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

[Sunset]

GEC-2995C (Akahshi), The Periphery...

"I hate you guys so, so much..."

Timmons paused, a long trail of noodles, fried vegetables, and spices trapped between the sticks he expertly wielded, and slowly raised the mouthful to his lips to drop them in with one eye focused firmly on Trinya.

Or at least her head.

It was sitting up in one of the cabinets that lined the interior of the small Flare-Class shuttle with the life-sustaining black tube firmly clasped around the stump of her neck. She was awake now; The strong sedatives the Decap-a-Donut had administrated during the process of sawing her head off, clamping the various arteries and veins shut, and then hooking them up to the build-in life support system had worn off just in time for her to wake up to the splendid aromas of Pad Thai drifting through the cabin. It was Timmon's specialty dish and he prepared it on almost any special occasion or when he just needed to think.

"Then you shouldn't have gotten your butt infected by some weird alien metal-zombie virus," the big man stated as he dabbed at his lips with a napkin. A drink of water followed; Spicy wasn't the right word. The right word was Giankoshi, which was the Tjorengo word for 'Holy fuck, is that poisonous?!'

"Yeah, yeah, and now you're rubbing it in."

He nodded and another mouthful followed. Deania and Lae were eating as well with the Seeker gobbling her portion down and the Cyar following much more slowly. His particular biology didn't deal with spicy foods as well as hers and the side effects would be both heartburn as well as a particularly noxious after-effect that had been likened to the Academy practice of hot-boxing Cadets with a randomly selected crowd control agent during chemical warfare training. Now was his chance to really enjoy it since Trinya would be unable to kick him out of bed, the bedroom, or as had been the case in one incident, the entire ship.

Timmons claimed to be immune to it - or just too tough - and the Duab'Akii had a rubber-like strip that was specific to the job though it made her look like an olde timey bandit.

"Alright! I'm sorry, I screwed up. What are we going to do about getting my body back and figuring out what's going on?"

When she had woken up the Seeker had explained the goings on - Timmons wasn't talking to her and he had been making dinner anyway. Until Trinya had spoken up, they had all been enjoying their food in relative silence but now it was time to move on.

"I was just thinking about that," the Commander admitted. "You're not getting your body back, that's for sure. You'll have to get a new one cloned when we get back to Sslaa Six. If you keep your mouth shut, I won't encourage them to go for the budget model."

He drew a finger through the air and an essentially androgynous figure appeared, a hologram of what could have been a man or a woman with her head crudely pasted in place. The other two explorers snickered and she gasped, the microphone built into the donut clearly catching the horror in her voice, "You wouldn't..."

"No," he shook his head sadly, "I wouldn't. Pretty sure your insurance covers the full banana and even a banana," he gestured again and something that sort of looked like a banana sprouted on the figure, "If you want one."

Deania and Lae paused and then laughed aloud, Lae nearly chocking on his food as he snorted.

"So, so much..."

"Anyway!" He held up a hand, "Anyway! I'm thinking that might come sooner rather than later. Looking it over;" he'd recorded the entire encounter, as had Deania and the sensors on the shuttle, "I'm not exactly sure what we're dealing with, but I've got a couple ideas."

"Mmm," the Seeker broke in as he took another bite, "It could be a defense system that was still active in the wreck. Something nasty to catch boarders unawares. Or it could even be the remains of the crew. We didn't get much chance to look inside."

None at all, actually. When the metal-zombies had fled, Lae and Timmons had retreated to the aerial safety of the shuttle and it had then retreated to a safe distance where it could still observe the wreck but - at least by the known capabilities of the metal fungus' victims - be safe from attack. No further movement had been observed since then and they had settled down to plan out their course of dinner and of action.

"It could also be cargo of some kind. Possibly even the cause of the crash. Something like that gets loose inside the ship? It could explain why the ship came down mostly intact rather than as an impact crater. Whatever the source, I think we want to catch one of those things."

"Again with the Scooby Doo?" This time Deania was forced to explain the origins of her statement; A children's show from the Twentieth Century that featured a group of teenagers who went around solving mysteries that generally involved a complex trap set for a monster that would always end up being a malcontent wearing a rubber mask. "Tame, compared to today's cartoons."

Which featured full-frontal nudity, violence, and language that would shock a sailor.

"Not like that," Timmons shook his head, "No, we've got the tools at our disposal so we're gonna use them. They're trapped here, so I'm thinking we're just going to put down some surveillance gear, head back to Sslaa, and come back with a frigate full of Marines with power armor. The Ixutsangi should just be getting out of refit when we get back."

[Sunset]

The Executor's Office, N'Xypndiltn, E'Xypndiltn System...

"Look at this..."

Miranna looked up as Tradia walked across the wide command deck of the hovertank to her desk and tossed down a data table with a rattle. They had an official capital building now but, for the Executor on the go, the thirteen-hundred ton monster they had been loaned was a fantastic way to get from here to there in relative ease. With some upgrades of course; The hard military interior had been upgraded with local materials and now featured wooden floors, moldings, desks and counters with stone surfaces, and artwork both local and from across the galaxy.

"What's this?"

It looked like a lot of numbers and not a lot of names and frankly Miranna had had enough of the first to last a lifetime. Even with the invaluable assistance of Tradia, various Tonhi bureaucrats, and experts brought in from across Triumvirate space, turning a primitive planet into a thriving world felt like it was putting more lines on her face than onto the accounting ledgers. Things were looking good, yes, but how much of that was due to the rip-roaring Sunset economy running counter to her missteps...

Well, she didn't want to know.

Or guess.

"Senator Thong."

Miranna sighed and scrolled through, trying to figure out whatever Tradia had figured out. That whole business was aggravating and had added more wrinkles and maybe even a gray hair or two. There were enough problems trying to keep the Tonhi migrants from squabbling with the native Xypndi and vis versa without someone deciding to put a bullet in the Senator. A significant fraction of the Tonhi blamed the Xypndi for the assassination; The reasons varied, but they usually came down to 'They don't like us.' The Xypndi? They accused the Tonhi of the deed as a way to garner support for their refugee status.

All in all it was a messy situation and only some blunt-force diplomacy had kept them from each other's throats.

"I decided to come at it from a different direction," Tradia explained. "Most of the investigation has been following theory that it was an assassination based on the Senator's political leanings. But I followed the money."

"Tracking the source of the weapon?"

"No, not the money that paid to have her killed, but her money."

"Her money?"

"Not sure if you've been paying attention," the little Xypndi began to pace around the Executor's desk, "But she wasn't exactly living in squalor. So I did some digging, all the way back to the beginning, and she was picked up by a shuttle just like any other refugee with the clothes on her back and a couple bags. And they weren't filled with Tyrant Stones. Six months after her arrival? She's living in a manor out in the country, has a stable of servants, and she's been slowly," she stopped and pointed to one section of the document, "Slowly buying up the land around her estate and expanding her holdings."

Land was cheap, at least for the moment, and the amounts paid were not incredulous but they were more than what the Executor herself could reasonably afford.

"So where'd she get the money? Not from being a Senator..."

The position was paid but, since Senators only served part-time, the salary was part-time as well.

"Nope. And nowhere else either. She's unemployed and I asked around, did some math, and she's been out-stripping her income by about ten to one. So, she's pulling in some serious cash and I'm curious as to where it's coming from."

"Go on..."

"There had to be a reason why her piggy bank was getting filled and if we find out why, and who, maybe we find out why she sucked down a lead sandwich."

[Sunset]

The Physics Lab, University of Alton, Ju-Docri...

"Huh..."

Dr. Saryan Brilla stepped back from the virtual white board and crossed her arms - barely - across her exaggerated chest and considered the formula that were scrawled across and through it one last time. It was some complex stuff and the virtual-depiction of it was only made easier - but not easy - by the fact that the floating hologram made it possible to link the equations together in three dimensions. It looked funny, but when it came to math Saryan liked her formula to look like last night's spaghetti.

"If there was a little more Greek in me, I should be tearing off my clothes;" Which would have been interesting and enjoyable to the outside observer since the Doctor still had the pin-up body she'd acquired after an adventure on ePyrk, "And running up and down the halls yelling 'Eureka! Eureka!'. But since I'm not, and this is a four hundred DiCoin shirt..."

Not that there was a whole lot of it. Carefully tailored to fit her personal geometry, it was your standard white dress shirt except cropped to just under where many other women would have had a bra strap and with a deep 'V' neckline held together with buttons that looked like they were just about to give up their last thread - but weren't. The collar, cuffs, and placket (yes, that is the technical term for the strip where the button holes are) were all carefully detailed with stitching that called to mind her country roots and the buttons looked like miniature cowboy belt buckles. It wasn't exactly cutting-edge lab wear, but it went well with the too-skinny low riding jeans and the big belt buckle and ostrich skin cowboy boots.

With spiked heels.

"...I think I'll just have a swig of Jim Beam and wonder what the fuckity-fuck I'm going to do with it."

It, in this case, was something to do with gravity. With the discovery of an ancient civilization hiding behind a scattered network of artificial singularities - black holes - she had taken it upon herself to figure out just how the damned things worked and that meant figuring out a lot of new ways to manipulate and even create gravity. There were practical applications aplenty of course; Much of her work was being funneled through Special Projects to attempt to develop a Singularity Barrier that would protect a ship, a planet, or even a whole system from outside attack. Some of that had bled over into another project in the works, which was the CME being developed in the Yukon System in conjunction with the Akashan Science and Research Division. Two different projects, two different applications, but the formulas that she had just finished didn't seem to apply to either.

"Or a big ol' slice of apple pie. Yeah. Doused in rum."

Taking a sharp turn-around, Saryan headed out of the lab and down the hall towards the cafeteria. The campus could have been described as sprawling, given the number of students, buildings, divisions, and classes that it held but as the University was an arcology unto itself the actual answer was compact. It also had a goodly-sized animal husbandry course and her apartment was one of several hundred that looked out over the barnyard and the fields where the cattle roamed. This provided both practical experience for the students, a familiar and comfortable view for the Doctor, and a lovely smell for any student daring enough to open their window in the height of summer. Next door was an orchard where the fertilizer responsible for the smell was also responsible for the apples in the pie.

"One pie, please," she held up a finger as she approached the counter. "With ice cream and rum. Oh, and Eureka!"

"What new hell hath thou wrought?" The young man on duty had a flare for the dramatic and, judging by the coursework sprawled out behind the counter, a mid-term in Twentieth Century Literature. "What's cooking, Doc?"

"I'd ask you that question, but I smell steak. But too bad; I'm in the mood for pie."

"But what have you discovered?"

"That, Jimmy," she read off his name tag, "Is exactly the problem the pie is intended to solve. I know what it does, but what's it good for?"

"Well, you know the physics pecking order..."

"Sure," she tickled down the fingers, "Theoretical Physicists, Applied Physicists, Engineers. You're saying I should find an Applied Physicist and an Engineer and have a threesome? Done deal. Now, gimme my pie..."

[Sunset]

SDF-Niagara, The Tyzun System, Near Sessool Space...

"Well, that might have been a bust, Captain, but I've got an idea..."

Professor Collins, the very same researcher who had helped the Captain move into his new quarters, stood in the doorway and looked around. The spacious quarters were now distinctly the Troll's space with the last vestiges of their former owner swept away and (in a couple cases) burned.

"Looks nice. Comfy. But I've got a dinner date so it's straight to the point. Captain Taev came up with the idea of ray tracing to see where the various ships came from after adjusting for galactic rotation, right?"

"Sure..." Waretram looked up from his paperwork, interested in where the researcher's idea was going to lead. Or at least interested in not doing the paperwork. "In fact, we just back-traced the Tyzun System and it lines up as well, though the ship that would correspond is missing. Judging by the advanced state of their spaceflight capabilities, the popular theory is that they found it and took it apart. Quick boost before whatever happened happened."

That was still the big question; No bodies, no graves, no hibernation pods, no dehydrated remains in decorative vases. Every angle they'd tried to discover where a few billion people had disappeared to had come up blank. Which left the really weird theories as the only semi-viable ones remaining. With the Sessool so close the most popular was that they had been abducted en masse. Or that they were the Sessool.

"Well, this one takes us back a little further in both time and space. I'm thinking Panspermia here."

"Okay..."

"Well, we've got two distinct 'waves' of meta-Human species, right? And we're ignoring one of them in favor of the second 'seeded' wave. For the most part, their history is less than twenty thousand years and they broadly know they came to this new planet via an outside source. But then there are the evolved meta-Humans, including Homo Sapiens Sapiens. We evolved on Earth over millions of years and we know this because of an extensive fossil record. But there are other meta-Humans that have evolved as well in various places and these would seem to be the result of a more 'traditional' form of Panspermia. But... What if they weren't?"

"Why two waves then?" the Troll asked.

"I think that might be getting ahead of ourselves, though I'd love to come speculate after dinner. Or breakfast. But here's my thinking; If both waves originated from the same source but widely separate in time, maybe we should do the same ray-trace after adjusting for a few million years of galactic rotation and see how Earth and other planets where meta-Humans evolved line up. If it works out..."

"Follow it back to the middle," Waretram nodded. "See what's there, adjusted for a few million years."

"Yep. So, there's my idea. See you later..."

[Sunset]

Erika and Demi's House, Botany Bay, Chuh-Yu...

"Cold feet! Cold..." Demi gasped then paused, "Hey, your feet are never cold!"

It was one of the benefits of sleeping next to an artificial person; Erika's feet and hands were never cold and she wasn't a blanket hog either. As a technical matter, she didn't need to sleep but she normally joined her partner during the nighttime hours to both provide a sense of physical connection and an opportunity for intimacy. A pair of ice-cold feet on her legs weren't going to lead to anything romantic though and she pulled them up and away to curl the blankets around her naked body.

There was a playful tone in her wifes' voice as she responded; "Customer satisfaction survey," Erika whispered from behind her, one arm wrapped around while her - nicely warm - upper body stayed just a fraction of an inch away. "Was that cold, too cold, or damned cold?"

"Your feet are like fucking ice!"

"Damned cold. Would you say that the sensation added a sense of realism to our encounter? Or was it..."

"Uh uh!"

Demi flipped over to face her and while Erika was smiling, Demi couldn't help but be a little abrassive.

"Faking a cold, yes. A fart or a burp? Sure. But I like your warm feet! So no, no more cold feet! I like everything in bed to be nice and..." A pair of suddenly warmer feet were sliding along her shins to wrap around her ankles, "Yeah. That's a lot better."

"I'm sorry. I've got something else warm I could do to make up for it."

Erika slid forward and Demi could feel a sudden heat between their bodies.

"Mmm... No. You've got a special Senate election tomorrow and I have to prepare for my trip to Mangala;" An anniversary of some kind was being celebrated in the Martian nation and she would be the official representation. "Maybe if I get ready really, really quickly we can shoe Alex out of the house and make a mess in the living room."

"Mmm, promise?"

"No, but..."

Erika was already planning on cheating. The butler didn't need to sleep either and she could be quiet as a ninja. She'd raid the closet while they slept and while she was curled up around Demi, Erika would be making her own last-minute election preparations.

[Sunset]

The Physics Lab, University of Alton, Ju-Docri...

"The best way to describe it..."

Dr. Brilla waved her fork around as if the twirling motion might somehow allow her to condense several dense pages of formula, notes between the lines, and red error corrections down to a single sublime sentence before pausing, mouth open, and then closing it again. She'd failed to find either an applied physicist or an engineer and had instead settled on a chemist - applied - from the University Cosmetology Department.

Not cosmology.

Cosmetology.

She'd have to pick the woman's brain for makeup tips at some point, but for the time being the question was her eureka moment and just what exactly she was going to do with it.

"...how old are you, anyway? You look like yer fourteen!"

"Forty seven," the chemist answered, more than a trace of pride in her voice.

"Daayam. Well, I dunno if I can pull that off, but a little bit of blush and eye shadow isn't going to put this thing to any kind of practical use. Unless it's trying to sneak into the prom!"

"What does this formula do?" the scientist repeated.

"I guess the best way to put it is that it makes gravity more effective. Not stronger," Saryan corrected, in response to a questioning look. "Close to the same thing but not exactly the same thing."

"So, if someone were to build a device that does what this formula allows, it would... Make gravity..."

"Yeah, well, that's the trick, isn't it? Making it more effective just makes it seem like you're still falling forward or the girls are saggin' more. But this is more like doing more with less? Or being more precise? Basically, they were able to use this technique to shut off the effects of their gravity sheer - and we're talking a million g's here - just past their inside boundary. Normally to do something like that, you'd have to create a second set of generators pumping out the same million fuckin' g's and then... Yeah. Turtles all the way down."

"They?"

"Ancient civilization, may or may not be post-Singularity, lives inside black holes."

"Huh," the woman perked up at that. "Like, immortal post-Singularity?"

"Most of em are, yeah."

'Except the Dao,' a shadowy voice stated, its voice echoing and distant. 'They come into existence only after they realize their nature and then die within a single turn of the galactic disk...'

"The hell was that?!"

Saryan held up a hand to stop the chemist as she began to look into every corner of the nearly deserted cafeteria, "Don't bother, they just kinda do that. Jump in, say something cryptic, drink your booze, then they are gone."

"Sounds like my in-laws."

"Yeah, well," the fork plunged into the middle of the pie and she took a big bite, half-melted ice cream dripping down her chin, "I don't have any of those."

"What about... Some kind of military application?"

"Uh, I..." Saryan stopped; The woman had reached across the table and was now dabbing up the creamy liquid with a napkin. "Thanks. Maybe? I dunno. I guess you can always blow more stuff up."

[Sunset]

SDF-Ojeni, Delta Quadrant...

It was exploration - honest-to-god straight up exploration - but Captain Blaine just couldn't find it satisfying and neither, it seemed, did much of the crew.

A rocky planet sitting right at the inside edge of the Goldilocks Zone of one yellow giant held hundreds of small, isolated tangles of life in sheltered pockets while the second star of the binary pair did its hundred and fifty thousand year best to winnow the process of evolution forward. Each little valley or sheltering cliff was an opportunity to study and - very carefully - occasionally collect samples of early life that would not exist anywhere else in the galaxy or perhaps not even on that planet in a hundred years time. With all the possibilities, every researcher, scientist, and enthusiastic amateur had something to do and the labs and crew were always busy.

This hadn't stopped a vague sense of unease from settling down over things. The senior crew in particular knew what it was but there was little they could do about it; The intolerable situation of the Este'Ilwe nagged at them. Fortunately the supply of work to hold all of their attention was extensive and it was only Kami, whose duty it was to worry about such things, who had the unfortunate pleasure of enough time to dwell on the matter.

"We're already under a bit of stress as far as stores go," Commander Astau went on, "We've already gone through half of our monitoring stations and we've got requests for another half-dozen to be deployed."

Which would likely mean the Ojeni's next stop would be back in the Liu Xia System and the Defense Force outpost there. The ship carried several dozen of the garbage can sized units but the normal allocation per-planet was on the order of zero to one. An interesting species, a rare geologic site, or a vulnerable population but in most cases monitoring could be handled by the all-in-one surveillance and communication satellite that the Explorer had placed in orbit as a matter of routine.

"And that's going to keep the shuttles busy as well," Sloan added. "They are already over-hours ferrying research teams around. Fortunately we've got a couple who like hot-dogging through the canyons and scaring the pants off the science-types. I'd crack down on it, but they are all pulling double shifts and we need the hours. They'll just have to take their ginger."

"We're also running low on those RepliPets the science-types have fallen in love with," the Centaur added.

That was both understandable and unfortunate. The RepliPets were self-contained units that could take a scan of an animal - or anything mobile - and create a replica of it using a supply of specialty materials. They were extremely useful for close-range observation of native species in their own environment without the risk of contamination. Or, apparently, as much risk.

"Some of the bigger fauna keeps eating them, stepping on them, or whatnot."

"Have you talked to the Eye?"

"The Eye doesn't like it," he replied, just before the trio became a duo as Kami and Sloan continued down the corridor towards their own quarters while the Centaur turned off to his own destination. "Building something like the monitoring station out of spare parts can be done, but the RepliPets take some manufacturing capabilities he'd like to reserve for critical spares for the Ojeni."

Unlike smaller ships, the mid-range Explorer did have a respectable manufacturing unit that could turn raw materials into finished product but it was missing the supply chain to do this for more than what stock there was on hand. The RepliPet units suffered doubly from this; They required precision electronics and they were a very new item with the Ojeni among the first starships dispatched beyond the Periphery to carry any number for anything other than intelligence gathering purposes.

"We'll have to tell the lab coats to cut back on them, or make sure we get more back to recycle. I don't want to end up making a trip back to Liu Xia every week. That's just time wasted where we could be doing serious science," Kami commented just before their door whisked open.

And it would be more time for the crew to be distracted by concerns about something they couldn't do anything about.

[Sunset]

SDF-Dogana, GEC-2995C Orbit, The Periphery...

"Yeah, I don't think that's being rescued," Timmons said, his voice a slow drawl as he leaned against the bulkhead outside the Dogana's medical bay. "More like an in-person ass-chewing."

If he was honest, he was half-expecting one himself and it would certainly be Admiral Falk's place to give it. He'd been lax in keeping his people - his friends, yes, but he was ultimately their commanding officer - in line. The responsibility for Trinya's current predicament was her own, but he could have emphasized the Ensign in Ensign Falk and her duty as an officer before that of a lover and partner.

"...which might even help those two last out the month. Something to focus their attention."

The Dogana had been there when their shuttle had made orbit and headed for the little Halo-Class that had ferried the team to Akahshi. In fact, it had dropped out of warp almost on top of the Courier and while she hadn't been in the cockpit to see the name on the side as they'd sailed past, Trinya had fallen silent as soon as the presence of a Heavy Cruiser had been announced by the Seeker. Diverted to the newcomers main shuttle bay, she'd been taken to the medical bay and as soon as they'd arrived they were shoe'd out while the Admiral marched past.

'...irresponsible, reckless... childish!'

"She can't bust her down in rank," Timmons explained to the Seeker, who was the only other member of the team who remained outside, "But I'm not sure this is any better."

Lae had disappeared - gone into hiding - and with good reason. As both a subordinate and a son-in-law, the Admiral could make his life miserable in a number of creative ways. Timmons was fairly confident he knew better though; If the Admiral wanted to find him, she'd find him, and it was likely that she - not he - would be the main focus for her wrath. Trinya was the daughter of a Captain and now an Admiral and had been expected to make the same mark. Expectations that had seemed to have been realized when she'd made the Young Explorer program but were now being met with disappointment.

"She must have had a flag set on her daughter's file;" The Heavy Cruiser could have made it anywhere inside the Republic's Periphery inside a day, but as the Admiral's flagship, she would mostly be patrolling near whatever major facility the Admiral was assigned to. "Which, okay, I'd do the same if I had kids but I wouldn't want to be in those shoes."

'...Captain Blaine...'

"Ouch, she's pulling out the big guns," Deania grinned wryly. "She hasn't talked about Kami in a long while."

"Or to her, I think. Sure, she might be a couple years older but her best friend was already a Lieutenant at her age and bucking for a command chair," Timmons had paid attention; Captain Blaine's career was one of near-celebrity inside the Defense Force. "Which, Trinya likes exploring and I don't see her riding herd on a bridge crew, but she should be aiming for Lieutenant. Should have."

That kind of promotion would be harder to justify now. It was up to her superior - Timmons - but he was playing the question of rank and promotion very carefully due to the closeness of their company. If she hadn't been fucking around and gotten herself infested, this mission might have been it. Now she was looking at another six months to a year.

The door whisked open and Admiral Falk exited while behind her the pair could see the medical technicians taking her daughter's head and loading it into a bio-regen tank built into the back wall of the bay. She was like a ship under steam; Dignified and poised with her hands clasped behind her and the slowly-graying hair that reminded one of a full stack drifting back on the breeze and in uniform whites rather than the regular duty uniform. Stopping next to the Commander and Seeker, she turned to look at the wall which turned transparent so she could watch as the procedure began.

"Commander..."

"Ma'am."

The emphasis had very much been on his current and hopefully future rank, but now she proceeded with more of an icy touch in her voice, "I trust this is the last time I'll be hearing about something like this happening?"

"Yes, ma'am."

And she was gone, continuing down the corridor without another word. Another few seconds and Timmons let out a long breath, "Whew, I..."

"Thought it would be worse?"

"I did, but," something had popped up on his augmented reality and he paused to read it. "But there's my punishment. She just dropped a Marine Sub-Division on the site. Clear and present danger. At this point all we can do is just look over their shoulders."

[Sunset]

Senator Thong's Estate Sale, N'Xypndiltn, E'Xypndiltn System...

Tradia's fingers went from plate to plate as she paused at the long dining table. It was low in the fashion of the Tonhi, where kneeling pillows substituted for chairs, and was just about at the right height for a Xypndi to sit cross-legged. That had been one of the things that had served to pull the early refugee community together with the natives; Having a meal together wasn't a very difficult chore to arrange or execute. The same was true now and a good crowd of both were slowly working their way through the late Senator's mortal possessions.

Mostly there for curiosity's sake, the Adjutant was also there to snoop. Perhaps one of the late Senator's valuables might give her some kind of clue as to who killed her and there was the possibility that whoever had assassinated the Senator would show up though this was a long-shot worthy of any sniper. More likely was that other interested parties would show themselves and this was already evident; In one corner of the room a group of Tonhi were lurking as they looked over the crowd and more plainly the merchandise. She didn't recognize them but they had the shifty bearing of people who were up to no good. They were talking among themselves, lips barely moving, and they carefully kept their hands in their pockets or at their sides as if they were used to some scrutiny.

Picking up one of the plates, she turned it over to examine the back. There were - or had been - several matched sets carefully laid out on the table but one had been bought straight away and the others were of both inferior and vastly superior quality. A small card placed inside the serving bowl listed the better set at nearly twenty thousand DiCoins. Knowing what she did about the rest of the Sunset economy, it wasn't a vast sum but it was on the frontier. That same amount might buy a home or a small business and looking around the room she had seen nearly a dozen items priced similarly. For a woman who was fresh off the boat, the Senator had done rather well for herself.

Or had she?

Someone had killed her, and had her opulent lifestyle been the reason?

A commotion near the door drew her attention and she looked over to see a trio of Tonhi - a man, woman, and a surly looking teenager - pushing their way through the crowd. Several people, potential purchases in hand, were in their way and instead of going through them they spread their arms to block them all. Behind them was the estate agent who had been appointed to dispose of the Senator's possessions and pay off her debts and she had a worried look on her face.

"Put it down, put it all back!" the woman, who was standing to one side while her large (presumably) husband stood in the middle. "It's all mine and you can get your grubby hands off it!"

"That's right! Grandma Thong left all of this to us in her Will!"

Reaching into her robe, the woman pulled out a scroll that was bound with silk ribbon and uncurled it. The Tonhi in the room seemed to recognize it and most stopped what they were doing while one stepped forward to read it as the woman held it high.

"I..." The estate agent stumbled, clearly not expecting this, "They just showed up! I'm sorry, but until we get all of this sorted out, I'll need everyone to return everything!"

"It looks legal," the person who had stepped in to read the scroll announced as he turned to face the crowd.

Tradia's eyes narrowed though; He was one of the rough-looking men who had been lurking in the corner the whole time. A couple others had come forward and were trying to read as well but he stood between them and used his size to keep them back.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sure we'll get this cleared up in no time!"

[Sunset]

Special Projects Facility, Denali, The Yukon System...

"Not very impressive, is it?"

It was as much statement as question but Dr. Kraus looked at Director Tibowski quizzically for a moment before answering anyway. Both men were standing at the back of the control center in what was now an even smaller room that had been built by the test team with the express purpose of keeping Dr. Kraus out and their equipment intact. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me; Several other 'intrusive tests' had developed the viewing room from a simple set of transparent blast panels to a full floor-to-ceiling containment system. The traces of one console could still be observed bonded forever to one of the walls and a radiation shadow next to it had left one engineer with a nasty sunburn.

"It's only a low-power test. Full power? This baby can cook a planet like a poached egg."

"Oh. I couldn't tell."

It was, in fact, hard for either of them to see exactly what was going on inside the command center. The images on the monitors mounted along the back wall were crisp and lifelike unless one was viewing them through an inch of heat-distorted super plastic. Kraus only knew the specifics because he had hacked into the control system in order to determine the schedule for the next test. That wouldn't let him do anything destructive, of course, since the engineers followed the information security prime mantra - If It's Important (Capital I), Do Not Connect It to the Internet. But it had told him when to show up and as such things often happen, Director Tibowski had seen him heading towards the test area and had joined him with the presumed notion of heading off any shenanigans.

"Yep. Just think back to the Twenty First Century when we were wrecking the Earth. No fusion power, all those hydrocarbons... Raised the average temperature by nearly three Celsius and nearly killed off everything before widespread fusion power put a stop to it. Dodged a bullet then. Well," he looked back to the monitors, "No dodging this one. No way, no how. Like taking a Class-X solar flare every second. Dodge it? I don't think so, not unless you can move your whole planet. Block it? Big stream of coronal plasma a hundred kilometers across. What are you gonna do? Invest in suntan lotion, that's what you're gonna do."

It was a super-weapon, after all.

Beyond the glass, they could hear the test team going about their work. The sound was muffled and muted but then the noise changed and Kraus perked up.

"Right on time," he said, walking over to the door that connected their small room to the next. "Right on time..."

A form could be seen rushing towards them, the exact details blotted out by the glass, but ever so casually the Doctor picked up a chair that had been left there for the convenience of observers and hooked it around the door handle, effectively locking them out. Or in. The smoke that was now rising past the lower edge of the glass indicated it was a good idea to be out rather than in.

"Bribed one of the cleaning crew to leave a package in there," he explained. "With sex."

A couple hip thrusts for emphasis and he stepped back to watch with satisfaction as the engineering team piled up against the walls, frantically beating on them as the smoke and more importantly the smell overwhelmed them.

[Sunset]

The Slave Market, Lethon, The Fringe...

"Ever since Captain Sasura fetched such a handsome sum at the post," Jero referenced the wooden pillar capped with a wrought iron ring that was the center of the slave market, "Greycock and his crew have come sniffing around every few days. I would call him dangerously obsessed," the Reptilian's words were languid and slow, "But he has not assailed my establishment or my merchandise. Spies, however..."

Extending a long finger, he pointed out through the window of his sprawling shop to the street and to the corner of yet a different sand-colored building where two rough-looking sailors lurked. Both were dressed in something of a cross between the stereotypical pirate garb - bandannas tied over their hair and sashes at their waist or a particularly large pair of floppy boots - and the more typical clothing of mercenary spacers. One was studying his feet but the other was looking back at the shop through heavily lidded eyes.

"One or two, always keeping an eye on the place. Likely enough they have already told Graycock that I have familiar visitors, assuming that he is in town."

"He is," Ivy supplied. "We passed over his lander when we hit the port. I don't know if he's here himself, but someone is."

"Well then, you now know your answer," Heron grinned, showing a double-row of serrated teeth and a serpentine tongue that flicked from side to side, "But I think that's not the only question you have, is it?"

Gold clinked and he extended his hand, the long talons rattling past each other as the chains that linked the heavy rings on each finger clattering together. His palm was open and his meaning clear but Ivy hesitated a moment before opening one of the pouches concealed under the lapels of her jumpsuit and pulling out a credit stick.

"Are you sure this is something you want to get wrapped up in? He sent people to Sessool to kill us and you're right in his backyard."

"Sessool?!" The Reptilian's eyes narrowed and the talons flinched shut into a clenched fist. "I have not heard that name in many years and I would thank you to not speak it in here again. But," he drifted, walking over to the window and looking out, his hand on the decorative lattice that allowed the breeze to flow through, "But I have to ask you. Will this harm them?"

"Who?"

"Them," he said again, dark meaning in his voice. Still facing the window, his hand went inside of his flowing silken robe and pressed at something beneath before he turned to face them. With the other, he pulled back the shoulder of the garment to allow the intricately detailed fabric to pile up on the tile before moving the hand aside. "They did this to me; A thousand years ago, they did this."

"A thousand?"

Meli was about to ask more but Ivy stopped her and stepped closer. Under his hand was a scar but it was no clean line but rather a deep tear that showed bone at the bottom and the thin strands of ligament and cartilage of the joint. An ugly mass of scar tissue circled the pit and the sparse flow of weeping fluid showed where it had torn open.

"Yes, my dear Dwarf, a thousand. My species is especially long-lived but slow to reproduce. Even slower when those monsters have decimated your species and taken many of your females to bear their own children."

Meli looked at Ivy but said nothing. She knew better; Unless Jero Heron was himself a Sessool interbreeding would be impossible but eating? She had seen the horrors of the Palace first hand. For the cannibalistic Servants, the near-relative Reptilian might make a delicious treat.

"If you had told me that your... Mission?" he guessed, "Your mission involved them, I would have given you more than my assistance here. I have friends scattered all over the Eastern Rim who would love to watch the Sessool burn..." The anger in his voice at even the name crossing his tongue was a fire in his eyes. "Yes, they did this. I was brought before one of them..."

"Wait, one of them? Not one of the Servants, but the Masters?"

"Yes, one of the Robed Masters. In those days they did not hide themselves but instead walked their Palaces openly. I was brought before the Master of the Palace and he offered me a dread bargain. Betray my people, live in splendor, sacrifice my children at their feet. He did not offer an alternative but when I refused," he pressed his hand to the shoulder and a fresh flow of bloody fluid bubbled between the fingers, "He fixed me with his dark gaze and burned his displeasure into my flesh."

"A weapon?" Again Meli asked but he shook his head; "No, as I said. The gaze of a Master is a terrible force in itself. Beneath their dark cowl their eyes burn with green fire and if they chose it can devour the flesh to leave one with a scar that will, it seems, last a thousand years."

"So no staring contests."

"Hmph. Do not make light of it. Your murderous rampages have been the story of much amusement but I think there is little that even you could do when faced with such an opponent," he declared. "They say they cannot die except by the hand of one of their own and this - this I believe. But that does not mean they are immune to suffering, from pain, and I would see them caused both! How does Graycock tie into this, and how may I help you hurt them?"

"That's the question," Ivy explained. "We were attacked by what we think were Graycock's thugs when we were docked at a shadow port just outside Ses... Their space. She killed them all, but we think they were either Graycock's crew or bounty hunters he sent after Captain Sasura. That's why we're here. If we can confirm that he was involved..."

"Ah, then you will know how far the fingers of the Sessool extend?" It was a guess and neither woman answered but he continued, "I can tell you that they do not extend here or else I would have cut them off personally. But they are close enough for the spark to jump the gap. Graycock or one of his crew likely heard of the re-appearance of Captain Sasura - a tidbit that reached my own ears not two weeks ago - and embarked on his quest for revenge. Now, if I might ask, where is Captain Sasura?"

"She's safe..." Ivy turned to follow Jero's gaze, which had drifted over her shoulder to the street outside.

Her unspoken 'Why?' was already answered; At the head of a mob of sailors and crew was the Captain himself. He swaggered as he walked down the street and straight towards the shop with the crowd parting before him and the open display of arms that accompanied him.

"Meli, I think," Ivy turned to look at her partner but the Dwarf was gone.

[Sunset]

The Slave Market, Lethon, The Fringe...

"And now we find ourselves standing before the establishment of Jero Heron, noted throughout the Quadrant for his fine and unusual merchandise. A being of no little repute but, I think, a man not interested in talking to me? Or am I incorrect in this matter?"

Captain Graycock stood just beyond the wide from doors of the shop with the tight cluster of his gathered pirate band behind him and two guards on either side of the door - both hulking and heavyset females of indeterminate species - the only bar to his passage. His thumbs were in his belt and as he talked he swagged back and forth to the cheers of his crew while the crowd on the street maintained a respectable distance.

"So what say you, Jero? May I enter and talk with you about the mysterious reappearance of Sasura, former Captain and captive in your very cage? Or perhaps with the two lovely ladies who seem to have made your acquaintance? One must wonder if they have anything to do with the matter..."

"What those who purchase my wares do with them," Jero appeared in the entrance, framed by it and the two enormous guards that made the tall, thin figure seem petite, "Is none of my business and you, Captain, ought to be well aware of that. Discretion is the watchword of Jero Heron."

"A well-stated point, but Captain Sasura is infamous and worth - by the amount you yourself paid - many millions and to whom? Who would acquire such a prize only to release her and allow her to run wild? Such a prize should be kept close, should it not?"

"I will not speculate..."

"Because you know?" the pirate accused, but Jero was already retreating back into the shadows. "I will have an answer, Jero, and I will have it now!"

"Running wild, Captain Graycock?" A voice called out from one of the buildings ringing the small courtyard and the Pirate Lord turned to stare. His movement attracted others and in a moment all were looking up at the high balcony where the infamous Sasura stood, one foot up on the rail and her arms crossed on her knee as she leaned over to look down on the crowd below. "Or perhaps escaped, just as claimed, from the fools who thought they could tame Sasura!"

"Get her!" he roared, yanking his sword free and pointing it at the grinning spectre above the street. "The one who brings her to me shall have his own ship and crew!"

All around him weapons were pulled free and even a few hasty shots scorched skyward until the first few charged for the door. The greater mass soon joined them and even a few from the streets followed as the building's occupancy swelled precipitously. High above, Sasura's grin grew to a smile and she turned to whip her sword free and run into the building, intent on the battle to come and leaving Graycock standing alone in the square with his sword still held out in a dramatic pose.

"She's a flashy one, isn't she?" Another voice, this time much quieter, tickled his ear and he turned to find another woman standing there. Dark skinned and wearing a form-fitting jumpsuit, she looked at him from behind green sunglasses with an expression that was almost lazy. "They'll try, but I don't think they'll manage it."

"Who are you?"

"Ivy," she put out her hand and he looked down at it. "And she..."

There was a hiss, a look of confusion, and his face went slack as she rolled her hand over to reveal the odd metal cylinder that had been concealed in her palm.

"...is a little pissed off."

The pirate sagged forward into her arms and she tossed him over a shoulder with a casual grace. A second later and a loud crash announced the sudden departure of a man, arms flailing, from the uppermost story of the building across the street as he was propelled bodily through a thick-looking wall.

"Now, let's have some fun but," her words were punctuated by a scream, another scream, and then the distinctive sound of a woman's spine being pulled out of her body through her pelvis, "Not that much fun."

[Sunset]

Special Projects Development Laboratory, Landor City, Terra Incognito...

"We're calling it GhostDragon-X," the designer explained as he went on to detail the new functionality. "We've added a bunch of new integrated weapon systems, improved the armor, and done a mechanical revamp. The II and Augmented Reality systems have been updated as well, and we've done a very interesting integration with the NEENJA system."

NEENJA (Noninvasive Encephalonic Enhancement Joint Architecture) was the system whereby an individual could 'transfer' their consciousness to a high-functioning fully electronic system to allow for both direct and intensely augmented control of that system. Sensors felt like senses, weapons like hands, and damage just as real as taking a gunshot. But it wasn't real either; While the Solonics had managed to perfect an actual consciousness transfer from a biological body to an electronic one, NEENJA was absolutely a copy process. What made it feel 'real' was that, barring catastrophic destruction of the system, the memories and experiences gained during the time in the target system could be copied back to the individual and were then treated as real. It was, for most everyone who used it, a very odd experience whereby they could watch 'themselves' in action and then have the two threads of reality merged.

It was, except for a few examples, a distinctly military system. Even where it was in use - Starship Command Crews, Marines, Hostile Environment Exploration - it was used sparingly so as to avoid possible side effects.

"What we've done is a full compatibility rewrite. There were a bunch of spagetti modules that allowed the various species to use the system but it wasn't as elegant or intuitive as it could be. Now it is; No matter what species you are, if we've encountered you, you're in the main module. As long as you have a hard-line DNI we can do a slow-copy or, if you're really plugged in with a NEENJA implant, fast-copy is only a couple seconds and most of that is system boot time."

"Even the Esti'Ilwe?"

The designer, a slightly portly Ojeni man with a blue complexion that just about matched the glorious summer sky just outside the window looked at Katryna through narrowed eyes, "The who?"

"Ha! You know know this one too," her tone was mocking and he sighed; "Alright, who're the Esti'Ilwe?"

"A fresh contact species out in Delta..."

"...oh. Asshole."

"...SDF-Ojeni made contact a couple weeks ago. Avian species," Katryna gestured, a twist of her hand, and a hologram appeared between them. "See? Guess you've got some work to do."

He grumbled and with his own motion pulled up the specifications for the revised software and began to scroll through, "Or not! Looks like the speciesization team already got them."

"Point in your favor then. What else do you have?"

Now it was time to turn to the full size and far more solid demonstration model sitting - or rather standing - in the middle of the lab. For someone unfamiliar it might look like the other GhostDragon units that were standing, laying, or disassembled around the workspace but there were subtle differences. The armor around the legs and arms was thicker with visible ports half-concealed behind cowlings and there were a number of interface ports as well.Additional drive pods were integrated into the shoulder pauldron and just below the knee and these gave it a somewhat-lumpy appearance.

"Retractable blades on the toe;" These ran out and locked into position, though blade was something of a misnomer. They were spikes with a shape that suggested a blade; Modern armor would take more than a simple slash to penetrate and a spike concentrated the most force on the smallest location. "Heel, forearm, elbow, and knee. They are completely reactive so if you are moving your body in that manner, they deploy. These are micro-missile launch tubes," he directed her attention to a bench model of the lower thigh. "On-call missile system networked to squad mates and to the larger launchers on the Tsunami, Typhoon, and Tempest. With a NEENJA-boosted Marine and the II fire controller turned to automatic, they can engage a target with appropriate firepower up to and including Naval assets."

Tsunami was the designation for the Marine's new Armored Fighting Vehicle while the Typhoon was its gigantic cousin; Thirteen hundred tons of 'Fuck Off' mounted on a gravy platform and wrapped in armor. Tempest was even newer; A full Starship that would act as the deployment element for Marine expeditionary forces. It could carry a full Division into combat and deploy all of it while functioning as both heavy fire support platform, supply base, and command-and-control.

"Networking is important here, and it's one of the interesting additions we've made to NEENJA. Instead of being isolated to a distinct system, we've come up with a way to burst-transmit the engram to other units or just selected parts. Which means that even if 'you' failed to take your objective, the why and how can be sent back to give literal memory of how to succeed to other units."

"Cool."

"Very cool. Also a bit weird. A lot weird, really. We've been experimenting with the idea of an 'additive' intelligence. A combat gestalt if you will, where all of the experiences and information gathered by forward units is sent back in near-real time to the next unit, and the next, to form a larger cohesion. But to accommodate the vast amount of incoming information, we have to fit an II Core that has a time-to-sentience counter in the point-oh-oh-nine range;" Most of these self-learning and evolving cores had a TTS counter of ten to twenty thousand, which was the number of seconds that it took for the Core to achieve sentience on average. "And enough interconnects that we're looking at a localized Singularity event as a distinct possibility."

[Sunset]

University of Alton, Ju-Docri, The Military Technology Wing...

"I gotta admit, I didn't even know there was a military technology wing," Saryan said as she looked around the complex.

Complex was the right word for it. She'd been aboard a couple of the Defense Force's starships and this place looked nothing like them. In fact, it felt like a parody of a military installation; There was not a gentle curve to be found and it seemed as though every other surface was made of metal floor decking. Bulkheads were everywhere even though it was clearly unnecessary since the complex had lain concealed under a boring looking fraternity house with a long name that didn't mean anything in Greek.

"That's the way it's supposed to be, Ma'am."

It was also all 'Sir' or 'Ma'am' with a dress code of military fatigues in a dark gray camouflage pattern that blended in to the black-gray of the complex. Practically the only time she could pick anyone out was when they were near one of the green holographic displays that seemed to be regulation and the only thing that could be considered decoration. Even that was a stretch since interface design had long ago moved away from thin lines and sharp cornered boxes with nothing but machine text.

"What do you have to show us, Ma'am?" one of the other... Officers? Saryan decided they had to have some kind of rank structure though none were wearing the silver and gold stars and chevrons she recognized... asked. "Dean Hamershim said it was a matter of some gravity."

"Well, yeah. It's a matter of gravity." The Ju-Docri - most of the student body were from the local native species and it was no different here - gave her a questioning look and she hastily continued, "I mean, we're actually talking about gravity here. Lemme show you on the good old rubber sheet."

It was a classic demonstration of how gravity worked. It wasn't completely correct but it was close enough and so with a couple seconds thought she produced a hologram - in much higher resolution than the seemingly-standard displays - of a pink sheet of rubber. Then it faded away to a grid of green lines.

"Hey, uh, is that normal?" She poked at it, producing the requisite divot.

"Regulations, Ma'am."

"Right. So, uh, yeah. The ol' rubber sheet. Gravity, as we know, works like this," she poked at the sheet with a finger, pressing further and further down until there was a very steep hill. "The denser or more massive the object, the more gravity. We use this in all kinds of ways, right?"

The two officers nodded.

"Uh, yeah, so what I've figured out is how these aliens can do this instead." The formula appeared around the sheet - a representation of the changes she'd made to the code that generated the sheet - and she pressed the finger down again. This time the hole strictly followed the outline of her finger with no stretching or bending. "So what they've done is make it so that the effects of an artificial source of gravity just stop after a certain point. This allows them to do all kinds of interesting stuff like make an artificial singularity that is bubble-thin but still enormously powerful. It takes a lot of power to pull off and I'm not exactly sure how we can use it but someone said it can always be used to blow things up."

"Which is what we do, Ma'am," the first officer looked at the second, who nodded. "There are any number of military applications, given the number of ways we use artificial gravity sources."

"Artificial gravity on starships, gravetic drives, warheads..." The second began to list off a wide range of technologies. "We'll pass this along to the egg-heads and have them apply it to current designs. See if lightning strikes. Thank you, Ma'am."

"...and I'll just go back to my lab;" Where it was very much less weird.

[Sunset]

SDF-Dogana, Maintenance Bay Sixteen, Akahshi Orbit...

As a warship, the Dogana was sparsely equipped for the task of determining just what was happening on the planet below and thus the facilities were an impromptu assortment of rapidly repurposed cargo bays, vacant crew quarters, and maintenance areas. To Commander Timmons, who had begun his service as a Marine, it was a bit like coming home. The sights and smells were much the same; Weapons in long racks, lubricants, and the sweat-analogs of a dozen species. Displaced from his command of the mission, he was now happy to be able to observe and add his expertise rather than end up banished to some dusty quarters.

"They," the Marine Lieutenant who was now taking on the role of research head, "Look to be from four separate civilizations, at least initially. We've tracked bits and pieces of their gear back and found Mangalan, Scolopendran, and Valinon identifiers along with our own. All of them appear to be civilian in origin."

Holograms of four different individuals, each distinguished by the wounds that killed them, appeared in a line with smaller images next to each indicating other individuals with the same origin. Circles flashed to surround different points on each - from gear to uniform patches - that served as a fingerprint as to their national affiliation. All were clearly infested with large patches of the metallic substance spreading over large portions of their body.

"Pretty standard mix for this area," Admiral Falk confirmed.

All four operated a lot of shipping through the corridor between Sakkran and Sunset space and the jungle moon would have made a tempting stop-over. None of the infested crew had been recovered; Once they had landed, the Marines had surrounded and contained the ship and the immediate area. There had been no obvious movement around the crash but drones and other small assets had penetrated the wreck and sent back the video and other sensor feeds which were still playing on displays mounted on the back wall. While the outside of the crashed spacecraft was quiet the inside was an altogether different matter; Seventeen of the zombie-like infested had been discovered and this had led to another interesting fact that Timmons was about to uncover.

"They're all Human," he said, leaning back against a workbench that was cluttered with coffee cups, tools, and equipment. "Every one of them. What are the odds?"

"Do we know what ships they were from?" Falk asked, looking to the Lieutenant. "Valinon, yes - not a lot of non-Humans there. Mangala and Scolopendra, not so much, but one of our merchantmen?"

Even with a high percentage - almost fifty percent - of meta-Humans in the Republic most ships had at least one non-Human aboard and the odds that all of the infested would be Human - and strictly Human at that - were slim.

"Mmm, a couple results back on that already;" More holograms appeared, this time of various vessels along with their registries and known crew complements appeared. "Mostly tramp freighters, a couple corporate, but no drones."

Drone freighters wouldn't stop anyway; Even if they carried a crew - typically two or three to perform basic maintenance - they strictly followed a pre-programmed route and were almost invariably unable to make planetfall either on their own or with their non-existent sub-craft or shuttles. But the crews of tramp freighters, where schedules were less strict and landing craft more common, would have considered the lonely moon an ideal place for a little goofing off. They were also unlikely to report the loss of a crewman to any official source as that would drive up their insurance rates. The moon would be avoided and the tale would be told in whatever watering hole they found themselves in next as a warning to their fellow spacers.

"Plenty of non-Humans though," Timmons pointed out. "So maybe it likes us, or we're just unlucky but..."

Wandering over to the row of hanging displays where the various feeds were still playing out, he studied them closely in turn. Some were from very low on the deck - IntelRats had been the first to penetrate the hull - while a couple were from the small black drone spheres that zipped from place to place as something drew their operator's interest.

"Admiral," a voice behind him drew Falk's attention and she turned away while he continued to hunt for whatever hunch he had, but he dimly overheard the Lieutenant continue; "We've got a match on the script, and you're not going to believe this. SDF-Niagara sent Fleet a sample just a couple days ago and it's from the Tyzun System. Which is;" Now Timmons turned to look as the galaxy, along with markers indicating their present position and the remote Tyzun System, appeared in the middle of the room. "Nearly thirty-two thousand lightyears away on the Eastern Rim. Near Sessool Space."

More images, culled from the Niagara's report, populated the air around the galactic disk and the connection was now obvious. The crashed ship matched angle-for-angle one of the larger ships that had been found adrift in that distant system.

"And check this out," the same crewman went on, "The Niagara was in the system looking for Human-related species. Their report states that the civilization in the system was wiped out by a nearby super-nova approximately forty years ago."

"Check the dates on those ships," Timmons instructed, pointing to the holograms of the ships that had lost crew, "When did they pass through the area?"

The Lieutenant paused to tap at his console and another appeared at his free hand for a moment while he entered information from the first, "Twenty-seven years ago. But that ship worked the passage until she was scrapped five years ago."

"Thirty-two thousand in thirteen years. More than doable;" It would take a ship like the Halo-Class that was running astern of the Dogana only twenty days to cross the same distance if it was running flat-out. "So we know where it came from but not why."

"I'd say they were running from that super-nova," Admiral Falk suggested. "I would. But no sign of any crew."

There hadn't been any bones, any clothing, or any meals left out on the counter either. The interior of the ship was essentially pristine except where outside weather and nature itself had intruded.

"And that's what's weird about the Niagara's report;" They all turned back to the crewman who was still going over the logs, "They report the same thing. The scavengers working the system haven't found any sign of inhabitants. Just abandoned ships and empty cities."

"A ghost ship from a ghost civilization..."

[Sunset]

Thousand Voices, Ares Local Cluster...

Claire whistled as she puttered around in the odd little old greenhouse. She didn't really know what; The tune was something familiar though, something just at the edge of her memory, but she didn't focus on it but instead on the plants as she moved them from place to place.

'Heewww, deeww to ti hewww, dew ti hew do ti do, hewwww...'

It had always been one of her favorite places to explore when she'd visited her Aunt's house and now that the old woman was gone, there was just a special something about wandering the strange building again. Half-buried in the earth, it looked like a dome with a pair of long teeth on one side or, as her Aunt had insisted, a pair of gardening shears to remind her to trim the azaleas in the spring. Whatever it looked like from above; From below it looked like a green oasis with both the flowers she had grown there in their pots and the winding vines that clung to the metal skeleton dappling the ground beneath in shade ranging from open and airy in the center to a single dark, ominous corner that she had feared during her younger days.

One by one, she moved the plants around as she had been instructed all those years ago. Some required more light, some less, and some would need to be re-potted soon or new starts planted as the old withered away. In the middle of the greenhouse was a small bench and a table where she could work and as she did, she looked around and some of the things she had never considered as a child took on a new light.

Beside her was a pile of panels; Long triangles, they would have made a roof over her head to shelter the plants during the rain or the hottest sun. It was odd that her Aunt had never lifted them up, put them into place, but there they sat up on blocks to keep them off the dirt. A tangle of grass had grown up around them, pale and stringy, never quite getting enough light or nutrition to flourish. There were more bits and pieces scattered around as well and she realized now that what she had always thought of as her Aunt's prized retreat from the worries and cares of life had always remained unfinished.

Was that a lesson she should learn? That to finish something so precious might make it somehow less important? A finished project to put in the back of the closet to never touch again? Or was it her duty to finish what her Aunt had started and perhaps that she had left it unfinished on purpose? To bridge the gap between generations as she started the thing and Claire finished it? She could already see herself, see herself as she took the flower out of the pot that had grown too small, see herself lifting one of those panels into place with arms that had grown strong in the many years since fingers too young to close the shears had been helped as they'd trimmed a new start together.

Or perhaps the lesson was to simply indulge in the memories they had shared; The memories that were now all that remained of the two together.

Claire turned and looked up at the sun through the green overhead and she kicked at the dirt under her toe while the plant went untended behind her and again she whistled. Was it something her Aunt had done? A tune she had played to remind her of other times? Back and forth her foot swung as she idled those minutes away, back and forth it swung as it dug a slow hole in the dirt until it caught on something and she looked down. Down there past her skirt, past the rich brown soil and the old shoes, there was something under the dirt. Without knowing why, she kept at it until she was certain there was something else entirely under there, buried under the dirt and soil of the greenhouse.

[Sunset]

The Olde Ambrose Homestead, Southern Anuke...

Miss Seventeen bent to study the rats that had gathered at the edge of their cage, their tiny paws scratching at the glass as she watched, and the movement unconsciously emphasizing her rounded backside. Even under the short lab coat - a distinct change from her unfortunate predecessor - the shape was pleasing to the eye. That was more than enough for the Doctor, who stood back from the line of cages ostensibly observing them while keeping a sharp eye on his new assistant. She in turn was moving from cage to cage, jotting down notes on the ever-present clipboard with a stylus that she tucked behind her ear when she finally finished.

"I'm curious, Doctor;" he readied his grip on the pistol, "What species are these rats?"

"Ah," he relaxed slightly. There was the worry in the back of his head that she, like the dearly departed, would bring up a subject that still remained painful to him and had resulted not only in the loss of a valued member of his staff but an antique armoire, three old fashioned glasses, and a Model 662 X-Ray Machine. "A good question. No doubt you are confused by their unique features?"

She nodded and he continued, "They are the common Norway Brown Rat, Rattus Norvegicus, and your confusion is quite understandable. It is rare that one might see a rat with long wavy hair, full eyelashes, and large breasts."

At least in the final and most successful batch; The other cages and the treatments proscribed had produced varieties with any mix of the three but not quite exactly what the Doctor was after. That last cage though was spot on; Each rat had a long, shining coat of wavy brown fur and full, thick, seductively heavy eyelashes.

For a rat, of course.

They also had the narrow waist, wide hips, and full breasts typical of the base he had started with - the virus known as SEXYE. This was a new twist on an old classic, however, but was still a potent example of the Doctor's genius. Not only did the virus have full effect on a wide variety of humanoid species, many of which were not even distantly related to Humans, but also Rattus Norvegicus.

"Lately I have been in need of additional funds in order to finance certain projects and as nothing new was presenting itself, I thought to turn to something, well, 'Nu' instead. Thus NuSEXYE. A brilliant marketing campaign, a few appearances on afternoon medical shows where various pieces of medical quackery are mixed with scare tactics to take advantage of the intellectually deficient, and my coffers will once again be overflowing!"

That the side-effects on the general populace would be more-or-less positive was of a secondary, but still notable, concern to the Doctor.

"Did you know I consider myself something of a philanthropist, Miss Seventeen? No? Well, I do like to give back to the Republic which has brought me so much success and in what better way than by making the sights on the streets much more appealing? Instead of rounded lard-butts, we will have slim, svelte women with lovely rounded waists, flowing hair, and dark, fluttering lashes!"

"And large breasts."

"Well, yes, and that. But the breast is and has been a potent sign of the reproductive fitness of a woman. Did you know that during the Fifteen and Sixteenth Centuries it was common for women of all social classes to walk around with their breasts bared as a sign of fertility and the ability to nourish both their offspring and those around them? Even the Queen of England, a long-lost nation from Earth history, was depicted in several paintings with her breasts bared. It was only as we entered a long period of social conservatism inspired by the widespread infliction of organized religion," the distaste for the very idea was palpable in his tone, "On an unthinking populace that the notion of a woman baring her breasts became unacceptable. Fortunately times have changed and the breast is no longer the taboo body part it once was."

Miss Seventeen was about to respond when she stopped and looked down at her own chest. Under her lab coat she was wearing a satin blouse that was buttoned to the bottom of her bra and then allowed to gap widely, showing off both her breasts and the underwear that largely covered them.

"Then why is this part of the uniform?"

"Why do women wear makeup and men wear tight shirts that show off their muscles?" Ambrose replied, conveniently ignoring his own physique, which was best described as 'concave'. "There are occasions when," he drew her attention to the open window and the line of flowers that grew just outside, "A rose by itself is the most lovely thing in the world. But there are also times when a bouquet in a beautiful vase is the proper decoration."

"Ah, I understand."

Whether she did or not, he continued right along, "Good then! Well, as this last batch seems to have been successful, I'll ask you to extract sufficient samples for a second round of testing and administer them appropriately. Fine?"

"Certainly, Doctor," she checked the clipboard for the proper extraction procedure, "I'll get the blender."

[Sunset]

SDF-Niagara, Underway to 0-0-0...

"Captain, we are being shadowed."

Waretram turned, swiveling his big command chair until he could look directly at the Sensor Officer, who was sitting at her station off to one side of the bridge, "By what?"

"That's what I'm still working on, but there is something distinctly traveling in the same direction we are, at the same speed. As we're underway, we've been taking sweeps of anything we pass close enough to get a good look at;" No reason for the Heavy Explorer not to use the time productively, "And I've come across the same radiation signature in the same general arc whenever we've had a reason to have the long range sensors pointed in that particular direction."

The data the ship's sensors collected during such a high-speed pass wouldn't be very detailed at all but broad information was still useful, especially as the ship was passing through a little-traveled area of the galaxy. It was all being passed back to Fleet and just a little bit more of the incomprehensibly vast Milky Way would be marked as 'partially surveyed'. That wasn't the focus for the moment though and before Waretram acted, he wanted more information.

"It's not some kind of shadow, or miss-alignment of the sensors?"

"Run several diagnostics a few times. Both arrays report the same information with only very minor variation. Millionths of a percent."

Which was why the starships of the Venture-Class had two primary sensor arrays; If one was deficient, or otherwise incorrect, the second would pick it up and the cross-checking that occurred would note the irregularity. That each sensor system was also an array meant that the level of redundancy was extraordinary; An array of arrays.

"That's a hell of a wake..."

"Captain?"

"Mmm, well, if it is a ship, then it's leaving a wake. Like a boat in the water, the radiation would spread out behind it as it travels. Presuming that it's the result of some kind of faster-than-light drive, either the ship is very large or the drive is very powerful. Either way, unless you just happen to be pointing the sensors right at the ship, we're not going to get a good look at it. If it is a ship. Show me where you picked it up."

A half-dozen holograms appeared, splashed out between him and the Sensor Officer, along with a line that represented the Niagara's travels and the point in each scanned location where the radiation had been detected. That alone was enough to convince him that it was a ship; If each location had been around a planet, or near another specific feature, it might turn out to be the same kind of monitoring satellites that they themselves left behind on occasion. But the track varied from location to location. In one system it might be just at the edge and in another it passed close to one world or another, just as the Niagara was doing on occasion. Given the latency between a sensor scan and the return, the two tracks were roughly parallel and reasonably equal with both seemingly adjusting their course to take them close to stars and nebula.

"Another explorer? Perhaps they picked us up and they are doing the exact same thing; Diverting course where appropriate to do a quick close-range survey. Why don't you aim ahead? Lead them a bit. It would be luck, but if you're aiming at the right patch of space when they come through, maybe we can get a look at them."

"You know, they could be doing the same thing."

"True," Waretram agreed, turning to the big holosphere in the middle of the bridge.

A couple commands and an image of the galaxy appeared, along with a splattering of both small markings and glowing blobs. These were the known systems of space-flight level civilizations as well as the borders - as if such a nebulous thing could be really recognized in the vastness of space - of empires who had declared such. In all but a few cases the Defense Force simply ignored them, zipping through without pause, but they were useful in this case.

"Does that radiation match the drive signatures of any of the nearby civilizations?"

It was an obvious question with an obvious answer; "Already checked."

"Duh. Yeah, hmm. Could be an experimental design, or just more likely someone we don't know about. See if you can pick them up and we'll go from there. Otherwise, I want everyone to stay on their feet," he looked around the bridge, getting eye contact where he could. "Just in case we're doing something 'wrong' and someone decides to get angry with us. Lieutenant Huang?"

"Let me guess..." The Lieutenant at the station was a slim, young-looking Asian woman who had joined the crew during their last visit to Republic space. Apparently she had a history to her, as well as a certain arrogance that was tempered only by a precise competence that made her tolerable. "Combat crew in place and tactical drills where appropriate?"

Which mostly meant that she, along with a reserve officer for each bridge station, would climb into the escape pods and jack in for combat readiness. In the event of an attack, they'd be ready to respond at an accelerated level while the rest of the crew went about their meat-space preparations.

"Yep. Let's cross our fingers though; Rather this just be a case of mutual curiosity."

[Sunset]

The Krazy Kitten, Botany Bay, Chuh-Yu...

"How was your trip to Mangala?" Erika asked as she clambered over the deck of the sailboat to set this rope or that as she prepared the ship for the open ocean. "Anything interesting?"

One might expect that there would be a debriefing of sorts between a senior Ambassador and the Secretary-General when the first arrived back from a trip to an important ally and this, as it was, was that. Demi had stepped off the shuttle to find Erika waiting down at their little dock in a bikini top, short-shorts, and with a bag carrying similar ready for her wife. Behind her the sailboat was all laid and immaculate after Alex's detailed attentions and with the weather turning gorgeous it was time to take her out.

"It was nice to see Mars again. The ceremony was a ceremony; A lot of standing around, smiling, shaking hands, and saying how nice it is to see you again. Which, it was."

Mangala, both the nation and her people, was one of the Republic's oldest allies and they had a lot in common. For several years Demi had been the Republic's representative in the Martian Duma, a quasi-legislative body that had been instrumental in the shaping of policy in what had become a fully terraformed Mars. That body was hosted in Mangala and for obvious reason; There were few Martian nations as soundly dedicated to the furtherance of peace and prosperity on a planet known for its strife. That didn't mean the nation was without its own problems, however.

Finding a deck chair laid out already in front of the mast, Demi stopped to peel off her clothes. The formal uniform of an Ambassador - functionally the dress uniform of a Defense Forces officer minus the scrambled eggs - hit the deck and for a few moments she stood naked in the warming sun. The whole bay now spread out in front of them and the water was sparkling with sunlight and the ripples of small waves. They weren't alone on the water either; Everything from large motor yachts to small personal watercraft was either zipping around or making its way towards the narrow gap between the hook-shaped entrance with its long jetty capped with an old-fashioned lighthouse and the ocean beyond. A few more seconds and she reached into the bag to pull her clothes on.

"Darn you..." Erika was peeking around the mast as she checked the last of the lines and Demi smiled before sticking her tongue out, "You want me to burn my nipples off?"

That was followed by a response she couldn't quite hear; A yacht had chosen to sound its horn as it passed by the lighthouse. She was pretty sure what Erika had said though and that, at least for now, could wait until later. Top and bottom were adjusted and the Latina dropped the back of the deck chair to lay out on her stomach with her head resting on her forearms. Turning to one side, she could just see the house on the other side of the inlet through the gap in the chair railing. A woman, thin and with a pale complexion visible even at this distance, was outside on the patio with her children. She knew who it was - Alessa, the former Empress of Roania - and she reminded herself to wave when they passed closer.

"Should we invite them to join us?"

"If you like..."

"I'm sure she'd politely decline;" Which didn't mean she wouldn't offer. There was room for five on the sailboat, but the Empress still lived a more sheltered life than Demi could even imagine. The idea of taking her small children out on a boat without a cavalcade of security officers, rescue swimmers, and the like would make the offer little more than a nice gesture. "Maybe a barbecue when we get back though. Alex can have the place ready."

Back to Mangala though...

"But yes, it was a very nice celebration but," she turned over and looked over at Erika, who was unwrapping the sail in preparation to run it up as soon as the ship cleared the bay, "There was a lot of side-channel discussion. There is a lot of interest in the idea of a formal Federation again. It could be the upcoming elections, could be something else. Everyone seemed to have a different answer and they all had their own ideas on what they wanted out of that kind of relationship."

It wasn't at all unheard of; Sunset itself was part of a larger Super-Federal State and itself had several quasi-independent NationStates attached to it through mutual treaty. But such a relationship with Mangala would be entirely different; On a fundamental level, Mangala was as near to equal as was possible without making the idea pointless. The others were smaller states with chaotic governments that had viewed their status as a chance to retain their unique form of government while gaining the stability of the Republic. Mangala would require a near-merger instead, which might also have a ripple effect on those smaller NationStates. If the idea went forward, it would be one of the largest changes in the lifetime of the Republic.

[Sunset]

SDF-Apexis, En Route to the Elysium System...

"It's kind of a funny story," Commander Fang explained as the pair walked the corridors of the starship. They were headed to the Doctor's quarters with a drone carrying her luggage right behind them. "I did some research after I read the report the Military Technology Division forwarded to Fleet. It seemed odd - strange phrasing, unusual notation - and it turns out that that's just what it is; Odd and weird."

They stopped at a corner and waited while an even bigger drone - nearly the size of the corridor and loaded with a huge pallet of equipment - glided across. Lights built into the ceiling of the intersection flashed yellow and orange as it did and Saryan turned to watch as it moved off into the distance.

"That's the third time! Are we just walking in circles? Cause I don't remember that kind of traffic on the White Nile!"

"You were on the Nile?"

"A couple weeks."

"Ah, well, the Apexis is an experimental and technology demonstrator;" Which was why the Doctor and more importantly her formula was aboard. "There's always something being rebuilt or redesigned."

While the vast majority of the design and engineering work done in the Republic was done either at a workstation or in a highly realistic virtual environment, there was still a good number of old-school hands-on engineers and designers who worked best with solid metal under their hands. Even if rapid prototyping and manufacturing had progressed to the point where a new part could be ready in minutes, the ability to turn that part over in their hands and really feel how it all fit together was understandably appealing. The very few starships of the Apex-Class served just that purpose.

"Anyway, as I was saying, the MTD at the University of Alton is a funny story. You know how Ju-Docri came to be under Republic control?"

"Sure;" She didn't explain, but the planet was in one of the closest systems to the Ares System. When that colony had been set up, it found itself right next to a world inhabited by an opportunistic civilization of raiders and pirates; The Ju-Docri Clans. It was one of the first major conflicts faced by the newly-interstellar Defense Force and resulted in the conquest and eventual absorption of the whole star system.

"Well, it turns out that the administrator for the Alton area was an ArAreBee with the typical weird sense of humor. According to his own biography, he told them that's how all Human military installations operated. Why... I didn't really want to read a four hundred page tome on the life and times of an ultimately minor administrator. Why he published a biography is just more weirdness."

"Makes sense. Sorta. Back on the family farm, we had some odd-ball things done to some of our cows. Like, they took one of them and uplifted her to sentience. Scared the fuck outta Pa when she started complaining about the automated milker one morning. Hard worker though."

"Yep. So, there you go. Once we get to the Elysium System we'll start some trials with modified systems using this new formula you've uncovered. The lab coats tell me there's a lot of possibilities there but some of the modifications are non-trivial. I can't tell you how long things will take, but they should be interesting."

[Sunset]

Defense Force Academy, Panchin, Chuh-Yu...

It was a new season and a new class as the long rows of seats filled with cadets of every shape, size, and species. The chairs were not especially comfortable and the material not especially entertaining but that too was training of a sort; In their future career as an officer in the Republic of Sunset Defense Force, they would be called on - and would need to - sit or stand through the trite, the inane, and yes, the boring. Those that could not might end up with an unfortunately and exceptionally short term of service and it was better to sort them out now before they could risk themselves or others.

"One of the many factors that restricted the NationStates of the 21st Century was their own economy and the web of interdependence that they had built. Many were at the point of collapse in one sector and depended on imports from another while that other might in turn provide much of the low-level manufacturing needs of the first. These relationships were hardly ever that simple either; One nation might count among its major trade partners half-a-dozen nations in a specific area and these might consider each other allies or rivals, depending on a wide variety of factors. But this tangled web proved useful to ensuring a certain level of global security; A major military conflict with another nation was likely to lead to economic instability for the whole region and perhaps whole world and the rational leaders of the time were keen to avoid this."

"Strongly note rational," the instructor brought up a half-circle of holographic busts depicting various national leaders and high-profile figures from the time. "There were certainly a wide spectrum of leadership figures during the time, and a good number of these shouldn't have been allowed near a toothbrush, much less the leadership of a country. Or should they?"

It was an awkward turn of phrase but he pushed through, bringing one to the forefront.

"Some political scientists believe that even a system that prizes itself on stability needs instability to function. Something to push again; The barbarians at the gate. While these supposedly chaotic actors were seen as a destabilizing force, they might have had the opposite effect. By creating a global 'hot point', they gave the major powers of the time an area in which they could focus their nationalistic attention. There are even some who consider this a de facto conspiracy; While not a tin-foil hat delusion, the idea of allowing an unstable leader to stay in power for an extended period of time may come about through natural processes. Stable governments would be unwilling to risk large-scale conflict and as long as the chaos remained contained, it would less expensive both in economic damage and in political appetite in the long-run. We may see this as tragic now since, after all, lives were lost. But more may have been lost if direct conflict had occurred. There we get into the question of the value of our lives versus theirs, but that is another lecture."

"However, all of this changed with the expansion into space and contact with other interstellar civilizations. Most of these had grown until they had completely dominated their home system as a single government and for the most part they were and are able to satisfy the material needs of their people from the resources of that one system. What this means is that while trade exists, it doesn't have the large stabilizing influence that it has for a terrestrial civilization. Thus the influences of these bad actors," he gestured to the half-circle, "Is magnified. While it should seem rational that an individual such as these should never be put in charge of an interstellar NationState, as I've pointed out it can end up as just the opposite with their chaotic influence serving as a focal point for the rest of society - something to push against."

"The problem is that these bad actors are now more likely to engage in both internal and external activities that run counter to rational though. It's a great big universe, and there is plenty of room for all, but that is the rationalist speaking; To the irrational, it is merely one more reason to seek to bring it under their sway in a quest for personal power. But yet, they do not understand that they have no power. They are themselves being controlled rather than controlling. Who really has the power," he turned and watched as a hologram of a genetic military dictator strode across the stage under the raised swords of an honor guard that glittered with a thousand medals before being unceremoniously shot in the head by the last man in line. "The saber-rattler who is constantly in fear for his life?"

Crossing the room, he pointed out the window to the ocean where a hundred sailboats could be seen drifting lazily on the waves, "Or the one who can pass the time on the open sea without a cavalcade of guards and security men around her? The tyranny of an Emperor comes at the cost of a gilded cage, but we must remember that the prisoner can still reach between those bars to affect those around them."

"Which means that one of the goals of the rational leaders and governments is to find a substitute for that trade web and the stability that it brings. Any suggestions?"

[Sunset]

Senator Thong's Estate, N'Xypndiltn, E'Xypndiltn System...

Tradia paused at the corner of the thick pillar that marked one corner of the inner circle of the (ex-)Senator's estate and thought very hard about being invisible. A solid wooden core that supported a carved stone dragon, its open mouth perched right above her hiding spot, it was in turn draped with vines and creepers taken from the nearby jungle. These had once been carefully trimmed to only tickle the dragon's curving back but with her untimely death and lack of maintenance they had begun to grow rampant until there was more than enough room for the petite Xypndi to shelter under them. She was not there to hide, however; The darker-than-dark space would ensure that anyone who had accidentally spotted the warrior sneaking onto the estate would not see the moment where the hourglass figure wrapped in a charcoal-black bodysuit faded away into the night and the invisibility provided by that same high-tech garment.

Footprints broke the grass as she sprinted across the open space between the pillar and the inner wall but this was something she couldn't avoid. No matter how light she was, there was still a momentary line that followed her until she found the smooth footing of the flagstones that based the fence. Here she paused, looked around, and then walked several short paces to seek the shelter of another post. The wall here was mostly ornamental but it was still taller than her up-stretched arm with another inset tier of carefully carved wooden lattice above the smooth panels. There were gates in the middle of each long edge of the square but these were both the most obvious approach as well as the first living obstacle; Just inside each, a guard stood waiting with a weapon couched under one arm or held ready. In their more weapon-phobic home society they would have been armed with a staff or club but in the Republic where what one did on their own property was their own concern most held something considerably more lethal.

All were dressed in the local Tonhi style, but there was a brutishness about them that was more notable but also a refinement; Their skin tended to be paler and their features more shapely than the majority of the locals. Most were physically fit though there were a couple that were jovially heavyset. Each pair of gates had one guard per gate but there was also a patrol that wandered inside. This was the twist; While Tradia had the technology advantage they were on their home turf, of a sorts, though the new occupants had only moved in a few days ago.

The question that she was there to solve was whether they should be the new occupants; The legal Will that had mysteriously appeared had been accompanied by an equally mysterious number of family members that was far in excess of the three that had presented themselves at the estate sale. That these also included all of the goons that had been lurking in the corner hadn't been a huge surprise when Tradia had begun her surveillance earlier in the week. There was something else going on as well. She'd watched as several people who had been present at the sale and who had snapped up the high-value merchandise and immediately left had returned to the estate - without the goods in question. Her suspicion was that it was all a scam; The early buyers had been straw purchasers who had bought the most expensive items, re-sold then, and then when they couldn't be found the insurance company would have been liable for their replacement.

The insurance company.

It was a concept that the Xypndi hadn't been altogether familiar with, but she'd seen enough crime dramas to be familiar with the notion. In fact the whole thing seemed like it was lifted from the holoscreen right down to the Tonhi, who were as close to Roanians as one might come without offending their Ambassador.

'Is there even a Roanian Ambassador?' Tradia wondered as she took one, two, and then a long third step to grab the top of the wall and pull herself up, carefully balanced, onto the narrowest of ledges. 'Or is that only on TV?'

There were plenty of envoys and, as Adjutant to the Executor, she'd met all of them but they all seemed to be from friendly places even if they themselves didn't look like the most friendly of people. The Dominion Envoy in particular was a dark-eyed man with a swarthy complexion and a touch of danger in everything he did. But they were allies and long-term at that and there was a certain sexiness about his manner that she liked. From a safe distance.

Now that she could see inside the courtyard, she took only a moment to look for her next objective before carefully stepping over the decorative lattice and onto the ledge on the other side. The patrol was nowhere to be seen and the guards still at their stations so she hopped down and jumped for the dark place between two hedges. This put her right up against the wall of the main building and she pressed close to peer above the greenery. Still no movement and she slipped from gap to gap up the wall and around the corner until the main entrance and the patrol was in sight.

There were three of them, plus the two at the gate, and while she was confident in her battle-hardened ability to take them on, she also knew that a frontal assault would be the worst risk she could take. Instead there was a small side door and this was her objective. Walking the building during the sale, she had found that it led into the kitchen and pantry as well as down into a root cellar. Depending on the lock, she might just be able to sneak inside without risking the open spaces of the main entrance. They might not be able to see her, but they could hear and smell her. Sliding along the open wall, she approached the door and ran her hand over the lock. In her pocket was a powerful automatic pick-lock that she had requested from her old friend Ivy but a moment later it proved unneeded.

It was not the sudden opening of the side door that proved to her advantage, but the footsteps of a few echoing from the main entrance. She stopped, waited, and then the owners of both appeared; The woman and her husband who had caused such an uproar at the sale walked out with their thuggish-looking son behind them. They were all talking - quite sharply - and all she needed to do was hang back and listen...

[Sunset]

SDF-Dogana, Akahshi Orbit...

"I think you'll like this guy," Commander Hu stated as he stood looming next to Commander Timmons. Looming was a good word; Hu was one of the few baseline Humans that both stood taller and broader than him and a full head at that. Only a Troll would have been taller than the Asian-extraction officer. "He's got good hunches."

Together they were watching from the point of view of the distant Marine as he conducted an experiment of some kind on the planet's surface. An experiment that seemed to involve a severed leg.

"It's his," the Commander went on to explain when the Seeker asked the obvious. "He had Medical clone it when he had his big idea."

It all reminded Timmons of a distant time on a much more distant world when he'd come across a young Ensign with his pants down to his knees and a carved wooden flute jammed up his ass. That moment had been instrumental in establishing contact with the Tlokselo and the start of Timmons career in the Exploration Command. He couldn't quite remember the man's name but he knew that his musical abilities stunk.

"He read over your initial incident report and then went to talk to Ensign Falk to get more details. She told him that she and Seaman Lae had been engaging in intercourse under the shelter of one of the outlying pieces of debris when the infestation had occurred. He tracked it down and found a plumbing fixture that could have been right under her butt."

Trinya was doing better - at least for someone who now looked like an inverted goat. She'd scared the crap out of Lae by turning the wall of the bio-regen tank translucent when he'd come in to see her and the Cyar hadn't left his room for the rest of the day.

On the screen it was now time to sit and wait. The Marine had positioned the bare leg just next to the fixture along with a hand-held scanner and a second one mounted to the ragged hull metal above it. Retreating to the edge of the jungle, he crouched down and waited with the reasonable precaution of his heavy battle rifle close at hand. It was a few minutes of waiting but his hunch bore the seemingly inevitable fruit; A trace of silvery liquid tinged with rust began to flow out of the fixture and over the bare meat.

For a while it clung to the surface as a small spot the size of an old-fashioned DiCoin and then it began its irregular spread.

"I'd say it's alive," Hu murmured. "But what is it?"

Then it was time to find out. Quick as a cat, the Marine snatched up the leg and dropped it into a containment unit that had probably served to ferry the leg down to the surface shortly before.

'I think it should be fine in there,' the anonymous Marine breathed, talking quietly despite the thick helmet of his power armor, 'Whatever it is, it seems to like meat more than metal. But I'm thinking a full bio-hazard unit, just in case...'

[Kajal]

Somewhere in the halls, University of Alton, Ju-Docri...

When the good Professor Lesaan arrived at the university, he'd somewhat forgotten exactly where he was going. This was generally problematic in most cases, but unlike most cases, he still remembered - more or less, at least - which department he was looking for.

Naturally, that meant he was asking for directions quite frequently. This University of Alton was a big place, and a bit out of the way, at least in his relative experience. Of course, since "out of the way" to him was synonymous with "Anywhere other than the far rim of the Periphery", this was not a terribly accurate descriptor. Still, he was here now, and seemingly on some sort of mission. He'd read some interesting things that weren't strictly for his eyes, but seeing as no one had specifically revoked his clearance (or disappeared him, for that matter), that meant he might be able to ask someone questions.

What questions, he wasn't sure about just yet. The weight of the device under his arm, now, that he was sure of. It was still that strange sort of sticky, like all the recovered devices were so far, but it was important. Wouldn't do _not_ to bring one, not after reading all those fascinating, semi-classified things. No, he was quite sure that the device would be very much appreciated by the intended recipient. If he could find them.

"Physics lab? Down another five doors, take a left, then right at the end of the hallway, and..."

Finally, Lesaan had found it. Unfortunately for him, he was in for a bit of a disappointment. He strode through the door, looking all puffed up and accomplished, and began announcing his presence.

"Hello, I'm Doctor Teren Lesaan, from the University of..."

He trailed off. It was the physics lab, yes. But it was also empty, and looked like it had been for more than a few days. This was problematic, given he was now standing in the middle of it with a device that, according to the Kajali government, didn't strictly exist, and more strictly was not to be removed from the lockup it had been in 48 hours previously.

"Oh. No one's here."

He placed the device down on a nearby tabletop, and ducked back out into the hall.

"Hello? Ah, I'm looking for a Doctor Brilla? Does she still work here?"

Silence was the only answer he got. He looked at his watch, and then at a timepiece mounted in the hallway before realizing that, while it was technically daytime locally, it was highly unlikely he'd be running into anyone at the university a full three hours before the first lectures of the day.

"Oh."

A quick consult, and slightly less than strictly legal interfacing later, he'd used his wristcomp to figure out that no, Dr. Brilla wasn't here, but that there was a group over at something called the Military Technology Wing working on something she'd left. So he'd just go there and see if they knew where she was.

Getting there turned out to be fairly easy. Navigating the wing, on the other hand... The good doctor was lost, and he'd still not seen anyone in the halls yet.

That particular truth was shattered slightly later, when he'd walked nearly face first into someone while staring down at his wristcomp. He nearly dropped the device at the same time.

"Oh shii-it's okay nevermind, ah, sorry, er..."

Lesaan looked sheepish for a moment. "I don't suppose you could tell me where I am? I'm trying to find a Dr. Saryan Brilla... I have a... a, er... thing she might find interesting."

[Sunset]

University of Alton, Military Research Department, Ju-Docri...

"Dr. Saryan Brilla."

It was not a question nor an answer but instead a parody. The guard standing at the end of the hallway had the gray military-style uniform, beret with cryptic patch, earpiece, and of course a genuine .45 Caliber Model 1911 in an open holster that would have made him a suitable extra in any 1980's-Era action movie. In fact, he was a parody of that parody - his four arms and not-quite-Human facial features would have had him locked up in the lab his parody self would have been guarding.

"There is no record of any individual by that name, living or dead, on these premises in the last twenty seven hours," he went on, one finger pressed to his earpiece while the opposite hand hovered over his sidearm and the other pair was tucked behind him in a parade rest position. "Professor..."

This was a question, though he answered it himself a moment later just as three more guards emerged from a side door behind Lesaan. Two stepped up beside him while the third unfolded a container of some sort starting with a quartet of legs that hit the floor and locked in place as though the guard had practiced the maneuver to eerie precision. While he finished the complicated procedure that resulted in some kind of ridiculously complex containment unit, the one on the Doctors left began bundling the dangling cords and cables up around the device while the other pulled a hypo-spray gun from a pouch and slapped it into the open palm of the one at the door.

"Lesaan? No, no one answering to that name has ever come through this station. You must be mistaken."

Then the two guards were spinning him around, guiding him to place the device into the standing containment unit that was, somehow, even with the cords and connectors still perfectly shaped for it. The sides and back and finally the front and top folded into place and an exceptionally certain hand guided him to press his thumb against a plate inset above the lock. Lights glowed and a mechanism that possibly hadn't been there the moment before finished the process of ratcheting the box closed. Two handles emerged, the guards snatched them up, and a bare instant later the legs retracted. The guard behind him now walked around and with medical precision began to inject the three other guards, each cocking their head to the side to expose their neck and then standing there motionless as their face went blank. Last of all, he turned to the Professor and as the three guards disappeared through the side door, he held out a briefcase that had definitely not been there seconds before.

"Here, Professor. You almost forgot your briefcase;" there was a hiss as the gun fired and his eyes began to go dead. Cracking the black leather attache, he slipped the gun inside and locked it up again. There was a glimpse of something else as well; Several passports in old-fashioned colored plastic covers, currency in a half-dozen varieties, and a thick dossier in a manila folder. "You wouldn't want to forget your briefcase..."

Then there was no trace of the last few minutes as he went back to his spot at the door, parade rest and one hand resting just above his sidearm and not a glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

"Halt, this is a restricted area..."