, how to keep his hands off you, even when he thinks I'm not looking... It's not that I care, but our morals are not everyone's morals. Sexually especially. A big part of surviving first contact is letting them do their thing long enough to get a good read on them before you do your thing."

"Right, so..." Lae looked over at Trinya and shrugged. "I think?"

"If you're not sure, keep your mouth shut and your hands in your pockets. That's the basic lesson."

"What's our next stop, Sergeant?" Trinya asked, breaking the conversation before her boyfriend could get even more uncomfortable.

"The Rutherford," Timmons replied. The shuttle was already nose-up and headed for the edge of the atmosphere, but they couldn't yet see the little Curiosity-Class that waited above them. "Then it's off to GEC-88470. That's going to be neat. There's supposed to be a sentient quadruped there."

[Sunset]

An Open Field, The Planet Som, The Periphery...

"Your son?" Taidasha looked the strapping warrior up and down. He was nearly as tall as she was, and quite muscular. If he was a sample of the chieftain's genes...

'Don't most of the genes come from the mother's side?'

It was hard to tell, given the greying old warrior who now stood to one side while the bright-eyed blond stood in his place. The son looked up at the troll, his demeanor that of one who was unafraid, while the father stood between two strong warriors who did as much to support him as he lead them. Perhaps many years ago he had been the valiant warrior as well but now he was stooped and ancient. Still, he wore the armor of his people with dignity and had taken to the field in person.

"He will fight for me," the chieftain continued, his voice strong despite what he was about to say, "And thus, if he wins, he shall take my place and yours!"

The leadership challenge. A individual contest to determine who would lead the tribe, or even a nation. Or two, if his bargain was agreed upon. The statement caused no little stir among his men but such was their respect, and their composure, that none spoke or stepped forward to object. Once again the troll looked the young warrior up and down. That she could defeat him was unquestioned, but there was something else, a cunning glint in the old warrior's eye...

His blond hair hung down in loose curls and he had several days worth of beard on his chin. Strong and handsome in a slightly brutal way. That was it. His hair was loose. Among her people and his if a man were married he kept his long hair tied up or closed in a clasp. There was the source of the glint in the old man's eye. Inwardly, Taidasha laughed at his boldness but it was a clever move and one that would serve both people well.

"I accept, on the condition that if I defeat this man, I shall take him as my consort."

Such a thing would not be normally done among either people. The men led the family, and they were the chieftains. But she was the warlord and a hint of a smile at the old chieftain's lips told her that she had chosen the same path as he.

"Then let it be done!"

Minutes later the two were facing off, the young man bearing his father's long sword and the warlord with her heavy mace and shield.

A feint, a swing, a block, and a heavy shove and the blonde warrior tumbled backward. He tried to recover but the long blade was slow and she battered it aside with her mace before slamming the shield into him and sending him onto his back. In a moment she was on top of him, straddling him at the waist with her weapon held high to deliver the fatal blow.

"Yield," she demanded. His head turned, his arm out and grasping for the sword that lay beyond his reach, and she caught his eye with her own fierce glare. "Yield, and you will grow to enjoy this position."

[Sunset]

Heral Island, eP'rk Prime...

"The armistice remains in place, Envoy..." The bland-faced officer from Kar, Commodore Matadji, rose from his seat. "And we will honor it's terms! As should you!"

Envoy Yerami folded his arms across his ample bosum and glared at his opposite. There was no love lost between the two representatives, but in this case Demi knew that the representative from Fath was more than happy with the Commodore's answer. Yes, tanks were rolling and towns burned, but they were the towns along the coast between the border garrisons of Kar and the capitol of Lareli, Haen.

Almost as soon as the Lord Colonel had fallen, the envoys of Kar and Cheiwyr had rushed back to the island to assure everyone that the armistice was still in place. At least, the armistice between the former Triad and the Fath-Romash Combine. Turning on one's ally in a moment of weakness seemed to be a tradition not limited to the rest of the galaxy. With the forces of Lareli now leaderless and scattered across the Romash frontier, Kar had sent a token force into Lareli and had made significant progress, gobbling up a dozen towns and small cities along the heavily populated coast.

Kar was desperate for the Combine to stick to the Armistice of course. If Romash, rightly by Demi's estimation, declared that Lareli, by virtue of the death of it's head of state, could no longer be party to the treaty then it would be free to launch it's own attack and split the crumbling former nation in two. If Kar succeeded in taking over, however, it would leave the situation much as it was now and had been before the war.

The nuclear question was yet another complication. Lareli had been the lone member of the Triad who had any significant nuclear weapons stockpile. It had used these, both as carrot and stick, to keep Kar and Cheiwyr at it's side, but not only had it been decapitated but one of the first of the coastal cities that had fallen had contained a minor submarine base. According to the SDF's intelligence, this housed two nuclear-capable submarines. Capable was the worry of the moment. If Kar had seized weapons, then that changes the equation. If they hadn't, then Cheiwyr could break the armistice without significant fear of retribution.

Haen, as the new capital, had likely received at least some of Lareli's weapons. Which meant Cheiwyr was rushing to determine if Kar had weapons so it could decide whether to risk breaking the armistice, or wait until Haen potentially fell and then they would be sure of it. All of which meant that while the representatives flung accusations and assurances across the table, all sides were maneuvering as discretely as possible to get or keep as much information as possible.

[Sunset]

A Kedarek Fishing Village, The Planet Som, The Periphery...

The question had been a simple one - "Where do the birds nest?" - but the answer had been longer and more messy than Taidasha had anticipated.

One of the fishermen, a thick silver coin in his purse, had accepted the task of leading the Warlord and her Consort as well as a pair of shieldmen to where the huge flocks of seabirds nested during the night. Just outside the village, itself tucked into the leeward side of a tall coastal bluff, a winding path led around the base of the rocky outcropping. Even this had eventually petered away until the five had been reduced to carefully crawling along the cliff face, moving from hand-hold to hand-hold, listening to the steady instructions of the fisherman.

"Why did you insist I come along on this endeavor?" Erodix asked. It was the first time the blond warrior had said more than 'yes' or 'no' for the whole hike, and Taidasha paused to answer his question. Quickly though; The cliff was slippery and according to the fisherman the tide would be high when the sun touched the horizon.

"Firstly, because it's fun. Secondly, because knowing where your treasure comes from is important. The man who owns the gold mine is richer than the man who has a gold coin."

"And this bird shit is treasure?"

Behind him, the closer of the two shieldmen looked over at her and grinned. He didn't know exactly why they were looking for the sea caves, but the Warlord always had a good reason for her efforts.

"It will be, yes." She moved ahead, taking over the footholds left by the fisherman, who had disappeared around the edge of the cliff. "Bird guano - shit - contains a high percentage of nitrates, phosphorous, and other substances. Properly refined..." She turned the corner to find herself looking at the wide, dark entrance to a cave. Rocky rather than smoothly carved, it was well above the water. Inside the fisherman stood, hands on his knees, regaining his breath while he waited on the others. "It can be used as a component of gunpowder."

"What's gunpowder?"

----

A crack of fire and a puff of smoke and Taidasha let out an answering roar of triumph. All around the training grounds men cowered, some covering their ears and others turning away from the strange device the Warlord had unleashed.

"Perfect... Well, not perfect, but it will do."

She'd work on refining it further, but like a lot of technological innovations, cannon took a certain manufacturing base. Cast iron in particular was hard to come by, taking an enormous amount of work to complete even one. So she wasn't casting iron. Instead it was a tree cannon. A heavy log, bored out using a drill she'd forged herself and wrapped with iron bands, was the barrel while the whole sat on a wheeled carriage. Wheels...

They'd had the wheel already. Thick plank wheels, fitted together from two layers of boards and held together with pegs. She'd showed the cart makers how to make spokes and now they were turning them out and the quick-minded among them were already turning them to other uses. Like gears.

"So, what will it do?"

This was the Warlord's question to her Consort. She was trying to teach the warrior to think, rather than simply reacting, and he was taking to the lessons even if somewhat slowly.

"Kill our enemies at a great distance... And the strange noise will frighten their horses and the weaker men." It had been a little frightening the first time he'd heard it himself. The loud bang, the gush of fire and smoke. It was a dragon come to life.

"We should turn these over to the sculptors," Erodix suggested. "Have them carved into the form of dragons and other beasts. They will inspire our men, and give pause to our enemies."

Taidasha nodded, "I agree. Let it be done."

[Sunset]

SDF Training Facility, Ares, Ares System...

"Now, remember that this is not a race. You're only trying to beat your own time!"

When the runners consisted of thirty-eight different species, it would be essentially unreasonable to have an individual winner. Everyone but everyone knew that would be Cadet Kaelix, the augmented cervitaur. He knew it too, but even he was taking the effort seriously, embarking on a series of stretching exercises while each group moved up into the starting position. A hologram appeared right over each runner as they stepped up, showing them their entire previous history from the first week's effort right up until now.

The officers who oversaw the exercise weren't stupid, however. They knew there would be competition and they had grouped the various cadets into groups of four based on their best time. Which put Kami in the same group as Kaelix, and Josh several groups behind that. The first group was a bit oddball, as it was the augmented cervitaur and three humanoids, but there was still more than a few sideways glances between the three humanoids.

Kami lined up beside Kaelix - she liked the muscular deer-man - with a ju-docri beside her and another human beyond. Like herself, the ju-docri had biological enhancement but the other human cadet was more metal than meat, his waist and thighs as well as shoulders and upper arms replaced with mechanical systems sheathed in glossy-black carbon fiber.

"On your mark..." The Lieutenant raised his starter pistol, "Set..."

CRACK!

[Sunset]

SDF-Rutherford, Underway, The Periphery...

"Are all starships this crowded?" Lae asked, making his way past another stack of crates that threatened to topple over and block the whole corridor. Everywhere the brown-skinned cyar looked there was something new, though most of it seemed to be contained in crates and boxes of every size and shape, all of which were crammed into the already tight quarters of the Curiosity-Class. "Is there even any room to sleep?"

"Sure, in fact," Timmons stepped up to a door which slid aside and allowed the pair to enter a room that didn't seem much larger than the corridor outside.

"Uh..."

"You'll be bunking with Trinya."

Lae blushed, though it was hard to tell under his dark skin. "Uh... Hi."

The reason for his embarrassment - reasons, really - were standing in the small space and between Trinya and the two small goldenrod yellow humanoids there was only two sets of underwear that were currently being worn. A whole mess of the garments were spread out on the lower bunk however, and the three looked up as Timmons and Lae made their way inside.

"Hey..." A smirk was on Trinya's face and she enjoyed Lae's discomfort for a moment before explaining, "I'm the same size in the boobs as the Xypndi, so I thought I'd loan them some underwear until we get back to civilization."

Timmons nodded, "Sure. Anyway, as I was saying, you'll be bunking with Trinya. Get used to the casual nudity. On a ship this small, especially when we're four people over, there's not going to be a lot of room for modesty. The same when we're back in the field - we've all seen it. Hello," he directed this to the very feminine Xypndi, who returned his greeting with a quick open hand gesture. "First time meeting a Xypndi," he looked the pair over, the veteran explorer easily ignoring their sexual characteristics in favor of a general assessment.

The two young women - he was guessing they were young, at least, judging by their general health and roundness of features - looked to be good examples of their species. Both had the same goldenrod yellow skin, bright blue eyes, and mottled brown and orange pattern across their extremities. One had her khaki-colored hair up in a high ponytail, held in place by an intricately carved band that was also a face-framing guard, and the other wore hers loose but short.

"Where's Doctor Twycross?"

"You mean Hippy Girl?" Trinya snickered. "I think she's in the rec area."

"Thanks," Timmons backed out of the room, "Stow your stuff Lae, then you're going to want to hit up the medic."

Lae nodded, though the total of his possessions came down to a few clothes and a carved wooden representation of his ancestors as well as a few pieces of the local currency. There was a small closet next to the bunks, but opening it up he found it already full of what were likely Trinya's clothing. The question of why she'd need such a wide variety of clothing this far out didn't occur to him, but he did turn to her to ask, "Where should I put my stuff?"

"Bottom bunk," she pointed to a pair of drawers. "I kinda brought too much luggage with me. Silassa and Wuni are going to take a bunch of it though, so you'll have a little more room. Why the medic?"

"Cy..." Lae struggled to remember the unfamiliar word. "Cyb... Those things you use to let you speak my language."

"Ah, yeah. Cybernetics."

"We already had our scans," the closer of the two small women added, picking up another piece of underwear and draping it across her ample chest. "She said we'd have them tomorrow. Your people make very beautiful clothing... What are these for?"

Now it was Trinya's turn to blush, though Lae didn't know why. "They're, um..."

Down in the Rec Area, Timmons was just sitting down across the table from Doctor Twycross, "So, I see we both brought guests."

"Yeah," the braided woman didn't bother looking up at him. Instead she was cradling yet another bowl of kenj and she took a drink while keeping her eyes and face down. "Yeah. I was going to look into a few things, but then the Rutherford called, and I said fuck it. But they wanted to come with me. Called it a quest given by the gods. Why the hell not? They're small, they don't need a lot of space..."

"Damnit Timmons! They have tits!" She looked up, glaring at him as though it was his fault. "Lusty, curvy, bouncy... Boobs!"

"Sorry Elice. It happens." In fact, Timmons knew it was likely to happen. Just the way chemistry, biology, and physics intersected when it came to humanoid lifeforms. He was nice enough to not mention it though. "What's that?"

"This?" She looked down at the bowl. "It's kenj. Local drink. Better than coffee, try some."

She pushed the bowl across the table and he took a sip, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Wow, yeah! That is great stuff. Where's it from?"

"Dogs. Well, not dogs, but a local pet species. They shave the hair, wash it, dissolve it in boiling water, and then age it in these special barrels. I've got the animals, I've got some seeds... Timmons..."

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm done. I'm going to get back to Ares, move to Anuke, and set up a farm. Grow the trees, raise the dogs, and sell this stuff. No more alien worlds, no more tits."

[Sunset]

Lareli / Romash Frontier, eP'rk Prime...

Sometimes nature conspires against and sometimes it conspires for..

The Armistice had held, though Lareli was technically no longer a state, and the two forces had withdrawn to their own sides of a tentative and exceedingly uneasy border. Sweeping the far side of the river with his field glasses, the Lareli Knight-Major Dricien focused briefly on the positions of his opponent, the Romash Committee's 1st Mechanized Division. Across the broad blue expanse, the infantry platoons and armored vehicles had been dug in and were holding the far bank with some degree of confident.

Until the treaty had been signed, they had been making steady progress towards the Xayth/Lareli coast, and it was in fact this progress that had triggered the limited nuclear exchange that had led to the current negotiations. Now the Knight-Major was doing everything in his power to beef up his own positions, calling in every favor he could, and working his soldiers hard to present an impenetrable barrier for what he saw as the inevitable attack.

"What about the north?"

"Secure, but weak, my lord. And the reports from the Capital..." The lieutenant started to detail what was happening in Haen, but the Major silenced him with a gesture.

"We can't worry about it. Keeping our minds fixed on the foe in front of us will avoid the problems there." That was the Major's second concern.

He had been a Lareli loyalist, and with the General dead, whoever replaced him might see fit to cleanse the cadre of the General's former supporters. His hope was that staying carefully neutral would lower his profile and push him far down the list of those to be purged.

"The Capital is in chaos..." The lieutenant continued, lowering his voice. "Several have stepped forward, but none have assembled enough support. Kar... Kar moves steadily north. The best estimates say they will reach Haen in a week, the worst four more days."

Which put his own position in peril in two to three days. Kar would have to divert to deal with his troops, and if they heard he was staying neutral...

A noise broke his thoughts and he swiveled just in time to see smoke rising from the far bank at the top of a high bluff. Several more loud cracks echoed across the water and more smoke started to rise. Were they firing at him? Was this the expected attack?

It had been a harsh winter and a varied spring and the rocks of the bluff had been steadily weakened by a freeze and thaw cycle. Fate or misfortune had chosen that moment to send many tons of them rolling down the cliff, shattering at the base with yet more noise and exposing a Romash position. To an outside observer, especially one inclined to it, it looked as though the Romash position had opened fire on the Lareli forces on the far bank.

A nervous finger on the trigger and the roar of a tank's cannon answered the dying echoes of the rockfall. An explosion rocked the far bank, and the fire was returned by units nearby. Like wildfire the response spread up and down the bank until the combat was general and the Knight-Major powerless to stop it, even if he had known it's source. Within minutes aircraft were streaking by overhead and a detachment of Romash frogmen were covertly working their way up the bluff to the Major's position.

His death would come not at the hands of an internal purge, but from an uncaring grenade thrown through the slit window he'd been looking out mere minutes before.

[Sunset]

Heral Island, eP'rk Prime...

Lightning crackled far out to sea and seconds later thunder rolled over the island as Demi stood at the window watching the heavy waves pound the rocky seawall. Fat sprays of sea foam leapt high into the air to splatter down across the dull gray boulders before dribbling away down the sides. Far out in the rain she could see a giant seabird, it's winds spread wide, drifting above the cresting waves. Despite the roaring wind it looked nearly motionless, a spot of absolute calm in an ocean of chaos.

A knock on the door disturbed her thoughts, 'Ambassador... The representatives have gathered and your presence is requested.'

Not that it would do a damn lot of good.

Demi looked down with a sigh. She was wearing lingerie, sexy and revealing, for the call she'd been hoping to make when she had more than a few minutes to relax. Some pleasure in front of the picture window with the storm raging outside, the lights low, husky whispers... It would have helped. There was nothing she could do about it for the moment and the garments was discarded on the bed to wait til later while a fresh uniform replaced it.

----

"...this is an invasion of our territory!"

The representative from Romash, his arms folded across his chest as always, gave out a long harumph. "Yours for the last two hours. And seized from your own ally."

"The nation of Lareli no longer exists!" Commodore Matadji sputtered, "We are simply stepping in to ensure..."

"Yes, law and order, I understand," Envoy Yerami interrupted. "But your admission that Lareli no longer exists merely solidifies our position. We have no reason to hold to a armistice with a non-existent nation. It would be like..." He waited a moment for another crackle of lightning, "Making peace with the weather itself!"

"Oh, very dramatic," Matadji sneered. "But if the forces of Romash spill even one drop of Kar blood..."

"And the same goes for your own! I should remind you that it was your army that rolled through Etendad and destroyed the local Umaet Temple."

"A targeting error! We have apologized..."

"Killing ten people inside, including the priest and his family. Mistakes happen, but a large temple is a hard mistake to explain away, Commodore. Unless your troops are blind and deaf."

Matadji sputtered again before sinking into his seat. There was no way, outside of breaking the armistice, to stop Romash from seizing much of the eastern half of Lareli. Negotiations at the table would have to wait for events on the ground, but these were already not looking good. There hadn't been any nuclear weapons aboard the two submarines they'd seized, and Romash had crossed the river that had presented the last major obstacle to their progress towards Haen.

It was going to be a race for the Capital, and a race that was likely to end up with both sides surging into the city. According to their spies in the Lareli Capital, the last of the nuclear warheads were housed under the same coastal fortress where the General had met his mysterious end. If Romash - the Commodore looked across the table at his smug opponent - took it, then the Kath-Romash Combine would win by default. Kar's program was several months from completion, and Cheiwyr had lost it's own program to a stunning commando raid at the beginning of the conflict.

[Sunset]

Kinola, The Planet Som, The Periphery...

"Warlord, the merging of your people with Kederak has given those around us reason to pause," the merchant answered. Dressed in a fine tunic and thick fur bindings at shin and forearm, he was exactly what the Warlord wanted the cities and villages around her to see; A rich and successful people. She had encouraged the merchants to trade both for the wealth it would bring, and for the information they returned to her. "They see your power and your willingness to bring war. Some talk against you, looking for allies, but others desire it for themselves."

"Good. The planting is nearly done, and with the summer comes the time for fighting." The Kedarek had attacked early, hoping to catch her with her men in the fields, but the merchants and her own rangers had warned her in time. "Let rumors be spread that we would take allies as well."

The merchant nodded his approval. It would speed his commerce as well, since those who desired her favor would treat him well.

"Several have also sent gifts," which meant tribute, "In celebration of your wedding."

That had been a week past, but already she was growing used to the notion of sleeping with someone in the same bed again. If their efforts were successful she'd be giving birth to an heir in the winter and have just enough time to suckle the babe before the next summer. There was no rest for the Warlord though. The body of a troll was especially strong and durable and she saw no reason to stall her plans on account of a youngling.

[Sunset]

SDF Research Center Twenty Three, Denali, Yukon System...

"So...You're not going to believe this but..."

Commander Tibitoski looked up to the door of his office where the bearded head of the Experimental Section stood, hands clasped behind his back, looking around the small office with an odd expression. That was normal, really. Tibitoski had found that Doctor Kraus was odd. The first day he'd met the man, which was now only a month ago, he'd been convinced the man was odd.

"I will believe it," Tibitoski sighed, "So spit it out."

"Well, you know that sample we're supposed to be cloning?"

"Yes, the dragon."

"Fun fact before we go on. Have you looked at your mail yet today?"

"No... why?" He'd just gotten in though, and if it had been really important or even moderately important it would have had some kind of alert. "Let's see..." A quick read through the subject headers didn't alert him to anything odd. Important, yes, and things he would have to handle, but nothing odd.

"The colonists that are going to be setting up outside? The Annar?"

Research Center Twenty Three - they were numbered non-sequentially, so it would be impossible for someone who uncovered one of the facilities to know how many more there were - was buried deep under a mountain on the far southern coast of the southern continent. Which put it under a mountain, and a glacier, and about a thousand miles of snow-covered tundra away from anything otherwise resembling habitable land. Outside was thus relative. Unless the Annar were related to the Sasquatch.

"Are they related to Sasquatch?" He pulled up the message in question, which was incidentally only addressed to him, and read it over quickly. The Annar would be settling on a sheltered bay on the northern coast, only around a thousand residents, do not contact... No mention of mythical ice beasts.

"No... But I did happen to sneak a look at their DNA. A friend of a friend of a friend who happens to work at the medical center on Notch," which was where the Annar had been staying until they had settled the question of their new colony location, "Passed me their DNA and I took a comparative look-see. Since they were from the same planet and all, it might make the cloning process easier."

"Makes sense to me."

"And yeah. Someone's been getting their freak on." Kraus did a little bump and grind. "Cause the Annar have distinct traces of the dragon's genetic code in their DNA. Preliminary reconstruction says that's where the silver in their silver hair is coming from."

"Huh, so?"

"Have you seen a dragon, Commander?" A hologram popped into existence next to the doctor. It was a dragon, though it was only about a meter long. Then a human female, voluptuous and dressed as a fairy tale princess, appeared next to it. She was only about four to five centimeters high, occupying nicely about the same volume as the dragon's head. "Do I need to illustrate the mechanics for you?"

"Eww, no. What's your line of thinking then?"

"Well, either Annar females are really, really stretchy and their men really, really well endowed... A combination which wouldn't go badly together, but seems unlikely..."

"Kraus?"

"Oh, sorry. Dragons are often associated with events that have been deemed 'magic' by those who are not equipped with the latest in scientific recording and analysis devices. I would put forward that this combination occurred through an unknown process involving 'magic' that we should investigate."

"Is this just an excuse to watch a dragon and a fairy tale princess have freaky sex?"

"No... Not entirely. There's a certain amount of scientific curiosity involved as well."

[Sunset]

Simun Fishing Village, The Planet Som, The Periphery...

"Swear allegiance to me and your wives and your children will live and you along with them. Refuse..."

The Warlord's threat was clear. Atop the small bluff that looked down on the tiny fishing village a hundred warriors stood staring down in cold silence. In the middle of them were four of her new cannons, heavy logs that had been bored out to receive the thick-walled bronze tubes that lined them. As her Consort had suggested, they had been carved into the form of fantastic beasts; a dragon, a serpent, a wolf, and a demon. All had thick spears protruding from their mouths instead of cannon balls. They were both easier to manufacture and were more intimidating since the warriors of the village understood the threat of a spear more than a whistling ball.

"We will talk and..."

"No, now!" Taidasha demanded. The bristling Warlord pulled herself up even higher, her already massive form towering over the local warriors. "Talk is for the women before the hearth!"

With either choice she'd get what she wanted. If they fought, she'd allow the women and children to flee. They would tell the surrounding villages that the Warlord could strike anywhere, at any time. That would make it harder for the chieftains to defend against her as all of their villages would be clamoring for their own warriors to protect them, rather than presenting a unified force.

Surrender was her ideal choice. She didn't want to kill them, after all, as eventually the whole area would fall under her control anyway and she would need people to work the land and improve it. There would still be the warning that she could strike where she wanted, and there would be word that peaceful surrender brought benefits with it.

"What choice do we have?" The village headman stepped forward. "We will fall under your sway. But understand that if you do not protect us, we will be killed as traitors."

"Then tell me who would kill you, and I will bring them the same offer!"

----

"Lord Consort..."

Even if he was not King, the position was one to be respected, and the Warlord's Consort nodded in return as the men gathered by the side of the road bowed. Formalities were not why he was there, however.

"Tell me, how does the work progress?"

While Taidasha was away, the Lord Consort had been tasked with overseeing her various projects around the budding Empire. From irrigation projects in the fields, to sanitation inside the city, it seemed as though everywhere people were at work as the summer began. Kinola was a riot of activity with every workshop and smithy operating constantly to meet the demand. Even out here, at the edge of what had once been her lands, the work was ongoing. Quieter, to be sure, which was why he enjoyed checking up on it.

"It goes well, Lord Consort. The new workers have strong backs, and we are well-fed and sheltered."

That was another difference between the Warlord and other chieftains he'd met. She made sure the workers were cared for, and their productivity had increased because of it. Already they had extended the stone road from Kinola to the edge of her domain, and now they were working on the crossroad that would lead both to his former home and to her next conquest. She hoped to complete that by summer's end - with only a hundred men no less! - and then the road would be extended to link the three cities together.

"Good. They will be joined soon. A fortress will be raised..." he pointed to a nearby hill, "There and more workers will be needed to complete it."

It was really more of a tower with a wall, but it would secure the area against bandits and provide a visible symbol of the Warlord's power in the area.

[Sunset]

SDF-Yangtze, Near the Galactic Core...

"I say we skip the bullshit and turn this puppy up to eleven!" Brilla urged. The heavy blonde woman was standing at the end of the conference table, her thick arms supporting her as she leaned forward. "Two tests, and both times the output dropped in direct ratio to the restricted flow, so unless they're reading our minds..."

"Something that is, among certain species, possible..." Doctor Tithral noted. "Though your point stands. A larger scale experiment will tell us a lot about what's going on here."

"Duly noted," LaCrosse sighed. "It is the obvious next step, but I want all the options on the table."

Despite his reservations, the Captain was just as curious as to what might happen as the researchers were. The other possible avenue of investigation, that of the alien crystals on eP'rk, was turning into a morass that might take years to properly settle. This was their best, cleanest shot of figuring out the mystery. But was it as obvious as all that? Shut down the flow, turn off the artificial singularity, and see what's inside?

As the Doctor said... "No one? Then let's do it. Any guess as to how long we'll have to hold it before the generators shut down?"

"No freaking clue," Saryan smiled. "Nothing we can do but try!"

[Sunset]

Haen City, eP'rk Prime, The Periphery...

"We've got a live one!"

The medic looked up from her current charge to where one of the other members of her section was waving from on top of a pile of rubble. She was kneeling just on the other side, where the pile met the building that had supplied most of the material. Like most P'rk structures it was a low, slant-walled structure built out of the local stone with high windows that were now shattered and broken. Thanks to the stone construction, it showed few signs of damage from small arms, but there were still plenty of scars and whatever had sent the rubble cascading into the street had been heavy indeed.

Whatever caused the damage wasn't important now, but the scattered debris presented both obstacle and cover. Clambering her way over several big chunks and skirting others, the medic worked her way up to where the forward scout had signaled to her. She was kneeling over the wounded soldier and as the medic came up, she waved her over before grabbing her rifle and moving away. There were more wounded out there and the faster they got to them, the more likely they were to survive.

"Let's see what we've got," the medic said to herself as she began to look the soldier over. It wasn't one of hers, but then again in the chaotic environment of the Capital, it was hard to tell just which side everyone was on. He was wearing a dull gray uniform with flowing blue patches as well as some light body armor on his chest and arms.

"That probably saved your life..." she noted as she peeled it off, opening the twist locks on the shoulders that kept it in place. "But you can't keep it. Ugh..."

It might have kept him from dying immediately, but whatever had done the damage was likely going to kill him in the next few minutes. Several gaping wounds crossed his side under the armor, with both bones and shredded organs showing underneath. It hadn't pierced his heart but the steady flow of blood showed that something vital had been.

"I'm guessing you'd like to live, even if it's a bit odd..." The unconscious soldier didn't answer, but she slid the pack off her back and opened one of the pouches. There were a dozen thick black tubes inside, each with a connector on one end and it's mate on the other. Pulling one of these out, she wrapped it around his neck and clicked the connector together. Instantly there was a terrible grinding noise and she grabbed the man's face and held it steady. "There we go..."

Pulling the head away, she set it aside for a moment while she pulled a black sack out of another pouch. Pulling it over the head, she cinched it down with a drawstring and pressed a tab on a small unit built into it to inflate several large air pouches. Carrying the whole thing by the drawstring, she made her way back over the rubble pile to where more orderlies were coming up to carry away the wounded.

The lifesaving technology, provided to the Kath-Romash Combine by Sunset, had done its job again. It would keep the man alive until he could be put into full hibernation and a new body cloned to replace his old one. It didn't, however, allow the medic to notice the small gray mouse or the drab little brown bird that zipped by as she was performing her field operation.

'Its around here somewhere...'

'You've said that five times now, and every time you've been wrong!'

The mouse paused and sniffed the air, it's little whiskers twitching. It wasn't really smelling the air, but rather sniffing for radiation. It's whiskers were the receptor part of a miniature sensor array, and what it was currently sniffing for was... 'Uranium!'

'Is that like eureka? It would be a new one, but again, you've said that before too!'

'No, I mean I smell uranium! Like nuclear weapons! And it's coming from right over here...' The tiny mouse sniffed around the base of a slant-walled building. A large grate led up from somewhere underground and there was definitely something there. Air was being pushed up through the pipes that fed it and these carried the distinct smell of uranium and it's radioactive by-products.

'I'm going to go check it out...' The mouse slipped into the grate and after a moment the little brown bird landed and ducked through after it.

[Sunset]

The Sand Lord's Keep, Hanson's Kneecap, Parson's Shoal System...

"Lord Erik has left to pursue a business venture, may I help you?" Alwyra purred. The very image of the exotic desert dweller, the catgirl with the hourglass body was dressed in a colorfully patterned bustier covered with fringe, a pair of translucent harem pants with a heavy coin-draped belt, and a sheer robe over the top with it's own accompanying decorations.

'I'm going to have to do something about that title,' she thought as the dirty man in front of her looked around the office that had been Lord Erik's not a week ago. 'A lot of things, in fact.'

She knew what the man was looking for. When the miners had come in with their haul, he had typically entertained them in his office. While he examined their gems, they would receive some kind of sexual treat from one of his employees. That was a practice she was going to end. He had also used the distraction to steal from them, taking a stone here and there, but she had no intention of stopping that practice. She would just be subtle about it.

"I've got a full pouch here, see, and I was hoping to get some additional supplies... Are you buying the stones now, miss?"

"Yes, Lord Erik has instructed me to make suitable purchases for him during his extended absence. Come with me."

Leading the man out of the office, she took him next door to where another door, accessed via her new (stolen) credentials, allowed her into the automated processing plant.

"Since Lord Erik isn't here," she motioned to the machine and it's access station, "His review of the stones will have to be skipped. You'll still receive full value for them. Just place them, one by one, on the tray. It will weight them, grade them, show you their value, and dispense a credit card with the value of your gems on it."

The value she had set, of course. Erik had simply estimated the value of the stones, based on his experience, then sent them through the machine. Sometimes he was right, sometimes he was wrong, but it had generally come out in his favor. Now it would always come out in her favor.

"Alrighty... So, uh, while the machine is busy, you..."

"There are services available in the Great Hall."

A secretary. A secretary was key.

[Sunset]

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

A secretary and... A body guard?

Alwyra considered the way her former employer had died (one between the eyes, two in the chest) and nodded to herself. Definitely a body guard. But who or what? Not that she couldn't afford it. Her initial foray through Erik's computer had been fast, trying to scoop up and change all the access controls before anything had locked her out. She hadn't had time to look over the books, or even glance at the account balances. Now she did, and she knew two things. Three.

The first was that she was very rich if she could keep it. Two, she needed an accountant. Three, she needed a body guard.

The problem with number two was that she couldn't really trust anyone. When you've got a body buried out in the desert (inside a bunch of trash bags, with some rocks on top, under a meter of sand) you have a certain liability hanging over your head. A scrupulous accountant would wonder where she got her money and turn her in, or at least snoop around. An unscrupulous accountant might try to steal from her, or snoop around. Or both!

"Aha!" She snapped her fingers and stood up, nearly leaping over the desk to quickly pace the open space of her office. "A robot!"

Robots were loyal, good with numbers, and unquestioning. She needed one that was smart though...

"What I need are... How about four? Four robots... Body guards, secretaries, and accountants. Robots can do all that, right? But they have to look good. I can't just have four slabs of metal following me around... Internet!"

It needed to be 'local', so she looked up sand cultures. Inside of Sunset that meant Casablanca, but that was something called Neo-Moorish, and she wanted something modern. Egypt?

"Wherever that is... Earth? No..."

But something else caught her eye and she looked a little closer. A television series from... Nearly two hundred years ago? Why not? There were pyramids and something that looked like a robot. A little more and she found exactly what she was looking for.

"It's so perfect!" She did a little dance and tapped away at the keyboard. "Let's see... They have snakes, jackals, alligators, a hawk... I don't like the snake. Something else. Let's see..." Another search, this time for Egyptian animals. "No, not a lion... Don't want to be upstaged by my own secretary. How about... No. Not a camel. Ah!"

It wasn't the prettiest animal around, but it would look somewhat approachable if it could be done right.

"A hippopotamus. A jackal, an alligator, a hawk, and a hippo. Let's see..."

She couldn't make them herself, obviously, since her upper level education mostly involved breaking and entering and surviving on the streets. Graduation had been the first person she'd killed. Erik had been the second.

"So... Robot manufacturers. Holy crap!" Her first choice was too expensive. Silaco Electronics, the mega-corporation owned by the Secretary-General herself, would do it but it would be a good chunk of her budget. Someone else...

"El Hefe Fabricación Corporación."

It was a familiar name. They made all kinds of street-level consumer goods. Everything from knock-offs to throw-away. But they made robots, and they'd make them cheap. Gathering a bunch of pictures from around the internet, she threw them into an email along with what she wanted - body guard, secretary, and accountant - and sent it off for a bid. That would take care of that, but there was something else she'd seen when she was looking through the pictures...

"A sand castle? Really?"

Oh sure, it was trying to be an old fortress on the edge of a sea of sand, but that's really what it had ended up looking like. Alwyra looked down at Erik's desk. High tech, very modern, glass and black metal. In a sand castle. And there was the automated gem cutting and polishing machine with it's glass interfaces, robotic arms, and clean holograms. In a sand castle.

"Three rounds were too good for you!"

Then Alwyra laughed. On the street, she wouldn't have cared what the place looked like. A shelter for the night, a place to get some hot food, or even just someone to talk to.

"Huh. Someone to talk to..." She'd been so busy she hadn't really talked to anyone except for the miners who'd come in. They'd mostly wanted sex and money. Returning to the email, she sent off an addendum to the bid, "Good conversationalist."

Back to the sand castle. The place was a dump. It had ended up being a miss-mash of feudalistic, nomadic, high tech, and plain old mercenary architecture. It was time for a change, and she had seen the perfect subject. A spaceship with a pyramid in the middle and a series of intersecting structures around it. She didn't need a spaceship but it would make a perfect desert city. She saved the image and sat down at the desk.

Cities were expensive.

Who had made this dump, anyway? A quick search through the records showed that it was a no-name company with a spotty track record. Which explained everything. The neko looked the picture over again. Now that she thought about it, it was a ship, wasn't it? She didn't need a ship, but it could be built like a ship. Burn this place down and...

"Insurance!" She checked the records again. Did he have insurance? Fuck... Did he have... "He did!"

A life insurance policy! Payable to... Wow. He had no friends. It was there just in case he was somehow injured and needed to get a body replacement or something similar. There was, however, an actual life insurance addition. It wasn't much but it was something to keep filed away. She'd have to ask her accountant about it when she unpacked him.

"Heh, unpacked..." The mental image of opening a crate to find a man in a business suit with a calculator standing inside made her laugh. "Oh... I have no idea why that's so funny! But it is!" She put her head down on the desk for a minute and laughed. When the tears had stopped streaming down her face, she sat up, wiped them away with the long sleeve of her dress, and went back to the picture.

"So... spaceship. I get a ship building company to build this thing for me. I don't really need all that room, yet, but it can be... I dunno. What do they do with extra room on space ships? Cargo space? Why not? I'll call it cargo space."

Hendrick Brothers. They popped up first, and she sent a picture of the ship along with a general description of what she wanted to them and a half-dozen other ship builders. That would chew up the rest of her budget, but with the dump replaced and her bodyguard/secretary/accountant/brilliant conversationalist in place, she'd be able to settle down and just watch the money roll in!

"And no more blowjobs!"

[Sunset]

SDF Training Facility, Ares, Ares System...

"I feel like we need some theme music here or something..."

Josh looking back over his shoulder to the command chair where Cadet Kami sprawled, one leg over the arm of the chair and the whole thing tilted off to one side so she could lounge, like some kind of jungle queen, while her servants - the rest of the bridge crew - worked around her.

"Theme music? For a cargo haul?"

That they were in a simulation was understood by one and all, but that they were supposed to act like it was the real deal was also understood. Even if the simulation was that of a simple cargo haul from Point A to Point B. It certainly didn't call for theme music.

"Yeah. Some kind of lullaby, or maybe some creepy horror music. Right before the tentacles start swarming out of the ducts," Josh looked up to the ceiling. Fuck, there were ducts up there! "Or the alien bursts out of Cadet Sushu'uwa's chest."

Oily laughter rolled through the bridge and Josh looked over to where the Cadet sat at her station. She was a Kal-En-Vesho: Five legs, three arms, and a broadly arrow-shaped bifurcated head.

"What would such a thing look... Captain! Sensors have picked up two ships, closing fast!"

"Main screens!"

The main viewscreen, which encompassed all of the forward wall from side to side and floor to ceiling, lit up with an image of the two incoming craft. In front of it the main holosphere popped into existence as well to show a three-dimensional representation of local space with the cargo ship in the center and the two smaller craft rapidly approaching from the front.

"Carnivon Packmates," the tactical officer called out. "I've got them targeted but..."

There wasn't a lot to the 'but'. The Carnivon were an aggressive species of predatory hunters. Their ships were referred to as packmates because they always hunted in pairs. Sometimes one would act as bait but sometimes they simply jumped into the attack. One on one, the Zenith-Class Transport might be able to make a wounded getaway but versus a pair it was lights out.

"Orders, Captain?"

"Well shit." Kami was still lounging in the command chair. It wouldn't do any good for her to get up and pace the deck, or beat her head against the walls. "Comms?"

"I've tried standard hailing, and they have told me to prepare to be battered and deep fried, ma'am."

The Captain swiveled around, looking over at the cadet who'd been posted at the communications station, "Really? Battered and deep fried?"

The young woman shrugged, "Yep. I told them to go fuck themselves. Sorry."

"Fair enough."

The only time one successfully reasoned or negotiated with a Carnivon ship was when it was either tumbling wreckage or when you had a lot more ships than they did. Kicking her chair around, Kami considered her options.

Escape pods? No good. They'd just shoot them too. Run for it? The Carnivon ships were faster. Fight? Cargo ship. They had some guns, but they weren't meant for more than point defense.

"I wish we had that theme music about now..."

"Coming up quick Captain!"

"Cause this is gonna be cool!" Or it would get them 'killed', she thought, but best to not mention that. "Full speed dead at them! Power to fore and aft generators," Those were the energy field generators that strengthened the 'ships' armor. What little they had of it. "Put us on a course exactly... Five hundred meters from the one on the right!"

"Yes, ma'am..." Josh entered the course. Clearly she was crazy. Ramming them?

"Turn off the main engines, but don't cut our speed! Keep them on standby!"

Yep, crazy! But she was the Captain, and the engineer followed her orders.

"And turn us on our axis! Ninety degrees, so we're facing right at both of them..."

Both ships were firing now, the speed of the three approaching each other sending a lot of the shots whizzing past, but at point-blank they wouldn't last long at all.

"Main engines on full!"

The ship on the right exploded.

"What the... fuck!"

"Just cause you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there! Gravity man..." Kami laughed as the ship shot away from the expanding debris, "It's not just a suggestion, it's the law!"

[Sunset]

Haen City, eP'rk Prime, The Periphery...

'Can you tell me where you keep your nuclear wessels?'

'They're right there, you tit.'

'It's...' Mouse shook his head, 'A joke. Star Trek IV... But I forget, you're a boring little sparrow.'

'I'll peck your eyes out.'

'Boring! Sssh!'

Even though the two little CyberAssets weren't talking aloud, they still paused their discussion as a pair of loud footfalls approached. Two eP'rk soldiers, dressed in the dark gray and washed out blue camouflage of the former nation of Lareli, trotted past. Their eyes darted everywhere but the two animals remained stock still and they passed without notice.

'Aren't you going to ask them where the nuclear weapons are?' The sparrow asked derisively. 'Nuclear wessels...'

'I hope a nuclear weasel eats you. Come on.'

The mouse scurried down the hallways, following the two soldiers and the lingering smell of uranium as they worked their way deeper into the underground complex. As had been suspected, they were beneath what had been the Palace, but far deeper than had been reasonably suspected at first. A whole labyrinth of tunnels and bunkers had been carved out and despite the chaos on the streets above the situation was quiet and calm below.

'What are we going to do once we find these nuclear weapons?'

'We will secure them for the glorious People's Committee of Romash, of course.'

'Oh, cause they're the responsible type. Didn't they nuke the former capital like... two weeks ago?!'

'Retaliatory response. Don't tell me you're one of those dirty hippy birds who'd gladly get nuked just to prove that nukes are bad?'

'No, I'm just one of those birds that is going to point out that we might be too late!' Fluttering to a stop, the bird peered quickly around the corner. "Yep, too late."

'What do you mean?' The mouse nosed out from underneath it, the two small heads presenting an odd picture to the soldiers down the hallway if they'd have been looking. 'Whoops. Guess we are too late.'

Mingled in among a group of soldiers in the gray and blue of Lareli were another group in the blue and black of Kar. Behind them was a massive reinforced metal door covered with all kinds of warnings and lights and indicators that basically screamed 'Nuclear Weapons Inside!'

'Man, I wish Danny Ocean was here.'

'Who?'

[Sunset]

An Open Field, The Planet Som, The Periphery...

The whistle of arrows was the first indication of the ambush and Taidasha turned to watch them fly, instinctively raising her shield high to ward them off. Many, if not most, were aimed at the imposing form of the Warlord who stood head and shoulders above even the tallest man. Even driven by the strongest of bows they fell from her like rain, glancing off armor that was otherworldly in both its strength and origins.

"Ambush!" came the cry down the line, and shields went high as more arrows filled the sky. If they stood, they'd be cut down until the only one remaining was the troll, and so they turned and charged, the Warlord leading the way. Behind her ran her own Guards, men chosen for their strength and bravery and like her wearing the Armor of the Stars. Behind them a dozen men, both the unlucky and those not clad in similar, lay wounded or dead.

Another volley of arrows delivered straight at the charging skirmish line dropped another score and she was nearly down half. Perhaps one more but still she charged, bellowing a challenge as she came and reaching into a pouch to deliver her own vengeance. The black sphere rose and fell, men turning to watch as it sailed over their heads, then propelled forward as the grenade blasted a ragged hole in their line. Chunks of iron from the forges and smithies scythed through men and shield alike and a terrible scream rose up as men clawed at unfamiliar wounds not rent by sword or spear.

Another flew and this time the men underneath cowered and dropped low, only a scant few turning to watch as it sailed towards the banner born by the chieftain and the retinue that surrounded it. With a single blast his line was wiped out, his sons dying along with him as the strange weapon took it's toll. He would not live to see his home again, nor even long enough to watch the troll plow into the line of his fighting men.

She knew that her fighting season was over now. Too many of her men had died, and they were too far from home to replace them, but there was still fight in her and she bellowed out a challenge as the heavy mace shivered shield and skull. Spears presented themselves to her and she brushed them aside to plow deep into the ranks of the enemy. Swords were drawn and stabbed out to find themselves mysteriously turned by the gray clothes she wore under her armor but those who hesitated even a moment to contemplate this strangeness died under her strong arm.

With no chieftain to recall them, the men fought until their hearts flagged or they perished. Some ran, others knelt to weep, and others faced death without fear. Death sought some, the Warlord bringing them to a sudden end, while others fled to find life and shame. When the enemy force finally broke, Taidasha found herself standing victorious with only fifteen men remaining on their feet.

"Strip the dead, take only the Armor of the Stars..." she ordered. "As well as what treasure you find."

A final roar escaped her throat and she stalked back to the cannons. She could not allow them to be taken, yet she could not take them with her in their retreat. A long fuse and plenty of powder saw to their destruction. Taking one of her own wounded up in her arm, she cradled the injured man like a babe as she began the long trek back to the village and the boats that waited there.

[Sunset]

Chains of Paradise, Anuke, Ares System...

"Back when Sunset was a Martian nation," the instructor began, "We didn't have to worry much about forest fires. There were no forests, and what agriculture we had could be easily vented and any fires snuffed out. It's different now, especially on the wilderness planets like Anuke, but in general we just let them burn. A lot of plant species need the beneficial effects of fire in order to reproduce, cut down on dangerous undergrowth, and generally renew the forest so it can be utilized for it's resources and recreation opportunities."

Or as a way to show a class of eager young cadets that not all their future work in the field will be clean and sparkly. All of the young men and women seated in the back of the transport shuttle - nearly forty in all - were wearing the latest in personal protective gear, but they all carried that most quinessential of the fireman's equipment...

"A shovel..." Josh sighed as he tamped down yet another smouldering pile of ash. Soot shot up and he turned his face away, though it was already covered in the universal black dust. He and the other cadets were working just one small portion of the line, protecting a group of houses built into a large clearing. Actually, they were the large clearing and the forest had grown around them. Anuke hadn't been terraformed for that long.

"I killed a man with a shovel once," one of his fellow cadets joked, the young man handling the shovel like an impromptu spear. "Paid him to dig a hole... Turned out he was digging his own grave."

It wasn't very funny, and no one laughed. At nearly forty centigrade and two point two gravities, the work was hard, hot, and sweaty. Exactly what the instructors wanted, though they were out there as well. Cleaning a wide fire line around the threatened houses, they moved on to the next site.

[Sunset]

SDF-Yangtze, Near the Galactic Core...

To the outside observers aboard the Yangtze, the process had been something of a slow tiered event. The matter streaming in from the nearby nebula had piled up behind the gravity 'wall' created by the Y-shaped space station until, with an almost audible click, the event horizon had disappeared. The first visible sign that it was gone was the jet of quantum particles that had been used as a measure of the singularity's power stopped. Then a halo of stars began to appear around a black disk that slowly grew smaller and smaller as light that had mere minutes ago been intercepted by the singularity began to make it's way across the intervening space to be picked up by the telescopes on board.

"Well, that's about as disappointing as my first sexual experience..."

Captain LaCrosse looked over at Doctor Brilla and rolled his eyes. "You were expecting a giant treasure chest full of golden alien dildos?"

"Or a conquering fleet, or a hidden alien home world, or... Yeah." Saryan crossed her arms across her large chest. "Something more than a fat lot of nothing."

"It isn't 'nothing', Doctor..." The officer at the sensor station noted, holding up one finger as the fat woman was about to add another comment. "In fact, it's a lot of something."

From their view on the bridge, the space certainly looked empty. Where once the event horizon had filled a volume of space equal to a large solar system, there was now nothing but stars and darkness.

"I'm picking up what look like space stations," the sensor officer reported. "Matching the movements maintained by the unknown entities. Which, by the way..."

The main holosphere filled with the image of one of the formerly invisible tetrahedral entities. It was, as they suspected, a smooth black crystalline form crossed with dozens of small lines. The first, a rather plain looking bar shape, slid aside and more and more filled the space until they were all accounted for. Each was slightly different, and looked as though it had been twisted along the surface lines into a different shape that was still based on the first.

"They are still maintaining their course and position relative to where they were previously."

"What about these other stations?!"

"Well, those are too. And..."

The main screen switched to show one of the new stations. It looked very much like the smaller entities that had been observed outside of the event horizon. Each was a series of very large gem-like structures set inside a complex metal latticework. These too had small gems set in them until the whole looked something like a black crystal chandelier or the crown of some fantasy queen.

"Those have to be the generators," LaCrosse decided, "But that's... Is there anything else?"

"Not now," the sensor technician reported. "But ten minutes ago there was!"

"What do you mean?"

"Where gravity hid, gravity also reveals..." He put up an image of the local gravity map, which showed small valleys around the various stations and, quite notably, around a very large something else that had been, until very recently, in the middle of all the nothing. "It was big. Really big. I'd say it was a mass the size of Saturn and now it's gone. But there's still dust and material that was trapped inside the event horizon falling towards where it was..."

"Woah, hold on a minute there..." Brilla was on her feet again, "Are you saying there's dust and whatnot inside the event horizon?"

"Plenty of it. Well, plenty of it for something with the power of our sensor arrays to pick up."

"Shit sandwiches kid! That's huge! That means that they were able to create a one-way event horizon. A massive gravity well - a spherical one too - on one side and fuck-all nothing on the other." She looked up at the main screen to where the long feeder streams from the nebula were slowly drifting into the seemingly empty void. "Captain, I think we should take a look at one of those stations!"

[Sunset]

SDF Research Center Twenty Three, Denali, Yukon System...

"So... Yeah." Kraus poked his head inside Commander Tibitoski's office.

The man was starting to be a regular menace to his schedule, not to mention to the base in general. Brilliant, yes, inventive, yes... Reckless? Well, perhaps that was why the research center had been built where it was built. Though perhaps deep space might have been a better option.

"What, Kraus? What is it this time?"

Last time it had been a very polite notification that the Doctor had needed more room for the growing fast-clones. Reasonable, they were dragons after all. But when he'd dropped by the lab to check out how the experiment was going he hadn't been greeted, as he had hoped, by four large tanks each growing a single dragon, but instead by nearly two dozen tanks. None of them had been large, and some of them were not holding dragons.

"Well, it's a bit of an odd thing, really..." The bearded researcher began. "You know how I was fast-cloning some Annar? To detail their biology vis a vis the dragons?"

"Yes..." That had been the annoying thing. He hadn't asked, hadn't proposed any kind of reason, but there they were. Floating in the tanks. Not just the Annar either, but other elves from other localities. Which was bound to annoy some of the other elves, since they took things like that kinda seriously. "You're not... Growing something else are you? Or someone else?"

He'd specifically told the Doctor not to, of course. There was already paperwork to be filed and the fast clones would be slipped into the normal body supply chain to satisfy some medical need. They didn't have a brain, of course, so they weren't 'people', but still. Some people got a little icky over that kind of thing.

"It appears, and this is just a guess, that the dragons have a bit of a two-way relationship going with other sentient species. I'm not exactly sure how they can tell - I'm working on it - but they are adapting to the species they are being grown in close proximity to."

"Err, what?"

"Yeah..." Kraus conjured up a hologram, taken from the cameras in his lab. There were several lab assistants, as well as one of the other doctors, moving around between the two rows of tanks. The picture zoomed in on two tanks in particular. "So, on the right, we have a Menelmacari elf. Nice lady, met her on vacation once."

"Wait! You're cloning someone you met on vacation?"

"Yes?" Kraus looked at Tibitoski strangely. "She was a very nice person. The universe could use two of her. Anyway, as I was saying, on the right we have a Menelmacari elf. The exact type escapes me at the moment. But on the left we have, or had, one of the silver dragons."

"That doesn't look like a silver dragon." Admittedly, Tibitoski hadn't seen a full-sized silver dragon but he was pretty sure that they didn't have feathers or a beak. Or feathered wings. In fact, the nascent dragon was starting to look more like a bird than a reptile.

"Nope. More like a Menelmacari Great Eagle. And I have no fucking clue how it knows what one of those is."

"Is it going to turn into one?"

"I don't think so. They have, more or less, stabilized. Now they're just getting bigger."

"I couldn't help but notice you had more than two species of elves in there, and maybe I shouldn't ask, but what other kinds of dragons are in there now?"

"Well," Kraus flipped the camera over to the next pair of tanks, "Here we have a Sunset elf, which shares the human baseline DNA and is otherwise known as a meta-human elf. I'm calling this one the 'Urban Dragon' because, well, because."

It looked like a dragon still, though it was clearly going to be bipedal, and it had a dull gray look to it's scales and an aggressively high-tech look to it's head. The wings were much less pronounced and consisted of several almost blade-like segments in a wide fan shape. The tail was long and whip-like, with segments that resembled the wings at the tip. And the breasts. Why did it have breasts?

"And we have a silver dragon, very pretty. Now here's an interesting bit..."

The next shot showed three dragons in tanks next to each other. On one side was the silver dragon, which even in it's young form looked regal and refined. On the other side was another variant, this one a dark purple color with an almost luxurious form to it.

"That's the Bajoni Dragon. But look at the middle one."

Tibitoski was already looking. It couldn't help but catch one's eye. Feral, menacing... It was a flat iron black in color, with a hint of orange or red where the very corner of it's eyes showed through the slits of it's eyelid. Long fangs scythed from it's jaw and there were thick spikes on it's forearms and hind legs.

"Yeah. That's real interesting. Anyway, back to the lab!"

[Sunset]

SNN Nightly News with Tanya Zaldano and Trent Lockwood...

"What is that?" Trent looked at the wooden cup that Tanya was holding, the Latina woman looking down as well.

"Which what?" She asked.

There were two whats, after all. She was holding the wooden cup, yes, but she was also wearing a wooden bra. Both were exquisitely crafted of the same wood and covered with carefully carved scenes that suggested a religious or cultural theme. On the wooden bra, which was carved much thinner than the cup, this also allowed a fair bit of skin to show through, adding to that which was already on display. She was wearing a handmade knitted top over it, but this was fastened around a button-like shield held by a particularly fierce-looking jungle huntress that was worked into the cup of the bra itself, rather than the top fastening to itself.

It was a style that was likely to be copied by women all over Sunset in the coming months, but it wasn't the 'what' that Trent had been asking about.

"What's in the cup? It smells fantastic."

"It's kenj. It's a native drink from N'Xypndiltn. A friend of mine in the SEC hooked me up with it. There's some researcher who came back and she's setting up a company to make the stuff. It's sooo good."

"Tanya and Trent?" The producer called out, "You're on in ten..."

"Do you want some? I have another packet back in my office."

"Seven..."

Trent nodded and turned to face the cameras, as did Tanya. The cup of kenj stayed in her hand though. She'd only been able to get her hands on it with a promise of an on-air promo which, given SNN's numbers, even holding the cup was a massive on-air promo. The Xypndi woman who'd given her the bra would probably get a flood of email looking to buy one as well.

'Too bad, suckers!' Tanya thought, her smile widening. 'Zaldano exclusive!'

"Good evening, and welcome to SNN Nightly News. I'm Tanya Zaldano..."

"And I'm Trent Lockwood. Tonight we have an update on the situation in the Parson's Shoal system, where a group of hostile aliens have..."

[Sunset]

GEC-88470 (Aramos), The Periphery...

"First new world kid... What do you think?"

"I think..." Lae raised his hand, shielding his eyes from the piercing mid-afternoon sun and looked out across the broad rolling plain that lay in front of him, "It's beautiful!"

From horizon to horizon the massive floodplain spread out like a blanket spread on the grass, a snake-like and unnamed river running slowly through the middle like a sparkling necklace. That it was a floodplain was clear; Everywhere the trio looked they could see old channels that had been filled with silt until the river had flooded it's banks and carved a new channel. Despite this the whole plain was a riot of color. Green dominated, but bright yellows, oranges, reds, pinks and whites could be seen everywhere. Massive tangles of thick vines ran along the old riverbanks and these were dotted with flowers in profusion as well as long thorns clearly visible even at a long distance.

"That's our destination," Timmons pointed towards one of the distant patches. "The natives live in those thickets for protection from the local predators."

"How big would such a beast be," Lae wondered aloud. "The vines are as thick as we are, and those thorns must be twice as tall."

"Oh, just about that big." Trinya, who'd been walking around the outside of the landed shuttle, called their attention to the scenery behind them.

In the far distance they could see a huge line of steep sided hills that transitioned to a breathtakingly high plateau, but between here and there they could make out a dozen or more massive creatures seemingly asleep on the prairie. Wildly colored in purple and red, they resembled a sort of very flat shark, with a long maw and an enormous tail. From this distance they appeared to be snake-like in their locomotion, though it was impossible to tell further without approaching closer.

"How big are they?" The cyar asked.

"Here," Trinya pulled up her suit's sensors, showing him how to use them to determine their size. "There and there," she showed him on a hologram. "Nearly thirty meters long on average, with the big one at almost fifty."

"Wow." He'd never seen an animal that was that big, though Trinya had told him stories about the super-centipedes from their last survey world. "I'm glad we're not here to investigate them."

"Nope," Timmons nodded, "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be on your guard. I've seen extraordinary violence from the smallest of species, and mind-numbing boredom from the biggest. Judge a species by it's deeds. Though if it's got spikes and big teeth, it's a good bet it knows how to use them."