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

[Sunset]

RDF-Ojeni, The Outskirts of the GEC-6000000 System, Inside the Beta Luminar Nebula, The Monoceros Ring... The Next Day...

"...fleet elements may be still operating in the nebula," Commander Sloane repeated the briefing's warning dryly, her sarcasm lost on Captain Blaine, who just as quickly replied; "But these aren't VUGs. Or at least they sure don't look like any Ver'Un'Guun ships I've ever seen!"

"Thomas," she turned to the Lieutenant Commander who was seated at his usual post at the bridge sensor and science console, "how'd we miss this?"

"We didn't. What we had was interference from the nebula and the binary. Until we put short-range sensors on them..." He shrugged, his back to her, "They looked just like asteroids. Same mineral content, average size and shape - in fact they probably were asteroids at one point."

What he was referring to was the thick band of objects that sat at the center of the primary holo-sphere. There were millions - perhaps billions - and almost all were clustered at the point where the two star's gravity wells came together, spreading rather than subsiding like two great tectonic plates. Visually they were like an island chain with clumps, lumps, and clusters divided by too-brief sections of open 'water'.

"Let's see one up close," she decided. "Give us your best visual."

A moment and the view from Ojeni's main screen switched from straight-ahead fore to an oblique of one of the ships - if they were 'ships' - that trailed away into sudden darkness where the near side was eclipsed by one of its companions. At the top and bottom its asteroid origins were clear with both being lumpy cabochons with the trace of ancient impacts still visible here and there. Of dust and similar fragments the surface had been wiped clean or perhaps melted into a rough glass that glittered here and there with reflected light. It was the sides of each construct that betrayed their engineered nature though. If port matched starboard then both had been scooped away into an exceptionally flat but slightly curved convex, the surface lined with what looked to be innumerable triangular solar cells.

"I'd call it a Dyson sub-Swarm. The average length is about nine kilometers, just over three high, and one and a half wide. If they are inhabited..." he checked his numbers again, "Assuming galactic technical parity;" and thus assuming that outliers like the Republic were discarded, "there could be trillions of people in that swarm."

"And do you have any reason to assume one way or the other?"

"Ensign?" he passed the question off to the Tloqsi seated at the navigation station. "What's your bet."

Ensign Tirass paused for a moment; she'd not expected to be called on for such an important point. Then one pair of hands began to move over her console while the other explained as the image of the ship on the main screen shifted to the side and sections were highlighted, "I don't believe they are, Ma'am. Looking at these structures, they appear to be optical transmitters and receivers of some type. Lasers. Which explains why we aren't seeing any radio or similar traffic, but they're also not seeing a lot of use. We can't tap them directly, but they do have a thermal signature and - based on their size, comparable technologies, and the amount of data traffic we would expect to see from the theoretical population numbers proposed by Lieutenant Commander Ingersol... They are only being utilized for station-keeping and swarm coordination, Ma'am."

"Station-keeping?"

"Yes Ma'am. They can produce enough thrust..."

"And enough heat to be used as weapons," a voice from behind them put in. "Those gaps in the band are not natural. I've found evidence of damage on several of the stations closest to the end of each segment. The output of each ship is marginal, but combine a few hundred or a few thousand? But I'm going to agree with the Ensign," the Coatlique continued. "More than likely they are unoccupied or otherwise dormant."

"Why?"

"No debris. If there had been any recent conflict, I'd expect to see wreckage. But there isn't even a trace of dust or micro-meteorites. They've cleaned up after themselves and haven't made a mess since..."

[Sunset]

RDF Training Academy 2, Peabody (Colony World), Far Western Fringe of the Ares Super-Cluster... Republic Date 175.197...

"...I'll give them points for originality, but I'm not sure it is the most practical body I've ever seen," Quunto offered his shorter companion as one of the new cadet class rolled past in a full cyborg chassis. "Artistic?" His friend nodded agreement; "Very artistic."

It - He? She? They? It was hard to tell - resembled a particularly thin humanoid dressed in a hooded sweatshirt with their hands tucked into the pocketed pouch except that from the waist down the legs had been replaced with a large stone ball that rolled freely in any direction the cadet chose. This was oddly matched by another, similar ball that sat inside the hood and moved - presumably - in whatever direction the student was looking. At first the Qoyat had assumed the 'arms' were fixed but as they passed a collection of cadets one was raised to wave, revealing long channels shaped to the contours of the sleeves.

"It is more practical than you suppose," a sudden voice from beside them said, momentarily startling both until they looked over to find that Teacher had managed to sneak up beside them. "First Year Cadet Ik is a Kliani, and some curiosity would introduce you to one of the more fascinating non-Humanoid civilizations and cultures in the galaxy. In their native form, the Kliani resemble a long, fleshy, muscular brown tube with a pair of sockets at both ends. These sockets are lined with very sensitive nerves - far more sensitive than yours or mine. To protect these nerves but still utilize them, they grow a complex mineral sphere - such as you see there - in the socket much as an oyster grows a pearl. They then use the sphere for locomotion, sensing, and even for combat."

"How do they eat?" Xinn asked, the Xypindi following the subject of conversation with his eyes as the three continued on their own course. They were crossing the quad now and moving nearly parallel, the Kliani making rapid time as it rolled swiftly along.

"The grooves on the sphere are deep enough to carry plant matter to an absorption organ at the center of the socket. This same organ is also responsible for excretion. It would be unreasonable to label the spheres as undigested food though - the minerals are never internalized but instead are suspended in a mucus membrane until deposited. This also lubricates the ball while the muscles responsible for movement grip the grooves."

Quunto looked again, just as Ik vanished into a building kitty-corner to their own destination, "They don't have arms though? You didn't say anything about arms..."

"No. The arms are a cybernetic adaptation to its new environment. Ik also has adaptations allowing them to see and speak. While there are not many Kliani who have set out into the galaxy..."

"How long have they been in contact?" Xinn interrupted; "Just a little over one Republic year. Ik is the only one who has enlisted - most of the rest are planetary ambassadors who are traveling the friendly parts of the galaxy. Their spheres are not simply tools - they are also stories. So these travellers are growing a new sphere as they go, which will then be passed around their people when they return to tell them what they experienced."

"Huh."

"Indeed. In fact, it reminds me of the Skri story-spheres. Both species are decidedly non-Humanoid though the spheres the Skri write their history on were left by whoever created them and sowed their civilization on their homeworld. A fascinating story for another time;" they were now coming up on their classroom, "but it seems as though the Skri were created to aid in a terraforming process that ultimately failed..."

[Sunset]

Deep Under the Gardening Shed, Prudence, Northern Ares... An Insightful Thought Later...

"...or we could remember the turmoil of our recent past and avoid the potential entanglements of embarking on a new commercial endeavor," Stephen decided, tossing the plans he'd just written out into the basket. Removing a bottle of something labeled dangerous in no uncertain terms from the shelf, he poured it over the crumpled pages, tossing the now-empty bottle in as well. Searching his pocket, he was about to strike the match against the stiff bristles of his chin when he noted the unpleasant vapors rising from the waste basket as well as the contents, which now were melting and turning an unpleasant shade of orange, "Ah, well - that solves that, as it were..."

As the caustic substance continued to bubble and first eat away at the bottom of the basket and then the floor beneath, he retreated a sufficiently safe distance to continue his thought, "No - the normal channels will suffice. As would a continuing source of income. My previous proposal to myself should suffice... A net," he looked around, "I need a net..."

It was this only an unpleasant time later that he found himself standing in front of a long row of cages that had been carefully arranged and secured by his minions on the long workbench that ran down one side of the laboratory, opposite the row of cloning tanks that mirrored it on the other. These were filled with his next batch of minions - guards and enforcers - while the crates were filled with ruffians of a different sort. Cats, dogs, another squirrel - any animal with any tail that could be obtained in the neighborhood above had been harvested by means of a long-handled net, patient stalking, and of course his tranquilizer pistol. One might ask why his pants and jacket were now in tatters and the answer was that he'd been forced to gather them himself; it would not do to have his minions revealed before their due time.

"Of course I shall now be forced to take them to the haberdashery... I'm sure Mr. Zhang has a local representative;" an assumption that made itself fact. Zhang's - Always the Best. Always. "But as to the name of the new product. Tailz?" he pronounced it with the 'z' at the end, "Olor Sexy Tailz? The first strikes me as too short and not truly indicative of the end result, while the second seems too long - though a delightful double-entendre. A professional marketing team might suggest a focus group, but the circumstances..."

He glanced around the room, populated only by himself and a pair of his own programmed minions, "Suggest that this would not provide a reasonable level of feedback. A thought..."

A moment later a pen was in his hand and he was scribbling it out before stepping back to consider the effect, "Sexye... but with an exclamation mark at the end. As if to suggest both excitement and a tail. But perhaps..." he wrote it out again, this time flipping the mark around.

SEXYE¡

"My Spanish tutor would have a conniption," he said to himself. "But such is the price of distinction..."

[Sunset]

RDF Marine (Secondary) Training Academy One, Sakaldale, The Old Periphery... Republic Date 175.208...

"...when I stood in the same line as you, I asked the Commander one question," Lieutenant Commander Mak'Ralan barked, standing just where that same officer had stood all those years ago in front of that same line of Marines, each standing in their newly-issued power armor with feet shoulder-width apart, hands at their sides, and the over-sized service rifle issued to each secured from shoulder to waist across their chests. "And I'm going to give you the same answer that he gave me to that question; 'Why are all Marines officers?'"

"The answer is that every Marine should be ready to follow orders and to lead. During the first World War back on ancient Earth, it is said that when the American Marines - our ancestors, among many - arrived at the front they began to engage the enemy at an unheard of range of some five hundred yards, both accurately and effectively. It was a feat for the crude chemical firearms of the day and even now is considered to be extreme range in some quarters..." This brought at least a little chuckle or laugh - quickly quieted - from some standing in the double-line in front of him. The GhostDragon's engagement range was simply listed as 'The Horizon' - whatever they could see, they could effectively engage.

"...and unheard-of among their European allies of the time. When asked why they were able to engage in such a feat, their commanding officer could have referenced a long list of reasons - his men were generally of a hunting culture, well-fed and well-breed to the task. But his answer was that every Marine under his command was a rifleman first and that is a tradition that the Republic Marines of today carry on. The suits that you wear give you the firepower and the force multiplication of an entire division of the common enemy - drones, tactical sensor networks, communications networks. Strength, speed, agility, response times hundreds or even thousands of times faster than a regular flesh-and-blood soldier. But you are riflemen first, and that is what you will be trained as!"

"However, his answer was as true or more now than it was then. When you graduate, you will be able to follow orders as well as lead. Four anti-material drones..." he stopped and the four mentioned orbs detached from his own suit, spreading out to his left and right. "Two gun drones..;" the mentioned weapons detached from his back and floated free, 'pushing' the smaller black orbs aside until they were in a line from smallest to largest and then back again. "And now you're a unit. A unit that you are expected to be able to lead and command. Yes, your suits are there to help you. There are systems in place to lead these drones for you, to manage their deployment, coordinate them, and use them effectively against any opponent. But just as you will all be riflemen, so too will you all be able to lead your unit when those systems are available to you - leaders."

"Small unit and close-quarters-battle drills, training, education, and philosophy, yes - but more than that." He paused again and his suit and the two gun drones began spitting out missiles, the small canisters moving to float noiselessly at the edge of the drone array until they nearly equaled the double-line of motionless Marines in length. "And now you're an entire division. Again - leaders. Every Marine here is expected to know how to follow orders and how to lead. To be a rifleman - and an officer."

"Now, you might ask 'Why should I know how to be both?' Because we expect you to win. Others may claim to be the best warriors in the galaxy. We don't care. Marines are not here to fight - they are here to win. 'Hic Enim Vicerimus...' And to win, you'll need to know how to be everything we demand of you - and that starts today, Marines!"

[Sunset]

Inside the Nazi Base, The Vinson Massif, Antarctica, Earth, Sol System... Inside the Unknown Craft...

"...which does not have even the slightest smidgen of juice," Kraus said, still poking at panels and what were presumably buttons of some kind as though he expected them to magically come to life under his inexpert touch. "Why? Because it's out of gas, that's why."

That it was out of gas - fuel - was obvious, as was exactly 'why' it was out of gas. A handle-shaped knob at the bottom-center of the console had been turned, pulled, and then retracted to reveal a trough-shaped compartment filled with the various contacts and supports that would be required to connect a fuel cell to the craft's power system. A rather large fuel cell, given that the tray stretched from the control panel to the top of the boarding ramp. They'd all had to step over and around it as they'd made their way inside, not realizing its purpose or that it could be retracted until one had noticed the sliding rails on either side.

"Does anyone have a very large potato?" he joked, reaching down to grab one side and - with the assistance of one of the technicians - sliding it back into place. "So, we're perhaps three hundred years too late. But we might be able to salvage the situation, if we can find and recover whatever data storage medium they used. Say," he looked over at Meri, who was sitting beside him either at the pilot's or co-pilot's chair, depending on which hand one preferred to use to operate the mirrored controls. "Did you notice there are four seats?"

"No," she replied brightly, turning to look around the cabin, "But I guess there are!"

Convenient, yes, but...

"Four seats, two corpses frozen outside, one found in the ice by the goddamn Nazis, which leaves exactly one missing!"

"Maybe the guy in the tube?" the other technician suggested.

"The report suggests he was cloned using the device found on the one they found frozen in the ice. So no. I would suspect he did not go alone, though he might have died that way. Two to go, two to stay. Though," he scratched the side of his hood, "There's a though. Why go?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, 'why go?' Why leave here and set out on a dangerous journey to the surface unless you know there is a chance of rescue? Of course, all of that is predicated on how they got 'here' in the first place. Why would you land here, on a beach in a sea cave? Why not Maui? Or Paris? They were not forced down - there's no apparent damage and if they were low on fuel it hardly makes sense to fly into a sea cave when Terra Del Fuego isn't all that far away, astronomically speaking. Which means they came 'here' for a very specific reason," he decided before rising from his seat and tromping back down the access ramp. "Scanners out, everyone - let's have a look around!"

Two by two, they first split up and then disappeared, each pair disappearing into the darkness as they set off into whatever direction pleased them, one with their scanner out and the second shining their light ahead to illuminate the path. It did not take long after the two technicians had vanished for Fredrick to interrupt Meri's thoughts as she looked down at the scanner while he swept his light from side to side, "PTU-557."

"Huh? What?"

"PTU-557. It's an engineered element found in the construction of this craft and a fact that I'd inconveniently forgotten. It is also used extensively in the construction of the city-ships and - importantly - in the construction of every Krȃng artifact known to exist. That alone would suggest the same origin, but I don't think the facts fit. However, other facts do. Two civilizations - the Kion and the Ver'Un'Guun - are or were known to make use of Krȃng technologies and specifically their resource harvesting and processing systems. However, neither has been known to make use of Krausium-212. Nor have the Krȃng. Connect the dots and this leads me to believe that whoever built those ships used a Krȃng extractor to do so, but that they had native access to Krausium. Importantly as well, they had access to Humans. It would be very difficult to send my earliest ancestors to Earth if one did not have access to Humans."

"And?" Meri asked, kneeling to sweep the scanner across a particularly well-preserved penguin that had been frozen just below the surface.

"And the Krȃng empire has been gone for eighty thousand years or so. The Kion for almost as long. Both were around far before the first Human civilizations. And gone far before as well. Which puts whatever civilization built these ships as something less than twenty thousand years old - and with at least passing contact with Humanity."

"Makes sense to me!"

"Yes, it does..." he said, though from his tone it was clear he was answering his own thoughts. "But why would they put the directions to a ship nearly thirty thousand light years away into the DNA of a man here on Earth? The theory is that these ships were meant as life rafts. A means to preserve life in the face of some unknown cataclysmic threat. Which... Both the Krȃng and to a lesser extent the Kion would have counted as. Strike that last bit - I doubt that whoever built them knew about the Kion. But they did know about the Krȃng..."

"Yo Doc!"

For a moment he swiveled around, seeking the direction of the voice before it repeated itself and he realized it was coming from inside his own head; "Yes, what?"

"We found your fourth. He's on the other side of the shaft. Looks like the the Nazis found him first - there's a whole research setup over here. Looks like he was going for a swim and he got frozen with the penguins..."

[Sunset]

Philippine Valley, Northwestern Continent, The Planet Constantine, Coreward Expansion Zone... Republic Date 175.275...

The light on the dash went from red to yellow and Lieutenant Cal'Low took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before taking another. Reaching out to take the twin control sticks in his paws he tugged them back on their actuators, setting them into a comfortable position as he swept his eyes over the console looking for anything out of place. Rolling first one shoulder then the other, his 'Mech mimicked his movements as the controls followed his hands. Just in time he glanced down at the indicators just as yellow went to green, the strange silence of the bay suddenly a raging tempest as the drop bay door opened behind him.

A single great step backwards and he was temporarily flying, the forward trajectory of the DropShip carrying it away to leave his Savage floating free for just a half-instant before feet slammed into ice-covered snow and he shoved the pedals forward, kicking his unit into a sprint. Each step plunged the 'Mech up to its ankles in crisp white powder but there was no time to enjoy the beauty of the scenery. To his right another shape was surging through the snow as well; his teammate Lieutenant Jun'Ket's Cavalier, its own legs cycling as the lighter 'Mech kept easy pace with his own. His eyes went forward again but just as quickly movement on the other side grabbed his notice as one of the two wheeled fast attack vehicles that had been pitched up on the drop back ramp behind him plowed through a deep drift, sending a momentary blizzard streaking back over its angular chassis. There was no hint of slowing down - the articulated quads had been designed with impassable terrain in mind and the driver was no doubt enjoying himself while the gunner swept his turret from side to side looking for something to unload his own joy on.

They'd all have their chance soon enough. Shifting his focus to the nearly-transparent display just above the dash, Cal'Low confirmed their position before returning his gaze to the horizon. The pirate base would be just ahead, as would have been the smoking remains of a brand-new Thunderer[i] DropShip if it hadn't peeled off. According to the mission briefing, the improvised encampment was mostly home to a grounded destroyer - something-or-other-Class - that was serving as the pirate's base of operations while they were off raiding in her sister ship. The older sister would never fly again but there was enough punch in her dorsal batteries to rule out an air assault.

"Here's crossing your ears they don't have prisoners," Cal'Low muttered, leaning forward to switch his screens from carrot vision to an enhanced thermal mix. In this snow there were plenty of places to hide and if [i]he'd have been a pirate and if he'd gotten word of the imminent attack then he'd have laid out whatever infantry he had along the most likely route of approach - or retreat, depending on how things shook out.

Both were a possibility though the first more than the last. According to the data the Commando unit had pulled from the younger sister, the pirates were new in the area. They'd fled a civil war in some uncivil part of the galaxy and settled down here just a few days ago. Judging by their actions, he hoped they had been on the losing side of the war. Immediately they'd turned to banditry, raiding an automated mining colony before hitting the service ship sent to figure out why all the bells and whistles were going off. That ship was owned by an industrial services firm in the Republic and an OSA WarShip had practically burned its tail off racing to respond before the RDF could get their hooks in. Broadsides had been exchanged and the Sanglanti cruiser had come out on top with only a few wounds.

All of that had been in the briefing, but what had only been speculated on was what had happened before they'd fled. A good way to keep yourself safe as you run the fuck away was with a few choice hostages. Some civilians swept up in the fighting, a few government officials snatched off the dock - somehow they'd gotten away (mostly) clean. If there hadn't been that tiny edge of concern that somewhere inside the broke backed destroyer were hostages hoping for release then the cleanest solution would have been to pull back and nuke the site from orbit. That narrow possibility was the entire reason for the ground assault but still...

It would be a lot easier if there weren't any.

"Which means there will be some," Cal'Low muttered again, a new blip at the top of his map HUD taking his attention for a moment. "Standing right outside the airlock, naked and with guns to their heads... All units," he toggled his headset, "Objective NavPoint is at the edge of sensor range. Jun'Ket and Street-Two, jink to the right - Street-One, stay left. As soon as you hit range, drop your spotter rounds on them. I want to know ASAP if they have anything that can hit us!"

Three voices confirmed his orders and he pushed the throttle wide. In the snow and frosty air there was little concern for heat or heat management and that extra twenty percent would make it harder for anything that [i]could hit him to hit him. The computer sims said this approach was safe...

Ahead and to the left there was a sudden ripple of smoke and fire as the off-set box launcher on Street-One's turret fired off its volley. Missiles streaked away fast and low, reaching the horizon in seconds and then rising to disappear on the other side of a low hump. They weren't targetted at anything in particular - just a designated map hex where they'd peel open and disperse their payload of active and passive sensor pods. Of course if the enemy had active anti-missile defenses or even a heavy turret that could be depressed low enough to engage them...

"I've got positive deployment, Cal'Low. Passing out the sensor data now."

...which they didn't. Or at least they weren't fast enough on the draw to seat a measly five. Lieutenant Cal'Low flicked a couple control switches and brought the visual feed from one of the drones up on his driver's side mirror. 'Improvised' was the right word for it and it didn't look like they'd been expected either. A large bay on one side of the ship had been opened and a spread-out worksite with pavilion tents erected just outside an especially onerous beach in the hull. The crew had been at work repairing it - he watched as a good score ran for the hatches - though their progress had been meager.

"Street-One, Street-Two - label that repair job as a secondary priority and drop some missiles at it now. Looks big enough that we might get access to the interior there!"

More missiles leapt away as they followed orders and he settled in to focus on the terrain ahead. Four hundred meters - three seventy five, three fifty - and he'd be rounding the berm that divided them from their enemy. Three twenty five; he flipped up the safety covers on his thumb triggers and put the furry digits on the center buttons, unconsciously raising his arms as he did so, the 'Mech mimicking his actions to put the two cannon out in front of him.

"Here we go... First target are those turrets!" He reminded everyone - two hundred. "Alpha Strike. Then be ready for any surprises and any new orders!"

One hundred...

Thunder rolled and the twin corners of the berm exploded, tossing great hunks of dirt and rock high into the air and raining both across their paths.

"Ignore it!" His voice was a shout but instantly he dialed it back to cool and collected, "Ignore it - plow through. That's as low as their guns go!"

'I hope,' he thought loudly as his 'Axis moved its feet as nimbly as it could to avoid the improvised minefield. The faster quads had just ignored it, their articulated suspension rising and falling as they bounced over and past anything smaller than themselves. Their guns were already in action as well - rail guns chattering as another volley of missiles cycled into their launchers - and he was now behind on the action. Yanking the sticks over, he lined up on the closest turret - its barrels still pointed vaguely in his direction as though they expected him to jump up and hover there while they blew him to bits - and tapped his thumbs across the three buttons.

The air crackled lightning-blue as the particle beams crossed the gap in an instant, followed by a burst of gauss rounds that opened up the armor further still and allowed the missiles arcing up from his shoulders to slip inside and finish it off, a series of dull black explosions with tiny bursts of fire at their core destroying the interior and bulging out the remaining armor plating.

"Scratch one," he checked the others. One was nearly gone, the 'Streets' tearing it slowly apart with their lighter weaponry, but the third was still intact. That was Lieutenant Jun'Ket's assigned target and he toggled his radio again, "Jun'Ket, you okay? What's going in?"

"Alpha hip actuator is sticking," her voice was the very picture of frustrated irritation, "I think there's a rock in it. Just a second," he turned to watch her stop in place, the right leg clearly wonky as she struggled to line up on the target. That was the trouble with those older 'Cavaliers' - they used their hip joints for up-and-down aiming and if one went out it made moving and shooting very difficult. Again missiles followed rail guns and the turret evaporated as the heavy short-range missiles tore it apart.

That was that but there was more to do and Lieutenant Cal'Low clomped his way over to the heavy bay door to where most of the crew had bolted after that first volley, "Let's knock..."

Pulling back an arm, he considered the heavy bayonet mounted under the twin barrels for a moment before ramming it solidly into the gap where the two halves came together. As he wrenched the blade from side to side, he triggered the external speakers and the rough translation codex they'd pulled off the doomed sister ship, "Hello? Anyone in there? This is a good time to consider surrendering! All your guns are down and when I knife this door open we're going to send enough ferals inside to kill every last one of you..."

---

"...breaching charge is in place, Sarge. We're ready to blow!" one of the bunnies at the door called out, his voice reaching outside the bay to the Qi Sergeant who was waiting guns-ready with the rest of the squad. They were pressed up against the outside hull, the whole platoon stretched out behind them with their chosen weapons ready.

The Lieutenant's offer had been rejected, though it was hard to say if that had been on purpose or if they just hadn't heard or understood him. The ship's power was out and against the snowfield it was rapidly cooling. With no guns to stop it, the 'Thunderer' had circled around and set down just outside to disgorge the infantry who had been waiting in the nose. Cal'Low had ripped the doors apart but if course there was an airlock inside and now he - or at least his 'Mech - stood covering it while the rest of his crew slowly circled the crash site. It was a humorous parade; the two wheeled tanks moving at a brisk walk while the other 'Mech brought up the rear trailing a gimpy leg that left Morse code scratched out in the snow behind it.

"Alright - clear and blow!" Sargent Bun'Dee shouted back. "Team Two, on blow we go!"

Team Two was waiting at the breach, ready but cautious. The missiles that had removed the impromptu patch had also made a mess of the insides and they would be picking their way through shattered bulkheads and torn metal while his team would be facing gods-knew-what on the other side of the airlock.

"Clear!" Two Pagani troopers came around the corner, both with maniac grins on their faces. They enjoyed the work - possibly a bit too much. "Blowing in hun, doss, pu..."

[Sunset]

RDF-Unconquered Sun, En Route to the Monoceros Ring via Realspace... Republic Date 175.336...

"...I'm not sure that too many would care if the Conglomerate wasn't able to pull off a return to normalcy," Erika answered, the click-click of her heels as she walked the limited hallways of the Dreadnought a sharp contrast to the near-silence of her daughter, who's projected hologram 'walked' beside her without breath or footstep. "Not that there seems to be anything akin to 'normal' about them, no matter what name their current or past incarnations happened to fall under. Yes, things have been very quiet since they've fallen silent but..."

"'Silence is Golden?'" Katryna said to an affirmative nod. "That may be so..."

"It got us to where we are now," her mother interrupted as they rounded a corner and passed not one but three crewmen, none of which were of the flesh-and-blood variety or even had been at one point. The ARC4's didn't pause in their efforts or even acknowledge the Secretary-General and the Admiral but one might have moved just a little closer to the bulkhead and the access panel where limbs were moving in and out in a blur, repairing or replacing some portion of the ship that was still subject to entropy.

"We've taken advantage of the long silences offered up by those who fancy themselves our 'enemies'"; Even with a few decades behind her in the job, Erika was still amazed that any nation - anywhere - that wasn't little more than a tribe of irrational murder-monsters would consider the Republic of Sunset their enemy, "to push ourselves ahead of them. While they engage in petty internal politics or squabbles with their neighbors, we make them irrelevant by pushing our technology, industry - even our society - forward. If the Congos do come back they'll find us more than ready for them. Not that they were ever more than a minor threat to begin with."

Katryna grinned, "They don't seem to have realized that."

"I think they did. I think that was the lie that those who wanted power told those they wanted power over - 'We can compete with the Republic, and to do so you must make sacrifices' - while they lined their own pockets. No matter how many purges they undertook, it always seemed like there was another faction that had grown fat off the misery of their own people ready to crawl out of the shadows and take up the banner of supremacy."

"Yeah, well... I wouldn't mind so much if they came back, just for a couple minutes. I would like to get in my licks on Granger still. I don't have many regrets, but one of them..."

"Was not taking him out at Hawking?" Erika's expression turned sour for a moment. "You're my daughter, though my version of that regret is that I stopped you. We were the adult in the room, but every action before or since says that the Conglomerate was never interested in growing up. And when they did?"

"They stopped talking."

"Which could be good or bad. They had a habit of pulling things out of their ass."

"And if they go completely silent?"

Erika looked at her watch, "We'll give them some time then put our hands on the map. The Menelmacari have already indicated they want to get their hands on Hawking - fine, they're the kind of people I would trust with access to a Penrose, even a 'minor' one - and I'd suggest we absorb any of their out-Sol colonies that happen to be inside the Expansion Zone. Let the OSA deal with integrating them. It will keep the bunnies busy."

"Who would you rather deal with? The Congos or the OSA?"

The Secretary-General's reply was instant, no thought needed, "The OSA. They might be enthusiastic and a little dumb - and spoiling for a fight - but their hearts are in the right place."

"It would be kinda fun to watch," Katryna said. "I'm not sure how well it would go, but it would be kinda fun to watch..."

"What?"

"An OSA invasion of a Congo colony. BattleMech drops, infantry assaults, all of that 'big ground war' stuff we don't do. It would be interesting to see how well all of their stuff does in an 'even tier' environment. They've been training their fluffy little butts off and I'd put their tech up against near-anyone else's any day of the week."

"I'd be surprised if we saw that, but stranger things. I'm more concerned with their Martian territory..." For a moment she fell silent, almost willing her daughter to interject something that would change the subject, but the younger woman waited patiently and she was forced to continue her thought. "It's cursed."

"Cursed." The statement was flat, Katryna expecting her mother to laugh or otherwise correct herself but the correction never came. Instead her super-rational mother continued with the unexpected; "Cursed. I don't believe in magic. We've never found something we can't explain and understand if we don't try hard enough, but that's the best explanation. That land is cursed. I hate to sound like an Elf, but I was there - I had the same conversation with Fidelo and he said the same thing. We were there. We saw what happened to every nation that moved in, sprang up, or otherwise tried to take that land for itself. The Vascillians, the Five Kingdoms, Allanea, those idiots who couldn't spell - and now the Congos."

"They've all moved on or fallen away and they've all had their reputation or their national character eroded or destroyed by that land. The UIK has mentioned turning it into one of their EAPs, but I don't think that's a good idea. I like them too much and its not worth risking the curse for a scrap of Mars. But they're strong-willed and if they want to do something its hard to talk them out of it. And that might very well be their particular variant of the curse - a wedge between us. And - as cold as it might be to say this - I'd rather just put up a sign that says it is cursed. Then when the next round of would-be Martians comes in and we tell them its cursed... They believe us or they don't. If they don't, we've established something of their character."

"Just how stupid they are?" Katryna said with another smile.

"Pretty much..."

[Sunset]

Katryna Silaco's Office, Special Projects Research Tower, Landor City, Terra Incognito, New Latin System...

"...congratulations," Erika offered her daughter and then the rest of the small management team a handshake, working from one to the next until she had offered every pincer and claw a rare moment of in-person approval. "Excellent work and an impressive achievement, all of you. Now... Let's turn it on."

There was a long moment's pause before someone asked the obvious, "Turn it on? What do you mean? Full activation? Wouldn't that require approval from the other members of the Accord?"

Which was the reason why the gathering had been limited to only the senior-most members of the project and thus only those with the highest security clearances. Many more than they had worked and contributed to the project that had now successfully developed billions of probes near or around every unregulated star in the galaxy, but only a select few - this few - knew the full range of its various possibilities.

"Which I intend to obtain shortly," she clarified, stepping back from the group as they spread into a small semi-circle around her, her back appropriately to the slow-growing projection of the Circuit as it wound its way around itself. "And the sooner the better. We have a problem and its is one I didn't consider until the project was nearly complete and now we may be up against a deadline."

"'May' because there's no indication that anyone knows about or is aware of the true potential of this project. Those who are aware of it simply think as we want them them to think - that this is a very large monitoring system set up by an unknown entity. Worrisome, yes, but in accordance with the standard rules of the galaxy the result has been much talk and little action. While they talked, I did some reading and some research and it was a single phrase that intrigued me - 'A K4 civilization might well be so powerful as to be unrecognizable from nature itself.' Essentially, as we have established our capacity to take the next giant step forward, we may have well established ourselves as a threat to those with the ability to do something about it. Worse for us and those we are charged to protect, we may not even be able to determine that we are under threat until the moment of our peril!"

She continued, though it was clear questions were impatiently waiting to be asked, "I've been watching closely. Ninety days. That's the average encapsulation time. What are the projections for a full-scale war between us and the average non-Peer national entity? Minutes, hours. We don't advertise this of course - no one wants to know that their neighbor is ready to kill them at any moment. But now we are - and someone else might be looking warily at us as we make our preparations - and someone who we can't even see watching."

"Minutes? Hours? Ninety days is too long. I'm not suggesting we pull the rug out from under the rest of the galaxy, but as I said - I have been paying attention. It has been pointed out that these boundaries are capable of a fine degree of separation. Activate the system and erect a full encapsulation around every idle star but limited to only those portions of the spectrum that will go unnoticed. That way we are prepared for a complete activation in seconds instead of ninety days. Yes, I'm aware that this will be ninety days from approval by the rest of the Accord but I would rather be sitting on that ninety days from the first signs that we are already too late!"

[Sunset]

OSA Engineering & Testing Facility Juno, Car'Son City, Juniper, The Coreward Expanse... Republic Date 175.387...

"...Jesus fuck, it's like a coffin in here!"

"It has to be," the instructor explained as she helped guide Sergeant Bro'Nie into the cocoon-like cockpit. "To meet the design spec for these ProtoMechs they had to squeeze out every centimeter of spare room. Once you're in;" she didn't say 'comfortably', "you'll plug into the camera and sensor system and it will feel like the 'Mech is your body."

Which explained the height, weight, and cybernetic requirements for the volunteers. Truth be told, Bro'Nie was the runt of his litter and he was still having a tough time squeezing his paws into the folded arrangement that was kinda-sorta a chair. Most of the other volunteers who were either waiting their turn or working with other instructors were of smaller stature and this explained the group's particular makeup. While the OSA technically drew on the great diversity of species found through the Republic - however some 80% were in fact Hauyht - there were no representatives from the larger species and even they were in smaller representation. The same was true of cybernetics with - for whatever reasons - the rabbitoids indulging in even the basic life-extension implants far less than others.

Some people were happy with just one life, not a hundred or a million or whatever it was supposed to be.

Not him. Not Bro'Nie.

He was ready to keep on taking in every new experience life had to offer, even if that meant occasionally squeezing his just-at-the-size-requirement-except-for-breakfast body into a space that wouldn't have been comfortable for the dead.

"Erk, okay," he tried to tilt his head back to look up at the instructor but found that even that was uncomfortable. "Now what?"

"Press the big yellow button next to your left paw. This will boot the computer and initialize the cybernetic connection. You'll get an authorization notification in your augmented reality interface. When you accept that, the yellow button will light up."

"And the green button?" he asked, giving her some hope that he had been paying at least the slightest attention.

"When you press the green button - if the yellow button is lit - the unit will go 'hot'. Your senses and motor functions will be replaced with those of the 'Mech and after five seconds your motions will translate into its motions. The green light will also light up..."

"But I shouldn't be able to see the green light!"

This one was quick on the draw and she smiled, "Exactly. The green light is part of the safety system. If you can see the green light, press the red button. This will bring the system back down to 'yellow' and re-initialize the connection. If at that point the green and yellow stay lit and five seconds go past," she held up an open hand for emphasis, "then there is a major problem. Press the red button again, it will light up, and the unit will mechanically lock."

"In case a cyber-attack kicks me out and tries to operate the unit remotely?"

"Right!" She smiled for the second time. "Now, if this still doesn't stop the unit - which shouldn't be possible - or if you need to disable it for any reason, press the red button again hard. There will be a 'click' and the reactor will dump its fuel. Then the only way to get it up and running again will be a refueling operation."

"Hmm, okay - that makes sense. Red once to reboot, twice to shut down, three times to disable. And there's probably a thought button to disconnect from the augmented interface;" she nodded. "But what if it won't come up?"

"Get an erection."

He looked back up at her, "Here? Now? I mean, you're cute and all but..."

"And I have a partner!" she laughed. "No, I mean 'right then', you silly rabbit. The waste disposal garment..."

Which had been almost but not nearly as much fun to put on as it had been to climb into the cockpit...

"Is on an isolated system. It will detect whatever you've got going on and send a signal to the system which will boot you out to yellow-lit. We figure sexual arousal would be the least likely but controllable bodily function on the battlefield. Since 'Mechs can't... You know... Have sex."

"...lady," he looked up at her, a hard look in his eye, "you ain't seen the websites I've seen..."

[Sunset]

OSA Recruitment and Training Center Juno, Near Jer'Don City, Southern Juniper, The Coreward Expanse... Republic Date (175.385)...

"...anything from the RDF?" General aKimbo asked, sweeping his field glasses across the range of grasslands and woodlands that spread out from the training center's low angled walls all the way out to the mountains in the far distance. He was trying carefully - desperately, perhaps - to find what he knew was out there and he'd determined the arrival of Captain Wil'Sin by sound and smell rather than spare his eyes to verify the rabbit's arrival.

"No Sir;" it was the expected answer and the feline grunted, his tail lashing just once in frustration. "Of course not. This is just what we should have expected from their damned 'Uncertainty Doctrine'! A full-fledged invasion and right here, on our own doorstep. And they're not even going to bother showing up!"

"...yes, Sir," the Hauyht agreed, though rather more hesitantly. The lionoid was well-known as fiercely opinionated up and down the OSA's ever-growing ranks but that didn't make him right. If the Defense Force hadn't shown up, it was most likely because they were off dealing with the bulk of the invasion with the scraps left to the OSA and the other planetary and system paramilitary forces to deal with. He kept his opinion to himself though, instead taking up his own field glasses and continuing, "And nothing new from General Cus'Ter."

"Damnit. We could use some support here - where the fuck is she?"

"Still tied up in the evacuation of Belladonna. The floods..."

Both the Captain and the General knew that but it was useful to complain - even if their complaints were useless. Cus'Ter had taken the bulk of the OSA's heavy equipment with her when the OSA had deployed to Belladonna. They would be useful there for plucking people off houses or rapidly improvising flood barriers but damn if it wouldn't be nice to have some 'Mechs or a DropShip or two right now.

"...there! I've got them marked," aKimbo declared, a brilliant red dot appearing on the small directional indicator at the bottom of Wil'Sin's display. He swept his glasses over just as the General began to describe them, "Looks like a small company - I count thirty, but its dense terrain and there could be four times as many. Eyeballs, Floaters..."

"Anything Big?" the Captain asked as he picked up the location and began to look for anything larger than an elephant. Other encounters on other worlds had already assigned nicknames to the various types with the general adjectives being Little, Big, or Fuckin'. The Eyeballs were generally Little and were what the OSA would call a 'sensor drone' - a weirdly-shaped biped with a huge 'eyeball' that wasn't an eyeball but apparently a collection of different sensing organs. There was a certain resemblance to the Skri but like all the invaders they had an exoskeleton - like insects - while the Skri were the opposite.

Floaters, on the other paw, were just that - floating monsters that looked like a nightmarish combination of alligator and mosquito. Except that they were able to float using some kind of electro-manipulation instead of wings while they blasted away with sonic cannon that grew out of the top-side of their necks. They weren't as fast as a dolphin on a jetbike, but they were faster than regular infantry and could turn a flank very quickly. The good news was that while their exoskeleton gave them good protection versus regular frag and chemically-driven projectiles, it was more-or-less easily defeated by the heavy accelerator rifles that were the OSA's mainstay infantry weapon.

More-or-less, since the segmented aliens could lose a leg - or were they arms? - or even a head or thorax and keep on coming. Without the scientific expertise of the Defense Force to give them a leg up on the invader's capabilities, the OSA had been forced to fall back on its own knowledge and that of whatever civil experts they could immediately recruit. Right now some bespectacled lab-coat type was cutting up a corpse in a lab somewhere but that didn't tell them right here and right now the most effective way to kill them.

'Hell, we don't even know if they are a them,' Wil'Sin thought as he searched for any sign of individuality in the approaching force. Size and color varied, but aside from the types there was nothing to pick out one from another except a different shade of green or a collection of nauseating spots on a wing-structure - they looked like someone had let their kid paint them and she'd just gone with the first color to fall to hand. 'Could be a 'they'...'

"A lot of those Eyeballs," General aKimbo declared aloud, lowering his glasses for a moment and looking over to Wil'Sin. "I don't think we're looking at an assault force - this is a scout company. Not a very good one if they let us pick them up, but I'll grant that they are aliens. And if they are scouts, I don't want them scouting. Captain, time to fight. Organize your company and put them between us and them. I want a by-the-numbers engagement, nice and clean with as few casualties as you can manage!"

"Yes, Sir," the Hauyht dropped his glasses onto their strap and saluted before turning to descend the stairs that led down the backside of the hexagonal wall. 'Yep, a couple 'Mechs would be really nice right now...'

[Sunset]

Outside OSA Recruitment and Training Center Juno, Near Jer'Don City, Southern Juniper, The Coreward Expanse... Republic Date (175.385)...

"...alright," Captain Wil'Sin tapped away at the holographic screen screen that appeared to have unrolled itself from the forearm of his gray-and-blue field armor, "we're going to deploy into a rough skirmish line across this front." A broad swipe of his finger and he laid down a line roughly parallel to the closest side of the hexagonal training center. "And advance toward the enemy, which is currently here."

Zooming out, he swiped a neat circle around the glowing indicator, its position fed from the General's field glasses. That put the enemy nearly ten klicks out and technically inside the range of his heaviest guns but aKimbo had been clear - defeated, not scattered. Hit them with long-range firepower at this point and they'd break off their probing action to...

'Well, they'd do something,' Wil'Sin decided to himself. They knew too little to establish the potential psychology of the opposing commander and what they would do in a given situation so the 'best bet' was a simple engagement.

"Lighter elements will take the lead and spread out across the line with the fastest units..."

Like the dolphin on a jet bike.

"...at the northeast and southwest ends of the line with heavy and regular units spaced out behind them. On contact the light units will pull back and we'll begin encapsulation. What we don't want them doing is turning or running around our flank, so keep a close eye on the contact markers. If they start moving, you'll get orders quickly so be ready! Engagement is to be done at standard rifle distances with engaged units falling back to the heavies. Shake out and start moving - we've got a good hike ahead and you can save your questions for then!"

Like why there was a dolphin on a jetbike.

The answer was that Camp Juno was the OSA's dumping ground and so the regulars and raw recruits stationed there were that organization's Omega Mob - he'd read the books. Misfits, ill-fits, losers, flunk-outs - and a lot of non-standard body forms. Broadly the OSA could be divided into a surface and space force with Hauyht dominating the first and Sanglanti - with a healthy percentage of Pagani - operating the second. Those who couldn't or wouldn't mostly fit into those molds ended up at Juno, including General aKimbo, the Camp Commandant.

There was a healthy hike ahead but less time for introspection than one might imagine. While there was a healthy dose of 'regulars' in Wil'Sin's impromptu company - if both terms really applied to the pinata-stuffing that made their careful way forward - there was also a good number of nearly-raw recruits as well. Between the Captain and the General they had sorted those with the best and worst combat potential into and out of the company but there was no time for integration and so the swap was simply one for one with newcomers often having met their new squad mates for the first time just minutes prior.

Hopefully not the last time.

Sobering thought there but it was what it was and the Captain tried to put it aside and focus on the terrain ahead. He was right in the center and the pine forest to either side had funneled his unit into an old country lane of sorts, the long grasses and bushes that lined it having been beaten into dirt by the passage of countless route marches and morning runs. In fact he was sure he'd come this way himself several times for a home field advantage but according to the contact marker the main body of the enemy force had drifted off to the left and so...

"Contact - repeat - Contact. I count three Floaters and two Eyeballs. Range is..." One of his Lieutenants read off the numbers but Wil'Sin was already checking his display. The new cluster of contacts was detached from the main group by nearly half-a-klick but the directionality put them as likely the lead element. His scouts were about to run into their scouts and that suggested opportunities.

"Confirmed. Remember your engagement range. Left flank, swing east with unit four as your pivot but watch for more contacts. Right flank, pivot as well but hold across this line," he swiped across the screen to draw a line roughly parallel to the enemy's advance and main body..."

A single high-pitched 'crack' in the distance notified him that someone had shot something and this was followed a half-instant later by more, single shots and low-cycle bursts mixed with the deep 'thruum' of the invader's sonic weaponry.

"Left and right, pick up the pace," he ordered quickly, putting energy into example as he broke into a hopping trot. It was a compromise between sticking to the plan and hoping Unit 4 would be reinforced quickly enough to adjust its position rather than picking up the pieces...

[Sunset]

Quarantine Wing, PeaceLife Medical Center, Tachyon City, New Olympia, The Coreward Expansion Zone... Republic Date (175.385)...

"...at first I was concerned we were looking at a Krȃng infestation;" which explained the bubble suits and the multiple airlock-style doorways the group had passed through, "because God's know we've gotten enough alerts and advisories about them, but I don't think so. We haven't completed the autopsy and while there are some parallels the substance isn't close enough to draw more than that."

"So what are they?" General Hop'Too asked, following the medical examiner through yet another and hopefully the final set of double-doors between her and some answers.

"Interesting, fascinating - maybe even unique. And I think I have the answer to your big question; 'How did they get here?'"

It was a really good question. The invaders had appeared all over Republic space nearly simultaneously with the OSA taking the full force of the initial attack thanks to their actual presence on many of those worlds. What was supposedly a law enforcement agency had suddenly found itself embroiled in armed conflict and they were still trying to piece together what they had lost and what could be gained.

The sample on Dr. Bhevedov's slab had come from just outside when Tachyon City had found itself nearly overrun in the sudden assault. Only the generous size of the OSA's contracted deployment and a big helping of luck had let them keep their footing in the planetary capital. As they spoke the General's troops were hunting down stragglers in the countryside and working to house the refugees that had come in from the smaller surrounding towns. To rally her strength the General had ordered them to lock their doors and head into the city, which had left a lot of the more independent-types none too pleased. Even now she was hitting the delete key on yet another ranting email from someone who claimed the government had abandoned them but also perversely that they had enough firepower to hold off all of creation if it came to it.

Well fuck those guys.

"...something of a plant-insect hybrid!"

"What was that?" she asked, the Doctor's exclamation point drawing her attention back to the here-and-now. It had been a long couple of days and the bubble suit was keeping her from rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "A hybrid?"

"Yes!" Bhevedov repeated himself, "A plant-insect hybrid! I believe that's how they got past the Defense Force and the OSA - they grew here! We've picked apart similarities between plant and insect structures - photosynthesis, chitinous structures - and some bits we're not quite sure on yet. Likely they snuck in or were smuggled in and then just grew here. One of the techs did a full tear-down on their photosynthesis and it is as efficient as our best agricultural examples - they could have gone from seed to fully sized in three to six months."

"...Ma'am, we should check the traffic logs back that far then," Major Mil'Ton suggested. "And pass this to the other commands. We might be able to correlate a source..."

"Get on that," Hop'Too agreed forcefully, the senior officer peeling away one of the Lieutenants that had trailed along with the group and charging her with the task. She'd have to catch up later but there were still plenty of questions to be asked.

"...which also neatly answers another question - the color variation. Or at least that's my hypothesis. Without a full autopsy on more samples I can't be certain, but the coloration on this one is due to trace minerals in the exoskeleton. Have you ever seen a flamingo, General?"

The Hauyht shook her head before realizing that the bubble suit made the gesture near-impossible to see, "No, what is it?"

"The classic example - a Terran bird. They were pink in their native environment, but when someone tried to domesticate them elsewhere the young grew up white. Turns out they were concentrating a certain mineral in their original primary food source in their feathers. Soon enough there were blue ones, green ones - every color in the rainbow. That's my guess here as well. If they are planted and grow to maturity as fast as we think they can, they could show individual color variation over just a few hundred meters of cropland."

They had finally passed through the last airlock now and ahead of them was spread out just what the General had expected; a large, modern pathology lab with bubble-suited technicians at nearly every station. Armed guards - OSA officers with their own NBCR gear on under their bubble suits - stood at the doorway with one offering a clumsy salute as they entered.

"No need for that, trooper," the General said, restraining the impulse to return her own. "Everything okay? Any sign if secondary effects?"

Krȃng.

There was that word again and the reason for the questioning with the guards being there just as much to keep an eye on the lab staff as secure the sample, "No Ma'am. Everything seems on the up-and-up."

"Good," she nodded afterward and turned back to the medical examiner. "Plant, insect - really important question, Doctor. Are we actually facing an invasion then? Or is this more like a plague of..." she searched for the unfamiliar word until he finished for her; "Locusts?"

"No - I don't think so. And again, we'll need more samples or corroboration from others, but 'No'. This thing," he waved an arm at the amalgamation of different body parts spread out among the several tables in the isolation chamber at the center of the lab, "this thing might have grown from a seed or egg or cyst but it has no way to make more. No reproductive system, no ovaries, no testes. It is sterile..."

[Sunset]

Exponential Physics Section, Special Projects Research & Development Wing, CORE XXII Deep Space Station, Alpha Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy... Republic Date 175.470...

"...think of it like a rainstorm," Carlos explained, moving his hands and fingers as if his crude waggling could be but the palest imitation of a sudden cloudburst. "Or well, like rain. Except here the hydrological cycle is very much dependent on the amount of energy in the system when it starts. Too much and you get flash floods, too little and the water evaporates as soon as it hits the ground."

"Isn't that kinda the opposite? The rain would only evaporate if it was really hot out and... Hey!"

Carlos picked up another marker, "Do it again and I'll make sure I hit this time - write-up be damned!"

"Okay, okay," Phil settled back down into his seat. "Pendantery, analogy, I get it. But was the school desk really necessary?"

"...yes. Yes it was. Helps me purify my thought processes to see you sitting there with your knees up by your nose. That and I enjoy your misery. This is your own fault, you know," he sniffed, popping the cap on the marker and waving it under his nose.

Of course it didn't smell like anything, nor did it have any ink. The magenta felt was just for visual aesthetic while the marker itself 'wrote' in photons on a holographic whiteboard. They did have a good heft to them though - as though whoever had designed them had contemplated their possible use as a thrown martial projectile. The short man with latin features and strangely blond hair tossed it in the air, letting it flip once to smack satisfyingly into the palm of his hand and he held it up to check the label, "Dornieland. Should have guessed."

"What?"

"What?!"

"...what..." Phil stared at him for a second then let his head drop towards the desk until Carlos raised his arm menacingly, the marker cocked and ready to fling. "Okay, so. Water. Analogy. And how you're bad at them..."

"Right. Water. So the Singularity is like a cloudburst. Not 'a' singularity - THE Singularity. All of that water stored up in the clouds and then suddenly it is all released to go do what it will naturally do, right? Depending on how much water there is, you get a nice gentle rain, baseball-sized hail, or frogs. All of which depends on a lot of different factors, but my point is that the water goes down and you get rain. But it isn't a very efficient system, is it? All that rain goes wherever it wants to - and so we have galaxies and stars and planets scattered around all over the place."

"You know, we do live on those things. Doesn't seem very inefficient to me," Phil interjected. "I like living."

"Shut up. I'm bad at analogies - you said it yourself. Now, what if we could take part of the water out of the system and direct it in a useful way? Or, I should say - what if someone else took energy out of the system?."

"Then you wouldn't get quite as wet going outside in the rain. Maybe you should try not using an analogy."

Carlos shot him the stink-eye, "Fine. Okay, here's my thought. According to the timeline that we've built up, the Druth'Haari 'arrived' in our universe;" he marked the moment on the timeline with the appropriate apostrophes, "using the iWe as their bridge. Their goal was to migrate out of their previous universe in order to survive whatever happened there. Big Crunch, Long Gray - we don't know. Or do we? Because that's what I'm getting to here. Let's say you've arrived just in time for the beginning of the universe and not only do you know how it began but how it will end. What do you do?"

"According to everything we know? Sit there and act all enigmatic and shit."

"Technically correct so I'll give you half-points. But let's think a little longer term here. Like trillions of years. According to our projections, without interference, the universe will end in a 'Long Gray' scenario. Though 'end' isn't really the right word. We'll just eventually run out of useful energy sources and everything will go flat. However, the theory is that the Druth'Haari are sitting on a way to initiate a Big Crunch. Start the universe over with another Singularity. That would take a lot of energy though, wouldn't it? Where do you get this energy?"

He didn't wait for an answer and instead tapped the timeline repeatedly as close to the start as he could without it turning into one big blob of red, "Right here. Right at the beginning. See, they already knew how things would end and they already knew how things would begin. And they are sitting there on top of the largest energy event ever. So they..."

He rapidly sketched out a series of numbers, equations, and symbols, emphasizing the last with the squashed-tip of his marker.

"...they take some! Not too much and not too little, of course. They want to live in this universe too, after all. At least until they push the reset button. But enough that they can store it and down the line use it to initiate their Big Crunch. Probably about here," he made a mark on the line that was essentially the edge of the board. "Before expansion reaches the point where gravitational collapse won't be able to pull everything back in."

"Ho-kay... Where do they put it? And what kind of proof do you have?"

"Both good questions," he stepped back from the board, his arms crossed as he considered the equations and the marker drew a slow swipe of temporary red across his shirt. "My guess is that they're able to play the same kind of holographic hijinks that we are. They've stored it in a boundary condition somewhere. But maybe not. We kinda-sort know how to find them and access them and if we or anyone else had that kind of knowledge then you can bet that we'd be... Fuck."

"Fucked?"

"Not fucked, but fuck," Carlos clarified. "Hold on. Gotta make a call..."

Rolling his eyes, Phil sat back impatiently as the senior theorist made what he easily assumed was a late call to his mother. Late as in his mother had been dead for nearly twenty years. Instead he was surprised when a holographic projection appeared next to Carlos a moment later, then another and another. The first was the Boss - instantly recognizable - and a blonde haired woman and a black-skinned elf-something.

"Doctor Espinoza," the first said, half-questioning and half-introduction as she looked from him to the second pair, "Saryan, Tithral. What's going on? Why the priority call?"

"Because I think I have an answer. The events on Hanson's Kneecap. I was reading the files and I think you're wrong. Maybe," he corrected, catching the hard gaze from all three before the conversation could end with a 'click'. "Hear me out. The theory is that the Druth'Haari - DH03? - had recovered the instructions on how to initiate the Big Crunch. But that doesn't really make any sense. That's just information. You can't really lock something like that away, since once you know a thing can be done it is comparatively easy to figure out how to do it again. What if it was the method? Or more properly, the energy? See, it would take a lot of energy to start a Big Crunch, right?"

He scribbled some figures on the board, "But what we know of the Druth'Haari puts them at relatively scattered. A few outposts here and there - at least on the scale of the universe. Hell, the simple math says that at our current rate of growth we'll catch and then exceed them in only a few thousand years. And they seem content to take a few billion doing whatever it is they do. Taken in total they might be a K3... Unless..."

"Unless they've already got all the energy they need stored away!" Saryan exclaimed, drawing her finger over the more recent formula. "You think they robbed it from the Singularity and have stored it away somewhere? That's what they were hiding?"

"And fighting over," he nodded emphatically. "As I said, the method is easy, once you know how - getting all that energy together is the hard part. Now whether whatever DH03 took with them was the energy itself or was the key to finding and using that energy..."

"I would guess it was the access point to that energy," Tithral ventured, studying the notes for himself. The Bajoni considered the equations, "An interesting theory and we need to prove it. Even if the Druth'Haari didn't do this, we're looking at a potential energy source far and away more potent than even our own systems. And if they did, we'd also need to know. Hmm," he studied the board for a moment. "And I think I know how."

"What's that?"

"There would be a 'boundary' of sorts," he took the pen and drew one circle inside another. "Here, where the initial energy of the expanding universe would be at its base and then here where energy would have been taken out of the system and expansion would not be as rapid. Under Doctor Espinoza's theory, the best time to capture the desired energy would be as close as possible to the first instant of the Singularity. Even this, however, would create a 'ring' around the expanding universe that is expanding slightly or greatly faster than the inner circle. Given their demonstrated capabilities, I have no doubt that the Druth'Haari either knew exactly when this universe would form or caused it - at least in part - themselves. Thus this outer ring might be very thin indeed."

"The catch is that this is all just math," Saryan waved a hand at the board. "We can plug in all the numbers we want to create the conditions we want. In order to prove the theory, we'd have to travel to a point in the universe that is between this ring and this ring. Ideally with the lower-energy 'shock wave' traveling over us."

"Precisely. And possible, given the speed of current faster-than-light drives."

"Unless that's exactly what they're looking for..." Everyone turned to Katryna, who was deep in her muse. "Paranoid? Maybe, but if I were the Druth'Haari I'd trigger off the Big Crunch as soon as someone knew for certain about all this. If you know for certain your neighbor is planning to kill everyone and use them to fertilize his garden, you take measures to protect yourself. Like killing them first, if you want to go to the logical extreme. Let's stick with numbers for the moment. Run some models - how much energy would they need to have socked away to pull off a Big Crunch? For what size of universe? I'm going to go talk to Mom and then I'd guess she's going to go talk to some other people..."

[Sunset]

Qui'Nop National Forest and Training Range, Northern Juniper, The Coreward Expanse... Republic Date (175.385)...

"...WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"

Kandice looked around, expecting to find one of the other members of her squad looking at her. It was and would have been normal, really - how often did one see a two-headed fox-woman, even if they were in the trade? But no, her well-practiced explanation died on her twin tongues as she followed the stares of her squadmates to the top of a nearby copse of trees, "Oh geeze... What the hell is that thing?"

Where there had been nothing a minute ago when she'd taken her own look around the skyline, there was now an elongated magenta something hovering just below the tree-tops. A baleful red eye peered this way and that from just under what might be a snout while long tendrils trailed back from the seed-shaped body to slowly move back and forth in the breeze. The eye was enough to mark it as one of the invaders - it was a feature they all shared in common from largest to smallest and from no legs to ten.

Not that she'd seen any with ten.

Whatever it was - besides alien - it didn't seem to be doing a whole lot. The oddly-placed eye was moving back and forth, sweeping over the forest below it, and the mass of tendrils were gently waving back and forth but they didn't seem to be moving of their own accord.

"Whatever it is..." Lieutenant Gar'Fel made his decision, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder and taking deliberate aim, "It isn't supposed to be here. So we kill it."

That was good enough for the rest of the squad and Kandice braced her own weapon against her shoulder, peering down the barrel with one pair of eyes while the others searched the treeline ahead and to either side. Every other enemy they'd engaged had been in a formation of some kind and it was weird to see this one all alone and vulnerable. If it was a scout she'd expect to see it moving faster but it drifted through the tree tops at she'd call a 'walking pace'.

Drifting. There was the right word...

"Fire!"

The snap-crack of a dozen rifles echoed across the field and every single one of the riflemen - even the Lieutenant who'd given the order - braced for the sudden appearance of a second force. But there was nothing except for an odd high-pitched noise that sounded like someone had put their lips against a bare forearm and blown.

Not that there were a lot of bare forearms in the notably furry ranks of the OSA.

"Lookit that!"

Everyone looked, though most were already looking. The whatever-it-was was now shooting rapidly away from them, lurching back and forth as its body began to slowly...

"Deflate! It's some kind of god-damned balloon!" the Lieutenant shouted, rising from his spot to break into a run. "Come on! We've got to find it, bring it back to base. Orders are orders - anything new comes back to HQ!"

"And us with it, right?"

"Right!" They couldn't see it but the Lieutenant was smiling. This would be his ticket off the front lines - at least for a little while...

[Sunset]

RDF Training Academy 2, Peabody (Colony World), Far Western Fringe of the Ares Super-Cluster... Republic Date 175.476...

"The Iron Triangle - a useful concept to understand as well as a useful test to keep at hand," the instructor began, drawing out an equilateral triangle in thin air, each side identified by a different color and a thick black point at each corner.

"For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Iron Triangle paradigm suggests that in any given situation or scenario there are three fundamental forces at play, each working with and against each other. Let's start with an example," he touched each corner in turn with a word appearing next to or above each as he did. Behind him the windows were open and as it was a glorious summer day, the light shone through clearly and illuminated the large bat-like wings that sprouted from his shoulders and curled around him something like a greatcoat.

"A new item of clothing. Let's call it a hat, since most of us in here can wear hats and we're all familiar with the concept. Quality," he indicated the top-most word, "Cost, and Availability. Those are the three fundamental forces - choices - we have to manage when we're going to buy our new hat." With a tap, another dot appeared in the middle of the triangle and he began to move it around with a talon'ed finger.

"Now, we have a choice. We could just buy the first thing that comes to hand - Availability - but..." he pulled the center dot towards the marked corner. "That will then limit our choices as far as cost and quality go. Now, we could go to a speciality shop," he drew the dot towards the middle of the line between Availability and Quality. "Where they will have a lot of hats and a lot of choices, meaning we'll be able to find a quality hat we like in a style that fits our particular head. And I will admit," he grinned, a particular gesture given his face also resembled that of a bat complete with wide, flat nose and large brown eyes, "I have a hard time finding a hat that fits."

"Now for a variety of reasons - the need to keep a large stock on hand, the desire to be able to serve a large variety of species - my favorite hat shop is also pretty expensive. As you can see..." he tapped the not-so-center dot again, emphasizing its distance from the Cost corner. "And I could change that by going elsewhere, but then I'd either have less choice;" the dot drifted away from Availability, "or less quality. That is the essence of the Iron Triangle - you're always going to have to sacrifice something. And you can choose to go all-in on one particular aspect or balance out two others but putting the dot right in the middle means you won't get very much of any of them."

"The Iron Triangle concept is particularly useful as a personal decision making tool. Once you've identified the three fundamental forces present in a decision or situation, you can then use the Iron Triangle to match your decision against the desired results by keeping those fundamental forces in mind. If you want a quality hat right away, you'll have to pay more. Or if you want a great hat you might have to wait and pay more."

"The Iron Triangle comes up a lot in administration and you'll find it referenced in a lot of government literature. Our government at least. Cost, Speed, Quality. The budget people love it - do they want it cheap and fast? Then it will be crap. Which is fine if you're requisitioning toilet paper..." he let his joke trail off to a scattering of laughter.

"Now, why is it a test? Because you can immediately tell a bullshit manager - or a politician - if they tell you they're going to break the Iron Triangle. And as future officers you're going to be dealing with both, possibly on a regular basis. If someone promises you something fast, good, and cheap - they're lying to you. Sometimes you'll need to know why they are lying, but sometimes it is just as useful to know they are lying."

"...but."

He paused for a moment before taking the three corners of the triangle and stretching them out one by one until the triangle was three times its previous size and he was forced to awkwardly stoop to pull the bottom two corners close to the floor, "You can cheat. Well, you can't cheat. You can't break the Iron Triangle. No matter how hard you push on it, you're always going to lose something. Possibly an eye if you push on the pointy side. But you can make it bigger!"

"Or - I should say - sometimes the Iron Triangle is a lot larger than you know and the dot," he moved the point around inside, "Is a lot closer to the center than you know. That's useful as well, especially if you're going to be bargaining with someone. Don't tell them how big your triangle is and try your best to figure out how big theirs is. If your triangle is this big," he gestured to encompass the complete extent of his own before quickly drawing another with different colors in the center, "and theirs is this big, their perception of those fundamental forces is going to be wildly different than your own and you can move their triangle around," he demonstrated, "putting it where you want it - though again, you can't break the Iron Triangle, even with another triangle. You can stretch it," he pulled one end away until it nearly touched both of the bottom two corners of the larger triangle, "but you can't break it - just make it bigger."

"That in turn has always been something your government has emphasized. Making the triangle bigger. The way they put it is 'making our enemies obsolete'. Moving past them. Making our triangle so much larger and theirs - eventually - just a tiny dot. And - if I might do a bit of trash-talking - we're not afraid to do it. Don't be afraid to make your triangle bigger. Ask yourself this... Who has more choices? More opportunities? The bigger triangle? Or the smaller..."

[Sunset]

OSA Riptide, Belladonna Far Orbit, The Coreward Expansion Zone, Beta Quadrant... Republic Date 175.483...

Against the great sea of stars the Riptide was a tiny speck of light that pulsed insignificantly as the navigation lights on her lurking hull changed white to blue and back again to warn no one in particular that she was there. It was only when one lost focus on that single ship to take in the rest of the sky to realize that there were many hundreds of others there that the significance of her presence could be appreciated...

"...hell of a time for a drill," Admiral du Couture complained, the pleasant tone of her contralto voice turned to audible disapproval. The Sanglanti was leaning up against one of the Riptide's bridge consoles, a thick green-gray trapezoid that sat atop a pedestal of darker gray. Dim green lights along the underside helped pick it out in the relative darkness of the bridge though its surface was covered in both buttons - real buttons, unlike the virtual holographics generally preferred by the RDF - as well as a scattering of flat-panel touch screens with raised edges to cordon off the information they contained from those nearby.

At the wide base of the trapezoid stood her communication's officer, a purple-haired Pagani named Deylta. Like the average of her species she stood just a forehead under the flag officer with her twisting near-black horns making up the rest. Without taking her softly glowing eyes or delicately taloned fingers off the console she replied with the least committed 'Mmm' possible, leaving the Admiral to continue if she wanted or let the comment fall to the side.

"Course, also the best time," du Couture continued, disagreeing with herself as she was often known to do. "They need the training and we don't need them here. Hell, most of them would be a danger - to themselves and anyone they tried to 'rescue'. And if we really need them, we could pull them in as they flunk out. Not that I'd want them. Doesn't make much sense, does it? The successful ones are still 'inside' while the failures watch. What was it they've pounded into us over and over, Lieutenant?"

"We learn more from our failures than from our successes, Ma'am."

"Right. So all the failures are doing is..." the raven-haired woman was cut off by a sharply pulsing light and an accompanying strident tone from the console. One of the lights across the top had lit up and the Pagani stabbed at it, silencing the alert but leaving the light pulsing red as she read off from the screen below; "Incoming priority connection. It's General Cus'Ter, from the surface."

She nodded towards the forward screen that dominated the Riptide's bridge, a stretched-out and rounded-over hexagon that went from near the floor to just under the ceiling with a scattering of indicator lights tucked into each empty corner. Each of these meant something - though none that were important were lit at the moment - but Deylta's meaning was Belladonna itself, which stretched in a narrow curve across the bottom third of the hexagon while the planet's lonely moon slowly crawled its way up from the horizon.

"Put her through - over here," du Couture added, heading towards the indicated screen herself. Despite the moment of idle chatter the bridge of the Draconis-Class was not a tranquil pond; other officers worked at a dozen other stations, sometimes packed in two or three as they went about the work of managing the greater body of OSA forces currently in play. Belladonna was a new member of the OSA and a fortunate one - they'd signed an emergency services contract with the organization just before record rains and thus record flooding had hit the eastern seaboard of the largest of the northern continents. That contorted coastline was just now scrolling past on the screen and from her lofty vantage point she could see the tendrils of muddy-brown water that pierced far inland.

General Cus'Ter was on the surface, as was her place commanding the Alliance's ground forces that had been deployed in response. Wading through waist-high - for a BattleMech - water, tearing the roof off a house, hauling a pump from here to there - her forces were making a difference in the lives and survival of the stick-figure residents. Against the backdrop of a pre-industrial civilization that hadn't yet invented the airplane, the OSA's dropships and other aircraft were heavily invested in the business of saving lives with nearly a million people already plucked from unfortunate circumstances to either take comfort back on dry land or to experience the wonders of galactic civilization first-hand as they transited through one of the orbiting cruisers to their destination.

Stepping up to the isolated panel, Admiral du Couture touched the appropriate button on the side and the furry face of General Cus'Ter appeared in the center. As always the Hauyht was wearing her trademark cavalry hat, one side pinned up to let her ear past with an enameled pin bearing the organization's letter-in-letter-in-letter hexagon logo, "General - what can I do for you?"

There was little need for formalities; she'd talked to the General nearly a dozen times already this day and her only concern was just how to start the conversation without seeming to be tired of seeing the ripped-out soldier's thick face. Along with a sheaf of other missives and memos, word had come down from the supreme command that the OSA was a combined forces organization and that every officer damned well better act like it.

"Some carrot juice, a hot sauna, and about twelve hours of sleep." The General looked it. Even with the fur covering her face, the bags under her eyes were plain to see and her normally bright brown eyes were dark. But the comment was in jest; she'd probably been awake for a day and a half and she'd probably last another twelve before collapsing. While the mix was relatively even on the fleet side of things, female soldiers and particularly female officers were rare in the ground service and without a doubt Cus'Ter drove herself harder than any to prove she belonged there.

"We've got something interesting down here - passed along by one of the field engineering teams and it's finally made its way to me. They were inspecting one of the dams that collapsed. Figuring out what happened and how it can be prevented from happening again..."

The Admiral nodded understanding; it wasn't strictly in the OSA's remit or contract to do so, but the Hauyht that made up the majority of the OSA's surface element were noted for their enthusiasm if not their ability and while the rebuilding would happen on the civil side with potentially copious amounts of Republic government assistance, the field team was likely doing their best to gather every speck of useful information to be passed along in a straightforward effort to impress.

"Cynthia," Cus'Ter switched to the Admiral's little-used first name, underscoring the switch as her voice dropped in tone, "they found evidence that the collapse wasn't entirely natural. An explosive of some kind, placed at a weak point. It probably wouldn't have collapsed otherwise. Someone murdered a couple hundred thousand people..."

And that definitely was in the OSA's contract.

[Sunset]

...Partial Transcript of an Intelligence Briefing Provided to Trade Prince Mer'Kseen; Recovered from Databank Files Salvaged from the Ship Htea'Sexat; On or About Local Date 76.92.08... Republic Date 175.493...

'...was reasonably straightforward. Loyal agents were dispatched to the Republic by commercial space travel where they were able to easily infiltrate their civil society and gain much information from simple observation and inquiry. More intrusive information gathering operations proved to be difficult to impossible; the Republic has isolated the souls of its people inside some manner of trans-dimensional enclosure and penetrating this was not accomplished though it remains a high priority. Physical access must be possible as placement in this crypt is offered as a (unknown word; possibly corrupted; replaced as contracted service). Given the known range and speed of Republic faster-than-light drives the physical access point could be anywhere within two million light-years of any of their holdings. Doubtless this location is one of their most closely held secrets as penetration would endanger the souls of all who reside there.'

'The usefulness of this isolation cannot be understated. Even when our agents were able to connive or convince someone who had what we would consider useful knowledge to give it to us willingly, we found that the information had often been tampered with - coordinates subverted, technical information misstated. Whether this was because their intelligence service has a complete lockdown on information being passed out of this enclosure or because we were being actively misled by individuals we had thought subverted or deceived is impossible to determine as we cannot utilize any of our normal intrusive interrogation methods such as mind-rips. After several attempts this approach was terminated - several of our compartmentalized agents disappeared and it is assumed they fell into the hands of the Republic's intelligence apparatus or one of their allies, as some were engaged in information gathering activities targeted against expatriate communities.'

'Here too is a curious facet of the Republic - their intelligence service seems to work particularly closely with those of its allies, far more than would be otherwise considered 'normal'. The Humans have an expression; a saying or proverb - 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.' Among the Trade Princes of the Sessool it is well-known that those considered closest are the best placed to betray and so contact between Your Lordship's service and others has always been conducted at talon's reach. The relationship between the Republic and its allies would seem to be the opposite and in certain cases they are as lovers. It is well-known that Katryna Silaco, the daughter of the current Secretary-General, is pair-bonded to an elf of the five-cursed Menelmacari - may their kind wither and rot - and this is but one example.'

'This alone makes direct conflict against the Republic unwise but there is more. Our agents were able to penetrate and accurately determine the disposition and numbers of a private company that provides so-called 'law enforcement services' to many of their worlds and systems. Why it is allowed to call itself such is unclear; this 'OSA' is equipped with every manner of military system from the reasonable to the ridiculous. On shear numbers alone it possesses ships equal to many other space-faring powers and yet it is only charged with enforcing the peace of the weak! Due in part to the spiritual isolation mentioned before and to what they call - publically - their 'Uncertainty Doctrine', we have no solid estimate of the forces available to their regular Defense Force but we do have antecedal evidence and it is worrisome.'

'During a recent incident at an outpost outside the galaxy proper the Republic was in confrontation with an entity known then as the 'Martian Conglomerate.' A single Republic warship had intruded on this facility's unclaimed border and was confronted by numerous elements of the MarCong Navy, as the story is told. While ultimately the ship departed in what the Conglomerate assumed was a retreat, a sensor technician who was able to be interviewed told the agent that they were tracking some two hundred thousand incoming vessels. It is certainly possible that some of these were decoys - falsehoods - intended to shake the nerves of their opponent, but what we know of their Secretary-General indicates that she is not given to bluffing. Even if they had stripped away every spare ship to make up this force, it would put their numbers at many times more than most other single entities.'

'Of course, who is to know the strength of these vessels or the backbone of their crews? Perhaps so many were sent because they were needed; we have very little information as to the current combat capabilities of their vessels but we can speculate. Three rotations ago Trade Prince Kel'Jorees grew tired of their activities near his territories and took it upon himself to rid his borders of them. An intelligence-gathering outpost was destroyed with no notable response and by what information my service was able to uncover, he then took this as an indication of weakness. One of their vessels was discovered passing nearby and he dispatched the same hand of ships that had destroyed the outpost to run it off as well. His newest ships, they were able to shadow and then run down their quarry and engaged it in battle. According to a reputable witness, the Republic vessel destroyed three of the five before it was disabled.'

'Again, a caution My Lord. The crew was saved from their fate at the hands of the other ships by the fortunate arrival of a group of ships belonging to a corporate entity. We do not know whether they were called or simply arrived, but they were willing to engage Trade Prince Kel'Jorees's ships without hesitation. This would indicate that they were either friendly to the Republic or well-compensated for their efforts. But we know from this incident that a single vessel was able to take on a full hand and destroy several. Presumably their capabilities have advanced since then and they have learned what lessons they could. As those of your Brothers advance so too do your own, but which one has advanced more we cannot say for certain. The likelihood is still that their vessels are capable of fighting three to four times our numbers to even odds. This would suggest that any direct conflict against the Republic be undertaken at overwhelming numbers - an option complicated by their 'Uncertainty Doctrine'. We simply do not know the deployment of their forces and cannot give a solid estimation as to where force would best be applied.'

[Sunset]

...Partial Transcript of an Intelligence Briefing Provided to Trade Prince Mer'Kseen; Recovered from Databank Files Salvaged from the Ship Htea'Sexat; On or About Local Date 76.92.08... Continued...

'The greatest weakness of the Republic of Sunset is its open society, but even here caution is advised. First, there is the spiritual isolation described previously. The majority of its citizens have chosen this isolation and - until a means of penetrating this system is found - truly harming and thus threatening most citizens of the Republic is impossible. The loss of their flesh-and-blood body is an inconvenience, nothing more. That is with one set of notable exceptions.'

'These are first the Republic's colony and expansion worlds. With many years of peace behind it and a determined leadership, they have undertaken a rapid and deliberate expansion across a broad slice of the Alpha and Beta galactic quadrants. Their so-called 'Coreward Expansion Zone' stretches across one digit of the galaxy and while they do not claim dominance over the entirety, they have been diplomatically absorbing as many neutral, friendly, and primitive civilizations as possible as quickly as possible. While they are just as quick to bring their version of civilization to these absorbed species, their spiritual migration is not as quickly accomplished and so these territories are far more vulnerable while still adhering to the Republic's ideals of an open society. While they are far from the core systems and thus know less of their new masters, the combination of these two factors has allowed our spies to pass far more freely and so gather much useful information.'

'The second are the Circlets. These are titanic constructs built by an Elder Species that is now vanished; the Krȃng. What little information we have on them comes from the Republic itself by means of numerous health and safety advisories broadcast openly in an effort to alert their own and others to the dangers of a possible Krȃng resurrection. Leaving them for another briefing, the Circlets are home to large populations who have not yet had the means or opportunity to migrate into spiritual isolation. There are eight Circlets with two being held by entities other than the Republic. One belongs to the Phoenix Domain - a relatively minor nomadic civilization with a toehold in the far-eastern region of the Beta Quadrant and thus somewhat close to My Lord's holdings, and the other seized by the UIK before the Republic could take it. Noting that the UIK has been designated as a strict 'No Contact' civilization by My Lord's predecessor, a separate briefing has been prepared should My Lord require it.'

'While these Circlets represent a potential means of hurting the Republic, they should also serve as a fair warning of their power. When discovered the populations of these constructs - enormous rings orbiting gas sub-giants - were essentially primitive if healthy. The perfect target for My Lord's servants; slaves, chattel, concubines, livestock. Despite their primitive circumstances there were many millions simply due to the size of these Circlets. However, since their takeover, the Republic has embarked on a sustained campaign of... Industrialization is not the best term. It is very strange, at least from our point of view. Hospitals, schools... But factories? Refineries? There has been very little done to directly introduce manufacturing, My Lord. But yet the populations are rapidly advancing towards parity with the rest of the Republic. Many are already ahead of our Servant and Merchant Castes.'

'To advance a people so rapidly without industrialization would require enormous resources. These Circlets are capable of housing many billions of people and with the new technologies made available by the Republic their standards of living are advancing rapidly and their populations growing just as swiftly. But there is no complaint made, no strain on their coffers. When our agents made efforts to track the movements of these resources, they always arrived at a place where what was needed appeared to simply 'arrive' but was not delivered. The easy assumption would be that they came from some other place within these Circlets by means unknown, but indications elsewhere lead me to believe that the Republic has access to a vast trove of resources and is able to relay it by means unknown to where it is needed. My guess - and I hesitate to use the word - is that it is concealed inside whatever place also houses and protects their souls.'

'Again this places much emphasis on the need to realize a method of accessing this place, but it does not need to be said that the Republic would be fools of the highest caliber if they did not know this themselves and were not taking active measures of all kinds to prevent its discovery by others. While we are preceding with our efforts to do so, we are also taking utmost care - this is doubtless their greatest secret and if our efforts were uncovered, they would doubtless respond. My Prince... While I have great faith in the loyalty and valor of your warriors and your skill in leading them, the forthright analysis you ask of me demands I warn you that facing them in open battle would mean our end. Battles may be won on valor and duty but wars are won by economies and my estimation of the Republic puts us as a toufung to be ground beneath their heel.'

[Sunset]

Doctor Tithral's Office, Special Projects Research Complex, Landor City, Terra Incognito... Republic Date 175.510...

"...what if we are the basement?" the Bajoni mused aloud, staring at and through the desktop widget that slowly spun, whirled, and dipped on one corner of the rough slice of Martian basalt that was his desk. In deference to his dark-adapted eyes the office was one of the few in the narrow building without windows or skylights but even the distant light of some unattended hologram reflecting off the polished steel of the toy was enough to set his black eyes glittering with gathered light and they followed the movement with cat-like intensity.

It was an appropriate analog; the Bajoni were sometimes referred to as 'Drow' or 'Dark Elves' by those less knowledgeable and his face could easily take on the same intensely predatory yet inquisitive cast.

"The notion that the universe is a simulation has already been considered, as has the idea of 'breaking out' of the simulation. As though it would be as simple," he held out a hand in mockery, his palm a dusky gray and well-lined with the many years of existence, "as choosing one pill over another. If the universe is indeed a simulation then who is to say that whatever new universe we might find ourselves in is not itself a simulation, crafted to meet our new need?"

He stopped and considered the air. Here, mostly isolated from the rest of the building and governed by a climate control system that had advanced along with everything else mortal hands had wrought, the air could have been perfectly still and just exactly that of his own skin. Perfectly comfortable. But to him - born on Martian soil and in the caverns both natural and artificial that laced through the great mountain known as Olympus Mons - there was comfort in movement and in sound. To the visitor it would fade into the background soon enough but to him the gentle movement of slightly cold air through the space told his subconscious that he was safe and that the great machines created by his first ancestors to move fresh air through the mountain still breathed.

He considered the air because now would be a good time for 'them' to speak; to put in a joke or some veiled witticism. Yes, 'they' were gone but like a friend passed on he found himself occasionally hoping for their presence just as a sailor declared lost could - possibly, yes - one day walk through that door when they were most-least expected.

There was no voice and after a time to feel the passing but insistent press of the air on his skin and listen to the near-inaudible hush as it cut itself apart on desk, chair, and gentle clacking distraction he continued, "...or our new purpose. If the universe is a simulation then to what end? Physics is now cosmology," he smiled to himself, the expression showing neither teeth nor curve but instead turning up the corners of his eyes to a particular point. "The origins and development of our universe. We've led ourselves down a particular path, haven't we?"

That was the assumption - that the Druth'Haari had come to or created 'our' universe in order to survive the end of the previous - but what if that cosmology was as right and yet as wrong as phlogiston had been to the scientists of the 18th Century? They would never say. They had even been asked. But who was to say they would tell the truth either way?

"It is an analogy but not. The idea that a small universe is created to work out some problem that requires both intensive computation as well as time. There, where both needs can be satisfied by conditions established during creation, the answer to the problem can be worked out during the passing of eons only to be pulled back into our universe an instant later. Such things are not unknown..."

While most of the galaxy's 'great powers' did not understand or make use of such things - 'What is the definition of 'great', again?' he asked himself - there were those that did through either need or vanity. It was an idea that had been explored by Special Projects at one time or another but it had never proven its worth except as a 'proof' - a way to double-justify an already working theorem. The Republic, he had found, rested at a particular place on the knife-edge of civilization. It was both enormously complex but understandably simple. Like the fidget sitting on the corner of his desk all of the whirls and spins were balanced out so that they stayed precisely balanced on a single point.

"Unless tremendous outside effort is used to disrupt them. So again - what if we are the basement? Our universe - or at least some portion of it - created to work out some problem or prove some theory? The argument from some is that we were created to provide companionship for their deity. Alpha and Omega, alone until He desired otherwise. Convenient and comforting if true but cosmology is full of uncomfortable inconveniences. It would answer certain riddles, to be certain. Why the seemingly hard limit on the age of the universe? Because this is how long until they must have answer. Then the thread will end and the system resources reallocated to some other function, some other need."

"But it is unethical. That is the answer of those who have created such things. They set the conditions as to not allow intelligent life to arise. But this is according to our definition of intelligence. What if we are not? A Type Four... 'Its activities would be indistinguishable from the workings of nature - there being nothing to compare them to.' The statement flows both ways. To them even something as unique and irreplaceable as the conscious mind may be little more than a collection of statements and conditions, perhaps to be saved and reused in the next iteration if they find them useful or interesting enough..."

[Sunset]

Director Silaco's Office, Special Projects Research Complex, Landor City, Terra Incognito... Republic Date 175.512...

"...they don't have to stay here," Amaril said quietly, his unexpected voice coming from the open doorway to her office. She glanced up from what she was doing as if to confirm, catching her husband leaning against the jam with his thumbs caught in the pockets of Jean's that were so delightfully tight she'd been tempted to strip them off him as soon as he'd put them on that morning. Attraction - sexual attraction - might have been considered a strange thing where artificial intelligences were little more than complex toaster ovens but Katryna Silaco was as complex and complicated as any intelligence built up from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

Or more, given the inability of the 'average' denizen of the 'average' galactic shithole to string together a rational argument as to the rights of 'artificial' people among which 'they' numbered - even if they were too dumb to understand the fact. Or willfully ignorant. Which was far, far worse in her opinion.

And utterly beside the point.

"They want to stay with us. Spend as much time with the kids... Mahini," she corrected - their daughter Aviandri was a sorceress's apprentice now and would be returning with his parents from Menelmacar on an infrequent break from her studies, "as they can. It's not like our guest suite is a slum."

Admittedly it could have been a five-star hotel and their own home a rotted-out stump in the middle of a swamp and a Menelmacari would have still declared their home better for a dozen reasons - the least of which would be that it was Menelmacari and thus simply better. If Humans were born with hypocrisy as a default trait, Elves were born snobs.

He took a step forward, "That's not what I was thinking about," and she glanced over at him. Silhouetted in the door and with the last rays of a dying sun streaming through an office window across the hall he looked like an angel.

A well-endowed angel in tight pants.

True as it may be, the thought and long hours made her giggle and he waited a moment before she held up a hand, "Now I know why your mother married your father... Okay, okay, sorry. What were you talking about?"

"I was talking about the stars - you know, all those stars we're busy encapsulating? For those that no one will miss, it would be better to move them elsewhere. Into the Eien, another variant, whatever. The useful thing about stars is that they are giant self-sustaining fusion reactions. Move them into a pocket dimension just larger than the star itself with the same energy-absorbing boundary layer and it will still do its thing. Then when it burns out you've still got all that matter to do something with. Reconfigure the boundary to one of the exotic matter conversion types and strip the dead star away like an onion..."

"Here's the thing," he continued as she stared at him. "It is possible if unlikely that someone could grab one or all of these stars out from under us. Right now we're one of a handful of civilizations with the ability to do this but once boundary manipulation technology leaks out - and it will leak, eventually - someone could inject their own boundary layer inside ours, edging us out. Removing the star entirely will give us exclusive access. Well, at least until..."

"...until someone deploys a basement universe machine to figure out the key. No, no, I got it - and I think you're right. Though if we start doing that..." she paused to consider, "...we're going to piss a lot of people off. Oh well - fuck 'em. They can send an angry letter."

[Sunset]

Morro-Wenn Flood Control and Irrigation Works, Outside Wenn City and not too far from Morro, Belladonna, The Coreward Expansion Zone, Beta Quadrant... Republic Date 175.522...

Detectives.

As an officially chartered 'paramilitary law enforcement services corporation' one might assume that the Outer Systems Alliance would have quite a few of them but this was not the case. Something about long rows of hyper-sonic strategic bombers standing ready at airbases, standing formations of mecha constantly drilling just outside major cities, schools of infantry constantly turning out a steady stream of mostly-furry recruits... For the upper echelons of the organization the 'paramilitary' part came first and everything after seemed to get lost in the noise.

Which didn't mean they didn't have detectives. They just didn't have very many.

Neither had someone thought to provide what few they had with what most other detectives in most other law enforcement agencies had which was some kind of transport that didn't include missile launchers, linear accelerators (otherwise known as railguns), lasers tasked to point-defense and anti-infantry duties that could flash-vaporize an unarmored man standing a dozen or so meters from the point of impact... Nope. That hadn't been thought of. Though now that I think about it...

But that would have to wait for later.

Right now Detective Bax'Ter was trying to maneuver a Hussar-Type Fast Armored Scout into a parking space meant for something a lot smaller. Or would have if the locals had invented cars. When they weren't busy drowning in the floodwaters of an unexpectedly severe monsoon season they typically rode around on large carts pulled by the local equivalent of the horse and so finally he settled for a bare patch of grass and left the craft hovering a half-meter off the ground while he hopped out and squished his way towards the ruins of the dam.

If the sun put in an appearance that day it would be a miracle. Thick gray clouds hung around everything like a clot of blankets just pulled wet from the washing machine. Every few feet he found himself edging around a puddle that looked deep enough to swallow his one-and-a-half-and-change meter frame without requiring the Heimlich maneuver afterwards. Looking back over his shoulder after yet another he surveyed his own tracks; the suspect was clearly drunk or otherwise intoxicated.

"Hello?" he called out, his voice instantly lost in the fog, "Hello! Detective Bax'Ter..."

The dam had formerly been built in the sharp cleavage between two high rocky banks on the river with the intention to control the periodic flooding that swept through the area as well as divert useful water to the croplands that spread out to either side. Wenn City - behind him and upstream - had sat on the banks of the modest reservoir that had been built up behind the dam while Morro (formerly) stretched out on both sides of the downstream banks. It had been a town of farmers but was now nothing more than a collection of muddy stilts, the deeply-driven poles that were the common feature of local architecture. He'd driven through on his way up from the OSA's staging area on a hilly range west of the city; perhaps one in ten had survived the disaster.

"...Outer Systems Alliance! Hello?" He heard voices ahead and hurried forward, nearly losing himself in a morase before unexpectedly finding himself in a dry patch and standing among a clump of workers who were laboring among the ruins. "Hey, hello - Detective Bax'Ter. Outer Systems Alliance," he flashed his badge.

He wasn't sure that it helped but he wasn't sure that it didn't help either. Throughout Republic space the broad strokes of Human culture and behavior held sway but here on Belladonna there had been exactly forty days between membership and the flooding that had brought the OSA in like an otherworldly host. Plans were being laid out, negotiations made - the benefits of the high-tech civilization the natives now found themselves members in would not yet be felt.

One hefted a shovel, "Detective. Why are you here?"

At least there was a question mark at the end. He didn't speak the language, of course, and the local facial features were about as expressive as a slab of marble. Sure, he couldn't rightly say they all looked the same but they were all looking at him the same and what then was really the difference?

Best to start simple then, "I was told you found something strange. Signs of an explosion? I'm here to take a look. See if we can figure out what happened."

"Yes. Here," the shovel-wielding man flipped it around and used it like a walking stick as he picked his way through great slabs of torn concrete and the occasional bit of rusted steel until they were standing in a section of the dam that had once been a spillway control, judging by the enormous gears and levers. He wasn't an engineer but the whole thing seemed to have formerly worked on a series of gravity-powered chain hoists with these now scattered and wrapped around the ruins of the structure.

"They said we will rebuild the dam," he didn't look convinced as he surveyed the ruins around him. "And so we came to see what could be salvaged. Here though," he swung the shovel and the blade clattered off a thick metal plate that had once been part of a much larger mechanism. "Look."

Bax'Ter looked and instantly knelt, going down on one knee in the muck as he pulled out his portable data recorder. Toggling it on, he began to sweep the camera over the place indicated while holding it awkwardly away from him so the worker could watch. Whether he was fascinated with the new object, its screen showing the finest details as a half-dozen other sensors worked to invisibly record other bits and pieces... He couldn't say. But he was right.

"Yep. Something burned through this plate. Very hot, very fast. That sounds like a cutting charge to me. What was this?" he looked around, trying to piece together the carnage like a builder looking for a lost lego under the couch.

"I don't know - but the engineers in the city would..."

[Sunset]

RDF Training Academy 2, Peabody (Colony World), Far Western Fringe of the Ares Super-Cluster... Republic Date 175.525...

"En Garde..."

Quunto raised his sword - 'Rapier', he mentally corrected - and held it in the prescribed position with the long diamond-section blade straight out from his forearm, hand hidden behind the bell that would protect his hand from his opponent's blade. His elbow was at something around a sixty-five degree angle and this hopefully put the blade pointed right at their face with the smallest possible cross-section visible. Their's too was the same and the tip of each sword were perhaps a meter apart, ready for the quick lunge and touch that would end the point.

It was a beautiful day for the sport and so the instructor had taken the class outside to a side court that was normally used to store other outdoor furniture that was now scattered here and there around the academy grounds. This in turn put its own particular spin on the matches - the court was paved in interlocking concrete stones with raised and curved edges. For walking or running they would provide a sure step but for the nimble footwork expected of a fencer they could catch the toe at exactly the wrong moment. The warm sun was welcome but also inconvenient, though they had laid out each piste so that it was as near-perpendicular as possible and the fencers would switch ends after each point for fairness sake.

Then there were the birds and the bees.

Colorful flowers grew in a hundred different beds and planters while flowering trees had put out their own riotous bouquet. Among these both birds, insects, and their local analogs swarmed as they went about their all-important tasks. Occasionally one or the other would zip through and between them and more than once the Qoyat had shrugged off a bug that had decided that his padded white jacket was a suitable rest stop.

"Pret," their instructor raised a hand in warning, looking back and forth between the two fencers. He was particularly suitable to the task; a Sanglanti, he was wearing a puffed blouse that somehow matched his uniform trousers and a vibrantly decorated half-jacket that would allow him to take part if the mood struck him. Unlike the rapier in Quunto's hand where the blade was 'made' of light and thus would pass harmlessly through his opponent, his own blade swung in a decidedly realistic fashion and the elaborate hilt bore the nicks, scratches, and a bent cross-piece or two that suggested it had seen use.

"Allez!"

Attack; Quunto waited a half-second and then made his move. Fencing was not about the flashy, whipping blows of movie sword fighting but about the carefully application of movement and force. Relaxing back just so onto his back foot, he shifted his front toe to the left, watching his opponent's eyes as they flicked to follow the movement, and then lunged forward with his bell moving left to catch the expected parry and the tip of his blade just floating to the right to take advantage of the anticipated opening. It was there and he finished the thrust with his back knee nearly touching the ground and his front on his chest, arm fully extended as the blade ran straight through the other fencer's left lung.

"Touch to Quunto! And the match!"

He rose - somewhat awkwardly, due to the misleading position - and saluted his opponent before putting out a hand; "Well done," Teacher responded, taking his own and pumping it graciously. The piste was one of the places where the resurrected Duwerli could be regularly beaten and yet he persisted, his form and ability gradually increasing until he was solidly in the middle though not in the same league as Quunto or Xinn, who had taken their places as the pair to watch.

"Now, I have something special for you today," the Sanglanti began. Hopes began to instantly raise that today would be the day that he proved his own skill and the rest of the students began to crowd around with some pointing to or suggesting one or the other - Qoyat or Xypndi - as his opponent. "An exhibition match..."

He raised his hand to silence the crowd, "Between Quunto and..."

There was a clatter from outside the circle and everyone turned to find two cadets standing there with a robotic arm such as one might find on the factory floor sitting between them. The clatter had been where they'd dropped it there and it now sat on the other end of the marked-out piste quite immobile except for the rapier now held in its pincer.

"This robot. Which the cadets from the robotics club," he nodded graciously to the two women, "have configured as a suitable opponent!"

A robot? Quunto eyed it suspiciously. It was almost undignified, but perhaps sensing or prepared for the upcoming bout, it began to flex and move its arm around as if stretching until it came to rest in the familiar pose.

If one were to subtract the rest of the body.

"Pret?" It was a question and not a command but he took up his own place opposite the robot, the crowd moving out around them though some had already clearly lost interest. What was the point of this, anyway? The robot was immobile and...

"Point, the robot!" Ehwardo called out, the instructor sweeping his hat down to signify the end of the match, "and a perfect match to the robot!"

...much, much faster than the Qoyat. Every feint had been parried effortlessly, every lunge turned aside. Every mistake capitalized on. If the tip of his sword had been out of position, the robot had slide its own blade under his own to touch his wrist. If his foot was too far forward, he found himself 'pinned' to the cobbles. The earlier stretch? It had been all a lie. A damned dirty trick to sucker him into fighting. But would he be the better sport?

Quunto swept his blade up into salute, and giving his opponent had no hand he bowed as well. The robot followed his motion to return the salute and then tossed its blade up in the air, catching it ahead of the guard and handing it off to a member of the robotic's club before retracting into upright stillness.

Once again the Sanglanti held up his hand, "Touche - the point. Sometimes I must divert from our regular lessons to teach a broader and more important one. Quunto - why did you lose?"

"Because it was faster. More precise. It did not make mistakes," he answered easily. He'd practiced against fencing robots, of course, but they were programmed to certain levels from amatuer to assassin and they were as slow as he was and they typically fell into a routine that could be exploited - much as a flesh-and-blood opponent would.

"Exactly. The Scolopendrans have a saying, 'Metal is Better than Meat'. And once again we prove it true. Would anyone else like to challenge the robot?" There was silence or the quiet shaking of heads, "No? Neither would I. For its purpose - to beat a flesh-and-blood fencer - this robot will always win. Such is its purpose and design. Well done, ladies," he once again doffed his feathered hat to the two women, ending with an outlandish yet somehow appropriate bow. "Well done. How would you beat this robot?"

"EMP," one answered with the other a second later, "DEW."

"You would take advantage of its weakness, no? Play to your strengths. But it is interesting that neither of you offered to take up the sword..."

"It would win," the first answered without a trace of doubt in her voice. "It is faster, more precise - it doesn't make mistakes," she continued with a smile, echoing Quunto's earlier answer. "Metal is Better than Meat."

"Because meat has many reasons. It must take in sustenance. It must learn. It must reproduce. All of these things mean that the metal can devote more of its being - its design - to its specialized purpose. This is why when we fight, we fight with robots, with automatons. Computers lay our guns and fire them. A tank does not need to grow the fuel it requires. It does not need to learn how to fight. It is programmed to fight!" He laughed, "it does not need to fuck!"

"But there is another lesson here - a most important lesson. You said 'EMP'," he pointed to the first cadet. "Electromagnetic Pulse. And you replied 'DEW' - Directed Energy Weapon. Here on the piste there is only one choice when facing a fencing robot - you fence! But step to the side," and he did so, the closer cadets moving away to give him room, "and you are not on the piste, are you? If you think of every encounter you have as an officer as a board game, as a contest, as a match to be won or lost, then eventually you will lose. Perhaps shortly, perhaps after many years. And perhaps something will be lost anyway, but to set everything as 'you' against 'them'?"

"Step outside the piste or do not take your place. Certainly some contests are unavoidable - some choices will be made for you! But where you can keep the choices you will make your own. As officers many of you will be, at some time or another, entrusted with great responsibility over the lives of others. When that time comes, do not fault your honor by simple thinking..."

[Sunset]

Director Vermir's Office, The Mount Kidni Observatory, Fer Gul Region, The Great Principality of Don A Lucc, The Planet Rins... Republic Date 182.213...

"Professor? Sir?"

The voice at his office door sounded urgent but that simply made him annoyed. He knew who it was of course - Killermi was the newest and most enthusiastic student to be assigned to the observatory to gain the credit required for their astronomy fellowship and he'd began his stint by immediately getting on Vermir's nerves. Enthusiasm seemed to be synonymous with need and the lad just couldn't get it through his smooth skull that there were budgets to be considered. Even if he was willing to camp out in the steps under a tarp for more time on the telescopes that just meant someone would have to stay more hours to clean up, the lights would have to stay on - there was a budget for a reason, thrice-dead gods be damned!

He considered ignoring him.

Not one look, not one glance up. Every eye focused on the paperwork spread out in front of him. Some of which was his assessment of the young man's work that would then be filed so his instructor could decide whether that credit was earned. Here he'd already decided to lie. Even if Killermi managed to burn down the whole damned building he'd lie through his filter and give him a review that was close enough to sterling that he was sure to pass review and out from under Vermir's scales.

"Director? Professor? Sir? I think you need to..."

"Need to what?!" Vermir exploded, lurching up from his chair to slap open fins on the desk and send papers flying. "What do you think is so important that I should give it any more consideration than a mountain gives to a man?!"

"There's a star missing."

"A star. Missing." The Director fixed him with exactly one eye out of five, "Did you clean the mirror? Check for animal droppings? Pull your head out of your thrice-dead depositor?!"

"Sir, I... It wasn't me. Finin found it... Well, he noticed it, Sir."

"Finin? Well, that's different. Bright young lad, Finin. Not the kind you'd find sleeping on the stoop in the morning." Vermir swept around the desk, tucking some stray papers back into place as he did. "A star is missing, he says? Let's have a look then..."

---

It was not a long look. After a minute staring at the impossible, Professor Vermir pulled himself away from the eyepiece of the observatory's largest telescope and rubbed his eye socket. Then - just to be sure - he looked again with the opposite eye. No, it was definitely missing. Aple - principle star in the Juic constellation and named for one of the lesser gods in a pantheon no one much cared about these days was missing.

Gone.

Just like that.

"Well," he stroked the other socket before eyeing the eyepiece suspiciously, trying to uncover some evidence that this was all part of some elaborate prank. But no - both Finin and Killermi were looking at him expectantly as though he might somehow - through superior age or wisdom - be able to restore Aple to its rightful place in the heavens. "When was it last observed?"

"An hour ago! That's what I'm trying to tell you," Finin said, his voice an excited bellow. "I was doing a luminosity survey and it was right there in that very eyepiece," he pointed. "Then... It wasn't! Vanished, right before my eyes!"

The Director clocked his head, wracking his brains for anything that would explain the event. 'A... No. What about... But also 'No'' "Alright, boy," he turned to Killermi. "Pull every record we have for Aple. Every record. We must be sure of these things! Astronomer Finin, I want you to go into town and call every observatory you can think of - officially - and get every record they have as well. Hurry!"

The trip was an unfortunate necessity. The copper wires and wooden poles that would need to be strung to bring phone service up to the mountain top were expensive and there were still some places in town that did not have the jangling bell yet. Perhaps in a few years the budget might be up to that expenditure but...

Finin was already headed for the door, snatching up his long hooded coat to throw it over his shoulders before heading out into the night. As the one who had watched it happen he would be headed for some measure of fame - plenty of newspaper headlines, perhaps even an alert on the radio, but now it was up to Vermir to confirm and to puzzle out what had happened...

The radio!

"Quick lad, the radio set!" he called out. Killermi had been trunk-deep in one of the storage cabinets when he'd called out and the rather explicit epitaph would have earned him a serious reprieve at any other time. But now was not the time for such trivial worries and neither was a bump on the head, "Quickly, go and turn it on!"

He didn't have to specify 'where' - when some clever fellow had invented the thing a few years back the government had immediately realized its potential and nationalized the whole thing. One set, one station, one broadcast. Official news and information from a mostly neutral Bureau of Radio as well as light entertainment in the form of recorded music and live readings of important pieces of literature. It tended to get boring quickly so the set mostly sat silent but...

"...multiple confirmed reports that the star 'Aple' in the constellation 'Juic' has vanished. At this very late hour;" late for everyone else, of course - the astronomers would just be getting to the high point of their working hours, "scientists at the National Observatory are working feverishly to discover the cause. The National Bureau of Radio will bring you more details when they are available but the Arch Preceptor has been informed and wishes it be known that there is no cause for panic or alarm..."

"So much for Finin's discovery. Someone else must have been looking at the right place at the right time. Still..." Vermir came to the easy decision, "We'll do what we can to help. Bring those records still," he called out to Killermi, who had lingered next to the set. "We'll collate everything and send it on. Do our part. Very strange..."

He bent to the eyepiece again, muttering under his breath," ...no stellar phenomenon that I'm aware of could cause a star to suddenly vanish. Eclipse? Only thing big enough is another star. Nova? We'd be watching Aple go up for months..."

But yet there it wasn't, as empty a patch of the sky as the next over. His eye drifted past where it had been to another, this one of even less significance than poor Aple. His eye focused on it and then he blinked as it too vanished and he stood up from the eyepiece with a start.

"My boy, I think we have cause for both panic and alarm...!"

[Sunset]

RDF-Ojeni, The Outskirts of the GEC-6000000 System, Inside the Beta Luminar Nebula, The Monoceros Ring... Just a Few Seconds Later...

"...unoccupied but by whom?" Captain Blaine asked, considering the throng of ships spread out like a glittering band of islands against the sea of the stars. "It might not be the system of your ancestor's birth but a lot of time has passed - that's a lot of time for things to happen in. You said we can't tap them directly - lasers, right? - but I've got an idea. Let's find out if that's true..."

"...sure?"

Leaving her place at the Tloqsi's shoulder, she headed to the main screen and stood at the far left, where the long chain of reconditioned asteroids trailed off into nothing, "Right here. The end of the chain. All of these things are essentially the same, right? They've got one of these laser communications and thrust arrays at both ends. So we'll play the part. Helm," she turned to the Lieutenant on duty, "put us at the end of that chain. You two," she pointed between Lieutenant Commander Ingersol and Ensign Tirass, "see if you can't figure out as much as possible of their comms protocols and work with the Eye on a way for us to try to become the last link on the chain. My hope and prayer is that their navigation protocols are entirely automated."

"We might just be able to hook in without making anyone suspicious," Thomas agreed, already working at his station. "We'll run an inference algorithm on those emitters and across as many samples as we can. Even if the actual data is encrypted, we might be able to..."

She let him run on as she crossed back to the half-circle of chairs that faced the screen, "Calindra, are we at any risk there? What's your take?"

"I don't think so," the Coatlicue answered after a moment of silent consideration. "If they are using solar cells for primary power, and based on what we're seeing from those lasers and their physical configuration, a few thousand of them would have to take a shot at us, all at once. One on one? They're like an airsoft rifle to us."

"What's an... Nevermind;" she could look it up later. "Still, keep a close eye on those few thousand closest to us. If there is someone or something still alive on those things, they might not want us poking around."

[Sunset]

---

'Learning From The Mistakes Of Others Will Cost Far Less Now Than Learning From Your Own Mistakes Later.'

~Unknown Quote in the Lobby of Defense Force Academy Two on Mars.

---

Inside the Nazi Base, The Vinson Massif, Antarctica, Earth, Sol System... The Research Site...

"Option One," Doctor Kraus held up a mitten'ed hand, indicating either his own preference or his preferred style of voting - it wasn't clear. "We utilize our collective talents, along with the instructions listed out in the Combined Services Field Survival Manual, to build a small fusion reactor to provide power to that spacecraft and fly it out of here."

That didn't look very likely and this was the exact thought shared between the two technicians as they glanced at each other. Past the small camp where the last of Fredrick's most distant ancestors yet known had been found kippered, the ceiling of the sea cave slowly tapered off until it merged with the ice underfoot. To get out the triangular craft out they'd have to blast their way through ice, rock, or the base above them. One way or the other it would be a lot of work that was not guaranteed to work.

"Or - Option Two - we can climb back up, walk aaaalll the way out, and call for a transport and some backup. Seems like a lot of work to me, but..."

"Option Two!" Three voices called out in unison, six hands raised to drive the point home. Kraus would be getting no help from any of them if he decided to stay.

The second technician pointed to the dead guy, still mostly encased in ice with only a small rime-covered portion having been carefully exposed for inspection by the cave's previous occupants, "Look - he's voting for Two as well. You should do what your parents tell you."

True, the frozen Kraus did look like he was voting - or making an awkward attempt to salute the Fuhrer. His last struggle had left him with one arm stretched upward towards the surface, eyes turned towards the ice that had cut off his last few breaths. The site had been carved out in a cylinder around him and there were gruesome places where the Nazis had simply cut through the frozen penguins, leaving ragged chunks of various sizes imbedded in the walls.

"You know, this was just about the one hundred percent dumbest place to land... Why here?" the same technician asked, echoing Kraus's own earlier thoughts. "I think your ancestors were idiots."

"I'm going to agree with you."

It wasn't a shocking admission, as evidenced by the lack of strong punctuation. He'd been considering their situation as well - between planning out how to build a Krasium-fueled fusion reactor - and the whole thing stank. On ice.

"Why here? There's some problems. First, they have to get that ship in here in the first place. This sea cave was probably carved out... A few million years ago. The ice has probably been here since. So they'd have to melt their way through the ice while flying their space ship around underwater. Not an unheard-of feat, but not usually something you plan for. Or they could have arrived directly in the cave. Faster-than-light jump. The city-ships use a type of drive that could do that, so why not this one? But then you're risking ending up stuck in the rock, or... All it takes is a little mistake. And again - why here?"

"To hide the ship?" Meri suggested, pinching her hands under her arm pits as she looked around. "It took a long time for anyone to find it."

"I suppose. But... You know, that's weird," the scientist turned and trotted up the steps that had been carved into the ice, squashing exposed bits of freezer-burned penguin under his boots before setting off across the mostly-flat surface. "Come on!"

In short order they had returned to the ship, but he'd already explained himself as they walked, "There's nothing there. It is a goddamned spaceship in the 1930's and there's nothing there. Perhaps the most important scientific find of the century and there's no apparatus, no tools, no cranes. Sure, the dead guy frozen in ice is interesting, but if you're the goddamned Nazis a fucking spaceship is your one-way ticket to world domination. Even without a power supply - which they cannibalized, admittedly - there's so many technologies they could have leveraged."

He stopped just past the edge of the rocky beach where the last tendrils of ice stretched towards the triangular craft and looked up at it, "There's some holes here. Large enough to fly a spaceship through, and a bigger one than this. So it wasn't Hitler that stood on that beach in Spain - it was 'me'. Why come back here in the first place?"

"Left his keys?"

Kraus snapped off a look that might have stunned the technician if he'd cared more than one iota, but then the look of sudden realization crossed his face, "Yes! Yes! You're probably right. There was something back here he needed. Quick," he turned around again and began to run across the ice, slipping only a half-dozen times in his haste.

Arriving nearly on his back, he pulled up to the edge of the icy dig, "Look! I thought they had to be after the body, but why? They already had the body. Clones. So," he descended the stairs again as quickly as he could, "Look! Whatever they were after had to be right here," he pointed to the spot where the ice had been carved away to expose the frozen corpses flight suit. "Something right there, something he was carrying. Perhaps something that the Kraus who'd made it out had lost? Or that the Nazi scientists had damaged?"

"The keys?" the technician again suggested.

"I... Maybe?"

It was another long trek across the ice and the four were clambering into the cockpit. At the center of the two forward seats was a console of some kind and right there, right in the middle, was an open socket just about the size of Kraus's thumb. Shining his light inside, he inspected it from all angles before exiting the craft yet again to circle the frozen pair still sitting at their campfire, "Do you see anything that looks like it would fit? Check their pockets..."

With some more encouragement, the technicians divided the pair up between them and went through every rag and scrap of their clothing before coming to a determination, "No, nothing."

"But yet they knew exactly where to look... Aha! The photographs!" A moment's consideration and Kraus produced hovering holograms of the ancient photographs they'd found in the files in the complex above, quickly homing in on one in particular. "Yes... Yes! Right there," he pointed to a rather morbid photo that showed 'him' stretched out on a table, still in his flight suit. "There - there's the key!"

It was an anonymous-looking dongle hanging to one side that had been clipped to a grommet in the pocket flap but it would have fit.

"Let's see..." his eyes swept over the accompanying documents. "Cylinder of unknown purpose and origin. No readily apparent use. No markings... Aha! There's a note," he read it aloud. "Object 18 was lost during transport. See Appendix 19. So, someone lost the keys to the ship. He comes back to look for the keys, can't find them, then dies. He should have looked under the couch."

"...or under the seat!" Meri called out brightly, appearing beside him with a sparkle in her eyes. "Those guys didn't have them because they lost them," she held a hand up, a useful-looking cylinder dangling from between her fingers. "They didn't have them because they stashed them under the seat!"

"Always the last place you look," Fredrick nodded. "Okay, so now we can turn it on but we don't have power. So... Guess we're hiking out."

One of the technicians shuffled uncomfortably, torn between staying here in the creepy darkness for even an hour further and heading back to the surface, icy and cold as it was. "You know... We probably don't need full power to access the ship's systems. Only if we were going to try to move it. As long as we can figure out the input, we can probably get enough juice out of one of the hand scanners. Or one of the energy clips for our guns..."